Memories

ILLUSTRATIONS.

INTRODUCTORY

In the rush and hurry of this twentieth century, the present generation find themselves so fully occupied with their own contemporaries, that for the most part they can take little or no interest, even in their own immediate predecessors, still less in their progenitors of old generations.

But we, who were born before life’s unsatisfying rush became so great, still like to gather up the traditions of bygone years, and in fancy see our own “forbears” as we know them to have been long ago.

As a daughter of the Chief of Clan Cumming, my home was, of course, at Altyre, in Morayshire, i.e. at headquarters—a goodly heritage in truth, and yet a mere fragment of the vast possessions of the Clan in the days of its power. With regard to antiquity, it is said that the Cummings of Altyre are directly descended from the Counts de Comyn who were directly descended from Charlemagne. Robert, who was fifth in descent, was created Earl of Northumberland by his cousin, William the Conqueror. He was killed in Durham in January 1069. Besides broad lands in Northumberland, his family held estates in Yorkshire and Wiltshire. From him the old knights of Altyre (who were also Lords of Badenoch) prove direct descent in the male line.

In the reign of Alexander III. the Comyns were also Earls of Buchan, Earls of Menteith, Lords of Galloway, and Lords of Lochaber, owning vast tracts of country. 2And besides these great barons, there were then thirty landed knights in the Clan.

Of the Red Comyn who (while alone at prayer in Greyfriars Church in Dumfries) was stabbed in sudden passion by Robert Bruce and murdered by Kirkpatrick, it is recorded that sixty belted knights, with all their vassals, were bound to follow his banner. But in that sacred and unguarded hour, only his uncle, Robert Comyn of Altyre, was near, and shared his fate.

The spelling of surnames in ancient documents is always liable to variation, but probably no other has lent itself so largely to the fancy of scribes. In one old charter of the Altyre family it is spelt in five different ways. Cumeine, Chuimein, Commines, Cumyn, Comyn, Comin, Coming, Cumin, Cummine, Cuming, and the modern form of Cumming, are among these varieties.

The Clan is spoken of by various old writers as the most potent that ever existed in Scotland; and a quaint old atlas, published in Amsterdam in 1654 by Jean Blaeu, quotes a somewhat older Latin work by Sir Robert Gordon of Stralloch, concerning

“Altyr, qui appartenoit à ceux de la maison de Cumines qui estoit, il y a plus de trois cens ans, la plus riche, et la plus puissante de l’Ecosse.”

How it came to pass that this powerful family should, so quickly after the accession of Robert Bruce, have been reduced to the comparatively small proportions of later years, is one of the unsolved mysteries of Scottish history.

CHAPTER I “ Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life. ”—Psalm xxiii. 6.

Altyre—Dunphail—Numerous Kinsfolk—Cornish Relations—Grants of Grant—Episcopal Church.

Many a time I have been asked by friends who have found pleasure in reading my notes of travel in divers countries to write a record of my early home-life and of various matters of local interest.

Having rarely kept a journal, except when travelling, I felt that I had insufficient materials from which to compile such a record; but after a while I bethought me of one friend (Miss Murray of Polmaise), with whom for more than forty years I had corresponded regularly, and as I had preserved most of her letters, it was possible that she might have done the same by mine. So to her I applied. The answer was, “Why did you not write a month sooner? I have been setting my house in order, to minimise trouble for my survivors, and have just burnt all my old letters, including yours.” A few weeks later she entered the Larger Life, and for a while the thought passed from me.

But now that I am rapidly nearing the appointed term of threescore years and ten, and have far outlived thirteen of my fifteen brothers and sisters—i.e. all save one of my brothers, and one half-sister—it seems well to thread together such scattered details as may prove of interest to some of my numerous friends, known and unknown, many of whom I can never hope to meet face to face, but who have gladdened me by kind letters, telling me how the records of my wanderings have beguiled weary hours of suffering 4and weakness (one of these, which gave me special pleasure, was from the author of the celebrated Book of Nonsense).

So for such sympathetic friends, I will now note some early memories of those happy days—

And if such notes are apt to appear egotistic, may I be forgiven, for assuredly the records of the first fifty years of my life are those of some one quite different from my present self in every respect, both of personality and of surroundings. Indeed, I received a hint of this about twenty-five years ago, when on my return from wandering in far countries, I was told that an old family servant was anxious to see me again after an interval of about fifteen years. I went to her house, and was received with the cold glare of non-recognition. I said, “Don’t you remember Miss Eka?” “Miss Eka,” she said beamingly, “Oh, fine do I mind her, but,” doubtingly, “surely you are no her? Eh!! and ye WERE so good-looking!” I like to treasure that tribute to a forgotten past.

Though I cannot say that I remember the 26th of May 1837, I do vividly remember my father’s assuring me that early on that morning he had found me in the heart of a fine large cabbage; so I greatly respected the tall cabbages, from beneath which I retrieved deliciously sweet, small pears, which fell from a large overhanging tree—one of the countless joys of the most delightfully varied series of gardens that ever gladdened the heart of happy children, and their elders of all ages.

In looking back and considering lives and characters, I often think how little weight we give to the inestimable advantages which have enfolded some of us from our birth to our grave. Ay, and long, long before our birth, in the unspeakable blessing of healthy, well-conditioned ancestors, who have transmitted to their descendants well-balanced minds in healthy bodies, naturally cheerful dispositions, and many another pleasant inheritance; all natural gifts 5which we accept as our birthright, quite as a matter of course, yet the lack of which are to so many life-long drawbacks for which all the world’s wealth cannot compensate.

And when to these personal gifts there is added the charm of being born and brought up in singularly lovely and delightful homes, nurtured in simple, practical faith and reverence for all holy things, and enfolded in the love of a large and attached home-circle, and the wider friendship of very numerous kinsfolk, equally happy in their surroundings, such an one is truly of the number of those “to whom much is given.”

Such has been my own experience of life, always surrounded by good influences.

My mother was the very embodiment of health and beauty, bodily and mental. In physical stature, tall and stately, but above all, great in soul and intellect. My father, Sir William Gordon-Cumming, Chief of Clan Comyn or Cumming, was as splendid a Highlander as ever trod the heather, only excelled in beauty and stature by his own second son, Roualeyn, who was certainly the grandest and most beautiful human being I have ever beheld.

My mother, Eliza Maria Campbell of Islay and Shawfield, had eight brothers and sisters, twenty-one nephews and nieces, and ever so many grand-nephews and nieces. My father had fifteen brothers and sisters (of whom seven died young), twenty-nine nephews and nieces, and thirty-four grand-nephews and nieces.

So I started in life with fifty first cousins, about twice as many second and third cousins, and collaterals without number, for the family tree had roots and branches ramifying in every direction; and as each group centred around some more or less notable home, it followed that England and Scotland were dotted over with points of family interest, in those good old days when it was held that “blood was thicker than water,” and kinship, however much diluted, was fully recognised.

Looking back to those numerous centres of cheery and 6hospitable welcome, I realise that they now exist only in memory. At best the old friends are replaced by a second or third generation, but too often the old homes have changed hands; iniquitous death-duties have done their malignant work in ruining the old landowners and dispersing the many retainers who for generations had worked on the estates, in healthy, peaceful country homes.

On the death of my grandfather, Sir Alexander Penrose Gordon Comyn, my father, then a minor, succeeded to the great estates of Altyre and Dallas, Gordonstoun, and Rose-isle, all in the county of Moray.

Although the Comyns have held Altyre for certainly seven hundred—probably a thousand years—(it was Sir Robert Comyn of Altyre who, on 10th February 1305, came to the rescue of his nephew Sir John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, commonly called the Red Comyn, when he was stabbed by Bruce in the Greyfriars Church at Dumfries, and who was himself slain by Kirkpatrick)—they seem to have lived about seven miles from Altyre at the castle of Dallas (which for a while was called Torchastle), on a bleak, uninviting moorland. The very ruins of this have now disappeared, and a luxurious modern house has been built as a shooting-lodge.

At what date the original house of Altyre was built is uncertain, but contracts of marriage were there signed about 1581 and 1602 (the latter between James Cuming and Margaret, sister to Symon, Lord Fraser of Lovat). That old house was inhabited till A.D. 1789, when my grandfather, finding it too small for his sixteen children, bought Forres House, at Forres, from the Tullochs of Tannachie. On his death it became the dower-house of his widow, who died there in 1832. For a few years after their marriage, they had lived at Cothall, close to the river Findhorn, a very pleasant situation in a green meadow enclosed by old trees. Only a fragment of ruin now marks the spot.

My father’s intention always was to build an entirely new 7house on a hill about a mile from old Altyre. At great cost, he levelled the summit of the said hill, making an excellent carriage road, winding gently round to the proposed site, from which there is a wide, beautiful view, overlooking the Altyre and Darnaway woods, with a distant view of the pretty little town of Forres and of Findhorn Bay, and across the Moray Firth to the faint blue distant hills of Ross, Sutherland, Caithness, and Cromarty. It is a delightful spot, known to this day as “the Situation,” and for many years building thereon was the dream of my father’s life.

Close to the Situation, another heathery, fir-crowned hill has from time immemorial been known as the “Gallows Hill,” whereon any one who had the misfortune to incur the wrath of the knights of Altyre was ruthlessly hanged in the “good old days,” when it is related of one awe-stricken wife that she urged her unwilling husband to go quietly to his doom and “dinna anger the laird.”

As it was not convenient to begin at once building on the new site, my father and mother decided that for a while they would continue to live in the old house; and then began the laying out of those great, beautiful gardens and shrubberies of which comparatively little now remains—sacrificed to the changing taste of successive generations. They also laid out many miles of romantic woodland paths, which made the whole place a dream of delight. And so they became more and more disinclined to leave the home they had made so fascinating; and as their family increased they occasionally added a few rooms to the old place, which thus gradually developed into a picturesque patchwork, covered with climbing roses, honeysuckle, and jessamines, and beloved by the happy children, to whom it was indeed an earthly paradise, the profusion of flowering shrubs so lavishly planted in every direction adding their fragrance to that of the sweet woods.

Moreover, in those halcyon days, we were allowed to breathe the pure air as God created it for us, unpolluted by 8the fumes of tobacco, which assuredly can have no place in any paradise—certainly not in the Celestial! Only as years went on did my brothers yield to the new temptation, and venture to smoke a pipe in the kitchen when all the household were safe in bed. As to smoking-rooms, they were not invented in any houses within our ken.

Among the many incongruities in that dear old home, not the least was the importation from abroad of three large fixed baths, which, with an abundant supply of hot and cold water ready to hand, were a luxury by no means common eighty years ago.

But far more attractive to the younger generation was a wooden enclosure, built across a pool in a delightful rivulet on the further side of the lawn, which, by means of a sluice, could be deepened at pleasure; and there we could bathe to our hearts’ content in the clearest and softest brown water, with trees and sky overhead, only one corner being roofed as protection in case of rain.

All the water-supply for washing purposes came from one of these brown rivers, and sometimes after heavy rain its colour was so dark as greatly to surprise guests from the south, unused to peat regions; but all confessed that no crystal streams could yield water so delightfully soft.

Though the entailed lands necessarily passed to my father, Sir Alexander’s love centred on his second son, Charles Lennox, to whom he left the lovely estate of Dunphail, on the romantic banks of the river Devie, just above its junction with the Findhorn, which is by far the loveliest river in Scotland, and which divides the fascinating woods of Altyre from those of Darnaway Castle, one of the Earl of Moray’s many estates. Dunphail, which had formerly belonged to the Cummings, had fallen into other hands. Sir Alexander bought it back for his favourite son.

Of all legends of the north, none is more gruesome than that which tells how, about the year 1340, Randolph Stuart (who had been created Earl of Moray by his uncle, King 9Robert Bruce) besieged Alexander de Comyn, the old knight of Dunphail, and five of his six sons in their strong castle. For long they held out, till at length Randolph discovered that night after night the eldest son, Alastair Bhan (i.e. the fair), contrived to bring them food.

Soon he tracked him to his hiding-place, Slaginnan, a well-concealed cave in a thickly wooded ravine beside the river Devie. His followers closed the entrance to the cave with piles of heather and brushwood, and to his prayer to be allowed to come out and die “like a man,” fighting for life, they replied, “No, you shall die like a fox,” and so they fired the brushwood and smoked him to death. Then they cut off his head with its masses of golden hair, and threw it over the castle wall to the unhappy father, crying “There is beef to your bannocks.”

Starvation soon compelled surrender, and the besiegers ruthlessly beheaded all their prisoners, carrying off the heads as trophies, but burying the seven headless bodies in one grave at the foot of the castle rock; a grave always known as that of the Seven Headless Comyns. It was opened in the last century, I believe, by order of Major Cumming-Bruce, and the truth of the story was fully confirmed.

This Randolph Stuart was very nearly akin to that other miscreant, Alexander Stuart, known as the “Wolf of Badenoch,” son of King Robert II., who bestowed on him the lordship and lands of Buchan and of Badenoch, wrested from the Comyns, and who was distinguished only for his savage brutality. In the year 1390 he swooped down from his castle of Lochindorb and burnt first the town and church of Torres, and a month later did likewise by the stately cathedral of Elgin, the parish church of St. Giles, and other ecclesiastical buildings, as well as a great part of that city.

I feel bound to mention this detail, because I have so often heard it asserted that the cruel “Wolf” was a Comyn, 10whereas our forbears were then in the position of the unjustly maligned lamb.^[1]

Many and glad were the happy weeks we so often spent among the lovely ferny and birch-clad glades and glens on every side of beautiful Dunphail, which to us was just as much home as Altyre itself. These homes were connected not only by a first-rate carriage road, but by miles of skilfully led footpaths along the beautiful, craggy banks of the Findhorn, the Devie, and the Dorbach, through the estates of Altyre, Logie, and Relugas, all the estates of Cumming cousins,^[2] who were of one heart and one mind in all that tended to open up their lovely estates, and make their beauty accessible to themselves and others.

But as both my father and his brother had a curious talent for instinctively hitting on the very best line for constructing roads and footpaths through dense and well-nigh untrodden brushwood, the task was altogether left to them, resulting in the excellent paths, most of which remain to this day as their abiding memorial. Others (extending for miles up the Altyre burn—“by the sweet burnside”—and through one specially lovely glade known as “the Sanctuary,” where stately silver pines cast their cool, deep shade over a carpet of greenest moss) were demolished when the ruthless railway was led down that glen, and many more have now been closed, but enough remain to earn the gratitude of successive generations.

Perhaps the loveliest, and certainly the most unique stretch of river-hewn rock, is the half mile of the Findhorn on the estate of Relugas, just above its junction with the Devie, where at one point the whole volume of brown waters rushes through a cleft so deep and narrow, that on one occasion when Randolph, Earl of Moray, was closely pursued by foes, he actually leaped from crag to crag and so escaped. 11This spot, known as “Randolph’s Leap,” is naturally the chief attraction to visitors who drive from afar to carry to more prosaic homes a memory of the dreams of beauty, which by the generosity of all the lairds in the glen have for the last three generations been made so easy of access.

Very sad to say, the continuity of these beautiful paths has recently been destroyed through the selfish policy of the late non-resident proprietrix of this most fascinating estate. In order to make her own walks more attractive to summer tenants, by ensuring their own privacy while taking unrestricted enjoyment of all walks and drives on the neighbouring estates, she for some years past only allowed the public access to this specially attractive half mile on one day of the week, while quite excluding them from other lovely river-paths. So that the most interesting point on the beautiful Findhorn is now the one blot; which sends many away bitterly disappointed, because their only opportunity (perhaps in a lifetime) of visiting the district (or of revisiting the haunts of their youth) was not on the day so arbitrarily fixed. Remonstrances and representations on this subject have hitherto proved all in vain.

At the time when I can first remember lovely Relugas, it was the scene of a curious instance of a man gaining his heart’s desire. Young Mr. Mackilligan started from Elgin to carve his fortune in Ceylon, then comparatively unknown to planters. As he left Scotland, he confided to a friend that his ideal of all possible bliss would be to own Relugas (then the property of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder), and to be the husband of Eliza Marquis, a very handsome and winsome girl.

Strange to say, on his return, having made his pile, he found that Relugas was for sale, and that he was still in time to woo and win the maiden. Thus was his double ideal fulfilled. But alas! his health was shattered, and his wife proved equally delicate, so it was truly pathetic to visit them, and find each confined to a sofa, only able 12to enjoy the beauty which they could see from the windows.

After his death, his widow deemed it best for her children to sell the place, which was bought by the George Robert Smiths, who proved the kindest of neighbours. To them a special attraction was the near neighbourhood of Dunphail (only a mile by a lovely river path) the home of their dear friends, the Cumming-Bruces.

My uncle, Charles Lennox Cumming, had married Mary, the grand-daughter and heiress of Bruce the famous Abyssinian traveller, from whom she inherited the estate of Kinnaird near Falkirk, and the old house containing many valuable sketches and all manner of travel treasures from Abyssinia, the Hawaiian Islands, and other regions, to visit which, in his days, had been a matter worthy indeed of a great explorer. Of course the heiress retained her own name, hence the family of Cumming-Bruce.

Even in the beginning of the nineteenth century, the difficulties of travel were still so great that my Uncle Charles was deemed quite a hero on his return from wanderings in Turkey, Greece, and Italy. To the latter he took his bride—a honeymoon commemorated by the Italian character of the picturesque house which they built at Dunphail on their return, also of the little Episcopal Church in Forres. The very ornamental farm buildings at Altyre were a similar tribute to Italy by my father.

To students of old Scottish story, it is worthy of note that this was the very first occasion since the murder of our ancestor the Red Comyn by King Robert Bruce that the two clans had intermarried. Curiously enough, the combination was repeated in the next generation, their only child, Elma Cumming-Bruce, having married James Bruce, Earl of Elgin. She died in Jamaica, leaving one infant, Lady Elma Bruce, who inherited the estates of her grandparents. She married Lord Thurlow, but her children decided to bear their clan names. Her eldest son, “Fritz” Cumming-Bruce, 13was killed when gallantly leading his 42nd Highlanders in the deadly charge at Magersfontein, and a younger son, Sigurd, died of enteric almost at the same time.

The eldest brother now surviving is the Rev. Charles Cumming-Bruce, who is establishing much-needed Seamen’s Institutes at many points between Vancouver and Portland (Oregon), where he ministers to seamen of many nationalities and tries to protect them against sharpers of the worst type. We may be excused a little pardonable pride in him and his good work as, so far as we can trace, he is the only relation bearing our name who in recent centuries has entered holy orders. In fact two Forbes and two Dunbar cousins are apparently our only ecclesiastical representatives in any branch of the family.

But it is satisfactory to know that twelve hundred years ago Cumming the Fair held the Bishopric of the Isles, as seventh bishop of Iona; and in his memory the Highlanders still call Fort Augustus on Loch Ness “Kil Chuimein,” “the Cell of the Cumming.” Now the grey fort has in its turn been demolished, to be replaced by St. Benedict’s Abbey, and a large Benedictine monastery.

To return to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was not only continental travel which was difficult in those days. Many a time have I heard my father describe his early experiences of being sent from Morayshire to England and back for his holidays by a slow sailing-smack, a mode of transit which, besides being wretchedly uncomfortable, cut largely into the holidays; as in foul weather the voyage to London might take three weeks or even four. When Sir Robert Gordon brought his family from London to Gordonstoun, the voyage took them forty days. It was not till 1822 that the first steamer of any importance appeared in the Moray Firth, and several years later ere sufficient trade was developed to make it worth while to establish a weekly steamer between Inverness and Leith, calling at intermediate ports.

14In common with several of our kinsfolk, my grandfather availed himself of his right to send my father to be educated at Winchester College, being “Founder’s kin” to William of Wykeham. Hence our early familiarity with the good old Wykeham motto, “Manners maketh man,” and with that curious old picture, a life-sized copy of which hung in the kitchen at Altyre, showing the “Trusty Servant,” with the swift feet of the deer, the long ears of the patient ass, the snout of a pig “not nice in diet,” and the padlocked mouth, which proved how safe in his keeping were his master’s secrets.

In their early days my father and his brother Charles travelled together in Italy, where the handsome Highland dress, which the former always wore in the evenings, attracted much admiration and curiosity. On one occasion he observed that two Italian ladies, who were sitting beside him, were deep in the discussion of some question, and that his neighbour edged nearer and nearer to him. At last a gentle finger suddenly touched his knee, and its owner rapidly retreated with an expression of disgust, exclaiming to her companion, Carne da vero!^[3]

The gay Cumming tartan of scarlet and bright green, crossed with narrow lines of black and white, has generally been reserved by the men of our family for evening wear, the dark green and purple, with narrow yellow stripe, of the Gordons being preferable for day wear. Of course, as chief of the Clan, my father wore the symbolic three eagle’s feathers in his broad blue bonnet.

Of our two Clan badges, the Gordon evergreen ivy leaf, with its pretty motto, Je meurs où je m’attache, has naturally been more popular than the saugh, or broad-leafed deciduous willow, known in Scottish song as “the frush” i.e. brittle saugh-wand. Our family mottoes, Sans crainte of the Gordons, and Courage of the Cummings, have undoubtedly proved inspirations.

15It was in Italy that the brothers first made the acquaintance of my beautiful grandmother, Lady Charlotte Campbell of Islay, and her lovely daughters.

Here I must record a curious detail of fortune-telling. Shortly before that memorable meeting, Lady Charlotte and some of her daughters visited an Italian lady, who expressed a wish to tell Eliza’s fortune. The girl objected, but the lady insisted. She told them that political troubles were even then brewing, and that within a few days complications would arise which would make their position in Florence very uncomfortable. But just in the hour of need two fair-haired Scotsmen would come to their rescue, and that she would marry the elder of the two.

Strange to say, all came about exactly as the lady foretold. Sir William and his brother did arrive in Italy just when political complications had arisen, and hearing that some of their countrywomen were in difficulties, they at once went to offer themselves as their escort to Switzerland. And so it came to pass that in September 1815, in the little Church at Zurick, Eliza Maria Campbell, aged seventeen, became Lady Comyn-Gordon, for so the order of the double surname was then arranged, and the old spelling was not finally given up till later.^[4]

My mother’s sisters, as also her two brothers, were not long in following her example. Beaujolais (so called after the Comte de Beaujolais,^[5] who was a special friend of Lady Charlotte) married the Earl of Charleville. Julia married 16Mr. Langford Brooke, of the Mere in Cheshire. (She had the anguish of seeing him drowned before her windows while skating on his own lake.) Emma married William Russell, son of that Lord William who was murdered by his own valet, Courvoisier. Constance Adelaide married Lord Arthur Lennox. (Her daughter Constance married Sir George Russell of Swallowfield.)

It was of Eleanora, the loveliest of all, that Harriet, Countess Granville (see her Memoirs) wrote: “She is decidedly the girl I should prefer Hartington’s marrying. She is beautiful, and dans le meilleur genre, with the sweetest manners I ever met with. She is really quite enchanting.”... She goes on to speak of her own little Granville as “a delightful little companion, so full of natural tact and instinctive civility, which prevents his ever being de trop.”

Curiously enough, when the little son grew up, he was equally attracted by Eleanora’s beautiful niece Castalia, daughter of Uncle Walter, and they filled the same rôle of ambassador and ambassadress as his parents had done before him.

Aunt Eleanora was my mother’s favourite sister, and it was in the pretty sitting-room at Altyre that, in 1819, she was married to the Earl of Uxbridge. Her life was very brief, and in an album of my mother’s I find the verse quoted as relating to her:—

Her son succeeded his father as Marquis of Anglesea; and of her beautiful daughters, Ellen married a son of Sir Sandford Graham, and Constance married the Earl of Winchelsea.

Emery Walker. ph. sc.

Lady Charlotte Campbell.

Of the brothers, Walter Frederick, owner of Islay and Shawfield, married his own first cousin, Lady Ellinor 17Charteris, who died, leaving only one son, John Francis, the well-beloved Ian, whose home, Niddry Lodge, near London, was for so many years the central gathering-point, not only for all the family, but for all sorts and conditions of men with whom his great mind found congenial interests in all the countries where he wandered, sketching and studying geological and other problems. His book on the action of Fire and Frost made a considerable mark, as did also his Tales of the West Highlands, four volumes of old Celtic legends collected by himself from Highlanders and Islanders, whose hearts opened wide at the sound of their own Gaelic tongue, a birthright which likewise proved a key to sympathy wherever the old Celtic races still survive.

Uncle Walter married secondly Katharine, daughter of Lady Elizabeth Cole, a sister of Lord Derby. She had one son, Walter, and four daughters, Augusta, Eila, Violet, and Castalia, who married respectively, Mr. Bromley-Davenport, Sir Kenneth Mackenzie of Gairloch, Henry West, and Earl Granville.

Alas! two bitter sorrows early overshadowed the life of this dear aunt. First when Uncle Walter discovered that the princely fortune, which had been deemed inexhaustible, had, in some totally unaccountable manner, melted away in the hands of his agents, and that when, in the terrible years of famine caused by the potato-blight, he was supplying his starving islanders on Islay with shiploads of grain imported from America, it was being paid for with borrowed money. (The islanders, of whom to-day there are only seven thousand, then numbered twenty thousand.)

It is said that any man of business would have put the whole matter into the hands of trustees, who could have put all right in two or three years. But his only instinct (in which Ian implicitly agreed) was at once to get rid of the disgrace of being in debt to any one, and so all the properties were at once thrown on the market. No sooner were they sold than minerals were discovered on the estate 18of Shawfield, which would have cleared off all deficits, and which have built up the great wealth of the Whites, as represented by Lord Overtoun.

The terrible sorrow of leaving beloved Islay was doubtless in a great measure responsible for the still greater loss which shortly followed—namely, that of sight. Doubtless there had been some constitutional weakness latent, but inability to restrain the bitter tears that would keep on flowing, even more in sympathy for her adored husband than for her own great sorrow, was apparently the immediate cause of this terrible loss, which for fifty long years threw the shadow of darkest night over one hitherto so joyous and so blest.

Ere long came the crowning sorrow, when her noble husband was taken from her; but then as a pillar of strength came the life-long devotion of her step-son, who thenceforth made it the chief concern of his life in every way to minister to her in her darkened lot, and to be at once father and brother to her children—children of whose beauty she heard on every side, but whom she was never to see.

In all my memories none are more pathetic than those of delightful summer afternoons in the pleasant shady garden at Niddry Lodge, with all her own strikingly handsome family and their husbands gathered round her, sometimes to watch a game of chess with Lord Granville, which was her special delight, and as she turned her large grey eyes on one or other of us, and made some comment concerning friends whom she had recently “seen” and how they looked, it was difficult to realise that to her all was total darkness.

Ere she once more entered into Light, one great joy was granted to her in the form of a true romance of the nineteenth century. Naturally the very name of Mr. Morrison—the purchaser of her beloved island home—was to her abhorrent. But once again, as in the days of the Capulets and Montagues, deepest love was born of her only hate. A 19third generation grew up, and Hugh Morrison wooed and won the love of Lady Mary Leveson-Gower; and when he brought sweet Mary Morrison to her ancestral home on Islay, the joy of the Islanders at this return of the beloved old race was unbounded.

Of my mother’s other brother John and his wife, I have no recollection, only that they left a son, Walter, and a bright, pretty daughter, Edith, who married Mr. Callander of Ardkinglas, near Inveraray, and died leaving two sons.

Now I must go back to the previous generation to tell of the mother of all these beautiful sons and daughters, namely my grandmother, Lady Charlotte Campbell. She lived till I was quite grown up, and even in old age she was stately and fair to see, notwithstanding the lamentably free use of red and white paint. Even in very advanced years she always sat rigidly upright, and sorely disapproved of the lounging habits of the younger generations, which she described as “sitting on their spines”—a most undignified position.

Latterly she was known to the world as Lady Charlotte Bury, having unfortunately contracted a second marriage with the Rev. Edward Bury, which was in no way conducive to her happiness. Amongst other iniquities, he stole and sold to a publisher her private journals, kept during the years when she was the faithful attendant of Queen Caroline. She never discovered the theft till they appeared in print as the Diary of a Lady of Quality. The book was promptly suppressed “by authority,” and the social annoyances which ensued were painful to a degree.

By her second marriage she had happily only one daughter, Blanche, who married Mr. Lyon, and died childless.

In her old age, Lady Charlotte always kept a lovely portrait of herself standing on an easel beside her, of which the dear old lady used complacently to say, “It is the only picture that ever did me justice!” It was just head and 20shoulders, with the strikingly picturesque head-dress which so well became her, namely a band of black velvet above her fair hair, and above that, fluffy lace, surmounted by a tall pale pink or blue satin cap. I think it was by Sant, and that it was in crayon. (One such remains in the family, but not the one of which I speak.) Shortly before her death it disappeared, and none of the family have ever been able to trace it. Possibly some reader of these pages may be able to afford a clue to its fate.

She died on Easter Day (31st March) 1861, the same month in which my father’s sister Sophia, “Saint Cecilia,” received her promotion to the Celestial Choir.

Lady Charlotte was a daughter of John, fifth Duke of Argyll, who, in 1759, married Elizabeth, the lovely young widow of the sixth Duke of Hamilton, one of the three beautiful Miss Gunnings, whose combined loveliness set first Dublin and then London crazy.^[6]

21Maria married the Earl of Coventry, and Kitty, who, from their portraits, must have been the loveliest of all, preferred a quiet country life, and married Mr. Travers.

Elizabeth (or, as she was generally called, “Betty”) was as winsome as she was fair. Curiously enough, her two sons by each marriage succeeded to their respective fathers, so that she had the unique distinction of having been wife of two dukes and mother of four! Her only daughter by the first marriage, Lady Betty, married the Earl of Derby, and of her Campbell daughters, Lady Augusta married General Clavering, and Lady Charlotte married “Beautiful” Jack Campbell of Shawfield and Islay.

He was one of a family of thirteen, of whom Margaret married the Earl of Wemyss; Glencairn (or “Aunt Glen,” as she was called by my older sisters) married Mr. Carter; Hamilton married Lord Belhaven (for many years they acted the part of King and Queen at Holyrood at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland); Mary 22married Lord Ruthven; Kate married Sir Charles Jenkinson (their daughters Ellen, Catherine and Georgiana married respectively the Duke de Montebello, Mr. Guinness and Mr. Nugent); Elizabeth married Mr. Threipland, and Harriet married Mr. Hamilton of Gilkerscleuch, whose daughter Ellinor married Hamilton of Dalzell.

Of all these, the one who held the largest share in my personal affection was Mary, Lady Ruthven, whose talent for water-colour painting, for music, and her intense appreciation of everything good and beautiful, together with her large-hearted welcome for a wide circle of friends, made a visit to her favourite home at old Winton Castle in East Lothian (one of her own beautiful properties) an ever-recurring pleasure. Some of her own best pictures were of temples in Greece, where she had travelled much in her early married days, about the year 1819, when such travel was a great event.

Lord Ruthven died in his prime, but she lived to the great age of ninety-six; and very pathetic it was to see this aged lady every night place beneath her pillow a beautifully painted miniature of a handsome young man, the love of her youth. In the picturesque old churchyard at Winton is the tall Celtic cross which she erected to his memory, bearing for inscription these words from Dan. X. 19: “O man, greatly beloved, peace be unto thee.”

She was the owner of large mining property, and took the keenest interest in personally visiting the families of her villages with creature comforts for the sick and sympathy for all. As years advanced, she was sorely tried by ever-increasing blindness and deafness, while her heart and mind were active as ever, and longing for information on the politics and literature of the day. In order in some measure to satisfy these cravings, her butler had every morning to read a large part of The Times in a stentorian voice, and in the afternoon one of the footmen read lighter literature. Hence her anxiety to be told of “good novels, 23which will not hurt John’s morals.” But she used to complain pathetically that invariably when they reached the most interesting point, John would close the book and say, “I must stop now, my lady, the butler wants me to clean the silver”—the poor man’s lungs being probably exhausted.

But the most touching incident of the day was the invariable assembling of the large household for family worship, when in a deeply reverent, and perfectly modulated voice, she would recite a chapter of the Bible, of which she knew more than fifty chapters and a great many Psalms by memory, and then offer prayer and praise from the depths of her own heart. Those family prayers were very real.

Very impressive also to me was the unfailing regularity with which the dear old lady invariably marched off to the parish church. If her guests excused themselves on the score of weather, she would say to me, “My dear, we are not made of sugar, and we are not made of salt, so we will go.” And go we did.

I referred to the beautiful modulation of her voice in prayer or in reciting the Scriptures, or poems. Unfortunately as deafness increased, she lost all control of voice in ordinary conversation, and often her newly introduced young guests have been electrified by her deeply resonant tones telling some one else what an excellent parti the young man or the heiress was, and how suitable a match he or she would be for the other!

But such little details as these were but the infirmities of extreme old age of one who, from her birth in 1789 to her death in 1885, lived under four sovereigns, taking a keen interest in all political and national events, from the days of Pitt, and the battle of Waterloo; who had been the chosen friend of Sir Walter Scott, and frequently his guest at Abbotsford; who was intimately acquainted with Rogers and Thomas Moore, Wilson, Lockhart, and a 24multitude of other poets and literary men, including Byron, and most of the leading artists of that long period.

Of my grandfather’s brothers, Robert inherited the estates of Skipness, and Colin those of Ard Patrick. Walter was a naval officer, father of Lady Chetwynd and Lady Trevelyan.

Robert’s son Walter, who was quite an ideal Highlander, wrote various capital books on Indian sport, My Indian Diary and The Old Forest Ranger, by which name he himself came to be generally called. His eldest daughter, Constance, married Macneal of Ugadale, whose delightful home in the Mull of Cantyre overlooks the most magnificent waves and most beautiful sands and golf-links to be found in Scotland.^[7]

The two youngest sons, whom I vividly remember as merry, sunny-haired mites, chasing the butterflies among tall lilies and roses in the old garden, are now the Rev. Archibald Campbell, Bishop of Glasgow, and the Rev. Alan Campbell, Episcopal clergyman at Callander. The latter, alas! became blind soon after his ordination, but seems to have found that sore affliction no great hindrance to the success of his ministerial work, so that for several years (ably seconded by his widowed sister, Mrs. David Ricardo) he continued his work among rough dock labourers on the Thames, with whom his influence seemed to be enhanced by his sore affliction.

The Campbells of Ard Patrick also represent an extensive branch of our kinsfolk—the one who has entered most largely into our lives being Ellinor, who married Michael Hughes, who for many years rented Huntly Lodge, and made it a centre of hospitality so long as they lived.

Almost all these thirteen grand-uncles and grand-aunts married, and the majority left children, and children’s children, to further extend the family connections.

25These were equally numerous on my father’s side, his Grandfather, Alexander Cumming or Cumyn, having in most romantic fashion, when semi-shipwrecked off the coast of Cornwall, wooed and won Grace Pearce, niece and heiress of John Penrose of Penrose, who was the last heir male of that ancient family. On the lovely estate of Penrose close to Helston, the young couple abode; and in the old charter-room at Gordonstoun are preserved some quaint letters concerning Cornish customs,^[8] especially the value of the many wrecks, which were commonly spoken of as God’s blessings. In the same old charter-room there is also a brief memoir of his father by the eldest son, Alexander Penrose, in which he tells of his father’s start in life as a midshipman on board H.M.S. Trafford, whence he was transferred to H.M.S. Kent, and sent to the West Indies.

On the voyage he deemed himself insulted by a lieutenant, so on arriving at Port Royal in Jamaica he called him out, wounded and disarmed him. But as such a breach of discipline as a middy fighting a lieutenant would have made his life in the navy a burden, he resigned his naval career, and enlisted as a grenadier in Harrison’s Regiment, till he was able to buy his commission, and distinguished himself at the storming of Boccachica.

At Jamaica, he was stricken with fever; thence the regiment was ordered to Ostend, which was then held by the Austrians and besieged by the French. The siege lasted for three years!

After a brief interval at Portsmouth, the regiment was ordered to Ireland in transports, but these were compelled by stress of weather to seek refuge at Falmouth, where all the regiment was disembarked and remained in cantonments for some time till the damaged ships could be repaired.

At a ball in Falmouth, the young heiress of Penrose graciously signified her willingness to dance with any of 26these shipwrecked officers with the exception of “that ugly Scotchman,” Captain Cumyn, who, however, was not long in finding favour with the lady; and being for some time encamped at Penrhyn, he made such good use of his opportunities, that when the regiment again set sail for Ireland, Captain Cumyn and his bride were happily settled at Penrose.

In due time they were blessed with six sons and three daughters, most of whom married county neighbours. Hence our kinship with the Rashleighs, Veales of Trevayler, Fitz-Geralds, and Quickes of Newton St. Cyres.

Alexander survived his wife, and died at Penrose in 1761. That estate was subsequently sold to make provision for the eight younger children, apparently in total ignorance of the valuable tin mines on the estate, which are said to have sometimes yielded more in one year than the total price paid for the whole property.

Their eldest son, Sir Alexander Penrose Comyn, who was born at Helston in May 1749, assumed the name of Gordon, when, on the death of Sir William Gordon of Gordonstoun, and in right of his ancestress, Dame Lucy Gordon, he succeeded to that property^[9] with its delightfully quaint old house, a mile from the sea, and from the enchanting coast of broad yellow sands stretching on either side of sandstone cliffs and large caves of very varied form, 27which extend along the shore for a couple of miles, forming at low water the most fascinating rock scenery I know of in Britain or elsewhere, and a truly entrancing playground.

Gordonstoun is only sixteen miles from Altyre, but is in every respect as complete a contrast as could well be imagined: the one a simple old Scotch house, with patchwork additions, all embowered in greenery and blossom, and the other a stern, uncompromising, large grey mansion, with steep-pitched roofs, slabbed with grey and lichened stone, and turrets at all corners. Only when inside does the explorer discover traces of the successive generations which have produced it—the extraordinary dungeons, the secret stairs and quaint hiding-places in the thickness of the walls, behind cupboards, or under floors. Surely no children ever possessed more delightful homes!

My grandfather did not go far afield in search of a bride. At Castle Grant, which had for at least eight hundred years been the headquarters of the Chiefs of Clan Grant, he found his bride Helen Grant of Grant, one of the six daughters of Sir Ludovick Grant of Grant by Lady Margaret Ogilvie-Grant, eldest daughter of James, Earl of Findlater and Seafield. Sir Ludovick was a fine specimen of the true Highland chief of the best type, and while not neglecting the estates, he represented the County of Elgin as M.P. for twenty years, from 1741 to 1761. He died at Castle Grant 18th March 1773.

His only son succeeded as Sir James, whose sons, Lewis 28and Francis William, successively became Earls of Findlater and Seafield. Thus “Dame Helen”—my grandmother—was aunt to the fifth and sixth, and grand-aunt or great-grand-aunt to the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh earls. Was ever succession so rapid in any other family?

Of my five grand-aunts, Hope Grant married Dr. Waddilove, Dean of Ripon, and Penuel married Henry Mackenzie, author of The Man of Feeling, a volume very much admired in its day. One of their sons, John Henry, was an eminent lawyer, and was raised to the bench as Lord Mackenzie, generally called “of Belmont” to distinguish him from two later law lords, who each took the title of Lord Mackenzie.

He married the Honourable Helen Anne Mackenzie of Seaforth.

Sir Alexander and Dame Helen had fourteen children besides MY FATHER, and Uncle Charles Cumming-Bruce. Their Daughter Helen Penuel married Sir Archibald Dunbar of Northfield and Duffus; the latter, which is the family home, being only one mile from Gordonstoun, the Dunbars have ever been our very closest kinsfolk. That couple were blessed with ten children, one of whom married Mackintosh of Raigmore, near Inverness, and became the mother of some of our dearest relations.

Her eldest son Eneas, generally known in our family as “the Beloved,” was the very incarnation of genial hospitality, and many a joyous gathering have we all held under his elastic roof, especially at the annual great Highland meeting every September. Never was the fine old proverb

better illustrated, for when the utmost possibilities of packing seemed to have been attained, there was always some corner found for an extra guest.

He married a sister of Sir Robert Menzies of Menzies, and thus began our life-long close intimacy with Perthshire, 29and especially with Sir Robert’s beautiful wife, née Annie Alston Stewart, and her sisters, two of whom owned Killiecrankie Cottage, overlooking the famous Pass. Many a happy week have I spent in that exquisite nest, and at Urrard on the opposite bank of the Garry.

Another of Aunt Helen Dunbar’s daughters married Rawdon Clavering, and another, Mr. Warden.

The eldest and third sons, Sir Archibald and Edward, lived till January 1898, when they passed away within a few days of one another, Sir Archibald in his ninety-fifth, and Edward in his eighty-first year.

Then we were all electrified when the newspapers informed us that the cousin whom we had always distinguished as “Young Archie” was actually verging on threescore years and ten! His mother was Keith Alicia Ramsay of Barnton, and his wife was Isabella Eyre of Welford Park. His father married, secondly, Sophia Orred of Tranmere Hall, in Cheshire, and in 1890 they celebrated their golden wedding in the same year as the younger couple celebrated their silver wedding.

Sir Archibald, senior, was always a fragile invalid, in pathetic contrast with my stalwart brothers. But he was wont to say, “A glass box will last as long as an iron one, if you take care of it.” And he did take such care of his glass box, that he outlived all save one of my brethren.

Both he and his cheery brother Edward were storehouses of learning on all points concerning old Scotch lore, especially on local subjects, and they were the last survivors of those to whom we could refer any disputed questions. Edward’s delight was in puzzling out quaint letters in the old family charter-rooms, many of which he published in three volumes, entitled, Social Life in Former Days and Documents Relating to the Province of Moray.

His elder brother’s chief delight was in his gardens, and in proving how excellent is the soil and climate of “the Laich” or lowlands of Moray for the growth of fruit, 30especially pears, apples, plums, and small fruits. Great was his satisfaction when some of his pears took the first prize at Chiswick, in days when most folk south of the Tweed still believed Scotland to be a land where a semi-civilised race lived on oatmeal! How anxiously he watched the ripening of the first fruits of new varieties, and then at the exact right moment he brought the precious fruit, divided into sections that we might each give our verdict of its merits.

These two dear old brothers lived about twelve miles apart, Edward’s home being at Sea Park, about a mile from Findhorn Bay, and their great pleasure in later days was an occasional visit of one to the other. Both retained all their mental faculties perfect to the very end, and were only laid aside by bodily illness for a brief period. When, on 6th January 1898, Sir Archibald passed away, Edward being unable to attend his funeral, telegraphed to his son the Rev. John Archibald, to come from London to take his place. Obedient to his summons, the son reached Sea Park on 11th January, just in time to witness his father’s death ere attending his uncle’s funeral, returning thence to make the necessary arrangements for that of his father.

To return to my father’s numerous sisters. Margaret married Major Madden of Kellsgrange, in County Kilkenny, and from her descend our Mortimer cousins. Edwina married Mr. Miller of Glenlee, the eldest son of Lord Glenlee, the judge, and her son succeeded to the baronetcy. She was one of the kindest-hearted women that ever lived, but she was sorely tried by the number of grandchildren who accumulated around her. One of these having died, a friend called to express polite regret, and was somewhat startled at the truthful, though unconventional reply, “Oh! my dear, do not condole with me. There is much more room for it in heaven than in my house!”

Louisa married Lord Medwyn, who, like Lord Glenlee, was what is known in Scotland as “a law lord,” the wife not 31sharing his title, but being simply Mrs. Forbes of Medwyn. Her eldest son, William, married Miss Archer Houblon. Their daughter Louisa married Sir James Ferguson, and Mary married Lord Mar and Kellie.

The second son, Alexander, became the saintly and greatly beloved Bishop of Brechin. He was greatly helped in church-work by his sisters Helen and Elizabeth (commonly called “Buffy”). Helen, under the name of “Zeta,” published many lovely songs—in fact all this branch of the family have been specially distinguished for musical talent.

Their sister Louisa Forbes married Colonel Abercromby, eldest son of Lord Abercromby, whose delightful home, Airthrie Castle, lies at the foot of the Ochils, between romantic Stirling and Bridge of Allan. Her only daughter, “Monty,” married the Earl of Glasgow.

In those days party politics ran so high as to mar many a happy courtship, and as all the Forbes and Cumming connection were uncompromising Tories, Louisa’s engagement to the son of a staunch Whig family aroused much opposition. Nevertheless love carried the day, but her mother’s parting counsel on the wedding day was delightfully characteristic: “Well, daughty” (i.e. dearie), “you’ll sometimes hear something good about the Tories, and I’ll tell you what to do then. Just go to your own room and lock the door, and have a bit dance by yourself!”

Four of my father’s sisters who did not marry, namely Jane, Mary, Emilia, and Sophia, lived together with their mother, Dame Helen, in her dower-home, Forres House, three miles from Altyre; and on her death, they rented Moy on the other side of the river Findhorn, and were familiarly known as “the Moy Aunts.”

The eldest of the four, Miss Jane, was considered the cleverest, and she certainly was the managing partner, much given to having a finger in every pie, in a fashion which did not tend to make her popular with her younger relations. She was noted for her ready wit, of which, however, only 32one instance now occurs to me. There had been a dispute between several of the neighbouring proprietors concerning certain boundaries, and they were disposed to carry the matter to the law-courts. At last one not interested (I think it was MacPherson Grant of Ballindalloch on the Spey) stepped in, and decided the matter to the satisfaction of all concerned, whereupon the disputants resolved to present him with a thankoffering, and what could be so useful as a silver hot-water jug for the brewing of the toddy (whisky with boiling water and sugar), which invariably ended every dinner, no matter how great had been the variety of wines consumed, and of which every lady present accepted a wine-glassful from the tumbler of the gentleman next to her, doled out with a silver ladle.^[10]

But now the question arose what would be a suitable inscription, and here again much discussion ensued, when happily Miss Jane entered the room, and all agreed to refer the decision to her. Without a moment’s hesitation she replied, “Presented to Ballindalloch to keep him in hot water, for keeping his friends out of it,” a neat solution of the difficulty, which was accepted with acclamation.

The handsomest sister, Emilia, was beloved by Charles Grant, who afterwards became great in law, and assumed the title of Lord Glenelg. But her kinsfolk refused to sanction her marriage to a young Whig barrister, so they were compelled to part, but each remained constant to the memory of the other till death reunited them.

Sophia, a fair-haired, gentle little soul, was an exquisite musician, and was accounted a sort of Saint Cecilia. There was a charmingly mellow old organ in the dining-room at Altyre, on which she was wont to play divinely. My brother Henry likewise delighted in it. After my father’s death, it was transferred to the Bishop of Brechin’s Church at Dundee.

In common with all the family, all these sisters were 33great pillars of the Episcopal Church in Forres, that singularly inconvenient cruciform chapel which was built in 1841. (Prior to that date there seems to have been no Episcopal service in the town since 1745.) Many of the congregation drove very long distances every Sunday; and it must have been bad weather indeed when the Cumming-Bruces from Dunphail were missing, though they had to drive eight miles, and others came from still further.

For some time there was no parsonage, and the first incumbent, the Rev. Alexander Ewing, afterwards Bishop of Argyll and the Isles, lived at lovely Logie on the Findhorn, the property of our cousins, the Cummings of Logie. He was a charming personality, and continued one of our dearest friends till the day of his death.

His first wife was a daughter of General Stewart of Pittyvaich, in the valley of Mortlach, in Banffshire. Her sister Elizabeth married my brother Henry, and Clifford married Canon Robinson of Norwich Cathedral, who is also Master of St. Catherine’s at Cambridge. She was one of the best-loved women in either city, and one of Dean Goulburn’s most pathetic utterances was his address in Norwich Cathedral on the occasion of her funeral. To the grand teacher, whose motto was “Detest affectation” (how often I think of him when I see women raise their elbow at a right angle when they shake hands!), her perfectly natural, genuine sweetness and cordiality to every one especially appealed.^[11]

Mr. Ewing was succeeded at Forres by the Rev. Hugh Willoughby Jermyn, who was afterwards Bishop of Colombo in Ceylon, and when driven back to the home-land in shattered health, was appointed to succeed my cousin, Alexander Forbes, in the Bishopric of Brechin, and elected Primus of the Episcopal Church in Scotland.

CHAPTER II The Altyre Gardens—Home Interests—Our Mother’s Death—Early Influences—The Moray Floods. — Note.

On my birth (26th May 1837), within six hours of that interesting event, I was sent to Moy to the care of my father’s four unmarried sisters (generally known as “the Moy Aunts”), because scarlet fever reigned at Altyre; my brother Walter Frederick and my sister Constance had just died of it, and Eleanora lay in imminent danger, so a carriage was in readiness to take away the precious baby and her wet-nurse as quickly as possible. Thus my travels began early, though thirty years were to elapse ere opportunity offered for going further afield than Great Britain. It was to the death of this brother and sister that I owe my name, Constance Frederica; but though my mother wished to keep both names, she shrank from using either, and so took the sound of the end of the second name, and called me Eka, the only name by which I have ever been known in my own family. It was not till school days that the more dignified Constance came into use.

My memories of the next five years are necessarily very 35limited. I recollect my mother’s glorious masses of hair falling in clustering ringlets far below her waist. I remember her lovely songs and her joy in the great beautiful gardens of her own creation, and those stands of “dusty millers”—large very varied auriculas—which were the gardener’s special pride, and above all, the greenhouse on one side of the house, which was the very first greenhouse in Morayshire. Among its delights was a fragrant mimosa-tree covered with sweet yellow blossom, and a large white jessamine with shining leaves, clustering round upper windows, which, looking into the greenhouse, had the full benefit of all its sweetness.

How she joyed in every new variety of favourite flowers, the splendid fuchsias, the large blue aquilegia (Brodie Columbine), and the bright blue salvias, whose store of honey too often proved as irresistible to her naughty child as to her friends, the bumble bees—a friendship shared with the fat, ugly toads which the gardeners cherished.

To my mother the staff of under-gardeners were not merely “hands.” She took the keenest interest in providing them with all the best books on botany and horticulture, and many successful gardeners scattered over the world owed their start in life to her encouragement. A conspicuous example was that of Jamie Sinclair, who, during the Crimean War from 1854 to 1856, was found in charge of Prince Worenzow’s beautiful gardens, and who rejoiced to tell the British officers of his start from the Altyre gardens.

I find an interesting reference to him, and to my mother’s care for her employés, in a paper in The Cottage Gardener (dated about 1856), by Mr. D. Beaton, head gardener to Sir W. Middleton at Shrubland Park. He tells how he himself had his earliest training in the gardens at Beaufort Castle, whence he passed to Altyre. “The collection of plants there,” he says, “was immense, and I was at the head of them in less than a twelvemonth. I had access to all the books and periodicals on gardening.

36“Here I first began crossing, budding plants, and bulbs, three favourite pursuits with Lady Gordon-Cumming, who after many years sent seeds of her crossed rhododendrons to Shrubland Park at my instance.”

I have a letter to my mother from her second daughter, Ida, telling as a great secret of her hopes and persevering efforts to obtain a blue geranium by crossing the wild crane’s bill with a very pure white pelargonium. The result, however, is not recorded.

Mr. Beaton goes on to say: “The great African lionhunter, Sir William’s second son, was then learning his lessons in books and horsemanship; he was the handsomest boy in all Scotland, and so fond of fun and dancing, that we could have a ball and supper any night in the year, through his influence with ‘Mamma.’ Jamie Sinclair, the garden-boy, was a natural genius, and played the violin. Lady Gordon-Cumming had this boy educated by the family tutor, and sent him to London, where he became well known for his skill in drawing and colouring.

“Mr. Knight, of the Exotic Nursery, for whom he used to draw orchids and new plants, sent him to the Crimea to Prince Worenzow, where he practised for thirteen years. He laid out those beautiful gardens which the Allies so much admired; had the care of a thousand acres of vineyards belonging to the Prince; was well known to the Czar, who often consulted him about improvements, and who gave him a ‘medal of merit’ and a diploma, or kind of passport, by which he was free to pass from one end of the Empire to the other, and also through Austria and Prussia. He was the only foreigner who was ever allowed to see all that was done in and out of Sebastopol and over all the Crimea.”

Throughout her brief, bright life, my mother’s influence was always exerted for good, as beseemed one who was a reverent student of the Holy Scriptures. She and most of her sisters were keenly interested in the subject of prophecy, and eagerly studied every new book that appeared thereon. 37Both she and my father were careful to train their children in reverent love for the “Holy Book,” and in the practice of learning by heart at least one verse every day. I think the very first which I thus learnt was the Psalm from which, at the beginning of these “Memories,” I have quoted a verse in the past tense, which sixty-five years ago she taught me in the future tense.

When her favourite son, Roualeyn, on his deathbed, surprised us all by his knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, he told us that through all his stormy life he had never been parted from the Old Book given him by his mother, so that his mind was like a well-built fire, ready to respond to the Divine spark, which at last kindled it so effectually.

Natural as was the worship with which her sons regarded their beautiful mother, it was doubtless accentuated by her keen personal interest in all their pursuits; and amongst minor details, I can remember the skill with which her firm, capable hands tied those beautiful salmon and trout flies which beguiled so many bonnie fish—an art in which her sons became equally adept; and no more acceptable gift could reach them from far countries than gay feathers with which to try new experiments.

Perhaps some fishermen may like to know a little secret confided to me by my brother Roualeyn, which was, that when the fish were sulky, refusing his best flies (N.B. Fish invariably means salmon) he would let them rest a while. Then, tying a bit of tackle off a common rook’s feather on to a common bait-hook, he would let it float down stream, and almost invariably captured some inquisitive fish which came up to look at it.

To me, to whom sewing in any form is as hateful as having to do the simplest sum in arithmetic, it seems somewhat remarkable that, notwithstanding the very varied occupations of my mother and elder sisters, they all excelled in needlework, both useful and ornamental. They would gather a handful of graceful flowers, and then and there, 38with coloured silks, reproduce them on red cloth stretched on an embroidery frame. Some of these are still in the possession of daughters or grand-daughters, and are so fine that each would seem as though it must have taken months of toil.

All my mother’s daughters were endowed with much of her own artistic talent, and delighted in painting both in oil and water-colour, fired thereto by frequent visits from such artists as Sir Edwin Landseer, Sir William Ross, Saunders, Giles, and others.

Among the early details which most impressed themselves on the memory of the “Baby” of the home was the wonderful “Birthday Chair,” which on the 26th of May was always prepared for her use at all meals. Early in the morning the elder sisters went out and presently returned laden with boughs of delicious lilac and graceful golden laburnum. Tall willow-wands, tied to a high wooden armchair, formed the light framework to which were fastened this wealth of fragrant spring blossoms—a lovely bower wherein the happy child sat in truly regal state.

This pretty custom was kept up till my ninth birthday, and the lilacs never failed us. Nowadays I doubt whether a solitary spray would be found in blossom in the North, just as in those days all the girls reserved their daintiest muslins to wear at the Inverness Games in September. Now wisdom and comfort alike demand warm tweeds. And as to the delicious ripe peaches which we used to gather on the open wall, the modern gardeners hear of them with polite incredulity. Are we returning to a glacial epoch?

Emery Walker, ph. sc.

Eliza Maria, Lady Gordon-Cumming of Altyre.

Painted by Saunders about 1830.

Among my vivid memories of about 1840 were certain evenings when my mother returned from distant expeditions escorted by several gentlemen, whom I now know to have been Sir Roderick Murchison, Hugh Miller, Agasis, and other eminent geologists, who at that time were deeply interested in the newly discovered fossil fish in the Old Red Sandstone in Ross-shire, on the other side of the Moray 39Firth. Similar fossils had just been found in the Lethen-bar Lime Quarries, on the other side of the Findhorn.^[12] These were a source of keen interest to my mother, and it was to search for more that the geologists were invited to Altyre.

Evening after evening there was great excitement in carefully lifting from a dogcart the spoils of the day, namely grey nodules which, when gently tapped with a hammer, split in two, revealing the two perfect sides of strange fossil fishes, with the very colour of the scales still vivid. Day by day my elder sisters patiently made minutely accurate water-colour studies of these, and the best specimens were sent to the British Museum, where they still remain, and where certain fishes hitherto unknown, were called after my mother.

The poorer specimens were deposited in rows under the verandah, and there remained as familiar objects of our early days.

On other evenings there was the home-bringing of various game, furred and feathered, or of bonnie speckled trout from the Altyre burn, the Loch of Blairs, or Loch Romach (the latter a curious, long, narrow loch in a ravine between densely wooded hills); but the special excitement lay in the silvery salmon caught in the Findhorn by my father, mother, and brothers, all of whom were skilful fishers. The keepers loved to tell of one day when my mother caught, played, and landed eight fine fish to her own rod. Those who know the rocky bed of the beautiful river, hemmed in by steep banks, can appreciate the difficulty of such fishing-ground for a lady, especially one of goodly proportions. In those days it was very exceptional for ladies to venture on salmon fishing.

On one occasion she had a very narrow escape of being washed away by one of those tremendously rapid spates which now and then occur after very heavy rainfall in the upper districts, when the river, without any notice, comes 40down in a gigantic flood-wave. She was standing in midstream, quietly fishing, when suddenly a thunderous roar of waters, effectually drowning the ordinary sound of the rushing, swirling river, warned her of something unusual. She leapt from rock to rock, back to the bank, and had scarcely time to scramble up the steep footpath ere a seething torrent, more than eight feet in depth, was dashing over the spot where she had been standing.

Most delightful of all to the little, fair-haired child with the long, yellow ringlets was the joy of delightful drives, sitting “bodkin” between the indulgent parents who so patiently endured the bumping up and down of the odious brat who tried to keep time with the postillion.

At that time postillions were the fashion, and the extra men to be entertained when the house was full of company (and Altyre always was full) must have been considerable—and visits were wont to be indefinitely prolonged. When Colonel (afterwards sixth Earl of Seafield) and Mrs. Grant of Grant used to come down from Castle Grant they always had four horses and two postillions, two outriders, valet, and lady’s-maid. So that entertaining one couple meant also five men, a maid, and six horses.

Every year there was a season of sore bereavement for us children, when our parents and older sisters started on the long drive of six hundred miles from Altyre to London for the season, posting all the way. Occasionally their journey was continued to Paris, and several large excellent copies at Gordonstoun of pictures in the Louvre tell of the special permission to paint there, granted to them by personal favour of Louis Philippe, in days when such permits were not easily obtained.

Among my treasured relics are several letters to me from my mother, written during her last absence, when I was just four years old. With these precious letters there are several locks of exquisitely fine yellow hair, like spun glass, each folded in the gilt-edged paper, which was then the 41correct note-paper. They are marked in my mother’s writing as being my own hair at three weeks old, and the idolised brother and sister who died when I was born. One lustrous lock is marked by my father as that of his beautiful boy “Roualeyn,” “Robh Ailean,” two Gaelic words of which, curiously enough, no one can tell us the connected meaning. Robh would be pronounced row, like “to row a boat,” and “ailean” means white. It is possible that my mother took the name from Rowallan Castle, three miles from Kilmarnock, which was built about 1270, in the reign of King Alexander III. of Scotland, by the son-in-law of Sir Walter Comyn of Rowallane. But that would not account for my father spelling his son’s name as above. It is a grand name, but its owner was generally known in the family as Zoe.

By the time of my birth he was a beautiful lad, captivating all hearts, and worshipped by the people, in whose eyes he could do no wrong. I am not sure, however, that his tutors always shared this view of the case. One in particular was a young theological student, so exceedingly minute that when he stepped down from the gig which had been sent to meet him, and my father perceived the infinitesimal mortal who had come to take charge of his stalwart sons, he could not resist the joke, but catching him up in his arms, carried him to the room where my mother and other ladies were sitting, and set him down exclaiming, “Eliza, here’s the new dominie!!”

It was scarcely surprising that on the first occasion that the little man ventured to suggest reporting some of Roualeyn’s misdemeanours, his pupil took him by the scruff of the neck and led him to his mother, saying, “Mamma, Mr. M‘Watt wishes to make a complaint about me, so I have brought him here that he may do so.” It would have been hard indeed for any adoring mother to assume the correct severity, and certainly Roualeyn rarely had long to wait for absolution, and leave to forsake the uncongenial 42lesson-books, and be off to the river or the woods, leaving the little “dominie” the more leisure to pursue his own theological studies.

It is pleasant to add that in after years not only were these reminiscences dear to the little dominie himself, but also that his stalwart pupil held him in very affectionate remembrance, and it was for him he sent to come and visit him when, thirty years later, he lay on his deathbed in old Fort Augustus.

But in those days sport was the one thought of all my brothers; and I can just remember the tremendous excitement of stamping out circular wads of pasteboard and other preparations for the 12th of August, and at other times that of melting lead in the kitchen to make bullets in moulds for the roe which were then abundant in the woods. These were the early stages of that love of sport which subsequently led to Roualeyn being known as the Mighty Lion Hunter of South Africa,^[13] and to those years of adventure, hitherto unparalleled, resulting in acquiring that marvellous collection of trophies of his own gun which were exhibited in London in 1851. This, be it remembered, was in days when breech-loaders were unknown, and sportsmen (TRUE SPORTSMEN, as all my brothers were) were largely dependent on their own rapidity in muzzle-loading.

My brother William has recorded some of his most thrilling experiences in tiger-hunting and training wild Bheel tribes.^[14] But my brothers John and Frank, though quite as skilful and successful in the chase, have left no record of their prowess, save in the memory of wild tribes who never forget such bold, brave leaders.

I spoke just now of those few precious letters from my mother which I so justly treasure. I think I may quote a 43few sentences from the very last she ever wrote to her little daughter.

“My own sweet little dear Eeka,—How sorry, sorry Mamma is to hear that her darling little girl has been ill. God bless you, my own sweet Pigeon, God bless and preserve you from all harm. Do not forget, my pretty Babe, to say your little prayer to God, Who loves you, and ask good Mr. Gregory to teach you a line or two of pretty hymns every day, to please poor old Papa and Mamma when they come back. I sometimes see very pretty little girls here, but none that I think half so nice and dear as my own little Eeka and Nell and Alice, when they are good. Write a little letter to Mother, my darling, Henry will help you, and tell me what brother Zoe is about, and if he teaches you funny songs. I wish you could send me one of the lovely nosegays that you gather every day in the sweet garden. I think all the beautiful purple rhododendrons must be coming out now. You must send Mamma one little flowerie of them in a letter, and kiss it just before you shut it up, and the flower will bring the kiss to Mamma. I hope you are very good and obedient to dear Chérie. Give her my kind love.

Your dear papa is quite well, and sends you many kisses. Blessings on my sweet little one. Your own loving mother,

Alas! ere another May came round, this beautiful and gracious mother had passed away from earth, leaving her home desolate indeed.

On the 28th March another little brother was born—her thirteenth living child. Some time previously she had been severely injured in stopping a bolting horse in a gig wherein sat a terrified woman. That injury caused her intense suffering, and less than a month after the birth of her beautiful baby she died, in her forty-fourth year.

Never can I forget that lovely morning, 21st April 1842, when I was on the lawn in the sunshine with Chérie (i.e. Julie Périllard, my Swiss bonne). I vividly remember that she was dressed in white, on account of the heat. I was gathering blue, pink, and white hepaticas for the dear mother whose strangely laboured breathing we heard so 44distinctly through the open window.^[15] Presently we were summoned to her room, where nearly all the family were assembled, and I was lifted up in loving arms to look for the last time on the dear face. A few minutes later that bright and blessed spirit had returned to God Who gave it.^[16]

On the 25th all that was mortal was taken away from us. From far and near crowds assembled, not only “county neighbours,” but the poorest of the poor who could scarcely crawl came from distant bothies far in the moorlands, weeping bitterly for their own loss in the going away of the ever sympathetic friend and generous physician, who in her busy life always found time herself to visit the sick and suffering, her pony and her gillie laden with warm clothing, simple remedies, and abundant good food and wine, which cheered and “heartened” the ofttimes lonely and dejected one. No wonder that she was worshipped and enshrined in the hearts of the poor.

A simple service was held at the house by Dr. Mackay of Rafford, the parish minister, and then from an upper window over the porch we watched the solemn, sad procession start on the long sixteen miles to Gordonstoun, near to which, within the park, lies the pretty old Gothic kirk, St. Michael’s Chapel,^[17] where our dead are 45laid to await the Resurrection morning—a precious storehouse, wherein and around which rest many of our very nearest and dearest. There the Rev. Alexander Ewing met the procession, and pronounced the last solemn words. And so the awful shadow of death fell on that home, hitherto irradiated by the presence of one gracious woman.

In the desolation of his grief, my father sought some consolation in the companionship of his little daughter, not yet five years old. Being always a very early riser, and knowing how readily children, like birds, wake with the sun, he took me to sleep in his room, so that in the early dawn he might, without disturbing servants (especially the old nurse who had reared us all), take me out to stroll through fields and woods, by stream and loch. No one ever more deeply loved the song of birds, and the beauty of changing seasons, and especially the infinitely varied lights of “the outgoings of the morning and evening,” and as all their beauties sank into his soul, he would ofttimes murmur, “It is a fair Creation,” “All Thy works praise Thee, O Lord.”

You see he lived before the days of “scorching” bicycling and motor cars, and perpetual rush, hurry, and scurry, when men and women walked on their own feet, and still had time and inclination to drink in the poetry and all the sweet influences of Nature, as can only be done in stillness and at leisure. Only to such wooers does she reveal her treasures of delight.

Specially attractive to the little child was a small birchwood, which in spring was carpeted with white anemones, and in which lay a cool spring of purest water. Then a folded leather cup was produced from the father’s waistcoat pocket, and they drank together from the fairy fountain. At other times they met the dairymaid returning from her morning milking, with her heavy pails hanging from a yoke across her shoulders, and gladly she halted to give “her little calfie” a drink from the lid of her pail.

46One thing never absent from my father’s pocket was a lump of the common indigo, which then was always used in laundries, and which was very efficacious in counteracting the pain of wasps’ stings, from which his woodmen suffered very frequently, the woods being infested by the wasp, which builds its curiously-constructed nest like layers of grey paper, forming a ball, ranging from the size of a small plum to that of an average football. These hang from the branch of some shrub or tree, and an incautious shake brings out an angry horde. One of the minor joys of my brethren used to be the nocturnal smoking of these “wasps’ bykes,” and I think that this systematic destruction has reduced their numbers.

I also think there are now fewer of the very high anthills, which used to be so numerous in the fir-woods among the dry needles which covered the ground, and which we were sometimes unkind enough to disturb cautiously, in order to see the amazing activity of the ant-colonies.

Sir William always had a kind, cheery word for every one he met, and all the people loved him. If he came suddenly on a group of old women from the town, who had ventured too far into his woods in search of firewood, they knew very well that the laird would be quite ready himself to give them a helping hand in shouldering their heavy burdens—even if they chanced to be adorned with sprays of his recently planted rhododendrons. When unsympathetic persons occasionally expressed surprise at his refusing to put up notices to warn off trespassers, he replied that the only notice to which he could consent would be one requesting the public to preserve what was thus given for public enjoyment.

I remember the dismay of a large party of young folk who had wandered up one Sunday afternoon through the pleasant woods till they came to a large outlying fruitgarden, more than half a mile from the house, and found the splendid crop of ripe gooseberries irresistible, when 47suddenly the laird himself appeared. Naturally they were about to run off in great confusion, when they were arrested by his kind voice, telling them to stay and enjoy themselves; “only,” he added, “be sure you don’t tell the people in Forres how good they are!”

Between that garden and the sweet Altyre burn there stood (and happily still stand) some of the finest old trees on the estate, and beneath these, all round a little pond, snowdrops and daffodils had been planted so lavishly that in early spring the ground was first white and then gold, delightful to see and to gather; and a little further down the burnside they grew in rank profusion all around the ivy-covered ruins of an old kirk and quiet kirkyard.

How strangely some small things take root in our memories, when greater are forgotten. One of the things which my father impressed on me by word and example was always to kick aside any loose stone on the road which might possibly cause a horse to stumble. To this day I never see such a stone anywhere, without a well-nigh irresistible instinct to obey the instructions given more than threescore years ago. And the teaching holds good in regard to other fellow-creatures as well as horses.

Yet one more detail concerning those early days, which almost seems as if it might have influenced my later years, namely, that in my father’s dressing-room were stored the large illustrated editions of Captain Cook’s Voyages in the South Sea Isles and various other books of travel.

The pictures in these could not fail to interest any one; but they were fascinating indeed in comparison with the wretched woodcuts which alone illustrated books specially intended for children. Nevertheless we loved those ugly, and often very prosy books, and read and re-read them, as no modern child ever seems to do the beautiful books so profusely lavished on it.

A good story does not lose by repetition, and many a happy hour we children spent with our quaint old 48Northumbrian nurse, when (having carefully suspended several fine large apples from a row of nails in her wooden mantelpiece, and placed a plate beneath each to catch the drip, mingled with cinders), we settled down (with one eye on the apples) to thoroughly enjoy one of her somewhat limited stock of stories. Certainly at least once a week the petition was, “Please, Nan, tell us the story about the Fatted Calf.” Such was our rendering of the return of the Prodigal Son.

Old Nan, who even then appeared to us quite antediluvian (with a face like a very wizened apple, and a huge lace cap with large bows of ribbon), lived to receive a home in my brother Henry’s family, and was eventually buried beside the old parish church of Mortlach. And Chérie, the Swiss bonne, who had been with my mother before her marriage, lived with my eldest sister and her children, till she likewise was laid to rest beside the ancient church of Bewick in Northumberland.

She was endowed with a very hasty temper, and her short method of dealing with youth was simple and rapid. About the third mistake, came the invariable thump in the small of the back, which sent us gasping to the other side of the room, where we were occasionally overtaken by a substantial brown Bible—a handy missile, and effectual when hurled by a strong Swiss arm. It was an external application of spiritual truth with which we would gladly have dispensed; nevertheless the fine old lady held her ground with her pupils, and I believe we honestly preferred her hot temper to the sugar and water of some of her English colleagues, and with the curious loyalty of children, it never occurred to us to report to our parents how many thumps we received. But my eldest sister, remembering her peculiarities, kept them well in check when under her control, so that her children of the third generation were reared on a strictly protected system.

The Biblical knowledge which we acquired from our 49varied teachers was apt occasionally to blend with more recent events, especially details relating to the Flood, inasmuch as all manner of events were dated as having happened before or after the Flood, C’était avant le Déluge.

The catastrophe referred to was locally known as “the Moray Floods,” which occurred in 1829, just eight years before my birth. After a summer of exceeding heat and prolonged drought, an unprecedented deluge of rain commenced on August 2nd and continued without intermission for two days, accompanied by a hurricane from the north-east. All the rivers and every streamlet were quickly transformed to raging torrents—the Dee, the Spey, the Lossie, the Nairn, Findhorn, Dorbach, Devie, and (what chiefly affected my home), the usually half-dry Altyre burn. The Findhorn, pent in between steep crags, actually at one point rose fifty feet above the usual level, and at its junction with the Devie fully forty feet—a brief inscription on the rock above one of the lovely paths marks the flood line.

A very graphic description of the whole scene was written by our neighbour, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, who, having married Miss Cumming, the owner of lovely Relugas, just above the said meeting of the waters, had a full view of the spate, and records the deafening roar of the flood, rolling huge boulders over the rocky bed of the river, and the crashing of trees and shrieking of the wind.

Throughout the district scarcely a bridge was left standing except the single arch stone bridges, founded on rock and high above the streams. One at Fochabers, which only twenty-five years previously had cost £14,000, was swept away by the raging Spey. That across the Findhorn near Forres, and the Lossie Bridge at Bishopmill, shared the same fate. My uncle’s newly-built house of Dunphail escaped almost miraculously, the high bank on which it stands having been undermined, so that it fell within three feet of the east tower. It cost £5000 to repair the damage on that 50estate. Lord Cawdor’s loss was upwards of £8000; the Duke of Gordon’s was over £16,000.

As to the farmers and poorer people, many were absolutely ruined, for, of course, where the waters had room for expansion, they overspread the whole low country, and around Forres formed a lake covering fully twenty square miles, carrying houses, timber, crops, even the very soil, out to sea, and leaving pitiful ruin and desolation in every direction—all gardens and fine arable land being covered with gravel and boulders.

Near Elgin, the river Lossie broke all bounds, and resuming its ancient channel through the Loch of Spynie, swept away the sluices and bulwarks, which had been created at great cost to separate it from the sea, which consequently once again submerged the valuable reclaimed land, converting it into a salt marsh.

A “Flood Fund” was raised to give immediate relief to upwards of three thousand of those who were left most destitute, but in most cases the suffering and loss were irreparable. Some poor folk were rescued after they had clung for many hours to the rafters of their ruined cottages. One young woman was sitting up to her neck in water, holding in her arms the dead body of her old aunt. Various other people were drowned. So the Moray Floods hold a very distinct place in the annals of the province, and figured largely in the nursery talk of my own early days, especially such details as the flooding of the lawn at Altyre, and how my brothers had caught trout from the windows.

Although some of our relations on each side of the family have attained to threescore years and ten, very few have gone much beyond that term. A few have attained to fourscore years, and my uncle, Charles Cumming-Bruce, born in 1790, lived to the ripe age of eighty-four; but they were 51exceptional. The excellent machines entrusted to our care have generally been worked at high pressure, and consequently have worn out before their time. Certainly our race as a whole has not proved long-lived, and sometimes I marvel how so great a mark has been made in so brief a period.

Thus my beautiful mother was not forty-four when she died.

My sister, Seymour Baker-Cresswell, died at forty.

Ida (Adelaide Eliza Baker-Cresswell), died at forty-five.

Alice Jenkinson was but thirty-two.

Eleanora Grant lived to be fifty-nine and a half.

My half-sister, Jane Eliza, was fifty-two.

My sister, Constance, about twelve.

My brother, Walter, about five.

My father lived to be sixty-seven.

His eldest son, Alexander Penrose, died at fifty.

Roualeyn was only forty-six.

Henry lived to be sixty-five.

John died in Ceylon, aged thirty-nine.

Others died in their prime from accidental causes. My brother-in-law, Oswin Baker-Cresswell, who seemed to be as mighty in strength as in stature, passed away, after three days’ illness, at thirty-six, and his eldest son at forty-one. My other brother-in-law, William Baker-Cresswell, passed away in his early prime, aged about twenty-nine.

CHAPTER III The Altyre Woods—Banks of the Findhorn—Culbyn Sandhills—Covesea Caves.

I must now recall some of the leading characteristics of the beautiful surroundings of those early homes in which my father’s flourishing family of sixteen (fourteen of whom lived to man’s estate) rejoiced in their glad young lives—now all an idyll of the past.

Probably the most striking features of Altyre and the neighbouring estates are the great woods and fields dotted over with fine old trees, extending in every direction.

Nowhere are the fruits of Sir Walter Scott’s wise counsel, “Aye be stickin’ in a tree,” better exemplified than in Morayshire, where in the last two centuries the principal proprietors have done their utmost to reclothe the land, once so densely covered with primeval forest, but which was so ruthlessly cut for firewood and for building purposes, without a thought of replanting, that by the end of the sixteenth century the country was all bare.

C. F. Gordon Cumming.

ALTYRE PRIOR TO 1854.

So we are chiefly indebted for the lovely Morayshire woods of the present day to such men as the sixth Earl of 53Findlater, who planted 8000 acres in Banff and Moray with larch, Scotch fir, and ornamental trees; while Francis, Earl of Moray, who succeeded in 1767 to the family estates of Darnaway, Doune, and Donibristle, is said to have thereon planted in the two following years thirteen million trees, of which 1,500,000 were oaks. The Earls of Seafield and of Fife carried on the good work, and my father and his brother, Charles Cumming-Bruce, each planted immense tracts of waste land, which are now remunerative forests.

The latter were among the first to introduce and multiply the beautiful evergreens which we now look upon as a birthright, and can scarcely realise that about eighty years ago rhododendrons, Portugal and other laurels, laurustinus arbutus, and most of the beautiful varieties of pines and cedars, were unknown in Britain, so that these have to be reckoned among the blessings of life in the nineteenth century.

A drive of about a mile through luxuriant laurels, rhododendrons, fir, and heather brought us to the West Lodge, just beyond which flows the Findhorn, which, with its tributaries the Dorbach and the Devie, forms the loveliest group of all Highland rivers. The course of the Findhorn is singularly varied. For some distance near Altyre deep red sandstone cliffs, crowned with dark fir-trees, rise to a height of about two hundred feet from the rich brown river, the colour of which I can best describe as that of London porter—coffee scarcely supplying the full depth of tone.

Further up stream, the sandstone is abruptly replaced for many miles by crags of grey gneiss, clothed with the loveliest hanging woods—the graceful white-stemmed birch, the alder, the wild cherry, the bird-cherry, mingling with dark Scotch fir and with an undergrowth of heather and bracken—a scene exquisitely varied at all seasons, but in autumn combining to form for the wondrous brown waters a setting of orange and gold, crimson, scarlet, dark green, purple and sienna.

54As it nears the sea, this beautiful and romantic river totally changes its character, and those who know it only from crossing the railway bridge near Forres see but a wide, often shallow, stream flowing seawards through level sands, very soon to form the placid Findhorn Bay, guarded from the full force of the tide by a bar of its own creation.

From this estuary, a belt of most singular character stretches along the sea towards Nairn, an expanse two or three miles wide of arid yellow sandhills, for ever shifting and changing their form as the strong winds sweep the fine light sands, beneath which lies buried land formerly so fertile that prior to 1695 it was called the “Granary of Moray,” but now known only as the Culbyn sandhills, or, as it is spelt in an old charter, Cowbyn—and is pronounced coo.

The earliest mention thereof is the record of how, in the fifteenth century, Egidia de Moravia, heiress of Culbyn, bestowed her hand and her lands on Sir Thomas Kynnaird of that Ilk. In 1695 his descendant, Alexander, last of the Kynnairds of Culbyn, petitioned the Scottish Parliament for relief of cess and taxes, showing that the two best parts of his estates of Culbyn were quite ruined and destroyed by “an inevitable fatality, occasioned by great and vast heaps of sand which had overblown the same, so that there was not a vestige to be seen of his manor-place of Culbyn, yards, orchards, and mains thereof ... and the small remainder of his estate, which yet remained uncovered, was exposed to the like hazard, and the sand daily gaining ground thereon, where-through he was like to run the hazard of losing the whole.”

According to tradition, the waving crops were ready for harvest, when a mighty tempest arose and a strong northerly gale, and in a single night the fields lay buried beneath two feet of fine sand. Over a great part of this desolate region there is now not a trace of vegetation, but here and there are tracts dotted over with broom and whins, all nibbled by 55the countless rabbits, as if clipped by the hand of some fanciful gardener. Elsewhere the hillocks are clothed with dry bent (coarse sea-grass with long roots and fibres, which does its best to bind the loose sand).^[18]

Sometimes the wind lays bare the once arable land, now so hopelessly buried, and reveals the ridges and furrows formerly carefully ploughed. In the early part of this century the tops of apple-trees, and even the chimneys of the old mansion-house have been seen, but a few hours later all trace of them had vanished. In some places you come on tracts of soil and shingle rounded and polished as if by the action of water, but exactly recalling patches of the Egyptian desert, where beds of pebbles, polished by the ceaseless friction of wind and sand, reflect the sunlight like countless rounded mirrors.

In my childhood this dreary region was haunted by innumerable foxes, which here reared their young undisturbed, finding abundant food in the natural rabbit-warren, varied by clever captures of wild geese and ducks, whose slaughter called down no vengeance from any farmer. For further to the west lay a swampy marsh, interspersed with little lochs, bordered with rank grass and water-weeds, and these were the favourite feeding-grounds of wild-fowl of all sorts, including rare varieties of wild-duck, flocks of geese, and of wild swans.

But now all has been drained to such an extent that the strong, deep heather and sedgy marshes are replaced by plantations of fir-trees and fields of oats, and even the sandhills have been in a great measure conquered and reclaimed.

I know no corner of the world where the face of the earth has undergone so many remarkable changes within historic times as along the shores of the Moray Firth, between the mouths of the rivers Nairn and Spey.

Following the coast eastward from the mouth of the Findhorn, it is said that where the bright sands now lie crisp 56and firm, there were formerly wide reaches of alluvial mud, rich in oysters, and further, along the now treeless expanse towards Burghead, it is certain that there formerly stretched a great forest which supplied the Danes with timber for their shipbuilding, when early in the eleventh century they occupied Burghead.

But the strangest of all these changes were those which successively transformed the beautiful loch of Spynie, near Elgin, from an arm of the sea into a great fresh-water lake, and finally into rich pastures and corn-fields, and all these changes have occurred since the Bishops of Moray built their stately palace overlooking the fisher’s village—a palace which for centuries has been left desolate on the shore of a half-drained inland loch.^[19]

Dearer, if possible, than even the fragrant Altyre woods, was the breath of old ocean and the great green waves, the memory of which so often comes back to me, now that I seem destined to end my days in the very centre of Scotland. And blending with the invigorating scent of the seaweed-covered rocks was the honied perfume of white clover and fields of beans in blossom. Truly a breath of heaven.

My earliest memories of the sea are all associated with the “Covesea Caves,” which honeycomb the richly tinted sandstone crags, extending for about three miles along the shores of the Moray Firth, forming the grand natural bulwark of my father’s sea-board estate of Gordonstoun—one of the oldest homes of the Gordons, as Altyre was of the Comyns.

Strange to say, this fine mass of sandstone crops up quite suddenly in the middle of a wide expanse of level sands, which stretch to east and west. As seen at low tide on a sunny day, these crags afford a feast of colour which, so far as my pretty wide experience goes, is unsurpassed in any corner of the world. It ranges from deep Venetian red and brown madder shot with the gleaming green of wet weed 57within some of the great gloomy caves, to the most vivid sienna and cadmium glowing in the sunlight, and varied with pearly grey, all harmonised by grey, green, and golden lichens. At the base of the crags lie masses of dark brown rock, fringed with yellow and olive sea-weed, with here and there stretches of pale sandhills, partly covered with coarse bent, partly with rich turf, which in the springtime is starred with delicate primroses, and these in due season are replaced by tall spikes of rosy foxglove.

Smooth, yellow sands meet the clear blue and green waters, and with the blue, distant hills seen beyond the Moray and Cromarty Firths, and the soft blue sky overhead (varied by dark leaden-grey or dazzlingly white clouds) combine, even in the prosaic light of noonday, to produce effects of colour which must rejoice all true lovers of beautiful nature. Doubtless these unconsciously influenced our childish minds, when those cave-pierced crags formed the delightful playground of a happy band of brothers and sisters in the joyful years of our early youth.

Great was our delight when, in the long summer days, the family forsook for a while the lovely woods and gardens of Altyre, and drove sixteen miles in the direction of Elgin to the delightfully quaint old house of Gordonstoun, which contains within itself stone-and-lime suggestions of the successive homes of some twenty generations.

The site of the original house was selected when it was well not to attract the attention of Danes or Norsemen, so it lies low, concealed from the sea by rising ground, gradually sloping upwards for a mile, then descends to the summit of the aforesaid precipitous crags. These extend from the small fishing town of Hopeman (which now rejoices in a branch railway connecting it with Burghead and Elgin) as far as the little village of Covesea, or the Coissey as it is called in the old records.^[20] At this point the cliffs and 58seaweed-covered rocks end abruptly, or rather, the cliffs leave the shore and form a great horse-shoe enclosing a wilderness of bent-covered sandhills—a Paradise for rabbits—curving round a beautiful bay of fine white sands, which form a most delightful shore for young bathers.

Many a gleesome hour did we spend there in happy days long, long ago, rejoicing in the brine-laden breezes. With childish awe we looked to the Beacon which at high tide seemed to rise from the waters off the further end of the bay, and which marked the treacherous Black Skerries, so dangerous to shipping until a tall lighthouse was erected on a solitary cliff rising from the sandhills just opposite the Skerries, and now its ruby and diamond flashes gleam far over the Firth to warn seamen against venturing too near.

Naturally our never-ending pleasure centred in the caves. Some are always accessible in every stage of the tide, others can only be reached when the receding waters suffer us to pass certain headlands; and to be hemmed in by the tide at certain points involves a good many hours’ detention, though happily no risk of drowning. Indeed in most of the little bays a tolerably expert scrambler can contrive to gain the summit by carefully following natural fissures, several of which have now been artificially improved, so as to afford secure foothold. One of those is known as “the lummie” or chimney, suggesting a very steep and narrow way. Many long years ago, my father was here held captive by the tide; and a flight of roughly hewn steps, cunningly zig-zagged up the face of the cliff, show how he thenceforth secured access to the shore he so dearly loved.

C. F. Gordon Cumming.

THE BATHING-PLACE, COVESEA.

Many a time have I scrambled up and down it, but it was not till very recently that I had to prove its true value 59in the hour of need. Of course, in order to enjoy a leisurely walk, especially if sketching is the order of the day, it is wise to secure an outgoing tide, and so avoid the risk of unpleasant adventures. By neglecting this precaution, or rather by rashly assuming from the appearance of the seaweed-covered rocks that the tide was receding, I narrowly escaped being held prisoner for a most inconvenient spell.

Nothing doubting, I made my way to perhaps the only bay from which at high water there is positively no means of escape, and, climbing a sandy hillock, entered a cave known as “the Sculpture Cave,” by reason of certain rude carvings on its rocky walls, and was soon deeply engrossed in securing drawings of these.

My sketching-materials being somewhat bulky, I was happily escorted by a trusty helper, who, after duly inspecting the interior of the cave, chanced to look out, and exclaimed in dismay “The tide is coming in fast!” It was too true, and though we were in no danger, I knew that anxiety would be caused should we not return for so many hours. Without a moment’s delay, after hastily packing the sketches, we ran along the sandy bay to the projecting crag which closed it in on the side nearest Covesea.

That crag has been hollowed by the ceaseless action of the waves, and forms one of the finest caves, with three great arches, two of which face the sea. We entered by the third, hoping to be able to pass out by one of the others, but though we quickly took off our boots and stockings, hoping to be able to wade, we were too late—already the water was far too deep. I thought we were effectually trapped, when, to my joy, my companion observed a fourth, very low, opening on the further side, which neither he nor I ever remembered having noticed before. By stooping very low, we found we could just make our way along the little passage, and were soon safe beyond that crag. But we had still a considerable distance to scramble over the slippery 60rocks, sometimes above our knees in water, ere reaching “the lummie,” and right thankfully we climbed that steep rock-stair, and found ourselves safe on the summit, where we could rest a while on banks of heather and crowberry.

Thence, an hour later, I watched great crested waves breaking on the shore, while the rocks along which we made our way were more than six feet under water. Beyond the successive distances of wave-worn cliff lay the headlands of Hopeman and Burghead, whence the fleet of herring boats were starting for their night of hard toil. And far in the distance Ben Wyvis rose blue above the two Sutors which form the entrance to Cromarty Bay. Concerning these, there is a legend to the effect that in days of old, a sutor, or cobbler, sat on each headland, and as they had only one awl between them, they skilfully threw it backwards and forwards across the Firth.

Very charming is the walk all along the top of the cliffs, peering down into their dark recesses or watching the endless changes of light and colour on the wide ocean, while now and again resting on the brow of some specially attractive crag. These in springtime are rosy with delicate sea-pinks nestling among grey lichens, and in autumn they glow with tufts of rich purple heather, contrasting with the vivid green of the luxuriant crowberry with its little, hard, glossy black berries, the search for which wiles away many a lonely hour for the laddies who herd the nimble black-faced sheep.

A stranger needs to walk warily, for here and there deep narrow chasms are partly hidden by the close growth of plants; and it would be easy to slip into one of these as into an upright tomb, where only after many days some herd-lad might discover the too venturesome wanderer.

In some places the rocks are strangely indented with deep, water-worn holes, only divided from each other by sharp ridges, very unpleasant to the foot. Each hollow is a 61little cistern where the falling spray or rain collects as in a cup. Some of the rocks on the sea-level are literally like a gigantic honeycomb, whose cells are pot-holes, each large enough to contain a big cannon-ball, or to do serious damage to the unwary walker whose foot slips on that unattractive surface.

The higher ledges of this singularly perforated rock are closely covered with grey and bright yellow lichens, and gold or brown mosses and green ferns nestle in every crevice.

Another curious feature of this coast is its changeableness. Not only is there the variety of finding some bays of the finest shell-strewn sands, while perhaps the very next turning brings us to an expanse of great water-worn boulders, exhausting to clamber over, but these rock ridges, which seem to be the accumulation of ages, are really subject to ceaseless change with every wintry storm. Sometimes they are so piled up as to render the shore almost impassable, and perhaps by the following spring the sportive waves have rolled them all back to the ocean depths.

What days of unclouded happiness those shores recall! Days when the finding of a tiny scarlet shell was a well-spring of delight; or when, each provided with a rusty old sickle and a creel,^[21] we followed the receding tide to search for such crabs as might be lurking in the rock pools or ledges, concealed by the heavy fringe of tangle. It mattered little that our treasures were rarely appreciated by our elders. The excitement of capturing them with skill, so as to avoid a nip of their claws, lent them a flavour far excelling that of the finest “partans” brought by old Meg the fishwife, from rocks far beyond our reach.

These expeditions were not lacking a spice of possible adventure, for the sea-weed made the rocks exceedingly 62slippery, and it was often difficult to avoid sliding into the deep rock pools, many of which, though not larger than a bath, would have taken us far overhead.

Well do I remember our mischievous glee on one occasion when a very romantic lady, much addicted to writing poetry, but also guilty of the folly of wearing a good deal of rouge, persuaded my father to escort her one lovely summer evening on to the rocks, when, just as she was exclaiming on the beauty of one of these pools fringed with golden weed, her foot slipped, and she disappeared headforemost! When she emerged, we all contributed dry handkerchiefs as towels, and did our best to wring her clothes, which nevertheless clung heavily and chill, making the walk home slow and exhausting. But the point of the story lay in the unlucky fact that though the lady’s first care was to dry her face, she only made matters worse, for the wet paint merely changed its position, and leaving her cheeks of an unwonted pallor, settled in a rich glow on her very prominent nose; an incident which was not likely to escape keen-eyed young folk, though the lady herself remained in happy ignorance thereof.

C. F. Gordon Cumming.

HELL’S HOLE, HOPEMAN.

Descending by the steep cart-road from Covesea village to the caves, the first point of interest is the Dripping Well, where the villagers leave their tin pails standing all day to collect the clear, sparkling water which drips drop by drop from an overhanging rock. Here, too, is a rude cistern hollowed out of one great stone, which supplies impatient folk. A well just above the bathing bay yields their regular supply, entailing many a weary travel up that steep, grassy hill. Never was there greater need to obey the good old counsel, “Set a stout heart to a stey brae,” words of wisdom which come to our aid at many a stiff turn of life. The dripping-well which supplies such excellent drinking-water is a good deal further from the village, but people in those parts do not expect to find everything ready to their hand, and the luxury of obtaining 63hot and cold water in abundance, with no further trouble than turning a tap, would seem to them a fairy-tale.

That steep cart-road over the well-worn rock is suggestive of many a toilsome journey for weary horses and men, for by it the loads of heavy, wet sea-weed cast up by the waves are brought to the fields above—ocean’s gift of precious salts for fertilising the land. Following its track, we enter a fine, large cave, which, in common with several others, affords such secure shelter from wind and storm, that it is a favourite camp for certain gipsies, or, as they are here called, cairds or tinkers—a quiet, inoffensive tribe, who from time immemorial have frequented these shores, coming and going as fancy dictates, and selecting their cave for the time being, facing east or west, with due regard to the prevailing wind.

Their favourite haunt, however, is the fine cave (a marvel of vivid orange colouring) commonly called “Hell’s Hole,” an obnoxious name, said to be a corruption of Hele’s Hale, which in some old Norse dialect signified the head of the harbour. At that time an inlet of the sea extended some distance inland where now all is green grass—one of the many strange topographical changes all along this coast. The harbour now lies considerably to the west, at the town of Hopeman. Hell’s Hole lies at the westmost extremity of the wave-worn cliffs.

To these wandering folk, the cave with the unpleasant name possesses all the charm of a loved home—an attraction which the most comfortable house made with hands fails to exert. Well sheltered from all save a western wind, they here find good grazing for their horses, good water for man and beast, and plenty of dry whins within easy reach, wherewith to kindle a blazing fire in the mouth of the cave. So here men, women, and children assemble; they make their tin pails, cook, sleep, smoke, drink, live and love or fight, as the case may be. Here they are born, and here some return to die, but not many. The country folk say, “There’s a deal 64of killing in a caird,” and a dead caird is rarer than the proverbial dead donkey. Do you remember that very characteristic Scottish song, “Donald Caird’s come again”? But he was a thief and a skilful poacher on moor and loch, and these tinkers are noted for honesty.

Some of them have some knowledge of the medicinal properties of herbs, and much prefer their own remedies to ours. We spoke one day to a poor woman who was on the eve of her confinement, and was suffering acutely from a running sore. She bemoaned her helpless condition, which prevented her from going to a certain wood to search for a plant, which she said would certainly heal the sore, but there was no use in sending the bairns to gather it, as they would never be able to find it, so she must e’en go on using the doctor’s stuff.

Many efforts have been made to induce the most promising of the younger generation to settle down to regular work, but the gipsy blood always asserts itself, and the yearning for the old wandering life returns. No house made by human hands can ever have the same charm of old association as their cave-dwellings.

We had a very pathetic instance of this craving when the aged mother of the tribe, known to all the country as “Old Mary,” became so very ill that she submitted to be taken to the excellent county hospital for treatment. There she received such care and comfort as in all her life she could never have dreamt of, but she pined, and was so miserable, that at last, yielding to her entreaties, her people brought a cart with straw, and therein carried her to the beloved cave which had been her birthplace, that she might die in peace within sound of the waves. They laid her on a layer of straw beside a crackling fire of whins, the very smoke of which was fragrant to the dying woman, and there she lingered for a while, rejoicing in her escape from the comfortable hospital.

Some of the far-receding caves are haunted by solemn, 65black cormorants—“scarts” the country folk call them—which dart out with angry cries, as if resenting our intrusion, and blue rock-pigeons also find here a congenial home. It is strange how creatures adapt themselves to circumstances. A little further along the coast, among the Culbyn sandhills, where no crags or caves are available, these rock-pigeons occasionally startle the ferreters, by darting out from the rabbit burrows, in which they have made their nest.

Among the charms of many of these caves are the numerous water-worn openings—circular windows—which tempt one to much scrambling in order to peep out at the sea from new angles, and to catch new glimpses of richly-coloured crag. Passing through the first cave of which I spoke, and out by another entrance, we find ourselves at the foot of a great solitary rock-mass, in form something like a gigantic body on two thick legs. This in our childhood was called the Gull’s Castle, and a somewhat similar mass further on was known as the Tailors’ Castle; each have evidently once formed part of great caves which have fallen in, and their fragments have been dispersed by the waves, or buried beneath the sand.

Overlooking the Tailors’ Castle, and well raised above the sea, is a small cave, in the centre of which a rudely squared stone receives the water which slowly filters through the sandstone roof. In the cliff beyond is a large cave somewhat difficult of access, the approach being over huge, smooth boulders. Within, the deep-red colour is relieved by glistening, green mosses. In this cave lived and died a solitary tinker, who made a living by weaving bass matting from the coarse bent which grows on the sandhills. Here, too, the body of a man drowned on the Skelligs was found wedged into a cleft, where it had been carried by the waves. Many a peaceful hour have I there spent, watching the slow and silent influx of the tide, as it quietly stole onwards over weedy rock and gleaming sand, till it bathed the base of 66the tall “Castle,” and the pile of fallen rock and shingle below the cave.

Behind the Gull’s Castle, grassy hillocks nestle round the base of an amphitheatre of rock, and, well-concealed by these, a low artificially-squared entrance marks a small cave known as Sir Robert’s stable—a well-founded tradition being that here in the days of Jacobite trouble, Sir Robert Gordon was in the habit of concealing his best horses, so that when “the Rebels” came to Gordonstoun to requisition his steeds, they found only common cart horses.

The stable cave is now merely a dark, damp place, very different from most of the neighbouring breezy caves, daily washed by the green waves; but it was then probably in better order. The front was artificially built up, so as to leave only a small doorway with a peep-hole above the door, from which watchers within could guard the approach in times of danger—only the hinges of the old door now remain. According to tradition there was in those days an underground passage thence all the way to Gordonstoun House—a full mile—but if such ever existed, all trace of it has long since become impassable.

It was not for live stock only that the cave afforded a secure hiding-place. In those days when smuggling was so much in fashion, the facilities offered by such a shore as this were not likely to be overlooked. Consequently even among old family documents of some of the neighbouring gentry, letters have been found proving very plainly how many lovers of good wine, brandy, and tobacco, profited by all chances of landing their share of cargoes which had contrived to elude the obnoxious excise duties.

Among the old papers of Sir Archibald Dunbar of Duffus was found the following tell-tale letter to one of his ancestors, written in 1710 by William Sutherland, merchant in Elgin:—

“I have ventured to order Skipper Watt, how soon it pleases God he comes to the Firth, to call at Caussie, and cruise betwixt that and 67Burgh-head until you order boats to waite him. He is to give the half of what I have of the same sort with his last cargo, to any having your order. Its not amiss you secure one boat at Caussie as well as the burgh boats. The signall he makes will be, all sails furled, except his main topsaile, and the boats you order to him are to lower their saile when within muskett shott, and then hoist it again; this, least he should be surprised with catch-poles. He is to write you before he sails from Bordeaux, per Elgin post.”

In later years, smuggling here and in other parts of the Moray Firth seems to have increased to so serious an extent as to call for special inquiry, and a letter from the Lord President of the Court of Session was read at a meeting of the Justices in Elgin, wherein he expressed his hope that no gentlemen (whatever their connection with, or tenderness for the unhappy smuggler might be) will be so impudently profligate as to attempt to screen these cutthroats.

“Such an attempt” he says, “requires more than an ordinary degree of courage and wickedness; the guilty person cannot hope to remain unknown; the Minutes of the Court must record his infamy, nor is it to be expected by him that the character which by such practices he may purchase shall remain confined to his own country; the common post can, by an Extract of the Minutes, convey his fame to Edinburgh, from whence it may be communicated to the whole kingdom.”... “This mean, shameful course to destruction must be prevented, or our unhappy country must be undone. Make my compliment to every one who can lay his hand on his heart and say he does not deserve the title of Rascal, and believe me to be, etc.

That turning king’s evidence might have involved rascality of a more contemptible form does not seem to have occurred to this zealous upholder of the law. Doubtless such illicit stores may in some cases have had to be hidden for a considerable period ere a safe opportunity arose for transporting them to their destination, and in some cases it may have been necessary to trust largely to the honour of the country folk, who might very well have discovered and appropriated the hid treasure.

68Hence, in the interior of the “Sculpture Cave,” which stands well above high-water mark, thus forming a very secure storehouse, there is inscribed on the rock in large, well-cut letters, this ban—

with the initials JH, the date Mar. 1655 or 1677, and a peculiar ornamental scroll. Further in the interior, the same date and scroll is repeated with the well-cut name JHorn.. Curiously enough, I find that in 1672 James Horne was minister of Elgin. Was it he who here reminded his outlying flock of the sin of theft, and had he any personal interest in the safety of hidden treasure?

That cave, which is entered by a double mouth, seeming as though it must have been artificially squared, has been a favourite haunt of many successive generations, and is the only one on which they have left their rude designs. Unfortunately, the rock is of so friable a character that it crumbles at a touch, and the marvel is that any of its very primitive sculptures should still be discernible, more especially as with lamentably bad taste many visitors have proved their own hopeless vulgarity by deeply cutting their own or their friend’s name or initials, generally in letters so large, that it now requires careful observation to trace out the fainter carvings so interesting to the archæologist.

The last time I visited the cave, I took the trouble to note the most offensively conspicuous of these names, with the intention of publishing them for public indignation; but fortunately for the culprits, a sudden gust of wind carried away my paper while I was subsequently sketching from the summit of the crags.

C. F. Gordon Cumming.

THE SCULPTURE CAVE, COVESEA.

Looking to Hopeman, Burghead, Cromarty, and Ben Wyvis.

(How truly witty was the ironic courtesy of the Dowager Duchess of Athol, who, finding it impossible to prevent visitors to her lovely grounds at Dunkeld from scribbling 69their names on her favourite summerhouse and elsewhere, had an attractive white board put up, with a notice that the Duchess would be much obliged if visitors would kindly write their names on this board—a request which was generally complied with, under the impression that it was complimentary. Of course the board was washed clean by next morning, and the woodwork of the summerhouse was spared.)

Of the inscriptions, one bears date 1370, but the designs are undoubtedly prehistoric. Such are the fish fourteen inches long, and the curious symbol which, for want of a better name, is, I believe, known to antiquarians as “the spectacles.” Another is “the looking-glass,” which figures in so many stories of divination in the old folklore.

Others seem to be simply the rude symbols of three fishes, double crescents, and curiously blended double triangles, also crosses and an hour-glass, all of which have their counterpart among the rude sculptures in the caves of Fifeshire. One, however, is, I believe, peculiar to this cave, namely two figures within a shrine, the whole fifteen inches high. It has become much less distinct within my own memory.

Strange indeed are those traces, faint but unmistakable, of the handiwork of these long-forgotten people. Yet lingering survivals from heathen times are scarcely yet wholly extinct among us; and the neighbouring fishing towns of Hopeman and Burghead have happily retained some picturesque customs directly linking this prosaic nineteenth century with those ancient days when fire-worship and well-worship here prevailed.

Thus at Burghead on New Year’s Eve, reckoned according to old style, the old ceremony of Burning the Clavie is still kept up. The fisher-folk and seamen assemble, as they have done for unknown centuries, and make a portable bonfire, formed of half an old tar-barrel filled with firewood, and securely attached to a long handle. Though a nail 70may now be used for this purpose, it may on no account be struck with an iron tool, but is driven in with a stone. Nor may a modern lucifer match be used to ignite it, but a burning peat, and when once ablaze, the strongest man present is told off to the honour of carrying the Clavie round the old part of the town, regardless of the streams of boiling tar, which of course trickle all down his back. Should he stumble or fall, the omen would be held unlucky indeed both to the town and to himself.

When the first man is tired out, a second succeeds him in this post of honour and perhaps a third, and a fourth, till the circuit of the town is completed. Formerly the vessels in harbour were likewise thus safeguarded for the year. Thus is a direct link with the ancient Yule Fire Festival still kept up.

At Hopeman, the “Holy Well” (though now only called the Brae-mou Well) continued till very recently to be a favourite gathering-place on May morning and on Hallowe’en (the spring and autumn festivals), for it was firmly believed that at those times the well had healing powers for those who reverently drank its waters, washed therein (in a very modified sense), and left a small gift for the spirit of the well.

A little further inland, on my father’s estate of Dallas, it is an undoubted fact that so recently as about sixty years ago, one of the farmers having a murrain in his cattle, actually sacrificed one of his oxen as a burnt-offering to the offended spirit of the disease.

Speaking of cattle, I must record a good story told us by the Rev. Richard Rose, D.D., who in his later years was minister of Drainie (near Gordonstoun), namely, that when he was appointed to Dallas as his first charge, he knew an old man who remembered a celebrated “cattle-lifter,” who was considered by his neighbours to be a very pious man, because, before setting out on a cattle-lifting raid in the laich or low county of Moray, he laid his blue bonnet on 71the ground, knelt down on it, and prayed that the Almighty would keep him from robbing the fatherless and the widow, and would guide him to the flocks of rich folk, such as Duff o’ Dipple!^[22]

CHAPTER IV Gordonstoun—A Glorious Playground—The Great Picture—The Dungeons—The Charter Room—Old Letters—Ecclesiastical Censures—Successive Lairds—Window-tax.

And now to turn to that beloved old grey home which Cosmo Innes described as “the ghostly old palace of Gordonstoun.” Ghostly it well might be, could its very numerous builders appear to give us an inkling of all the changes it has undergone since those remote days ere drainage was thought of, and its site, known as the Bog of Plewlands, was a low, unhealthy swamp, but one which for security and concealment from the sea, owing to the rising ground, aided by belts of oak and fir wood, was selected by the Marquis of Huntly as a desirable site on which to build a strong keep. It was part of the marsh which bordered the Loch of Spynie, and which in rainy seasons was invariably flooded, so that the vaulted chambers of the lower story were at any time liable to inundation.

Marshland seems to have been greatly in favour in those troublous times, for the site of old Gordon Castle, near Fochabers, now richly cultivated land, was anciently called “The Bog of Gight,” and amongst the miscellaneous papers of Gordonstoun are numerous letters to both Cummings and Gordons from the old Dukes of Gordon, simply dated from “the Bog.”

C. F. Gordon Cumming.

GORDONSTOUN PRIOR TO 1900.

With the exception of the vaulted base, little, if any, of that ancient stronghold now remains, for each successive generation has altered and added to it. At one time it resembled an old French castle, and must have been a very stately house, embosomed in noble old trees. One of its owners, having been educated in Holland, surrounded it 73with straight terraces, avenues, and canals. Then the Sir Robert Gordon generally known as “the Wizard,” pulled down the middle of the old house and built the present centre, leaving the wings as they were, with turrets at the corners of the steep roof of grey stone slabs.

That describes the exterior of the house as it continued till within the last few years, when, alas! in the course of extensive internal improvements, the venerable slabs were ruthlessly broken by careless workmen, and replaced by modern slates. The long drawing-room, measuring 60 feet by 22, has seven tall windows, each 9 feet 6 in. by 4 feet, and the dining-room, 44 by 24 feet, has four tall windows. Not content with very heavy wooden frames, each of these upstairs windows was formerly protected by heavy iron staunchions. Of course all those on the ground floor were likewise guarded, and a most quaintly varied and irregular series they are.

At least one large window, still partially built up, recalls the lamentable tax on windows, which compelled so many people of small means to shut out the light of heaven. To this day in many old houses, dummy windows, half or wholly built up, are an abiding protest against that unwise legislation, finally repealed only in 1851.

Just outside the house, on one side, are two old buildings in which we delighted. One was a tall, conical white dove-cot (somewhat resembling the dove-cots of Egypt), thirty feet in height, and constructed to contain the nests of a multitude of pigeons.

The other was known as the Round Square—a title which sounds paradoxical till you remember that all farm offices are called “the Square,” and the peculiarity of these, which were used as stables, with an upper story of rooms, was that they form a perfect circle, enclosing about an acre of ground, which is laid out in a regularly concave pavement, in the very centre of which a round stone lies in a hollow on the top of a low pillar. When this stone is dropped 74into the hollow, the thud seems to run right round the circle, forming a perfect echo.

Within the house, in and under the older parts, most dreary dungeons told not only of sorrowful prisoners of war, but also of barbarously harsh treatment of tenants and other neighbours.

And in the more modern centre, curiously constructed secret stairs and hiding-places are abiding memorials of turbulent times, when kinsfolk of the laird himself had to seek sanctuary within the walls of the great house. Thus in my father’s dressing-room, two planks in the floor could be lifted and a flight of narrow stone steps led to a hiding-place ventilated only by a small eye-light opening into one of the courts. In a room occupied by one of my brothers, a door like a cupboard concealed a stone stair leading to one of the little turrets, and to the roof. In another room is an ordinary-looking cupboard, but beneath its lower shelf is a spring-bolt, by touching which the back of the press opens, and reveals a dark recess in which six or eight people can stand.

The most curious of all these hiding-places was entered from the ground floor of the west wing, where a movable stone in the pavement could be lifted and a refugee (or prisoner) descended to a long, narrow cell in the thickness of the foundation wall. This led into a large space wherein fifty or sixty people could hide.

But the real horror centred round the gruesome dungeons, especially one called the “Water Dungeon,” in which, so recently as 1880, and perhaps later, water has risen to the depth of a couple of feet, but which in the undrained days must often have filled to the level of the side-planks on which alone poor prisoners could rest. I remember the heavy iron gate of one dungeon, and great locks, the key of one was ten inches long. There was also a ponderous rusty iron bar with two heavy shackles attached for legs of prisoners, and smaller ones for their wrists and neck. There were also a few old man-traps.

THE ROUND SQUARE, GORDONSTOUN.

75When my grandfather succeeded to these estates everything was in a most dilapidated condition, all movables (except the mass of old papers in the charter-room) having been removed. So my elder brothers and sisters remembered how when they came to this glorious playground, prior to 1830, the family lived in one of the side wings, for the whole centre was uninhabitable: all the joists and rafters were bare, there were no ceilings nor any plaster on the walls, no glass in any windows, so it was the nesting-home of innumerable jackdaws and pigeons. Their sport was to enter one of the great rooms very gently, that they might startle the birds and see them fly out by the hundred.

I am afraid to say how many cart-loads of birds’-nests and refuse were removed from those rooms when, in 1830, my father turned in a regiment of workmen to make the house habitable. The upper story of fine rooms over the great drawing-room had apparently never been floored, the great space under the side roofs was unsafe, so half-a-dozen carpenters were at work here for two years, besides glaziers, plasterers, plumbers, painters, etc., ere the family could move into the central rooms. The large, very handsome doors can scarcely have been of local manufacture; they were probably imported from Italy, as were the many beautiful cabinets and other furniture, which so quickly transformed the long-neglected house into a home—a home which has ever since been accumulating treasures from all ends of the earth, trophies of the chase, savage ornaments, pictures, etc.

By far the most remarkable picture in the great drawing-room is a very large one by Gavin Hamilton of “Andromache bewailing the death of Hector,” while Helen of Troy stands at the foot of the bier in pitying sympathy. The beautiful Duchess of Hamilton (afterwards Duchess of Argyll, née Elizabeth Gunning) stood for Helen; and strange to say, that picture came into the market and was sold at Christie’s Auction Rooms, where my grandfather, Sir Alexander, 76bought it, allowing it to remain in London for a while on exhibition, and then bringing it to Forres House, where it remained till Gordonstoun was renovated. He little dreamt that in securing the portrait of the stately “Helen” he was buying a family picture which would prove of such interest to all of us, her descendants.

Even the regiment of workmen could not rout all invaders. Successive swarms of bees had established themselves so securely in the high pitched roof of the wings that it was impossible to dislodge them without having recourse to smoke which was deemed unsafe, so the bees continued in possession. They were, however, dislodged in the recent extensive internal alterations, which included turning the waste space within the high roofs into a series of excellent sleeping-rooms.

Heretofore that space was one of our favourite playgrounds. Stowed away in a dark corner of one of these ghostly, gloomy roof-rooms (I cannot call them attics, seeing they each ran round three sides of a court), there lay an old coffin, which to our childish imagination was invested with supernatural awe, and was supposed to be associated with some dark tale of mystery. It was, however, only a shell, a piece of household furniture, ever ready to receive any inmate, during the interval between death and the manufacture of a permanent coffin. Apparently every great house was also provided with a pall for use at its funerals, as the public undertaker was only prepared to conduct the simple burial of the townsfolk.

This accounts for a letter from a bereaved widow to Sir Ludovick Gordon, dated January 1663, announcing that it has pleased the Lord to remove her husband, the Laird of Newtoune, “from this lyffe, to that eternall.” Therefore, writes the lady, “I do humbely entreat your honour for the leine of your mort-clothe; for it is mor to his credit to have it, nor the comone mort-clothe of Elgine, seing we expek sinderie of his friends to be heire.”

Emery Walker, ph. sc.

Andromache bewailing the death of Hector (the beautiful Duchess of Hamilton as Helen of Troy)

Painted by Gavin Hamilton

77This curious old letter is one of a multitude preserved in the charter-room, which is by no means the least interesting corner of the house. It is a small chamber between thick stone walls. We enter by a securely fastened door, opening off a narrow spiral stone stairway. Here were piled thousands of musty, mouldy old manuscripts, the accumulation of many generations, dating back to the reign of King David II.

The dusty shelves on which they lay heaped in the days of our childhood fairly fell to pieces from sheer old age, and have been replaced by substantial drawers of modern manufacture, wherein are stowed bundles without number; while on a hanging shelf overhead are ranged a multitude of old leathern bags, cunningly tied up with strips of leather, but all containing manuscripts, the work of many busy hands, and the expression of many an anxious thought, by eager, earnest men and women, whose very names have long since been wholly forgotten. Here are public records, letters concerning the movements of “the rebels,” and the claims of the Church; letters on the encroachments of rivers, the draining of marshes, the purchase of lands.

Here are political papers and family documents, cuttings from old newspapers, account-books, long, intricate judicial cases, memoranda of all sorts, half-written essays, carefully preserved letters, and even some scraps of poetry, couplets which, albeit deemed heavy by us their impatient descendants, were doubtless much esteemed by our ancestors.

Here are business letters from canny, close-fisted lairds, and here are feminine notes which prove the Gordon ladies to have been abundantly endowed with practical common-sense, and by no means lacking in “an eye to the main chance.” There are wills and marriage-contracts, notably the marriage-contract in French between Sir Robert Gordon and Louyse Gordon, dated 22nd February 1613. There are letters from Charles I. and II. There are permits to go and work plantations in New Jersey, and indentures of Sir 78Ludovick Gordon’s son, binding himself apprentice to Mr. Blaikwood, Edinburgh, Silk Mercer.

The fairly white paper on which they were inscribed has long since turned yellow and brown from sheer old age; the ink has faded and is well-nigh illegible, indeed in most cases only a long-practised eye, aided by powerful glasses, can decipher the crabbed, contracted old characters, with their strange and ever-varied spelling. In one charter the name of Comyn is spelt five different ways. Some are written on parchment, some in black letter.

To reduce such a mass of confusion to any sort of order long appeared an utterly hopeless undertaking, but much was done by the widow of my brother, Sir Alexander, and our cousin, Edward Dunbar-Dunbar of Sea Park, whose researches were rewarded by many a curious glimpse into the manners and customs of our forbears.^[23]

A few specimens of these papers may prove interesting. For instance, now that Lord Lovat’s Scouts have done such good work in the Transvaal, and purpose being “Ready, Aye Ready” in time to come, it is curious to read a letter from the celebrated Simon, Lord Lovat, to his kinsman, Captain George Cumming, son of the Laird of Altyre, who had written to ask his assistance in raising recruits for the Hanoverian army. Lord Lovat’s loyalty was suspected, and he had been deprived of the command of his own company of Clan Fraser, his men being drafted into other regiments. But the old peer had not openly declared for the Jacobites, so he would have helped his cousin had it been in his power.

He writes:—

“My dear Cusin,—I received with vast pleasure the honor of your very kind, polite, and oblidgeing well-writt letter, for which I give you my most sincere, humble thanks.... I am extreamly sorry and troubled that it is not in my power to serve you as I could wish ... but if it was to save my life, I could not pitch this day upon half a dozen, among all my common people, of the size that you desire, for there is no country in Scotland so drained of men of size as mine is.”

79He then alludes to his having been so unjustly deprived of his command, and of having been compelled to give up

“my Company of a hundred men of my own, who had only engaged with me, for the love they had to me as their Chief. And besides those that I was oblidged to give in to make up my Lord Crawford’s regiment, now Semple’s, there were fifty more Frasers in the other few Companys, so that in Semple’s regiment, when they went out of Scotland, they had two hundred Frasers in it, and out of the estate of Lovat and all of them pretty handsome fellows about the size that you want, and fifty of them above it, so that there is no such thing to be now seen as a man of the size that you desire, among my common people, except it be a few old married men.”

Lord Lovat, however, promises to do all in his power by bidding all his bailies and chamberlains speak to all the gentlemen’s children of the size required—

“And let them know the handsome offers you make; and it will oblidge me mightily if they engage with you; and I will give them ane obligation under my hand, to give them any tack of land that they are capable of, when they come home with their discharge.”

Considering that the writer was seventy-eight years of age, his postscript is worthy of record:—

“I beleive you will not be ill pleased to know that I have kept my health better since the beginning of Jully last, than I have done these thirty years past, and notwithstanding of this extraordinary severe storm, that I do raly beleive that the like of it was never seen in this country. I take the cold bath every day, and since I cannot go abroad, use the exercise of dancing every day with my daughter and others that are here with me, and I can dance as cleverly as I have done these ten years past.”

Two years passed by, and the active old dancer was led to execution on Tower Hill.

Here is a royal letter, “From our Court at Falkland, 10th July 1633.” It is from King Charles to James, Duke of Lennox, desiring that as Great Chamberlain of Scotland, he will “visit, or cause visit, our Wardrobe here, and make the master therof give an accompt and inventarie” thereof.

80The duke writes to his loving cousin, Sir Robert Gordon, “Vice-Chamberlain of His Majestie’s Household in the Kingdom of Scotland,” to depute him to fulfil this behest. He writes from Holyrood Palace, which he calls the “Court at the Halyrudhouse.” He informs Sir Robert that—

“owing to his necessary attendance on His Majestie’s person and His other more weighty affairs, he has not leisure for this work and accordingly deputes him as Vice-Chamberlain to visitt the said Wardrobe, and make a full and perfect Inventory of the same, including all such bedding and hangings and the like, as shall be found therein requiring the Master of the Wardrobe to sett his hand ther-untill.”

In those days there were no British colonies as the natural destination of the younger sons of great houses; it was therefore nowise remarkable that such should enter trade as the most lucrative of professions. Accordingly we here find the indentures of “George Gordoun, sone laufull to Sir Lodovick Gordoun, Knight Barronett, as prentice to Mr. Robert Blaikwood, merchand burgess of Edinburgh, whose shop is situated at the east end of the Luckenbooths, whereby George Gordoun becomes bound prenteise and servand to Mr. Blaikwood, to his airt and trade of merchandizeing, and promises to serve his master leallie and truelie, night and day, holyday and workday, in all things godlie and honest, and shall not know nor heire of his master’s skaith, but shall reveal the same to him and remedy it to his power.”

He promises never to absent himself from his master’s service without special license, but should he do so, he vows to serve him “two dayes for ilk daye’s absense efter the expyreing of thir indentors.”

Very quaint indeed are the exceedingly plain terms in which allusion is made to matters of private moral life, such as do not usually enter into business contracts; in relation to these, the young man undertakes, that if it should happen him (as God forbid) to “comitt [any breach of the seventh commandment] during the course of these ffyve 81yeirs,” he binds himself to serve his master for three years extra, “in the same estate as if he were bound prentise, Sir Ludovick Gordon being bound suertie for him!”

Mr. Blaikwood on his part binds himself faithfully, “to instruct his prenteise in all the poynts, pratiques, and ingynes of his trade of merchandizeing, as well without as within the country, and to take him once to London and once to Holland in the course of the ffyve years.”

George Gordon must have got through his term of apprenticeship satisfactorily, for we find a statement to that effect, duly signed by Mr. Blaikwood, who next undertook the care of a younger brother, Charles Gordon, who, however, could not brook the restraint of the dull little shop in the Luckenbooths, with “bed and board” provided by the worthy merchant, who found he could make nothing of the wild youth, and so cancelled his indentures, whereupon he was bound prentice to a Writer to the Signet, to learn the routine of a lawyer’s office, in the hope that he might follow in the footsteps of his successful elder brother, Sir John.

The elder brother seems to have been a promising and enterprising youth, for we very soon find him starting with his Quaker cousin, Barclay of Ury, to assist in the colonisation of New Jersey, “a tract of land in America,” which had recently been purchased by William Pen of Worminghurst, in the county of Sussex, and eleven partners. Glowing accounts of the country had been received, but settlers were required to till the ground, so in order to supply these, application was made to Government for a grant of convicts. We accordingly find a document headed, “Ane list of the hundred prisoners, in the Castle of Dunnottar and under the Parliament House to be delyvered to Scott of Pitlochry, in order to their transportation to East Jersey.”

While Sir Ludovick’s sons were serving their prenticeship at the little shop in the Luckenbooths (so strange a contrast to the immense rooms of their father’s great country house), their cousin Viscount Tarbat, son of the Earl of Sutherland, went 82into partnership with Andrew Powrie, druggist, John Dehen, glass-maker, and others, and took a lease of the new Glasshouse in North Leith, where for many years they carried on business as bottle-makers. Lord Tarbat duly remitted his bottle-making accounts to Sir Ludovick, his trustee, so we know exactly what it cost to make the bottles, and at what profit they were sold.

As a not very aristocratic resource for turning an honest penny, we may next notice an advertisement in the Edinburgh papers for October 1760, wherein Lady Murray offers for sale a quack “insect destroying” mixture, “for effectually destroying that abominable vermin called the Bugs,” which, if rightly applied, will undoubtedly cleanse this country of that noxious vermin, with the whole sediment of them. To be had by applying to Lady Murray, at her calendar-house in Weir’s Close in the Canongate, who will show the performance of the same. This secret and infallible mixture was purchased from a Jesuit for a considerable sum of money, by a gentleman of distinction when on his travels in foreign parts. It is offered for sale at seven shillings each Scotch pint. No less quantity than a mutchkin is to be sold.

Very quaint are some of the revelations of family details. Here are letters from Sir Ludovick’s third son John Gordon, who afterwards received knighthood as an eminent lawyer, but who on arriving in London, after a course of study at Utrecht, has to appeal to his father for money to buy a “soot of cloaths to carrie me home”—and signs himself, “Your sone and humble servant.”

Judging from the above, how exceedingly limited was the supply of ready money at this young man’s disposal, it is curious to find a letter from his stepmother to the young student, requesting him, ere he leaves Utrecht, to buy her a necklace of fine pearls. She adds, “Let them not be dear.” She was a widow with considerable private fortune; but, like many persons who inflict troublesome 83commissions on their friends, she omitted to supply ready money, but fears she must rest his debtor for a while. She addresses him simply as “Sir,” but signs herself, “Your affectionate Mother, Jean Stewart.”

“P.S.—If there be anie lett book set out by our Deivyns, send me a good one.”

This postscript, requesting the latest work on divinity, is a happy corrective of the hankering after the frivolities of dress. It will be observed that the lady (who was a daughter of Sir John Stewart of Ladywell) continues to sign her maiden name, which would, according to old Scots custom, be that eventually recorded on her tombstone.

Notwithstanding Dame Jean’s appreciation of theological books, the ecclesiastical powers were by no means satisfied with her husband’s laxity in church attendance. Consequently a formal remonstrance is addressed to “the Right Worshipfull Sir Ludovick Gordoune off Gordonstone,” stating that “the Synod att Elgin desire to take speciall notice of his contempt of publick worship and of his withdrawing himself from ordinances, which hath given a great scandal to the wholl land.” He is, therefore, summoned to appear at the next presbyterial meeting, and, if possible, vindicate himself.

The culprit having ignored the first summons, a second was sent to him, to which he seems to have replied with a lack of befitting reverence, for the Synod next despatched their officer to deliver to him a formal summons to appear at Inverness and there answer for his subscribing of “ane scandalous and sinfull protestatione against the Assemblie of Murray.”

As he still failed to appear, the matter was referred by the irate ecclesiastics to the Parliament assembled at Edinburgh, who inflicted on the irreligious laird a fine of 3600 pounds Scots, which was paid in the course of six months; but whether the culprit then amended his ways does not appear.

84Such fines would appear to have been a fruitful source of revenue, His Majesty’s cash-keeper being ever on the alert to issue “letters of horning” against all “withdrawers from public ordinances of religion,” and very difficult it often was to shake off the persecution of these meddlesome harpies.

Here is “the Petition of Dame Elizabeth Chrightan, Lady Douadger of Frazer, unto the Right Honourable the Lords of His Majestie’s Privie Counsell” protesting against the fine of £1833, 13s. 4d. Scots, decreed against her on this pretext, before the Sheriff of Aberdeen. The old lady represents that she was bred from her infancy under loyal and regular parents, that she herself has never been at any Conventicle, that her jointure house of Cairnbulg is three miles from any church, and that as she has neither manservants nor horses, and is herself an aged, “seiklie” person, she has not been able frequently to attend.

“But fearing that offence might be taken, she long ago took ane lodging in the toune of Frazerburgh that she might the more conveniently wait upon the public ordinances; where, ever since, she has been ane frequent and constant hearer, and in particular, upon yesterday^[24] last, did take the Sacrament, as a testificat under the Bishop of Aberdeen’s hand, heirwith produced, doeth testify. She therefore craves that their Lordships will annul the decree, founded upon groundless mistakes.”

Methinks those “good old times” cannot have been an era of unmixed joy even to the great folk, but still less to the poor, judging from the records of even this one old house.

Evidently no one was too great to be really independent of ecclesiastical censure or praise, for we find the first Sir Robert carefully preserving a testimonial from the presbytery of Elgin, bearing date A.D. 1646, setting forth that “since his residence among us, Sir Robert Gordon hath bein a main advancer off the true religion, and a great forderer 85and helpe in what concerned this present reformation; and is weill affected to the church and peace of this country, and hath yeelded full and constant obedience to all publick ordinances off the Church.”

Let us glance at the history of the successive owners of Gordonstoun as revealed by these voluminous documents.

The first Sir Robert Gordon was born A.D. 1580. He was the fourth son of Alexander, Earl of Sutherland, by Lady Jane Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Huntly. She had been previously married to James, Earl of Bothwell, and was universally allowed to have all her life been a most virtuous and excellent woman; consequently when, at the early age of twenty, she was put away by Bothwell to make way for his marriage with Queen Mary, she was wooed and won by the Earl of Sutherland, by whom she had five sons and two daughters.

Bothwell’s ground for claiming to have his marriage with Lady Jane annulled was that, being within the prohibited degrees of relationship, he had never obtained a dispensation to sanction his marriage. Strange to say, Lady Jane appears to have allowed this statement to pass unchallenged, although the dispensation was actually in her own possession, and has been found amongst the Sutherland archives at Dunrobin.

She proved a careful mother, and trained her children in all goodness, though they lost their father at a very early age. Her son Robert proved to be “a youth of excellent parts” and a most accomplished scholar. He was educated at the University of St. Andrews, and was then sent to travel in France, whence he returned to London, to the Court of King James VI., with whom, “by reason of his singular endowments and remarkable affability,” he became a mighty favourite, and was appointed one of the Gentlemen of the Bed Chamber, A.D. 1606, and was endowed with a pension of two hundred pounds for life.

He likewise found favour with Charles I., who appointed 86him a member of the Privy Council and Vice-Chamberlain; and also made him premier knight baronet of the newly created order of Nova Scotia, an honour specially devised as a reward to be conferred on gentlemen of good birth who should assist in establishing a colony in that country.

In 1613, Sir Robert married Louyse, daughter of John Gordon, Dean of Salisbury and Lord of Glenluce, by whom he had a large family. The dean’s father combined the dignities of Bishop of Galloway and Archbishop of Athens. Louyse was brought up with Queen Henrietta Maria.

At the age of sixty-three, Sir Robert deemed himself entitled to devote his remaining years to the care of his own estates and his duty as tutor at law to his nephew John, Earl of Sutherland; so being heartily wearied and highly dissatisfied with the proceedings of those troublesome times, he returned to his own country, and spent the remainder of his days “in remarkable acts of benevolence.”

Travelling from London to the north of Scotland was in those days no easy matter. So great was the expense and trouble of a journey by land, especially for “a family man,” that it was deemed better to travel by sea. Being deeply attached to his widowed mother-in-law, Geneweiwe Petaw (whose skilful needlework he specially bequeathed to his “heyres male”), “he persuaded her, though far stricken in age, to accompanie him with his wyf and familie, took shipp at Gravesend 21st April and landed safely at Cowsoe the 31st of May.”

Thus the journey which we now accomplish in about fifteen hours, then took just forty days!

The old lady ended her days peacefully in her new home in the grey north; and here, at the age of eighty-three, she died and was buried; and the weather-worn stone which bears her name has recently been raised from the threshold of the old church, and placed within its shelter, where her name is also recorded on the monumental list of the principal members of the family there interred.

C. F. Gordon Cumming.

A CORNER OF THE OLD ROOF, GORDONSTOUN.

87Judiciously profiting by the difficulties of some of his neighbours, Sir Robert contrived to build up for himself a very pretty estate. First he purchased the lands of Drainie from the old family of Innes; then, from Lord Huntly, he obtained the lands of Ogstoun and Plewland. Belornie, Ettles, and Salterhill were added one by one, and the estate thus built up was by Crown Charter under the Great Seal dated 20th June 1642, united into a barony, and called the Barony of Gordonstoun.

This was no empty title: it carried with it certain privileges, conferring on the holder rights of jurisdiction within his barony. He had power over life and limb with “the right of pit and gallows.”^[25] The old Gallowshill at Altyre still tells of the days when a dempster (i.e. hangman) was a necessary appendage to each great family, and when offenders were hanged for very trivial causes. The pit wherein culprits were drowned seems to have been chiefly reserved for women, as there existed some prejudice against hanging a female thief.

At Gordonstoun the neighbouring Loch of Spynie acted as the pit, and one of the trials recorded is that of Janet Grant, who being taken red-handed in the act of extensive theft, was sentenced to be carried to the said Loch, and there be drowned under water till she be dead. The sentence was duly carried out, and Janet went down “evacuating curses on her persecutors.”

Besides the care of his own property, Sir Robert was, as we have seen, guardian of the young Earl of Sutherland—no sinecure, as it required a strong hand and a clear head to protect the large interests involved from the encroachments of the Mackays, Sinclairs, and other powerful clans, with whom there were constant feuds; and we must remember that Dunrobin was by no means so easy of access in those days as it is now.

Notwithstanding these various causes of anxiety, Sir 88Robert found some leisure for peaceful pursuits, notably for the compilation of a very curious Genealogy of the Earls of Sutherland, a volume which contains many remarkable details of the times, and of the general condition of the country. It was published about a hundred and fifty years after his death, and is now very rare.

He commenced the formation of a very valuable library, which was largely increased by his grandson, the so-called Wizard, who collected all possible books on necromancy, demonology, alchemy, and other subjects.

Sir Robert died in 1656, and was succeeded by his son Sir Ludovick, who enlarged the estate by the purchase of lands in the parish of Duffus, and of the barony of Dallas from Robert Comyn of Altyre. His daughter Lucy, however, married the said Robert Comyn in 1666; and in virtue of this alliance, the lands, not only of Dallas, but the whole estate of Gordonstoun, were left to her descendants, after a lapse of a hundred and thirty years, by the last lineal baronet of the old race.

The Gordon methods of working for their own advantage did not find favour with their neighbours, and a popular rhyme classed them with the farmer’s worst enemies, namely the large beautiful yellow daisy which choked the corn, and the hooded crows which stole eggs and young chicks:—

But whatever farmers thought, the “gowd” was a joy to us. I remember when all the fields near Gordonstoun were a feast of colour by reason of the abundance of scarlet poppies, golden gowans (i.e. daisies), blue cornflowers, lilac corn-cockles, purple and yellow vetch, and many another dainty flower. But, alas! for the destruction of natural beauty all over the world before the improvements of cultivation. As in tropical lands, miles of glorious forests with their fairy-like wealth of tree-ferns and blossoming 89creepers must utterly perish to make way for the planter with his prim little tea or coffee bushes, so in our own little isle must all the lovely wild flowers which rank as weeds be exterminated ere the farmer is satisfied with his clean land. So now in those same fields you may seek till you are weary ere you can gather one handful of wild blossoms.

In the same way in many moorland districts where sheep abound, the glory of purple heather is a memory of the past in consequence of their close grazing—in fact it is only within the belt protected by fences on either side of the railway that purple bell heather and the delicate “blue bell of Scotland” flourish undisturbed, so that the railway companies have become almost the sole preservers of our native flowers.

Sir Ludovick died in 1688, and his son Sir Robert reigned in his stead. This is the famous so-called Wizard, a name and character which in those days were readily bestowed on any man of scientific tastes. Sir Robert was undoubtedly a learned man. He had travelled much in foreign lands, and is believed to have studied at one of the Italian colleges where the occult sciences were much cultivated, so he was of course credited with dabbling in astrology and necromancy.

That he was skilled in chemistry and mechanics is certain, and much of his time was devoted to the perfecting of a wonderful nautical pump, which was to prove a priceless boon to the navy. Among the papers in the old charter-room are sundry letters from the celebrated Mr. Samuel Pepys on the subject of this pump. The Lords of the Admiralty do not, however, appear to have recognised its merits, for no encouragement was ever given to the inventor, whose descendant notes in 1740, that “this machine for raising water on board ships still remains a secret with the family.”

Sir Robert seems to have kept up a scientific correspondence 90with various philosophers of the day, and probably rather encouraged the popular belief in his power as a magician, which ensured him an immunity from idle visitors. Doubtless the red glare from the furnace in his laboratory was often seen at night by passing peasants, who interpreted it in their own fashion, and so came to look on the Laird of Gordonstoun and his mysterious doings with the awe due to the supernatural.

Of a studious man who busied himself with his books during the sunny hours, strange reports might be raised, and pass uncontradicted, so it was whispered that Sir Robert eschewed the sunlight to conceal the fact that in its brightest glare he walked alone, no faithful shadow bore him company. For he was believed to have studied the black art in a school where the devil himself was master, claiming for his fee that now and again one of the students should become his own for ever.

It was said that Sir Robert, like the rest, had signed this awful compact, and when lots were cast to decide who must be the victim of the year, the lot fell on him. But the canny young Scot proved a match for Satan, for as he stood ready to secure the last student who passed out of the hall as his lawful prize, Sir Robert pointed to his shadow on the wall and bade him take that fellow. Thus was the devil cheated of his dues. And so Sir Robert was thenceforth a shadowless man; and as he rode forth in the sunlight, his horse, his hat, whip, even his spurs, cast clear shadows, but he himself had none!

The peasants firmly believed that Sir Robert’s magic art enabled him to defy all natural laws. They told how one frosty morning he had occasion to drive to some place along the coast, but being too impatient to make the usual wide circuit round the shores of the Loch of Spynie (which in his time was a broad sheet of water, extending very nearly to Gordonstoun), he determined to drive right across the loch, which was covered only with a thin film of ice, the growth 91of one night. Bidding his servant look straight before him and on no account turn his head, Sir Robert urged his four fiery steeds, and drove lightly over the ice, which bore him safely till, just as he reached the further shore—a distance of four miles—the servant, inquisitive as Lot’s wife, looked back, and beheld a great black raven perched on the back of the carriage. As he turned, the foul fiend—for it was himself in the likeness of the bird—flew off with heavy wing, and immediately the hind wheels of the carriage sank, and it needed all the force of the good team to extricate it.

Having thus proven his human servant unreliable, Sir Robert sought means to secure a better one; and the people told with bated breath how, after keeping the fires in his stone vault burning day and night for seven years, he had succeeded in creating a salamander—a fire-imp—which, dwelling in the furnace, was thenceforth ever ready to do his unrighteous work.

Finally, a terrible story was told of how on two successive nights Sir Robert and his boon companion, the parson of Duffus, were hunted by the fiend, mounted on a jet-black horse, and attended by hell dogs, and both were captured, their dead bodies being left behind.

If it seems strange that such tales could have found ready credence, we must remember that even the civil and ecclesiastical teachers had the firmest belief in witchcraft. Just a hundred years after the time of “Ill Sir Robert,” as the Wizard was generally called, the Rev. Lachlan Shaw, in writing his history of Moray, A.D. 1775, affirms that he has often been present when, four times in the year, all persons above the age of twelve years were solemnly sworn that they would practise no witchcraft, charms or spells; and we know what a multitude of poor old women were done to death under such accusations. In Scotland alone the number is estimated at fully four thousand, while in England three thousand were thus put to death during the 92sitting of the Long Parliament, and as many more soon afterwards. In Germany and Switzerland the proportion of victims was even larger.

So we need not wonder that the credulous folk believed the neighbourhood of Gordonstoun to be haunted by evil spirits, summoned by the laird, so that for many a long year it was deemed dangerous to pass the house after dark. Even the Memorial Chapel, which four years after his death was erected by his widow, Dame Elizabeth Dundas, above his grave, on the site of the ancient kirk of Ogston, was long shunned as “uncanny,” albeit consecrated in the name of St. Michael and all good angels, to whom also was dedicated St. Michael’s Well, near the house. There were also two good wells within the house, a very needful matter in the olden troublous times.

Notwithstanding his scientific pursuits, Sir Robert proved himself a very good man of business in the management of his estates, to which he made considerable additions. Moreover, his own two marriages and those of his children all tended to strengthen the family position in the north.

By the marriage of his daughter Lucy with David Scott of Scotstarvet, the Dukes of Portland, the Earls of Moray, and the late Viscount Canning all claim descent from this famous “Wizard of Gordonstoun,” who seems to have really been one of the most polished and agreeable men of his day.

The next baronet—also Sir Robert—was a mere child at the time of his father’s death. He held the estates for seventy-one years, i.e. till 1772, a long reign marked only by cruelty and oppression. He was a gloomy and austere man, and to judge from his portrait in Innes House, a man of most unprepossessing appearance. It is said that the artist entreated his unattractive sitter to look as cheerful as possible; so it is commonly said, “If this was his pleasantest expression, what must have been his frown?”

And yet the frown must have been his familiar expression, 93for his life’s history is one long story of evil. A very short experience of military life (when in his early youth he joined Lord Mar in the rebellion of 1715) sufficed to sicken him of the war, and he thenceforward lived almost entirely in his sombre, old, half-renovated house, most part of which was disused to avoid the payment of a heavy window-tax.

This much-detested laird seems to have been wholly occupied in lawsuits with his neighbours, and correspondence with lawyers, varied with tyrannous oppression of his unfortunate tenants and a good deal of smuggling. The latter was considerably facilitated by his receiving a large portion of his rents in the form of grain and other farm produce, which was shipped from Covesea or Burghead in large boats, and thence transported to Inverness, the purchasers bringing in exchange wines, spirits, clothing, groceries, and all other things needful.

But it was rumoured that oftentimes vessels not recognised by the Government contrived to deposit cargoes in the caves of Covesea, whence they were transported to Gordonstoun by a long, subterraneous tunnel. Whether the latter statement be fact or fiction, I cannot say. If such a tunnel did exist (nearly two miles in length) it has now fallen in, and even when, more than half a century back, my eldest brothers attempted to explore it with torches, by following the traditional entrance from the cave known as “Sir Robert’s Stables,” they were only able to go a very short distance. The “Stables,” however, was undoubtedly used, as a place of concealment, where horses were kept in safety during any time of special alarm, when royalists or rebels were likely to come and seize them.

The long list of Sir Robert’s interminable and vexatious litigations with his neighbours was not confined to the little lairds (some of whom he well-nigh ruined), but included such powerful names as the Duke of Gordon, William, Lord Braco, Dunbar of Duffus, and above all, Lady Elizabeth 94Sutherland, whose lands of Dunrobin, together with the earldom, were claimed by Sir Robert on the death of her father. A very lengthy and expensive suit, which was carried to the House of Lords, and in which all the great legal men of the day took an active part and keen interest, was at length decided in favour of the lady, and it was determined that the Sutherland peerage could go in the female line. After this Sir Robert, soured and impoverished, made himself more obnoxious than ever to all around him.

When this strange litigious mortal could find no other means of harassing his neighbours, he took advantage of a strong wind from the east, and proceeded to plough up a tract of worthless soil, or rather sand, in order that it might be blown all over the fields of Dunbar of Newtown, who, however, was able to repay the delicate attention with interest by ploughing a similar tract in a westerly gale. Pleasant, loving neighbours these!

This genial landlord turned his house into a regular prison, into whose horrid dungeons men and women were cast for the most trivial offences, and sometimes for no offence at all. To his wife, Dame Agnes, daughter of Sir William Maxwell of Calderwood, and the mother of his five children (a daughter and four sons) he was by no means a faithful spouse; and a skeleton, with long, fair, silken tresses, which was found by my grandfather in one of the lowest dungeons, is said to have been that of the wife of one of his poorer neighbours, who would not respond to his attentions. Another equally resolute lady was confined for many days in the horrible water-dungeon, so called because of its sympathy with the overflow from the neighbouring marches.

Thanks to a memorial presented to the Court of Session in 1740 by the friends of Alexander Leslie, tenant of the farm of Windy-hills of Gordonstoun, we have an authentic record of a few of the dark stories of cruel oppression connected with this gruesome dungeon.

As Laird of the barony of Gordonstoun, Sir Robert was 95empowered to hold courts for the trial and punishment of offenders within his barony; and this power he used most tyrannically and unscrupulously, rarely referring any case to the decision of a regular judge, but seizing whosoever displeased him, and causing them to be thrown into pits and vaults, as is shown in this memorial, which sets forth how, by Sir Robert Gordon’s constant acts and conduct in the shire of Moray, especially among his own tenants, he is a known oppressor, and “it is not possible to enumerate the whole instances of slavery he puts poor tenants to.” Seizure of horses and fines are recorded; as, for instance, when William Macgowan, sometime Sir Robert’s tenant in Dallas, was fined in forty pounds Scots for not spreading three heaps of burnt ground. We must, however, recollect that the pound Scots was only equivalent to about eightpence of our present coinage.

Those who imagine that in the good old times there was no law against trespassers may be interested by a remarkable notice of Sir Robert’s physical strength, preserved in a note from the Rev. Alexander Murray, who tells of much sickness among his parishioners, so that “severats are daily dieing, and we sometimes bury at the rate of three a-day. Sir Robert, I am told, was like to have gone to the Elysian fields, but has so far recovered as to be able to thrash John Gow’s wife, for travelling on his forbidden ground.”

But far more serious are the records of imprisonment. Thus, for some trifling offence was Alexander Lesslie, tenant of Windy-hills, dragged a prisoner to Gordonstoun and put in a prison, “which, in place of being a civil prison” (i.e. a debtors’ prison), “is a most nasty dark vault with an iron grate, having neither door, window, nor chimney, and where he lies in a cold and most miserable condition, and is in much danger of his life; for if it were in the winter time, he behoved to have a foot or two of stones for keeping him from the water, because the vault is under ground about two feet.”

96Numerous other cases are cited as “facts which can all be proven and made such use of as the lawyer thinks fit.”

“Janet Grant, servant to James Forsyth in Crosshill, was, without any reason, put into the pit of Gordonstoun, and died soon after being released.”

“James Marshall, James Robertson, and William Robertson, three skippers in Covesea, a fisher-town of Sir Robert’s, were arrested and kept in the stocks a whole night, without any just cause assigned, and had not the privilege of a house, but were confined in the open air, in a back close, in a wild and stormy night, and the said James Marshall was thereafter put another time in prison, in a most nasty pit far below ground, where he lay several days, and a short time thereafter died, and upon his deathbed declared the imprisonment to be the reason of his death, which happened about a fortnight thereafter: and James Marshall, his son, was also imprisoned without any cause, and died also, some time thereafter.”

Tradition affirms that these luckless fishers had neglected to secure some of the laird’s boats which had got adrift from their moorings—hence his wrath. But tyrannous oppression would appear to have reached its widest possibilities when we learn that a poor old woman, Margaret Collie, spouse to Alexander Grant in Muir of Drainie, was cast into Sir Robert’s noxious dungeon solely for taking the head of a ling out of the midden or dunghill, believing that it was “good for curing the gout.”

C. F. Gordon Cumming.

OLD DOVE-COT AT GORDONSTOUN.

This, by the way, is not our sole glimpse of the “folk-medicine” of this period. Among the multitudinous “varieties” of old papers, we find a prescription by the learned Dr. Clark of Edinburgh, for Sir Robert Gordon’s son, who was suffering from an obstinate cough, suggestive of the east winds of the fair city. May 20th 1739.—“Give him twice a day the juice of twenty slettars, squeezed through a muslin rag, in whey: to be continued while he has any remains of the cough.” The sletters which were to 97work this cure are those little, grey, armour-plated wood-lice which are found under old stones, and which, when alarmed, roll themselves up into hard balls.

Speaking of odd superstitions, there is one which somehow connected pigeons with death. It was said that a person lying on a bed of pigeon’s feathers could not die, and it was customary to apply living pigeons to the feet of a person in extremis. Thus Samuel Pepys speaks of a man whose “breath rattled in his throat, and they did lay pigeons at his feet, and all despair of him.” He also notes how the queen of Charles II. was so ill as to have pigeons put to her feet, and extreme unction administered. From this the birds would appear to have been applied as a last resource to prevent (or was it to facilitate?) death.

On the other hand, it was supposed that if a man wished to get rid of his wife he had only to build a pigeon-house. Sir Robert, who hated his wife, seems to have tried this remedy, for he built no less than four large dove-cots—circular towers of about thirty feet in height by sixty-three in diameter at the base, the interior being curiously fitted with hundreds of little compartments for nests. One of these still stands close to the house, and another at a very short distance. One of the four seems to have been built for the annoyance of his neighbours, being on a moorland marsh far from his own cultivated lands, but close to theirs, and especially to those of Brodie of Brodie, the Lord Lyon King of Arms. Hence we find a lawyer’s letter of remonstrance, showing that “Sir Robert’s doves in that dovecoat will be fedd by the Lyon’s tennant’s corns, especially the pease of Kinnedar.... The building of this fourth dovecoat is an iniquous burden levelled at the Lyon.”

How the aggrieved neighbours must have rejoiced when the Jacobite soldiers found their way to Gordonstoun and made a raid on the dove-cots! In the spring of 1746 Sir Robert writes: “The Rebells destroyed my pigeons at Gordonstoun by shooting the doves; and in the evening, 98when it was to be presumed the doves had entered the dovecott, they first stoped the dovecott, that the pigeons could not get out, then broke open the door, and entering, destroyed the doves within.... They also destroyed my dovecott of Bellormy.”

Whatever hope Sir Robert may have entertained of expediting the death of Dame Agnes, he failed signally, though he succeeded in making her life so miserable that she left Gordonstoun and went with two of her sons to live at Pitgaveny, beside the Loch of Spynie. Whereupon her loving spouse devised a very remarkable means to avoid being compelled to make her an allowance for aliment. As he sat down to every meal he sent a servant to Lady Gordon’s deserted apartments to summon her. Thus was Lady Gordon “called to her meals”!

When at length he was legally compelled to grant her maintenance, he assigned to her use the produce of certain outlying fields, on the verge of which (or, as the old record says, “on Lady Gordon’s extremities”) he built one of his great dove-cots with intent that the hungry birds should feed at her expense.

This much-aggrieved wife survived not only her loving spouse, but also her four sons, and even Sir Alexander Penrose Cumming of Altyre, who then succeeded to the estates, but died in 1806, SO THAT HER JOINTURE WAS PAID FOR SOME YEARS BY MY FATHER—a circumstance which certainly seems to bring us very near to all these strangely old-world doings.

In her later years she moved to a house at Lossiemouth, where she lived well into the nineteenth century, and was long remembered by the inhabitants as an energetic old lady with a gold-headed cane, living in great alarm of an invasion by the French, against whose approach she fortified herself by an expedient which was then deemed as ingenious as it was novel, namely, to crest her high garden walls with broken glass strongly embedded in lime.

99Great was the rejoicing of rich and poor when in 1772 Sir Robert died, having, as aforesaid, actually been in possession of the estate for seventy-one years.

Gladly was the accession of his eldest son hailed, and great were the hopes that he might long be spared to hold his lands in peace and prosperity. For this young Sir Robert was an accomplished and kindly man, who, having escaped from his gloomy home, had spent much of his time in travel, and now gave promise of becoming a most useful county gentleman. Several very interesting and beautifully written diaries remain to prove his keen powers of observation at home and abroad.

But, alas! his career was hardly begun when, within three years, he died, and was succeeded by his brother William, who proved well-nigh as gloomy, retired, eccentric, and litigious as his father. Shutting up the greater part of the house, he lived entirely in one wing, practising strict economy. This measure was partly the result of the heavy tax on windows, which, having been first imposed in 1695, was considerably increased in 1784, in consequence of which many of the gentry resorted to the dismal expedient of building up several of their windows, while others gave up the use of half their houses, abandoning their empty rooms to the bats and owls. Nevertheless the obnoxious tax was still further increased in 1808, nor was it till 1823 that an alleviation was procured, and the final repeal was enacted in 1851. How quickly we forget pain when past! How few of the present generation remember the struggles of the last to secure the free use of light and air!

Sir William lived till 1795, and on his deathbed, knowing that the title must pass away to the family of Gordon of Letterfourie, and determined that they should not possess the estates, he made a will, leaving all his personal property and the valuable old library^[26] to his natural son, and all his 100lands to Sir Alexander Penrose Cumming of Altyre, as the direct descendant of Lucy Gordon, the daughter of Sir Ludovick.

Knowing that such a will was liable to be disputed unless it could be proven that the writer was not only of sound mind but had also been seen “at kirk and mercat”^[27] at a subsequent date to that of his signing the document, Sir William actually left his sick-bed to show himself publicly in the parish church, and on his return home wrote a letter to the father of the minister to say how much he had been gratified by the sermon preached that morning by his son. The cunning old gentleman was well assured that his carefully dated letter would be preserved by the proud father, and could be called for should any vexatious questions arise.

So the broad lands passed into the hands of Sir Alexander Cumming, who consequently assumed the name of Gordon. But he was by no means suffered to possess the estates unchallenged, the Duchess of Portland laying claim to them in right of her descent from another Lucy Gordon, of a later generation, the daughter of Sir Robert the Wizard. This Lucy had married David Scott of Scotstarvet, and some eminent lawyers maintained that her right by inheritance was sufficiently strong to upset Sir William’s will. So a tedious lawsuit commenced which wore on through weary years at an enormous expense to all concerned. The chances of the litigants appeared so well balanced that Sir Alexander, dreading the overwhelming costs that would be entailed on him should he lose his suit, strove to make some preparation for such a contingency by wholesale cutting of the fine old timber around the house—ornamental timber, which was so doubly valuable in this monotonously flat country.

AN ATTIC WINDOW IN THE INNER COURT.

101From that evil period, it is needless to say, the estate has never recovered, so far as its appearance is concerned, though, happily, enough of the ancestral trees remain to satisfy the rooks, those most faithful adherents to old rook-traditions, whose cawing chorus and eerie flight at sunrise and sunset awaken such multitudinous memories of the past.

CHAPTER V My Eldest Sister’s Marriage—Life at Cresswell—School-days in London—First Sea Voyages—Roualeyn’s Return from South Africa.

My first recollection of country-house visiting was when I was six years old, and my father and my sister Ida took me with them to stay at Gordon Castle (the Duke of Richmond’s home near Fochabers). Curiously enough, the stately duchess, née Lady Caroline Paget, was sister-in-law to two of my mother’s sisters, Aunt Eleanor having married her brother, Lord Uxbridge, and Aunt Adelaide had married the duke’s brother, Lord Arthur Lennox. I found a congenial playfellow in “Cuckoo” (Lady Cecilia Lennox, now Lady Lucan), then a pretty child, a few months younger than myself.

That year also brought me my first experience of the honour of being a bridesmaid. The bride was my eldest sister, Anne Seymour Conway, so called after Mrs. Damur, the sculptress,^[28] who was a cousin and intimate friend of my grandmother.

Seymour was a very attractive girl—tall and graceful, with a profusion of long, dark, glossy ringlets; she was a very sweet singer, and a good artist in oils.

The bridegroom was Oswin Baker-Cresswell, eldest son of Addison Baker-Cresswell of Cresswell Hall, in Northumberland—a huge pile of solid stone, with tall Corinthian columns, about nine miles from Morpeth, and one from the sea, close to which stands the old Tower of Cresswell, which was old in the days of King John, and still bears traces of the red-hot lead which the besieged poured on the heads of the besiegers.

103Close to it were the ruins of the old manor house, which was destroyed when Mr. Cresswell resolved to erect his great modern mansion, the cost of which proved to be so enormous that no one was ever allowed to discover it.

The whole place, like the dear old squire himself, was solemn and somewhat awe-inspiring, and the sweet little mother, who was the very incarnation of gentle love, was so exceedingly delicate that at the time of her eldest son’s marriage the family were living abroad, and it was to this great empty house that the young bride was taken, from the lovely home and the large happy family—

In place of lovely woods carpeted with ferns and heather, there were only very young plantations, with miles of beautifully kept and frequently raked fine gravel paths; and even the sea-shore, to one accustomed to the variety of form and wealth of colour of our beautiful Covesea caves, was dreary and monotonous, added to which, the frequent cold sea-mists, so very common on the Northumbrian coasts, all conspired to weigh on the spirits of the young girl.

Ere long she entreated our father to let her have me, as a bit of young life in the great house; and so it came to pass that Sir William, accompanied by my second sister Ida, took me and my Swiss bonne Chérie, posting all the way from Altyre to Cresswell.

Vividly do I remember our arrival, and all the solemn, kind old servants indoors and out, who made a pet of the child who, with the adaptability of early youth, soon learnt to love everything connected with the big house, even the grim statuary. In our sitting-room at Altyre sculpture was represented by a graceful Venus, beautiful heads of Bacchus and Apollo, and family busts, and one—not beautiful, but unique—of Madame de Staël, who was a special friend of my father, each delighting in the ready wit of the other—“Les beaux esprits se rencontrent.”

104At Cresswell the place of honour in the central hall was assigned to a life-sized group of the agonised Laocoon in deadly conflict with the entwining serpents, and all round the grand staircase were casts of the grim, fractured Elgin marbles—a source of never-ending puzzlement to the child.

Then there was the delight of the crowds of pheasants, which came continually to feed out of boxes on the lawn, and of walks to the one great boulder which we called the Lion’s Head, and of climbing into the huge head-bones of the whale which had been cast up by the sea—a unique occurrence, in memory of which Mr. Cresswell built a high stone platform, on which the bones repose to the present day. Or there were large pine cones from the flourishing young pinasters to be collected, or a prowl round the headland where the great fossil tree (Lepidodendron) was found. Or else a delightful ramble along the wide yellow sands of Druridge Bay, where we picked up such a variety of shells; and the kind fishers would reserve for me many a treasure drawn up in their nets. Even the gravel walks supplied scraps of red cornelian for the young collector.

And if the great walled gardens lacked the romantic beauty of those at Altyre, they had endless delight for the child who was allowed a free hand (and much help) in cultivating her own sheltered nook. There also was a room entirely given up to canaries, which built their nests and reared their young in full view of all comers.

When winter came, what excitement there was in decking the house with holly, and helping the cook to bake “Yuledoughs,” which were wonderful figures of men and women, decorated with currants, to appear on the Christmas breakfast tables, a lass for each lad, and a lad for each lassie. As to the Yule-logs, the marvel was whence in that treeless region such great logs could have come.

But the chief wonder was the gigantic game-pie, containing a turkey, a goose, a hare, and at least a couple (boned, of course) of every other variety of fur and feather yielded 105by the poultry-yard, or supplied by the sportsman. Its pie-crust cover, which was lifted off and on bodily, was adorned with groups of game, which we deemed triumphs of artistic genius, and the weight of the whole taxed the strength of the strongest footman.

Then there were the carol-singers, and these were followed at the New Year by mummers, the latter being men and lads from the collieries fantastically dressed up. Sometimes the excitement was varied by deep snow, which necessitated digging out a road all the way to Morpeth.

In due season came the joys of Easter—of gathering golden furze blossoms, and of begging for bits of the maids’ last year’s print dresses wherein to boil the gay Pasque eggs which rejoiced all the village children, and which rolled so delightfully on the grassy slopes along the sea-board.

And a little later, all the woods were carpeted with luxuriant primroses, and oh, joy of joys! Chug-dean (the one little glen, through which flows a sluggish stream whose steep banks are clothed with natural wood) became all ablaze with colour—blue hyacinths, pink ragged-robin, primroses, anemones, fox-gloves, and orchids, and here and there a delightful nest with eggs or young birds.

Then, indeed, the child realised an earthly paradise, only occasionally marred by old Chérie’s views of what was “convenable” for “les demoiselles bien élevées,” and the despairing cry with which she was wont to check any display of too exuberant spirits, “Ah! vous êtes un Tom, et puis un romping boy!” She meant a tomboy and a romp, but she was apt to get a little mixed!

Very pleasant also was the kindly welcome of all the cottagers and the fisher-folk. The latter were never tired of telling of the courage of my sister Ida and “the Captain” (Bill Cresswell, of the 11th Hussars), and how they sailed to Coquet Island, Grace Darling’s home, and were caught in a very alarming storm. (Eventually that young couple 106followed the example of her elder sister and his elder brother, and started in double harness.)

How I loved the smell of baking in all the cottage ovens, and the peculiar intonation of the Northumbrian burr-r-r, with the elevation of the voice at the end of every sentence, so unmistakable wherever heard. After some years’ absence, how pleasant it was to return to be greeted by the hearty Anglo-Saxon, “Eh! Miss Coomins, but ye are sair-r-r waxen!” (i.e. sore waxed, very much grown—good Biblical English).

In due season there were great rejoicings because of the birth of an heir, and Baby Oswin was the very ideal of a healthy baby, and the joy of the family. It is many years since he passed away from earth, a weary, suffering man, and his grandsons are now the rising generation.

To mark his advent, my sister invited all the county neighbours to a ball, and prepared for them a wonderful surprise, in the shape of a very large and exceedingly beautiful Christmas-tree—a thing which had been heard of in German stories, but which no one had yet seen. Needless to say that all the very ornamental bonbons from Fortnum and Mason were appreciated to the full.

Up to this time Cresswell had been the only home, for it was generally supposed that the squire and the dear fragile little mother were both so old that it would be folly for the young couple to start a separate home for themselves. Now, however, my sister urged that a house should be built at Harehope, at the foot of a sunny hill, where the purple moorland and juniper-jungle suddenly ends and the rich cultivated land begins, stretching on the one side to Wooler and the Cheviot hills, and on the other to the lower range of the Fawdon hills.

Through this fertile valley a sluggish stream meanders—not beautiful, but yielding excellent trout. Dull as it is, it has a most unenviable notoriety, on account of the many sad drowning accidents it has occasioned. Some local 107lines compare its fatalities with those of the swift-flowing Tweed:—

The proposed site was happily situated in regard to neighbours, as on one side it marches with Lord Tankerville’s beautiful estate of Chillingham Castle, and the park where the celebrated wild white cattle still retain their pure blood—the only herd which can now claim to do so. In the opposite direction lies Alnwick Castle (the Duke of Northumberland’s stately home), and up the valley lies Esslington, one of Lord Ravensworth’s homes; and these families were all old friends.

After much consideration, it was decided to build a comfortable Elizabethan house, at the foot of Harehope hill, and friends and neighbours assembled to see Baby Oswin lay the foundation-stone of what very soon became a pretty home. But ere the boy was ten years of age, his father died of a rapid typhoid fever; his mother quickly followed, and the five children returned to Cresswell to be brought up by the grandparents, who lived till all save one were married or on the verge of so being.

Soon after the laying of that foundation-stone, my father married again. His bride was Jane Mackintosh of Geddes, an estate near Nairn. Her sister Kate (who was a charming musician) married Dr. Norman Macleod of the Barony Church in Glasgow. He was one of the Queen’s most trusted friends—one of the largest-hearted and clearest-headed men who ever influenced his fellows for good. He originated Good Words, the first periodical which aimed at producing attractive literature with a distinctly 108religious tone, and did more than any man of his generation to teach and exemplify true Christian liberty. It is a fact that at that time an elder of the Presbyterian Church would scarcely venture to take a stroll on Sunday, unless he could slip out by a back-door.

Great was the wrath of all the family, when on her bridal visit to Cresswell, my stepmother persuaded my father to take me back to Altyre, as a preliminary to sending me to a first-rate school near London. This was considered highly infra dig.; but I now look back to it as a wise act, very valuable to me.

So to Altyre I returned for some months of 1848, after which my brother Henry took me by stage-coach “Defiance” as far as Aberdeen, where we slept, proceeding next day by rail to London. There he drove me to Hermitage Lodge near Fulham, and left me in the care of three very kind sisters—Miss Ann, Miss Sophia, and Miss Isabella Stevens, with whom I lived for the next five years, and kept up a firm friendship till one by one they passed away from earth.

I was only about ten years old, and the fifteen other girls were all from fifteen to seventeen, but we all got on together very well; and though to the end I continued to be the youngest girl, I stayed long enough to be the oldest, and quite an authority on “old days.” Many of the girls were of good Scottish families, and some have continued my friends till death. Comparatively few now survive, and they are grandmothers! The Scottish connection was due to the fact that the eldest sister had begun life as governess at Brahan Castle, in Ross-shire, to Louisa Stewart Mackenzie, afterwards Lady Ashburton.

The fact of having always chattered French with my “bonne,” and having been otherwise carefully taught by my sister—how she toiled over the Church Catechism, Rollin’s Ancient History, Sir Walter Scott’s fascinating Tales of a Grandfather, Audubon’s gorgeous tropical birds, shell-lore; 109minuet and other steps in dancing, etc.—enabled me to take a good place, notwithstanding the deficiency of years. But one altogether new experience was being obliged on Sunday afternoon to write out all we could remember of the morning sermon: most of the girls hated this, but at that time I was happily endowed with an excellent memory, so that was no great exertion.

We had seats at two churches, one at Walham Green, where Mr. Garratt officiated; the other, Park Chapel, was a good deal further off, but Mr. Cadman, who there ministered, had a wonderful power of securing the attention and affection of his people, and to this day I can remember much of his teaching.

The annual confirmations were held by the Bishop of London (Blomfield) in the fine old Parish Church at Fulham, and were preceded by prolonged and very careful confirmation classes. The age-limit prescribed that we must be over sixteen, so my turn did not come till June 4, 1853, just before I finally left school.

Once a month we had a solemn “party-night,” when we donned our best muslin dresses and sat in the drawing-room to act audience to one another’s music. There were generally a few relations present—fathers, mothers, and sisters, but no young men. Mr. Garratt, however, occasionally brought his son, an exceedingly well-behaved boy, who consequently was admitted to our concert, and to share the supper we thought so smart.

Thirty years later, on arriving in Japan, the chaplain of Yokohama was invited to meet me, and was introduced as Mr. Garratt. A flash of memory bridged the long years, and I straightway inquired “whether he had ever heard of Walham Green?” A cordial affirmative made the next question almost superfluous, “Did he remember Hermitage Lodge?” So there we met again, and ere long, when Mrs. Foster and I set our hearts on climbing to the summit of Fujiyama, “The Holy Mount,” he volunteered to be our 110escort, and a more unselfish and helpful guardian no travellers could desire.

As a remembrance of that expedition he presented me with a beautifully modelled bronze wild-duck flying—an incense burner—which now hangs above my window, as though flying in from the river.

We were a very happy set of girls, and for the most part very diligent students, so any small act of rebellion produced quite a flutter. Such an occasion was that when an uncongenial girl had been told to stay in her room with nothing to do till she apologised for disrespect to one of the sisters. About the third day she came forth, and sought the awful interview, when she thus expressed her sentiments: “I have been told I must apologise to you, so I have come to do so. Of course I can’t make myself feel sorry, and I am not at all sorry, but all the same, I apologise.” Needless to say, this black sheep was shortly returned to the care of her relations.

This little detail was recalled to my memory by a much more recent case of insubordination, when a small boy had been punished for some offence, and a kind aunt endeavoured to improve the occasion. “Now, dear Tommy, I am sure you are sorry that you were so naughty—you are sorry, dear, are you not?” “No,” replied the impenitent youth, “I am not at all sorry. I am very glad. And if I was a little dog, and I had a little tail, I would wag it!”

I am thankful to say that I have all my life been endowed with a happy talent of adaptation to my surroundings, and so our humdrum school-garden yielded me never-failing interest. The really fine old willow-trees had been grown from cuttings from the very tree which overshadows Napoleon’s grave at St. Helena, and the pond afforded me quite as much pleasure as it did to the fat white ducks who luxuriated in frogs’ spawn. What delight it was to keep tadpoles in a bowl and watch them develop into frogs! There were newts innumerable, and water-mussels, and 111several varieties of snails in shells, and other creatures. Above all, there were lovely blue dragon-flies, and sometimes a scarlet one. Moreover, we had “Cora,” a nice young black retriever, and a cat.

A little ingenuity contrived shady nooks where we could read in peace, and the open lawn was the scene of many a joyous romp. Of course the daily formal walk, two and two, was somewhat trying, but it soon became a matter of course, and the dulness was somewhat mitigated by our being allowed to select and vary our companion.

The girls quickly discovered my habit of early rising, and that I could be relied on to waken them at any hour they wished, according to what subject they were coaching, so at night they used to hand me a paper from each room, stating at what hour each wished to be called, from 4 A.M. onwards. As we were all obliged to be in bed by ten, this was an easy matter, and I think it led some of us to a literal and very helpful interpretation of the promise, “They that seek Me early, shall find Me.”

In consequence of the distance from home, it was ordained that I was always to spend the Easter and Christmas holidays with friends or relations in the south, and only in summer was there the grand joy of a real homegoing, which had all the interest of real travel by steamer. First, there was the drive through the city to Wapping Old Stairs, and as the vessel was generally lying in midstream, we had to charter a small boat to take me and my baggage on board, and of course there were always rough men about, trying to secure custom. Once on board, I was in the centre of friends: captain and crew, stewards and stewardess, welcomed me back year after year, so that I was thoroughly at home.

At that time the old North Star was running direct from London to Inverness, calling at various points along the coast, including Burghead, which is our own seaport, near Gordonstoun. Thence fishers’ boats came out to fetch 112the cargo and passengers, and many a rough, wet tossing we had ere reaching our desired haven. Personally, I was a good sailor, and so wind and waves troubled me little, especially with the delightful prospect of two months of absolute happiness, with so many brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends, rich and poor.

If the family was at Gordonstoun, there was the daily delight of bathing in our favourite sandy bay—the very thought of it brings back the invigorating, brine-laden breeze, and the hum of the bees gathering their store of heather-honey, and then the scramble over slippery rocks in search of the black periwinkles, for which, as for every species of fish with or without shells, my father had a special weakness.

If we were at Altyre, the bathing in the clear, brown fresh-water stream was almost as fascinating, and there was the never-failing delight of wandering along the banks of the Findhorn—to say nothing of returning thence to the inexhaustible fruit-gardens; nowhere else have I ever seen such large black Prussian and white-heart cherry-trees, into whose branches we climbed, to feed with the least possible exertion, descending with purple lips and hands. But there were always abundant gooseberries at hand, and crushed “berries” remove all such stains.

(The word “berries” in this sense recalls the comment of one of the fisher-folk at Cresswell, whose experience of apples had been most uninviting, whereas the excellence of sweet gooseberries was undeniable. “I cannot think how Eve could have been tempted by a sour-r-r apple! If it had been berries I could ha’ understood it.” But you must supply the burr and the accent for yourself.)

From the gardens, of course, we returned with armsful of fragrant blossoms to renew some of the many vases. I believe my mother was the first to devise tall vases and great spray nosegays, and all her children shared her love for gathering and arranging flowers. No compliment ever 113gave me such pleasure as the comment of a young farmer to the effect that “Miss Eka would go to the fields and bring in a kirn^[29] of weeds, and make the most beautiful nosegays.”

It is strange that comparatively few people seem to realise how much the beauty of flowers depends on the lovely wealth of green in which the gem-like blossoms are set. The writer of the Benedicite appreciated it when he sang, “Oh ye green things of the earth, bless ye the Lord!” Exquisite green meadows, or beech and larch-woods in the first flush of their spring foliage, and the larches gemmed with rosy tassels. As regards household decoration, I love to bring in graceful sprays of all manner of green things—you never realise till you do this what a variety of form and tint you thus obtain.^[30] You soon learn from experience which will live and which will wither too quickly, and mercy to your housemaid will lead you to 114select ferns and grasses without seed—those tall graceful grasses which delight in shady woods; very few of the pretty field-grasses are satisfactory inmates. Such nosegays are in themselves things of beauty, but if you have a few flowers to add, each gains full value from such a setting, and a pinch of salt in each glass will help to keep them alive, not forgetting to fill up your glasses every morning, for these dear things need their breakfast quite as much as you do yourself.

Delightful as were the woods and the moors and the river banks, we did not need to go far in search of enjoyment, for on the balmy summer days what more fragrant resting-place could be desired than the pleasant lawn, beneath the cool shade of blossoming lime-trees, where busy, busy bees murmured their happiness. Sometimes we there feasted on the fruit of their toil, and surely nowhere else could bread and butter, milk and honey, have tasted so delicious.

In those days the five o’clock tea, which every one now looks upon as a necessity of life (and too often magnify into a serious extra meal, greatly to the grief of the overworked internal mill), was only stealthily creeping in as an unrecognised 115luxury. If there was a schoolroom in the house, favoured guests were invited there—otherwise ladies’-maids and valets carried a tepid cup ready made from the housekeeper’s room to their master or mistress. The first step towards toleration was bringing in a tray of large cups all full, and all sugared and creamed alike, no fads being recognised. This arrived at five, and gradually cooled till one by one came in from their walk.

When this innovation had gone on a little while, my father decided that it was a bad habit, and forbade the untempting tray. But after a brief interval it was found that he himself, as well as his family and guests, had tea taken to their own rooms, so the farce of prohibition was stopped, and little by little a simple and pleasanter tea-table was inaugurated.

My memories seem to run largely towards feeding! I must recall one more, which was the noble box of cakes and jam which a loving cook delighted in preparing to solace my return to school. Though we all shared alike in such dainties, of course the girl who brought most was deemed a general benefactress, so the kind cook invariably provided an array of the very largest “pigs” (i.e. stone-jars), which she filled with every sort of jam and jelly, and the old carpenter made an extra strong box for Miss Eka’s school stores, and indeed the pride of owning that case was a very real joy.

In 1851 there was no journey to Scotland, for the year’s attractions centred in London, and all the family spent the summer there. It was the year of the Great Crystal Palace in Hyde Park—that fairy-like dream of Prince Albert which, quite as if by magic, had been realised by Paxton and a host of assistants.

To the present generation the great Crystal Palace at Sydenham (which externally is more beautiful than the original Palace) seems quite a matter of course; but it was very different to those who, more than fifty years ago, suddenly 116turned aside from the accustomed dusty street to find themselves in presence of this dazzling fairy palace, within which, for the first time under one roof, were exhibited priceless treasures from every corner of the known world. And not products only, but representatives of every known land—every shade of colour and variety of dress, while the ear was bewildered by a general blending of all the principal tongues of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. We are accustomed to such world-gatherings now, but in 1851 they were seen for the first time.

Of course that marvellous palace was the lode-star which attracted every one again and again, but for us there was another exhibition of exceeding interest, namely, that of the amazing collection of hunting-trophies brought from South Africa by my brother Roualeyn, generally known as, par excellence, “The Lion Hunter.”

During his prolonged absence in the interior, letters had become scarcer and more scarce, and only some occasional quotation from a Cape Town paper, with rumours of his prodigious “bags,” kept up the hope that he still lived. Suddenly one day the glass door of my sisters’ pleasant sitting-room at Altyre opened, and in walked a magnificent and magnificently-bearded wild man of the woods—a very gentle savage—followed by a most hideous, elf-like little bushman called Ruyter, on account of his good horsemanship.

This little man had been the most faithful of all Roualeyn’s followers—indeed, when he lay on the Great Desert helpless, by reason of rheumatic fever, and exposed to the full violence of the tropical sun (which naturally resulted in sun-stroke), Ruyter alone remained with him, guarding and tending him to the very best of his ability. So, when Roualeyn concluded that it was time to return to the home-land, he very naturally invited the little man to accompany him, and the faithful creature clave to him. Alas! his master neglected the doctor’s wise counsel to have him 117vaccinated, and about ten years later, when smallpox was raging in Inverness, poor Ruyter caught it and died.

For about a year after their dramatic arrival, this strangely assorted couple remained at Altyre, during which time my sisters vainly endeavoured to instil into the bushman’s mind any conception of sacred things or of a spiritual life. He spoke with affection of his dead mother, but to any suggestion that she still lived, and that he also would still live when this poor soul-case ceased to breathe, he had but one answer, “Massa’s sister, my mother is rotten, and I shall be rotten.” So they had to drop the subject and leave him to find out the truth in due season, as between “inherent” or “conditional” Immortality.^[31]

During those quiet months my sisters wrote out, from Roualeyn’s dictation, those extracts from his voluminous diaries which were published by Murray of Albemarle Street under the title, Five Years of a Hunter’s Life in the Far Interior of South Africa—a book which took the country by storm, and captivated every boy and lad who could get a chance of reading it.

Of course armchair reviewers treated it as a delightful and beautifully written work of fiction, but one which no person of ordinary intelligence could possibly be expected to believe; and even when the stupendous collection of his trophies was exhibited, they smiled at the audacity of any man who could pretend that all had fallen to his own rifle. (And there was abundant excuse for their incredulity, when you remember that in those days there were no breech-loaders—only the slow old muzzle-loaders, with all their cumbersome processes.) The sportsman had to carry a bag of pasteboard wads, a powder-flask, shot-belt, ramrod, percussion caps, etc. etc., and use each before he could fire—all now replaced by one neat cartridge. But such sport-made-easy was then undreamt of. It was not till 1866 (the year in which Roualeyn died) that breech-loaders were 118first used by the Prussians in the Franco-Prussian War, and after that British muzzle-loaders were transformed. So none of my elder brothers ever dreamt of such easy methods.

Doubtless Roualeyn would have been set down as another Baron Munchausen had not his friend, the great and good Dr. Livingstone, happily confirmed every word he had written, and expressed his conviction (as did also several African chiefs) that Roualeyn had suppressed some of his most startling adventures, simply from a fear that they would not be believed.^[32]

Strange to say, after coming unscathed through such appalling dangers, he about twelve years after this time very narrowly escaped being killed by a fierce Highland bull, which caught him unawares and tossed him about ten feet into the air. Mercifully he fell on his back into a shallow ditch, and had the presence of mind to draw up his knees against his chest and to hit the bull’s head with the thick soles of his Highland brogues^[33] every time it approached him, thereby parrying its thrusts.

The ground on either side was ploughed up by the creature’s horns, and Roualeyn’s kilt was torn into ribbons: the silver head of his sporran was all dunted in, and his body seriously cut and bruised. However, a boy who was 119with him at length succeeded in driving off the infuriated brute, and so Roualeyn was saved.

Among those who were most vividly impressed with his wonderful descriptions of scenery, and of the vast herds of wild creatures of every variety, was Harrison Weir, the great animal painter. He and several other artists of mark painted a series of twenty-seven great pictures for a diorama, giving life-like illustrations of the long train of waggons, each drawn by a dozen oxen, sometimes toiling by the roughest cart-road along the face of a precipice, sometimes proceeding up the bed of a river knee-deep in water.

Some of these pictures gave a vivid idea of the countless herds of beautiful animals, of all of which many specimens were there for inspection, as was also the very waggon which had so long been the hunter’s only home. In 1855 this diorama was added to the attractions of the exhibition, the hunter himself describing the scenes twice daily. His old hunting-saddle, resting on the skull of a huge bull elephant, formed his “pulpit,” where he stood beneath a triumphal arch of the largest known elephant tusks.

But in 1851 the exhibition of hunting-trophies and a general talk proved sufficiently attractive to draw crowds, while Ruyter, concealed in the waggon, occasionally rushed out with a terrific yell, greatly to the alarm of nervous visitors. I cannot say that this exhibition was altogether appreciated by the family, for in those days we had very rigid ideas as to what might or might not be done by people of social standing, and the limitations were often exceedingly inconvenient.

For instance, for ladies to walk without a gentleman or a footman anywhere except within Belgravia was deemed quite incorrect. Still worse would it have been to go in a hansom, and as to setting foot even inside a ’bus, I am sure my father would have had a fit had any one of us dared to do such a thing! “Nous avons changé tout cela!”

Of course, being only a schoolgirl, I could not share all 120the gaieties of the London season, which my elder sisters found so delightful; but there were pleasures enough notwithstanding—long days on the river with Roualeyn (Zoe we always called him), and one fascinating day when he took me to Windsor Castle and to Eton and introduced me to the scenes of his many delinquencies and their just retribution!

Then there were gorgeous flower-shows at Chiswick, and picture-galleries, and visits to friendly artists in their studios—to Frank Grant, Watts, Philips, and Sir William Ross. The two last were painting portraits of two of my sisters.

And there were blissful evenings at the opera, when the stars were Grisi and Mario, Gardoni, Bosio, Sophie Cruvelli, Sontag, Castellani, Lablache, and others. I remember one night in particular, when Grisi was acting Norma, and her impassioned rendering of the scene with her children thrilled the whole audience. Afterwards we learned that that night her favourite child had died, and she had vainly implored the manager to grant her leave of absence. He deemed it impossible, and so the agony which we applauded as such perfect acting was in truth the very outpouring of an aching heart.

Mario’s exquisitely pathetic singing is to this day a haunting memory, and though less effective on the stage, Gardoni’s melodious voice in a concert-room was almost as fascinating. I don’t think that any one who heard him sing “Le Chemin du Paradis” could ever have forgotten it. I never heard any other singer whose “lilt” was so exactly described by the French phrase “Les larmes dans la voix.”

Among the musical stars whose personal acquaintance I had the pleasure of making was Salaman, whose “I arise from dreams of thee” was a delight.

And Ristori also, who was then in her prime, was one of the sensations of the year. Twenty years later I had the privilege of again hearing that queenly, fascinating woman, 121and of meeting her socially in the Antipodes at Sydney, when she and the Marquis del Grillo and their handsome son and daughter, George and Bianca, were doing a tour of the world.

How difficult it is sometimes to judge of the effect which what we deem a great pleasure, may have on other minds. I remember one evening we thought that, as a rare treat, we would send some of our Scotch servants to the opera, and next day asked one of the ladies’-maids whether she had enjoyed it. “No,” was the decided reply, “we did not like it at all. You don’t see real leddies and gentlemen flinging themselves about and skirling yon gate!”^[34]

Two more years at Hermitage Lodge brought school-life to a close, and 1853 was the year of emancipation and full enjoyment of home, unclouded by any thought of gathering clouds. Yet these were all too near. For a little while, however, all was bright, and we revelled in the loveliness of our homes. I recall one little detail of daily life, which seems odd now, namely, that every afternoon, quite as a matter of course, we each brought in flowers or coloured leaves or wild berries, and made our wreath to wear at dinner—a full circular wreath. And we always wore full evening dress, with low bodies and short sleeves, even if by any chance we were quite alone. The comfort of demi-toilette had not then received social sanction.

CHAPTER VI My First London Season—My Father’s Accident—Beginning of the Crimean War—Death of Captain Cresswell—Death of my Father—We leave Altyre. — IN MEMORIAM. CANTO CIII.; CANTO CIV.

Eighteen hundred and fifty-four was destined to bring us face to face with some of life’s sternest realities. Little did we foresee these, as the opening months of the year sped on all brightly. I have found an old journal kept day by day—the record of my first London season and first “Northern Meeting.”

Each day I noted the companions of all those cheerful doings; and of that whole extensive list not a dozen are now on earth, and that dozen includes children such as my youngest half-sister, then a little curly-head, now a grandmother.

Now that all travel is made so very easy, I may as well describe how we all moved from Altyre to London for the season. On April 18th, on a lovely Spring morning, we breakfasted at six, and then my father and stepmother, with lady’s-maid and footman, started in a carriage called “the chariot” to post as far as Aberdeen; thence they proceeded to London by rail.

Two days later my sister Nelly and I, with our lady’s-maid, the nursery party of three children and two nurses, the cook, the butler, and other members of the household, making up a dozen in all, drove in the early morning to Burghead, where, after considerable delay, we got on board the Queen, an exceedingly dirty vessel, and a very slow sailer. Her cargo consisted of six hundred sheep, fifty head of cattle, and numerous pigs, so closely packed that two wretched sheep died in the scrimmage. The pigs, as is 123their wont, poor beasts, proved most unfragrant companions, especially when the wind set in from their quarter.

The vessel was crowded with passengers, apparently bound for “the gold diggings.” Our party had to pack into two filthy little state-cabins, where we could only get a breath of air by leaving open a door leading to the saloon, where the men were drinking and “havering.”

Thanks to overloading and stoppages, instead of reaching Edinburgh the following morning, we did not do so till night, just in time to see the Leith, by which we were to have proceeded to London, steam away. Happily, however, the Royal Victoria, a rival steamer, had been detained by the tide, so we at once went on board, and finding her very nice and clean, secured the whole ladies’ cabin, which was large and airy. So we started comfortably, but just as we were passing the Bass Rock it was found that we had burst a pipe, which necessitated our immediate return to Edinburgh, where we lay at anchor till the following morning.

One little joke was afforded us by an English passenger, who, after gazing at the grand old Bass Rock, with its clouds of white-winged sea-birds, exclaimed: “I have been vainly looking for any building, and I cannot make out where the great brewery can be!” You see his ideas ran largely on Bass’s Pale Ale!

The two following days were so very stormy that none of us could venture on deck, and the water poured into our cabin. However, on the fifth day we reached London, and forgot all troubles in the warmth of our welcome at 23 Chesham Street.

Next day, April 26th, had been appointed as a National Fast Day, on account of the Crimean War, which, nevertheless, was very lightly thought of either by those who were being ordered to sail or by the friends and relations, who expected so soon to see them all return. We had all enjoyed the blessings of peace for so long, that we could not at all realise the horrors of the near future.

124So all the gaieties of the London season went on unchecked. For some reason, neither my sister Nelly nor my stepmother had previously been presented, so they (presented by the queenly Duchess of Sutherland) monopolised all the court festivities, my turn being deferred till the next opportunity. However, nothing could have been pleasanter than my first ball, given by Sir Adam Hay of King’s Meadows, who, with his four handsome daughters, surrounded by flowers and light, remain as a vivid memory-picture of that happy evening: a group worthy of the proverbially “Handsome Hays.”

All went cheerily till May 11th. Well do I remember our afternoon with my beautiful aunt Emma Russell, whom we found literally covered with young birds: her husband having found a whole family of long-tailed titmice offered for sale, had bought them and brought them to her to feed and try to rear—a trial of patience indeed, the hungry creatures beginning to chirp for breakfast by about 4 A.M.

We had scarcely left the door when the carriage stopped, and the footman told us that Sir William had just been driven past in a cab, and had called to us to follow him. There had been an accident. We arrived just in time to see him supported into the house by two men, and covered with blood, accompanied by a kind doctor who told us that he had seen Sir William knocked down and run over by a hansom cab, which had come suddenly round a corner.

My father always carried in his waistcoat pocket the address of his old friend Dr. Allan, for whom a messenger had been at once despatched, but in case he might be out, my sister drove to St. George’s Hospital, and thence brought back Dr. Prescott Hewitt. The two doctors arrived simultaneously, and found the chief injury to be a simple dislocation, which they were able at once to set right. The other injuries were cuts and severe bruises on the face and down one side—very painful, but not dangerous. Strangely enough, the damage had been done by the fall, 125the side down which the wheel had passed having sustained very little harm.

So for the next three weeks my father was confined to the house, but neither he nor any one else, except Dr. Allan, at all realised how serious a shock he had really received. My three married sisters came to town to see him and cheer his captivity, for he longed to be out in the midst of his many friends.

One of the three sisters was Ida, Mrs. William Baker-Cresswell, whose husband’s regiment, the 11th Hussars, then stationed at Dublin, was under orders to sail at once for the Crimea, and she had resolved to accompany him, and make herself useful should need arise—not that danger was really expected! Still she was always ready for everything, and there have been few women so brave and so capable.

Our cousin, George Grant of Grant (Lord Seafield’s youngest son), who was engaged to my sister Nelly, was also much with us. His regiment, the 42nd Highlanders, was also under orders, but all treated the prospect as if they were going to a picnic.

On May 20th, George sailed with his regiment on board the Hydaspes, and Ida and Bill Cresswell with the 11th on board the Panola. From a Dublin paper I quote the following extract: “The perfect regularity with which the embarkation of both men and horses was conducted were unexceptional. But enthusiasm was more than usually excited by the gallant Captain being accompanied by Mrs. Cresswell, who, although the only lady, with the spirit of her race accompanies the regiment to the East. Long and loud were the cheers of her gallant ‘comrades’ re-echoed from the shore, which greeted her on reaching the vessel—a fine ship of nine hundred and sixty-five tons.”

Notwithstanding this praise, the vessel proved a wretched old tub, and her passengers had to watch one ship after another, which had sailed long after them, sail past them; food and accommodation were alike filthy, as were also 126the habits of some of the crew, especially the mate, who by common consent was named Spitz-Bergen! But my sister’s brave, bright spirit never failed her, and she made the very best of everything, whether at sea or on land, during the prolonged detention in camp at Varna.

My father insisted that we should all go about as if nothing was amiss with him, and come to amuse him by accounts of what we had seen, so on May 13th our cousin, Ian Campbell of Islay, drove Nelly and me to Woolwich to see the launch of the Royal Albert. It was a grand sight. There were twelve thousand ticket-holders round the huge ship, and a vast number of others. As far as we could see, the roofs of the houses were swarming, every boat, every steamer, crowded—in every direction a dense, dark mass of human beings. We were fortunate in having seats very near the Queen and Prince Consort, and watched her christening the vessel by breaking a bottle of wine against her side, which, however, she failed to do until the third attempt, after which, amid deafening cheers from the multitudes, she went on board her own yacht, whence she could better see the launch. The great ship glided away most majestically, and, plunging into the river, commenced her career; whereupon we proceeded to Greenwich Hospital to lunch with the governor.

Another interest out of the run of the regular “society” treadmill, with two or three events for every evening, was the arrival in London for the first time of the Cologne Singers, who came to raise funds for something connected with the cathedral. They numbered eighty, all Germans. Some sang solos, others joined in chorus, but instead of any instrumental accompaniment, some were set apart to hum the accompaniment, producing a singularly beautiful effect, like the murmur of the sea, swelling and then dying away.

Another musical interest was the appearance at private concerts of little “Arthur Napoleon,” a child eight years old, who played some of Thalberg’s most difficult pieces by 127heart quite beautifully, with wonderful execution and perfect feeling. It seemed scarcely possible that his thin, tiny hands could really produce those crashing chords.

By the 10th June my father had made such good progress that the doctors consented to his accompanying us to Sydenham to see the Queen open the grand Crystal Palace in its enhanced beauty, and on its permanent site. It was a very fatiguing day for him, as we had to start at eleven, and even then found ourselves in a string of carriages two miles long, and when we did reach the Palace, we had literally to force our way through the dense crowds ere we could reach our seats, which were already full. However, Lord Ranelagh got seats on the Peers’ gallery for Lady Cumming and my sister, and Sir William and I secured good standing room in the Commons’ gallery, whence we had an excellent view of the whole building, which was most beautiful.

Every available corner being crammed with spectators, flowers had to find place in baskets suspended between the pillars, which were all wreathed with fragrant roses and lilies. In the centre, on a raised dais, stood Her Majesty’s chair of state, beneath a canopy of crimson velvet. There in due course of time she and Prince Albert and the royal family took their places, accompanied by the King of Portugal, the Duke of Oporto, and many other grandees.

Behind the dais rose the orchestra, consisting of four hundred instrumental, and twelve hundred vocal performers. As soon as the Queen entered, Clara Novello rose and sang the National Anthem, her single clear, rich voice filling the whole gigantic building, to the amazement of all who heard her, and then the sixteen hundred sang it in chorus, which was beautiful but overwhelming.

After the Queen had made her opening speech, all the principal officials were presented to her, and of course ought to have backed from the royal presence, but, being embarrassed by the steps of the dais, each turned round and 128walked down in calm oblivion of court manners, whereat the two-guinea mob laughed so rudely that the Queen looked unmistakably angry at their lack of courtesy.

Her Majesty and all the royal party then walked round the palace in a grand procession, and on their return the hundredth psalm was sung, the Archbishop of Canterbury offered prayer, and the Hallelujah Chorus was sung magnificently. The palace was then declared open, and the Queen departed, while Clara Novello again sang the National Anthem, and the choir repeated it in full chorus.

After considerable delay we succeeded in finding our carriage, and rejoiced when we reached London in safety, and found that my father was none the worse for an exertion which had afforded him so much interest.

Thenceforward he refused to be considered an invalid, and took his full share in all social amusements, one of the first being a large party to meet many Indian princes: Tippoo Sahib’s grandson, the Prince of Surat, the Rajah of Koorg and suite. The Rajah was arrayed in cloth of gold, and blazed with precious stones, but some of his suite were very simply attired, one old nobleman being rolled up in a little shawl, pinned across his shoulders, just like an old nurse! The Rajah’s interpreter told us that when he first came to England and saw the mixed parties of ladies and gentleman, he was so shocked and ashamed that he did not know which way to look, and longed to hide himself.

Orientals were rarer in London in those days than they are now. We had previously met them at several balls, including the Caledonian, which, of course, was attended by all good Scots. On that occasion my sister and I were in Lady Kinnoull’s Spanish Quadrille, eight of the ladies being in black Spanish lace over yellow silk, the other eight over rose-colour, and all wearing high combs and Spanish mantillas over our heads. Our cavaliers were all officers of the Life and Foot Guards in full uniform. Of course most of the men present were in Highland dress.

129On 5th July we all left town, my father and Lady Gordon-Cumming returning north, while Nelly and I went to visit our beautiful sister Alice Jenkinson—the only one of our mother’s daughters who had inherited something of her great gift of beauty. She and her husband were renting a pleasant cottage at Lyndhurst, in the New Forest, then a delightful rural village, very different to the present town. (I am reminded of the lapse of years by the thought of her jovial baby, little Francis, who called himself Mig, and is still so called by all his intimates, though he has long since developed into the learned University Librarian at Cambridge.)

What dreams of delight were our daily expeditions through that noble forest—its endless green glades lighted by gleams of vivid sunlight, and the whole air fragrant with honeysuckle growing in rank profusion. Our favourite expedition was to the Mark Ash wood, where magnificent old trees formed a great square, their boughs meeting overhead, like the green arches of a natural cathedral. We measured the circumference of four grand beech and oak-trees, and found each to be about twenty-three feet. One day while we were there at luncheon a troop of forest-ponies came up and grazed all around, adding much to the picturesque scene. Another day the hounds and hunt passed by, followed by the wretched tame stag, which, having been chased for three hours, had dropped from sheer exhaustion and been captured, to be carried home in a cart. And that was sport!

A week later found us once again tossing on the sea on our return voyage to lovely Altyre, where the roses were in full glory, and everything seemed extra luxuriant.

We spent the whole month of August at our beloved Gordonstoun, many friends coming and going to picnic in the caves and otherwise amuse themselves. My father, though still troubled by his bruised cheek, and not up to his usual mark, was greatly invigorated by the sea breezes, 130and thoroughly enjoyed the walks he so much loved along the beautiful cliffs and on the shore, and Dr. Allan’s strong counsel that he should go to a warmer climate was deemed quite foolish.

On the 1st of September we returned to Altyre, where, as usual, almost every day brought large impromptu parties from neighbouring houses, arriving just in time for luncheon, and then expecting to be escorted through the gardens and to some of the loveliest points of the river. In these more conventional days, when no one dreams of dropping in to meals uninvited, I sometimes wonder how our cooks contrived to be always ready for such sudden invasions, and to provide a sumptuous luncheon for perhaps a dozen unexpected guests from two or three different houses; however, they were never known to fail.

Amongst the guests whose visits gave us special pleasure were the dear old Duchess of Gordon (who, being godmother to George Grant, was particularly interested in my sister Nelly), and also Lord and Lady March (the late Duke of Richmond and Gordon). Little did any one then foresee that after the lapse of many years their son, Lord Walter Gordon Lennox, would woo and win Alice Grant, my sister Nelly’s eldest daughter.

This autumn, to our great delight, Relugas (at the junction of the Findhorn and the Devie) was rented by our special friends the George Forbes’s of Medwyn. The elder brother had married my father’s sister, and handsome George had married Sir Adam Hay’s sister, and although we were not really cousins, we always considered ourselves to be so.

On 19th September Mary Forbes married Canon Harford Battersby, Vicar of Keswick, whose name is now so widely known and revered as the founder of “the Keswick Convention,” that wonderful annual gathering of Christian folk, who, to the number of over six thousand, assemble from all corners of the world for a week in July in that little 131village in the wilds of Cumberland, previously known only for its beauty and its manufacture of cedar-wood pencils.

The wedding was in the episcopal church at Forres, and the wedding breakfast in my father’s house close to the church (Forres House). He proposed the health of the young couple, but his speech lacked its wonted zest. Little did we dream that it would prove his last appearance at any such festivity, and that we should only once again meet the bride and bridegroom. Many years afterwards I visited their grave in the beautiful “God’s-acre” at Keswick, and, within the church, saw the white marble bas-relief of the Canon’s strikingly handsome profile.

Still less did any one dream that the war with Russia had become a matter of deadly earnest, and that on that very day our troops had landed in the Crimea, and on the morrow would charge the heights of Alma, and that two thousand of our gallant men would be left dead or sorely wounded on that fatal plain.

Looking back, it does seem passing strange that no thought of any real danger should have come home to any of us, but in those days there were no swift telegraphs to flash their daily and hourly reports, and news only reached us by letters at very uncertain intervals.

So our social life went on uninterrupted, and, as a matter of course, the great Highland gathering was held as usual at Inverness; and our cousins, the Mackintoshes of Raigmore, assembled (as was their wont) as many friends and kinsfolk as could be crammed into that elastic house. My sister and I were of course of the number, so the day after the wedding we drove to Raigmore, and that night had a merry household dance, as preliminary to the first-rate balls on the two following nights, with pipe music, dancing, and games all the day. In those years no Highland family who could possibly be present, failed to be at Inverness at that time, and comparatively few strangers came—a very 132different gathering to the present huge assemblage from innumerable shooting-lodges.

We returned to Altyre on the 23rd September, and found Sir William apparently very well, and always much taken up with his three youngest children.

It was not till 4th October that news reached us of the battle of Alma, and not till the 10th was the awful official list of killed and wounded published, including many of our personal friends and connections.

On the following day came a letter from George Grant telling us of the death from cholera, after five hours’ illness, of our dear brother-in-law, Bill Cresswell, 11th Hussars, and how he had been buried on the plain below the heights of Alma on the very morning of the battle, the first victim of the war. While we were at the Highland games, George and his Highlanders had been burying the slain on that awful field.

Of our sister he could give no tidings. He only knew that on arriving from Varna the troops had been landed without tents, and had to sleep on the damp ground. In the night Bill, always very delicate, was attacked by cholera. An alarm was raised that the Cossacks were upon them, and they were to advance at once. A covered native cart was procured, and in it Captain Cresswell was placed, alone in his terrible agony. When they reached their halting-ground in the dark early morning of the 20th, he was dead, and his men, who adored him, wrapped him in his blanket, and buried him.

A few days later we received a letter from my sister herself, dated Varna Bay, September 22, totally unconscious of her awful loss. It seems that while they were in camp at Varna, she had nursed some of the sick men, till she herself was stricken with fever, and for three weeks lay very ill. She also suffered torture from a boil on the knee and a whitlow on the finger, consequent on being thoroughly rundown by reason of execrable feeding on the voyage from 133England. So, although she accompanied her husband on board the War Cloud to the Crimea, she was unable to leave the vessel. The captain (Captain Fox) treated her with the most courteous kindness, procured a female attendant for her, and gave her a large, airy saloon. But the vessel had to return at once to Varna to fetch more troops.

This letter was followed by another, dated 3rd October, still from Varna. On arriving there the War Cloud had taken on board a troop and a half of the ill-fated Inniskillings, who had lost their colonel (Colonel Moore) and many men, and fifty-six horses, in the burning of the Europa. Now the authorities obliged them to cram one hundred and ten horses into the hold, which was only constructed to accommodate sixty. The very first night a tremendous storm arose, and continued unabated for two whole days, during which men and officers were alike incapacitated, and there was no one to soothe, feed, or water the poor horses. When the weather cleared they were lying in heaps, and seventy-five were dead. Ida saw all these lowered overboard—a pitiful sight.

Meanwhile, the two strong hawsers by which the War Cloud was attached to the steamer which was towing her snapped like threads, and they were left far behind, drifting at the mercy of the winds, which showed no inclination to help them to Sebastopol. Presently they found themselves off the coast of Circassia, whence they made their way back to Varna, disembarked the horses that were still alive, and shipped a new lot. On arriving they heard of the battle of the Alma, and vague reports concerning Captain Cresswell, but so utterly contradictory that they were not worth credence, so Ida was on the eve of starting to rejoin him, together with his faithful soldier-servant and his two chargers—the chargers of the dead.

Then at intervals followed letters confirming the awful truth, and telling how on reaching Sebastopol, and finding that the officers who had last been with her husband were 134unable to come to her, she decided to go to them, right into one of the batteries, which was in full play. She had just time to duck her head when a ball whizzed over her, and a shell burst at her feet. But she had the sad satisfaction of hearing all there was to learn, and recovering a few precious mementoes from friends—Walter Charteris, Mr. Thomson, and several others, who were killed on the following day in the awful battle of Inkerman, in which three of our generals were killed and five were wounded.

As soon as possible she returned to her husband’s home and loving family at Cresswell, but ere then the dear home of her girlhood, from which, two brief years previously, she had gone forth such a happy bride, was a forsaken nest, whence all the nestlings had flown. On that wedding day her father had been in his happiest mood, well pleased to welcome as a son-in-law one whom he already loved. The hilarity of the wedding breakfast was nowise lessened because of the curious accident that drunken men had carefully packed the wedding-cake upside down, so that all the sugar-work was reduced to chaos. However, with an abundant supply of flowers the ruin was effectually veiled, and only a few ultra-superstitious guests ventured to whisper that it was an unlucky omen.

For about nine months longer, constant letters to my sister Nelly from George Grant kept us continually in touch with the appalling hardships which our troops had to endure during that terribly prolonged war, extending over two never-to-be-forgotten Crimean winters, most of his work lying in the horrible trenches.

Even in England exceptional horrors seemed endless. Cholera was raging in London to such an extent that whole streets were almost closed. The newspapers reported nine thousand deaths. Several of these cases were said to be real plague, and black flags were hung out from the infected houses.

At the same time there was a frightful fire in Newcastleon-Tyne 135and Gateshead, in which five hundred persons were reported as killed or injured.

To return to our home-life at Altyre. The 24th October was one of the loveliest days of the autumn. I had a long walk beside the Findhorn, where the colouring was indescribably lovely, the foliage overhanging the brown river still very rich, and of every brilliant tint that could be conceived—sea and sky vividly blue, the distance wonderfully clear, and Ben Wyvis and the hills beyond covered with dazzling snow. Tempted by the sunshine, Sir William stood a long time without his hat and in thin shoes at the front door talking to a friend, and so brought on a cough. Afterwards we remembered Dr. Allan’s grave warning, that unless he would go to a warm climate, the first snow would carry him off.

The following day being even more lovely, he and some more of the family drove to Dunphail to luncheon with his brother, Charles Cumming-Bruce. Towards sunset there was a shower of hail and a most beautiful rainbow over Forres, together with an intense golden glow in the west, the light on the falling hail looking like a shower of fire. That was my father’s last drive. Two days later he began coughing up blood, and had to be kept in bed in absolute quiet, and fed on iced food.

All his sons and daughters who were within reach now assembled at Altyre—Penrose, Roualeyn, and Henry, Seymour and Oswin Cresswell—and there were days when he was better and able to enjoy a little talk. At all times he enjoyed hearing the family sing in parts in the adjoining drawing-room. On the night of 22nd November he asked especially for some of Moore’s Irish melodies; such as “Peace be around thee” and “Those Evening Bells.” It was sorely trying for the singers to utter the words—

He had previously made me read the 12th chapter of 136Ecclesiastes, probably more for my sake than his own, as he knew it so well. Towards 4 A.M. the great change was apparent. He bade my sister Nelly kneel beside him and pray. After a little while of restless discomfort, his breathing became more and more gentle, and closing his eyes he passed gently away, like a tired child falling into a peaceful sleep.

When we left the dark, miserable room, and came out into the broad daylight, the ground was white with the first pure white snow lying lightly on every twig—as if all nature was wrapped in a fair shroud, mourning with us for the going away of one who so devotedly loved all things beautiful. Strange to say, about two hours after his death the old pear-tree on the laundry-green, for which he had such a special liking, and which he had belted with iron to preserve it, fell with a loud crash, without any apparent cause.

When we next entered his room, he lay like a beautiful marble statue, so smooth and fresh, not one wrinkle on the noble brow, round which the bonnie waving curls clustered so thickly, and almost a smile on the face. He had always such a cheery smile and kind word for every one.

We covered his bed with the lovely white camelias he had so longed to see in blossom. Nell took him one of the first blooms—it was the last flower he had in his hand, and when he had admired it he gave it to Seymour to keep. He looked so calm and beautiful among the pure white flowers. When my mother died he had covered her with sprays of orange-blossom from her own favourite trees. Happily in those days the conventional sending of wreaths from florists (often in overpowering numbers, to the destruction of all true sentiment) had not been invented, or at any rate had not reached the north.

Emery Walker. ph. sc.

Sir William Gordon Gordon-Cumming.

Painted by Saunders about 1830.

He was still beautiful and almost life-like when, seven days later, he was laid in his coffin, on which were arranged his favourite plaid and the ornaments of his Highland dress. 137The day of the funeral was one of brilliant sunshine—all the snow had vanished. There was an immense gathering of people at the preliminary service by Mr. M‘Intosh, the parish minister of Rafford, and upwards of fifty carriages and farmers’ gigs formed the procession at starting; but the number was nearly doubled ere it reached Gordonstoun and the dear old Michael Kirk, where the episcopal clergy of Forres and Elgin awaited the coming of one more silent sleeper.

I am tempted to quote a few words from one of the county papers:—

“Sir William was the life and spirit of the place, one whose ever-cheerful countenance gladdened all hearts. To the poor he was always kind and affable, to all classes courteous and accessible. As a landlord he was constantly occupied in the improvement of his extensive estates, and in promoting the comfort of his tenantry. His hospitality made Altyre for nearly half a century the great rallying-point of the North, and besides the multitudes who depended on him for their daily bread, never did the tongue or look of necessity appeal to him in vain. He had always a warm greeting for high and low, young and old, and his very voice rang with the joyous kindness that glowed within towards every human being.”

Those who have passed through such a trial as that of leaving a loved home under such circumstances, know how much the pain is accentuated by the sudden invasion of officials, who heretofore would have deemed it a privilege to be allowed to see the inside of the house, now bustling about, sealing up cupboards and places where valuable papers or goods could possibly be stored, and making inventories with surprising valuations of objects of whose real value they know absolutely nothing.

For my sister and myself, personal anxiety as to the immediate future was set at rest by our kind brother-in-law, Oswin Cresswell, who offered us both a permanent home at his own lovely Harehope.

This happy solution, however, received a temporary check; for my own general upset, which seemed so natural 138under the circumstances, resulted in my wakening one morning the colour of a well-boiled lobster, whereupon the doctor pronounced it to be a decided case of scarlet fever, but how caught no one could imagine. The result was the immediate flight of every one who could possibly leave the house, only my sister and our old nurse, and our ever-faithful lady’s-maid, Catherine Bruce, remaining with me, and of course the necessary household staff, whose premises were all far removed from my room.

Happily the attack proved to be a very mild one, and, on the whole, we were really thankful for the three weeks of absolute quiet and breathing-time ere the final wrench. As an interval of quarantine was essential ere joining the family party at Harehope, it was decided that we should first go to lodgings at the Bridge of Allan, and thence to our dear old uncle and aunt, the Cumming-Bruces, at her own place, Kinnaird, near Larbert.

So on 22nd December, in a downpour of rain, and with very heavy hearts, we left dear Altyre and poor old Nan, looking the picture of desolation. We proceeded by coach from Forres to Aberdeen, where we slept, and next day by rail to the Bridge of Allan, where very pleasant rooms had been secured for us at Mrs. Haldane’s lodgings, Viewforth House. It was well named, for, standing high above the little town (as it then was), our windows commanded a fine view of the Ochils, and also of Stirling Castle and town, with the distant range of the Grampians, all dazzlingly white. And through the valley outspread before us the river Forth meandered like a perpetual reiteration of the letter S, while the “Banks of Allan Water” recalled the pathetic song concerning the miller’s lovely daughter.

Kind friends had met us at every halting-point, and also awaited us in Stirling, so that our first experience of starting in life on our own account was mitigated so far as possible. Nevertheless, as in the quiet, misty night we looked down from our windows past a tall church spire 139rising from below the hill, we felt as though Tennyson had spoken for us when he wrote of “how strangely falls our Christmas eve.”

CHAPTER VII Life in Northumberland—My Sister Eleanora’s Wedding—Alnwick Castle in 1855 and 1892—Serious Illness—Death of Oswin and Seymour Cresswell.

A few weeks later we were thoroughly settled at Harehope, and as the summer advanced we enjoyed long drives to all points of chief interest in the neighbourhood, such as Holy Stone village in the Harbottle Hills, where there is a great pool of very pure water, in which St. Paulinus is said to have baptized three thousand converts in the days when Northumbria was still a heathen land.

One day we drove and boated to Lindisfarne, to visit the noble ruins of St. Cuthbert’s Old Priory—not, however, the original building, for that was destroyed by the Danes in the tenth century, and these grand old Norman arches of dark red sandstone were built in 1094, when in honour of its martyrs it was named “The Holy Isle.”

Bamborough and Dunstanborough were favourite picnic-grounds, while Esslington, delightful Chillingham and Alnwick Castles, and many other homes of kind and pleasant neighbours, all within easy reach, supplied ample society, to say nothing of a genuine Northumbrian harvest-home dance at the farm.

The weary Crimean war still wore on, but many of the officers who from the beginning had borne the brunt of its hardship now returned to England, and amongst these was our cousin, George Grant of Grant, who now came to lay his laurels at the feet of his fair ladye, and to claim her promised hand.

And so, on October 2, 1855, the old village church of Eglingham was the scene of a very pretty country wedding, 141and friends from far and near assembled at Harehope, where triumphal arches, with masses of scarlet rowan-berries outside, and really beautiful trophies of Grant and Cumming and Gordon tartans, and stag’s-horn moss indoors, gave colour enough to brighten a somewhat grey and misty day. Kind neighbours, who remembered how recently Harehope had been a bare hillside, sent generous gifts of beautiful fruit and flowers. And so, with every promise of a bright future, the young couple started for their honeymoon in the English lakes, whence they returned a month later in high health and spirits to revisit Harehope, ere turning northward to make a home in Scotland.

They had only been back a few days when George was suddenly seized with a choleraic attack, and such severe pain that local medical skill failed to give him relief, and it became necessary to telegraph to Edinburgh for Dr. Miller, who by a prompt course of blistering succeeded in relieving the pain, but it was fully three weeks ere the patient was sufficiently convalescent to venture out.

Meanwhile, on November 15, my sister Seymour had added a fifth little one to her nursery, my little god-daughter Constance—a fine healthy baby, warmly welcomed by all. According to Northumbrian custom, a large cheese, or kebbock, known as “the crying-cheese,” was at once produced, together with a loaf and a bottle of whisky, and every one in the house, or entering it, was required to eat and drink for good-luck to the baby.

Six weeks later a happy family party assembled for baby’s christening in the village church by Mr. Coxe, the vicar (Archdeacon of Lindisfarne), the same dear old friend who had so recently officiated at my sister Nelly’s gay wedding. Little did any one then foresee how very soon he would be called upon to minister under very different circumstances, when that little one would be left doubly orphaned.

One of the interests of the neighbourhood at this time was the extensive work going on at stately Alnwick Castle, 142where “the Sailor Duke Algernon” and Duchess Eleanor then reigned. There was much anxiety that the rebuilding of the great Prudhoe Tower should be finished before the Duke’s birthday—December 15th. This was accomplished, notwithstanding the intense cold, by working with hot mortar; and the builders were kept alive during the snowstorms by oft-repeated jorums of hot ale and ginger. So the great feat was performed, and after the firing of many guns, the new flag was hoisted amid tremendous cheering, the town being crowded. Then all the school-children had roast beef and plum-pudding to their hearts’ content, and in the evening there were fireworks and fire-balloons which gave great delight.

Having decided that, notwithstanding the Gothic and partly Old Norman exterior of the castle, the interior of the great state-rooms should be decorated in the richest Italian style, the Duke resolved as far as possible to employ local talent, and so, having imported Italian teachers, he started a school for wood-carving, which wonderfully soon turned out exquisite work.

I used to delight in seeing this in progress, or when laid out in compartments on the floor preparatory to being raised to the ceilings, where, alas! in most of the rooms a further process of gorgeous painting and gilding, although wondrously beautiful, nevertheless detracts, in my eyes, from its original perfection. Except to the expert who notes the wonderful undercutting, the richly gilded carving, or its flat blue or crimson background, might almost as well be stucco. Certainly this wealth of colour is more in keeping with the rich crimson or yellow satin damask hangings of all the walls and corresponding furniture, but it is a real joy that in the great dining-room the noble ceiling has been left in its primitive beauty, most restful to the eye. Happily all the very handsome carved doors and shutters were left uncoloured, as also the rounded Italian tops of all the windows, and dado of beautiful inlaid wood round all these rooms.

143The fine marbles on the walls of the private chapel and the staircase all suggest the same Italian inspiration, so that while externally the grand old castle is a dream of feudal England, internally it is a gorgeous reproduction of Italian Renaissance.

It so happened that the first Italians who came to the castle were Signor and Signora Bulletti, who knew little or no English. It was therefore great joy to them to find a very charming young Italian lady acting as governess to my sister’s children. There was also a German governess to give the children all possible advantages.

Signorina Banchi acted the part of a good angel to her countrywoman; but ere long the great architect of the works, Signor Montiroli, arrived, and he fully shared our admiration for this ministering spirit. Though he returned to Italy in single blessedness, he came back ere long to protest against leaving such a treasure beneath a grey Northumbrian sky, and so, on October 13, 1856, just a year after my sister’s wedding, our pretty “Bijou” followed her example, the happy couple being married in the Roman Catholic Church at Alnwick. Now, who would have expected to come across a real Italian romance at so unlikely a spot?

Thirty-six years later, on my return from distant wanderings, I spent a very delightful week in the old castle, to share in the rejoicings on the coming of age of Lord Warkworth (now Lord Percy). It was in every respect a scene of quite unique interest.

In the first place, the castle itself and all its beautiful surroundings, with the noble park and river, are like a dream of some old-world or fairy legend, as also is the way in which the great House of Northumberland has ever kept up the best of the old feudal relations with its almost innumerable tenants of every rank, so that this festival was no mere outward pageant, but the expression of real all-round loyalty by the retainers of a loved house.

The castle guests assembled on May 9, 1892. We were 144forty-two at dinner in the beautiful crimson satin damask dining-room.

On the following day there was a grand dinner to about sixteen hundred tenants in the guest-hall and the great covered court—the latter being a huge temporary hall improvised by covering the great stable-yard with a tent roof. The whole was decorated in mediæval style, with armorial shields, large mottoes, banners, armour, pictures, and, of course, with evergreens. One large trophy was formed of the old flags and weapons of the volunteer corps of yeomanry, artillery, and infantry, raised by Duke Hugh II. in the days when an invasion by Napoleon was dreaded.

One end of the great temporary hall was covered by a spirited picture of a mediæval tournament, with knights tilting in a meadow beside the sea at Warkworth Castle, and the walls of the guest-chamber were hung with fine old tapestry. The tenants were seated at twenty-seven tables in the great hall, while the house-party (gentlemen, no ladies—we ladies occupied a gallery overlooking the whole) had a raised table in the guest-chamber, so as to be well seen by all. Behind Earl Percy (the present Duke) stood a trumpeter or bugler, who blew a resounding call to herald each toast or response.

Lord Percy was acting for his father, as it was deemed wiser that the fine old Duke, then in his eighty-second year, should be spared the unavoidable fatigue of such a week. But the other grandfather (Lady Percy’s father), the Duke of Argyll, and Lord Lorne, were present to represent the Campbell side of the family.

One day about three thousand guests assembled at a great garden-party. Two thousand invitations were issued to all the principal tradesmen and neighbours, each to “So-and-so and party,” which was a liberal order. The temporary hall was cleared for those who preferred dancing, even by daylight, and certainly the excellent band and pipers from Edinburgh were quite inspiriting.

145Another day all the schools of Alnwick and the neighbourhood assembled, to the number of fully two thousand children, who, notwithstanding some light showers, had an ideal day of feasting and shows. On the last day there was a dinner for fifteen hundred workmen and their wives; and besides these, multitudes who could not come to Alnwick had dinners in their own villages, or sent to their own homes.

One day was reserved for county neighbours, and for a very brilliant ball in the great drawing-room, while in the dining-room the display of priceless gold-plate on buffets lighted by electric light, was like a tale from the Arabian Nights. Specially lovely on that occasion was the beautiful music-room; its walls of yellow satin damask forming a perfect background for a profusion of lilac orchids from the great gardens of Syon House.

Not only within the Castle grounds was there festival. The whole town of Alnwick was most beautifully decorated, and at night illuminated; and throughout the week, with the exception of one doubtful forenoon, the weather was absolutely perfect; and so the splendid fireworks which followed the great dinner to the tenants were seen to the greatest advantage. At night we all adjourned to the park to witness the beautiful display, which was enhanced by the burning of coloured fire on the battlements and the walls, the clouds of coloured smoke producing most weird, and really somewhat alarming effects. A final bouquet of two hundred rockets was hailed with shouts of delight by old as well as young folk.

One detail of very real interest was a visit to the underground kitchens, where such excellent and abundant food had been produced within a week for nine thousand people, a large number of whom, being household or guests, had to be fed four times daily. We were welcomed by the great English chef, Mr. Thorpe, the same who, twenty-five years previously, had organised similar feasting on the coming of age of Lord Percy (the present Duke). His staff consisted 146of thirteen cooks and a dozen other men, with thirty women—in all, fifty-six people. I was much amused at seeing twelve women stirring sixteen hundred pounds of plum-pudding!

I observed with some surprise that all the beautiful ornamental sweets and cakes that were untouched at the ball-supper the previous night were set out for the school-children, but the chef said, sympathetically, “The children like pretty things.” So they do, especially when so very good!

These kitchens (or their ancestors!) must have been dreary indeed in olden days of dim oil-lamps, but now brilliant electric light reigns, and illumines even the dismal “bottle-shaped” dungeon, into which of old prisoners were let down, never again to see the sun.

A long new tunnel, lined with pure white glistening tiles, had been constructed underground for a small railway, whose little trucks brought all the courses right under the dining-room lift, and to a further point to supply the great temporary hall. Along the intervening distance were stationed a regiment of immovable waiters, who passed the dishes from one to another, as skilled firemen hand on their buckets, instead of running to and fro. Besides all the waiters, about a hundred neat waitresses took care that all the multitudes were well and quickly served.

This week of rejoicing in Northumberland, with bonfires and feasting on all the estates, was followed by festivities on a smaller scale at Albury in Surrey, and ended with a great London garden-party at Syon House.

To return from these festivities in 1892 to our quiet life in the spring of 1856.

The even tenour of life, sometimes at Cresswell, but chiefly at Harehope, continued till 21st February, on which my sister Seymour and Baby Constance both became ill with bad sore throat and red, swollen skin. The doctor came and pronounced both to be suffering from erysipelas. Both 147became worse and worse; in the mother’s case it was confined to the head, while baby had it all over her tiny body.

On Friday, 29th (it was leap year), while superintending the farm-drainers, Oswin took a chill, and at night was seized with violent shivering and sickness. He came to breakfast looking like a grey ghost—the strong stalwart man seemed literally to have shrunken. Yet, ill as he was, he said he must go to Alnwick to engage servants for an extra farm which he had decided to take into his own hands.

Of course by night he was very much worse, and on the following days he was compelled to stay in bed, the good old coachman devoting himself to his master, as the womenfolk had their hands so fully occupied with the other invalids. Although his dear old mother had driven over from Cresswell to see baby, she was not allowed to see her son or my sister on account of her own exceeding delicacy. I, aged eighteen, was the only other relation in the house, and I was sitting up every night with baby.

On March 4th my sister and baby were both so very ill that I telegraphed to Edinburgh for Dr. Miller, who arrived that night, and pronounced that, seriously ill as they both were, Oswin was much more so, as his was undoubtedly a case of typhus fever, that it would probably be twenty-one days ere he reached the crisis, but that his strength was far too low for such an early stage of the disease. He said he would at once send trained nurses from Edinburgh, and till their arrival the faithful coachman must guard his master, as I was to be with the other patients, and it was necessary to establish quarantine.

Next day we sent the children and governesses to Cresswell; my sister had become wildly delirious, baby was worse, and Oswin’s strength was failing rapidly, notwithstanding all efforts to sustain it. By the time the trained nurses arrived he was delirious, and soon became unconscious.

At 5 A.M., March 6th, they admitted me to his room, and a 148few minutes later he passed away. No one was more utterly astounded than kind Dr. Miller himself when at noon he returned from Edinburgh; and in truth it seemed incredible to all that the man who that day week had seemed to be the very embodiment of health and strength could have passed away, literally “like snaw-drift in thaw.” He was only thirty-seven years of age.

The doctors told us that it was essential to keep my sister in ignorance of the awful truth, as any shock would turn the erysipelas to the brain, and probably prove fatal. In her delirium she seemed to have some consciousness of something being amiss with him, for again and again she tried to spring from her bed to go to him, and it was heartrending to hear her asking why he did not come to her. Baby continued on the verge of life or death.

As consciousness gradually returned, the strain of having constantly to watch lest any unguarded look or word should arouse her suspicions, became almost unbearable, and we were thankful when Dr. Wilson consented to our letting her know all before the funeral. So on the previous evening, when the doctor had prepared the way by bringing her very bad accounts of dear Oswin’s condition, our kind, fatherly friend, Archdeacon Coxe, went to tell her there was no hope—and gradually led on to the truth that he had already been called away.

By this time our dear sister Ida had come from Cresswell to be with us, and we three sat together at poor Seymour’s window to see the coffin carried from the house on its way to old Woodhorne Church, near Cresswell and the sea—the first of our own generation to be laid there, but now the resting-place of three of my sisters, and of many other dear companions of my early years.

From that window we looked down on many details of dear Oswin’s unfinished work—the half-made approach to the house—it was barely ten years since he had decided to build the house itself—the half-levelled bank, half-turfed 149path, the unfinished wall and railing, the site of the lodge just staked out, the young trees which he had just bought in Alnwick for his plantation, lying in bundles all unheeded, the field which he had been draining on that fatal Friday—all these suggestions of the work of the strong, capable man so suddenly called away, one by one impressed themselves on the poor, half-conscious mind, and enabled it gradually to realise all.

Little by little strength returned, and about a fortnight later it was arranged that we should all rejoin the family at Cresswell. But considering the extremes of heat and cold to which I had been exposed in passing from much-heated sick-rooms through bitterly cold passages, where doors and windows were kept open for fear of infection, it is perhaps not surprising that severe pain in all my limbs should have set in, and developed into an agonising and dangerous attack of rheumatic fever, which rendered me absolutely helpless for six weeks, during which my sister Ida and her maid nursed me day and night with most devoted care. I could not even move one finger from its neighbour—each had its own little pillow, so my nurse’s patience was sorely taxed.

When at length I was so far convalescent as to be able to walk into the next room, my sister Seymour, who had gone to her children at Cresswell, returned thence to see me. On arrival she confessed that she too was suffering from severe pain in her limbs, and for a fortnight she also was helplessly laid up. At the same time the pretty Italian governess endured a similar attack at Cresswell, which, if not actually rheumatic fever, was few degrees less painful.

I was warned on every hand that there was every probability of my having frequent future returns of this most unpleasant illness, but I am thankful to say that I have never had the slightest indication of it.^[35]

150After so sad an experience, it was decided that I must leave Northumberland altogether for a while, so in the middle of May, Ida and I went thence to stay with our sister Alice Jenkinson and her husband, who were then renting a place in the vale of the Severn half-way between Worcester and Malvern—the region of apple-orchards, alike beautiful in blossom or in fruit.

There we rested, and revelled in roses, and saw all points of chief interest, especially the whole process of making china and painting it at the Worcester factory.

After about six weeks all trace of rheumatic fever had so entirely vanished that I was able to climb to the summit of the Worcestershire Beacon, where on one side we looked down into Hereford and right away to the Wrekin in Shropshire, while on the other side lay outspread a vast flat plain on which lie the towns of Upton, Worcester, Tewkesbury, Cheltenham, and Gloucester.

151I spent July in London with kind old Lady Dysart, doing the usual social rounds, including a good many operas. Thence right away north to the George Grants, who were renting Nairnside, some miles from Inverness, from our cousins, the Mackintoshes of Raigmore. Of course there was constant coming and going between these two homes, both of which, on my arrival, I found crammed for a very good “cattle-show” ball, which a month later was followed by all the gaieties of the “Great Northern Meeting.”

Afterwards we stayed at Castle Grant^[36] for the Grantown games, which were held on little Lord Reidhaven’s birthday, so the proceedings began by one hundred and twenty of the tenants, in Highland dress and headed by flags and pipers, marching up to the castle to cheer the little Chief and his parents. At night there was a most picturesque torchlight dance—Highlanders, with a blazing torch in each hand, wildly dancing reels on a raised platform on the lawn, lighted by flaring torches at the four corners.

Then there was a very smart tenants’ ball, at which the pretty child with the long fair ringlets appeared in black velvet, trimmed with old point lace, and his Grant plaid, and was received with great applause, in which he heartily joined. The memory-picture is interesting in view of his deeply lamented death just as he attained to manhood.

Visits to many other kinsfolk in the north filled up a pleasant autumn, and then winter slipped away at Polmaise, Airthrie Castle, Kinnaird, and Edinburgh, which was then peopled with relations and intimate friends, all of whom have now vanished “as a dream when one awaketh.” But they were very real then.

So they also were in London, where I joined my sister Seymour in the middle of March, she having by medical advice taken a house in Rutland Gate for four months. Alas! from the time when she awoke to realise her terrible loss she had utterly given way to grief, perpetually wandering 152alone for hours and hours beside the grey misty sea at Cresswell, or on the bleak moorlands at Harehope, and this had brought on an obstinate hacking cough, which was becoming worse and worse.

So at last she consented to take her children to London for dancing and other lessons, on which she laid great stress, and there she was so surrounded by near relations, that she could not help being drawn into sympathy with their interests also.

She was most anxious that I should go everywhere and see everything of interest, and as there was no lack of kind kinsfolk willing to take charge of me, I find the record of those months full of social interests. But in the multitude of names of the companions of those days and nights, I scarcely find the name of any one still on earth; only here and there an allusion to the marriage of some bright young girl who perhaps survives as a lone widow, or to some little child who is now a grandmother.

Among the interests at that time—not “society”—I specially remember Kean’s acting of Richard II., and the gorgeous mise-en-scène of Bolingbroke’s entry into London, scenery and dresses all adapted from old pictures and chronicles.

Another vivid memory is that of going down the Thames by steamer and being landed on the “Isle of Dogs,” there to inspect Scott Russell’s monster ship, the Great Eastern, which was then—1857—being built. It was not till after a long climb we reached the upper deck, that we fully appreciated her enormous size. She was one-eighth of a mile in length, and was designed to carry ten thousand people.

But the extraordinary facilities for travel, which since then have created such a fashion for globe-trotting, had not then developed, and so the ten thousand were never forthcoming, and as a passenger steamship she proved a failure. Now much larger vessels belonging to American and German companies can scarcely meet the demand for 153accommodation. So the Great Eastern was transferred to other service, and she had the honour of carrying and laying one of the great Atlantic cables—I forget whether it was the first or the second.

After being employed in this grand work, it was a sad come-down to hear of her, about 1887, being anchored in the Mersey, with variety entertainments on board to attract sightseers, and covered with gigantic advertisements of a large mercantile firm. Eventually she was broken up as being unfit for use. But her builders were the first who foresaw the possibility of carrying ten thousand people at a time.

A similar vast number of human beings were constantly packed into the Surrey Music Hall, where Spurgeon was then holding services, several of which I attended, escorted by my stalwart brother Roualeyn. The perfect silence of so vast a multitude was well-nigh as remarkable as the eloquence and point of the preacher.

An expedition of very special interest was to Mr. Powell’s glass-works. We drove to the Strand, where he showed us some fine stained-glass windows, and then took us all over the factory and showed us glass in every stage of development. Amongst other things of interest was the manufacture of glass sticks, to be made into bugles for trimming dresses, and, strangest of all, a piece of silk, brocaded with spun glass, which looked like gold but could never tarnish. I sometimes recall that day, when in St. Columba’s Church at Crieff I admire Mr. Powell’s beautiful reredos of glass mosaic.

Young Oswin being now an Eton boy, we of course went to college for June 4th, and were duly lionised—playingfields, boats, and all the orthodox round.

My sister did not gain in health while in London, and in July we returned to Harehope, where (except that I occasionally stayed for a few days with country neighbours), we remained stationary till the following June, many 154members of the family constantly coming to stay for a week or two.

All the neighbours were most kind in driving long distances to try to cheer her who had been such a centre of brightness ever since she entered the county, and also to arrange pleasant ploys for me. Foremost among these were the Liddells from Esslington, Lord Ravensworth’s daughters.

The nearest and most frequent of these kind visitors was Lady Olivia Ossulston (now the Dowager Lady Tankerville), who was the very incarnation of breezy sunshine, and who could cheer my sister better than any one. Lord Ossulston’s singing (a lovely tenor) was truly fascinating, as was also their group of five pretty children.

Towards the end of October they went to Paris to visit the Emperor Louis Napoleon and Empress Eugenie, and were much interested by the cosy, informal life at Compiègne, their country home. The guests numbered sixty, but, including servants, there were nearly a thousand people in the house. Every day the party drove about the forest in char-à-bancs, each holding a dozen people, while the huntsmen, in very ornamental costume, hunted either stags or wild boars. An open-air picnic, followed by dancing, sometimes fitted into the programme. One day the entertainment was varied by a paper-chase, in which the Emperor himself acted the part of the “hare,” scattering showers of torn paper.

Every evening the party either danced to the music of a barrel-organ, acted charades, or played children’s games, petits jeux innocents, the Emperor and Empress joining with the greatest spirit. All these easily amused people were amazed and delighted at the newly invented English walking-dress, looped up over striped woollen petticoats, with coloured stockings, as worn by Lady Olivia, the Duchess of Manchester, and Lady Cowley.

What chiefly surprised the English guests was the total 155absence of any furniture except chairs in all the principal rooms, and that (except a few books in the Empress’s own rooms) there were no books nor anything suggestive of any occupation.

All this time the Indian mails were a source of continual interest and anxiety, on account of the Indian Mutiny, with all its horrors. Our brother Bill was stationed in the Mhow district, far from any other white men. Happily his native troops and servants loved him as a just and wise man, and a very successful slayer of tigers, and so he passed safely through many times of imminent danger. Having won the affection of some of the wild Bheel tribes, he selected men of different tribes not likely to coalesce for mischief, and so succeeded in forming a corps of Bheel police, who did most valuable service.

Part of the time he was on duty at Indore, and then guarding the passes of the Nerbudda while our troops were in pursuit of Tantia Topee. For his excellent work all through these prolonged anxieties he received warm thanks from the Indian Government. When after long years of active service in India he settled down in Scotland, he wrote an account of some of his personal adventures under the name of Wild Men and Wild Beasts,^[37] illustrated by his friend and fellow-sportsman, Major Baigrie, a capital artist.

The long months at Harehope wore on; there was no longer any concealing the certainty that Seymour’s ever-increasing illness was consumption in its most trying form; many a time in her weary hours of dire suffering and exhaustion did she speak of the cruelty of people who write romances in which the heroine begins with an interesting hectic flush, and passes easily away from life. She said that when the doctor first warned her that by constant exposure to the cold, raw Northumbrian mists she would bring on consumption, she only thought that it 156would be an easy way of escape from her great sorrow, but that if she had had the faintest conception of what in her case consumption would really mean, she would have taken every possible precaution from the beginning.

Alas! this wisdom came too late, and her sufferings were terrible. All through the weary winter and spring they wore on, and we watched the breathless exhaustion which we could do nothing to relieve.

At the end of May, as several of the family needed to visit the dentist, and as the George Grants were at Harehope, we left them in charge, and went to Edinburgh for a few days, which also gave me an opportunity of seeing several of my aunts, three grand-aunts (my mother’s aunts), and many other relations and friends, amongst others, the Bishop of Argyll (Ewing) and his daughter Nina. On Sunday afternoon, in St. John’s Church, he preached a very striking sermon on “The night is far spent.” We little thought how far for one of our family.

On June 3rd, George Grant arrived to tell us that the very night we had started, dear Seymour had become very much worse, and after a terribly prolonged struggle for breath, had passed away that morning. We returned at once with her children, now doubly orphaned. In the morning they helped to gather her favourite flowers, lily of the valley and blue Brodie Columbine, and laid them on her breast.

A week later we sat in the same window whence, just two years before, she had watched her husband being taken to his rest; and now she was to be laid beside him in old Woodhorne Church. It was a long, weary six hours’ journey of thirty miles for those who accompanied the funeral all the way.

Thus ended our life at Harehope. Less than twelve years since, in bright hope for the future, we had watched baby Oswin in his proud father’s arms, lay its foundation-stone. Henceforth the children lived entirely at Cresswell, and 157I found a home with my sister Nelly as soon as she and George got settled.

My first move was to Wishaw, to my mother’s aunt, Lady Belhaven. Although so surrounded by collieries, the old place retained much charm from its gardens and the fine old trees on the high banks of the river Calder, while indoors there were endless beautiful objects. But these were as nothing compared with the marvellous art-treasures of Hamilton Palace, which was a favourite drive; a never-failing source of interest being a fine picture of my great-grandmother (Elizabeth Gunning) when she was Duchess of Hamilton.

I returned there often on future visits, as also to the Duke’s Forest in Cadzow Park, where there still remain some magnificent old oaks, and also the herd of wild white cattle, which have some slight difference from those I knew so well at Chillingham, the inner side of the ear of the Scottish cattle being black, and that of the English being pink. Both herds have black muzzles. But Lord Tankerville told me that his own herd at Chillingham is now the only absolutely pure breed remaining, each of the others having had a cross.

Another delightful home in that near neighbourhood was Barnscleugh, a charming old place belonging to Lady Ruthven (another grand-aunt). It is most picturesquely perched on the banks of the Evan, in the midst of terraces with clipped yews and hollies.

From Wishaw I went to our dear cousins, the Campbells of Skipness, and after a quiet, peaceful month, Colonel Campbell took his eldest daughter and me for a tour in Argyllshire, to show me some of its chief beauties, combined with getting some fishing himself. It was my first visit to my mother’s county, and we had a most enjoyable time at Oban, Inveraray, Dalmally, The Brander Pass, and many another lovely spot which in after years became very familiar ground.

158After this came long “homey” visits to the Cumming-Bruces at Dunphail, to the Murrays of Polmaise at Craigdarroch, in Ross-shire, and to my eldest brother at Altyre. (“Pen’s sylvania,” as Lady Anne Mackenzie delighted to call it, in reference to the name by which we always called him—Penrose, and his love for his beautiful woods.) Then to Raigmore, and afterwards a very long visit to the Bishop of Moray and Ross, and all the large family of Edens at Hedgefield, Inverness.

Up to about this date St. John’s was the only Episcopal Church in Inverness, and as it was scantily filled, its congregation was not very well pleased when the Bishop decided on purchasing a building beside the river Ness, which had originally belonged to the Free Church, and had then been hired by my brother Roualeyn as a temporary museum in which to exhibit his South African trophies. In this “upper chamber” the Bishop commenced holding very hearty services, and the little hall was quickly filled to overflowing.

But when he suggested the erection on the opposite bank of the river of a large church which should be recognised as the cathedral for the diocese of Moray and Ross, the scheme was deemed absolutely visionary. Nevertheless, such was his strong personal influence, that ere long the fine building became a reality. In the autumn of 1865, the Archbishop of Canterbury laid the foundation-stone of what was thenceforth to prove the “Church-home” of a crowded congregation.

Emery Walker. ph. sc.

Elizabeth Gunning, Duchess of Hamilton as Helen of Troy

by Gavin Hamilton.

CHAPTER VIII At Home on Speyside—The Last Call to Arms of Clan Grant—A Double Funeral—Macdowal Grant of Arndilly—Aberlour Orphanage.

The George Grants being now comfortably settled at Easter Elchies, on the banks of the Spey, early in January 1859 I joined them there at what proved to be their happy home for the next eight years. It is one of the many minor properties of the Earls of Seafield, and so at that time belonged to George’s brother, from whom he rented it. It is a comfortable old house, commanding a beautiful view looking in one direction down the river to Craigellachie, a noble wooded crag, with the river sweeping round its base, and a fine bridge at right angles to the crag. On the further bank lies the village of the same name, and beyond, above beautiful Arndilly, rises the fine heathery mountain Ben Agan.

Looking in the opposite direction, up the river lie the house and village of Aberlour, above which rises Ben Rinnes (2747 feet in height).

Curiously enough, near Grantown, another crag likewise bears the name of Craigellachie, “the beacon crag,” and from it Clan Grant takes one of its two mottos, “Stand Fast,” and the war-cry “Craig-Ellachie.” What a romance of olden times it seems when we think of the fiery cross being carried “o’er mountain and through glen” by fleet-footed runners to call the clan together for a fray. And yet it was only seventeen years before I was born that (in 1820) Clan Grant was thus hastily called together for the defence of Lady Ann and Lady Penuel Grant, who were then living at Grant Lodge,^[38] in Elgin, taking care of their 160brother, Lord Seafield, the fifth earl, who was of weak intellect.

Lady Ann was very much the reverse, and was greatly revered by Clan Grant, who virtually regarded her as their chief,^[39] although her brother, the Honourable Colonel Francis William Grant of Grant, was really curator for the earl, and succeeded him in the title. He does not seem to have been in Elgin at the time I refer to. He had been Provost of the town for three years, but in 1819 was succeeded in that office by Sir Archibald Dunbar of Northfield. It was then customary for county gentlemen to act in that honourable capacity, and the annals of Nairn record that my father and his brother Charles were elected again and again to be Provost of Nairn.

The death of King George III. (29th January 1820) necessitated a general election, and a meeting of the Town Council of Elgin was called to elect a delegate to represent the burgh on the day of the election at Cullen.

General Duff, the popular brother of Lord Fife, was the Whig candidate, and Mr. Robert Grant, Lord Glenelg’s well-beloved younger brother, who had hitherto been the Tory member, refused to stand against him, so his place as Tory candidate was taken by Mr. Farquharson of Finzean, who was little known, and far from popular. General Duff was well known, and warmly supported by Lord Fife, who, fearless of any charge of bribery and corruption, freely bestowed gifts of all sorts among the poorer electors—money, trinkets, dresses, shawls, bonnets; and by exceeding 161courtesy to all, and stirring addresses, so turned the tide of popular favour, that the issue of the election became a matter of extreme anxiety.

Members of the Town Council were equally divided, the casting vote resting with the Provost, Sir Archibald Dunbar, who at this critical moment was absent. All stratagems being deemed fair, several voters were kidnapped and forcibly abducted. The Duffs captured Mr. Dick, a councillor in the Grant interest, and hurrying him into a post-chaise, drove him off to the seaport of Burghead, where a boat lay ready to carry him across the Moray Firth to Sutherland. There he was set at liberty, but was so hospitably entertained that Elgin saw him no more till after the election.

The Duffs also captured Bailie Taylor, who was acting chief magistrate, and carried him down a back lane to where a post-chaise awaited him likewise, and conveyed him also to the coast, where an open boat lay in readiness to take him also to Sutherland. A storm arose, and for seventeen hours he and his captors were tossed about in some danger. Finally they managed to land at Brora, and eventually got home after the election.

The excitement became so great that Lady Ann considered herself and her brother and sister to be in danger, and so sent a message to Speyside addressed to young Patrick Grant (son of Major John Grant of Auchterlair), bidding him, “Young as you are, rally the Highlanders, and come to the rescue of your Chief.” That young Highlander lived to be one of Scotland’s bravest soldiers, Field-Marshal Sir Patrick Grant, and from his own lips, as well as from others, I learnt all details of this his first experience of prompt action as a leader of men.

The express reached Cromdale on Sunday morning, just as the church was “scaling” (i.e. the congregation dispersing), and three hundred able-bodied men started then and there, a summons being sent to the remoter glens to bid 162others follow with all speed. They marched down Speyside with such goodwill that they reached the village of Aberlour in the night, and still pressing on, reached Elgin at about 3 A.M.

But as they passed through Aberlour, an adherent of the other faction, the Duffs, despatched a mounted messenger in hot haste to warn the Earl of Fife and the Duff party. The messenger reached the town in time to rouse the sleepers, who rapidly armed themselves with old swords, bludgeons, and other weapons, and formed a guard for the protection of such members of the town council and magistrates as were favourable to the Duff candidate, and therefore liable to be captured by the Grants.

The Highlanders, finding the townsfolk on the alert, marched to the grounds of Grant Lodge (adjoining the beautiful old cathedral). There a few hours later they were joined by about four hundred more staunch men and true, ready to obey the behest of their chief. Under the circumstances, it must have been somewhat a difficult matter to provide food for seven hundred hungry men, though doubtless even the enemy would be ready so far to conciliate the invaders.

Ere noon, large bodies of the Earl of Fife’s tenants assembled from the sea-board villages, and other estates, armed with bludgeons, so there was a strong probability that a collision might ensue, more especially as “the mountain dew” was flowing freely on all sides.

To avert this grave danger, Sir George Abercromby, the sheriff of the county, escorted by the clergy, came to crave an interview with Lady Ann, and to entreat her forthwith to bid her noble guard return to Strath Spey. Sir Patrick Grant told me that the civic authorities came and knelt before her, praying her to consent, which she finally did, on the assurance of the sheriff that special constables would be sworn-in to ensure peace.

This was accordingly done, and the “specials” patrolled 163the streets all night, but so great was the dread lest the Highlanders should return to carry off members of the council known to be favourable to the Duffs, that the townsfolk resolved to watch all night, and illuminate their houses, so that no one might approach under cover of darkness. (An attempt at lighting the streets in 1775 had quickly been abandoned, and till gas was introduced in 1830, not a glimmer illumined the night.)

That danger was by no means imaginary was proven by the kidnapping which had already taken place. The very day but one later, was that appointed for the election by the town council of the delegate, but owing to the abduction of Councillor Dick and Bailie Taylor, the Grant party absented themselves from the meeting, so, although the Duff party nominated their delegate, there was neither town clerk nor town seal to attest the commission, which consequently was invalid.

When the kidnapped councillor and bailie returned, they in their turn called a meeting, and, thanks to the casting vote of the provost, elected the delegate in the Grant interest, whose commission was duly attested by the town clerk and town seal. Though much legal discussion ensued, the vote of Elgin in favour of the Grant candidate was sustained, and Mr. Farquharson was elected member for the district of Burghs.^[40]

Many years elapsed ere the ill-feeling stirred up at this time abated, and bitter family divisions and estrangement of old friendships continued for a whole generation.

To us, however, the interest of the election turns on the picturesque incident of this, probably the last rallying of a Highland clan for the defence of its chief, and at the time of which I write many of the older generation were able to speak as eye-witnesses of the start from Cromdale.

164Another incident which had vividly impressed itself on the hearts of the Highlanders, was the deeply pathetic double funeral of George Grant’s mother and eldest brother. The former, a beautiful and much-loved woman, Mary Ann, only daughter of Charles Dunn, most unexpectedly died in London, 27th February 1840, of measles, caught while nursing her daughter Jane, who was said to have caught the infection while on a visit to Lord Selkirk at St. Mary’s Isle, but it did not develop till she reached London.^[41]

Shortly before his death in 1903, the Honourable Lewis A. Grant, while on a visit to his niece, Lady Walter Gordon Lennox, pointed out to her the house in Belgrave Square in which his mother died, and to which he and his brothers had been summoned to see her for the last time, apparently regardless of possible infection.

Jane continued so seriously ill that it was impossible for her father to leave her. The Cullen factor was accordingly summoned to London, and he brought Mrs. Grant’s body by sea to Cullen by the steamer North Star—the same by which, a few years later, I travelled on my school journeys.

Her two eldest sons, Frank (Francis William), the young Master of Grant, aged twenty-six, and his next brother, Ian (John Charles), starting a few days later, travelled more rapidly by coach to Aberdeen, posting thence to Cullen House (a beautiful family home on the sea-coast).

There they arrived on March 10th. The Master, never robust, and now crushed with sorrow, had been unable to eat on the long journey, and arrived utterly exhausted, feeling so unwell that the family doctor prescribed as a simple remedy a Dover’s powder. Alas! when his servant went to call him in the morning he was dead.

It was generally said that he literally died of grief. But 165as the factor’s daughter, Catherine Fraser, who had to handle and arrange his clothes, caught measles, as did also her child (although careful inquiry failed to discover any other case of that illness anywhere in Banffshire), there can be no doubt that his clothes carried the infection, and it seems more than probable that the Master really died of suppressed measles of a peculiarly virulent type, thrown inward by the chill of the long, cold journey, and the preliminary funeral arrangements when the coffin was shipped from the misty Thames.

The news of his untimely death caused the deepest consternation throughout the clan, by whom he was idolised, his personal beauty and bright, sunny nature (so like that of his youngest brother George) having personally endeared him to them all. Never was there a sadder scene than the double funeral on its long journey to Castle Grant, where for several days the two coffins lay in state in the long drawing-room, the mother’s coffin draped with black and the son’s with white, all the pictures and the stairs being likewise covered with white.

For two days the mournful procession of townsfolk and tenants continued passing through that sad room, and on the day of the funeral, the clan assembled from far and near in heartfelt grief to follow the mother and son whom all loved so truly, and the pipers played their saddest laments while the solemn procession wended its way through the dark fir-forests to Duthil, the family burial-place of the chiefs of Clan Grant, half-way between Grantown and Carr Bridge, where, only the previous year, Colonel Francis William had completed the new mausoleum, little dreaming that the first to be laid therein would be his own wife and eldest son.

A curious detail of funeral trappings was that, while the hearse and four black horses which conveyed the beloved mother were all bedecked with tall, black ostrich-plumes, and the attendants wore black crape scarves and 166weepers, the hearse and horses conveying the young Master were adorned with white plumes, and the hearse was draped with white, the attendants wearing white crape scarves.

In the same year, on the 26th October, the fifth Earl died, and once again the clan assembled at Castle Grant to follow their chief to his last resting-place at Duthil.

He was succeeded by his brother, Colonel Francis William, who, thirteen years later, died at Cullen. Well do I remember watching his funeral pass through the Altyre woods by the Highland road from Forres to Castle Grant. My sister Nelly and I, with our Highland maid, lay hidden like roe-deer among the tall bracken, chiefly to catch a glimpse of George in that sad procession.

Many have been the changes in the immediate neighbourhood of Craigellachie since the time when we lived there. The picturesque village itself was a mere hamlet—now there are villas and a large hotel and whisky distillery; then in all this district there were only about three small distilleries. Nowadays the excellent quality of the water has led to the establishing of about twenty great factories of fire-water, dotted all over the country, in many a hitherto delightful, secluded glen.

At that time there was no railway down Speyside from Grantown to Elgin, or down Glen Fiddich from Keith, joining the other line at Craigellachie, and crossing the Spey by a bridge a little lower down the river than the beautiful carriage-bridge. All this was done before our eyes on the opposite bank of the Spey. We had feared it would be a continual eyesore, but, on the contrary, it proved on the whole a picturesque feature in the general scene.

Moreover, we found considerable interest in making friends with many of the navvies, of whom there were fully two thousand in the district. They welcomed being recognised as human beings, and were touchingly grateful for a very little kindness, especially in cases of sickness. 167A large number of them could only speak Gaelic, which was to us an unknown tongue, but we secured a grant for a large number of both Gaelic and English Bibles and New Testaments, which were sold at a reduced rate—also Gaelic tracts, which were welcomed and, I believe, in many cases truly valued. I like to remember that my very first venture into print was a leaflet to accompany these Bibles.

There was at that time no Gaelic service in the neighbourhood, but some of the men themselves gathered others together and held open-air meetings every Sunday in the Arndilly woods and at the quarry—very pleasant in the sweet summer days, but a very trying ordeal in bitterly cold winter. Partly for their benefit, but chiefly for that of other lads in the neighbourhood, I started a lending library of really readable books, which “took” very well for a while, but died away when I left the district.

About three miles down the Spey, at beautiful Arndilly, lived Hay Macdowal Grant, one of the saintliest and most lovable men I have ever known. His one aim in life was to awaken or deepen the spiritual life of every one with whom he came in contact, and undoubtedly his efforts and his prayers were often crowned with success. He loved to fill his delightful home with large parties of happy young people, to all of whom he and his kind wife were “Uncle Hay and Auntie Loo,” and many a lovely ramble we all had under his escort.

Perhaps the most notable change in that district has been the creation of the admirable Orphanage at Aberlour, on what was then a bare hillside. Now an ideal group of cottage-homes, clustering round a central hall, form the happy and real home of upwards of three hundred children, poor waifs from many parts of the country and many cities, who, but for this blessed haven, could have known no shelter but the workhouse, or worse quarters. Now hundreds of well-to-do young men and maidens, earning their own living in many parts of the world, speak with 168warm affection of this, their only home; and many try, when possible, to come to spend their brief Easter or Christmas holidays here, and attend the church services at the beautiful episcopal church, which forms a prominent feature in the grounds.

In our time it was a rare event to have an occasional episcopal service in some one’s drawing-room, but somewhere about 1870 the Bishop sent the Rev. Charles Jupp to live at Craigellachie and hold service regularly. He and his wife had no children of their own, and their income was infinitesimal, but when a poor little orphan child seemed somehow to be thrust upon their care, they felt bound to do what they could for it.

Presently however, another and yet another seemed to be equally forced upon them—poor little lonely creatures with no one to care for them. The matter grew serious indeed, but they seemed to hear a Voice saying: “Take this child and nurse it for Me,” so they agreed that if God really intended them to tend His poor neglected little ones, He would provide the necessaries of life. So in this practical faith they accepted the charge, and like George Müller of Bristol, Quarrier of Glasgow, and Dr. Barnardo, they proved how faithful a Master they served.

Many a time their faith was sorely tried, when their great family went on ever increasing, and food and firing were well-nigh exhausted, but whenever they seemed quite at the end of their resources, help came from some unexpected quarter.

So year by year this great work has developed, and under the hands of the gifted organiser and a body of trustees, all has been placed on such a sound business footing as to ensure the local authorities against the possibility which they so much dreaded (and which for some years led to considerable antagonism) lest the founder should die, and leave a large pauper population dependent on the parish.

169A monthly magazine now carries to all friends reports of work done and gifts received, and invites purchasers to stock their gardens with plants from the Aberlour Orphanage garden. All manner of gifts in aid of this excellent work should be addressed to “The Rev. The Warden, The Orphanage, Aberlour, Banffshire,” by whom all visitors to Speyside will be cordially welcomed.

My journals of the next eight years are records of a very full social life—of innumerable pleasant, leisurely visits to many relations and friends scattered over England and Scotland, not forgetting London and Edinburgh in their respective seasons, and a full share of very gay doings. I must say that whatever we did in those days we did in earnest, and however much bodily exercise in the way of walks, etc., we had got through in the day-time, we were never too tired for frequent cheery dances and balls, at which we all prided ourselves on never missing a dance from the beginning to the end, which was never before 4 A.M.—sometimes much later. In short, we all had an apparently inexhaustible fund of health and spirits.

As I turn page after page, full of details of that kaleidoscopic life, it seems like watching the mazy dances of midges in the sunshine, never for one moment at rest. And of all that multitude of active dancers, I am now almost the sole survivor.

The autumn of 1859 was one never to be forgotten in our family annals. The return from India, after prolonged service there, of the 78th Highlanders, to be stationed at Fort George, half-way between Inverness and Nairn, gave rise to a succession of enthusiastic “welcomes” in the form of banquets, sports, and balls. This naturally attracted an unusual number of visitors; and the Northern Meeting at Inverness in September was quickly followed by a very cheery ball at Nairn, to which a hundred and fifty people came by special train from Inverness, and all the officers from Fort George, many of whom had only arrived that 170afternoon direct from India, having been five months on the homeward voyage, sailing round the Cape. (Now we can travel from London to Peking in three weeks by Trans-Siberian Railway!)

Then followed a very gay ball at Rosehaugh, given by Sir James and Lady Anne Mackenzie of Scatwell to the officers of the 78th and all the neighbourhood from far and near. I was one of a large merry party who drove all the way from Moniack—a distance of seventeen miles each way, and as the ball was kept up till 6 A.M., the morning was far advanced ere we thought of a little sleep.

Ten days later, Nairn entertained the whole regiment—such a noble-looking lot of bearded men! The weather was glorious, and every one walked about on the links beside the calm, blue sea, while the band played.

A similar banquet at Inverness was quickly followed by a very brilliant ball for the officers, and on November 4th they gave a return ball at Inverness which, in point of tasteful decoration and general satisfaction to all concerned, was voted an unqualified success.

To us, as a family, a main pleasure in all this autumn was that so many of ourselves were in the north and constantly meeting. We four sisters, Alice and John Jenkinson, Nelly and George Grant, Ida and myself, and also our brothers, Penrose and Lady Gordon-Cumming, and Henry and his Bessie, were together more than we had been for years. Little did we dream that it was for the last time, and that one brief month later our bright, beautiful sister Alice was to be taken from us.

But so it was. From Nairn we all scattered. I returned with my eldest brother (Sir Alexander—to us Penrose) to Altyre, where he had a large houseful. These dispersed a week later, as one of the guests developed a gastric or typhoid fever. The children were sent away, but I elected to stay and take some little share of nursing, and so it was in the quiet of the old home that I learnt to 171face the great blank that nothing could ever fill for any of us.

Alice and her husband and three little ones had reached Cresswell (in Northumberland) on their homeward way, and as usual, she and Ida were the life of the party, both in bright, happy spirits, and Alice in excellent health except for a twinge of toothache. This must have got worse in the night, for in the dark, not to disturb her husband, she had vainly tried to open a tiny bottle of chloroform, a touch of which sometimes eased the pain. She had therefore felt for and opened a larger bottle, the fumes of which had overcome her, the bottle had fallen from her hand, and her dear face had sunk to rest on that wet pool, to be found cold and rigid when, in the morning of December 9th, her poor husband awoke to find only that fair soul-case, from which the pure spirit had been recalled to God Who gave it.

So another of our happy band of sisters was laid to await the resurrection morning in old Woodhorne Churchyard by the sea. The pure white snow lay deep on the ground, and the day was bitterly cold, but happily there was calm, bright sunshine and no wind to cause danger to the many mourners who assembled from far north and south.

Our beloved “parson,” Mr. Jermyn, who had left Forres to face yellow fever in the West Indies as Archdeacon of St. Kitts^[42] (and had recently returned, broken in health, 172and with a sadly diminished family), came all the way from Somerset to speak the grand words of promise: “I am the Resurrection and the Life. He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.”

CHAPTER IX The “Home-going” of Three Brothers. — THE CHIEFTAIN’S CORONACH.

I will pass over the many interests of the next five years, varied as they were. They seem so small in comparison with the great realities which we were called to face in 1865–66, when within nine months, three of our brothers were taken from us, all in the prime of life, aged respectively thirty-nine, forty-six, and fifty. Yet, dark as were life’s shadows, we were blest with light more vivid than we had ever dared to hope for—such as ought surely to keep faith and trust strong to the end, whatever the future may have in store for us.

My brothers John and William had started simultaneously, about the year 1845, for their respective careers in the Far East—the former as a cocoanut-planter in Ceylon, which he combined with much good useful work for Government, the latter to do very varied work, military and political, in the Bombay Presidency. Both incidentally found ample scope for their skill as keen sportsmen in ridding the jungles of a multitude of dangerous wild beasts—tigers in Bombay and leopards in Ceylon, with many other creatures whose destruction rejoiced the natives, by whom both brothers were truly loved.

In 1860, after the terrible anxieties of his work all through the Mutiny, William came home for a brief spell of leave, but it was not till 1865 that he could afford to do so for long, or, as it proved, permanently. Then the two brothers agreed to meet in Ceylon and come home together.

But when the time arrived, Bill found that the expense would be so largely increased by this arrangement, that he relinquished the idea, and came direct to London, fully 174expecting that John would reach England about the same time. Alas! instead of his arriving we received the grievous news that he had died on October 6th, apparently from a tumour on the brain, in far away Batticaloa, on the further side of Ceylon, most of which was then clothed with dense forest, and communication with Colombo or Galle very slow and difficult.

Three months later, ere any relation could interfere, and without even the knowledge of his friends on the other side of the isle, all his worldly goods and the hunting-trophies accumulated during his twenty long years of exile were sold by auction for a mere song,^[43] and his estate was declared insolvent. This did not at all tally with his own recent reports. Curiously enough, he had written to tell me that he had made a will leaving all he possessed to me, but the will was not found, and the estate on which he had expended so much toil and money passed to other hands.

All through these long years this most affectionate brother rarely missed a mail in writing to one or other of us, often speaking of his longing to return to Morayshire and to the dear home faces, and wondering if there was no hope that any of us could visit Ceylon.

At that time the journey was so slow and so costly that this seemed utterly out of the question, but so rapidly did these difficulties become modified that, within two years of his death, several of his relations did touch Ceylon, and a little later I myself went to visit his grave, and was so fascinated with the loveliness of other parts of the isle and the kindness of many friends, that I lingered there for two years, sketching the very varied scenery and the wonderful “jungle cities.”

175Of course the pilgrimage of primary interest to me was to Batticaloa, where John had lived and died, and where he had been laid to rest in the peaceful “God’s acre” on the banks of the wide, calm river, its stillness broken only by the ever-recurring boom, like distant thunder, of unseen waves, for ever breaking on the coral strand, where beyond the thick belt of graceful cocoa-palms which fringe its shore, lies that great ocean which to him had for so many years been the sea of separation from all whom he most loved.

In 1865–66 my brother Roualeyn was living in old Fort Augustus at the head of Loch Ness, occupying a couple of the bare barrack-rooms, once tenanted by the Duke of Cumberland’s soldiers.^[44] He had some years previously built a large handsome room near the Caledonian Canal as a museum in which to exhibit what he still retained of his hunting-trophies. Hating the trammels of conventional life, he chose to live quite apart from us all, taking such sport as came in his way, and finding in the wild mountainous districts all around him abundant scope for his love of natural history.

Thus, in a letter to me dated Fort Augustus, April 1862:—

“I came home last night quite knocked up, having been a long, long way over this district and Badenoch all alone, across a boundless, desolate wilderness of sterile rocks and frozen lochs, and deep, great wreaths of frozen snow—a region too barren for even heather to nourish, and where the prevailing vegetation is grey moss and several varieties of lichen.

“My object in undertaking a little pilgrimage through so toilsome a tract was to reach the eyrie of the king of birds. Beyond the howlish region I have described, I descended into a warmer temperature in a most sequestered and romantic glen, where three mountain streams meet and form a continuous succession of enchanting little pools and rugged cataracts.

“High above them, in the upper ridges of the glen, are bold overhanging rocks, and here for centuries a pair of golden eagles have been known to locate, and return year after year to add a few fresh sticks and 176heather to their already colossal nest. As soon as I made the glen, a noisy little kestrel apprised the eagles of my approach, and presently I observed the two noble birds soaring in the most majestic manner high above the glen, and still ascending higher and higher, the audacious little kestrel accompanying them in their aerial revolutions to a great height, when I fancy he felt himself above his sphere, and left the eagles to enjoy in uninterrupted solitude their free and glorious flight.

“I was unlucky so far as securing the eggs I sought, but I found a grand new nest all ready for eggs, and I purpose to pay another visit to the glen.”

Later he wrote:—

“There is a Ned Luck’s^[45] nest a hundred yards from my door containing a young cuckoo, which ejected all the rest of the inmates. I intend trying to train him and make a pet of him.”

In 1864 he wrote:—

“I devote much attention to the interesting study of the habits of birds, especially the genus falco, from the golden eagle to the peregrine falcon downwards. I obtained some very beautiful specimens of the eggs of these noble birds this season. They are very hard to obtain, being very rare and inaccessible.

“There are a number of interesting wild ducks which breed not far from here, among which I may mention the velvet duck or scoter, which is not generally supposed to build in Britain, as also the sheldrake and the crested merganser, the widgeon, the mallard, and the teal. That noble bird, the great black-throated diver, and also the red-throated diver, nestle on certain green isles in lonesome lochs hereabouts.”

In his eagerness to secure the eggs of one of these black-throated divers, he swam to an island on Loch Tarff on a bitterly cold day in March 1865, and was so thoroughly chilled that he contracted a very severe cough, which, though he made light of it, he was never able to shake off.

About Christmas came tidings of his brother John’s death in Ceylon. Roualeyn had loved him with the devotion of an elder brother for a younger one who shared the same tastes and possessed much of the same skill as a sportsman, and he had been looking forward anxiously to his return.

Emery Walker. ph. sc.

Roualeyn George Gordon-Cumming. in 1851.

Up to that time he was in apparently magnificent health, 177doing feats of walking on mountains which amazed other sportsmen. But he had himself been conscious of failing health, and the sudden news of John’s death came to him as a crushing blow. He shut himself up in the old Fort, and towards the end of February one of the men in charge of the canal-locks sent a letter to tell my brother Bill that Roualeyn was very ill. He started at once, sending the letter on to me. I followed the next day, and then in quick succession came our brother Henry and his Bessie, and Ida, who in life’s early days had ever been Roualeyn’s special “comrade.”

Kind neighbours provided sleeping-quarters for such of us as could from time to time snatch a few hours away from our darling in that strange sick-room in the grey old Fort. Its walls still bore the names, carved in their leisure, by the Duke of Cumberland’s soldiers, and from the wide open chimney, as in any Highland cottage, the black cooking-pot hung above the low peat-fire (till we instituted a change). On the walls hung some of his favourite deers’ heads, to which we added long trails of stag’s-horn moss, and from one of these was slung an eagle’s wing, with which we used to fan him, for, in the difficulty of breathing, he could scarcely get air enough, though door and window were wide open all through the bitter winter nights.

His iron bedstead was so narrow that I think it made him appear even larger than he really was—he did look so grandly beautiful as he lay there in a blue flannel shirt, with his old scarlet Cumming tartan plaid thrown round his shoulders, and his masses of lovely silky curls brushed straight back from his forehead like a golden halo. His hair was of a rich nutty brown, and very glossy—not one grey hair had yet appeared. As he slowly turned his grand head, it seemed like that of one of his own lions, with a look of strange surprise in his beautiful eyes, as though wondering what had befallen him.

Gladly did he welcome us, as one by one gathered round 178him, and for seven days and nights we watched, thinking that each hour must be the last, so terrible was the agony and the incessant coughing up quantities of blood, consequent, Doctor Tolmie told us, on enlargement of the heart and its pressure on the lungs. All this time and during the three weeks that followed, kind, strong men from the canal-locks and other neighbours, constantly came by turns to do all in their power to help us, and his faithful piper, Tom Moffat, would soothe him for hours by playing his favourite old Highland airs on the bagpipes.

At length there came a strange rally, so that for awhile it seemed possible that he would live, and then, too, came that marvellous Light, like a tropical sunrise, so dazzling and intense was the glow that shone more and more unto the perfect day. It was as if suddenly a dark cloud had been raised from his soul, and every word of his beloved mother’s teaching came to him with a full, new meaning. She had made him learn by heart many chapters of the Bible and hymns, and he remembered every word. It was as if he had long possessed a box of treasures, of which he had only then found the key.

All through these terrible days we had felt it impossible to speak to him of holy things. At last one night I managed to say that our praying for him was not enough—he must do so himself.^[46] Then he told me that for months he had been doing so when alone on the wild hills. But knowing how little he had allowed his companions to imagine what was passing in his mind, I reminded him of the necessity of “confessing his Master before men.” There the conversation dropped, and for the next two days he made no allusion to it, and I felt that I could not say a word.

But one night, when I shared the night-watch with Sandy, his gillie, a tall, bonnie lad who sat in “the ingle neuk,” crouching over the fire, he called him to his side, and began speaking to him with a wild, passionate earnestness, 179such as I have never heard from any other lips—speaking of his own wasted life and of the grand talents of mind and body which God had given him for His own service, but which he had so recklessly misused, and imploring Sandy to see to it that he lived very differently and took warning by him.^[47]

Then he bade him kneel beside his bed while he prayed, and his prayer was like opening the floodgates of a mighty, pent-up torrent—the agonised repentance of a strong nature, with its intense remorse for all the irreparable past, and chiefly for having so often misled others, yet with the simplest childlike trust in the perfect love and forgiveness of his Saviour, in His having sought and found His wanderer, and His power to save and keep him from falling again.

From that hour, in every conscious moment (and likewise in many unconscious ones, though sometimes his delirious utterances were sad and pitiful to hear), his words were one long outpouring of faith and love. To every one who came near him (especially to the kind canal men—tenderest of nurses—who, after their hard day’s work, insisted on sharing our watching), he continued to speak in the same strain, urging them not to follow the example he had given them, but to begin a different life. One day he had been speaking very earnestly; then he looked troubled, remembering his own reckless life, but after a pause he turned to them again, and said, “Remember, lads, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” Often and often he would pray aloud, simply and naturally, just as if he was speaking to One Whom he saw standing beside him.

The window of the room which we used as our family sitting and dining-room and occasional sleeping-room looked right down Loch Ness, which was constantly swept by wild 180snowstorms, while from Roualeyn’s own window, though it looked into the grim courtyard, we could see the beautiful Glengarry peaks, all dazzlingly white, and on these, morning after morning, we watched the first gleam of dawn flushing the peaks like crimson fire, while the lower land still lay shrouded in purple gloom. One day, as I was watching this red light fade into dazzling white and describing it to him, he whispered, “Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow,” and he unmistakably accepted the promise as his own.

All his words were like a wild, beautiful poem, so full of metaphors and images drawn from nature, of hills and mists and storms, and of all living creatures and flowers, all blended with human sympathy and strange deep pathos. As I listened, I was continually reminded of the so-called Poems of Ossian, which were collected by Macpherson in Skye, and other remote mountain districts, in the original Gaelic, and by him translated, at the suggestion of David Hume, the historian, and Lord Lyndoch.

There were fluctuations in his illness, and for awhile even the doctor thought he would live. He himself clung to this hope, chiefly, he said, because he knew what influence he had with all the people around, and that he could use it so differently. His devoted old tutor, Mr. M‘Watt (Free Church minister of Rothes on the Spey), now came to see him, and was a real help and comfort to him. To him he talked much of this hope of living to work in the right cause.

But after awhile he seemed oppressed by the fear that he might not be able to stand true, and again and again I heard him pray, “Suffer me not to fall away from Thee.” It seemed like the answer to this prayer that he was spared the sore test of life, and rapidly grew weaker. When Ida one day spoke of her longing to keep him, and that they would never part again, he said, “Oh, don’t wish that! I am very weary of this sad life, and I long to get away to the Rest.” Little did we foresee that only four years later she 181would follow him to the land where there shall be no more partings, nor any more pain.

He constantly spoke of his mother in terms of deepest love, as also of all his brothers and sisters, as if the long separation from his own people, and the silence, had only deepened his heart’s yearning for them all.

It grieved him to hear that Penrose, his eldest brother, was even then suffering grievously, for, he said, “My pain makes me know what his must be. My Maker, my Saviour has humbled me sorely, but it has all been to draw me closer to Himself.” And with his whole soul he pleaded for his suffering brother. Almost his last utterance was a wild, passionate cry for him, addressing him by all the old pet-names. Afterwards this seemed to us like a prophetic call.

Even in the weary half-delirious hours he never uttered a word that could vex any one, all was an overflowing of gratitude, chiefly to God, and then to all of us for every trifling little comfort we could contrive for him, and if ever his agony wrung from him one word of impatience, his grief for that was too touching.

One evening he was for awhile anxious and distressed in mind, but presently he was able to cast all his care on the Friend Whom he had learnt to trust implicitly, and slept calmly as a child. When he awoke, the cloud had passed, and he said to me: “See how my little simple prayer has gone up to the throne of the Great God, and He has sent me an answer. He has sent me this peace for Christ’s sake.”

Again, on the last night he seemed somewhat troubled in mind, but when Ida gently repeated a few verses of strong promise, he looked up earnestly, saying, “Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief.” Then she and I sang some of the old Scotch paraphrases, “I’m not ashamed to own my Lord,” to the old tune “Martyrdom,” and others, she singing second, and after awhile he fell into a troubled sleep. Towards morning (24th March 1866) one deeper breath ended the struggle, and the emancipated spirit passed away.

182We hung the opposite room with white, and there that beautiful soul-case lay for three days, while the Highlanders came from many a distant glen to have one last look at him who from his boyhood had captivated all their hearts, and who now lay before them with all the beauty of his earlier years, but refined and spiritualised. “He looked so grand when he was dead.”

In the misty early morning of 28th March they assembled in the courtyard, and carried down the coffin, on which lay his plaid, bonnet, broadsword, and the Bible and Prayer-book which his father and mother had given him many years before when he first left Altyre to join the Madras cavalry, and from which, through all his wanderings, he had never parted. (His beautiful goat stood by—a magnificent white one with splendid horns—which followed him about like a dog, and which throughout his illness constantly waited under his window, listening to his voice, and sometimes climbing upstairs to his door. It seemed to recognise our right to its allegiance, for, though dangerous to most people, it was always very obedient to us.)

After prayer by the parish minister, the Highlanders carried the coffin to the pier, where lay a steamer which we had chartered, and whose captain had hoisted the Union Jack at half-mast. As we slowly marched down, the piper played “M‘Crimmon’s Lament,” the wildest of all the Gaelic wails, and its echoes mingled with the wild cries of the seapiats (i.e. peewits) or oyster-catchers, which were breeding in all the little creeks about the loch. Presently the sun broke through the mist, and bits of rainbow—bow of promise—irradiated the snowy mountain summits.

We left the steamer at Drumnadrochit, travelling thence by carriage to Inverness, and by rail to Elgin, whence we drove to Duffus, there to be welcomed and cared for by our cousins, the Dunbars, while in the old hall at Gordonstoun the coffin rested till Easter Eve, 31st March, whence many who loved him dearly followed it along the quiet green 183glades to the old Michael Kirk, where we laid him beside his father and mother. On the coffin lay one lovely cross of white flowers, in the centre of which, wrapped up in soft green moss, Ida had placed some sea-shells from the Covesea sands, to which he had so craved to return. Henceforth his dust would lie within sound of the waves which he loved, but might not see again.

On the following morning—Easter Day—we all went together to church in Elgin, and more real than ever seemed the glorious greetings of the Morning of the Resurrection.

One who would fain have been with us—our eldest brother, Sir Alexander Penrose—was prevented from coming by illness, which for some months had been gradually intensifying its grip of him. All through the previous autumn, while struggling to be, as was his wont, the life of the many balls^[48] and other gay doings at Floors Castle, Kelso, etc., in honour of the young Prince and Princess of Wales, he had frequently been enduring grievous pain.

But he battled bravely on, till in the month of February it became evident that he must have further medical advice, and so, telling his specially loved little son Walter that he hoped to return to him in a week, he took what proved to be his last look at his beloved Altyre, and journeyed to the Cumming-Bruces’ southern home at Kinnaird, near Larbert, whence he could conveniently go to Edinburgh and back in a day.

Soon, however, it became evident that much closer medical attendance was necessary, and he moved first to rooms in Forres Street, and then to 11 Albyn Place, which was destined to become to us all hallowed ground indeed.

All through the weary summer months the slow “purification by fire” went on—days and nights of such agony as mercifully few human beings are called to endure—hardly a moment’s respite from pain in some form, except when 184the momentary sharp pain of the morphia needle soothed and enabled him to sleep for some hours. Always hungry, yet hardly daring to touch necessary food, for the certainty of torture, as well as desperate sickness, so soon as it was swallowed. The only relief he experienced was when by turns we were almost incessantly rubbing or kneading the seat of pain, when it would shift to some new place.

His illness sorely perplexed the medical faculty, who attributed it to the presence of sarcinae, a fungoid or zoophyte growth on the coats of the stomach, combined with the gravest form of liver-complaint.

Dr. Christison, whom he consulted in the first instance, had treated the case so lightly, that the patient placed himself in the care of Dr. Simpson, who at once corroborated the above, which was the view taken by Dr. Murray, our local doctor at Forres. Dr. Simpson was himself at that time in such precarious health, that the charge of his patients devolved almost entirely on Dr. Black, who, on my brother’s very bad days, sometimes looked in seven or eight times, and soon the strongest brotherly friendship grew up between him and the sufferer. Often in the moments of worst torture, when our words seemed powerless to help him, some little whisper from that grave gentle friend would soothe and strengthen him.

At first only Annie, his wife, had accompanied him south, but when his young only daughter, Eisa,^[49] realised that her father was seriously ill, she followed without waiting for permission, accompanied by little Walter and his governess. The child, who had been his chief idol, seemed more than he could bear, so he was sent back to Gordonstoun, and the two elder boys, who were at school, remained there till the holidays; but from that moment his daughter was his chief comfort, and my sister Ida and I helped her in tending him. (Our ever kind cousin, Lady Emma Campbell, made her house my home all through these long months.)

185Now once again we were to have the wonderful privilege of, as it were, standing by to see God fight His own wonderful battle, and rescue His wanderer. Once again we watched how, as the outward man decayed, the inward man was renewed—not suddenly, as with Roualeyn, when it seemed as if a spark had touched an already well-laid fire. He knew everything concerning the Christian faith, though he had never made it a rule of action. Penrose told us that he knew nothing—hardly the simplest words of Scripture or of prayer, and that although a fairly regular attendant at what he called “church parade,” he had never thought of what was said, or that the words spoken had any reality whatever—certainly not as concerning himself. He said he believed that the vast majority of men of his own standing thought as little. “But,” he said, almost in Roualeyn’s own words, “when God lays His hand on a man, as He has done on me, he MUST think.”

Now, when the inner teaching began, and he felt that he had missed the true aim of life, and was tossing about rudderless, and would fain find a pilot, he was hardly able to grasp any consecutive thought. His spiritual perceptions were as much enfeebled by long neglect as his body was by illness, so he (the once brilliant raconteur of witty stories, and ever the readiest at repartee) could only take a few words at a time and repeat them over and over again, and even then it was very slowly that their intense reality came home to him.

First, silently in his own heart the conviction dawned upon him that he, too, although a first-class landlord, county gentleman, and leader in society, had nevertheless, as concerning the great realities of life, wasted his talents as recklessly as Roualeyn, whom he had so justly blamed. And so, when I first came to him, he eagerly caught at every word I could tell him, of all the glad assurances we had in his death.

“Now,” he said, “you must tell me all about it, just as if 186you were speaking to a child.” And so, childlike, carefully, and with great difficulty he tried to grasp one thought at a time—a verse of a psalm, which he could make his prayer again and again, or a promise—chiefly, “Fear not. I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name. Thou art Mine,” which he called “our verse,” and repeated hundreds of times, whenever a shade of doubt or trouble crossed his mind.

He liked Eisa or me to read and pray with him every morning and evening, and when, with the instinct of the old soldier, he had heard the newspaper accounts of the Prusso-Austrian war, he liked one of us to read some very simply-told story, such as “Jessica’s First Prayer.”^[50] In the evening he liked several of his most intimate friends to gather round the piano in the next room, and sing simple hymns, such as “Tell me the old, old story,” Keble’s evening hymn, and various others, which soothed him as he fell asleep under the brief respite from pain secured by the morphia needle.

As the months wore on, I was sent with his daughter and eldest son to the Malcolms of Poltalloch, in Argyllshire, for a much-needed change of air, but we were soon summoned back by telegraph, in consequence of an attack so agonising that it seemed as if it must be the last. As I slipped into his room, he turned to me, and with great difficulty, but with a look of blessed peace and trust, he whispered “our verse”: “Fear not. I have redeemed thee. Thou art Mine.” He had evidently been waiting eagerly for our return, and longing to tell us by those words how our hearts’ desire had been granted.

He rallied again, and lived for some days longer, speaking strong, loving words of counsel to both his elder sons, bidding them love God and one another. As his strength allowed, he bade a loving farewell to each of those who had been about him. Just as Roualeyn took Tom Moffat’s head 187in his hands and kissed him, so Penrose took Peter Dustan, his devoted manservant, and kissing him tenderly, bade him be as faithful to his God as he had always been to him.

Then he seemed to have done with earth, and we heard him praying to be taken “to that Home which Thou hast prepared for sinners such as I, but who DO believe on Jesus Christ, as I DO believe on Him.” But sometimes he would check his prayer, and say that “perhaps God was not ready for him, and he must be patient and wait. Or that perhaps there might be need for his suffering longer, and if so, he was content to bear whatever God laid upon him.” And patiently he did bear all his sore trial—never one word of murmuring did we hear from him, formerly so irritable and exacting, but through all those weary months so gentle and considerate for every one, and so grateful for the tiniest cares.

Two nights before he died he bade us sing as usual, but that night we tried in vain. Then he said, “Oh, if I could hear the pipes once more!” Suddenly, and for the first time in all the months since we came to Edinburgh, two young volunteer pipers struck up just as they marched past his window. My sister Ida darted out, and told them that a Highland chief was lying there very ill, and longed to hear the dear old pipes. She asked if they could halt awhile and play to him, which they gladly did, playing for half an hour in the dark under his open window. He said, “That is music!” and then sank back exhausted, but so pleased.

Sir Noel Paton wrote some very pretty verses about that incident, but he thought it had occurred on the last night of all, whereas Penrose lived on till Sunday morning, 2nd September, “the morning of the Resurrection,” as he himself said. He was conscious to the very last, though suffering from frightful cramp; and when Ida closed his dear eyes I think the one feeling amongst us all was of intense thankfulness for having been permitted to witness 188so sure and certain a victory after so long and hardly-fought a battle. “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift.”

Peace, perfect peace, was the irresistible thought, as we looked on the calmly beautiful face, like exquisitely chiselled marble, with the old look of unrest gone for ever, and replaced, even in death, by the new expression of quiet trust. Round him lay fair white flowers and sprays of willow and ivy, his clan-badges.

Dear Sir Noel came to take a last look, and made a pencil outline of the face which he had first seen in fancy. For, strange to say, the beginning of our friendship arose from Sir Noel painting his well-known picture of “The Wounded Soldier’s Return to his Home,” in which the soldier bore so striking a likeness to Penrose, that Sir Noel was repeatedly asked when he had secured sittings, whereas he had never seen him.

A few days later we all travelled north, and for the second time within seven months one of our bonnie brothers rested in the old hall at Gordonstoun preparatory to the last brief journey. On his coffin were laid his blue bonnet and plaid, volunteer shako, sword, Bible, and one lovely cross of white lilies. It was a day of glorious sunshine (11th September) when he was carried through the green avenues to the old Michael Kirk, our uncle’s piper, John Macdonald, playing wild laments alternately with the volunteer band, which played “The Flowers of the Forest” and the “Dead March in Saul.” He had always wished that the latter might be played when he was buried, but, as he had left the regular army,^[51] he thought it could not be.

C. F. Gordon Cumming.

THE OLD MICHAEL KIRK. 1866.

There was a very great gathering of friends (there were fully a thousand people in the park), and the Primus, Bishop Eden, who with many others had come all the way 189from Inverness, read the service most impressively. I think, as we walked home through the sunshine, with cloudless blue sky overhead and harvest-fields all around us, we thought thankfully of our grain so safely garnered in God’s own storehouse.

Among the friends who gathered round us from long distances were dear old Mr. Grant of Glen Morriston and his son John. We trembled for the effect on that truly grand old man, little thinking that within a year he would have to lay his own young roof-tree in the quiet old burial-ground beside Loch Ness. Few indeed of all that kindly company now survive.

CHAPTER X. Marriages of my Sister Emilia and my Brother William—We leave Speyside and settle in Perthshire—My Visits to Skye and India.

On 1st January 1867 the family assembled at Cantray, a few miles from Nairn, for the marriage of my youngest half-sister, Emilia, aged eighteen, to Warden Sergison of the 4th Hussars, and of Cuckfield Park, in Sussex. As the whole country lay deep in snow, it was deemed wisest to have the service in the drawing-room, Bishop Eden^[52] officiating. Notwithstanding the snow, people assembled from far and near, and it was a very pretty wedding.

One such ceremony is said often to lead to another, and so it proved in this case, for among the guests was a handsome girl, who proved as good as she was bonnie—Alexa Angelica Harvey Brand. To her my brother William promptly lost his heart, as well he might, and in the early summer they were married from her home near London. Angelica by name, she proved a true angel in her husband’s family, and the home which they made for themselves at Auchintoul, in Banffshire, was for twenty years the gathering-point where we could all meet, ever sure of a loving welcome.

Early in this year occurred an unhappy incident in our family annals. One of George Grant’s brother officers in the 42nd, on leaving the army, had started on the Stock Exchange, on which, as in other matters, a little knowledge has so often proved dangerous indeed. With the kindest intentions he initiated some of his late comrades into the 192mysteries of many “good things”—a most literal case of the blind leading the blind, with the usual sad results.

Dear George, ever the blithest and most sanguine of human beings, soon found himself beyond his depth, and hoping against hope, was led on to new ventures, till forced to realise that, instead of doubling his capital, he had lost all, and must give up the sweet home on Speyside, on which he and my sister had expended so much loving care.

So on a very sad day in May we all bade farewell to that lovely spot and came south to Perthshire, halting for a week at Farleyer, where, as usual, we were one and all received with the heartiest and tenderest welcome by Sir Robert Menzies and his lovely and most lovable wife.

It was they who had suggested the then almost unknown and quite ideal village of Comrie as a desirable spot to establish a new home on a tiny scale. So a beautiful drive through the mountains from Aberfeldy to Comrie brought us to “Rosebank,” into which it took some skill to pack the five children, their ever-faithful nurse, Catherine Bruce, and her good old Highland mother, and yet to contrive a room to be my headquarters. There George and Nell bravely “buckled to,” and themselves carried on all the drudgery of regular lessons, and well they both stuck to this uncongenial work.

Their difficulties were greatly lightened by the exceeding kindness of all their neighbours, Sir David and Lady Lucy Dundas, at beautiful Duneira, the Williamsons of Lawers, the Graham-Stirlings of Strowan, the Dewhursts at Abruchill, Sir Patrick Keith-Murray of Ochtertyre, and, in short, every one within hail.

That little nest in such beautiful surroundings was my sister’s home for two years, when it became possible to move to a somewhat roomier villa in Crieff, which, with the excellent talent for adaptation to circumstances which characterises most of our race, she transformed into a pretty and very happy little home, in which her five children grew up, well loved by all their neighbours, rich and poor. Here 193the social circle was enlarged by many kind and pleasant friends further down the Strath, Lady Anne Drummond Moray at Abercairny, fine old Lady Willoughby D’Eresby at beautiful Drummond Castle, the Spiers of Culdees, Murrays of Dotherie, Thompsons of Balgowan, Maxtone-Grahams of Cultoquhey, and others.

But the consciousness that his imprudence had wrought so much trouble weighed heavily on George’s naturally buoyant spirits, and undermined his health, and in May 1873 he very suddenly passed away. My sister continued bravely to fight life’s battle till, in April 1889, she too passed from earth to dwell for ever with the Friend on whose loving guidance and wise over-ruling of all seeming evil she so implicitly relied. Now all that was mortal of that faithful pair rests beneath a tall Celtic Cross of grey granite in the peaceful “God’s-acre” at Ochtertyre, within Sir Patrick Keith Murray’s beautiful park, and by him presented for the use of the episcopal congregation of Crieff.

Their eldest daughter, Alice, was already engaged to Lord Walter Gordon Lennox, and ere long the second, Muriel, married Geoffrey St. Quintin, younger of Scampston, in Yorkshire, while their three brothers settled in London. Of these, William Ogilvie-Grant found most congenial occupation in charge of the admirable bird department in the Museum of Natural History in South Kensington, and has contributed many valuable papers to the publications of that Society.

To return to 1867, soon after we had settled at Comrie, I went to London for my brother Bill’s marriage to Alexa Brand; thence to old friends at York, where the 4th Hussars were then quartered, and my half-sister Janie and her brother Fred were staying with our young couple, the Sergisons. Then a week at beautiful Chillingham Castle, and two months at Cresswell, after which, back to Comrie, where the surroundings offered so many fascinating subjects for sketching.

194In the spring of 1868, I paid a long visit to Lady Emma Campbell in Edinburgh, and then to Lady Lucy Dundas at Beechwood, where my half-brother Fred joined me, and we started together to spend his Easter vacation in the Mull of Cantyre beside the grand waves of Machrihanish Bay, which lies just below Losset, the pleasant home of our cousins, the Macneals of Ugadale.

After three delightful weeks there, we started to spend ten days in the Isle of Skye with the Frasers of Kilmuir. There Fred very nearly ended his career, for as I was quietly sitting sketching the Falls of the Rah, and he scrambling about the rocks overhead, he missed his footing, and I saw him flash past me and disappear into a dark pool. Mercifully the little river was so full that he did not strike his head on the rocks, and managed to scramble out with only a bruised knee, which did not hinder his return to London, though he was lame for six weeks. He lived to do good work in the army, and died a soldier’s death in the Burmese war.^[53]

As for me, I willingly yielded to most hospitable invitations to linger amid such delightful sketching-ground, and to accompany my hosts on fascinating cruises round Skye and further isles in their little yacht, afterwards finding sketching-quarters for myself in a farm at the foot of the wonderful Quirang rocks, and then at Sligachan, right under the shadow of the grand Cuchullin mountains, watching the earliest rosy dawn and the last gleam of moonlight on those wonderful peaks.

From Sligachan I made fully half-a-dozen expeditions to sketch dark Loch Coruisk and the green sea-loch Scavaig, each expedition involving fully twelve hours of hard toil, always accompanied by Alfred Hunt, the artist—most 195delicate interpreter of mountains and mists, and a thoroughly congenial spirit.

Thus month after month slipped by all too quickly, till October found me once again at Glen Morriston, and then at Inchnacardoch, both on Loch Ness. While there, a letter reached me from Mrs. Sergison, i.e. my young half-sister, who (a mother ere she was nineteen) had accompanied her husband and his regiment to India. Now, having succeeded to the family estates, Warden proposed leaving the army, but first having a year in India to see something of the country and of the Himalayas.

They wrote to propose that I should join them for this delightful year, and that an English nurse, whom they had engaged to come out immediately and take care of little Charlie, should act as my lady’s-maid on the voyage.

On first reading a proposal so startling, it seemed simply ridiculous. For in those days such travel was still very expensive, and no one dreamt of going to India unless they were obliged to do so. In fact, in whatever part of India I found myself, I was invariably told that I was the very first lady who had gone out except as wife or sister of some official, more or less under compulsion. So that I really have been the pioneer of the multitude of women who now run to and fro throughout the earth! I am glad I had first innings!

So my first impulse was to decline. Had I done so, the twelve years of enchanting travel which followed would never have been dreamt of, for link by link that pleasant chain wove itself—as the old saying is, “Qui à voyagé voyagera!” Happily I had a few hours of quiet sketching beside Loch Ness before post-time, and new lights gleamed on the subject, so when I went back to the house it was to write to secure my passage, and to inquire about the best paints, paper, and waterproof clothing for the tropics—all of which, and perhaps especially the latter, proved precious companions.

196Then, bidding adieu to all the kind friends on Loch Ness, I started on a rapid succession of visits, first to my brother Bill and his bride at Rose Valley, their temporary home near Cantray. Then to my brother Henry and Bessie in their dainty little nest at Pittyvaich, in the heart of sweet birch-woods and mountain glens and murmuring waters. Thence to Gordonstoun, and up to Dunphail to the dear old Cumming-Bruces, who, instead of thinking me mad, like all the others, highly approved of my Indian ploy.

Then I touched Comrie, and on to Edinburgh to my cousins Helen and Elizabeth Forbes of Medwyn. The next day was Sunday, and the Archbishop of York (Thompson) preached, illustrating his subject by many references to the mountains, e.g.—speaking of the indelible marks for eternity left by each day’s life, he spoke of the ineffaceable lines left in past ages by the glaciers slowly, imperceptibly gliding onward, ever onward, over the rocks; exactly what I had been daily studying at Coruisk among the great boulders and blocs perchés, lying just where they were carried by glaciers in prehistoric ages.

Finally, one last move brought me to Jane, Lady Gordon-Cumming in London, for all the numerous last bits of shopping. At every one of these points, and at innumerable intermediate halting-places, I was met by shoals of kind friends and kinsfolk coming to give me a parting cheer—and some brought gifts, such as a whole case of eau de Cologne for use on the voyage! As my eye glances over these pages of my diary, I simply marvel that I could ever have possessed so many friends, and now certainly not more than half a dozen survive—at any rate not of those who were then grown up.

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY W. CROOKE, 103 PRINCES S^T. EDINBURGH.

On 14th November 1868, I embarked at Southampton on board the P. and O. ss. the Pera, reaching Gibraltar on the 19th, and Malta on the 23rd. It was my very first voyage, 197with the exception of three days’ trips on British coasting-steamers and yachting in the Hebrides, so that the sudden change from the cold, grey November mists of Southampton to the wonderful sunshine and blue sky of the Mediterranean was a new revelation.

At Malta the governor’s barge was waiting to take me to the palace of the old knights of St. John, where Sir Patrick and Lady Grant and the family welcomed me to what seemed fairyland. The curious narrow streets, with their picturesque balconies, the tropical flowers, the people, the shrines, colours, lights and shadows, were all fascinating, and the palace itself magnificent.

On my return, I halted here for a delightful month as Lady Grant’s guest, but on this occasion my visit was limited to one day, from our arrival at sunrise, to re-embarking in the brilliant moonlight after a visit to the opera—a lovely house where the governor has a box as a matter of course—and we refreshed our ears by the music of The Huguenots. Reading over that day’s diary fills me with amazement that it should have been possible to crowd so much sight-seeing and so many new impressions into so brief a period.

The next great excitement was reaching Alexandria and bidding farewell to all the friends connected with the Pera. (Happily many very congenial passengers continued the voyage to Calcutta.) Then followed all the interests of first landing in Egypt and mingling in the wondrously mixed crowds of all nationalities and varieties of costume. For then there was no Suez Canal. All travellers still crossed the desert, and Alexandria had not been bombarded.

We saw the orthodox sights, with a few extra ones not according to programme, as a delay in the arrival of the steamer from Marseilles gave us an extra day ere we were all to cross the desert by railway.

This we did on Advent Sunday. Of course everything we saw was new and fascinating. The tall Arabs, riders on 198mules and asses, men in flowing garments carrying long green sugar-canes, camels and asses “unequally yoked” to the plough, sedgy ground, where tall reeds waved their grand white feathery heads in the breeze. We reached Suez about 9 P.M., and by midnight were safely on board the P. and O. ss. Candia.

Our voyage down the Red Sea was perfect, even “the barren rocks of Aden” were transfigured by the glory of sunset, which flushed the summits crimson, while the town and tanks and sea-board were wrapped in imperial purple.

And then came Ceylon and the never-to-be-forgotten sensation of a first glimpse of real tropics, and the wealth of luxuriant large-leaved foliage and cocoa-palms. In those days there was no artificial harbour at Colombo, so Point de Galle was the point of call, and large steamers anchored at some distance from land, and the passengers rowed ashore in native boats. All these delights became very familiar to me, when not very long afterwards I returned to live my Two Happy Years in Ceylon.

We reached Calcutta on the 23rd December, and very kind friends of my Indian brothers came on board to welcome me and take me to the luxurious palace of Messrs. Gillanders, Arbuthnot and Co., then represented by Mr. Ogilvie of Corriemonie. There I spent a most interesting Christmas, and soon afterwards started up-country, halting at many points of interest on the way.

The first break on the long railway journey was to visit the Hankeys at Berhampore. To do so we had to cross the river Bhagarittee by boat in the clear moonlight, with picturesque groups of natives crouching round their fires on the river-bank. Then a thirteen miles’ drive through one continuous town—Moorshedabad and its suburbs—old temples half-hidden by rank vegetation, many elephants quietly feeding under great trees, and everything looking weird in the misty moonlight.

On New Year’s Eve, Mr. Hankey having been invited by 199the Nawaub of Moorshedabad to bring his friends to a great “pig-sticking” meet in the jungle, we all drove about twenty-four miles to Dewan Serai, where, under a group of very fine old trees, the camp of large, luxurious tents was pitched. A very nice one was assigned to me and my maid, Alice Wass, who immensely enjoyed the novelty of everything, and who proved herself a capital acquisition all the time we were in India.

Anything so picturesque as that jungle-camp had never entered my dreams. The multitude of camp-followers, chiefly robed in white, with large turbans, their quaint ekkas and other carts, the many horses and bullocks, fourteen elephants, and a few camels and other animals, all grouped in the strong light and shadow from the blue moonlight or the red camp-fires, and the numerous small tents, all combined to make up a picture which lives in memory, but defies any painter’s art. We sat in the door of our tent and watched the close of 1868.

Of 1869 I must not now speak. From its dawn till its close it was one long delight—every day brought strange novelties, and found me in some new scene of beauty and interest.

Always with pleasant companions—old residents who had made India the home of a lifetime, and were thoroughly interested in all that concerned the country and its very varied inhabitants—I was taken from city to city, always with leisure for painting some of the most striking scenes. Of these I invariably made minutely accurate pencil-drawings ere allowing myself to touch colour, and as I worked very rapidly, and frequently started for my sketching-ground by 4 A.M. (never later than “gun-fire,” i.e. 5 A.M.), I secured upwards of a hundred very interesting large pictures.

I always found it best, in addition to small sketch-books and averagely large blocks, to carry one very large zinc block, which, however tired I might be, I covered anew every night, often under great difficulties. It travelled in a 200flat tin box, in which also lay all the pictures painted on it. The advantage of this great block was that when I found some vast subject I had not to waste time planning how much could be compressed into a small space, but could set to work at once with a fairly free hand.

After a happy time at Allahabad with Major and Mrs. Hanmer, they had arranged to take a holiday in order to escort me to Cawnpore, Lucknow, Delhi, Agra, Futteyporesickri, and other places of exceeding interest, with all of which my hosts were thoroughly familiar.

Then my sister and Warden Sergison joined us, and I returned with them to Meerut, where the 4th Hussars were quartered. Very soon they and all available troops were ordered to Umballa, at the foot of the Himalayas, to take part in a grand durbar in honour of Sheer Ali Khan, the Ameer of Afghanistan, who for the first time in history had consented to come to meet the Viceroy (Lord Mayo). So it was a very important, as well as a very remarkable scene. Nowadays the public have been sated with accounts of durbars, but it was not so thirty years ago.

From Umballa we proceeded to Simla, where my sister had a delightful bungalow, commanding a vast view of the snowy range. There I left her with a new baby, while I travelled further into the Himalayas with Colonel and Mrs. Graves, who were bent on sport and sight-seeing, so that more perfect sketching companions could not have been found. We followed the course of the Sutledge, sometimes at a great height, sometimes ONLY 10,000 feet above the sea, while looking up at peaks of from 22,000 to 24,000 feet.

The length of our daily marches was generally dependent on where we could find a morsel of level ground sufficiently large to allow of our pitching our tiny hill-tents, each about six feet square. Sometimes these our temporary homes were on steep hillsides, looking right up to the snowy peaks, and sometimes the narrow path led for miles along the face 201of stupendous precipices, where one slip would have landed us in the raging Sutledge, thousands of feet below.

But sometimes we came to delightful forests of ancient diodara, which in maturity resemble cedars of Lebanon, and here in some green glade we could camp beside still waters, and rest in happy peace for some days.

The weather on our upward journey was ideal, and we might have had the same for weeks, had not a cruel colonel refused my companions any extension of leave, so that we were compelled to return, and meet the wet monsoon—those “rains” which are rain indeed. And now I was truly thankful for the happy thought which had led me to secure the best of waterproofs for myself and my sketching-materials, thanks to which I was able to secure pictures of misty forests, even in the midst of the rains.

After an interval of rest at Simla, I again left my sister, and stayed with the David Frasers of Saltoun at Massourie and Landour, in another part of the Himalayas. As at Simla in April and May, the hillsides were glorified by scarlet rhododendrons, and so at Massourie in October the feast of colour was supplied by acres of wild single dahlias of every variety of gorgeous tint—purple, scarlet, and yellow mingling with grey rocks, and seeming to reach up to the cloudless blue sky.

After Massourie came Dehra Doon, a lovely plateau among the foothills of the great range, where noble clusters of gigantic bamboo flourish to perfection, and thence I had a delightful expedition to Hardwar, the holiest city of the Hindoos, being nearest to the source of the Ganges. There the river, newly flowing from its cradle among the glaciers, is of the loveliest aqua marine, and clear as crystal, very different from the foul yellow stream which we found a week later at Benares, the next holiest city, being nearest the mouth of the Ganges. Of course, both cities are alike wholly given to idolatry, but at Hardwar it is in a cleaner form, whereas at Benares it is overpowering, and the noise 202of the innumerable temples is bewildering. Major Hanmer most kindly came from Allahabad on purpose to escort me to Benares, where the Sergisons joined us, and the Rajah loaded us with kindness. Having been thoroughly lionised, we returned to the Hanmers at Allahabad, where the children were safely housed, and thence started for Jubbulpore and the far-famed “marble rocks” on the Nerbudda, a lovely, clear green river.

Then by the wonderful newly-constructed railway, winding through beautiful mountain scenery, till we reached Bombay, and thence sailed for England.

We halted awhile in Egypt to explore the immediate surroundings of Cairo, and on 1st January 1870 we embarked at Alexandria.

On reaching Malta I forsook the Sergisons and stayed for a delightful month with Sir Patrick and Lady Grant in the marvellous old palace of the knights of St. John—a month which included an amazing amount of social amusements, civil, military, and naval, one brilliant ball at the palace, and sundry smaller dances. The Governor’s delightful box at the opera was always available every night that we could slip in for an hour or so after dinner, and the orange-gardens and cool marble courts, with masses of flowers, were constant delights.

Among the pleasantest of many pleasant excursions were the weekly “naval picnics” to various parts of the isle, and among our chief naval friends was Captain, afterwards Admiral, Lethbridge, the very ideal of all that a British sailor should be. He was at that time commanding H.M.S. Simoon, which was doing duty as a troopship, and was about to sail for England with troops of various regiments, chiefly engineers, with wives and families.

The married officers included some of our special friends, so when Captain Lethbridge offered me a passage to Portsmouth I gladly accepted, and enjoyed the new experience immensely.

203At Gibraltar we were detained long enough to allow us thoroughly to explore the mighty Rock and all the mysteries of the wonderful tunnelled galleries excavated in the solid rock and mounted with hidden cannon to rake any invader. The whole Rock from base to summit is lined with most formidable batteries, which are all casemated—truly a marvel of engineering skill. We climbed to the very highest point, and thence looked down on the Spanish coast and the towns of San Roque and Algeciras, and on the vividly blue sea.

Very different was the grey stormy sea and sky, with sweeping snow-drifts, which chilled us as we neared the Irish coast, and at Queenstown, on 11th February, I set foot on Erin’s Isle for the first time. We started again that night, but the storm intensified to such a pitch that we returned to anchor for awhile. Again we steamed off on the strength of a lull, but the weather grew fouler, grand green waves occasionally washing clean over us, and eight men at the helm. On the second day, having seen no sun since leaving Ireland, and consequently taken no observations, we had to stand out to sea, but at night made the Land’s End, and anchored under lee of the land. Next day we made our way to Penzance, where about five hundred other vessels were weather-bound. Not till the sixth day did we reach Portsmouth harbour, and very grey and uninviting our England appeared.

N.B.—After a spell in the tropics in sunshine and colour, avoid returning to our British Isles in February, or any other bleak wintry month! Of course the warm welcome of many loving kinsfolk is a compensation, but it is very difficult to keep up the illusion that one is really glad to be back.

My well-filled portfolios proved interesting to a multitude of friends and friends’ friends, who all said they had never before been able so thoroughly to realise Indian scenery. It was less entertaining to the artist, who sometimes had to “do portfolio” four times in one day! Presently, as I settled down to think over all I had seen in the last three years, I 204was so much impressed by various points of strange resemblance between old Celtic customs and similar customs in the Far East that I wrote a very elaborate two-volume book, which I called From the Hebrides to the Himalayas.

It was published by Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston and Co., and was very kindly received by the reviewers and the public; but I felt myself that it was too ponderous, so I eventually recast it, omitting a good deal of somewhat irrelevant matter, and Messrs. Chatto and Windus produced it as two independent volumes—In the Hebrides, and In the Himalayas and on Indian Plains. On the grey binding of the former is stamped a spray of brown Hebridean sea-weed, and on the latter a realistic Himalayan cliff-road and snowy peak.

At a later period my glimpses of Egypt also found expression, combined with an account of a semi-shipwrecked tour in Cornwall, of which I will speak anon. These reminiscences were also published by Messrs. Chatto and Windus under the title, Viâ Cornwall to Egypt.

CHAPTER XI Return to England—Visit Cornwall en route to Ceylon for Two Happy Years.

February 1870.—In the next few months I paid a multitude of visits to kinsfolk and friends in London and many counties—from Dover, Canterbury, Rochester, and Cuckfield in the south, to Yorkshire, Northumberland, Perthshire, and Banff in the north.

The most out-of-the-common thing that my diary records is that on Sunday, 27th March, I went in the morning to Eaton Chapel, where the Rev. Samuel Minton^[54] preached very ably on the command, “That ye sin not. But if any man sin, we have an Advocate.” In the afternoon I walked to St. James’s, Piccadilly, to hear the celebrated Canon Liddon. The church was densely crowded, and all sat riveted, while for an hour and forty minutes he spoke on “Desire, when it hath conceived, bringeth forth Sin, and Sin ... bringeth forth Death.” It was highly intellectual, and very deep; but so eloquent that no one seemed to feel it long—not even I, whose capacity as a patient hearer, especially in the afternoon, is so limited!

In May I went to Birdsall (which is about two hours by rail and road from York, its post-town) to pay my first visit to Lord and Lady Middleton, whose eldest son, Digby Willoughby, had married my niece, Eisa Gordon-Cumming, while I was in India.^[55] So that numerous brothers and 206sisters and cousins and aunts formed a large company of warm-hearted kinsfolk ready to welcome me also.

There for the first time I found myself in a real hunting family, the father of which was Master of his own foxhounds, and, with one exception, every son and daughter took to hunting as naturally as ducks take to the water. And another novelty to me was the family devotion to silky white fox-terriers, of which every one had his or her own particular idol.

For my own part, I find my affections invariably incline to rough animals in preference to smooth ones. I do admire beautiful collies (I once loved one—i.e. a grand Himalayan sheep-dog which was given to me as a puppy in Ramnee Forest, and which accompanied us home, and was the children’s gentlest playfellow), and I like some Skye terriers, Shetland ponies, young donkeys, picturesque, wide-horned Highland cattle, and splendid cart horses, but I do not find myself touched by well-bred cows, or an endless succession of faultlessly-groomed hunters in stalls, and packs of glossy hounds, still less by trembling little smooth terriers. What a confession! But Birdsall was and is a paradise for all manner of pets—rough as well as smooth.

That autumn, I paid another delightful visit to the Middletons at Applecross, their beautiful home and deer-forest in Ross-shire—beautiful in itself and commanding a most lovely view of the great Skye hills, from which it is only separated by a narrow strip of sea. It is, however, wide enough often to prove a sea of separation which 207occasionally prevents steamers from calling, so that guests who have for hours been waiting to embark at 1 or 2 P.M., are forcibly detained. Many come and go in their own yachts, the only access by land being a very long drive over “the Balloch,” which is a tremendously steep ascent and descent. Some rash guests recently resolved to come on their motor, and after many hours, during which their arrival was anxiously awaited, they arrived on foot exhausted, the motor having stuck half-way.

But once Applecross is reached, it is quite an ideal Highland home, with an exquisite garden. Specially delightful to me was its luxuriant hedge of gloire de Dijon roses, for, in common with Lord Byron, I do love all yellow and orange roses; which to pink ones seem to me to hold in the flower-world the same relations as savouries do to sweets in regard to food—most sweets and pink roses being to me alike comparatively uninteresting.

I now found my brother William and his wife (Bill and Alexa) settled at Auchintoul—the home which for the next twenty years was destined to prove such a true family centre for us all.

But I do not purpose touching further on domestic matters, so will pass on to the autumn of 1872, when an invitation from the “beloved parson” of our dear old Altyre days—then Bishop of Colombo—to pay him and Mrs. Jermyn a long visit in Ceylon, led to my going thither, and remaining for two delightful years in that beautiful isle.

The start was unpropitious. We embarked on board the Hindoo, a very large, quite new steamer, but one which could not face such terrible weather as we encountered in the English Channel. We embarked at Tilbury, and for a week we battled with the storm; then in trying to make Plymouth harbour to take up other passengers, our steering-gear gave way, and we lay all night off the Eddystone rocks, firing rockets, burning blue fire and other signals of distress, which were fully understood on shore, but the storm 208was so furious that it was impossible to send us succour, and if any tug could have ventured out, what could she have done to aid such an unwieldy giant?

She had sprung various leaks, and had four feet of water in her hold. The lower fires in the engine-room were extinct, and had the water risen seven inches higher, the upper fires must have been quenched, and we must have foundered. As it was, the combined efforts of the donkey-engine and of “all hands at the pump” kept us afloat till morning, when the gale moderated, and it became possible to rig up some sort of steering-gear and to turn the ship’s head and run into Plymouth harbour.

Of course no one on board had dreamt of sleeping that night, as we all knew that we might founder at any moment. The fine old captain (Kerr) allowed me to sit on deck in a corner of the wheel-house, and I certainly never spent a more interesting night. It was all far too exciting to leave any room for fear.

After the storm came a great calm, and a clear blue sky. It seemed incredible that we had spent a night in such imminent danger, and yet landed on a peaceful Advent Sunday morning, 1st December, and went to St. Andrew’s Church like all the other folk who had slept in their quiet beds. How vividly I remember that fine old church, and the quaint dresses of an ancient charity school.

Of course the Hindoo could go no further. She cost her owners £10,000 ere she could recommence her sea-going life, which was brief. Strange to say, eight years later (in the first week of March 1880), when I had just embarked in New York harbour on board the ss. Montana, and was on the point of sailing for England, the ss. Alexandria came into port, having on board the passengers of the Hindoo, whom she had rescued just ere, on 22nd February, that ill-fated vessel foundered in mid-ocean! She had encountered a furious gale, and for a week was gradually sinking, funnel, cook-house, and all her ten boats swept away, and three 209officers washed overboard, when she was sighted by the Alexandria, which succeeded in saving her crew and passengers, fifty-three in all. On reaching New York, the five passengers were at once transferred to the Montana, which thus carried the FIRST and LAST passengers of the Hindoo.

Which of us was Jonah I cannot venture to say, but after a most prosperous voyage, when we were fully expecting to breakfast at Liverpool, we were awakened by a crash, followed by the alarming cry of “All hands on deck!” and quickly realised that in a dead calm, but dense fog, we had run right on to the cliffs opposite Holyhead, and lay in a most critical position with our bows high on the rocks.

Once more we fired signals of distress, which were distinctly heard at Holyhead; but for some inexplicable reason no one came to our assistance for many hours—not till a party of women and children had been rowed to Holyhead in a boat so leaky as to be more dangerous than the ship they had left. As I had all my precious portfolios on board, I had ventured to crave the captain’s permission to stick to the ship, which he allowed me to do at my own risk, and in the course of the afternoon I had the satisfaction of seeing them and myself safely transferred to a seaworthy tug, which took us to Liverpool.

To return to Plymouth and the Hindoo. Her owners soon perceived that it would be necessary for them to charter two smaller vessels, and divide our large body of passengers into an Indian and a Ceylon party. Till these could be got ready, we were each allowed ten shillings and sixpence a day, and were left to our own devices.

To me this was obviously the chance of a lifetime in which to visit Cornwall, and especially my great-grandmother’s estate of Penrose, near Helston, and the wonderful Loe-pool. Emily Sage, who shared my cabin on the Hindoo, resolved to accompany me, and Reginald Wickham thought he could not do better than escort us. And so our enforced detention led to a most interesting fortnight in Cornwall, 210and another in Devonshire, till on 30th December we embarked on board the Othello, and, after a very pleasant voyage, reached Colombo on 5th February 1873.

Our various adventures had so thoroughly shaken us all together, that we had become an exceedingly friendly party, and were henceforward known in Ceylon as the “Hindoo-Othellos,” who invariably drew together, just like boys from the same public school. That voyage resulted in at least three weddings, including that of the young couple whom I chaperoned in Cornwall, from whom, after a lapse of thirty-one years, I have just received a joint Christmas letter, reminding me of those happy weeks, and telling with gladness of their soldier and schoolboy sons.

The next two years were one prolonged delight, each day being crammed with matters of interest, and the very varied scenery of mountains or sea-coast, rivers and lakes, temples and palaces, marvellous ruins of pre-Christian cities in the depths of the great forests, stupendous artificial tanks, gorgeously coloured foliage, and most picturesque men, women, and children, Singhalese and Tamil, peasants and great chiefs—each and all offered subjects so tempting to an artist that the mere question of what to draw first was positively bewildering.

Not content with such sights as could easily be reached by ordinary routes, the bishop most kindly arranged that his daughter and I should accompany him on some of his visits to places most difficult of access. One such tour was done entirely by water, passing from one calm lagoon to another by means of connecting rivers and canals, where every turn was a new vision of beauty.

The bishop’s “luxurious” house-boat was simply an ordinary rice cargo-boat, cleaned and hung with white calico—so small that most people would never have dreamt of sharing it with two unnecessary companions; but, as I have often proved, “Where there is Heart-room there is Hearth-room,” and in truth those two companions did most 211thoroughly enjoy the expedition thus unselfishly made possible for them.

Another was a riding-trip through the great forests to visit some Vedas—the wild aborigines, a few of whom were just beginning to be slightly tamed and semi-Christian. Thus incidentally we camped among the wonderful ruins of the city of Pollanarua, and of the great tanks which in bygone ages irrigated vast tracts of country, now arid thorny jungle, except where in recent years British engineers have restored some of these ancient works.

Long, delightful visits to the Commander of the Forces and the Governor, i.e. General and Mrs. Kenny, and Mr.^[56] and Mrs. Gregory (the latter at Government House, Kandy and Queen’s Cottage, Nuwara-Eliya), blended gay society life with many beautiful expeditions. Alas! the most interesting of all, which was a very carefully organised three weeks’ journey from Kandy to the pre-Christian city of Anaradhapura, in the heart of the Isle, and back to Kandy, involving a good deal of riding, proved too much for a delicate constitution, and Mrs. Gregory became very ill from what proved to be an internal development of dysentery, and a week after reaching her beautiful home in Kandy, she passed away on 28th June 1873.

Such an event naturally cast a sad gloom over the Isle—she was so truly sympathetic and considerate for every one. For myself I proved, as I have often done before, how soothing are long days of solitary sketching, alone with beautiful nature; and at that time I found peculiarly lovely subjects among the huge bamboo clumps overhanging the beautiful river Gangarowa, on whose banks I was the guest of the proprietors, Mr. and Mrs. Horsford, most kind friends.

Then another long, restful visit to a very popular fellow-passenger, who had come out with us to marry her own love, Tom Farr. Their sweet nest, Oolanakanda, was 212perched very high on the majestic Allegalla Peak, at the foot of a mighty crag, and overlooking a billowy sea of mountain ranges. Few houses command so vast a view, far above the misty valleys, and the wonderful stillness of the mountains brought a sense of peace.

From there we could see in the far distance the other great mountain of Ceylon, known to us as “Adam’s Peak,” but to the Singhalese as the “Sri Pada,” or Mount of the Holy Foot, because of an impression, six feet in length, on the extreme summit of that lofty peak, which is reverenced by millions of the human race as that of whatever saintly person they most revere. The Buddhists believe it to have been the footprint of Buddha, the Mohammedans of Adam, the Sivites of Siva, while the Roman Catholic Christians suppose it to have been that of St. Thomas.

All these sects alike make pilgrimage to that sacred summit, truly climbing “the steep ascent to heaven.” It is very steep, and a toilsome expedition, and at that time I could only hear of two white women who had ever attempted it, but as both had accomplished it, and one was Lady Robinson (afterwards Lady Rosmead), I refused to be scared by accounts of its difficulty, whereupon half a dozen stalwart planters undertook to be my escort, and well we were rewarded.

We spent a perfectly clear moonlight night on that wondrous summit, and had the rare good-fortune, both at sunset and sunrise, to see the extraordinary perfectly triangular blue shadow falling from the base of the mountain to the horizon, exactly as I subsequently saw a similar triangle cast by Fujiyama, the equally sacred mountain of Japan. I think there can be little doubt that to these simple nature-worshippers this mysterious and unaccountable natural phenomenon must have been the original cause which led them to venerate these lofty peaks.

Not that the shape of the mountain is in any way responsible for the sharply defined, geometric form of the 213shadow. I am told that the same thing is sometimes seen from Pike’s Peak in the United States, which has a rounded summit; but whether the Indian tribes there reverenced either the mountain or its shadow, no one seems to have inquired.

The size of the footprint is well in keeping with that of the so-called “holy tooth,” reverenced by many millions of Buddhists as that of their founder, but which is probably that of a crocodile, and fully two inches in length. The original small tooth was burnt by the Portuguese conquerors. So then it was revealed to a devout priest that if he looked in a certain spot on the lake he would find it again in a lotus blossom.

He accordingly sought, and found this treasure, which is so jealously guarded that it is only shown when the great temple at Kandy is in special need of funds, and then devout pilgrims from afar crowd to worship it. Fortunately for me, one of these rare exhibitions occurred while I was at Kandy, and I passed among the worshippers so often that at length I secured in the palm of my hand a perfectly accurate representation of the revered ivory.

There is a very gorgeous annual “Perehera,” when the tooth is supposed to be carried round the city on a splendidly caparisoned elephant, escorted by many other elephants, and by all the Singhalese chiefs in their strange costume; but that is altogether a fraud, as the tooth is never really taken outside of its own secure part of the temple, and only an empty shrine receives the homage of the multitudes.

But I must not suffer myself to wander off into memories of beautiful Ceylon and of the many hospitable homes to which I was so heartily welcomed in all parts of the isle. I brought away several hundred very careful paintings of exceeding interest, which (together with many in other British colonies) were borrowed and framed for exhibition by the representatives of these colonies at the great Indian and colonial exhibitions in London, Glasgow, and elsewhere.

214All the most interesting details of my wanderings are recorded in Two Happy Years in Ceylon, now published in a one-volume edition by Messrs. Chatto and Windus, London. On its blue cover is depicted a Talipat palm-tree in blossom, showing the stupendous crown of white feather-like blossom, rising to a height of from twenty to twenty-five feet above the tree, an effort which occurs but once, after the palm has lived about forty years; it then produces an amazing weight of nuts, each the size of a small apple, but useless, and dies of exhaustion. Its gigantic leaves sometimes measure twenty-five feet from the base of the leaf-stalk to the outer rim of the leaf.

I am glad to say that this book also was most cordially received by critics and the public, as also by the many religious denominations, to whose overlapping work I had occasion frequently to refer.

I returned to Britain in the end of July 1874, and (accompanied by Ceylon portfolios) paid such a round of visits in England and Scotland, and got through so much writing, sketching, and other work, as fairly takes my breath away even to think of, now that I have reached the later stage, physical and mental, as described by Longfellow:

Perhaps the pleasantest of all these visits was one to Inveraray, where Duchess Elizabeth still reigned in all her beauty and charm, surrounded by a large number of her sons and daughters, and where Princess Louise showed me many of her own excellent works of art. The Duke was always keenly interested in any new ideas or illustrations of antiquities or natural phenomena, and on this occasion my very careful drawings of the pre-Christian “jungle” cities, and, above all, the triangular shadow of the Sri Pada, gave him special pleasure.

This he requited by himself taking me for several of his favourite long drives, which compelled me to confess that 215Ceylon itself could produce nothing more exquisite than Inveraray’s cadmium and burnt sienna-coloured beech-trees, fairy-like golden birches, and profusion of scarlet rowan-berries, with a sea-loch as blue as the autumn sky, and wild Highland cattle of every shade of sienna and ochre, nibbling the brilliantly yellow sea-weed that fringes the loch. After a prolonged sojourn among large-leaved, luxuriant tropical foliage, the greatest charm of British woods lies in the smallest leaves, and the graceful Highland birches excel above all others.

CHAPTER XII Start for Fiji—Life in Australia and New Zealand—Death of the Rev. F. and Mrs. Langham.

From the moment of my return to Britain, every one seemed to consider it a matter of course that I should continue the travels which had hitherto proved so pleasant, so at every turn I was met by the stereotyped question, “And where are you going next?” As I had not the remotest prospect of any more invitations to visit far countries, the question seemed so silly that I replied in equally stereotyped form, “To Fiji!” simply because that was the most absolutely improbable idea that could suggest itself.

Yet of all improbable things this, the most unlikely, very quickly happened. Before the end of the year the Fijian chiefs had unconditionally given the whole group of lovely isles to the Great White Queen, to secure her protection against unscrupulous foreigners, who were doing all in their power to ruin the people. The gift was accepted, and the Honourable Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon, now Lord Stanmore (son of the Earl of Aberdeen), was appointed first governor.

Lady Hamilton Gordon was a daughter of Sir John Shaw Lefevre—as lovable and gracious as she was pleasant to the eye—the very ideal of a comely British matron and happy wife and mother. Believing that my love of travel and of painting would enable me to make myself happy in the isles which we all believed to be still somewhat savage (possibly still cannibal, for really none of us knew anything definite about them—only a vague recollection of some song about “The King of the Cannibal Islands”), she invited me 217to accompany her thither, and needless to say, I accepted with delight.

So on 23rd March 1875 (Tuesday in Holy Week) I joined the Fijian Government House party at Charing Cross station, and we crossed to Boulogne, and thence to Paris, where we attended services at many of the most interesting churches. On the night of Good Friday we took the train to Marseilles, where we had a pleasant afternoon of sight-seeing. On Easter morning we embarked on board the Messageries Maritimes ss. Anadyr. We had one long day at Naples, which of course we all enjoyed, although the streets were wet and muddy, and sea and sky were cold and grey. Strange to say, these brief glimpses of Paris, Marseilles, and Naples form my sole acquaintance with the continent of Europe.

For miles ere we reached Port Said, the “blue” Mediterranean was literally a sea of mud, the result of prolonged stormy weather, and we had cold grey weather all the way to Aden. Curiously enough, often as I have passed through the Red Sea, I have never once experienced the great heat which many find so trying, and have always found a dress of navy serge and pilot-cloth jacket the most comfortable clothing. We halted for three days at Ceylon, where Point de Galle was still the port of call, and there renewed several old friendships.

We bade adieu to the Anadyr at Singapore, where we had a week to wait for the ss. Brisbane, in which we were to proceed to Australia. A very pleasant bungalow was lent to Sir Arthur, where we could rest in cool shade under tropical foliage when we were not exploring the wonders of the town. But as this was my first contact with real Chinese life—temples, gardens, processions—all were keenly interesting, and I was sight-seeing and painting from daybreak till sunset. One of the most picturesque scenes was the cemetery on the hillside, with all its horseshoe-shaped graves overshadowed by clumps of feathery bamboo.

Another scene of special interest was a great festival in 218honour of the moon-goddess, when the houses were all decorated with scarlet draperies, and the temples were crowded with gaily-dressed women, as well as men—a rare sight in China. Even the funeral of a rich man provided a feast of colour.

On 3rd May we again embarked, but in a very different vessel to the luxurious French steamer in which we had travelled so far. The Brisbane proved a dirty little vessel, with wretched accommodation mid-ships, and five hundred and twenty very low-class Chinamen fore and aft, either bound to work on estates in Australia or to try their fortune at the gold diggings at Cooktown. So from whichever direction the wind blew, it brought us overpowering stinks of Chinese cooking—ghee, ancient cabbage, salt-fish, and other horrors. The poor creatures were packed in tiers several deep—one of them died, and was dropped overboard.

So, although the sea was calm as glass, literally without a ripple, and our sail through the beautiful Malay Archipelago, coasting lovely isles, was delightful to the eye, our afflicted noses refused to be comforted. We were not sorry when these poor toilers reached their various destinations, as we touched at various northern ports—Cooktown, Townsville, Bowen, Rockhampton, etc.; and when on 21st May we anchored in Morton Bay, there a small steamer was waiting to take us up the river to Government House at Brisbane, where our pleasantest impressions were of the beauty of the semi-tropical botanic gardens and a sunset drive along the river banks.

On the 23rd we re-embarked, and on the 25th steamed up the lovely harbour to Sydney, where we were cordially welcomed by Sir Hercules and Lady Robinson; but as space at Government House was limited, Commodore and Mrs. Goodenough had offered to receive me—a privilege for which I never can be sufficiently thankful, for to have been the guest of that grand sailor, saint, and martyr, only too soon became one of life’s landmarks.

219On 20th August he died from the wounds received eight days before from poisoned arrows, shot by islanders of Santa Cruz to avenge cruel kidnapping by a trading-vessel; just as, for the same reason, they had previously shot Bishop Patterson, thus in their ignorance slaying their two most devoted friends.

Ere starting on this fatal voyage, the Commodore had taken Sir Arthur and all the gentlemen of his party to Fiji, leaving Lady Gordon, the two children, and me at Sydney, there to remain till a suitable home could be prepared for us in the Fijian Isles. We were much made of by many kind Australians, and I profited by the delay, which enabled me to explore the Blue Mountains, and secure careful paintings of Govat’s Leap, the Weatherboard, and other places of special interest, as well as of many lovely scenes in the numberless creeks of the great harbour.

What memories of fragrance and beauty come back to me when I think of the headlands, covered with many varieties of epacris (which to me appeared like hot-house heaths), rank masses of scented geranium, thickets of yellow mimosa, and countless other wild flowers, while in the gardens large tree-camelias showered their crimson and white blossoms on the grass, and the scent of orange-blossom perfumed the air.

On the 9th September we embarked on board the Egmont, which was specially chartered to take a detachment of engineers to do Government work in Fiji. Very fortunately for me, the superintendent of the Wesleyan mission, the Rev. Fred. Langham, and his wife, obtained a passage on board of her, and thus we became firm friends, and much of my delightful voyaging in the next two years to many of the loveliest isles in the Fijian Archipelago was entirely due to their kindness in taking me with them in their mission-ship, when they visited their native clergy.

Australia had given us so much to think about, that our ideas of the condition of the two hundred and fifty isles 220composing the Fijian group were still somewhat hazy, when we were startled by Mr. Langham’s reply to one of the engineers, who told him that they hoped to be of some use to the poor islanders, and had brought a lot of copy-books to try if they could teach them something.

He expressed his pleasure that they were coming with such kindly purpose, but added that they would find the islanders already knew a little, as they had eight hundred schools and as many churches, where native teachers taught, and native clergy ministered, supported by the villagers, who themselves had built their schools and churches. He might have added what we subsequently ascertained, that there was scarcely a house throughout the group (except in one small mountain district which still continued heathen) where the family did not begin and end the day with family prayer and reading the Scriptures, not as a matter of form, but in all the earnestness of first love.

And yet it was not fifty years since two humble Wesleyan missionaries had had the amazing courage to land among those most cruelly cannibal people, and for the first time deliver to them the Message of Love, which, two thousand years before, their Master had bidden all who have heard it, pass on to those who have not received it. And that message had wrought so marvellous a transformation, that the whole race had become the gentlest and most earnest Christians I have ever known.

And this involved their practically becoming vegetarians as a first step in the new direction, as the isles yielded no pasturage, and consequently no animal food whatsoever, except fish, which was a very uncertain supply, and the pigs, descended from those left by Captain Cook, were far too precious for use except on great occasions. I often wonder how we should face such a test as this.

It is not my purpose now to speak of the next two years, of which every day was full of interest and novelty. In my book, At Home in Fiji, published by Blackwood, I have 221described all this, and also our enchanting visit to Sir George Grey, in his delightful Isle Kawau, off the north coast of New Zealand, and my own still more fascinating visit to the Wonderland of the pink and white terraces, and all other marvels of the volcanic region in the North Isle.

The pictures which I happily secured at that time were all borrowed by the New Zealand Commissioners, for exhibition in the great Indian and Colonial Exhibition in London, and were actually on show when the awful tidings came of how (after its summit had for fully eight hundred years been the burial-place of great Maori chiefs) Tarawera, the so-called extinct, but in truth only dormant volcano had suddenly reawakened as a mighty giant, refreshed by his sleep of ages, and had wrought awful destruction all around, reducing to chaos the fairyland which had so fascinated all travellers.

Here I can scarcely resist recording my gratification at the wholly unexpected heartiness of the welcome which was accorded to that book on Fiji and New Zealand by reviewers representing every phase of opinion. But indeed I may say the same of each of my books in succession—so unanimous has been the kindly appreciation with which my critics have received each fresh series of the notes of this wanderer.

All I wish now to say about our life in Fiji is simply as a brief postscript to suggest a few of the developments of twenty-five years. The Dr. M‘Gregor of my story, whose sympathy with and influence over brown races was so remarkable, became the first Governor of British New Guinea, and now, as Sir William M‘Gregor, rules over Lagos.^[57] He was succeeded in the government of New Guinea by George Ruthven Le Hunte, who was the youngest of our party, and whom we called “our British boy,” because he so excellently embodied our ideal of such an one. He 222received the honour of knighthood on his promotion to be Governor of South Australia. Captain Havelock, now Sir Arthur Havelock, has ruled over a succession of colonies, as has also Sir Arthur Gordon, whose Fijian “Round-Table” assuredly sent forth many earnest knights-errant to do their country’s work in distant lands.

Very pathetic was the closing chapter in the life of my friends, the Rev. Frederick and Mrs. Langham. They had begun their work in Fiji in 1858, when many of the tribes were still heathen, and the horrible old customs still continued. But by their unvarying kindness and courtesy, and attention to all that was not actually wicked in native manners (Fijian etiquette being curiously well defined), they won the love and confidence of the most savage men and women. Mr. Langham remained longer in the isles and baptized a larger number of the people than any other missionary. Except for brief furloughs in Australia, he and Mrs. Langham were there for forty years.

The Bible was first translated into Fijian in 1865, and was immensely read and really studied and loved by the people. But when the missionaries (who had to commence by reducing Fijian to a written language) became more thoroughly conversant with its niceties, they felt that a revision was desirable, and so in 1898 Mr. and Mrs. Langham and their adopted daughter, Annie Lindsay, came to London to do this work for the British and Foreign Bible Society. Annie was the daughter of a neighbouring missionary, and being born and bred in the isles, spoke the Bau dialect (which is the purest “classic” Fijian) as her mother-tongue. Together they worked at verse by verse, and great was their joy when they heard of the extreme satisfaction with which in 1901 the New Testament was received by the islanders.

With heart and soul they continued their very toilsome labour of love, and were far advanced towards completing the revision of the Old Testament, when just before Christmas in 1901 Annie caught a cold, which rapidly 223developed into pneumonia, and she died. I received a heart-broken letter from the dear old man, telling me that his wife could not raise her head for sorrow, and that she was suffering from the same illness. Only a few days later she also passed away, leaving him desolate indeed.

Happily the Rev. Joseph Nettleton and his wife—retired Fijian missionaries—were at hand to give him such comfort as was possible, and to help in revising his final proofsheets. At last the Old Testament was also complete, and then his life’s work was finished. By the advice of Sir William M‘Gregor, who for ten years had witnessed Mr. Langham’s work in Fiji, the University of Glasgow then conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and he left London, purposing to go first to Liverpool to address a conference, and thence to Glasgow to be ceremonially invested with cap and gown.

On the journey he was taken ill, and after some weeks in Liverpool he wished to be brought back to London, whence, on 25th June 1903, he passed away. Shortly before his death he said: “I have seen a vision. I thought I was sleeping, as we so often slept on the deck of the schooner in the South Seas. I awoke at midnight. The Southern Cross was above me, and all that part of the sky was luminous. The stars forming the cross came down towards me. They were very near and very bright. Then behind the stars I saw the face of my dear one—only her face, for her robe faded away into light. She smiled, and said to me, “Edaru ena tiko vata tale (‘We two will live together again’). It was all very real to me.”

When told that it was doubtless a premonition, as he himself had reached the brink of “the river,” he said: “It is all right, all is clear. I have not to seek my Saviour. He is a living, bright reality to me now. There is no love like His, and I am resting upon His love. He knows what is best.” Then he repeated the first verse of “Jesu, Lover of my soul,” in Fijian. Early on Sunday morning he passed 224away from this earth, on which he had been the means of helping so many to pass from grossest darkness into the true light.

Instead of being “capped” on earth, he was called to receive that crown of life which his Master and ours has promised to all who are faithful unto death, as he assuredly was. I think all who knew that venerable old man in his latter years, with his halo of long, silvery white hair, felt that they were in the presence of one of God’s own saints.

The close of his life was saddened by a very painful event on his beloved Rewa river (where I spent such a delightful time with him and his wife, travelling from village to village in the mission-boat, right up to beautiful Namosi with its shapely peaked mountains). This was the nominal conversion to the Church of Rome of the Namosi Chief and a considerable number of his tribe, and the solemn auto-da-fé of two hundred and thirty-eight copies of the New Testament which were collected in the Namosi district, in exchange for rosaries, and brought about sixty miles down the river to Naililili, there to be publicly cremated in a Fijian lime-kiln by the Roman Catholic sisters and other ecclesiastical authorities in presence of many natives and Europeans. Other copies of the Scriptures obtained in the Soloira district were torn up by the priests on the passage down the Rewa and thrown into the river, whence portions were recovered and given to Mr. Swayne, Government Commissioner. When accounts of this reached Australia, so much indignation was evoked, that the “Bible-burning” was denied in toto by the highest ecclesiastical authorities—the quibble being in the word Bible, instead of New Testament. Afterwards a corrected version was published to say that “in accordance with the practice of the Catholic Church to destroy by fire all sacred objects when worn out, the Catholic sisters had filled one kerosene-case with soiled and useless Wesleyan Testaments, which had been exchanged for Catholic books.” Some bystanders, however, contrived to rescue several Testaments 225which, except for having had the covers violently torn off, were in perfect condition, as well they might be, seeing that they were copies of Dr. Langham’s new translation, printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1901. One copy bears an inscription proving that it was bought by the owner on May 23, 1902, less than nine months before it was so ruthlessly dealt with.

The circumstances which led to this very distressing occurrence are as follows:—When New Zealand refused to join the new Australian Commonwealth, some of her politicians strove to form a New Zealand Commonwealth by incorporating South Sea Islands, especially Fiji, in which a special crusade was started against the “crown colony” form of government, and especially the stringent regulations against selling liquor to natives, which hitherto have done so much to save the Fijian race.

The promise of free trade in drink, and of a general time of glorious liberty, found favour with sundry discontented white men, and some of the chiefs, amongst others the Chief of Namosi. The Wesleyan native minister excited his anger by using all his influence in support of the existing government, whereupon the chief said that he and his people would join the “Seventh Day Adventists,” who have now secured a small footing in Fiji. These refused to receive him, telling him that as soon as his anger subsided, he would return to his old church.

Then, in still greater dudgeon, he applied to Father Rougier for admission to the Roman Church, into which, needless to say, he was forthwith received, together with several hundreds of his people, who, whatever their real religious convictions, believe that federation with New Zealand will mean getting rid of all the restrictions and necessary taxation imposed upon them by their present government.

It is one of the saddest things I know to note how, in all the different groups of beautiful Pacific isles, the first 226whole-hearted conversion to a simple Christian faith and life becomes tarnished after much contact with merely nominal Christians of other nationalities, especially when, as in New Zealand, political matters and land-grabbing come into play.

CHAPTER XIII Cruise on a French Man-of-War—Tongan Isles—Samoa—Taheiti—California—Japan.

The arrival of British or other men-of-war always brought some little stir, and some accession to our somewhat limited society, as of course the officers called at Government House, where Sir Arthur and Lady Gordon showed them all possible hospitality.

In August 1877 a French man-of-war, Le Seignelay, came into harbour on a very peaceful errand. She had been appointed to take Monseigneur Elloi, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Samoa on le tour de la mission, i.e. to visit all the mission-stations in his diocese. He had already visited Easter Isle and some other very interesting places, but had still to visit the Samoan (or Navigators), the Tongan (or Friendly Isles), and the Tahitian (or Society) group.

Two kinder or more courtly gentlemen than the bishop and the captain, Commandant Aube, could not be found, and indeed all the officers were gentlemen of the best type. We all became great friends, and they were keenly interested in my portfolios of Australia, New Zealand, and many Fijian Isles which they could not visit. But we could scarcely believe they were all in earnest when one day Commandant Aube called and formally invited me to go with the Seignelay to Tonga, Samoa, and Tahiti.

The invitation had to be reiterated and backed by that of all our friends on board ere Sir Arthur could believe that it was really quite genuine, but when Baron Anatole von Hügel, one of our own party, went on board and saw the delightful cabin assigned to me through the unselfish kindness 228of M. de Gironde, and brought back fresh messages of welcome, Lady Gordon so thoroughly entered into my wish not to throw away so unique a chance of visiting isles which by no other possibility could I ever hope to see, that it was decided that I might accept the kind captain’s generous offer of hospitality, at least so far as Samoa, where I had an invitation to visit the wife of the consul, and whence I should doubtless find some means of returning to Fiji.

So on 5th September Lady Gordon, Captain Knollys, and dear little Jack in his sailor’s dress, escorted me on board Le Seignelay, which became to me the very kindest home till 7th October, when we reached Tahiti.

From the 7th to the 15th September we were in the beautiful Tongan group, where every hour was full of interest; and from 18th September to 2nd October we were in the still more lovely Samoan Isles, among mountains, rivers, orange-groves, palms, splendid thickets of bananas, and most attractive people. But there, alas! civil war, fostered by evil white men, was causing bloodshed and misery; every man’s hand against his neighbour.

It soon became evident that to return thence to Fiji would be absolutely impossible, even had I cared to risk travelling in such company as sailed in those trading-vessels. I therefore gratefully accepted the cordially renewed invitation to proceed on board Le Seignelay to Tahiti, where I was first most cordially welcomed by Mr. and Mrs. Green at the London Mission, and afterwards by Mrs. Brander, alias “Titaua,” the highest chief next to King Pomare, who was married to her sister Marau.

All through our voyage my companions had been telling me of this delightful demi-blanche, Madame Brandère. So I looked forward with much interest to making her acquaintance, and when taken by Mr. Green to do so, I was turning over in my mind what insular topics we could find in common, when to my amazement she asked whether I had lately been in Morayshire? and whether I had recently seen Lady Dunbar Brander?

229Then it suddenly flashed upon my memory that a connection of the Branders of Pitgaveny had many years before left the north to carve his own fortune in the South Seas, and this was how he had done it. He had invested his capital in trading-ships, which proved highly remunerative, and had enormously enlarged his connection by marrying this good and beautiful woman, who owned great estates in various parts of the group, and ruled her people wisely and well, but with the absolute power of a feudal chief. She was a woman of rare ability, who after her husband’s death carried on all the command of her fleet of trading-ships, personally ordering every detail, and consulted on many business matters by the French civil and naval authorities.

Of course their seizure of the isles had been a terrible trial to her, as to all her people, but she had wisely resolved to make the best of the unavoidable evil. She was an earnestly religious woman, and grieved bitterly over the very immoral influence of the usurpers, which she and the hitherto loved and revered missionaries were powerless to counteract. She also suffered seriously in business matters from the adverse influence of her own trading German sons-in-law, and from the new French law, which compelled equal division of property among all her children.

Feeling the need of a strong man with authority to take her part, she married her husband’s manager, George Darsie, and some years later actually made up her mind to remove her younger children from the dangerous influences to which they were exposed. Such was the strength of her mother-love, that she forsook her lovely homes in Tahiti and Moorea, and brought her family to settle at bleak Anstruther, in Fife, which had been Mr. Darsie’s early home. A more absolute contrast in every respect to her own poetic isles could not be conceived, but she felt that it was worth the sacrifice. At Anstruther she died, and her daughter, Paloma, “the dove,” who could not bear ever to leave the spot where that dear mother was buried, happily found her own true love in the manse close by, and as wife of the 230young parish minister, lived on for some years close to her half-brothers and sisters.

Of my ideal six months in Tahiti and Moorea, as well as the enchanting weeks in the Tongan and Samoan groups, up to that wonderful Easter morning when I passed through “the golden gates” and landed in California, I have written a very full account in my Lady’s Cruise in a French Man-of-War, published by Blackwood.

In California I found such attractive sketching-ground that six months slipped away like so many weeks, chiefly in the grand Sierra Nevada. I lived most of the time in the Yo Semite valley, at the very foot of the stupendous falls (2630 feet in height), which give their name to the wonderful valley; thence riding in every direction to paint the many other falls, and view the sierras from various mountain summits.

I arrived in the valley when the snows had just melted sufficiently to make access possible, and when leafless trees enabled me to secure accurate drawings of crags which soon were veiled by delicate green foliage; I watched the thickets of bare sticks develop into masses of most fragrant small yellow azalea, and the green banks of the “river of mercy” (the Merced) became starred with a profusion of lovely blossoms which we cultivate in gardens.

I watched all the changing effects when the melting snows of the higher sierras brought down all the falls in flood, and transformed the green meadows in the valley to quiet lakes, reflecting the sky and trees; then the waters dried up, leaving everything greener than ever—a rest and delight to the eye.

But far beyond expression was the loveliness of the Californian forests, in which (only in about half-a-dozen groves where the soil is amazingly rich and deep) grow the Sequoia Gigantea, which we so very unfairly persist in calling Wellingtonia—the Americans justly saying that if we must give them a man’s name it should be Washingtonia.

231The only way in which it is possible to give people in this country an idea of their size is by taking about thirty-five yards of tape and pegging it out in a circle on the lawn. Then you can realise the circumference of these trees. The big ones range from ninety to one hundred and twenty feet. In themselves they are not beautiful, being very much like the red trees in children’s Noah’s arks, with a little tuft of green branches at the top. But they are so surrounded by entrancingly graceful sugar-pines, Douglasias, and other magnificent trees, that the whole combines to produce a dream of loveliness, a true forest sanctuary.

I dare not trust my pen to start on such reminiscences. It has already had free play in my book, Granite Crags of California, published by Blackwood.

So I will pass on to 16th August, 1878, when I bade adieu to San Francisco, to which I paid four distinct visits, and sailed for Japan, reaching Yokohama on 6th September.

Owing to my somewhat erratic movements, I reached Japan before the principal letters of introduction which should have awaited me there, so I had to find quarters at the hotel, and as the flood of tourists had not then set in, hotels in the east were not then so luxurious as they are now.

On the following morning I received one of many pleasant proofs of how small the world is. A visitor was announced who, to my pleasurable amazement, proved to be the very nice woman who had accompanied me to India as my lady’s-maid, there to take charge of my sister’s children, and who, refusing a number of “most advantageous” offers of marriage, had resolutely stuck to her charge till they reached Sussex, when she announced her engagement to one of the ship’s stewards. In course of time they found themselves in Japan, and decided to run a really respectable hotel for foreigners in Tokio. They had only just started the enterprise, and very soon found it necessary to seek fortune elsewhere.

232Needless to say, I very soon moved thither, and was well cared for till invitations reached me from various kind friends, first and foremost from Henry Dyer, the creator of the Kobu-dai-Gakko or Imperial College of Engineering, which, under his powerful leading and instruction, became the training-centre for a host of clever young Japanese engineers, by whom all manner of railway and other work has been carried out, and bridges built in every part of the group.

When Japan applied to Scotland for the best man she could send to teach practical engineering, there was no doubt at all as to Mr. Dyer being the best, the only drawback being his youth. But his splendid height and preternatural Scottish gravity were such that on his arrival in, I think, 1872, standing fully head and shoulders above his future pupils, any question as to his age would have been preposterous, and he was at once recognised as the embodiment of all the desired wisdom, which was not only to include the different branches of engineering, but also various manufacturing arts.

The first problems he had to face were to draw out a scheme of technical education to enable young Japan to acquire the most practical knowledge on these subjects, and to build a suitable college for his purpose. He was met by suggestions for doing this on a Lilliputian scale, which he at once set aside, and insisted on a handsome brick and stone building on high ground overlooking the castle moats. Within its spacious grounds were houses for himself, as principal, and for nine professors, dormitories for students, class-rooms, lecture-rooms, library, a noble common hall, kitchens, laboratories for the students of chemistry, engineering, etc.

As all tuition is given in English, the students have to commence by acquiring a thorough knowledge of an alien tongue. There are special professors for teaching English, drawing, mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, engineering, 233telegraphic and mechanical engineering, surveying, architecture, mineralogy, geology, mining and metallurgy. The four last were added to enable students to help in developing the great mining resources of the country.

The students acquire their practical knowledge of engineering in the great Government works of Akabané, where every conceivable variety of engines and machines are constructed for use on terra firma. Not only was Mr. Dyer called upon to supply bridges of every construction for all parts of the Empire, but machinery of every sort and kind was required at his hands, often taxing his fertile mechanical genius to the very utmost.

When we look at the latest maps of Japan, and see the railways already made, or in course of construction throughout the group, and hear of the telegraphs, telephones, dockyards, shipbuilding yards, arsenals, etc., to which Japan owes so much of her present strength, we can form some idea of the amount of very varied work which has been accomplished by students trained at this College.

It was very gratifying to Mr. Dyer, after his retirement into private life at Glasgow, to receive a letter from the Prime Minister of Japan, saying that the College he had created had been greatly instrumental in saving Japan from Russia.

In the extraordinarily rapid development of Japan in every branch of Western knowledge, it very soon became necessary to remove the Imperial College of Engineering to a much larger building elsewhere, and Mr. Dyer’s building was transformed into a College for Nobles under the title of Teikoku Daigaku, or Imperial University.

One point of interest, which will rapidly increase in value, is the very fine museum in which Mr. Dyer collected specimens of all manner of Japanese products and models of the native machinery which is already obsolete, and would so soon be quite forgotten.

There are also admirable models of all sorts of bridges, 234engines, and mechanical appliances, while round the walls hang characteristic paintings by native artists, to illustrate all stages of every process of Japanese industry and agriculture, such as ploughing, sowing, reaping, tea-planting, tea-gathering and drying, cultivation of silk worms from the earliest care of the egg to the production of richest brocades, house-building, and manufactures of all sorts. These are a most interesting series, and represent many phases of native life, which will soon exist only as memories. For if it be true that soon the children of Britain and America will fail to understand the simple parables of “The Sower,” “The Reapers,” and “The Gleaners,” because to them steam-engines represent all details of husbandry, it is likely to be equally true in this country of amazingly rapid progress.

And how amazing it has been! Remember I landed in Japan in 1878, and the previous ten years had witnessed the most surprising revolution of modern history. It was in 1867 that, at the age of fifteen, the present Emperor, the Mikado Mutsu Hito, succeeded to his divine office, and that Keiki succeeded to the temporal power as Shogun, the previous Shogun and Mikado having each died of sheer over-anxiety and perplexity at all the worries forced upon them by the determination of foreigners to secure access to Japanese harbours and commerce, and the heavy indemnities by which alone the havoc of big guns could be averted.

Keiki, convinced that the division of power was a serious drawback to the progress of the country, resigned his office, and the wondering land slowly realised that the power and glory of the Shogunate was a story of the past, and that the Mikado would henceforth hold undivided sway. Very unfortunately, however, the Imperial Government began by removing from office all the great daimios who were specially friendly to the Shogunate, and replacing them by followers of the Princes of Satsuma and Choshiu.

235This was too much for Keiki, who, repenting of his magnanimous abdication, placed himself at the head of the malcontents, and a grievously bloody but happily brief civil war ensued, in which many temples and beautiful tombs were destroyed, though happily many were chivalrously spared in response to the Mikado’s appeal to the rebels. The Imperial troops came off victorious, and the last of the mighty and magnificent Shoguns retired to live the life of a simple country gentleman in his castle at Skidzuoka, while his followers, no longer encumbered with two swords, and a very natural craving to make use of them, devoted themselves to the cultivation of the land, and of tea in particular.

The city of Yeddo had for long been the Windsor of the Shoguns. But now its name was changed to Tokio, which means “the eastern capital,” as Kioto signifies “the capital of the west,” having for many centuries been the home where, surrounded by marvels of art, the ancestors of the Mikado had dwelt in rigid seclusion.

The young Emperor was now induced to abandon that strange policy, and to show himself to his people. So in the autumn of 1868 he removed his court from Kioto to the more accessible position of Tokio, and the castle of the Shoguns became the Imperial palace.

From that time till the present the only very serious outbreak that has occurred has been the great rebellion in Satsuma in 1876–77, when discontented daimios and samurai, who still clung to the old order of things and hated to see the annihilation of their own power and the encroachments of foreigners, strove to make one last effort to restore the vanished past and regain their lost position. There was obstinate fighting on both sides, and the impoverished land once more saw her sons shedding one another’s blood in civil war, at a cost to the treasury of upwards of eight millions sterling.

Strange indeed is the change which has so rapidly overspread 236the land. To our matter-of-fact notions it seems well-nigh incredible that the mighty daimios, who ten years before exercised greater power than our own highest nobles in old feudal days, should at the bidding of the Emperor carry out their high views of chivalry and self-abnegation in so practical a manner as from sheer patriotism to give up their vast estates and enormous retinues, retaining only one-tenth of their revenues, and quietly assume the character of simple country gentlemen.

Their retainers, the two-sworded Samurai, and even the proud Hatamoto, formerly the most overbearing class in the country, all alike dispersed to seek their bread where they could find it, and from positions of considerable wealth fell into deepest poverty. Those who had family treasures of rare old works of art lived for a while by selling these to foreigners, and set up in trade, formerly so much despised. Some became clerks in Government offices, some teachers in the schools, and I was told that many were earning their daily pittance by running jinrikshas at sixpence an hour, or working as bettos (grooms) in the service of the once-hated foreigner; and how friendly and obliging they are!

Once I realised the antecedents of the jin-riki-ya (our human ponies), their wonderful endurance and power of adaptation to circumstances became to me a source of endless wonder, and was infinitely pathetic. They seemed to be always cheery, always on the look out for a joke, invariably obliging and extraordinarily polite, and yet, poor fellows, what a hard life was theirs, of such abject poverty as to make them eagerly compete for the wretched small coin to be earned by trotting for many miles in the capacity of carriage-horses. The rate of payment is according to a regular tariff, which varies in different parts of the country, ranging from five to twelve sen (cents) a ri, the ri being about two and a half miles!

Such meagre pay for such hard work does not sound 237tempting, yet I was told that in Tokio alone there were actually twenty-three thousand men who were thus earning their scanty bread. Many of these were said to have been of comparatively gentle birth, and certainly they had little foreseen that a day would come when they would be reduced to real hard labour. Yet they accepted their lot as if it were the pleasantest position possible, instead of being a hard struggle for life. Underfed and wretchedly clothed, these poor fellows stand shivering in the cold till happily some one comes by rich enough to hire them.

At certain places there are regular stands answering to our cab-stands, where a number of jinrikshas are always in waiting. When a fare approaches they draw lots to decide which of them shall have the job. Their method of drawing lots is very simple. They have a bunch of many pieces of string, all of different lengths, and whoever secures the longest end gets the run; and off he starts at a rattling pace, perhaps dragging two full-grown people up hill and down for several miles.

The power of endurance of most of these men is perfectly amazing—some of them are so glad to secure a job, that they will undertake to run twenty miles a day for several successive days, rather than yield their place and their little earnings to another. It certainly is not a matter of wonder that so many should have early developed heart complaint and consumption, from which many have died.

When I was returning from beautiful Nikko to Tokio with the French Minister of Legation, who wished to economise time, we had seven jinrikshas, which with their passenger averaged two hundred pounds weight. Each was drawn by two men, who two days previously had brought the Russian admiral and a party of officers up the long, steep ascent, trotting eighty English miles in one day, with such wretched straw sandals that they were almost barefoot. These same men trotted back with us, doing one hundred and eight miles in two days, having only halted each day for breakfast, 238and a very few minutes besides, and all that we might reach Tokio by 3.30. “It is the pace that kills!”

The regulation dress of the jin-riki-ya is a dark blue garment with long loose sleeves, fastened at the waist, and tight knee-breeches, also dark blue; bare legs and straw sandals tied on with wisps of straw. While patiently waiting for a fare, they sit wrapped up in the scarlet blanket, which is their only warm garment, and which they most carefully and kindly wrap round your knees as you take your seat. For very wet weather they have a waterproof coat of oiled paper, or else one of grass, which looks exactly as if they were thatched.

Sometimes when warm with running, and at a safe distance from the police, they slip off all these superfluous garments, and reveal most wonderfully beautiful tattooing of mediæval history, covering them from head to foot. What tortures they must have endured in the production of such elaborate pictures! Truly it would be a sin against art not to allow us to see them!

A large number of the Samurai found useful work in the police-force, which pervades every district of the wide empire. They are all exceedingly polite, and very quiet, rarely interfering unnecessarily. They wear a neat European uniform—a dark frock coat, belt, and white trousers. One can scarcely believe that these well-drilled, orderly men can be the swashbucklers who so recently were ready to cut down any inoffensive foreigner who did not get out of their way.

Happily they command much the same unquestioning obedience as do our own police, for you see a tiny official arrest a prisoner gently but firmly, and then producing from his pocket a ball of strong cord, he winds it round the body of the offender, and then ties his wrists to his back, leaving a couple of yards free, and holding these like reins, he politely requests the prisoner to walk before him, which he does without the slightest resistance!

As to the prisons where heretofore prisoners were subject 239to barbarous tortures, all arrangements are now said to be ideal, and all prisoners are educated to do profitable work, in whatever line they seem capable of acquiring. Clever burglars become wonderfully skilful wood-carvers, some are employed in making fans, others make paper lanterns, straw sandals, or baskets, some make delicate pottery or cloisonné; there are weavers, printers, rice-pounders, stone-breakers, some even constructing jinrikshas, all working for the good of their country, while perhaps acquiring a hitherto unknown means of afterwards earning an honest living. Thus Japanese prisons are now true reformatories.

To return to the Kobu-dai-Gakko. The Mikado and the Empress Haruku have taken the keenest personal interest in extensive educational schemes for all classes of their subjects, and Mr. Dyer’s work at the Imperial College of Engineering received their strongest personal encouragement. Only a few weeks before my arrival, the Mikado had paid the college a state visit, which of course was a very solemn ceremonial. His Imperial Majesty was escorted by all the princes of the blood, the great nobles, privy councillors, and all manner of Government officials, who, if only they had appeared in their beautiful national dress, would have been a joy to behold. But, alas! the silken robes were all replaced by European uniforms; gold lace, and cocked hats, or, still more unbecoming, by simple suits of black.

No one can suffer more from this change of dress than the Mikado himself, who is a man of middle stature, and not remarkable for personal beauty, but to whom the robes of state must have lent a dignity which is not enhanced by a stiff, gold-embroidered black coat, white trousers with red stripe, and cocked hat.

The very coachman who drove his handsome open carriage also wore the cocked hat of state. But none of these details will strike you as remarkable unless you remember that heretofore the sacred person of the Mikado has been veiled 240from all eyes, his own great nobles only being admitted to do homage to a glimpse of his robe just revealed from behind the screen which concealed the Sun of Heaven.

Now, having burst from his bonds, he takes his part freely in all state ceremonials, after the manner of European sovereigns.

On the present occasion he was conducted to a dais in the great hall, where he received an address, and replied in a short speech, both in Japanese, and both intoned in a rapid sing-song. Other speeches followed, and some of the leading students had the very alarming privilege of delivering short essays on various learned topics, after which His Majesty made a grand inspection of all departments of the college, and allowed all the foreign masters and professors the honour of being presented to him.

As the court ceremonial did not permit of any ladies being present on that occasion, the Empress was not allowed to accompany her lord, so she determined to come on her own account.

A general order had been given for the exclusion of all foreigners, so of course my host was the last person who could venture to help me to obtain a stolen glimpse of the Imperial beauty. However, the chance was one not to be lost, and so I went out alone in search of a good position, and fortune proved propitious. I got under a big fir-tree on a hillock overlooking the library door, at which the carriages stopped, and with my faithful companions (the good opera-glasses which have accompanied me on so many travels) I saw admirably.

First came several carriages with maids-of-honour, in green brocade dresses and loose scarlet trousers, their glossy black hair dressed flat like a soup-plate. Then came outriders bearing purple flags with chrysanthemums or kiku (the Imperial crest) embroidered in gold, and finally the Empress’s handsome English close carriage, with chrysanthemum, which also figured on the scarlet hammercloth, and 241in gold brocade on the white silk lining. But the windows were closed, and muslin curtains drawn, so that I only saw the shiny top of the Imperial head as her ladies closed round the Empress while she alighted. But a few minutes later they all had to walk along an open verandah very near my hiding-place.

As she passed along this open corridor in very slow procession, I had the satisfaction of an excellent view of the Empress and the attendant Princesses Arisugawa and Higashi-Fushimi. The impression thus obtained was a very pleasant one. The Empress has a pleasant and intellectual expression. She is decidedly small, but looked extremely dignified in her crimson skirt and white robe of embroidered silk, made something like a sacque, flowing loose from the neck, which is the ancient court-dress.

The Princesses wore dresses made in the same style, white and crimson (the Imperial colours) predominating. The face and neck of all three ladies were powdered with white, and all three wore their hair in the true court fashion, which is quite unlike that of ordinary life. The hair is combed back from the face and dressed very smoothly over a concealed framework of light cane, shaped like a crescent, which encircles the brow and gives just the necessary support. No ornament of any sort is allowed; the hair is merely tied at the back of the head with a strip of white paper, and hangs behind in a simple plait.

I cannot make out whether this white paper is used as an affectation of studied simplicity, or whether it has some symbolic meaning, strips of white paper being the most sacred emblem in the Shinto temples, in which the Mikado, as the offspring of the sun, receives such devout homage. From the Empress downwards, all wore foreign shoes. I only hope they did not prove the thin end of a wedge which may have brought European fashions to supersede the national costume, to which the ladies almost without exception still continued faithful at that time.

242I heard that the Empress won golden opinions from all present by her gentle, unaffected manners, and evident interest in everything about the college. Amongst other novelties prepared for her amusement and that of her ladies, were microphones and telephones, through which they listened to the dulcet melodies of a company of blind musicians, who were stationed in another part of the building.

They stayed at the college about six hours, and as I returned to Mrs. Dyer’s house, I saw the Empress’s carriage, covered with a handsome green cloth, with gold chrysanthemum, the hammercloth with a blue cover, and all the carriage-horses and horses of the escort with blue clothes, all bearing the same Imperial crest, the whole within a temporary wooden enclosure hung with the black cloth, with white oblongs, which denotes sacred Imperial property.

I noticed the same curious black and white cloth hung across a certain bridge in the Mikado’s own beautiful park, which we understood to be an indication that the further side was private. In the part to which we were allowed access there is a succession of ingenious Japanese gardens, with artificial lakes, streams, cascades, rocks, green lawns, fine old dwarfed fir-trees, clumps of bamboos, and all manner of dainty prettinesses.

But these, in varying detail, we saw repeated so often that I confess they at last lost something of their first fascination, and that is what can never be said of the exquisite natural scenery which I found wherever I had the good-fortune to go, and which was described to me as being just as lovely throughout the group, and always enhanced by the prettiness of tea-houses or little shrines perched just in the right spot for general effect.

As for attempting by any mere words to give the faintest idea of the enchanting groves and gorgeous shrines at Uyeno, Shiba, Nikko, and elsewhere, it has been often attempted, but is altogether hopeless. Coloured stereoscopes of individual 243portions might convey some faint idea, but even they could do little, for while every detail is artistic and of exquisite beauty, half the charm lies in the combination of so many beautiful objects, all clustered together on these steep hillsides, enfolded in the cool, deep shades of the evergreen forest, stately cryptomerias whose tops seem to touch the deep blue sky, and the undergrowth of wild camelia-trees, which when I first saw them were gemmed all over with pink single blossoms, and showering their leaves in a rosy shower on the soft green moss.

When you consider that Tokio alone, with its noble castle, parks, and moats, overshadowed by most picturesquely gnarled old “Scotch firs,” is said to cover almost as large an area as London, and to contain at least five hundred temples and shrines, besides the countless quaint shows and curio-shops, and the crowds of delightfully polite, prettily dressed women and children, you can understand that a traveller on first arriving finds it difficult to start further afield. Yet every expedition I made in each new direction seemed more fascinating than the last, and many kind friends escorted me to the points of greatest interest from different centres right away south to Nagasaki, which is the beautiful seaport nearest to China.

Mrs. Dyer’s hospitable house continued to be my home from whence to come and go for many weeks. For three months, each day brought a bewildering succession of interests and novelties, then as winter advanced I began to realise that sleeping in Japanese paper houses, with only movable wooden walls to be run into place round the verandah at night, was much too chilly for comfort. I therefore from Nagasaki passed on to China, reaching Hong Kong on Christmas Eve (in time to witness an appalling but magnificent fire, which consumed whole blocks of houses in the town, the house in which I was staying a little way up the hill, just overlooking this scene of awful beauty).

After six months in China (fully described in my 244Wanderings in China, published by Blackwood), I returned to Japan for three more months, crammed full of interests. But on my return to Britain I was assured that Japan had already been over-written—that all travellers spun Japanese yarns ad nauseam, and that I had better not add to the list of such. So I abstained; and if that was sound advice twenty-four years ago, surely it must be very much more so now, when the array of scribblers as well as of earnest writers has multiplied so greatly.

And yet, as I turn over page after page of my diary, which has lain unopened for so many years, it recalls so much that was fascinating, that I am sorely tempted to quote a few passages, though it will be difficult to know how to stop!

CHAPTER XIV Japanese Burial-grounds—Cremation in Many Lands—Sacred Scripture Wheels—Buddhist Rosaries.

I have so often found pathetic sketching-grounds in neglected old churchyards and cemeteries, and moreover have so long felt that the subject of how to dispose of the dead so as best to combine reverence for their sacred bodies with due care for the health of the living, is a matter of the deepest interest, that this natural instinct led me, quite unintentionally, to derive my very first impressions of Japan from the cremation-ground near Yokohama—a spot which, I need scarcely say, rarely attracts any of the many foreign visitors—still fewer of the residents!

During my travels in India, I had had abundant opportunities of witnessing the process of cremation as practised by the Hindoos, more especially at Benares, that most holy city of the Brahmins, the bourne which every pious Hindoo craves to reach in time to die there, on the banks of the sacred river Ganges. Many a time I have seen the dying laid down to breathe their last breath alone on the hallowed shore, while their friends went off to bargain with the neighbouring timber-merchants for so much wood as their limited means could procure. Often in the case of the very poor this sum was so small that the humble fire has barely sufficed to char the body, which was then thrown into the river, and suffered to float seaward in company with many another, in every stage of putrefaction, spreading the seed of pestilence on the sultry air, and poisoning the stream in which myriads hourly bathe, and from which they drink.

But in the case of the wealthier Hindoo, the funeral-pyre 246is carefully built, and when the corpse has been washed in the river, it is swathed in fair linen, white or scarlet, or still more often the shroud is of the sacred saffron-colour, on which is showered a handful of vermilion paint to symbolise the blood of sprinkling, as the atonement for sin. Sometimes the body is wrapped in cloth of silver or of gold, and is thus laid upon the funeral-pyre. Dry sweet grass is then laid over it, and precious anointing oil, which shall make the flame burn more brightly, and more wood is heaped on, till the pyre is very high. A Brahmin now brings sacred fire, and gives a lighted torch to the chief mourner, who bears it thrice, or nine times, sun-wise, round the body. He touches the lips of the dead with the holy fire, then ignites the pyre. Other torches are applied simultaneously, and in a very few moments the body is burnt, though the fire smoulders long. Then the ashes are collected and sprinkled on the sacred river, which carries them away to the ocean.

Night and day this work goes on without ceasing, and many a weird funeral-scene I have witnessed, sometimes beneath the burning rays of the noontide sun, while my house-boat lay moored in midstream to enable me better to witness all the strange phases of religious and social life enacted on its shores, and sometimes in the course of our night journeyings, when the pale moonbeams mingled with the dim blue flames, casting a lurid light on the withered, witch-like forms of the mourners, often a group of grey-haired women, whose shrill wails and piercing cries rang through the air as they circled round the pyre in solemn procession, suggesting some spirit-dance of death.

With these scenes in my memory, I made some inquiries, on my arrival in Japan, as to the method of cremation practised there; but, strangely enough, could obtain no information on the subject. It was not one which in any way obtruded itself on public notice, and none of my European friends could tell me anything about it—most declared that the practice was unknown in Japan. Accident, however, favoured me, for on the third day after 247landing at Yokohama, a friend brought his charming ponies and invited me to accompany him on a ride, in the course of which, looking down from the high-road where foreigners take their daily drive, I observed at some little distance what seemed to me to be a cemetery.

For me, the peaceful “God’s-acres” of our own land have always a special interest, and I soon learnt that those of Japan are invariably worth a visit, the ancestral graves being ever well cared for, and the cemeteries generally pretty and picturesque. So this my first discovery in Japanese burial-grounds was an opportunity not to be neglected. My companion, though he had often passed by the spot, had never dreamt of giving it a nearer inspection, but yielded to what seemed to him my very unaccountable wish to visit it.

So we turned our horses’ heads thither, and soon perceived that it was indeed a place of graves, full of monuments of forms new to me. One thing I especially noted was the enduring care of the living for the dead, for before each grave were placed the three sacred objects invariably present in Buddhist worship; a vase to contain fresh flowers (generally, if possible, a bud of the sacred lotus), a candlestick whereon was set a taper, as an offering to the departed, and a brazier wherein to burn incense (generally a pot of fragrant ash), in which are stuck the familiar joss-sticks. There are also saucers of holy water.

In a corner of the cemetery I noticed a very insignificant-looking thatched house; and a talkative Japanese “Old Mortality” (who seemed to be the guardian of the place), seeing my glance directed thither, informed my companion that that was where the dead were burned, and invited us to enter. Thus unexpectedly was my question answered. We found a very plain building, with mud walls and earthen floors, along which were placed six or eight low stone enclosures; in each of these were heaped dry faggots, on which were laid the dead brought here for cremation, in square, box-like coffins, the bodies being placed in a sitting attitude.

At the moment when we entered, three funeral-pyres 248were blazing brightly, and though the bodies could not have been half-consumed, there was scarcely any perceptible odour, even in this primitive building without special chimneys, certainly nothing comparable to that in many an English kitchen.

Two semi-nude attendants watched by the bodies, and would remain on duty for six or eight hours, till the fire had burnt itself out, leaving no human fragment uncalcined. Then, when nothing remained but pure white ashes, they would carefully collect these, to be handed over to the relatives, who on the morrow would bring a simple urn of red earthenware to receive these cleanly remains, which would then be interred with all due honour, with or without further religious service, according to the inclination of the survivors.

One feature of the graves in this cremation-cemetery which struck my companion as unusual was the fact that each grave was marked by a cluster of flat, wooden, sword-shaped sticks, each bearing an inscription. These are placed on the grave one at a time at intervals on certain days after burial. On some graves these inscribed sticks were so very much larger than on the others, that we inquired the reason, and were told that they marked the graves of very wealthy citizens. The highest of all, which attained to the dignity of a large post, proved to be that of the chief scavenger of the town!

“Old Mortality” informed us that of the bodies brought to this particular cemetery, only about one-third were interred without cremation; that it was a matter of personal choice, but that Buddhists of the Monto or Shin-shiû, i.e. reformed sect, were almost invariably cremated, as also those of the Jodo, Hokke and Zenshu sects. I recollected that in Ceylon this most honourable disposal of the dead was reserved only for Buddhist priests, and I afterwards discovered the same fact at some of the Buddhist monasteries I visited in China.

249A very few days later, on arriving in Tokio and driving through one of its suburbs, my attention was arrested by a group of peculiarly-shaped tall chimneys, very wide at the base, and ending in a narrow mouth, so strangely suggestive of old sketching-days in Kent, that the idea of the familiar farm “oast-house” at once presented itself. On inquiry, I learnt that this was one of the city crematories, of which there are about half-a-dozen scattered over the principal suburbs of the vast city. Supposing that in the great capital the process of cremation might be performed more ceremoniously and scientifically than in the country cemetery which I had previously visited, I determined to inspect this also. But in the multitude of more attractive interests, I never found time to do so.

Soon afterwards, however, my friend Miss Bird (now Mrs. Bishop) visited a similar establishment in the same neighbourhood; she said it was only after prolonged inquiry that she succeeded in learning its locality. She found the same perfect simplicity in all details. The great chimneys form the only material difference, their object, of course, being to convey any unpleasant fumes to such a height as to ensure no nuisance being created in the neighbourhood. Not only is this desirable result secured, but even within the premises there is nothing in the least noxious or disgusting. Miss Bird said that, although thirteen bodies had been consumed in the burning-house a few hours before her visit, and a considerable number of bodies were awaiting cremation (those of the wealthier classes being coffined in oblong pine chests, and those of the very poor in tubs of pine, hooped with bamboo), there was not the slightest odour in or about the building, and her interpreter informed her that the people living near never experience the least annoyance, even while the process is going on.

The only difference between this city crematory and the burning-house in the rural cemetery was that the highroofed 250mud building was divided into four rooms, the smallest of which was reserved for such wealthy persons as preferred to have their dead cremated apart in solitary state, for which privilege they pay five dollars (about one pound), whereas ordinary mortals are disposed of in the common room for the modest sum of something under four shillings. One shilling’s worth of fuel is the average consumption required for each body.

Granite supports are laid in pairs all along the earthen floor, and on these, coffin-chests are placed at 8 P.M., when the well-dried faggots beneath them are kindled. The fires are replenished from time to time, and at 6 A.M. the man in charge goes round the building, and from each hearth collects and stores in a separate urn the handful of ashes which alone remains. After the religious service in the house, the further attendance of the Buddhist priests is optional, but in many cases they return on the morrow to officiate at the interment of the ashes.

Having noticed the simplicity, the cleanliness, and the exceeding cheapness of this method of honourably consigning “ashes to ashes,” I confess to a feeling of wonder when, on returning to Britain in 1880, I heard howls of indignation raised at the bare suggestion that we should literally carry into practice those oft-repeated but utterly meaningless words. Men and women who devoutly believe that the noble army of martyrs has been largely recruited from the stake, and that multitudes of ransomed souls have been wafted on the smoke of their own burnt sacrifice to His presence, “Who maketh the flaming fire His minister,” nevertheless deemed that it might be irreverent for us thus to deal with Christian bodies which are to be interred “in sure and certain hope” of resurrection.

They did not venture to suggest that the martyrs will suffer in future because their ashes were sprinkled to the four winds; but religion, superstition, and sentiment were all arrayed to decry the impious idea of reviving in Britain 251this “cleanly custom” of our Pagan ancestors—a custom which is said to have been retained by the Celts of Ireland long after the introduction of Christianity.

This indignation was stirred up, because just at that time some of our leading scientists began to call attention to the advantages of cremation, and some of the many dangers of earth-burial in preserving bacteria and microbes, which might at any time, even after three hundred years, be turned up to reproduce horrible diseases in a new generation.

I ventured to add my testimony in the form of a paper called “De Mortuis,” which appeared in the Contemporary Review for June 1883, in which I said: “I think there can be no doubt that ere long common-sense will carry the day in this matter, and that Britain will learn from Japan the wisdom of allowing her children the option of disposing of their dead in such manner as each may prefer.” So it was pleasant to read in a leading article in The Scotsman that the article “De Mortuis” had awakened a very general interest, and brought to the surface much of that undercurrent of rational thought on the subject which has been for some time steadily growing in volume.

In the following year Mr. Justice Stephen, having decided that cremation was not contrary to law, and Sir Spencer Wells having stated that by earth-burial it takes twenty years for a human body to be resolved into exactly the same original elements as it attains in six hours by the action of fire, and that consequently in and around London there are always two millions of dead bodies, decomposing in the midst of a population of four millions of living persons, it was formally proposed to erect a crematorium at Ilford.

On 1st April 1884 there was a very interesting debate on the subject in the House of Commons, in which it was stated that in the previous month four bodies had been publicly cremated in England. Brave pioneers!

252In January 1885 advertisements appeared in public papers that arrangements were now completed for the use of the crematorium of the Cremation Society of England, and by 1900 the “cleanly custom” had become a recognised institution.

As regards funeral processions, which figure so prominently in my Chinese diaries, I saw very few in Japan, although so frequently sketching in picturesque cemeteries. I remember one on the holy Mount Oyama, wearily toiling up the long stairs to one of the pretty burial-grounds near the higher temples. The chief mourners were dressed in white, but the majority of those following wore their usual blue garments, blue being accounted mourning. At the head of the procession a priest bore the sacred tablet, on which was inscribed the new name of the deceased—the kaimiyo, or name given by the priests immediately after death, and by which the spirit will be known in the spirit-world. After the tablet came a company of priests endeavouring to intone prayers as well as they could on such a steep ascent, and next came the square coffin, covered with a white pall, and followed by the nearest relations of the dead man.

One curious ceremony connected with funerals in Japan is that of sprinkling salt on the threshold of the house whence the dead has been carried, a custom which seems to me akin to that of the Egyptian women, who sprinkle salt on their floor in the name of God, in order to prevent evil spirits from entering their dwelling; or, it may have something in common with the old Scottish superstition of throwing a handful of salt after a man appointed to a new position in life, to bring him luck. As we throw salt over the shoulder to avert a quarrel, so in Japan a little is thrown into the fire to avert family discord.

Another matter in which I have been deeply interested ever since my travels in the Himalayas, is worshipping by machinery; and my “hunter’s instinct” led me very soon 253after arriving in Tokio to discover for myself the existence of an exceedingly handsome rotating scripture-wheel, exactly corresponding to the prayer-wheels of Thibet.

There “the six-syllabled charm,” or ascription of praise “to the most Holy Jewel, the Lotus” i.e. (Buddha) is inscribed many thousand times on strips of cloth or papyrus, and is enclosed in a cylinder of metal, whereon the same mystic words are inscribed in embossed characters. These are neat little cylinders, or prayer-wheels, which the devout carry in their hands, and turn mechanically as they walk, and there are huge barrels, like enormous vats, which are made to rotate by working a crank; these are co-operative devotion stores, available for the whole village, for each rotation gives the person turning the full merit of having actually uttered each several prayer or praise in that huge storehouse, so that any amount of merit may be accumulated in a very short time.^[58]

Having been immensely interested in these Thibetan wheels, or rather barrels of praise, and having vainly sought for any trace of any such in Buddhist Ceylon, either in the monasteries or in the ancient cities, one of my first cares on reaching Japan was to learn whether anything of the sort was to be found in its Buddhist temples. I was assured by several gentlemen, well versed in most matters having reference to Japanese manners and customs, that nothing of the sort existed. I, however, determined to examine for myself so far as might be possible, and (finding how many of the minor ecclesiastical buildings of the Buddhist shrines have been suffered to fall into disrepair since the Mikado’s government decided in favour of the Shinto religion, and has confiscated so large a proportion of the Buddhist revenues), I quietly went about, peeping into many neglected chapels and outhouses, where the richly gilt and coloured carvings, scarcely to be discerned 254through the thick layers of dust and cobwebs, told of the falling off of once devout worshippers.

At beautiful Asakusa my quest was first rewarded. Within the temple grounds stands a very handsome five-storied pagoda of carved wood, painted deep red, and with deep projecting roofs—very picturesque. That naturally drew me thither.

Very near this tall, quaint building stands a small neglected temple, with nothing externally attractive to invite the inspection of the foreigner, and the windows are so closely barred that little can be discerned by peering through them. That little, however, proved to me that this small temple had been built solely to contain one large object, so strongly suggestive, both in form and size, of a great Thibetan prayer-wheel, that I felt convinced that I had found the object of my search. After considerable delay, a very courteous young priest procured the key, opened the great door, and revealed a most beautiful specimen of what I must call a scripture-wheel or barrel, as instead of being full of thousands of copies of the short Thibetan charm, it is an ecclesiastical bookcase, wherein are stored the rolled scrolls of the Buddhist canon, arranged in upright order.

An inscription over the entrance states that as the Buddhist sacred books number 6771 volumes, no one person can read them all; but by turning this bookcase containing them three times, he will secure the same degree of merit as if he had read them all; and also secure long life, prosperity, and immunity from misfortunes.

SCRIPTURE WHEEL.

I think this bookcase is hexagonal, and the handsome panels form six doors for the different compartments, wherein the treasured scrolls are securely locked, which, however, no wise lessens the merit acquired by the devout, who (by the aid of spikes projecting from the base as from a capstan) cause the heavy machine to revolve sun-wise on its own axis. By observing this course, the scrolls (which 255of course, like all Oriental books, are inscribed from the left-hand corner to the right) pass in correct order before the person turning, and thus, though his mortal eye does not even see these sacred books, he is credited with the merit of having recited the whole.

The actual cylinder is encompassed with small slender pillars, supporting a beautiful projecting canopy of handsomely carved wood, richly lacquered. The base narrows considerably, and rests on a stone pedestal of sculptured lotus-leaves—the invariable symbol round the throne of Buddha—“The Jewel on the Lotus.”

The whole machine is about twelve feet in height and ten in diameter—a resplendent erection of the richest scarlet, black, and gold lacquer. It really seemed quite a pity that such a very handsome piece of furniture should be left to decay, but its day is past, and evidently this method of “turning the wheel of the law” has lost favour in Japan.

The temple doors being unlocked, a few of the many idlers came in, chiefly to see what we were doing, and some gave the wheel a turn, apparently as an excuse for having come in, but evidently without one grain of religious feeling connected with it; even the young priest in charge of the place showed us the wheel as if it were some curious relic of an obsolete ignorance—the same sort of feeling with which the young sportsman, proud of his breech-loading rifle, looks at the old muzzle-loader with which his father was so well satisfied.

On our asking him to show us how it was made to revolve, he proceeded carelessly to turn it widdershins,^[59] i.e. against the course of the sun. This was a great shock to my carefully cultivated prejudices and preconceived ideas, acquired in many lands, both east and west, but especially remembering how exceeding careful the 256Buddhists of Thibet are concerning the direction in which their prayer-wheels are turned, or their sacred terraces walked round; so, when a senior priest came in, my companion, a perfect Japanese scholar, questioned him on the subject. He admitted that it was against all rule, and, turning to his subordinate, remarked: “Well! you are a pretty fellow, to go and turn the wheel the wrong way!” But they both laughed, and did not really care a bit.

For public opinion in Japan changes with amazing rapidity, and it is evident that the scripture-wheel, which the last generation turned in solemn earnest, is now looked upon as a mediæval oddity, only suitable for an antiquarian museum. Young Japan has not only lost faith in the merit to be acquired by twirling a bookcase, but is ready to cavil at the holy books themselves, and eagerly welcomes every rationalistic work with which his new foreign friends are only too ready to flood the land.

Among the very numerous interests at Asakusa is a shrine to Ji-zo, the protector of little children. Below his image are three prayer-wheels which do not contain prayers, but turning them emphasises the prayers offered by the worshipper.

The scripture-wheel of Japan being a subject which apparently has (or had at that time) attracted little attention, I think I may as well bring together the results of my own subsequent observations.

Having found one great wheel or barrel in connection with the temple at Asakusa, and thus satisfactorily proved the existence in Japan of this singular instrument of devotion, I continued my researches with renewed interest, and so explored many temples not often visited by foreigners. I was one day attracted by the pleasant shady grounds of an old temple near the Saido Bashi at Tokio. The whole place was neglected and ruinous—only one poor old priest, as dilapidated as the buildings themselves, remained in charge of a temple whose congregation had all melted 257away. But in a small outlying chapel I discovered a large scripture-wheel. Worshippers there were none, and the wheel was fast going to decay. There is also one at the Higashi Hon-gwan-ji temple, where it is equally neglected.

A fourth and very handsome wheel, resembling in general form the first I had seen, occupies a small temple in the beautiful grounds of the temple of Ikegami, which stands on a wooded hill a few miles from the city of Tokio—very easy of access. This, too, is a huge barrel, standing upright, and turning on a pivot by means of long spokes projecting as from the axle of a wheel. Though very handsome in its simplicity, this wheel is not gorgeously lacquered, but of plain, uncoloured wood (which is almost as highly esteemed as lacquer), and its sacred books are in the form of stitched pamphlets, arranged in a multitude of small drawers.

I found another very handsome “circulating library” in the grounds of the Fuji Sawa temple, near the holy isle of Enoshima. This is a popular temple, which, like that of Asakusa, is crowded with worshippers. But the great wheel (which, as usual, occupies a chapel apart) was utterly neglected, except by such Japanese as came to watch me drawing it. For several days I occupied rooms at a charming tea-house overlooking those temple grounds, and I often watched the picturesque groups of pilgrims and other devout persons passing in and out, but I rarely saw any one approach the wheel, and of those who did so, few indeed ever gave it a turn; and these showed small signs of devotion.

In fact, of all whom I observed turning the wheel in various parts of the country, I only noticed one man who appeared to be doing it in earnest; he in very truth was working out a solemn task with resolute purpose—a weary man and heavy laden—apparently too abstracted to remember that he already bore a somewhat weighty burden fastened to his shoulders, and was too much 258absorbed to remember to lay it down before he began the hard labour of turning the heavy wheel. I observed, too, that in this case the priests seemed quite aware that they had found a true believer, and they affected the greatest solemnity, taking care, also, that he should show his faith by the amount of his offerings.

Having now ample proof that the “rotatory cylinder” has held a well-established position in old Japan, I naturally looked for it at all the principal temples. Before visiting the beautiful shrines of Nikko (where the loveliest Imperial tombs and temples are cradled in the most exquisite scenery), I came on a startling statement concerning how many thousand times the assembled priests had recited the whole Buddhist canon in the course of a great festival. The statement excited no comment, and was apparently accepted as a poetic fiction, but in the light of the helpful wheel, it seemed to me all plain. So on reaching the lovely temple grounds I eagerly looked out for this aid to the task of vain repetitions.

Climbing a succession of long flights of steep stone stairs, and passing by a tall red pagoda with the usual series of dark projecting roof, I reached a large open court, surrounded by many buildings for sacred uses, one of which precisely resembled those in which I had already found the scripture-wheels. Peering in through the gilded fretwork which acted the part of windows, I could faintly discern a massive object, resplendent in scarlet and gold lacquer.

C. F. Gordon Cumming.

SHRINE CONTAINING THE SCRIPTURE WHEEL AT NIKKO.

Being now convinced that I had solved the mystery of those many thousand repetitions of the sacred canon, I asked to have the door opened; after some delay the priest was found who had charge of the key; and sure enough THERE WAS THE WHEEL! a most gorgeous piece of lacquer work in richest colours, resting on a stone pedestal of lotus-leaves, and containing the holy books in the form of upright scrolls. The priest, as usual, did the honours most 259courteously, but without affecting a particle of reverence for this labour-saving apparatus. Evidently this phase of superstition had lost its hold on the people, and the priests make no effort to retain a form which they, too, have discovered to be but a hollow sham.

In the same court there is a very handsome large bronze candelabra, enclosed in a great bronze lantern which stands beneath stately cryptomeria trees, and is only protected by a light ornamental roof, supported by carved stone pillars. In general form it resembles a scripture-wheel, and revolves on its own axis, so many of the pilgrims give it a sun-wise turn, though apparently only as a matter of form.

Here, too, I noticed the wheel in its simplest form, as the symbolic decoration on the bronze gateways leading to the magnificent tomb of one of the Shoguns.

My next expedition was to Kyôto, the ancient capital of the Mikados—a city crowded with fine old temples. The very first of these which I entered was one called Choin, to which I was attracted by the beautiful tone of its great bell. After lingering for a while in the great temple, where a multitude of priests were chanting “Namu Amida Butzu,” “Save us, O Buddha!” I passed on to examine the other buildings, and the very next I entered—deserted and silent—contained a cylinder or wheel as large as that at Nikko, and of brightly coloured lacquer, but divided into a multitude of small drawers, ticketed, not with the names of the Buddhist scriptures, but with such words as “water,” “fortune,” “fire.” This wheel does not rest on the usual stone lotus blossom, but on a broad base, the lower part of which is decorated with the images of divers gods or saints.

I then passed on to the Honguangi, two huge Buddhist temples in another part of the city. Here I found another large scripture-wheel, similar to that at Choin.

A few days later, I was on the shores of beautiful Lake Biwa, which lies embosomed in mountains, in whose green, 260richly wooded valleys, as well as on many rocky ridges, cluster temples great and small. Of course I could only indulge in a cursory glance at a very few of these, so have no idea what antiquarian treasures they may contain. We halted at the village of Midera, where some very old Shinto nuns, dressed entirely in white, came and gazed curiously at me, as I doubtless did at them. In the temple here I found a very large octagonal scripture-wheel, with fifty-one small drawers in each of the eight sides. It was the first I had seen of this form.

Passing on to Osaka, I noticed large scripture-wheels at several temples, amongst others, at the beautiful eastern and western Honguangi temples, and also beside the five-storied pagoda of Tenoji. But all of these are now disused.

On the gateway of Tenoji, and also at the Temple of the Moon, on the summit of a mountain near Kobe, I saw several small metal wheels (of the ordinary form—not barrels) let into the portal, as if inviting all comers to give them a twirl. At Ishiyamadera, on Lake Biwa, I saw similar little wheels inserted into the wooden pillars of the temple. These wheels are from one to two feet in diameter, and commonly have only three spokes, so that they are suggestive of a Manx penny with the three legs. On each spoke there are several loose rings of metal, which jingle as the wheel revolves, and so call the attention of the celestial powers to the worshipper, whose merit depends on the number of the wheel’s revolutions. Each wheel bears an inscription in the Sanscrit character. No less than sixteen of these adorn the gateway of the cemetery of Hakodati, and those who enter give them all a turn—perhaps on behalf of the dead.

These wheels, which are neither prayer-barrels, nor scripture-barrels, but simply wheels, seem to carry us back to the origin of this widely-spread symbol. We know that from time immemorial, a revolving wheel of light had been accepted as an emblem of the sun-god, a symbol of 261which traces have survived, both in Europe and Asia, to the present century. Thus, till recently—probably to the present time—at the midsummer eve festival, the villagers of Trier and Konz, on the Moselle, celebrated the feast of “the fair and shining wheel” (as the sun is called in the Edda), by carrying a great wheel wrapped in straw to the top of a hill, where it was set on fire, and made to roll down, flaming all the way.

In some parts of Scotland, large circular cakes, made very smooth and flat on the edge, like the tyre of a wheel, were till recently thus rolled down grassy hills on May morning, the spring festival of the great wheel of light. And at Ise, in Japan, the most sacred of all the shrines of the sun-goddess, the simple offerings of the pilgrims are small circles of straw.

The wheel having been recognised in India both by the aboriginal tribes and by the Aryan conquerors as an honorific symbol, we can understand how, according to Buddhist lore, it was foretold at the time of Gautama’s birth that he would become either a Buddha or a king of the wheel (Chakravarta Rajah). He seems to have attained both honours, and by “turning the wheel of law”—that is, by preaching—he is said to deliver all creatures from the circle (or wheel) of oft-repeated births—in other words, transmigrations.

Hence on certain very ancient sculptures, A SIMPLE WHEEL APPEARS AS THE OBJECT OF ADORATION. In the Sanchi Tope, in Bhopal, Central India, and in the Bilsah Tope (both the work of Buddhists in the first century of our era), the wheel is shown sometimes surrounded by ministering angels, sometimes by kneeling figures bringing offerings of garlands. Of later date, in the Amravati Tope, the wheel is shown supported by kneeling elephants on the summit of a pillar. Sometimes only a wheel is shown, overshadowed by the mystic umbrella, symbolic of all honour and power. Some sculptures, notably those in the caves of Ellora and Ajunta, 262simply show the wheel projecting from beneath Buddha’s throne, just as those which have led me to these remarks project from the gateways in which they are inserted.

My lamented friend and master in wheel and ark-lore, Mr. William Simpson, who collected many curious facts bearing on this subject, discovered a passage in a quaint old French translation of the Mémoires of Hiouen Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim who, recording his travel in India and notes on its faiths, states that the sacred Mount Méru rests upon a golden wheel, while the sun and moon revolve around it. Speaking of the kings of the wheel, he says elsewhere: “Lorsqu’un de ces rois Tchakravartius devait monter sur le trône UNE GRANDE ROUE PRÉCIEUSE se balançait dans les airs, et descendait vers lui.”

Those who are versed in world-wide symbolism may perchance trace some connection between the wheels of which Homer sang, “Living wheels, instinct with spirit, which rolled from place to place around the blest abodes, self-moved,” and the “living wheels full of eyes” which Ezekiel beheld in his vision, which appeared moving beside the cherubim, wheresoever these moved, guarding the holy fire, because the spirit of life was in them, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above. Their likeness was “as if a wheel had been in the midst of a wheel,” and they were addressed as one, “O Wheel,” or in the margin “Galgal,” or rolling.^[60]

Such similarity of metaphor in the writings of a Chinaman, a Greek, and a Hebrew are, to say the least of it, remarkable.

The idea of applying the principle of revolution to simplify religious duties seems to have originated in the feeling that since only the learned could acquire merit by continually reciting portions of Buddha’s works, the ignorant and the hard-working were rather unfairly weighted in life’s heavenward race. Thus it came to be accounted 263sufficient that a man should turn over each of the numerous rolled manuscripts containing the precious precepts; and, considering the multitude of these voluminous writings, the substitution of this simple process must have been very consolatory to those concerned.

Max Müller has told us how the original documents of the Buddhist canon were first found in the monasteries of Nepaul, and soon afterwards further documents were discovered in Thibet and Mongolia—the Thibetan canon consisting of two collections, together comprising three hundred and thirty-three volumes folio! Another collection of the wisdom of Buddha was brought from Ceylon, covering fourteen thousand palm-leaves, and written partly in Cingalese and partly in Burmese characters. Nice light reading! Undoubtedly it must have been a great comfort when handling these records came to be deemed sufficient.

From turning over these manuscripts by hand to the simple process of arranging them in a huge cylindrical bookcase, and turning that bodily, was a very simple and ingenious transition, and thus the first circulating library came into existence, somewhere about the first century of our era.

The honour of this invention is generally attributed to Fu Dai-ji (i.e. the priest Fu), who lived about A.D. 500; but, as Fa Hien, a Chinese pilgrim who visited Thibet in A.D. 400, records having seen this particular form of turning the wheel of the law practised at Ladak, the matter seems open to question. But in these Japanese temples a life-sized image of Fu Dai-ji is invariably represented seated near the revolving library, and his two sons, Fu Sho and Fu Ken (i.e. Fu of the right hand and Fu of the left hand), stand beside him.

Knowing how many Japanese institutions own a Chinese origin, this is in no way surprising, but it is remarkable (if the wheel reached Japan viâ China) that it should apparently have died out in that country. Certainly I explored a very 264large number of temples in many Chinese cities without seeing a sign of anything of the sort till I reached Peking, and there, by the merest chance, while hunting about in dusty, neglected corners, I came upon quite a new variety of the old wheels.

Of these the most important instance is at the great Lama temple, which is the home of one thousand three hundred monks, having a living Buddha at their head. They are a brotherhood of a singularly unpleasant type—intensely jealous of foreigners, and so offensive and insolent that many visitors fail to gain admission, even by the help of liberal bribery. I owed that privilege to the great influence and strong determination of Dr. Dudgeon, who escorted me, and whose medical skill had proved beneficial to the living Buddha and other inmates. With much difficulty he at last so pacified the rude monks that they allowed us to inspect all their temples and chapels, and even pointed out some objects of interest, including a narrow stair by which we might ascend to a gallery on a level with the head of the huge bronzed image of Buddha.

I then had the pleasure of discovering that from this gallery there is access to two circular buildings, one on either side, each containing a large rotating cylinder. Each of these is divided into two hundred and fifty niches, and every niche contains an image. One turn of these wheels offers homage simultaneously to all the five hundred disciples of Buddha.

A few days later, while exploring the ruins of the Emperor’s summer palace, I came on a cluster of small temples, perched among boulders of grey rock. The temples, though sadly mutilated, still bore traces of their former beauty, in the days when they were probably reserved for the private devotions of the Imperial family. Vast mounds of broken fragments of brilliantly-coloured tiles told of the departed glory, and here and there a fine pagoda of porcelain had survived the general destruction, 265and roofs of brilliant green porcelain tiles gleamed in the sunlight.

A small but very beautiful pagoda stood within a temple, on either side of which were circular buildings containing cylindrical structures similar to those in the Lama temple, though on a miniature scale. But every niche was empty, all the images having been extracted either in the first ruthless pillage by the soldiers of the French and English armies, or in the subsequent raids of relic-hunters, either Chinese or foreign.

Knowing of the existence of these two pairs of twin revolving pantheons, of course, warrants us in assuming that many more exist, which may reward the search of future travellers.

Furthermore, I am inclined to believe that a similarly concentrated act of homage to all saints is accomplished by striking certain gigantic bronze temple-bells, whereon are embossed the images of Buddha’s five hundred disciples. I saw a particularly fine specimen of such a bell at an old temple in Ningpo; each of the five hundred figures is in a different attitude, and the whole is a triumph of casting. I saw other bells thus adorned with long passages from the sacred books, and each time they are struck the congregation replies to their solemn boom with an invocation like a roar, which seems to imply that such bells have a recognised place in public worship beyond merely summoning the people to the temple.

As regards revolving libraries, Dr. Edkins, whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making at Peking, saw several in various Lama monasteries in north China. One was at the Ling-yin monastery at Hang-Chow, and at the Poo-sa-ting pagoda in the Wootai valley he saw one sixty feet in height and of octagonal form; that monastery had also three hundred revolving prayer or praise-wheels. In that district there were, when he visited it, about two thousand Mongol Lamas, and in one of their monasteries (in which the great 266monastic kettle is kept ever boiling to supply the ceaseless demand for tea) he observed a most ingenious arrangement by which the ascending steam does further duty by turning a praise-wheel which is suspended from the ceiling.

I myself saw others in the mountain-region above Ningpo, where a streamlet pouring through the mouth of a sculptured dragon kept up this ceaseless ascription of praise to Buddha.

And now let me tell you how a worthy old Scottish minister applied the “turning of the wheel of the law” to his own preaching. He had a large collection of musty old manuscript sermons, which he stored in a cask. Every time he had occasion to preach, he avoided the responsibility of exercising human judgment in his selection by giving the cask a twirl, and whichever sermon first slipped out was deemed the heaven-selected discourse most appropriate to the occasion!

I mentioned having seen a very interesting scripture-wheel of uncoloured wood in one of the temples at Ikegami, where I was shown many strange temples and shrines. One was full of ex voto pictures of seven female heads, all said to belong to one serpent (surely a trace of the seven-headed naga, or serpent, so familiar in Indian mythology). Another shrine was to a goddess who used to eat children till she was converted by Buddha, and became their protectress; and yet another shrine, surrounded by heaps of little stones, tells of a cruel spirit who stops children on the way to Paradise, and sets them to heap up stones, so these are offered that the children may be let off.

Crowds of most picturesque people were assembling to commemorate the sanctity of Nicheren, founder of a Buddhist sect, in whose temple we found a great array of priests in many-coloured robes and stoles—primrose, straw-colour, sky-blue, and purple—awaiting their high priest, who shortly appeared, under a large scarlet umbrella of honour, carried by attendants, and followed by two black-robed priests. The high altar was loaded with special 267offerings, including five brass lamps. We followed the worshippers to his tomb in the fir wood (a most picturesque scene), where his ashes and one tooth received due homage.

But the fascination of such days in Japan lies in the people themselves—all so gay and apparently happy, so thoroughly enjoying their holiday—and all the oddities which are offered for sale on these occasions. Most of the booths at this particular fair were for the sale of beautifully made ornamental straw-work, such as baskets and toys, most ingenious in device and very gay in colour; but the stalls which interested me most were those exclusively for the sale of rosaries, of all qualities, to suit all purses, and made of divers kinds of wood and stone. Those most in request were made of dark polished wood, but there were some of sandal-wood, the principal beads being of polished agate or crystal. There was quite a brisk trade doing in these “aids to devotion,” which I noticed in the hands of rich and poor, young and old, but chiefly of devout women and aged persons.

The Japanese Buddhists of the sect of Nicheren, whose festival was being celebrated, carry rosaries numbering one hundred and eight beads; these represent one hundred and eight holy persons—four beads standing for the great saints, while two still larger represent the sun-goddess and moon-god, or the dual principle in nature, while two short pendant strings of five beads apiece recall the ten Buddhist commandments or precepts.

Each sect seems to affect a different number of beads, and a different arrangement. I possess rosaries purchased in various parts of Japan and China, and all are different. One has two hundred and sixteen wooden beads, in sets of twelve, separated by sixteen crystal balls of diverse colours, and two very large crystals. There are two pendants with six beads on each, and one connecting bead. Another of these Japanese rosaries consists of a hundred and twelve beads, divided into two equal parts by two large beads. From one 268end hang four pendant strings of five beads, at the other end are two sets of five and one of ten small beads.

I have also a very handsome rosary that belonged to a Canton mandarin. It numbers a hundred and eight beads, divided by four large balls of green jade into four divisions of twenty-seven beads. From one end hang four sets of five, from the other two sets of five coral-beads. A medallion and a drop of jade complete the rosary. I was told that these are now worn by Chinese mandarins solely as ornaments, but there can be no doubt of their original use.

These oriental rosaries are sometimes of exceeding value, rubies, emeralds, and other precious stones being thus utilised by wealthy men. Thus Toderini speaks of “Le Tespih, qui est un chapelet, composé de 99 petites boules d’agathe, de jaspe, d’ambre, de corail, ou d’autre matière précieuse. J’en ai vu un superbe au Seigneur Terpos: il était de belles et grosses perles, parfaites et égales, estimées trente mille piastres.”^[61]

I cannot lay claim to have seen any so valuable as this, but some of those carried by Japanese ladies of high rank are exceedingly handsome. I noticed one in the hands of a lady, who, attended by her maid, was about to worship at the shrine of Nicheren. It was so rich, both in material and workmanship, that it evidently represented the family diamonds. The owner seemed gratified at my evident admiration, and handed it to me for closer inspection. Of course we met and parted with a profusion of low bows.^[62]

I observe that the Buddhists do not tell or count their beads, but rub them between their hands all the time they are reciting their prayers, and then they twist the rosary so as to take the form of a Chinese character which signifies success, and this they reverently kiss. The silken cord on 269which the beads are strung is sometimes tied so as to assume the same fortunate shape.

With regard to the number of beads on the rosaries in use among various branches of the Christian Church, while the ordinary number seems to be a hundred and fifty plus fifteen, I have one of only forty-five beads, divided into six sets of seven and one of three beads, connected by silver medallions of the crucifixion and of the Blessed Virgin, with inscription in German.

The Coptic Christians still further curtail their devotions, the Coptic rosary numbering only forty-one beads.

I observe that the Buddhists make use of another numerical aid to devotion, which is virtually a form of rosary. Much merit may be accumulated by making numerous circuits round relic-shrines and temples, and there are certain favoured spots round which it is desirable to walk one hundred times. While performing this action, each person carries in his hand a bunch of one hundred short bits of string, which he tells off one by one while working out the full number of meritorious turns!

CHAPTER XV Mythological Plays—Japanese Theatres—The Forty-seven Rônins—Flower Festivals.

Amongst the most interesting of my early experiences in Japan were visits to two varieties of theatres, first to a mythological drama called the Nô, in connection with a military religious festival at the Imperial or Shinto temple, in memory of the soldiers who were killed in quelling the Satsuma rebellion. First the troops, and then what appeared an interminable procession of police, all in foreign uniform, marched by, paused a moment before the temple, and passed on.

(The sum and substance of Shinto worship is simply homage to all ancestors, and to the Emperor in particular in the person of his great ancestress, the sun-goddess, who is represented by a circular mirror of polished metal, and by one or more beautiful globes of pure crystal laid on the altar. Straw ropes, and curiously cut out strips of white paper called gohei, and the peculiar sort of gateway called torii, are the only other symbols in this cold system. The temples are all of plain, uncoloured wood, with thatched roof of a simple form intended to represent a tent.)

(Including small shrines in the forests, there are said to be ninety-eight thousand Shinto temples in Japan; but this worship of their ancestors does not lessen the homage done to thousands of revered things and persons, who are figuratively described as “the eight hundred myriads of celestial gods, the eight hundred myriads of terrestrial gods, and the fifteen hundred myriads of gods to whom are consecrated temples in all places of the Great Land of Eight Islands.”)

From the temple we adjourned to the open space facing 271the theatre, where, under a grilling sun, a Nô play was being acted gratis for the military. We were told that it was a drama of the fifteenth century, all about semi-deified heroes. We endured it as long as possible, but were not sorry when we could courteously retire to luncheon.

Hitherto these Nô have been the only plays at which nobles and ladies might be present, the ordinary drama being considered essentially the amusement of the people. But the Nô being religious plays, all of a mythological character, have always been highly esteemed, and nobles of the highest rank built theatres within their own palaces, where they themselves were the actors in these classical operas, which represent such scenes as the sun-goddess being lured from her cave, or the various appearances of the gods in human form. Doubtless to the educated Japanese these plays are as attractive as severely classical music is to the true musician among ourselves, but to the uninitiated they certainly appear exceedingly dull.

I am told that many of these are beautiful ancient poems, and as such are familiar to the audience, but to a foreigner, even if he be a classical student, they are very difficult reading, and when delivered on the stage in a shrill, high pitched and very nasal intonation, with an accompaniment of many discordant classical instruments, they are positively unintelligible.

The acting is at once stilted and grotesque, the actors being disguised by hideous wigs and masks of lacquered wood. The latter are venerable relics which have been preserved for many generations, each in its own silken cover, and the dresses are old court-robes of richest gold and silver embroidered silk brocade.

I found the ordinary theatre very much more interesting just for once.

Going to the play in Japan is a very serious matter, as the performance begins at 6 or 7 A.M., and continues till 6 or 7 P.M. So the women and children are awake half the 272night dressing their hair, and painting and otherwise gilding the lily. Long before dawn they must breakfast in order to reach the theatre in time to see the quaint old dances, which are performed just before sunrise, and represent strange scenes in the lives of the gods and heroes, ogres and apes.

At the earliest glimmer of day the gay theatre street is thronged with crowds of pleasure-seekers from town and country, eager to miss no fragment of the play. The mis-en-scène is excellent; appropriate scenery and beautiful dresses, and to avoid long pauses, the stage itself revolves, and you watch a scene of battle and murder disappear, to be replaced on the instant by some elaborate court pageant.

This is a great advance on the early form of the drama, as I have seen it performed by Tamil actors at Trincomalee, where a circular stage of the rudest description was erected in the centre of a grassy plain; we, the spectators, sat all round, and the magnificently dressed actors played each scene four times over, that each section of their audience might have a good view.

That primitive theatre on the grass was recalled to my mind on being told that the Japanese name for the theatres is Shiba-i, which means “the turf-plot,” and recalls the early days when religious dances and dramas were first invented and performed on the smooth grass before the temples.

There are no actresses in China or Japan; all female parts are taken by men, excellently got up, and their parts are often admirably rendered. A first-rate male actress is a highly popular person, and receives such ovations as might rejoice the prima-donna of our own stage; but to our ears their painfully artificial elocution, and the shrill falsetto voice which they assume, is very jarring, especially as there is the accompaniment of a lugubrious and doleful orchestra. But to me all Japanese music is trying—you never hear a deep chest-note, only squeaky throat-sounds, the more tremulous the better, and the accompaniments are twanging and discordant.

273The theatre street is very conspicuous, all the neighbouring houses being gay with red paper lanterns at nights, and by day tall banners with inscriptions on bright ground flutter from bamboos higher than the roof. The interior of the building has a gallery, and what we should call the pit is divided into square boxes, each to hold a family party sitting on the matted floor. There they can have their tiny hibachi, or charcoal stove, and smoke, or drink tea, and eat cakes. Those who really want their money’s worth stay the whole day, and have their three meals and entre-mets sent in from the tea-houses all round, so there is incessant carrying of tea-pots and food-trays, fire-boxes and pipes.

The friend who engaged a box for me had kindly sent his servant and family to occupy it since early morning, for fear of any mistake. They sat on the mats till our arrival, when chairs were brought in for us. At the outer door lay a huge pile of sandals and clogs, and the people hunt out their own each time they go in or out.

As we entered, a nice old lady, bent double, was being helped out; her son took her on his back and carried her downstairs. There were a number of very pretty girls in the house, with well-brushed hair, but all very quietly dressed, chiefly in grey or dove-coloured robes, with only a touch of bright colour at the open neck and sash, so that with no light save that of the grey autumn afternoon, the theatre looked very dingy till about 5 P.M., when two chandeliers were lighted.

We arrived at the middle of the great piece, when a beautiful girl was pleading for her father’s life before a Buddhist priest, who related his own love-story ere he became a priest. Then the prisoners were sentenced—their arms bound, and they were led out to execution. The curtain fell, and the audience feasted on tiny dainties and sips of tea or saki.

Then, lest people should weary of one story going on so 274long without a break, a new short play in two acts was produced. A Daimio has adopted the child of a previous Mikado. On the reigning Mikado hearing of this, he sends a messenger to demand the boy’s head. (Bitter anguish of all concerned.) The Daimio’s chief retainer and his wife, in the intensity of their loyalty, resolve to give the head of their own beloved son, a charming, winsome, coaxing child, who quite enters into the situation, comforts his parents, tells them how glad he is to be able to make them an offering of his head. (Applause tremendous!) The father then tries to cut off the head of his own boy, but cannot. (Agony of all—this was very fine acting.) Finally the head is brought in in a wooden-box and presented to the messenger, who, seeing it, suspects the fraud. Then the extraordinary couple produce the real prince as their own child, and of course he is recognised, but the messenger greatly applauds their loyalty, and gives a receipt as if for the prince’s head.

Again the curtain falls, and the first play is resumed in scenes apparently quite unconnected. Scene—A tea-house beside toriis leading to a Shinto temple. An old man, poor and weary, hobbles in, leaning on a little child, and faints from exhaustion. He had been robbed by the man who had set up this tea-house with ill-gotten wealth. Then the whole stage revolved on a pivot, at once displaying a new scene. Coolies getting rather drunk at a saki-shop. Again the whole stage revolved, showing another scene, and so on till evening.

Funny little imps clothed in black, even their faces being veiled in black crape, are supposed to be invisible, and creep about changing the stage-furniture, or holding a curtain before dead men to enable them to slip away. At night they hold lights before the faces of the principal actors that all may see their play of feature. These are conventionally got up, the eyes of nobles and high-caste ladies being painted to look long (the much-admired almond-shape), and 275as if eyes and eye-brows slanted up from nose to temple. The scenery is throughout of the very simplest, but it answers its purpose well.

I must not allow myself even a brief summary of our daily enchanting expeditions, exploring curio-shops and temples, cemeteries and gardens, always under most able guidance of various very kind, experienced residents. I can only say they were bewildering in their variety, their beauty, and their interest. We lingered long in many gorgeous Buddhist temples, and specially noted how here (as wherever else I have come across modern Buddhism) it incorporates every conceivable variety of gods and goddesses, as well as rendering divine honour to Buddha himself, which was the last thing that good teacher of unaided perfection ever desired.

Specially attractive to the people is the image of Binzuro, the kind god of medicine. All who are afflicted with any sort of pain come and rub the seat of suffering on the image, and then rub their own poor body. The head, feet, and stomach of the image at Asakusa, originally coated with brown lacquer, have been so persistently rubbed that much of the bare wood is now exposed. Another very popular idol is Daikoku, the god of wealth, a most jovial-looking person, one of the seven gods of good-fortune. Naturally he is for ever receiving incense and offerings, and his image has a place in almost all domestic shrines.

Asakusa is dedicated to Kwan-non, the kind thousand-armed goddess of mercy, but she here shares her honours with so many other deities that I did not realise her individuality till we visited another temple (rather near Seido, which is a most beautiful old Confucian temple, all in solemn black and gold lacquer). In that temple a gigantic gilt figure of the goddess Kwan-non occupies the centre, and along the walls, right up into the tower, are ranged rows and rows of gilt images of her, numbering a thousand! All have many arms, and some have several 276heads growing out of the original head, because the goddess owns eleven faces as well as a thousand arms.

Afterwards I saw many of her temples, one of the most remarkable being at Sanju-San-gen-Do, in Kioto, which is said to contain 33,333 gilt images of her, but that is counting all the heads. There is one large sitting figure of her eighteen feet high, and one thousand images, each five feet high, all carved by celebrated artists in wood, and it is said that no two images have their arms and the objects held by them arranged alike!

(Just before visiting that wonderful homage to “mercy,” I had halted to sketch a quaint relic-shrine on a mound called Mimi-dzuka, in which were buried five thousand pairs of ears cut from the heads of the Koreans slain by the Japanese in the year 1592, and brought back by the victorious general to be laid at the feet of the Emperor Hideyoshi!)

Among the endless varieties of quaint shows at Asakusa, one of the most curious is a representation of many of the most noted miracles wrought by Kwan-non. Admirably modelled life-sized figures are arranged in groups, each of which recalls some signal deliverance of her worshippers in the hour of danger. One poor fellow was assaulted by robbers and thrown into the river, whence he was happily brought up in a fishermen’s net, and the presence of a small image of Kwan-non in his long sleeve-pocket brought him back to life. Another group recalls the reward of a kindly man who bought a tortoise which was about to be killed and eaten. He restored it to the waters, and three days later, when his child fell into the sea, it was saved by the grateful tortoise, who swam ashore with the little innocent on its back.

Another instance of gratitude for life thus preserved is that of a girl who saved the life of a crab, and afterwards, when she was in deadly peril from a snake in human form, a legion of crabs summoned by Kwan-non came to her 277rescue, and conquered the monster. Quaintest of all is a group descriptive of a man enduring torture from headache, to whom it was miraculously revealed that the root of a tree was growing through the socket of the eye of the skull which was his in a previous incarnation. On searching the place indicated, he found the root splitting the skull, and on clearing it away, the pain subsided.

The temple grounds at Asakusa contain a concentrated essence of everything most remarkable in the worship and amusements of the people—it is a daily wonderful fair, and, however often the oldest resident goes there, he always finds something he had not seen before. So what would be the good of attempting to describe it?

But there is one oft-told tale which I cannot forbear telling, in case it may be new to some one, because, although it is almost the first story impressed on every traveller in Japan, I never in subsequent wanderings heard any other quite so characteristic of that wonderful old chivalry which in these aspects has so happily passed away. It is the story which was told to me in the great cemetery at Sen-gaku-ji, “the Temple of the Spring,” one corner of which attracts pilgrims from all parts of Japan, for here are the tombs of the forty-seven Rônins, who, about two hundred years ago, devoted their lives in the most approved manner to accomplish vengeance for their dead master. They were the followers of Takumi-no-Kami, who, under gross provocation, was guilty of striking Kôtsuké-no-Suké, an officer of the Imperial court, within the precincts of the palace.

For this offence he was sentenced to perform hara kiri—his castle was confiscated, and his retainers became Rônins (literally wave-men, so called because, having no master, they are tossed about like waves of a troubled sea). But forty-seven of these faithful adherents determined to avenge their master’s death. The story of all they underwent during the long months of patient waiting while they strove to disarm the suspicions of Kôtsuké and his followers, 278forms a long and highly popular romance, full of details which to us seem scarcely praiseworthy, but which are strongly characteristic of the strange code of honour of Japan.

After unheard of sacrifices, their plan ripened, and with careful heed of every chivalric detail, the forty-seven Rônins surprised the palace of Kôtsuké, and, after a furious fight, succeeded in reaching his sleeping-room. They found him hiding in a courtyard, dressed in a white satin sleeping-robe, and falling on their knees before him, they most respectfully besought him to perform hara kiri and die the death of a noble man, their leader offering to act as his second and cut off his head in due form. But, being a low-minded churl, he could not summon courage for this manly form of suicide, but crouched trembling before them. At last, seeing their courtesy was vain, they apologised for the liberty they were obliged to take, and having slain him, they cut off his head and placed it in a bucket and departed, carefully extinguishing all lights, lest perchance a fire might break out and damage innocent neighbours.

Then they came to the monastery of Sen-ga-kuji, where their lord was buried. The abbot met them at the gate and led them to the tomb, where they laid the head as an offering, after they had washed it. Then they all burned incense, and having presented to the abbot all the money they had with them, they prayed him to have masses sung for their souls, when they should have performed hara kiri. So, when the sentence of the Imperial Court was pronounced, these brave men were ready to carry it out, and having died nobly, they were all buried round the tomb of their master.

Then the people came to pray at their honoured graves. But one man (who had mistrusted and insulted one of them during the time when they were striving to disarm the suspicions of Kôtsuké) was filled with such agony of remorse that he came to his grave to implore forgiveness, 279and then offered atonement by performing hara kiri on the spot. So the pitying priests buried him with the faithful Rônins, and this is the reason there are now forty-eight graves, each adorned with its little offerings of flowers and incense-sticks, oft renewed by pious hands.

In the temple close by, statues of the forty-seven Rônins, carved in wood and lacquered, are ranged around the gilded image of the Goddess of Mercy. They are all different, and represent men ranging from sixteen to seventy years of age. The tattered garments and rusty old armour of the Rônins are reverently preserved, together with the documents they had drawn up for their own guidance. The well in which the head was washed is likewise held in honour.

It does seem a curious anomaly that a nation naturally so warlike as the Japanese should also be so delightfully simple in their enjoyments. Surely no other race is so emphatically gifted with the poet-mind of childhood. Nothing is lost on these imaginative people. The changeful glories of storm and sunshine, of varying autumn-tints, of pale, beautiful blossoms, are each embodied poems in which they rejoice, and which they are for ever seeking to render in words—hence the couplets and verses inscribed on paper, wood, or stone, whatever material comes handy to the poet.

To the Japanese people the course of the seasons is marked by the blossoming of different flowers, and each in turn becomes a reason for holding festival and making holiday. Scarcely have the snows of January quite vanished ere the leafless plum-trees are covered with such rich blossom as might almost be mistaken for a fresh snowfall. Straightway the citizens make up pleasure-parties and expeditions to the neighbouring plum-gardens, where beneath the blossoming trees are placed most inviting raised platforms covered with seats, where they can lounge to their hearts’ content and compose verses in praise of the spring, the blue sky, or the plum-blossoms, which verses 280they then write with a paint-brush on strips of soft paper, and fasten them to the boughs in graceful homage. Of course there are the invariable surroundings of joyous, gaily-dressed children and women of all ages, and pretty little attendants to keep up the supply of sweetmeats and tea.

Hardly is the plum-blossom festival over, when all the peach trees burst into flower, and their delicate rose-colour calls for more holidays and more poems. Next and loveliest of all come the rich masses of double cherry-blossom, its snowy petals just tipped with pink. This is the season of seasons, with which none other can compare. The whole city makes holiday, for even the most poverty-stricken contrive for a while to forget their cares in such an atmosphere of delight.

There are various gardens specially celebrated for their cherry-blossoms, and early in April each of these is visited by crowds of happy people in their gayest dresses. But the concentrated essence of delight is to be found at Mukojima, on the further bank of Sumidagawa (which is a river as broad as the Thames at Westminster, and crossed by about as many bridges). Here there is an avenue two miles long of most beautiful cherry-trees, beneath which the crowd of poets dream blissfully and gather their inspiration from ever-falling showers of pale petals. Then they betake them to one of the pretty garden-houses, where they gain further inspiration from drinking some decoction flavoured with cherry-blossom, and under its cheering influence their poetic thoughts take form, and are committed to paper and then entwined among the blossoms, as the reverent homage of devoted lovers.

As the twilight deepens, thousands of gay paper lanterns glow among the foliage, giving a soft, coloured light, and producing a most fairy-like effect. Feasting of a most æsthetic kind is indulged in, with occasional accompaniment of strange instruments and songs, and then the happy 281holiday-makers return to their pleasure-boats and row homewards in the clear, beautiful moonlight.

When joyous April gives place to May, and all the cherry-blossoms have floated away like some dream of ethereal loveliness, then a new flower-queen reigns for a little season. This time it is the exquisite lilac wistaria which holds sway over the hearts of the people.^[63] It differs from the wistaria of our gardens in that instead of bearing its blossoms in short, thick bunches like grapes, these are scattered more sparsely, and hang in long graceful clusters, some of which actually exceed a yard in length. Lady Parkes assured me that she had seen some of these which were about five feet in length! On such clusters as these each pale lilac blossom shows separately, hence no flower that blows finds such favour with the artists, whether on paper, porcelain, or lacquer, as does this beautiful fuji (it bears the same name as the Holy Mountain).

The fuji plants are trained to grow closely over a roof of trellis-work, through which the drooping clusters hang in profusion; and beneath this lovely canopy are set the soft mats which invite all comers to lie in the pleasant shade and rejoice in the tender golden, green, and lilac hues of the tremulous leaves and blossoms. I need scarcely say that the fuji receives its full share of poetic utterances from enthusiastic admirers, so that by the end of the season there flutter from its boughs thousands of paper strips or even wooden tablets, most puzzling to the uninitiated.

The most celebrated wistarias of Tokio are in the grounds of the temple of Kameido (literally the tortoise-well), where, in addition to such ecclesiastical sights as the marble ox and the stable containing the white wooden horses, there is a highly ornamental artificial lake, spanned by a very curiously curved bridge. A bamboo trellis-work has been constructed over part of the lake, and the wistaria has been so trained as completely to cover the framework, whence 282the long blossoms droop till they almost touch the heads of the happy groups who establish themselves on matted floors built out over the lake.

The wistaria is succeeded by gorgeous azaleas, and another flower, which seems to us far more prosaic, namely, the peony. Certainly peonies as grown here are magnificent, and inspire many an artistic painting. And then come the irises, which are cultivated on a very large scale and in extraordinary profusion. Again the holiday-makers troop forth. This time their destination is most probably the artificial lakes of Hori Kiri, where upwards of three hundred varieties of iris are to be seen.

August brings the lemon and rose-coloured lotus-blossoms, with their great bluish-green leaves rising from the moats and lakes, and November covers the camelia-trees with exquisite pink and white blossom, turns the maples vivid scarlet and gold, and is emphatically the month of the chrysanthemum. The latter has now been brought to such perfection in Europe that it almost outdoes its Japanese ancestors, whose loveliness induced the Emperors of Japan to adopt them as the Imperial crest, so conventionalised that a sixteen-rayed chrysanthemum symbolises the Rising Sun, that great ancestress from whom the Mikado claims lineal descent.

Truly fascinating are the chrysanthemum shows of Japan, where throngs of flower-loving folk of every degree, from the wealthiest down to the very poorest, assemble to gaze enraptured at these triumphs of nature and art. November brings weeping skies and cold, biting air in Japan as it does here, but the holiday-makers find intervening days of radiant sunlight, when the pretty little maidens and children don their gayest apparel and go forth to join the cheery sightseers.

Perhaps their way lies by the far-famed wooded hill of Shiba, where each sportive breeze showers down dainty pink leaves from the tree-camelias, now laden with lovely 283pink single blossoms. On they walk merrily, as is their wont, passing temples and moats, lakes and lilies, till they reach, as we did, the beautiful park of Yueno, near to which are the most celebrated of the chrysanthemum gardens.

For Japanese gardeners know better than to bring their treasures to be all crowded together in scanty space. Each arranges his own little garden so as to exhibit its produce in the most attractive light, and truly such triumphs of horticultural art as he has for long months been patiently preparing could not be exposed to the risks of transportation.

So a visit to the chrysanthemum show of Yueno means visiting at least a dozen small gardens, each with its special exhibit of Japanese ingenuity.

In the first place, the laying out of the half or quarter acre is in itself often a marvel of miniature landscape-gardening, which represents an infinity of patient toil, were it only in the production of the dwarf trees—those strangely perfect miniatures—orange and peach trees—even sturdy-looking, old gnarled oaks, pines, and cedars, whose twisted boughs are well in keeping with their weather-beaten trunks—trees which are probably at least thirty years old, though their average height is barely two feet. These are produced by cutting off the tap-root of the baby tree, and thereafter perpetually disturbing the soil and nipping off the suckers and young shoots, so the leaves grow smaller and smaller, all in proportion.

Such trees, growing in beautiful old bronze or blue porcelain vases, are generally objects of much admiration; but as November is the chrysanthemum festival, they are now neglected, and all eyes are riveted on these kind winter beauties. First rank the magnificent queens of chrysanthemum society—large, stately blossoms, some so large that when their long, slender petals are unfurled, they would cover an average breakfast-plate. Some are white as newly fallen snow, others creamy saffron, pale yellow, bright gold, 284salmon-coloured, claret, maroon, deep red, brown, and many other colours, the most fascinating being those whose long petals are like reversible ribbons, showing on one side claret-coloured velvet, on the other old-gold satin.

These receive due meed of loving admiration from a race so passionately devoted to flowers that I have often watched exceedingly poor men expend what might apparently have been their last cent on two or three blossoms to carry back to their humble little home.

But for amusement and special interest, the crowds pass from one to another of the little gardens which excel in the production of quaint groups of figures all clothed in garments of growing flowers. These tiny gardens are scattered all about in out-of-the-way corners, where, assuredly, we could never have found them without the aid of sympathetic jinricksha-men, keenly interested in our sight-seeing, who ran us through an intricate labyrinth of narrow lanes and byways, passing on from one garden to another, at each of which we paid some infinitesimal coin, and joined the stream of delighted spectators, old and young.

Each gardener has devoted his whole energies to the production of one complete scene, comprising men and women, fish, animals, houses—true tableaux vivants of which the silent, patient flowers are the life. Apparently each scene is represented by a light wire framework, within which the plants are growing, and in most perfect health, but trained with such infinite care that to the eye of the spectator each presents outside the wirework a compact mass, either of tiny blossoms or of foliage. Thus patches of the richest colour, varied with sober green, are produced wherever they are required, and so the most elaborate scenes are developed. One gardener shows us a group of figures sitting beside tiny tables, tea-drinking. Another has a music-party; a third, of a festive turn of mind (or possibly a blue-ribbon man), has a drinking-scene suggestive of “wine in, wit out.” Now we come to an Arcadian scene, with a 285romantic couple on a pretty, high-arched bridge, and beyond them is a tall pagoda, with walls of white chrysanthemums and roofs of green, but all the little wind-bells hanging from each roof are real bells of brass.

Next we come to a scene of court life thirty years ago, before the nobles of Japan had discarded their strikingly characteristic garments for the European broadcloth which to them is so unbecoming. But here we have them in tippets and wide sleeves and long, loose trousers, and robes, and extraordinary head-dresses; and all the ladies are in equally picturesque attire—and, indeed, we have to look closely before we can feel quite convinced that all this wealth of rich colour is really produced by carefully-educated growing plants. True, all the heads, hands, and feet are wooden, cleverly carved and coloured, but every other detail is floral.

Here is a charming lady whose whole robe is of red blossoms, her sash of pearly grey, her under-skirt of green foliage, the folds of crape round her neck of snowy white blossoms. Her lord and master has bright golden trousers, a green robe lined with red blossoms, and a tippet of maroon chrysanthemums.

In one little garden, gay with camelia-trees in full blossom, there is a dainty little tea-house. Evidently this gardener is a jocose man, for in the foreground lies a gentleman who has tumbled over and dropped his wooden clogs in terror at beholding some clothes hung up to dry, which he has mistaken for a ghost. Out run the other guests, carrying lanterns, to ascertain the cause of the hubbub. It does not sound very exciting, but then you must remember that not only are all the figures clothed in variegated floral drapery, but even the tea-house itself is made of chrysanthemums; the woodwork is of red blossoms, the walls of foliage—only the thatch is real, as are also the pretty paper lamps in the hands of the travellers. So are the lamps hanging round the cabin of a large green-andgold 286boat, in which are seen a gorgeously dressed but evidently very aggravating woman and a very picturesque old Daimio, who is evidently in a towering rage, and has gone so far as to draw his sword and threaten the lady. The noble is robed in green, lined with purple and trimmed with bands of gold, and the lady is chiefly clad in white and gold, with a claret-coloured under-garment and dark red sash.

Some of the mythological scenes are exceedingly curious, one of the most effective showing a woman robed in pink and green and gold, engaged in a furious combat with a gigantic fish. The latter is claret-coloured, with red head and tail and golden fins. The manner in which the scales are defined is exceedingly ingenious; but space fails, and in truth such descriptions must likewise fail to convey the smallest idea of the amusement to be derived from so ingenious an exhibition as a Japanese chrysanthemum show.

I saw these in November, just before I left Tokio en route to Kobe, where I arrived in time to see the dainty, tiny-leafed maple in full glory. My kind hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Flower, took me a most beautiful expedition along the sea-coast and then inland to Mino, which is one of the glens most celebrated for the glory of its maples. These clothe the banks of a very rocky stream which rushes down, forming picturesque waterfalls gleaming dazzlingly through the veil of scarlet foliage. As usual, charmingly pretty tea-houses are perched on the most attractive sites overlooking the stream. Some of the maples were only just turning from green to yellow, then gold, scarlet, and ermine, such a marvellous blaze of colour as would be too gorgeous were it not for the contrast of dark, pine-clad hills all round.

Large merry parties of men and gaily-dressed girls were thoroughly enjoying their outing, the gentlemen, moreover, luxuriating in the hot baths, followed by a cooling process, al fresco, in the original attire of Adam, a custom somewhat 287embarrassing to the prejudiced foreigner. To our uneducated ears the night was made hideous by the discordant noise which to Japanese ears is high-class music, otherwise all were enjoying themselves very quietly. But to us there was truer music in the ceaseless murmur of the rushing, foam-flecked river, and the wind sweeping over the fir-crested hills.

CHAPTER XVI Wayside Shrines—The Fox God—Old Druggists’ Shops—Punishing Refractory Idols.

Few things interested me more than the numerous shrines on mountains, in the forests, or on the sea-shore, loaded with the votive offerings of poor peasants. Such was the shrine of a hermit famous for his strong legs. Round this were hung hundreds of half-worn straw sandals, a silent appeal from their late owners to have strength such as his bestowed on them. Some had presented gigantic new sandals, and a few had hung up roughly-outlined pictures of the same.

Specially dear to the farmers is Inari-Sama, generally called “the Fox-god,” whom they reverence as the special protector of the rice-crops. Inari means literally “riceman,” and the two Chinese characters used in writing the name mean “rice-bearing.” We passed quaint little shrines in the forest, where the wayfarers halted to say a prayer and cast small offerings into an alms-box, which bore an inscription to state its purpose, namely, “For feeding hungry demons.” Thus were the spirits of the forest propitiated. Every here and there in the steep wooded hills we came to two well-sculptured stone (or perhaps wooden) foxes sitting on pedestals. Passing between them, we found stone steps, and as we ascended we came to another couple, and then another, and another, till perhaps a long way up we reached a neat little shrine with a god riding on a fox, and before him were laid tempting little sugar foxes and bowls of rice.

Some of his numerous temples in the towns have beautiful wood-carving, and bronze foxes carrying urns with five flames rising from them. They are always in couples, 289doubtless that one wily beast may watch over the other. We found a very interesting fox-shrine near Kobe on the summit of a steep hill, at the foot of which (on the outskirts of a pretty village of thatched houses) we had noticed a whole row of wooden torii about twelve feet high, painted a warm red colour. (The torii, or “bird-rest,” are simply two upright pieces of timber, supporting a third, which form the symbolic gateway at the approach to Shinto temples.) These were votive offerings from farmers, and led up to a great torii of stone, guarded on either side by two large stone foxes mounted on pedestals.

At Kuzunomia, a famous Shinto temple near Osaka, I saw hundreds of these scarlet torii arranged in avenues, all leading to a very popular fox-temple. The approach to the main temple is by a fine cryptomeria avenue, beneath which stand a multitude of great stone lanterns—a pretty and quaint scene. Round this and several neighbouring temples it is accounted a work of merit to walk a hundred times, keeping reckoning by means of bunches of string. Of course this has originally been the sun-wise turn, common throughout the world, but here the pilgrims go either sun-wise or “widder-shin.” (In Scotland the latter was equivalent to invoking a curse.)

Some people say that the origin of fox-worship was simply a form of homage to Uga, the benefactor of mankind, in that he first cultivated the rice-plant. He is represented in ivory netzkies and other carvings under the symbol of a snake encircling a bag of rice. Is it not strange in how many lands we find the same association of the serpent with the harvest, and his worship as one of the corn-gods? The attendants of Inari-Sama are foxes, ever ready to do his will, and therefore entitled to much propitiation by the farmers. So shrines in his honour and that of his retainers are multiplied all over the land, and children and peasants rejoice to celebrate various rustic but most picturesque festivals in honour of the fox-gods, whose images 290abound in every direction, and who hold so large a place in legendary lore.

Thus we learn how a noted sword-smith, driven to his wits’ end by a sudden order from the Mikado to forge a special blade, prayed to Inari-Sama, who straightway appeared and bade him do his work and fear nothing. The pious smith obeyed, and having decked his anvil like an altar with sacred ropes of rice-straw and symbolic goheis of white paper, prepared to work single-handed, when suddenly the fox-god, in the likeness of a man, appeared and aided him so powerfully that the fame of that blade went forth throughout the land. In various tales of old Japan the fox figures as a most exemplary being; one especially tells of a peasant who saved the life of a young fox, and soon after, when his child was dying and the doctor prescribed the liver taken from a living fox as the only remedy which could save it, the grateful parent-foxes suddenly appeared, bringing their own young one for this purpose, as an offering to the good peasants.^[64]

On the other hand, here as in China, people often firmly believe in a form of demoniacal possession^[65] in which an evil fox-spirit has entered into a woman or child, and can only be driven out by priestly exorcism. Such scenes are represented in many picture-books. I also saw a finely painted scroll, many yards in length, representing the dire mischances which befell certain irreligious persons who had malignantly compassed the death of some foxes, an act which is accounted quite as criminal in Japan as in England. 291I wish I could have secured that scroll as an offering for a certain Master of Fox-Hounds.

At the Kitano-ten-jin, which is a fine temple near Kioto, I saw near the fox-shrine a handsome bronze bull, and two others of black and red marble. Amongst the votive offerings to these were many of straw shoes belonging to sick cattle, and also pictures of bulls presented by grateful farmers. Also innumerable metal mirrors (Shinto emblems of the sun) and beautiful brass lanterns inside the temple, and great stone lanterns in the outer court, all votive offerings.

In many places I saw shrines adorned with locks of human hair, and this particular offering figures prominently at Kioto, where a great Buddhist temple, the Hon-gwan-ji, which was burned in an awful fire, has been magnificently rebuilt, a sum equivalent to £850,000 having been raised, largely by poor peasants. It is built entirely of wood, supported on huge pillars imported from the forests of Formosa, and is adorned with a profusion of admirable wood-carving of flowers, birds, and beasts.

From one of the beams hang about fifty very stout ropes, each about fifty feet in length, made entirely from the glossy black tresses of Japanese women, who, having no money to offer, brought this votive offering—a sacrifice of their most precious possession. These ropes represent the offerings of many thousands of women.^[66] The men likewise contributed masses of their hair, which was woven into ropes of such strength that by them at least one of the heavy beams was hauled into position. It was estimated that 358,883 heads had been shaven to produce that rope!

Of course the regular method of hairdressing for a man, according to true Japanese custom, necessitates always shaving the front and middle of the head, so that only the hair from the back and sides is available to produce that quaint little tail, stiff with pomatum, which is brought 292forward to the top of the head. Now that young Japan allows his hair to grow, the work of the professional barber must be greatly diminished.

All hairdressing, male and female, is done at the shop, where feminine hairdressers attend to girls and women, and with skilled hand arrange those glossy loops and chignons which are always so neat, as if fresh from the artist’s hand, although they were perhaps dressed a day or two previously. But the careful damsels have been trained from infancy only to let their neck rest on the little padded wooden pillow, which just raises the head sufficiently to prevent its being ruffled on the mat. It is interesting to find what is practically the same pillow or neck rest, devised for the same purpose, in Japan, Kaffraria, and the South Sea Isles.

The Hon-gwan-ji temples, to one of which I referred just now, are those of a very remarkable sect of Reformed Buddhists who separated from the main body in the year A.D. 1262. Hence they are called the Shin-shiû, or New Doctrine, but they are also known as the Monto. Their founder was a saint of the name of Shinran Shônin. He seems to have attained to a conception of a life of faith, scarcely to be distinguished from Christianity, from which it was doubtless adapted.

In place of the cold, unsympathetic teaching of pure Buddhism, with its faultless standard of well-nigh impossible morality, and requiring a perfection to which every man must attain by his own merit, without any aid whatsoever from any Superior Being (for Buddha only left an example of superhuman purity and self-extinction, which his disciples must strive to follow without any help from him). In place of this cold teaching, Shinran taught that Buddha the Supreme is full of tender compassion for all his creatures, and that of his boundless mercy he desires to help all who rely on his aid and his merit to attain the blessedness of Nirvana, a state which, to the Shin-shiûist, 293implies no cold extinction, but rather the blessedness of eternal happiness.

The impracticable standard of pure Buddhism, which sanctioned no direct worship of any sort, had led to the growth of a complex mythology in which innumerable beings who were believed to have attained to the perfect state were not only recognised as Buddhas, but received actual worship.

The Shin-shiû sect, while recognising that all these have attained the rank of Buddhas, maintain that they did so only by the help and merit of Amida Buddha, who alone is to be worshipped, and that the true way of salvation is to have a saving faith in him, to keep his mercy ever in the heart, to invoke his name in order to remember him, and especially to cultivate gratitude for his great goodness. Thus the distinctive doctrine of this reformed sect is a belief in “help from another,” and the vain repetition of forms of words is discouraged.

This help does not extend to things temporal, for it is not lawful to pray for happiness in this present life, that being a matter beyond the control of any save the individual concerned, who must make or mar his own present condition according to his diligence or carelessness in the practice of morality.

This is the teaching of the learned; but we may be sure that as regards the mass of the worshippers who have thus been taught to commune with Amida Buddha as with a personal Saviour, the craving of the human heart will not express itself only with respect to things spiritual.

It is evident that the humanity and comfort to be found in this reformed Buddhism has given it a hold on the affections of the people which the other sects are rapidly losing, for whereas they are for the most part growing weaker and weaker, and their temples falling into decay from sheer neglect, those of the Monto continue to be thronged by devout worshippers, who prove their devotion 294to their church by the most open-handed offerings for its support, and for the repair of its vast temples—temples which were built on so gigantic a scale, that there might be room for all the multitude who should assemble to hear the preaching that proclaimed the welcome news of a Mighty Helper.

In its appeal to the human sympathies, and consequently to the masses, the Shin-Shiû seems to me to hold the same position with regard to other Buddhist sects that the worship of Juggernath (with its festival of Holy Food, to be eaten in common by prince and pariah,) does to all other sects among the Hindoos.

Even the priests are exempt from the life-long struggle to attain self-righteousness by asceticism, and are freely allowed to eat both fish and flesh—and also to marry and make their homes as happy as they can. They are required to be diligent in preaching, that they may make known to all men this better creed, and theological colleges have been established in order to bestow such thorough training, that the preachers may be fitted to cope with all rival teachers, whether Christian or Shintoist.

With all its advantages, the Monto creed nevertheless retains a full belief in transmigration, with all its weary succession of stages in an interminable existence; so that the man who, failing to claim the merciful aid of Amida Buddha, continues to be the slave of evil passions (such as anger or covetousness), must inevitably at the close of his present life be reborn as a lower animal, there to be met by the same mercy, offered to him in a new phase.

I do not know why these temples are built in couples, but both at Osaka and Kioto there are two close together, the Nishi, or Western, and the Higashi, or Eastern, Hon-gwan-ji, whose gigantic twin thatched roofs are conspicuous objects. I visited them all, and (notwithstanding the Monto repudiation of a belief in heaping up merit by vain repetitions) I found outside each of these, large revolving 295scripture-wheels, just the same as one at the Chi-on-in monastery of the Jō-do sect, and many other places.

Nevertheless there is a simple solemnity about these vast interiors, where there is comparatively little of obtrusive idolatry—only the great gilt images of Buddha and his disciples, dimly seen in the cool, deep shadow. Leaving our boots in the verandah not to sully the beautifully clean mats, we admired the exquisite uncoloured wood-carving of birds, beasts, flowers, phœnix, and dragons. In the first we entered, a group of priests in richly-coloured vestments, were chanting their litanies before the altar, occasionally ringing a small bell—and the fragrance of incense filled the air. There were only a handful of worshippers present, but they were unmistakably in earnest. As we passed behind a very respectable-looking woman, my companion overheard her simple petition: “O Buddha,” she said, “I have been very rude to you; I pray you to forgive me.” And when she had ended her prayer, she uttered a fervent “Arigato, arigato”—“I thank you,” with deeper feeling than goes with many an Amen.

There is said to be room in the temple for two thousand worshippers, who need no seats nor church accommodation other than the soft clean mats on which they kneel.

Beyond this house of prayer, there is a hall of preaching, where a black-robed priest, with crimson hood, expounds the law to a few attentive hearers, emphasising his words by tapping on his reading-desk with his fan. What a sensation it would produce in London if some of our great preachers carried fans into the pulpit on hot summer days. And yet what could be more sensible?

An extremely interesting Buddhist temple of quite another type, is that of Tennō-ji, in Osaka, which is dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy, but has many other shrines. In one small metal pagoda three thousand tiny images of many Buddhas receive homage, and near them are paintings of 296four mythological kings, each wearing the invariable halo, and holding “The Wheel of the Law.” Small wheels inscribed with Sanscrit characters are fastened on the gateways, and the worshippers gave them a twirl; also (as usual in a building by itself) stands a revolving scripture-wheel containing all the sacred Buddhist books, inviting the faithful to give it a turn on its pivot.

Above all towers a lofty five-storied pagoda, each finely curved roof supported by many dragons’ heads, and terminating in carved elephants’ heads, the red woodwork gleaming against the blue sky.

But a specially pathetic interest centres round two temples, one on each side of the great court, at which mothers offer the clothes, dolls, and other playthings of their sick or dead children, quite regardless of the contagion or infection which these may scatter. To put herself in communication with the Goddess of Mercy, the sorrowing mother holds the end of the rope which the priest pulls while tolling the great bell. (In all the temples there are long silken bell-ropes which the worshippers pull to call attention to their prayer, that they may not waste them on inattentive deities.)

But what interested me most of all in that neighbourhood was the discovery of two shops which at first I took to be taxidermists, well filled with specimens of their art. Like all their neighbours, they were open to the street, so we were able to take a leisurely survey of their strange contents; and it was some time before I could quite realise that these really were druggists’ shops of the pure and unadulterated old Chinese school, happily quite untouched by foreign innovations.

So rapidly has the scientific study of medicine been taken up by the Japanese medical practitioners, that the survival of such chemists was quite remarkable, and I was greatly struck by the evident annoyance of a Japanese gentleman, to whom I expressed my interest in having seen these 297curious mediæval shops; he evidently felt it humiliating that a foreigner should have seen such a relic of the days of foolish ignorance! He could not possibly understand how this glimpse of the little shops in Osaka enabled me to realise, as I had never done before, what strange medicines were administered to our British ancestors in the Middle Ages, and indeed within the last two centuries.

The quaint old men, whose loyal adherence to the customs of their forefathers afforded me such an interesting illustration of old Japan and old Britain, were compounders and sellers of Curoyakie, i.e. carbonised animals—in other words, animals reduced to charcoal, and potted in a multitude of small covered jars of earthenware, neatly ranged on shelves, to be sold as medicine for the sick and suffering.

Formerly all these animals were kept alive in the back premises, and customers selected the creature for themselves, and stood by to see it killed and burnt on the spot, so that there could be no deception, and no doubt as to the freshness of their calcined skin or bone medicine. Doubtless some insensible foreign influence—very likely some police regulation—may account for the disappearance of the menagerie of waiting victims and their cremation-ground. Now the zoological back-yard has vanished, and only the strange chemist’s shop remains, like a well-stored museum, wherein are ranged portions of the dried carcases of dogs and deer, foxes and badgers, fishes and serpents, rats and mice, toads and frogs, tigers and elephants.

The rarer the animal, and the further it has travelled, the more precious, apparently, are its virtues. From the roof hung festoons of gigantic snake-skins, which certainly were foreign importations from some land where pythons flourish, Japan being happily exempt from the presence of such beautiful monsters. I saw one very fine piece of skin, which, though badly dried and much shrunken, measured twenty-six inches across; but it was only a fragment ten 298feet in length, and was being gradually consumed, inch by inch, to lend mystic virtue to compounds of many strange ingredients. I was told that the perfect skin must have measured nearly fifty feet in length. I saw another fragment twenty-two feet long and twelve inches wide—this also had evidently shrunk considerably in drying, and must, when in life, have been a very fine specimen.

There were also some very fine deers’ horns, (hart’s-horn in its pure and simple form), a highly-valued rhinoceros horn, and ivory of various animals. My companion was much tempted by a beautiful piece of ivory about ten feet in length. I think it was the horn of a narwhal, but the druggist would only sell it for its price as medicine, namely ten cents for fifty-eight grains—whence we inferred that the druggists of old Japan, like some nearer home, fully understand the art of making a handsome profit on their sales!

Tigers’ teeth and claws were also esteemed very precious, and some strips of fur of the woolly tiger of China (a much handsomer animal than the hairy tiger of India), and fragments of other skins and furs, proved that these also held a place in the pharmacopœia of old Japan, as they continue to do in China (the source whence Japan derived many branches of learning besides the use of letters).

Unfortunately for the little lizards, which dart about so joyously in the sunlight, they too are classed among the popular remedies, being considered an efficacious vermifuge, so strings of these ghastly little corpses are hung in festoons in many village shops where I have often looked wonderingly at them. So lizards and dried scorpions (imported as medicine) also found a place in these strange druggists’ shops, which, with their general litter of oddities of various sorts, strongly resembled old curiosity-shops, while the eccentric old men in the midst of it all might have passed for mediæval wizards, rather than for grave dispensers of drugs as, in dark caps and flowing robes, they sat crouching 299over their little hibachis (fire-pots) boiling broth of abominable things in small vessels.

On my return to England, I borrowed from several old libraries (especially the Advocates’ Library in Edinburgh) various books on Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms, and sundry medical works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially such as related to the use of calcined animals, and as I read the medicine-lore of our very recent ancestors, I realised how accurately I had seen it represented in Osaka.^[67] Although we cannot flatter ourselves that our ancestors were as exquisite in their neatness as the Japanese, or their earthenware jars as dainty and refined, there must have been just similar assortments of vessels containing the ashes of goat’s flesh, of dead bees, of wolf’s skull, or swine’s jaw, nay even of human skulls and bones. On the walls hung remains of birds, lizards, rats, and moles, together with skins of serpents, portions of mummies, horns of stags, rhinoceros, narwhal, and many other items of the strange materia medica of our own ancestors.

In Hogarth’s illustrations of Marriage à la Mode, Plate III. shows a druggist’s shop in London in 1745, with shelves well stocked with little jars, and surmounted by a stuffed wolf’s head, while on another cupboard (which stands open to reveal a skeleton) hangs a large narwhal horn, part of a sword-fish, two dried crocodiles, and sundry other reptiles.

Doubtless such quaint shops were then found near majestic Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s, just as the little Osaka drug-stores still existed side by side with the latest innovations of science, such as the numerous Japanese doctors, highly trained in England and America, the railway, telegraph, gas, and, most remarkable of all, a magnificent Mint, with fine large English houses for its foreign employees, and all the latest improvements in all its machinery, making it far more perfect than our own in London. So I was told by the English Master of the Mint, who most 300kindly took me all over it and entertained me most hospitably during my visit to Osaka.

In these streets every shop is a temptation to linger, and every group of figures suggests sketching, especially those of children playing happily, although each has a baby securely strapped on his or her back. Often while I was busily sketching I found quite a crowd of these courteous little people silently watching my work, and on one occasion I counted twelve small boys, each thus carrying the family baby! They were all so quiet that I should scarcely have known they were there, but that occasionally one of the boys would whisper some kind remark to the grave little one whose small face appeared above his shoulders. They were most picturesque in their gay dressing-gowns, with long sleeves and open neck lined with some bright colour, and gay waist-cloth.

The commonest game of these little folk, encumbered with babies and long garments, is a variety of battledore and shuttlecock, in which the sole of the foot acts as battledore,—very jerky for the babies!

One of the quaintest national festivals in honour of children is the feast of the Nobori, which are large paper fishes, floating from tall bamboos; these are attached to the roof of every house in which a son has been born in the previous twelvemonth. The emblematic fish is the carp, which is the emblem of perseverance, a characteristic which he is said to display in working his way up difficult rapids. As Japanese babies are legion, a considerable number of houses in every street are entitled to hang up this curious announcement, which I have no doubt fills the happy mother with considerable pride. The open mouth of the carp catches the breeze, which puffs it out like a balloon, and keeps it constantly in movement.

As the elder brothers might be jealous of a baby who had such an honour all to himself, the day is made joyful to them by gifts of boys’ playthings—warrior dolls, and little 301heroic demi-gods, with any number of flags and banners; and to these national toys are now added miniature cannon, guns, and other modern innovations. I need not say that to me only the purely native toys were attractive, and their variety is surprising.

Fascinating as are even the commonest kinds of Japanese dolls (such are now so freely imported to Europe) I was tantalised by accounts of the delightfully quaint doll-army which holds sway throughout the land for one day in every year—namely, the third day of the third month. It is known as the Hina Matsuri, that is to say “The Dolls’ Festival.” The dolls in question all represent historical or mythological characters—gods and demi-gods, Mikados and Shoguns, warlike heroes, Empress and other ladies of note, minstrels, courtiers, priests. They vary in size from tiny things to about twelve inches in height, and are made of wood or baked clay or china, but all alike are beautifully dressed in correct costume.

Two of these are presented to every baby girl at the first festival after her birth, and as they are carefully treasured from year to year, and fresh dolls are occasionally added, the family doll-house requires to be capacious. When a girl marries she takes her original brace of dolls with her to her new home, as an early offering for her prospective family! The dolls are provided with miniature properties of all sorts, tiny but exquisitely lacquered tables, with complete dinner or tea-sets, all requisites for the toilet and for painting, and making music.

These well-brought-up little Japanese maidens commence their festival by making formal offerings of sweetmeats and rice-wine to the dolls who personate the Mikado and the Kôgô—and then devote the whole long, happy day to play with the delightful companions who at night will be hidden from them, not to be seen again for twelve long months. I have had the luck to be shown some of these precious dolls, but they are only offered for sale at the orthodox season.

302Japanese ingenuity seems never at a loss for something on which to expend itself, and as kite-flying is one of the popular amusements of old and young, much care is bestowed on decorating the kites. These are generally simply of a square form, a canvas (sometimes five or six feet square!) on which to depict strange mythological, theatrical, or historic scenes. But sometimes the kite-maker wearies of so prosaic a form, so he shapes his kite like some great bird or flying dragon, or other strange object. And he fastens to it a narrow strip of bamboo or whale-bone, so placed that as it flies through the wind it shall produce a low humming sound like an Eolian harp.

When grown up men take to kite-flying, they dip the upper end of the string in glue, and then in powdered glass, so that it may become a sharp cutting-instrument. Then several go out together and take sides (sometimes they adopt the names of the grand old families to give point to their mimic warfare) and each tries to fly his kite higher than that of his opponent, and then suddenly to draw it down, and in so doing cut loose his rival.

As all the shops are open to the street, and the workers never seemed at all to object to our halting to watch them, I saw much of the processes of manufacture, from that of exquisitely delicate patterns of enamel on copper or china, to that of idols being rough-hewn from the original timber, and thence up to the highly coloured and gilded article, ready to receive worship.

On several occasions, in rural districts, I saw a regular ecclesiastical “spring-cleaning” going on, which was exceedingly curious. Thus on the shores of beautiful Lake Biwa we halted at a tumble-down old temple called Go-Hiyaku-Rakkan, sacred to the five hundred disciples of Buddha, and there found a painter of images repairing five hundred very cleverly carved old images, every one different, and all full of character; a large number of them representing devout women. The artist was endowing each with a new halo, 303which, with the gaudy fresh paint, vulgarised them. About half had been thus renovated, and their arms, heads, and legs were stuck on sticks to dry. The great Amida Butzu was represented with a wife on either side, one riding on a lion, and the other on a white elephant.

A few months later I saw various similar scenes in the course of my wanderings in China, and heard much about the very peculiar attitude of the Chinese towards the celestial powers, and their mode of dealing with refractory gods, who cannot be induced to grant the humble prayers of their worshippers. This is most strikingly shown in regard to those gods who are supposed to have special control of the weather, and whose neglect to send rain in due season (or rather, their grievously irregular distribution of this gift) results in the terrible droughts and awful floods which so frequently devastate vast tracts of the Chinese Empire.

In the first instance the gods are approached in all humility, with fasting and prayer, the temples are thronged, and the officials of inferior rank even go thither on foot. Should they fail to obtain their petition, officials of higher grade take the matter in hand; first the City Prefect, then the Governor-General of the Province, clothed in sack-cloth, and loaded with chains and fetters, and escorted by the Arch-Abbots of both Buddhist and Taonist temples. Failing these, a Prince of the Imperial family tries his persuasive power, and should the Water Dragon still prove obdurate the Emperor himself assumes his highest office as High Priest of his people.

Should the Imperial prayer be granted, the good Dragon is rewarded by a general repair of his temples, and by the official award of a new title, which is duly chronicled in the Peking Gazette. Thus in 1867, when after a season of prolonged drought the scorched earth at last hailed refreshing showers, a certain well near his temple at Han-tan, in the Province of Honan, was officially canonised as “The Holy Well of the Dragon God.”

304But when the gods prove obdurate, their worshippers sometimes lose patience and resort to most irreverent methods of bringing them to reason, such as carrying the idols from the cool shade of their temples, and depositing them in the scorching sun till they are cracked and blistered, and their paint and gilding all falls off. Thus they are supposed to realise something of the discomfort to which they are subjecting poor human beings.

For it must not be imagined that the idols are incapable of feeling! Dr. Dudgeon of Peking, who examined a number, while in process of demolition in various old temples, told me that inside the idols he found the various organs of the chest, heart, lungs, abdomen, and intestines in general, all accurately figured according to Chinese notions of anatomy. Some of these were several hundred years old, but all in wonderful preservation, being generally made of rich silk or satin, the heart being of red silk, with veins of variously coloured silk proceeding from it. To the heart is frequently attached a small brass mirror, to enable the god to reflect the heart of his worshipper, and to this is also attached an invocation written on silk and wound round a stick. The bowels are all enveloped in a large piece of silk or satin, so as to keep all compact.

In certain cases, though no visible idol is made to suffer, the invisible Water Dragon is made exceedingly uncomfortable by the application of an iron gag. In the well to which I have already referred, in the Court of the Temple of the Water Dragon, outside the gates of the city at Han-tan, there is kept an iron plate six inches long and half an inch thick, on which is inscribed a petition for abundance of rain. When all other means to obtain relief in times of excessive drought have proved in vain, the Emperor sends a special officer to travel all the way to the Province of Honan, to bring this plate to Peking. Its arrival having been duly notified in the Gazette, it is reverently placed on the altar in the great Temple of the National gods, where it is supposed 305to act as a key to lock the mouth of the great Water Dragon, who is chief of the Rain-gods, and this makes him so extremely uncomfortable, that he hastens to send rain, to induce his troublesome worshippers to remove the gag!!

It is not only the gods of the weather who are dealt with in this extraordinary fashion. On the same principle that a surgeon sometimes bandages the eyes of his patient during some horrible operation, so while a temple is undergoing repair, and the dilapidated images are irreverently stowed away in a corner, their eyes are covered with little strips of paper, as a hint that they are requested not to observe what is going on, till all is restored to order.

But the most startling of all human relations to celestial beings, are when the former venture to sit in judgment on the latter, and, finding them guilty of misdemeanour, condemn the idols to decapitation—the form of execution which is held in the utmost abhorrence, and is deemed infinitely worse than hanging or crucifixion, because its evil consequences follow the dead beyond this present life, a decapitated spirit being immediately recognised as quite unfit company for respectable spirits, whose bodies were buried intact. It is therefore evident that to subject a god to such treatment, represents the very acme of contempt.

Yet this was done in 1889 at Foo Chow, where amongst the numberless temples to gods of every description, there is one temple specially frequented by persons desiring to be revenged on their foes. A few months previously the Tartar military commander died suddenly, and his death was forthwith attributed by the populace to the gods of this temple. Hearing this, the Viceroy of the province issued commands to the Prefect of the city that they should be legally arrested, and judicially punished.

Armed with the Viceroy’s warrant, the Prefect proceeded to the temple and arrested fifteen wooden idols, averaging five feet in height—hideous beings gaudily painted. Their eyes were at once destroyed, in order that they might not 306see who was their judge, nor be able to trouble him in this world or in the life to follow. Thus sightless, they were brought before the judgment-seat of the Prefect, who having fully investigated the case, sent his report to the Viceroy, who pronounced the terrible verdict that all fifteen should be beheaded, their bodies be cast into a neighbouring pond, and there left to decay, while their temple should be sealed with the Government seal, which no man dare break, and thus be deserted for evermore. Thus were these injudicious gods banished from Foo Chow never more to trouble the peace of its inhabitants!

CHAPTER XVII Ascent of Fujiyama—Its Crater—View from the Summit—Triangular Shadow—Numerous Volcanic Eruptions.

I must refrain from further memories of delightful Japan, except to tell of one expedition which was the crowning joy of my six months in the group. This was my pilgrimage to the summit of Fujiyama, the Peerless Mountain, Fuji-San! the most honourable, which is the name by which it is known by the Japanese.

It is dear to the traveller as the first and last vision of beauty that enchants him as he approaches the Land of the Rising Sun, or watches its receding shores. While still too far at sea to discern any land of ordinary height, this lovely mountain appears towering above the clouds, sometimes bathed in golden light, sometimes pale celestial blue, or else relieved in purply grey against a clear primrose sky; its colour varying with every change of atmosphere, never lovelier than when the early sunlight sheds a rosy hue over the newly fallen autumn snow which clothes that lonely summit in dazzling white, while the grand unbroken curves of the wide, far-spreading base sweep downward in purple gloom. Beautiful as are the low ranges of mountains around, they are so utterly dwarfed by the gigantic, dormant volcano, that they serve but to add to its apparent height. Thus, queenly alike in her beauty and in her solitude, rises this majestic mountain—the Holy Mount of Japan—the goal to which, from time immemorial, thousands of eager pilgrims have pressed year after year. (Though I use the word gigantic, the height of Fuji does not really exceed twelve thousand six hundred feet, some say twelve thousand 308four hundred, which, as compared with the height of peaks I have seen in the Himalayas of nineteen thousand to twenty-one thousand, is not pre-eminent, but then we always see those when we are ourselves at an altitude of about ten thousand feet, whereas Fuji has the full value of isolation, and rises in a perfect sweep from the sea-level.)

I had seen the fair vision while yet distant a hundred miles from its base, and from many nearer points both on sea and land; I had gazed on its snowy crown when, in the autumn of 1878, I first visited Japan. And yet the hope of ever being myself numbered among its pilgrims had never presented itself as a possibility. However, on my return from six months’ wandering in China, the idea did suggest itself, but only to be repudiated, so serious were the difficulties which stay-at-home friends declared to lie in the path. Nevertheless, the thought, once admitted, returned with fresh force every time that a break in the envious clouds afforded us a momentary glimpse of the mysterious mighty giant.

At last I had the good-fortune to find a lady as anxious as myself to make the ascent; and a gentleman (a boy friend of my early schooldays) who had already accomplished it four times, but always in unpropitious weather, volunteered to try his luck once more, and be our escort. So, being duly provided with passports, which ordered us to abstain from scribbling our names on temples, attending fires on horseback, and various other crimes, and empowered us to travel in certain districts for thirty days, we started from Yokohama at sunrise on 7th August, not, however, beginning our journey in true pilgrim style, inasmuch as we had engaged a very good three-horse waggonette to take us as far as Oodiwara, a distance of about forty miles; a very pretty drive through cultivated lands and picturesque villages, beneath cryptomerias and pine avenues, along beautiful sea-coast, and past orchards and temples.

C. F. Gordon Cumming.

FUJIYAMA FROM THE OTOMITONGA PASS.

Amongst the infinite variety of crops, our attention was from time to time arrested by whole fields of lovely, tall 309white lilies, the roots of which are used for food. Or else we passed ponds or flooded fields devoted to the sacred lotus, whose magnificent rose, white, or lemon-coloured blossoms peeped up from among the large blue-green leaves, which rise to a height of three or four feet above the level of the water—certainly the most lovely of all edible plants.

Heaps of luscious green water-melons, with pink flesh, were offered for sale, in slices ready cut, to tempt the thirsty pilgrims, of whom multitudes thronged the road, on their way to or from the Holy Mount, nearly all dressed in white, with straw hats like huge mushrooms, straw sandals, a wallet, a gourd to act as water-bottle, cloaks of grass matting, sole protection against the rain, and a stout staff to support their flagging steps on many a weary march. They come from all parts of the Empire, visiting and making offerings at all the most sacred shrines along their path. One at least, sometimes several, in each company carries a small brass bell, which he rings continually, and the majority carry rosaries, which they prize exceedingly. Some of these are really valuable heirlooms, the large beads being either of crystal or agate.

Every tea-house along the road was gay with a multitude of quaint calico flags of all colours, having mysterious-looking symbols inscribed on them. Of these, dozens fluttered from a bamboo erected in front of the house, or from a long rope suspended under the eaves. These are the visiting-cards left by previous pilgrims, and now hung up as testimonials to attract others.

Another pretty custom added colour to the scene. This being the seventh month of the Japanese year, a sort of school examination was going on everywhere, and in front of every second or third house was planted a graceful bunch of bamboo, from each twig of which fluttered little strips of bright-coloured paper, whereon the children of the house had written some little sentence or poem as a test of their progress.

When we returned by the same road a fortnight later, 310another festival had its turn. The children’s trees had vanished, but in every house feasts for the dead were spread before the domestic shrine; coloured lanterns and straw ropes, from which fluttered sacred symbols of white paper, were suspended in the streets. The heaps of water-melons, too, had disappeared, the sale of all fruit being prohibited by law, as a precaution against the dreaded cholera, which, alas! was spreading in every direction, its presence being marked by a house here and there enclosed by the police with bamboo fencing, to prevent ingress or egress from its infected walls. At one door we noticed an onion hung up, as a charm to keep off the dreaded malady. But the most singular and common medicines which attracted our attention, hung out in fanciful patterns outside the houses, were dried lizards, which, when reduced to powder, are supposed to be exceedingly efficacious in some simple childish maladies (as a vermifuge).

But in Japan there is always something interesting to notice, either for its beauty or its oddity. For instance, how strange to one newly arrived in the country, is the first halt at such a tea-house as that where we stopped to change horses and partake of a light native meal; the pile of wooden clogs lying on the threshold, the tired coolies squatting on the mats, enjoying what looks like the prettiest doll’s feast in little china dishes with bowls of black and red lacquer, served on lacquer stands by the most winsome and polite of prettily dressed damsels, while close by, always next the street, is the kitchen where all these dainties are prepared!

And probably in the open courtyard a large wooden tub is being heated, by means of a charcoal stove, for the benefit of some dusty travellers. Probably those travellers, well-to-do tradesmen, will proceed to divest themselves of all superfluous garments, and, hanging them up to air, will sit down in the very lightest attire, to share the family meal with the well-dressed ladies of the party. And all these 311different groups—your own included—are, as it were, in one large open room, for the paper slides which divide the house into many rooms at night have all been thrown open during the day, leaving free space.

It was about two o’clock when we reached Oodiwara, the point at which we were to leave our carriage and ponies (for in Japan all horses are mere ponies), and proceed in jinrikshas, literally man-power carriages, which are simply light bath-chairs, quite a recent invention, but one which has multiplied all over the land with marvellous rapidity.

Owing to the steepness of the road, we had but a short run in these little carriages, and were next transferred to kangos, or mountain chairs, which are basket-work seats slung on a pole, borne by two men. Being made for the little Japanese, they are, of course, horribly uncomfortable for full-grown Europeans, for whose benefit, however, kangos of a larger size are now made, and can be had at Myanoshita, whither we were now bound. It is a pretty village in a wooded valley, noted for its shops for the sale of all manner of fancy woodwork, and much frequented in summer by foreigners, for whose benefit two large hotels are now kept in semi-European style. As we infinitely preferred a purely Japanese tea-house, we pushed on a short distance to the far prettier village of Kinga, where we found excellent quarters, though I confess that the sound of ever-rushing, brawling waters in the immediate vicinity, is to me anything but a soothing lullaby.

On the following morning, having secured kangos of extra size, three men to each, and a packhorse to carry our baggage and provisions, we started very leisurely across the plain, and up a very steep ascent to the Otomitonga Pass, a very narrow saddle, from which on the one side we looked back on the Hakoni Lake and on the valley through which we had travelled, while before us lay outspread the vast level plain from which the faultlessly harmonious curves of the great mountain sweep heavenward. Probably from no 312other point is so magnificent a view to be obtained as from this, as we acknowledged when, on our homeward route, we contrived to reach this point soon after sunrise, and for a little while beheld the giant revealed in cloudless beauty.

On the present occasion, however, our march was one of simplest faith—not a break was there in the close grey mist, which clung around us as a pall, and veiled even the nearest trees. Vainly did we halt at the little rest-house on the summit of the Pass, and there linger over luncheon in the hope that the mist might clear a little. We had to console ourselves, as our bearers assuredly did, with the consequent coolness of the weather, and devote our attention to the beautiful wild flowers which grew so abundantly along our path. There were real thistles and bluebells growing side by side with white, pink, and blue hydrangea, lilac and white hybiscus, masses of delicate white clematis and creeping ferns hanging in graceful drapery over many a plant of sturdier growth, and all manner of lilies, greenish and lilac, crimson, orange, and pure white.

A few days earlier the splendid lilium auratum had been flowering in such profusion that the air was too heavy with its perfume. I was told that it grows freely on all the grassy slopes of Fuji at an altitude of about four thousand feet, wherever leaf-mould has formed over decomposed volcanic material. At some of the tea-houses where we halted for luncheon, bulbs of this glorious lily, cooked with ginger, were served as a vegetable. It did seem profanation. I fastened one magnificent spike to the front of my kango, where the white blossoms shone in relief against the brown back of my bearer, till, alas! the constant process of changing men crushed my lilies and their lovely buds.

It was already five o’clock when we reached Gotemba, a pretty town lying about half-way across the plain, but we had determined to push on to Subashiri, which is considerably nearer the base of the mountain. Heavy rain came on, and the men very sensibly demurred at going farther. 313British obstinacy, however, carried the day, and we subjected them and ourselves to the misery of reaching our destination in the dark, to find the only good rooms occupied, and all our clothes and other goods soaked—a serious matter in a Japanese house, where the only means of drying them is over a small hibachi, which is simply a small brass bowl containing a handful of charcoal. We spent a considerable portion of the night at this primitive occupation, aided by a pretty little Japanese damsel, and, as a matter of course, were not inclined for an early start next morning.

The village is a long straggling street, gay with the pilgrim flags which float from its many tea-houses, while from the grove of rich green cryptomerias which clothes the base of the mountain, appear the quaint overhanging thatch roofs of a fine old Shinto gateway and temple, at which all devout pilgrims pay their vows ere commencing the ascent. Passing by a shrine, which is the stable of the sacred white wooden horse, they perform their ceremonial ablutions at the fountain, where a sacred bronze dragon ceaselessly spouts clear running water into a stone tank, from the wooden canopy of which float bright calico flags which act as towels.

Then the pilgrims, who at this season press on in ceaseless streams, assemble in groups before the temple, or else kneel reverently before the sacred mirror on the altar, while the old priest, rapidly repeating some formula of blessing or of prayer, holds up a great bronze sort of crozier, from which floats an immense gohei, a sort of banner of mystically cut paper hanging in very peculiar folds, which is the Shinto symbol of God, supposed to have originated in a play on the word kami, which expresses both God and paper. Having thus consecrated the first stage of their pilgrimage, the wayfarers, on their descent, return here, or else by the sacred village of Yoshida, a very picturesque spot on another spur of the mountain, where the priest imprints a 314stamp on their garments which shall prove them true pilgrims in the sight of all men, and the raiment thus sanctified will become a relic and heirloom for ever.

It was ten o’clock ere we were ready to start. The same grey uncompromising weather continued, and our one consolation lay in the cool freshness of the air, knowing how trying would be the ascent over that great expanse of bare lava should the sun blaze with the same fierce intensity that it had been doing for some time previously. We were already at the height of 2500 feet above the sea-level, and our route from this point was a steady ascent over volcanic ash and cinders. The lower slopes of the mountain are all wooded; a good deal of larch mingles with the fir; cryptomerias and other pines, willow, maple, and chestnut all flourish, and raspberries grow abundantly.

About two and a half hours brought us to the rest-house, where by law we were obliged to leave our kangos, as no carrying nor any beast of burden is allowed on the Holy Mount. Even coolies cannot be engaged here, but those whom foreigners bring with them are winked at, and ours had agreed to accompany us all the way. From this point to the summit takes from seven to eight hours’ steady walking.

There are eight or nine rest-houses at easy intervals, two or three of which had collapsed the previous winter and had not been rebuilt; but at the others, which are merely wooden sheds, we were offered welcome tiny cups of pale tea, and a bowl of rice with savoury accompaniments, or a tray of sweetmeats, notably peppermint drops, and a sort of very strong crystallised peppermint, of which an infinitesimal quantity is given as a reviving dram. A drink by no means to be despised, and which we found very sustaining, is a compound of raw eggs, beaten up with sugar and hot saki—a kind of wine distilled from rice. In our character of pilgrims we tasted all that was offered us, and rather enjoyed the curious fare.

315Our route for some distance lay through pleasant woods, in which we found a good deal of white rhododendron, blue monkshood, and masses of large pink campanula and small bluebells. Further up we passed through thick alder scrub, and found quantities of real Alpine strawberries, on which we feasted. Finally we emerged on to the bare cone, which presented precisely the appearance of a vast cinder heap.

One coolie had been told off to help each of the ladies, and mine did me good service by going ahead carrying the two ends of a hammock which (as being softer than a rope) I had passed round my waist. We pressed on in advance of the others, till, after five hours’ climbing, we reached the rest-house known as No. 6, where I was welcomed by an old man, who, with infinite discretion, immediately spread a fautong, or wadded quilt, rolled up another as a pillow, and heaped up a big fire, the material for which must have been brought from the woods far below. In a few minutes I began shivering violently, but was all right ere the others arrived, which they did in a sharp thunder-shower.

The rain soon ceased, and then for the first time the summit stood out perfectly clear, seeming so close that it was quite aggravating not to have gained it. But we were all thoroughly tired and disinclined to go further, so we arranged to sleep here. The sunset was magnificent, and a splendid double rainbow spanned the heavens. We had brought our own provisions and two Japanese attendants, so supper was duly served, and we then made the best of rough quarters.

Our landlady at Shibashiri had kindly lent us a huge roll of quilts, made up in the form of gigantic wadded dressing-gowns with sleeves, three of which made a very heavy coolie-load. In these we wrapped ourselves, and lay down in the corner farthest from the wood fire, round which our shivering attendants crouched, but the smoke of which made our eyes smart horribly. We were, however, soon 316routed from our lair by the heavy rain which dripped through the roof. Happily we had brought large sheets of oiled paper to protect our baggage, and these, being spread as a canopy over our heads, proved excellent protection.

At 1 A.M. we woke and found the rain had ceased, and that a bright half-moon was shining, so we quickly roused our host, and made him prepare rice for the coolies, and also some breakfast for ourselves, and at 3 A.M. we started for the last, and by far the steepest, part of the ascent. By mistake we got on to the track by which the pilgrims descend, which is quite straight instead of zigzaging, and also leads over very soft decomposed ash, in which we sank so deep at every step that it was very exhausting.

We therefore struck across the cone, and scrambled over a belt of rough lava, beyond which we found a very uncertain track, which, however, eventually led us to the beaten path, trodden by such multitudes of pilgrims, and so thickly strewn with their cast-off straw sandals, as to give it the appearance of having had straw laid over it. As these shoes cost somewhat less than a halfpenny a pair, they can be replaced without serious extravagance, and the provident traveller is wont to carry at least one extra pair; more would be unnecessary, as they are sold at every halting-place. Many pilgrims overtook us, hastening upwards, and repeating in chorus a sort of chant, “Rokkonshōjo, Rokkonshōjo,” which is a formula expressive of the purity of flesh and spirit required in those who ascend this holy mount. Formerly it was requisite that they should undergo a hundred days of purification ere commencing the ascent.

Towards the summit the path leads right through several small shrines, in which the faithful may purchase small paper goheis floating from little sticks, which they plant in the lava as they ascend; and the curious, whether faithful or not, can purchase odd pictures and maps of Fujiyama, showing the various routes by which it may be ascended from all sides of the country. By dint of great exertion, 317and with the help of my faithful coolie, I managed to reach the summit at 5.30 A.M., just in time to see all the companies of white-robed pilgrims kneeling to adore the rising sun as his first rays gilded the mountain-top, and chanting deep-toned litanies. It was a very striking scene, though at a little distance the groups of white figures kneeling on the dark lava were singularly suggestive of sea-birds nestling on some high rock—a resemblance which was increased by their having removed their large mushroom-shaped white hats and covered their heads with a white cloth.

I had been told that many women of all ages perform this pilgrimage. So far from this being the case, among the many thousands of men whom we met going and returning, I only observed two women—one very old and bent almost double; the other a merry girl, who, like ourselves, seemed more intent on the pleasure of the expedition than on the expiation of her sins. The fact is, it was only in the latter half of the nineteenth century that the law was annulled which forbade any woman to ascend the holy mountain, so that it really is not customary for women to go.

Having chanted their sunrise orisons, the next care of the pilgrims is to march in procession sun-wise round the crater, a distance of about three miles. On descending the mountain, the more zealous repeat the sun-wise circuit round the base of the cone, which of course implies a very long additional walk. It is the same ceremony which I have witnessed in many a remote corner of the earth—in Himalayan forests, or round the huge dogobas in the heart of Ceylon—and which we still trace in many an old custom dating from prehistoric times, and not yet wholly extinct in our own Scottish Highlands.

Being anxious to reach the western side of the crater in time to see the vast triangular shadow frequently cast by the mountain at sunrise and at sunset, I hastened round 318and had the good-fortune to witness an effect precisely similar to what I had seen from the summit of Adam’s Peak in Ceylon, and which I am told also occurs at Pike’s Peak, Colorado—namely, a vast blue triangle, lying athwart land and sea and cloud, yet apparently resting on the atmosphere, its outlines being unbroken by any irregularity of hill or valley. It may be interesting to add that when I witnessed this phenomenon in Ceylon, the edge of the triangle was tinged with prismatic colours, giving the appearance of a triangular rainbow.

A magnificent panorama lay outstretched before us. The world below appeared as a vast plain. On every side dreamy visions of far away ocean, range beyond range of dwarfed mountains, wide expanses of level green dotted with towns, gleaming lakes, and filmy vapours forming veils which now and again hid some portion of the landscape from our sight; and, in strong contrast with all this delicate distant colour, the strong warm madder and chocolate tints of the lava foreground, melting away into the hazy greens of the forest below, while here and there, on some secluded spot, patches of last winter’s snow still lingered, soon to be covered by a fresh fall.

All around us on the steep slopes of the cone were heaped up a multitude of cairns of broken lava, memorials of many a pilgrim band—another link in the chain of curious customs common to so many races. At short intervals all round the crater are tiny shrines, where the devotees halt for the observance of some religious rite of the Shinto faith. One of these crowns the highest crag, and is conspicuous from afar by its quaint wooden torii, a curious specimen of ecclesiastical architecture, which forms the invariable gateway to every Shinto and many Buddhist temples, but which to the irreverent foreigner is rather suggestive of a gallows.

Another of these structures marks the spot where, on the edge of the crater, a holy well yields pure cold water, with 319which the devout fill their gourd-bottles, to be reverently carried home, together with large bundles of charms, as a cure for all manner of ills. I have since noted similar cold springs in the bed of the great extinct crater of Haleakala, in the Sandwich Islands, and there is one near the summit of Adam’s Peak.

I mentioned that one of my companions had already made the ascent of the mountain several times. On each previous occasion the weather had been so unpropitious that the whole scene had been shrouded in cold, grey mist, and he could not even discern the outline of the crater which yawned at his feet.

This morning the whole lay bathed in cloudless sunlight, and a clear blue sky threw out yet more vividly the wonderfully varied colours of the lava, great crags of which—red, claret, yellow, sienna, green, grey, and lavender, purply and black—rose perpendicularly from out the deep shadow, which still lay untouched by the morning light, in the depths of the crater. I believe that in reality its depth does not exceed 500 feet, while its greatest length is estimated at 3000 feet, its width 1800. We best realised its size by noting the long lines of figures (their large white hats giving those near us the appearance of locomotive mushrooms), which became mere pin-points when seen against the sky-line on the farther side. We only heard of one gentleman (a foreigner, of course) who had made a descent into the crater itself.

Very peaceful and calm was the scene in that clear early morning, without a sound save the tinkling of pilgrims’ bells. Yet, by the frequent earthquakes which still cause the land to tremble, we know that the fires which of old desolated this region still smoulder, and may at any moment break out again, and repeat the story of 1707, which is the date of the latest eruption. According to native traditions, this huge volcano arose suddenly upwards of 2000 years ago, the date assigned being B.C. 285. At the same time a mighty 320convulsion rent the earth near Kioto, 300 miles to the southward, forming a chasm sixty miles long by eighteen broad, in which now lie the blue waters of Lake Biwa.

The internal fires find vent at many points all over these fair green isles, which are dotted with boiling springs and active volcanoes as numerous as those which mark the Malay Archipelago, Lombok, Sumbawa, Java, Sumatra, the Philippines—in short, all those isles which, with Japan, form a chain along which volcanic action extends right up to the shores of Kamskatka.

In Kiusiu alone there are five active volcanoes. Of one, near Nagasaki, called the High Mountain of Warm Springs, noted for its hot sulphur baths, the Japanese tell how, in 1793, the summit fell in, and torrents of boiling water burst forth. On one occasion it overwhelmed the city of Shima Barra, destroying 35,000 persons. We are also told of a mountain fortress in the district which suddenly subsided, and the place where the hill had stood became a lake.

There has scarcely been one century in which the national records have not had occasion to record dire catastrophes caused by earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. In fact there are historic records of no less than 231 eruptions, many being of appalling magnitude.

The latest eruption of Fujiyama was in A.D. 1707, when a mighty earthquake shook the land, and the living fires forced open a new chimney at three thousand feet below the summit, vomiting showers of ashes, which fell at distances of one hundred miles. The cone thus formed remains to this day, and is called Ho-yei-San. I confess I grudge the honorific San being applied to the unsightly lump which, as seen from certain points, mars the otherwise faultless sweep of the perfect outline.

One of the most active volcanoes in the group at the present day is that of Asama-yama, which towers to a height of 8282 feet, and is always capped by a cloud of heavy smoke, telling of the internal fires. For just a century 321it had been comparatively quiet, and in the summer of 1783 the industrious people were gathering the abundant harvest of their well-tilled corn-fields, when suddenly came the awful eruption of dense showers of ashes and red-hot boulders and rock-masses, which brought total destruction to upwards of fifty prosperous villages and their inhabitants. Vast tracts of forest were burnt by the fiery lava-streams which poured down the sides of the mountain, and for a radius of many miles the whole country was smothered beneath a layer of ashes varying from two to five feet in depth.

The year 1854–55 was marked by appalling activity of the internal forces. The isle of Shikoku was shaken by an earthquake so terrific that the solid earth heaved in waves like an angry sea. Innumerable fissures were rent open, and from these gaping chasms mud and water were thrown up. From the mountains fell vast avalanches of earth and rock, which overwhelmed whole cities, and what escaped the landslips was destroyed by fires which very naturally broke out in the ruins. Tidal waves swept the shores and rushed up the rivers, doing appalling damage and flooding the land. A Russian frigate which was lying off the coast of Idzu, in Shimoda, was spun round and round forty times within half an hour, and was then thrown ashore a total wreck. In one night seventy shocks were counted. In the district of Tosa all dwelling-houses were either thrown down or shaken to their foundations. The country for a space of four hundred miles presented one widespread scene of desolation. In the ensuing twelve months upwards of eight hundred distinct shocks were experienced.

In 1855 occurred an earthquake so terrific that the city of Tokio was well-nigh destroyed. Upwards of 14,000 dwelling-houses and 2000 strong fireproof storehouses were destroyed. Multitudes of persons were crushed in their own falling houses; others fell into clefts and chasms which suddenly opened beneath their feet and swallowed them up. 322Then fire spread and raged furiously, so that the city was made desolate, the dead being variously estimated at from fifty to a hundred thousand.

1888 was marked by one of the most appalling eruptions that can possibly be conceived, when on a calm peaceful summer morning, 15th June, without any notice whatever, Bandai-san, a mountain about 5800 feet in height, after slumbering for eleven centuries, suddenly reawakened with such terrific energy that it blew off one of its own huge cones, thereby destroying thirty square miles of country and six hundred human beings.

So long had the volcano been at rest, that from base to summit, it was clothed with richest vegetation, in the midst of which nestled picturesque groups of châlets, clustering around the boiling springs which attracted not only invalids, who came to bathe in the healing waters, but pleasure-seekers who delighted in the lovely scenery. Consequently in summer the usually small population of these pretty villages was augmented to about eight thousand persons enjoying their pleasant life, so full of graceful courtesies and pretty customs.

Asama-yama had done its work of destruction in 1783 in the ordinary manner of dry volcanoes, by the ejection of molten rock and scoriæ, but Bandai-San accomplished its terrible mission by the agency of steam, which so effectually permeated the whole mass, that when the explosion occurred, which suddenly in a moment blew the whole cone, as such, out of existence, it fell over thirty square miles of country, in one awful shower of scalding mud, burying a dozen villages, and causing the death in agony of six hundred human beings, and of a multitude of animals, besides involving total ruin to at least four times as many survivors, of whom a considerable number were terribly injured.

All was calm and peaceful when, on that beautiful summer morning, the happy people went out for their 323early bath at one or other of the hot springs on the mountain; but at 7.30 they were startled by a violent earthquake-shock. Another and another followed in rapid succession, the earth heaving like a tossing sea, and then followed an appalling sound as of the roar of a thousand thunder-claps, blending with the shriek of all the steam-whistles and roaring steam-boilers of earth, and ere the terrified and deafened human beings could recall their bewildered senses, they beheld the whole mighty cone of Sho-Bandai-San (one of five which crowned the mountain) blown bodily into the air, overspreading the whole heavens with a vast, dense pall of mud-spray followed by dark clouds of vapour and such stifling gases as well-nigh choked all living creatures.

Then leaping tongues of infernal flame, crimson and purple, seemed to flash right up to the heavens, and after appalling earth-throes, these were succeeded by showers of red-hot ashes, sulphur, and boiling water, accompanied by fearful subterranean roaring and rumbling, and by a rushing whirlwind of hurricane force, uprooting great trees, and hurling them afar.

Another moment, and there poured forth floods of boiling liquid mud, which swept down the mountain-side with such velocity, that within ten minutes the scalding torrent was rushing past a village ten miles down the valley. The eruption continued for about two hours, till the awful mud-wave had poured itself out, transforming thirty square miles of most lovely country into a chaos of horror, the thick layer of horrid mud varying in depth from ten to a hundred and fifty feet; and in places suggesting a raging sea whose gigantic waves have suddenly been turned to concrete. On every side reigned absolute desolation, with a horrid smell rising from stagnant sulphur-pools, and the pretty villages and courteous people lay buried deep beneath this hideous sea of mud.

Equally appalling in its suddenness was the awful earthquake 324which in thirty seconds, in the early morning of 28th October 1891, desolated the Nagoya-Gifu and Ogaki plains, one of the most beautiful, fertile, and thickly inhabited districts in Japan; Nagoya with a population of about 162,000, Gifu a busy manufacturing city with 14,083, and Ogaki with 10,522 kindly, industrious people—the last-named being chiefly known to travellers on account of the excellence of its curiosity-shops. It is a district of dark, rugged hills, with waterfalls, foaming rivers, rocky bluffs, avenues of noble old pine trees, and beautiful sea-coast, varied by level grassy plains and rich cultivation.

It was the one district in the whole of Japan which seemed to enjoy complete immunity from all volcanic disturbances; but never was there a ruder awakening to full knowledge of the awful changes which may be wrought “in the twinkling of an eye,” than the awful thirty seconds which (according to official returns, which are always minimised) caused the death of 9968 persons, and grievous bodily injury to 100,000 more. Buildings of every description fell, as though built of cards, sides of mountains slipped down and dammed rivers, forming lakes and carrying away bridges and miles of railway. The cost to Government was thirty million dollars, but to private individuals the widespread ruin was incalculable.

As regards results, this has probably been the most severe earthquake-shock on record, even in Japan. Though the first few seconds sufficed to accomplish a work of destruction probably without parallel, the earth tremors continued from 28th October till 4th November, accompanied by subterranean roaring.

Beyond a somewhat unusual stillness and warmth, there was absolutely no premonition, when at 6.30 A.M. (when the sun had risen gloriously, and workers were all astir) the solid earth seemed to upheave to a height of three feet, and as suddenly sank down again, swaying sideways from east to west and back, as though a giant nurse was violently 325rocking a cradle! In every direction the earth was seamed with fissures, right across the roads, some of unfathomable depth; from these spouted geysers of boiling mud, or of volcanic sand.

The road from Nagoya to Gifu and Ogaki—which on that peaceful morning had connected such a series of villages and small towns as to form an almost continuous street twenty miles in length, all astir with cheerful, kindly people—was at noon simply a narrow lane between interminable piles of shattered woodwork, broken tiles, and fallen thatch: all that had once been comfortable homes, and which in thousands of cases formed the tomb of most of the family. As a matter of course, numerous fires broke out, and consuming all wood and straw-work, cremated numberless dead and wounded, and the smoke-laden air was heavy with the stench, though this was far less horrible than in other places, where mangled bodies lay inextricably imprisoned beneath heavy rafters, and spread pestilence around.

Upwards of half a million persons were left homeless and in absolute penury, as well as in direct mental and physical distress, mourning their ten thousand dead, and the far larger number mutilated for life. More than three thousand wells were totally destroyed, so that thirst was added to starvation, notwithstanding the marvellous promptitude, presence of mind, humanity, and power of organisation of the Japanese officials, aided by the doctors and nurses from the foreign missionary hospitals, in dealing with such widespread calamity.

With marvellous rapidity new houses were constructed, yet multitudes were still homeless when snow fell to the depth of more than a foot, and then bitter frost set in. Then came a rapid thaw, and the shattered embankments of the rivers were wholly unable to withstand the rush of roaring torrents, and so gave way, flooding large areas of country.

And to all these miseries was shortly added pestilence in 326the form of virulent typhoid fever, bred of the stench of putrefying corpses and polluted wells; and influenza likewise claimed many victims, who had to battle with it under such terrible circumstances.

It is remarkable that, amid this wholesale destruction of all works of man, so very few trees were overthrown, and in many places the homes, so suddenly transformed to wholesale sepulchres, were overhung by camellia-trees laden with rosy blossoms. Where the bodies of the dead were buried, the first care of the survivors was to protect the grave with hoops of slim bamboo, and adorn it with at least a section of larger bamboo to serve as a vase in which to place a graceful spray of chrysanthemum. For though the stone torii and lanterns and pretty bridges were all overthrown, the flowers blossomed gloriously as ever, while in the fields the yellow rice seemed to bend under its weight of grain, as if inviting the reaper—but no reapers were there, and the appearance of the crops proved delusive, for the grain was light at best, and was almost destroyed by severe gales.

Again in 1896, the sea-coast was swept by an appalling tidal wave which was attributed to a submarine eruption. And so the tale goes on.

Scarcely a week passes in which a slight shock of earthquake is not felt; so there is, of course, no certainty that such scenes of horror may not at any time be repeated. Moreover, within a day’s march of the mighty mountain lie the sulphurous boiling springs of O-ji-goku (i.e. the Great Hell), and, at no great distance in other directions, two sets of hot springs, both bearing the name of Yumoto. And, looking down from Fujiyama summit, far on the dreamy horizon I saw, or fancied I saw, a faint indication of smoke from the active volcanic isle of Vries (or Ashima), which lies just off the coast of Idzu. Such neighbours as these make it impossible to ignore the probability that a day may come ere long when Fuji-San shall awake from his 327sleep of a century and a half, and may resume his crown of fire, as Vesuvius, Etna, Tarawara in New Zealand and many another volcano, fondly assumed to be extinct, have done ere now.

Vesuvius is said to have made such good use of 150 years of rest that, at the time of the great eruption in A.D. 1306, not only were all its slopes richly cultivated, but chestnut groves and pools of water had sprung up within the crater. Here on the extreme summit of Fujiyama, we have the water-springs, but no trace of vegetation, though a few blades of grass have struggled into life within a very short distance of the summit.

Whether fiery streams will ever again pour down the mountain-side and burn their way through the green forests, we cannot prophesy. At present, however, all seems quiet, and the mighty giant sleeps.

Having wandered leisurely round the crater I began to think of breakfast, and, returning to my companions, found them and our followers already in possession of one of a row of about a dozen small huts facing the rising sun, erected as lodgings for the pilgrims. They are tiny stone houses, partly scooped out of the cinder bank, the roof weighted with heavy blocks of lava, to resist the force of wild tempests. There is a small space artificially levelled in front of the huts from which float numbers of the gay pilgrim flags already mentioned. Within each hut is a small space neatly matted, and here, having spread the soft warm quilts brought with us, I gladly lay down for an hour’s rest, while my companions made the circuit of the crater. Our large sheets of oiled paper were hung across as a curtain to shield us from the glare, and to separate our corner from that where our host was cooking. Happily, in mercy to our eyes, he had substituted charcoal for wood. I may mention, by the way, that water here boils at 184° Fahr. Above my head, even in this rude hut, was the invariable domestic shrine. Here, of course, it was Shinto, 328and in addition to the usual sacred mirror of polished metal, was a model of Fujiyama rudely hewn in lava.

Our quarters being as comfortable as could possibly be expected, it had been our intention to spend the day and night quietly on the summit. Unfortunately, however, our brother pilgrim, who on his previous ascents had already suffered from mountain-sickness, produced by the rarified air, was on this occasion so violently and continuously sick that it was evidently necessary for him to descend at once. Both our Japanese attendants likewise suffered, and asked leave to go back. They had crushed sour pink plums on their temples, which seemed to us a novel remedy, but is one much in favour in Japan. Had we but known it, nature had provided a far more efficacious remedy in the snow-drifts of the crater—bathing the temples with snow being the surest protection against sickness and headache thus produced.

At first we two ladies decided on remaining by ourselves (having perfect trust in our coolies), but unfortunately, after an interval of rest, I too awoke feeling so sick, that, combining the chances of increasing illness with that of bad weather on the morrow, it was voted better that we should also return to the lower world—a decision which I now sincerely regret, being convinced that my own indisposition was simply momentary and due to over-fatigue. I am the more inclined to this belief as two parties of our friends, fired by our example, made the pilgrimage a few days later; each spent a night on the summit, coming in for grand thunderstorms, torrents of rain, and a magnificent sunrise; but no one complained of any tendency to sickness, though one stalwart Scot did awaken with a headache, which, however, he attributed to the mountain dew in which he had pledged his absent friends, and not to the mountain air.

Our coolies once more shouldered their burdens, with an alacrity which surprised us, and at 11.30 we regretfully took our last look at the magnificent scene, and, already over-wearied, commenced the descent. Large white clouds 329encompassed the base of the mountain, and floating mists played about the summit, veiling the sun and shielding us from its burning rays. Nevertheless, the descent was most exhausting, and seemed never-ending. The path lay straight down the cone, over deep soft ash and crumbly scoriæ, in which we sank over the ankles, and which kept penetrating into our boots. We felt grateful to our pilgrim predecessors, whose straw shoes strewed the earth in thousands, making it somewhat better for us.

It was 4 P.M. when we reached the rest-house where we had left our kangos, and much did we enjoy some good egg saki, as did also our coolies, who, having made an excellent meal and transferred the luggage to a packhorse which we were fortunate enough to secure, shouldered the kangos, in which we wearily lay, and trotted off quite cheerily, only halting to smoke beneath a fine old larch-tree, from the branches of which hung innumerable pairs of old straw shoes, tied together and thrown up for luck by the happy pilgrims whose task is accomplished, and who have secured a store of merit and sanctity to last for years to come. Our bearers added their sandals, and as many more as they could find lying on the path, evidently considering it a good game. They then trotted on down-hill to Subashiri, where we arrived about 5.30. This time we found the good rooms reserved for us, and hot baths, the advantage of which the Japanese so fully understand, were all ready. These, followed by a good night’s rest, partly restored us, though I confess I was stiff and aching for many days to come.

We spent the following morning in pleasant idleness at the old Shinto temple, only doing a three hours’ evening march to Gotemba, whence we proposed starting long before daylight. A message was, however, brought to us that the police, who as a matter of course had demanded our passports, refused to allow us to pass till we had been inspected by the doctor, a ceremony which could not be performed till next day. This was on account of the cholera panic.

330Tired as we were, we concluded that the only thing to be done was to put on our boots again and march in person to the police office, where our healthy appearance, and extreme civility, so overawed two minute policemen, that they allowed us to pass on unmolested. So at 3 A.M. the good old landlady and cook were astir, to feed us and our coolies, and at 4 we started in the dark. At one point the coolies evidently had a great joke, and, laughing heartily but very silently, they ran as hard as they could for about half a mile. We could not understand their fun at the time, but afterwards discovered that we were passing the house of the dreaded doctor, who might have detained us as he had done other people.

The sun rose while we toiled up the Otomitonga Pass, and at every step the view became more grand, as Fujiyama stood revealed, rising in cloudless beauty from the vast intervening plain. Scarcely, however, had we feasted our eyes on the lovely vision, of which I happily secured a very careful sketch, when the mists uprose, and in a few moments not the faintest suggestion of a mountain was visible, to the great grief of a large party who toiled up the hill from Hakoni Lake, just too late to see it.

We descended the pass, and, crossing the valley, made for a region known as O-ji-goku, “the Great Hell,” where, in a hollow between two dark wooded hills, the steam of boiling sulphur-springs rises ceaselessly from a bare expanse of red, broken ground. Before reaching this spot we arrived at the charmingly primitive tea-house of Sengoku Yu, in the heart of the beautiful forest. The water from the boiling sulphur-springs is brought down in bamboo pipes, and is here cooled in simple but effective baths. One of these having been told off for our exclusive use, screened, and placed under the guardianship of a pretty Japanese boy, who, proud of his charge, sat on watch to keep off all intruders, we were able to revel in peace, and did our best to boil away all painful memories of our climb. Then, 331arrayed in cool Japanese dresses, lent to us by our hostess, we were ready to enjoy a semi-native supper. On the following morning we repeated our sulphur-bath, and recommend the process to all future pilgrims.

Then, climbing the hill to make a nearer inspection of “the Great Hell,” we tried various foolishly rash experiments in the way of tasting sulphur, alum, and iron-springs, cooked our luncheon in one, and then, braving the choking sulphurous fumes, which made us cough violently, we inspected the process by which sulphur rock is pounded to a fine powder, thrown into furnaces where it becomes a gas, and, passing through rude retorts, drips in a deep orange-coloured fluid into large vessels, where it becomes pure, solid sulphur, of a pale chrome colour, after which it is made up in matted bundles and carried down the mountain on the backs of little Japanese women, that it may finally reach Yokohama, and be used in making medicinal baths.

With regard to the very unpleasant name given to the sulphur-producing district, I may mention that in various parts of both the Northern and Southern Isle we find the title of Ko-ji-koku or O-ji-goku, i.e. “the Little or the Great Hell,” while one such spot in the neighbourhood of Nagasaki is distinguished as the Chiū-to-Ji-goku, or “the Middle-Class Hell.” One beautiful geyser in the neighbourhood of the latter is known as the Dai-kiō-kwan, “the Loud Wailing,” as suggesting the anguish of souls in Purgatory. Naturally the Buddhists, who exhaust all the resources of art and language to depict the horrors of the seven hells, were not likely to let slip so suggestive a natural illustration.

When I was at Nagasaki I had occasion to visit the courteous Roman Catholic Bishop. While waiting, I had leisure to inspect sundry large, coloured prints of Purgatory, the Day of Judgment, and Hell—a teaching of terror; devils with pitchforks driving affrighted human beings into pits of flame, and all fully described in Japanese. Having recently visited the very realistic reproductions of the seven 332hells in many Buddhist temples, I felt that there was little to choose between these interpreters of the Great Hereafter.

Descending in a thick, soaking mist, we halted at the tea-house of Obango, where a group of native travellers were listening in rapt attention to a woman reciting, in an extraordinary voice down in her throat, gurgling and cackling, and occasionally blowing through a shell, or loudly tapping with her fan. She was apparently reciting some old story, but none of our party could understand a word she said, as she was speaking in a dialect almost obsolete, which few of the Japanese themselves could follow. An hour’s row down the lovely Hakoni Lake brought us to the village of the same name, where we found many friends in pleasant summer quarters, and where the chief attraction of every house and every walk lies in the view it commands of Fujiyama.

Here I spent a delightful fortnight with the Dyers, who were renting a pretty Japanese house during the summer vacation. Every day we made delightful expeditions to specially beautiful scenes, to visit fascinating rural villages, quite untouched by the foreign element, and we lingered beneath the shade of grand cryptomerias with an undergrowth of bright blue hydrangeas, orange tiger-lilies, small lilac and white lilies, and campanulas.

Remembering our pleasant sulphur-bath at Sengoku Yu, we went one day to the sulphur-springs at Ashinoyu, which are more fashionable, and where the whole air is tainted with the smell of sulphuretted hydrogen, whereas at Sengoku Yu the baths have a clean smell of sulphurous acid. So, leaving the town, I consoled myself by sketching a fine image of Dai Butzu, sculptured on a rock on the hill above the village, returning by a grand avenue of cryptomerias.

We witnessed a pathetic annual feast for the dead, when every house spreads a variety of things good to eat before its domestic shrine. These are for the spirits of all the hungry dead, not only their own ancestors, but also the 333neglected spirits whose relatives are too poor to provide food for them. This feast is laid out on many successive days, and ends in a matsuri, i.e. one of those always attractive general festivals.

It was tantalising to turn away from such varied beauty and interest, but an invitation from Sir Harry Parkes to H.B.M. Legation at Tokio, to witness an absolutely unique festival given by the people to the Mikado and his American guests, General and Mrs. Ulysses Grant, was irresistible, and so I bade adieu to beautiful Lake Hakoni and the many friends there.

CHAPTER XVIII The People entertain the Mikado and General Ulysses Grant—Return to San Francisco.

My dear Family—My last letter to you was begun on the summit of Fujiyama. Now this, my very last letter from Japan, is to tell you about a very remarkable festival, which really will rank as quite an historical event, being the first time that the Child of the Sun (the Mikado) has been known to appear openly at any mere festivity, though he has recently shown himself at some official ceremonies.

This was a grand entertainment at which the Mikado was the guest of his people, and which was got up in order to show General Ulysses Grant of America something of real old Japanese feats of arms. It was held in the great park of Uyeno, which is at all times exceedingly beautiful, but is now decorated like some fairy scene, while the masses of foliage make a grand background for the countless thousands of Japanese spectators.

Sir Harry Parkes most considerately invited me to stay at the Legation, and of course being his guest ensured my seeing everything to perfection. And truly it is something to have seen the Son of Heaven, that “spiritual Emperor” concerning whose hidden radiance we used to hear such vague, misty statements, and who, only ten years ago, was still considered too sacred for mortal eyes to look upon. I only wish we could have seen him and all the Imperial Princes and great nobles in their beautiful national dress, instead of the European uniform and cocked hat which is so very unbecoming to them all.

335Truth to say, personal beauty is not the strong point of the Emperor Mutsuhito. He is a man of middle height (perhaps five feet eight), very pale, with clear, dark eyes, well-shaped brow, and a slight moustache and imperial. It is a very earnest, grave, sad face for so young a man (he is only about thirty), but this is fully accounted for by all the tremendous changes through which he has already passed, and in which he has borne his part so wisely.

Moreover, he has had his full share of domestic trials, all his children having died almost at their birth—a serious matter to the direct descendant of the Sun-Goddess, who has not only to transmit this high lineage to another generation, but also to raise up sons who can carry on the ancestral worship. I was told last year that additions have recently been made to the Imperial household, after the manner of Jacob’s domestic circle, in the hopes that as Leah and Rachel were provided with sons by proxy, so may the Empress Haruku be blessed.^[68]

It was very touching to notice the appearance of extreme reverence with which the assembled crowds awaited the moment when they might for one moment look upon the sacred form of their Emperor. In those vast multitudes all were quiet and orderly; they had decorated the city for miles in his honour, and now they were waiting in breathless expectation for his coming.

At several points he halted to receive addresses, but the chief interest centred at one spot where many thousands of his oldest subjects, seated on the ground, waited to do homage to their Imperial master. Two thousand four hundred persons upwards of eighty years of age had been gathered together from every corner of Tokio, and on each was bestowed a gift in memory of this wonderful day—the very first occasion when a Mikado had ever been entertained by his subjects.

What strange memories must have passed through the minds of many of this great company of octogenarians, 336recollecting the marvellous waves of change that have passed over the land since their early days—the tides of war, the oppressive feudalism, the all-pervading military element, the jealous exclusion of all foreign influence—and now, to see the stupendous honours showered on a foreigner who was not even noble by birth, simply an American citizen, but now received by the sacred Son of Heaven as one for whom he could scarcely sufficiently mark his esteem, and whose counsel he even deigned to seek.

Every street through which the honoured guests were expected to pass is so decorated as to be equally attractive by day and by night. Thousands of flags float from the eaves, showing the Rising Sun of Japan in scarlet or crimson on a white ground, or vicé-versâ. All the principal buildings, and various triumphal arches, are adorned with tiers of bright paper lanterns, all of the same colour, with the same emblem, while on either side of the streets, for a distance of several miles, light fences have been erected, from which hang continuous rows of lanterns, all alike representing the rising sun. In some places three or four such rows are suspended, one above the other, and the effect produced is excellent. These decorations extend in one direction for four miles, all the way to the Shin Bashi (i.e. the new bridge), near the railway station, and also the whole distance to the palace where General Grant is living.

In Uyeno Park the lanterns are even more numerous and their decorative effect far greater, for they hang in clusters of bright crimson from the boughs of all the grand old trees, as if we had been transported to some fairyland full of Christmas-trees, all laden with strange, jewelled fruit. I am told that there are upwards of seventy thousand lanterns in Uyeno Park alone! Here, too, there are light, airy fences to support the long lines of lanterns which seem suspended in mid-air, and which are so hung as to cross and recross one another again and again. This is a very pretty device, all the more charming because so simple. At one point 337there is a gigantic sun, entirely composed of crimson lanterns.

The great feature of the day was a grand tournament, at which some of the old feudal sports were revived. Sad to say, these picturesque relics of a Past (which only ten years ago was The Present) are so rapidly fading away that we were told there had been considerable difficulty in finding men who were competent to exhibit their skill, so quickly has their right hand forgot its cunning in these new utilitarian days when every man must work hard for his daily bread. We were told that some of those whose feats so amazed us all, had to be sought for amongst the working population, and some were earning their living by hard toil, running in the shafts of jinrikshas. Yet one and all ranked as Hatamotos—that is to say, retainers of the Shogun—and as such were but a few years ago entitled to lord it over all the civilians and burghers of the city.

It is greatly to be feared that when these few men have passed away, the last traces of old Japan and its chivalry will finally fade from the earth. So I felt that I was indeed fortunate to have this opportunity of even a glimpse of this ghost of olden days.

We were conducted to excellent seats in the grand stand, very near that centre of light where (in a pavilion draped with stars and stripes, mingled with rising suns, which also floated overhead) the Child of the Sun and the Wellington of America sat together to witness the feats of arms. These commenced with various fencing matches, which were only remarkable for the real old Japanese dresses of the fencers, and the hearty goodwill with which they smote one another with their spears, all the time growling like wild beasts. Then we were shown how women used to fight, some carrying a net, others a rope attached to a stone ball, which they could fling round an adversary’s neck and so lasso him.

Happily all who took part in this great tournament wore 338the picturesque dresses which have so recently been discarded. Close to us were a group of men in antique yellow dress, with quaint, tall, dark head-dress, and many others equally interesting. Just as the feats of arms began, the essentially foreign band struck up, “Voici le sabre de mon père,” which was certainly appropriate.

By far the most interesting feature of the day was the archery, which was so accurate as to be quite wonderful. The archers were all mounted on swift horses, with gay trappings, and enormous stirrups shaped like a heavy wooden sâbot, but beautifully lacquered. The riders wore rich dresses of various gay colours, and the wide trousers of the old Samurai, over which fall large flaps of deer or tiger-skin, the latter denoting high rank. Very wide-brimmed hats completed the costume, and looked exceedingly uncomfortable as they were blown backward by the wind.

At intervals round the course were placed men dressed in white, like Shinto priests (probably they were priests, as archery, like wrestling, is so often connected with religious festivals), in charge of three diamond-shaped targets. The archers approached one by one, their horses naturally falling into a swinging gallop. Each rider stood erect in his great stirrups, with bow bent and arrow poised, not pointing ahead of him, but sideways, and at the very instant he passed the first target, the shaft flew from the bow so swiftly that we literally could not see its course, but in the twinkling of an eye, a shower of bright fragments of sparkling tinsel fell from the split target, proving to all far and near how true had been the archer’s aim.

As the horse galloped on, the archer snatched a second arrow from the quiver which hung behind his shoulders, poised it, and again at the very second of passing the second target the arrow flew, swift and unerring, and again a shower of glittering tinsel certified his skill to the unnumbered thousands of spectators, who had closed in around the 339course like a living amphitheatre, and whose applause now rent the air.

Still the good steed, with neck outstretched, held on his headlong career, the rider apparently paying no heed whatever to its guidance, but keeping his own face turned at a right angle, while he rapidly poised a third arrow, and once more drawing his bow, at the very instant of passing the third target, a glittering shower once again proved to the gazing multitude how infallible was his aim. Again thunders of applause proved that the old intense sympathy with all knightly feats of arms is not yet extinct in the hearts of the people.

As the first archer rode off the course he was succeeded by several others; all of them, with only one exception, hit the targets every time. We did feel so sorry for the man who failed, for such an ordeal as the presence of the Mikado was in itself sufficient to make any loyal subject nervous, and when one target was missed, it was scarcely possible to recover sufficiently to take true aim for the others. Nevertheless, even Japanese politeness could not silence a little murmur of derision from the crowd.

The other competitors vied with one another in giving proofs of their extraordinary dexterity—one man especially always held his arrow above his head till he was actually opposite the target, and it seemed to the onlookers as if he had certainly presumed too far on his skill. But no! swifter than thought, he fitted the shaft, drew his bow, split the target, and passed on to repeat the feat a second and a third time, giving us some idea of what a terrible foe he would prove were his arrows winged with deadly intent.

The archery was succeeded by various equestrian sports. A pretty feat, which seemed to depend as much on skill in taking advantage of the breeze as in actual horsemanship, consisted in so guiding the steed, that a strip of bright cloth or ribbon (which at first lay rolled up on a basket fastened to the back of the rider) gradually unwound itself, till it 340floated as a streamer of about thirty feet in length; a streamer which might never once touch the ground, however often the rider might change his course.

Then we had an exhibition of hunting, which was not very lively. A number of mounted huntsmen, armed with bows and blunted arrows, started in pursuit of dogs, but these poor creatures had been so long in captivity and so tightly tied up, that they had no energy even for flight, but sneaked quietly off the scene the moment they were unbound. So then canvas bags were fastened to a long rope and dragged round the park by a horseman at full gallop, the others following in hot pursuit.

All the time these sports were going on, there had been a continuous discharge of day fireworks, a very curious variety of pyrotechnics. A sound as of a cannon called our attention to a sort of shell which was shot heavenward, and there burst with a loud report, which was followed by a shower of all manner of odd things—fans, miniature umbrellas, paper handkerchiefs, and a great variety of ingenious paper ornaments. Occasionally quite a large paper balloon appeared, gradually expanded, and floated away into space; or showers of long ribbons of bright-coloured paper came wriggling down like an army of flying serpents. Paper fishes, too, seemed to swim, and birds and butterflies to fly, with every varying current of air. Some of the shells were filled with chemicals, and as they burst, the atmosphere was tinted by films of many-coloured smoke.

At the close of this exhibition the Mikado withdrew in his handsome European carriage, with mounted escort; and the Imperial Princes and Princesses—the latter in their pretty national dress—with the Grant party and other principal guests (which of course included Sir Harry Parkes’s party), adjourned to dine in a large temporary building, consisting of a circular platform with a roof supported by pillars, and thatched with boughs of cryptomeria—very 341pretty. Here we had an excellent dinner, while food on a gigantic scale was provided in the park for the general public.

Afterwards we adjourned to another very pretty circular, temporary room, which had been fitted up for the Mikado. His own beautiful chrysanthemum-lacquer furniture had been removed immediately on his departure, but a very fine screen of Japanese warriors remained, and all round the room were flowers in pretty vases, gold-fish in flat dishes, and the walls were draped with lilac cloth with pattern of gold chrysanthemums.

As the twilight deepened, we all went to see the fireworks from stands on the brink of the great lake, which (at all times beautiful) is now covered with large pink and white lotus-blossoms. The whole edge of the lake is outlined with white lanterns, while tier above tier rise lines of crimson lanterns, marking different streets and tea-houses, all reflected in the lake. The island on which stands Benten Sama’s temple, was brilliantly illuminated, and thence the fireworks were let off, one or two at a time. This went on for a couple of hours—pretty, but not exciting.

Finally we had a stroll through the beautiful illuminated park, crowded with happy people, and in all that multitude we did not see one person drunk or in any way disorderly; and so ended a most interesting day, aided by perfect weather. We came from the Legation in a procession of sixteen jinrikshas, each drawn by two men, tandem, and preceded by a mounted orderly. Our human ponies trotted at a brisk pace the whole five miles, and seemed none the worse.

My last voyage to San Francisco was from Tahiti on board the Paloma, a beautiful little brigantine, weighing 230 tons. 342We were six weeks without once touching land, and the voyage, which ought to have been about four thousand miles, proved to be fully six thousand. This was chiefly due to a succession of calms, which left us quite at the mercy of unaccountable currents, which carried us far out of our course, and combined with the very irregular behaviour of the trade-winds in baffling our onward progress by taking us far to the west, all of which the Danish captain and his wife quite seriously attributed to my perversity in writing letters on board. They said it always happens when passengers will write, and they knew how it would be as soon as they saw my ink-bottle, which they would fain have thrown overboard.

Well, now I am on board a splendid Pacific mail-steamer 424 feet long and weighing 5500 tons; weather perfect, and very pleasant companions. I never more thoroughly enjoyed any voyage, or the sense of repose in getting through three weeks without feeling obliged to go and see ANYTHING—not even a school of porpoises! for all on board are old travellers who have exhausted such novelties, and so do not disturb themselves or their neighbours! Indeed, outside of our floating city there has been little to see save a lovely calm sea, across which we glide so steadily that I sit in my own cabin writing or painting all the mornings. We have not seen even one sail since we cleared Yokohama (about four thousand miles).

Our start from Yokohama was a very pretty scene, as the Japanese authorities, who had arranged a succession of brilliant receptions for General and Mrs. Grant from the moment of their landing in Nagasaki, did not neglect to speed the departing of their warrior guest, whose fame as a conquering hero appealed so vividly to all their own fighting instincts.

So when the Grants embarked, they were escorted on board by a crowd of naval officers in full uniform, with sword and cocked hat; and as we steamed out of harbour, 343five foreign and many Japanese men-of-war, and all the other ships, were dressed with flags; the men-of-war manned yards and fired salutes. One Japanese man-of-war escorted us forty miles down the Bay of Yeddo, then the men stood in pyramids up the ladders, and cheered, and then fired the final salute, after which we settled down to most enjoyable peace and quiet.

The feeding arrangements are excellent, and the dining-tables divided into parties of ten, so that each is like a private dinner-table. I am with the Grants at the Captain’s table, “Commodore” Maury—so called from his being senior of the Pacific mail captains. He is an old U.S. naval officer—a Southerner, and he and the General exchange interesting war and other reminiscences and anecdotes, and indulge in much dry humour.

I am much interested by my various companions, and especially in the American Wellington and his good wife, with both of whom I have become great friends. We had met repeatedly in China. She is a very pleasant old lady—affectionate and kind, and withal full of fun. Of course in their grand tour round the world she has been entertained by a vast number of celebrities, and what charms me is the perfect simplicity retained both by herself and her beloved “Ulyss” (which is the wifely form of Ulysses). They are quite unspoilt by all their amazing varieties of fortune, and by the adulation which has been lavished upon them, and it is very nice to hear the delight with which the old lady repeats some instance of her General’s little thoughtfulnesses for “his sweetheart.”

It was an early love-match and long engagement, when he was a poor young officer in the Mexican service, and she the daughter of a superior farmer, who thought the young soldier was not good enough for his child, and for a long time would not sanction the match. Finally Ulysses left the army and joined his father, who was in business in the leather trade. That did not answer, and for a while he 344lived with his father-in-law, driving the cart to market to sell the farm produce. (I am told all this by Americans on board.)

Then the war broke out, and his instincts at once led him to develop his latent talent. He rose to distinction with wonderful rapidity, and gained several important battles with armies of about half the numerical strength of the Southerners. Finally he became, as you know, Commander-in-Chief of the vast Northern army, and fought literally a hundred battles.

Of course he was vilified and reviled by all the democratic party, even during the eight years that he was President. But from all accounts he has held steadily on the even tenour of his way, holding on a wonderfully clean course, and doing his best to counteract the gross corruption which seems to pervade every department of the Government.

It certainly has been a stroke of good-fortune that I should have travelled with the Grants. This city has been mad with enthusiasm in welcoming them back to America, and their reception yesterday was stupendous. Though lacking the grace of Japanese artistic decoration, there was a feeling of power that was very impressive.

As we entered “The Golden Gates,” which are the headlands at the mouth of the great harbour, and three hours’ steam from the city, we were met by two small steamers bringing the municipal authorities and many officers to welcome the General. Two huge Pacific mail-steamers, each with three thousand persons standing on deck and cheering with all their might, also came, purposing to steam back all the way, one on each side of our ship. Happily for us, the state of the tide did not allow of their doing so! The whole route lay between closely-packed steamers, yachts, and vessels of every description, all covered with flags, and 345densely crowded with human beings, all waving handkerchiefs. The continuous cheering was stupendous.

One odious steamer played a caliope, an atrocious sort of mechanical organ, which the papers this morning justly describe as “devil’s music.” All blew horrible steam-whistles, but their noise was outdone by that of the artillery. The whole coast-line on each side of the harbour bristles with forts, from which was poured forth an incessant cannonade. Volley after volley reverberated among the hills, and the clouds of smoke were lighted up with golden light from a gorgeous sunset behind us—truly “Golden Gates”—while the city lay clear before us.

All this noise was deafening, and I for one was truly thankful when, after much delay, we at length reached this gigantic hotel, in which a thousand persons are now lodging, and all the neighbouring huge hotels are equally full. This one is seven stories high, besides the ground floor, with a “lift” at each corner, which works up and down ceaselessly. The centre is a vast court into which carriages drive. It is covered with a glass roof, and the seven corridors all look down into it. These were densely crowded as the General drove in, and three hundred voices sang a chorus of welcome with very long solos by a lady. After much cheering, a good band played to solace the people while the General dined, as they were determined to hear him speak, which at length he did with characteristic brevity—even this morning’s papers can only expand his words into four lines.

All the principal streets of the city are literally covered with flags, which of course looks gay, but monotonous in the extreme, as the sole idea has been to exhibit the national flag as many million times as possible. From every house, every car, every omnibus, and across every street, hung flags without number, but all without exception the invariable Stars and Stripes. The General was escorted through all the principal streets by a vast procession, representing 346all the principal classes of the people, and divisions of the army, with banners bearing their name. Federals and Confederates, Northerners and Southerners, walked side by side, burying all enmities in this enthusiastic welcome. The different bodies of cavalry were very fine, especially the artillery, whose first detachment had fifty pure white horses, then a corps of greys, then bays, etc. Then came a wild-looking Indian tracker, who acted the part of out-rider to the carriage-and-six in which sat the General with the Mayor of the city.

Red, blue, and white lights were burned as the procession passed, lighting up all the tall spires and towers, and producing a weird effect of beautiful colour. At last the tired General reached this great hotel, to receive the aforesaid final welcome of the day. He and his family have a full week’s work cut out for them till next Monday, when they go to seek rest and peace in the Yosemite Valley amid the stillness of the glorious Sierra Nevada.

On that day I am to sail for Honolulu and the great volcanoes, active and dormant, under the especial charge of the Marshal of the Hawaiian Isles, an American who has lived in the group for thirty-five years. I was introduced to him (and to several other American Hawaiian families now returning to the Isles) by Mr. Severance, the Hawaiian Consul here, whose brother lives at Hilo, near the base of the active volcano.

I purpose spending a couple of months in the Isles, returning here just in time to cross the great continent and spend Christmas with Alastair^[69] near Baltimore, and thence back to England, when the worst of the winter is over.... Your loving sister,

CHAPTER XIX In the Hawaiian Isles—Spiritualism in Boston—Return to Britain—Invention of the System of Easy Reading for Blind and Sighted Chinese. — POSTSCRIPT — ANY SOUL TO ANY BODY. [74] — AT LAST.

The programme sketched in my letter was exactly carried out. I spent two intensely interesting months in the group which we used to call “The Sandwich Isles,” and was most kindly received by many of the principal people, including the King and Queen, his sisters, and the Dowager Queen Emma; but especially by Mr. and Mrs. Severance at Hilo. Also by some of the early American missionaries, who could tell me first-hand of the marvellous changes they had witnessed in the Isles since the days when the people first found courage to defy the wrath of the awful volcanic deities who manifested their power in such terrible earnest.

Thrilling indeed it was to hear such histories from those white-haired “fathers,” as they were lovingly called, who had borne so active a part in the conversion of the whole race to a pure Christian faith. And thrilling, too, to receive from eye-witnesses details of the successive appalling eruptions of the volcano and hairbreadth escapes of the people.

My visit to the active volcano was most happily timed, as I had the good-fortune to see and paint a succession of very remarkable changes within the bed of the great crater, and subsequently to obtain a striking picture of the interior of the largest dormant crater in the known world, strangely 348suggestive of the illustrations which scientific artists produce of the face of the moon.

All I saw and heard is fully told in my book Fire Fountains of Hawaii,^[70] which to my own mind is perhaps the most interesting of my varied travel notes.

Then once again I returned to San Francisco, my impressions of which, and of the glorious Californian forests, are recorded in Granite Crags of California (Blackwood).

Christmas with my nephew and niece in Maryland, and a very quaintly interesting New Year in Washington, were followed by a visit to wonderful Niagara (which, however, from its flat surroundings, did not entrance me, as did Yosemite in its apparent fall from heaven). Then came a delightful visit to the Winthrops at Boston, where their charming home was the centre of all the most cultivated society. There I had the great pleasure of making acquaintance with Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, and Longfellow, who each invited me to spend a most interesting day with them at their respective homes.

The latter showed me a tree close to his house, bearing an inscription to say that beneath it Washington took command of the army. The house itself was Washington’s headquarters. Mr. Holmes showed me admirable large landscapes (framed) embroidered by his daughter-in-law with silk on silk (I think). They are like very effective oil-paintings—certainly a triumph of needlework.

Mr. Winthrop took me all over Harvard College and to everything else that was best worth seeing. But one distinctive feature of Boston—as a centre of spiritualism—he and his family refused to countenance in any way. Nevertheless, as a traveller I felt that my acquaintance with Boston would be incomplete without hearing something about it, and they therefore most kindly commended me to the care of a gentleman who, though himself knowing 349nothing about it, undertook to escort me and several other inquisitive ladies to visit one of the innumerable “mediums,” whose names and addresses are registered at a regular business office.

Thither he went, and quite at random wrote down a few names of mediums, including that of Mrs. Nikersen White, a delicate little fair-haired lady, with whom he made an appointment for us on the following morning. What that lady (who by no possibility could have known any of the details on which she spoke to each of us) said to us in her pretty sitting-room, in bright morning sunshine, I do not care to recall here.

Under the name “Unfathomed Mysteries,” I wrote an account of that interview, which appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine for May 1883, and it has been reproduced in Tales from Blackwood, No. XI. I need only say that the interview so haunted me, that had I been remaining in Boston, I should have found it difficult to act on the advice of my hosts (which I am certain was sound), to have nothing more to do with it. As it was, my speedy departure for England counteracted the strong temptation to return.

Of the strange termination of my voyage in being wrecked in the ss. Montana off Holyhead, I have spoken in chapter X., when telling of my start for Ceylon on board the Hindoo, and how the Montana had on board the first and last passengers of that ill-fated vessel.

Afterwards, when from time to time news reached me of how the various vessels by which I have travelled have finally met their fate, I wrote a paper on Some Eventful Voyages,^[71] which appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine for March 1890. It certainly gave me matter for thought considering the many, many thousands of miles by land and sea, which I have travelled in such safety.

Among the new friends whom I was privileged to make soon after my return to England, few proved so congenial 350as Miss Marianne North, who had travelled over so much of the same ground as I had done, and with the same love for faithfully reproducing by her paint-brush everything of interest. I had accumulated about five hundred large landscapes in water-colour, and about as many more small ones. She had upwards of eight hundred oil-paintings, in each of which the subject was an admirable study of flowers, and the scenery in which they grew wild was thrown in as the background.

Sir Joseph Hooker told me that her work was so absolutely accurate, that he could at once identify any new plant or variety. It was therefore a matter of national congratulation when she decided to present all her pictures as a gift to the Botanical Gardens at Kew, and there herself to build a gallery in which to exhibit them permanently.

When I first knew her, these only numbered about five hundred, and her gallery was designed and built to show that number. But the craving to see more and more of her beloved plants in their native homes was still so strong, that she could not resist further arduous travels in tropical forests, whence she returned with ruined health, but with about three hundred more paintings, all of which she likewise presented to the nation. Naturally, the wall-space which would have shown five hundred to advantage was insufficient for eight hundred, and with grief I have watched her actually cut down pictures (which, as I saw them one by one in her pleasant studio, were most fascinating) to the size which space would allow, without any isolation between the pictures except a narrow line of frame. Of course such close proximity has lamentably spoilt the effect of each. But nevertheless her grand gift has been an abiding joy to thousands of visitors to the beautiful gardens at Kew.^[72]

She was a gifted and noble woman, and her home was 351ever a gathering-point for cultured and interesting people. But whether her early and life-long intimacy with Darwin and various agnostic^[73] thinkers had resulted in her own happiness, is another question. She always gave me the impression of being an exceedingly sad woman.

Many a time I have been inclined to regret that I did not follow her example, and present my portfolios as a whole to the nation, as illustrations of Greater Britain. Undoubtedly their real value was collective, in presenting successively a number of realistic pictures of each district in each country where I so long sojourned, and worked so diligently.

But unless I had also been in a position to build and keep up a costly gallery, as she had done, I knew of no means to secure a permanent exhibition. So, after acting private show-woman till my portfolios had become a weariness to me, I lent three or four hundred for a few months at a time to various great exhibitions in different cities—notably the great Indian and Colonial Exhibition in London, when each of our colonies borrowed my portfolios of its own scenery, and generously returned them to me in large frames, with heavy glass, whereby they became to me a sort of white elephant, requiring stables.

All this involved a good deal of trouble, especially in re-arranging catalogues, and no advantage whatever, beyond receiving a couple of medals, from the Indian and Colonial, and the Forestry Exhibitions. (To the latter I had contributed pictures of many of the largest or most celebrated trees in the world.) So at last I made over about two hundred and fifty of my most important pictures in India, Ceylon, New Zealand, and the Fijian Isles to my eldest nephew, to be added to the family travel-accumulations 352at Altyre and Gordonstoun. Many more are scattered in the homes of other relations, leaving a more manageable series of portfolios in my own hands, to be looked over on those very rare occasions when a busy Present allows a little time to think over the Past.

Two large portfolios containing sixty pictures in China have really proved the most useful of all, as affording interesting illustrations of scenes where our missionaries are at work in that great Empire, and as such have occupied a definite place in twenty-five of the great Missionary Exhibitions which within the last few years have been held in many large cities. They thus help to draw attention to other exhibits of the particular mission in which (as the final result of my far wanderings) I have become most deeply interested.

This is what is commonly called “The Mission to the Chinese Blind,” a title which only describes the primary phase of a very much more important invention, namely, the application to the use of sighted persons, of the same system by which the blind are so easily taught to read and write. Those practical men who have taken the trouble to give the invention a fair trial, all agree that it is destined to prove one of the most valuable factors in the evangelisation of China by the Chinese.

In order to understand its value, I must explain that one of the many difficulties of mission-work in China is due to having no alphabet. Instead of a simple A, B, C, there is a complicated ideograph to represent each sound and each combination of sounds in the many dialects of the vast empire.

It is said that in the classics of Confucius forty thousand different ideographs are found. Happily, a knowledge of four thousand suffices to enable a student to read such a book as our Bible; but to acquire even these takes an average student about six years, and even when he has attained some skill in reading, he has not begun to learn to 353write. It is estimated that only about five per cent. of the men and one in two hundred of the women in China are able to read, and these are persons of some leisure.

But our Christian converts are all poor, hard-working people. It is in China to-day as it was in Judea, when the Pharisees asked in derision, “Have any of the rulers of the people believed on Christ?” None of the rulers, but a very large number of the poor, and when once a Chinaman does become a Christian, he does so heart and soul, and never rests till he can persuade friends and neighbours to accept the same great Gift which has gladdened his own life, albeit he is certain thereby sooner or later to incur cruel persecution.

But he cannot give his neighbour a book and say, “Read this for yourself,” for few indeed of the poor can read the difficult Chinese characters. Hence the value of a system which will put very cheap books in a very easy character into the hands of the poorest.

Let me give you a slight sketch of this work and of its origin. (I have written more fully concerning it under the title The Inventor of the Numeral-Type for China, printed by Gilbert and Rivington, St. John’s House, Clerkenwell, London.) When the inventor, William Hill Murray, was a boy about nine years of age, his left arm was torn off by an accident in a sawmill in Glasgow. Ere long he was employed as a rural postman, carrying the mail-bag on his crippled shoulder eighteen miles daily, but devoting his evenings to the study of Greek and Hebrew, and beguiling his long daily tramp by the study of his Greek or Hebrew Testament.

After awhile he became convinced that in some way he was to work for missions, so he applied to the National Bible Society of Scotland, who employed him for seven years in selling portions of the Scriptures in foreign languages to the crews of foreign vessels in the Clyde. All this time he carried on his own education by rising at 3 A.M., and studying in his humble attic till 8 A.M., when he went 354to the Old College for classes till 10 A.M. Then his day of hard work as an open-air bookseller began.

When for seven years he had thus proved his grit, the Society asked him if he would go as a colporteur to North China. He accepted joyfully, and putting his soul into the study of Chinese and its bewildering ideograph, was soon able to commence work, when his exceeding courtesy and unfailing good temper soon won him a favourable reception among a race who have always something of reverence for everything literary.

Like every newcomer in China, he was amazed by the number of the blind leading the blind, in doleful processions sometimes numbering from ten to twenty, all making a hideous noise with cymbals and castanets, and howling dismal ditties, which induce the hearers to give them infinitesimal coin to bribe them to go and make their horrible music elsewhere. Their great multitude is due to leprosy, neglected smallpox, or ophthalmia, and largely to exceeding dirt.

As a general rule they bear a very bad character, but occasionally an adult who has been a devout heathen becomes blind, and of course retains the devout habit of mind. Now and then one of these amazed Mr. Hill Murray by coming to buy a copy of “The Foreign Classic of Jesus” (as they might have asked for the Classics of Confucius). They said that they wished to possess the book, hoping that some one would read it to them, as they wished to know what it was about.

Now, considering the exceeding poverty of these men, these purchases were the more remarkable, and from that time Mr. Hill Murray ceaselessly strove to devise some means by which the blind Chinese might be enabled to read for themselves. Year after year he persevered, with small encouragement from any one, for even other missionaries deemed the thing quite impracticable. And for eight years all his efforts failed.

355Then came the solution. As a Glasgow man, he had made his headquarters beside Dr. Dudgeon, likewise a Glasgow man, then in charge of the medical mission. Just about the time of Hill Murray’s arrival in Peking a little blind baby had been added to that family, and of course became the special pet of every one. When she was eight years old, a lady was sent out from England to teach the little Scottish child to read by means of Dr. Braille’s system of embossed dots, which represent the alphabet, punctuation, and music.

Naturally Mr. Hill Murray quickly mastered these, but how could this simple system be applied to China, which has no alphabet? As he prayed for guiding, the thought was given to him: “Make the dots represent numerals. Then write out all the sounds in use at Peking, with a numeral under each, and in reading or writing only mark the number, and memory will supply the corresponding sound.” So instead of reading a n d H e w e n t u p, the dots all stand only for numbers, and the gliding finger recognises 1, 26, 48, 94, 308, etc., and simultaneously the lips utter in Chinese, and He went up in-to an ex-ceed-ing high mountain, i.e. one numeral suggests one sound.

Having completed this arrangement, Mr. Hill Murray selected four blind men who were not lepers—a matter of some consequence in bringing them under his own roof—but who were otherwise typical cases, their fingers being either knotted with rheumatism or hardened by toil, and proceeded to teach them. In less than three months those four poor blind beggars could read and write fluently, far better than the majority of their sighted countrymen could do after six years of study.

It is from this point that my interest in the subject dates, for at that moment, quite unintentionally, I arrived not only in Peking, but actually as a guest at the Medical Mission, where my hosts, Dr. and Mrs. Dudgeon, assured me that three months earlier these four men were as miserable 356and as ignorant as all the other blind men I saw begging in the streets. Only a Chinaman can fully estimate the social rise involved by such a literary triumph as the power of reading.

I said my journey to Peking was quite unintentional. In point of fact I had so thoroughly enjoyed my five months in Southern China, from Canton to Ningpo, that on my return to Shanghai I decided to make a clear run thence to California on my homeward way, and I had actually secured my ticket to Japan, en route to San Francisco, when it really appeared as if for some reason I HAD to go to Peking. All my friends in Shanghai seemed to be seized with an unaccountable determination that I MUST go, and though I vainly pleaded that it was a long and expensive journey, and that, moreover, I had not the slightest wish to visit that dirty city of “magnificent distances,” all my protestations were silenced, till at last I consented to cancel my homeward ticket, and accompany a very agreeable couple, who had just arrived from England, on their return to Peking, and who most kindly undertook all the trouble of making arrangements for me on the complicated voyage.

In the easy way in which, in those days, people in the East passed on their friends to the assured hospitality of other friends, several of the leading residents in Shanghai had consigned me to one of the principal residents in Peking. Had I gone there I should most certainly never have heard of the existence of my humble countryman, the crippled street bookseller. But by one of those developments which men call chance, a lady at Tientsin had occasion to send a special messenger to the Medical Mission at Peking, and mentioned that I was on my way thither, and so I was met by a heart-warming letter of welcome from Dr. and Mrs. Dudgeon, inviting me to make their house my home for as long as I cared to stay in Peking.

Thus it was that, arriving there on 5th June 1879, just 357when Mr. Hill Murray’s first four blind students had mastered his system, I became an eye and ear-witness of the perfect success of this very remarkable invention. In fact I stood, as it were, at the fountainhead of that which I now believe is destined to be a great river of the Water of Life for millions yet unborn in the great Chinese Empire.

But I did not at the time realise how very wonderful it was, nor dreamt of its infinitely wider value when it should be applied to the use of illiterate sighted persons. I was absolutely bewildered by all the varied novelties to be seen in and around Peking. Then I returned to Japan for six months, and thence to the Hawaiian volcanoes, so it was not till, in 1885, when I found leisure to write my Wanderings in China, that it occurred to me to wonder how the teaching of the blind was progressing. On inquiry I learnt with surprise that Mr. Hill Murray was still known only as a very good colporteur who had a curious fad for looking after blind people.

So the development of the work was still left entirely to the self-denying efforts of a working-man, who (with just one gift from a friend in Glasgow) had contrived, off the meagre salary intended to support one man, to lodge, feed, and clothe upwards of a dozen men and boys. The latter, having become blind through neglect in smallpox, had been cast by their relatives into foul pools, there to suffocate in filthy black mud. When washed, fed, and comforted, these small lads were taught to read to the sick men in hospital, who never wearied of hearing the little fellows, who read so fluently with the tips of their fingers.

One of these salvage boys actually started the School for Blind Women, for, being under eight years of age, he was admitted to the women’s part of a house in which a blind woman longed to acquire this wonderful new art, which she could not possibly have been taught direct by Mr. Hill Murray. But the small boy taught her to read, write, and 358play the concertina, and then she announced her willingness to teach other blind women, and I know of at least two women who separately persuaded their relatives to bring them a whole month’s journey day by day in the depth of winter, on a horribly uncomfortable Chinese wheelbarrow, jolting over the rough, frozen rice-fields, that they might be taught by her to read the Scriptures, and thus enriched, return to teach others in their own villages.

In this interval Mr. Hill Murray had also devised an adaptation of the Tonic Sol-Fa in numerals, by which he taught all his pupils to read and write music, and also to play the accompaniments of about two hundred hymns on harmoniums and American organs, which he had contrived to buy very cheap, as being quite worthless. But, getting a Chinaman with two hands to help his one hand, they replaced the rusty wires, the split reeds, and decayed felts and leathers, and produced instruments on which this self-taught musician taught his blind pupils so efficiently that a number of them are now organists at different mission-stations.

When at last I realised in how great a measure this remarkable work was still dependent on the small earnings of the inventor, then for the first time I understood why I had been constrained to end my prolonged aimless travels by making that journey to Peking so entirely against my own inclination. Also, why it had been so ordered that I became a guest at the Medical Mission at the very moment when Mr. Hill Murray’s eight years of earnest endeavours on behalf of the blind had been so signally crowned with success. If we believe at all in the daily guiding of our lives, even in smallest details, as I emphatically do believe, I could not doubt that it was clearly my duty and my privilege to tell the story of this earnest worker, and so enable his countrymen and countrywomen to share the honour of helping him to carry out his beneficent projects.

I accordingly did so, with such success that ere long his 359tiny school was placed on a more satisfactory footing, a good business committee undertook to do their part in forwarding his views, and arranged with the National Bible Society that, while still devoting one-third of his time to street bookselling (in order to keep his influence with the people, and avoid the danger of their attributing his work for the blind to evil magic), he should be able to employ the remainder of his time in developing his special work.

Thus for ten years from the date of my visit to Peking we knew only that he was engaged in a very interesting work on behalf of the blind.

But in 1889 some poor sighted Christians came to him, and urged him to devise some easy method by which they also might learn to read rapidly, as they could not possibly give the time, even if they had the ability, to master the complicated Chinese characters. Very sorrowfully he explained to them that the dots could only be felt by the finger, and were useless to those who would read by the eyes.

In his grave perplexity he made it a matter of earnest prayer that God would guide him to some means by which he might help these people who did so wish to learn to read. Then in direct answer to his prayer the thought seemed flashed into his mind, “Just connect the dots by straight black lines.” That was all—a very simple thought, but one which solved the whole difficulty. By so doing, he produced a series of lines, angles, and squares, forming the simplest set of symbols ever devised for use in any country.

He at once realised that this was a distinct revelation for the good of the illiterate sighted, and as soon as possible he got these simple forms cast in metal printing-type, and gave them to his blind students, who were embossing the Scriptures for their own use. They at once recognised them as being their own symbols, but asked why lines had been used instead of dots? “Because,” said Mr. Hill Murray, 360“YOU ARE NOW GOING TO PRINT BOOKS FOR SIGHTED PERSONS, AND YOU WILL TEACH THEM TO READ FROM THESE BOOKS.”

And this has proved a wonderful success. The neat-fingered blind compositors set up the type, and when the book, perhaps one of the Gospels, was printed, a blind man or a blind girl took a class of perhaps a dozen sighted persons, quite ignorant field-workers or others, and in periods ranging from six weeks to three months all would be able to read and write, and could return to their villages to teach others, who in their turn could carry on the chain of blessing to more remote villages, carrying with them the cheap paper-bound books printed at the blind school.

Now it is evident that if Mr. Hill Murray had in the first instance tried to help the illiterate, he would certainly have experimented with the alphabetic curved forms—so dear to us, but so obnoxious to the Chinese, and which, moreover, would have to be adapted separately for every variety of dialect. But because he had been guided to work first for the blind, he had of necessity used Braille’s symbols, which, being filled in with lines, produce the simplest set of geometric figures, and these he had used to denote numerals, and both geometric figures and numerals are held in reverence by the Chinese.

Thus he was guided not only to adopt the simplest possible square and angular forms, but these are also symbols which the people are naturally inclined to revere.

Further, he was signally guided in having adapted his system to that dialect of Mandarin Chinese which is spoken at Peking. For although about three hundred and eighteen millions of the people talk Mandarin dialects, these vary greatly in different parts of the Empire, and had Mr. Hill Murray begun to work in any other part, even of Mandarin-speaking China, he would have found a different number of sounds. But from his being led to begin work at Peking, he of course adapted his system 361to Pekingese Mandarin, and afterwards discovered that it is the recognised standard for the whole Empire.

(About eighty-four million persons, chiefly along the south-east coast, speak non-Mandarin dialects, so different from one another that each requires a separate version of the Bible, which has been printed for their use by the great Bible societies in the Roman alphabet, and this the converts do learn, notwithstanding their natural repugnance to it.)

Mr. Hill Murray’s conviction is that by his system one version, with slight modifications for certain provinces, can be used wherever Mandarin is spoken. Of course it has opponents among missionaries who have already agonised over having to learn the four thousand essential Chinese characters, and would much prefer that the illiterate converts should have to learn to read by the alphabet, than that they themselves should have the trouble of learning the numeral system.

On the other hand, those missionaries who have given the numeral system a fair trial, are unanimous in their praise of it, and if any one is sufficiently interested by this brief outline to care to know more, if he will send 1s. 9d. to my printers, Messrs. Gilbert and Rivington (as aforesaid), he will receive my little “yellow book,” and on pages 139 to 160 he will find the testimony of many men who have used the system and pronounce it an unqualified success.

Some of its strongest advocates are workers in Manchuria, where the last thirty years have wrought such great progress in Christian work. At that time there were virtually no Christians in that great province. Mr. Hill Murray had the gladness of selling the very first copy of the Scriptures which was carried thither by Mr. Wang, who became instrumental in beginning to arouse attention. Then a small medical mission was established, and from that centre the light radiated. By the year 1900 there 362were fully twenty-five thousand staunch Manchurian Christians, and upwards of a thousand of these who, one by one, came to the missionaries to ask for baptism stated that their conversion was due to the teaching and example of one of the blind men trained by Mr. Hill Murray.

The story of that man is very striking. He was known as Chang, the Blind Apostle of Manchuria. Alas! we now have to say “Apostle and Martyr.” He was one of those who came to the Medical Mission at Moukden to see whether his sight could be restored. That was impossible, but he opened his whole heart to receive the teaching there given. He said, “I have been all my life studying the systems of Taou, Buddha, and Confucius, and there is not a grain of comfort in one of them. But to hear of a Friend who cares for me is very different. I will be His servant for ever.” Very soon he craved baptism. But a lengthened probation is always required, and six months elapsed ere it was possible to follow him to his mountain home. During that time, he preached his new faith so earnestly that a considerable number of his neighbours desired to be baptized with him. Nine were so unmistakably in earnest, that they were received with him. Others were required to wait for further instruction.

His friend (the Rev. James Webster) said to Chang that he feared he had already been subjected to considerable persecution for his faith, but he replied that it was not worth speaking about, he had been so cheered by a wonderful dream. “A dream? what was it?” Then he told how he had dreamt that his Lord had appeared to him in radiant light, had put a book in his hand, and then vanished. He added: “Of course I know it was only a dream, but it was so vivid that it has been a real comfort to me.”

His friend had the presence of mind to reply, “It was no dream; it was a true vision, for The Book is now put into the hands of the blind, but in all Manchuria there is no one competent to teach you to read it. If you are 363going on teaching others, you must go all the way to Peking to be taught to read.”

It was a wearily long journey for a blind man. A hundred miles on foot through the forests back to Moukden; then by boat down the river to the sea-coast, thence by ship across the Yellow Sea, then hiring another boat to go up the Peiho to Peking. But the blind man faced it all, chiefly to please Mr. Webster, for he did not believe that he could really be taught to read. But like the others, within three months he could read, write, and play the concertina to accompany the hymns he loved to sing.

Mr. Hill Murray tried to persuade him to stay at Peking for a course of theological training. But he replied, “I would love to stay with you to learn all that you can teach me, but none of my people in Manchuria ever heard about Jesus and His offer of the gift of Eternal Life, and now that I know this, do you think I can keep it to myself? No, I must go and tell my people.” So he returned to Manchuria, and thenceforward till the day of his martyrdom he never ceased going up and down the steep mountain-passes, feeling his way along difficult mountain-paths and visiting all the villages hidden in the valleys. He preached with such earnestness that, as I said just now, upwards of a thousand men came one by one to ask for baptism, because they were convinced from Chang’s life that his teaching must be good.

His marvellous memory helped him right well, for as he constantly read the Holy Scriptures with his finger-tips, he seemed to see the very words ever before him, and he not only knew by heart the whole of the New Testament, the Psalms, and several other books of the Old Testament, and the two hundred and forty hymns in the hymn-book, but if you named any chapter and verses, he could at once begin at the right verse, and quote faultlessly to the exact word indicated.

Of course he was a very marked man, and as soon as the 364Boxers came to his village they seized him, and with him a young sighted Christian, who, however, could not face all the horrors and the bloodshed. So he burnt the little stick of incense at Buddha’s shrine, and they let him go. He had thereby denied the faith. But old blind Chang stood stedfast. They forced him on to his knees, and bade him worship Buddha. He said: “I am on my knees, but not to that idol. I am kneeling to my Lord Jesus.” Then one took a sword and cut off his head, and then they chopped up his body into bits, that in the spirit-world it might be recognised as that of a malefactor decapitated and mutilated—a doom of terror in the eyes of all except decided Christians.

Through much opposition and amid many difficulties Mr. Hill Murray held calmly on his way, gradually developing his system, and as home interest increased, we were at length able to secure really good old Chinese houses, which were transformed into good schools for blind men and blind women. There we had good printing-presses, where all were busily at work, useful and happy. Then in an evil hour came the Boxer troubles.

Happily Mrs. Hill Murray and her children were not in Peking during that awful siege. The four eldest were at Bishop Scott’s school for missionaries’ children at Tientsin, and were with the Bishop and Mrs. Scott during the bombardment of that city. Their parents and the younger children were at the sea-coast, whence Mr. Murray hurried back to Peking to be with his poor blind people.

The Mandarins came and told him that if he was found there by the Boxers, his presence would inevitably lead to a general massacre, but that if he would join the other foreigners at the British Legation, they would put Chinese soldiers to guard his schools and all would be well. Having no option in the matter, he obeyed, and shared in all the horrors of that appalling nine weeks’ siege, the memory of which must for ever haunt all who survived it.

365But even in that awful time there were gleams of wondrous light for those who looked for them, such as in that hour of direst peril, when the Chinese in their mad determination to destroy the foreigners, resolved to set fire to their own most precious national library, the Hanlin, which was so situated that, should it catch fire while the wind was blowing from that quarter, the fate of the British Legation was inevitable. As a measure of self-defence, that building should have been at once destroyed, but reverence for its antiquity and for the national archives therein stored made the besieged resolve to spare it, feeling convinced that the Chinese would likewise endeavour to save it from harm.

So they could scarcely believe their eyes when they saw the besiegers commence piling cases all round the building, which were unmistakably cases of kerosene! Soon a strong wind set in from that quarter; and when they saw a Chinaman deliberately set these on fire, all felt that their doom was sealed. Another moment, and with a wild, rushing sound the flames commenced sweeping towards the Legation. Then those who believed that even then, He, at Whose bidding the raging wind and the waves of Gennesaret were stilled, could stay the progress of the flames, united in a brief agonised prayer—such real prayer of faith as perhaps does not often rise to heaven.

Suddenly the wild roaring of the wind and flames ceased, the flames rose straight to heaven, not a breath stirred, there was a great calm. Even those whose prayer had so mightily availed looked one to another, bewildered—all were bewildered. Then once more the soughing of the wind recommenced. What did it forebode? Were they after all to perish by fire? No! the wind did indeed rise again, but from quite another quarter, carrying the flames right away from the Legation, which was thus miraculously saved. The great Answerer of Prayer had once more proved “a very present help in time of trouble.”

366The secular papers (and some who might have known better than to be ashamed of giving the only clue to this story of a great deliverance) all described this hour of awful peril, and all added: “At this moment, when destruction appeared inevitable, A TOTALLY UNACCOUNTABLE CHANGE OF THE WIND carried the flames in a new direction, and the danger was averted.” I suppose many answers to believing prayer do appear unaccountable to those who only see results.

But although these lives were spared, doubtless to accomplish special work on earth, the great enemy was allowed to triumph appallingly in other places. Upwards of two hundred European and American missionaries, and according to the lowest computation, fully twenty thousand Chinese, who were either Christians or closely associated with them, were barbarously put to death.

Often as we repeat in the Te Deum, “The noble army of martyrs praise Thee,” do we ever give a thought to the Chinese contingent of twenty thousand added to that army in A.D. 1900? and to the thousands of Japanese martyrs prior to the year 1870 (in which year eight hundred families of Christians were scattered and deported from lovely Nagasaki to bleak districts in the Northern Isle, one and all expressing their determination to die, as so many of their brave countrymen and women had already done, sooner than abjure the Christian religion).

When the arrival of the allies enabled the besieged missionaries to go forth to their homes, they found nothing but ruin and desolation—churches and schools totally destroyed, and converts massacred. Mr. Hill Murray found only blackened earth to mark the spot where his flourishing schools and printing-presses had stood. The Chinese soldiers placed to guard them had decamped on the approach of the Boxers, who had rushed in and martyred all the blind women and girls, and as many as they could catch of the blind men. Some of the latter mercifully 367escaped. When they had thoroughly ransacked and plundered the mission-house, and destroyed what they could not remove, they set fire to the whole, and the beautiful carved wood and other well-seasoned timber of the old Chinese houses formed a funeral-pyre which utterly consumed every vestige of the massacres.

Then all foreigners who could possibly be spared, left Peking in search of much-needed change and rest. But sorely as he, too, needed it, Mr. Hill Murray utterly refused to leave the city of awful death till he had hunted through its slums for any of his blind men who might be in hiding. In order to prepare a home to which to bring them, he took possession of an empty, deserted house, and there established himself under protection of the Union Jack. After months of patient search he found, one by one, about seven of his blind men, and two or three of his sighted helpers, and also learned that two of his blind men had made their way safely fully three hundred miles across country haunted by Boxers, straight back to their own villages.

All this time he was carrying on very troublesome negotiations with the leading Mandarins, to secure new premises in which to re-establish his work. This was only accomplished by their anxiety to induce him to vacate the house he occupied, which proved to be Imperial property. He was kept perpetually going to and fro over the huge city, exhausted by suffocating, midsummer heat, and constantly exposed to such pitiless rain that for four months he never knew the luxury of dry clothes. This brought on torturing neuralgia in the head, and such excruciating agony in the right eye that for months he was unable to read or write.

Still he struggled on, till at last he secured suitable Chinese houses which could be adapted to his purpose. He had also the satisfaction of receiving from Shanghai a case of numeral-type which we had just sent out from 368Edinburgh, and which we feared had been melted down for bullets! He also succeeded in buying a small printing-press from Shanghai, and forthwith setting his men to work. And so the first book printed in Peking after the Reign of Terror was an edition of a thousand copies of the Gospel of St. John for sighted persons, printed in Murray’s numeral-type, by blind survivors.

Truly pathetic was the joy of many of the recipients who had lost everything they possessed, including their precious books, but who in several instances had written out large portions of the Gospels from memory, and were actually teaching some of their neighbours to read from these manuscripts!

At length, when he had got his new premises and the poor remnant of his scholars into thorough working order, Mr. Hill Murray quite broke down, and was sent to London by the doctor, to see what could be done for him. Of course the first care was for his precious sight, and he was received as an in-patient at the Royal Eye Hospital in the City Road. Alas! it was at once pronounced that the excruciating agony he had so bravely endured, was due to glaucōma, and that it had left the right eye totally blind, and the left seriously damaged, and exposed to the future danger of a similar attack of glaucōma—a most pathetic result of his devoted care for his blind pupils.

That poor dimmed eye is an abiding badge of heroism. Never was V.C. more gallantly won in the service of poor, defenceless creatures, than this most honourable scar. Had Mr. Hill Murray left Peking to seek treatment when the agony commenced, the sight of the right eye might probably have been saved. But had he once vacated the deserted house which he occupied and held as a hostage for the three burnt properties of the Mission, he would have lost his hold on the Mandarins, who would not have helped him to secure new premises, except to induce him to remove himself and his blind men from that house. But this great 369gain to his Mission has proved for himself a dearly-bought triumph.

The three months of awful anxiety, followed by many months of hardship and privation, had proved well-nigh as calamitous to his wife’s health as to his own, but the terrible expense of the journey for so large a family made her resolve to remain in China with her children. Soon, however, she broke down so completely that the doctor shipped the whole party to London, whence they all came to Scotland, to Joppa—a seaside suburb of Edinburgh, where a year of Scottish sea breezes wrought such wonders for them all, that a twelvemonth later the whole party, father, mother, seven children, and two young men, practical printers, sailed to recommence work at Peking.

We can only hope that, as for the last fifty years Mr. Hill Murray has done more work for his fellow-men with one arm than most people do with two, so he may be enabled with the partial sight of one eye to continue his work of blessing for China’s millions. I felt it inexpressibly pathetic to see him gazing wistfully at his happy, bonnie bairns, with all their life before them, and taking comfort in the thought that if he MUST face the possibility of a trial so awful as that of total blindness, he has seven pairs of bright young eyes to see for him.

It had been supposed that it would be deemed desirable to leave the elder children in Scotland, and it had been a matter of serious anxiety how to get them disposed of. Happily the parents soon solved that difficulty by their determination not to part from even one of their flock. For they said: “They were all given to us in China, and we must take them back to China, there to train them all to work for China.” And this was the wish of all those little Scottish children, who claim China as their loved native land, and longed to return to their dear Chinese friends, both blind and sighted. Thus they will retain their valuable birthright, which is a perfect knowledge of 370the purest Mandarin Chinese, and they all hope as they grow up, to be of real use in developing their father’s schemes for benefiting the illiterate classes of China.

Can you wonder that, from having been an eyewitness of this work from its very beginning, and having for the last fifteen years been in constant correspondence with all concerned in it, it has become to me an ever-increasing source of interest, both as regards its extension in China and the endeavour to increase PRACTICAL interest in it in this country. As I have already said, any one desiring further information can obtain it by sending for my “yellow book,” The Inventor of the Numeral-Type for China, and subscriptions in aid of any branch of the work will be welcomed either by the Official Treasurer, James Drummond, Esq., Chartered Accountant, 58 Bath Street, Glasgow; or by me, Miss C. F. Gordon-Cumming, College House, Crieff, Scotland.

For as the very extensive correspondence connected with this work makes it necessary for me to have a permanent address from which my letters can be daily forwarded, I some years ago secured a couple of rooms at Crieff, in a house which has the merit of being probably the oldest in that little town, and into these I have crammed so many of my travel treasures and home pictures, as to be continual reminders of a larger past. And here I can test to the full that power of adaptation to circumstances which has stood me in such good stead in many lands (as it did to St. Paul in his more serious variations!)

In chapter ix. I have chronicled the events which led a very dear sister to make her home in Perthshire. On my return from my prolonged travels, that home became my headquarters. At that time Crieff (which has now become such a centre of attraction to summer visitors) was quite a small town, and pleasant open fields and shady lanes, overshadowed by fine old trees, extended in every direction; now most of the noble trees have been felled, and the quiet 371lanes are replaced by terraces of comfortable villas and small gardens, extending along the face of “the Knock,” so that there are few houses which do not command a fine view of either the Grampians or the Ochils.

Of all these houses, few are externally so unpromising as the ugly block of buildings at the top of the High Street known as “College Buildings” and entered from the street. They are as hideous as plaster and brown paint can make them—only from one attic window can we see one side of the tower, which has been spared by the plasterers, and reveals the fine rough blocks of red sandstone of which the college was built. We enter from the street, but so suddenly does the ground fall, that the back windows command the finest and most extensive view of Strath Earn, bounded on the horizon by the whole low range of the Ochils, stretching right from east to west.

The attention of strangers is often arrested by the ugly painted tower, capped by a small spire, and also by a church window, which looks strangely incongruous at the end of a wing, now transformed into a number of small flats, but any inquiry as to their origin will only elicit the information that it was once a ladies’ college. In order to rescue an interesting history from oblivion, I have noted the following details from the lips of one who lived in the college fifty years ago, and was vividly interested in all concerning it.

Its excellent site was selected towards the close of the eighteenth century by Dr. Malcolm, who thereon built a central house, with wings on either side, as a college for medical students. A high wall enclosed the large garden, sloping to the south, and forming the foreground to the grand panorama beyond. So the young men studied amid pleasant surroundings, but at Dr. Malcolm’s death the college was broken up. The buildings, however, long retained the name of “Malcolm’s Houses,” and the garden wall was known as “Malcolm’s Wall.”

372The side wings of what had been the medical college were now divided into sets of two rooms, eight on each side of the central building. These were tenanted by sixteen families, almost all hand-loom weavers, whose busy shuttles and cheery songs were heard by those passing along the street. About a dozen more weavers and their families occupied small cottages facing the college.

One of these was owned by Duncan M‘Nab, who acted as “weavers’ agent.” Week by week he distributed the huge balls of cotton, which they wove into striped and checked ginghams for tropical countries. My informant vividly remembers how on a Saturday morning she often saw forty or more weavers, either receiving these huge balls, or bringing in their “cuts”—i.e., a portion of their “web” (pieces of gingham), for which they received part payment, or “subsistence-money,” for the next week, the balance being paid when the web, consisting of several pieces, was complete.

At that time there were upwards of six hundred hand-loom weavers living in Crieff—both men and women—their houses being all down the High Street, Comrie Street, Bridgend, Commissioner Street, Galvelmore Street, and Burrell Street. Now I believe that not one remains.

The centre of the college was next divided between the police and the Episcopalians of Crieff, the police-constables occupying the ground floor, and the basement (including the present kitchen, scullery, larder, etc.) being divided into cells for prisoners, while the large drawing-room on the upper floor was used on week-days as a school for about fifty children of Episcopalian parents, and on Sundays for services conducted by Mr. Wildman, who was curate to Mr. Lendrum, Vicar of the Episcopal Church at Muthill (three miles distant).

Elliott & Fry

Ere long Mr. Lendrum succeeded in getting the small Episcopal Church of St. Michael built in Lodge Street, in the lower part of the town. He then resigned his charge 373at Muthill, and came to live at Bank Place, in Crieff. Very soon he found an opportunity to buy the college buildings, and having ejected all the inhabitants, he remodelled the whole, transforming them into a commodious college, thenceforth known as St. Margaret’s College, for sixty Episcopalian girls, some of whom came from the south of England. They were taught by four resident governesses—two English, one French, and one German; also by music and drawing-masters, who came twice a week from Edinburgh and Glasgow, travelling by rail as far as Greenloaning, whence the coach brought them to Crieff, returning next day. The standard of teaching, as proved by printed examination papers and replies, was excellent. Dr. Wordsworth, Bishop of St. Andrews, was visiting director.

Externally the building now assumed a rigidly conventual aspect. With the exception of the lancet windows of the chapel in the east wing, with a door to admit favoured members of the congregation, and the entrance-door in the centre of the college, surmounted with a cross, nothing was seen from the street save a dead wall, without a single window. Those shown in a now very rare engraving were a survival of the older days, but all built up: the dormitories in each wing, and the other rooms on the street side being lighted only by skylight.

On either side of the entrance-door were music-rooms, glazed like a greenhouse, occupying the space which is now laid down in grass. The ecclesiastical-looking window, still so conspicuous as seen from Dollerie Terrace, and so incongruous in its present surroundings, was that of St. Margaret’s Chapel, where the girls met for daily morning and evening church service. A large organ in the loft between the dining-hall and chapel was played by one of the governesses, an excellent musician. But on Sundays and high festivals about seventy-five persons from the college marched two and two down to St. Michael’s 374Church, at the further end of the town. On Whitsunday all the girls wore white dresses, forming a pretty procession.

The central house was occupied by the Lendrum family, the resident governesses, and a family of boarders from Calcutta; and many leading members of the Episcopal Church, such as Bishop Wordsworth, Dean Torry, Provost Fortescue of St. Ninian’s Cathedral; and Captain the Hon. A. Hay Drummond of Cromlix, met from time to time in the large dining-room.

The kitchen and laundries were situated near the chapel; and here we touch on a weak point, for in those days the pure and abundant waters of Loch Turret had not been enlisted to bring health and cleanliness to the town, and in this large house, as in its humbler neighbours, there was neither water nor drainage. There was, indeed, a pump in the middle of the garden, but in summer it ran dry, so all the year round, twice or three times a day, a water-cart brought water from the burn at Tomaknock, on the Dollerie road.

But for drinking, the house-maidens fetched water in pails from a spring half-way down the High Street, and were much chaffed by the weavers on account of their caps. In the forenoon all, even the youngest girls, wore large “mutches,” such as were then invariably worn by old women; but in the afternoon these were replaced by smart caps, gaily trimmed, and having long streamers of bright-coloured ribbon. Neat white aprons were essential. Although there were thirteen of these maidens, their wages were not so serious an item as they would be now, as the majority only received £3 or £4, and the upper servants £8 per annum.

What with the very inadequate water-supply and other exceedingly defective sanitary arrangements, the school was subject to frequent outbreaks of illness—measles, scarlet fever, and whooping-cough. But after thirteen years typhoid fever broke out, of so virulent a type that two 375of the girls died, as did also the French governess. The latter was buried at Innerpeffray. Of course the students were dispersed, never to meet again, the financial affairs of the college being found to be in a hopeless muddle.

Mr. Lendrum continued for some years to carry on a similar school near London, on a larger and more expensive scale. It was known as St. Margaret’s College, Fulham. After a while that also came to grief financially.

Once more the college buildings in the High Street came into the market, and were next bought by the Roman Catholic Priest, who, with others, lived in them for a while.

Ere long they were sold to the Trustees of Morrison’s Academy, and used as a temporary house for the Rector (Rev. William Ogilvie) and his boarders, until the permanent house at the Academy was built. So Mr. Ogilvie occupied the central house, and his boys occupied the dormitories in the wings. He was succeeded by Mr. Tyacke, whose lamented death was partly attributed to his haste in removing into the new house aforesaid ere the plaster was fully dry.

The college buildings were next bought by Mr. Donaldson, builder, who once again transformed the two wings into a number of small flats, just as when they were purchased by Mr. Lendrum. The centre, which is distinguished as being “College House,” continues to be an old-fashioned private residence, which is let as lodgings. Its once sombre old dining-room is now my pleasant sitting-room, where, surrounded by the pictures and treasures collected in many climes, I can recall those sunny lands, while watching the ever-changing lights and shadows, all effects of sunshine or storm sweeping by turns over the fertile valley of the Earn and the peaceful Ochils.

As I am jotting down memories of matters of local interest, which are in danger of being forgotten in the rush of modern life, I think I must refer to an old Crieff legend, which, when I first knew the town some forty 376years ago, was generally known. It refers to the hill called “Callum’s Hill,” about ten minutes’ walk from my door. It faces the house and park of Fern Tower, which, like itself, is the property of our cousin, Lord Abercromby. In the park a few large boulders still remain, of what a hundred years ago was still a very fine Druidic circle, much frequented at Hallowe’en and May morning or “Beltane” (the ancient spring and autumn fire-festivals) by the lads and lassies, who here kept up the old customs of sun-wise turns, and sitting round a bonfire shuffling for bits of oat-cake, leaping across the fire, etc.

The legend was that St. Columba came to Crieff, and ascending the hill overlooking the stones whence the Druids worshipped the rising sun, he taught the people of the true Sun of Righteousness already risen to be the Light of the World. It was on account of this tradition, which he had known all his life, that old Mr. Murray of Dollerie suggested to the congregation of the new Episcopal Church at Crieff, very near this hill, that it should be called St. Columba—a suggestion which was at once adopted. But so little do the present generation know of old tradition, that you will probably find no one who knows anything beyond the fact that the hill is Callum’s Hill, but who Callum was they neither know nor care.

And now (having returned to that corner of Scotland in which I hope that my beloved body will some day be laid to rest in the sweet God’s-acre at Ochtertyre), for the benefit of friends who may not be acquainted with Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse’s address of a soul to its dying body, I cannot refrain from quoting lines which so exactly describe the feelings of one whose soul-case has for well-nigh seventy years ministered so faithfully to every requirement of an exacting mistress.

“I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that Day.”—2 Timothy i. 12.

APPENDIX — Note A The Wolf of Badenoch — Note B The Lowlands of Moray — Note C A Legend of Vanished Waters — Note D Elgin Cathedral and the Church of St. Giles. — Note E — Note F Conditional Immortality — “ Thy Will be Done. ” — Note G Intercessory Prayer — “I PRAY FOR THEE. — Note H — Note I Use of the Rosary — Note J Hair Offerings — Note K On the Medicinal Use of Animals in China and Britain — Note L Magazine Articles

From the fact that the lands of Badenoch were so long held by my ancestors, the Comyns of Badenoch, it has often been assumed that the fierce “Wolfe of Badenoch” was a Comyn. This, happily, was not the case, though he held broad lands wrested from the Comyns, and dwelt in their old Castle of Lochindorb.

The ruthless Wolf was Lord Alexander Stewart, fourth son of King Robert the Second, who died A.D. 1390, by whom he was created Earl of Buchan, when that title was forfeited by Comyn in 1374. He was also made Earl of Ross in right of his wife, Eufame, Countess of Ross, in right of whom he held the Thanedom and Castle of Dingwall, the Baronies of Skye and the Lewes, lands in Caithness, Sutherland, Inverness, Nairn, Athol, Banffshire, and Perth, the latter including Forgandenny and Kinfauns, while from his royal father he obtained, besides Badenoch, Abernethy, and other lands of the Comyns, those of Robert de Chisholm in Inverness-shire, and Strathaven in Banffshire, and was created King’s Lieutenant for all the North of Scotland. So he was a most powerful noble, who could brook no contradiction.

When he found that his wife Eufame bore him no children, he sought another love, Mariota, daughter of Athyn, by whom he had five illegitimate sons, Sir Alexander, Sir Andrew, Walter, James, and Duncan. These all grew up as fierce as their father, each drawing to himself a company of wild Highlanders, reckless freebooters who carried fire and sword throughout the country. The eldest 380stormed the Castle of Kildrummy, which belonged to the Countess of Mar, and either compelled or prevailed on her to become his wife, whereupon he assumed the title of Earl of Mar. After this rude wooing, he employed his energies in the service of his country, and was twice ambassador to England.

But the chapter in the Wolf’s history which chiefly affected Morayshire was when, having incurred the censure of the Church for forsaking his wife, he in revenge took possession of the Bishop of Moray’s lands in Badenoch, whereupon he was solemnly excommunicated. To avenge this step, he swooped down from his mountain stronghold at Lochindorb, burnt the town of Forres, with the Church of St. Lawrence and the manor of the Archdeacon, and a month later dealt likewise with Elgin, which, being almost entirely built of wood, was quickly consumed, as were also the Church of St. Giles, “the House of God, ‘Domus Dei,’ near Elgyn, eighteen noble and beautiful manses of the canons and chaplains, and the noble and highly adorned Church of Moray, the delight of the country and ornament of the kingdom, with all the books, charters, and other goods of the country placed therein.”

Eventually the proud Wolf submitted to the Church, and by special commission from the Bishop of Moray to Lord Walter Trail, Bishop of St. Andrews, he was absolved from the sentence of excommunication, in presence of his royal brother and many great nobles at Perth, outside the doors of the Church of the Predicate Brothers, and afterwards before the High Altar, on condition that he should make satisfaction to the Church of Moray, and also that he should send to Rome to obtain the Pope’s special absolution.

He died in 1394, and was buried in the choir of the Cathedral Church of Dunkeld, where a mutilated but still stately monument of a knight recumbent in full armour bears his name as “Senescallus Comes de Buchan et Dominus de Badenoch, bonæ memoriæ.”

Probably in no part of Scotland has the whole face of Nature been so entirely changed within the last four hundred years, as in “The Laich of Moray,” namely, that low-lying portion of the county of Elgin or Moray traversed by the railway which connects Aberdeen with Inverness.

In comparing Moray of the present day with the ancient province of Morayland, we must first of all remember how very much larger was the tract of country formerly bearing this name, and which included the present counties of Inverness, Nairn, and Elgin, extending eastward to Buchan and Mar, and south along the valley of the Spey as far as Badenoch. Thus, when King Robert Bruce erected his lands in Moray into an earldom, they extended from Fochabers on the east to Glengarry and Glenelg on the western sea-coast. Early overrun by Norsemen, and often invaded by the Danes, Morayland has ever held a prominent position in the history of Scotland, and the blood of the old sea-kings doubtless accounts for much of the turbulence of the Moray men of old, and the vigour on which they pride themselves to this day.

Of their ancient turbulence there is proof enough in the record of kingly murders here perpetrated; for though history goes to prove that Macbeth killed King Duncan in fair open fight near Elgin, there is little doubt that King Malcolm the First and King Duffus were both murdered at the Castle of Forres, and a certain King Donald was slain in the same district.

In short, the men of Moray ever strove so hard for independence that it has been said to puzzle antiquarians to decide whether at length Scotland annexed Morayland, or Moray absorbed all the rest of Scotland! That the former was the true solution must, however, be conceded; inasmuch 382as we find that, A.D. 1160, King Malcolm IV., having conquered the men of Moray, endeavoured to break their power by transplanting large bodies into other counties, extending from Caithness in the north to Galloway in the south, thereby, of course, greatly benefiting these other races!

Having once obtained a footing in the province, these Scottish kings showed themselves so well pleased with it, that they established royal castles at Forres, Elgin, and Banff, and had other hunting-seats besides. The ecclesiastical powers also showed a full appreciation of a climate which has ever been accounted nearer to that of Devonshire than of any other part of Britain—in fact, local tradition gives it credit for forty days of fine weather in the twelvemonth in excess of any other part of Scotland.

Although always noted for this excellent climate, and also for the exceeding fertility of its soil, its agriculture appears to have continued greatly inferior to that of the Southern Lowlands till the beginning of the present century; so that Morayshire farmers may with just pride point to its present high state of cultivation and the perfection of their cattle as among the most notable changes of Moray.

As regards cultivation, Moray now acknowledges no superior in Britain, though she admits Lincoln and Norfolk to be her worthy rivals; while, as regards her herds of polled cattle, the Smithfield prize-list tells its tale year by year, and Morayshire farmers will not soon forget the unprecedented circumstance that the two finest beasts in the Smithfield show for 1881, selected to compete for the Champion Medal^[75] (the highest honour that can be attained by a British farmer) were both bred and exhibited by the same man, and that he hailed from the Laich of Moray!

383Altogether, there is a good deal to justify the pride with which the many Moray men scattered all over the earth ever speak of this their special fatherland, and their innate conviction that the world itself could not get on without “the Moray loons.”^[76] The feeling was admirably exemplified by the reply of a Morayshire gardener when asked his opinion of the English among whom his lot was cast. “Weel,” said he, “I’ve nae great faut tae find with the Sassenach, but I maun remark that for meenisters or gairdeners, or onything needing head-wark, ye maun come tae us in the North!”

They will not, however, always give full credit even to the said ministers, for I remember the comment of an old man who kept my brother’s lodge, and whose verdict on his minister was that he was of no more account than the figure 9 with the tail cut off!

Craving forgiveness of all southern readers for quoting (of course sympathetically!) this tribute to the dear land which gave me birth, I would now draw attention to some really remarkable changes in the relations of flood and fell, land and water, which have here been effected, partly by drainage and partly by natural causes, and also to various alterations in the fauna of the province.

In the old historical days, vast tracts of the land now under cultivation were all beast-haunted forest, wherein wolves lingered long after they had been exterminated in more accessible regions. There were also great expanses of marsh-land dotted with numerous fresh-water lochs, while the coast was intersected by tidal channels and harbours, some of which have wholly vanished, while others are so altered as to render it difficult to trace their ancient boundaries.

Under the head of vanished waters, we may class the ancient lochs of Cotts, Inchstellie, Inverlochty, Keam, Outlet, Rose-isle, the Laveroch Loch, and the great Loch of 384Spynie, all of which have disappeared within the last two centuries, chiefly under the prosaic influence of drainage.

By far the largest of these, and the most important loch in the province of Moray, was that of Spynie, which has undergone such a singular succession of changes as to make its history one of unique interest. In the records of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it figures as an estuary of the sea—a secure harbour of refuge, on whose shores stood the ancient burgh of Spynie—a fisher-town, whose inhabitants were vassals of those mighty lords temporal and spiritual, the Bishops of Moray.

Strange to say, as years rolled on, the ceaseless labour of the waves (aided by the rivers Lossie and Spey, which supplied a multitude of great boulders and masses of gravel) resulted in the formation along the coast of such enormous breakwaters in the form of great terraced banks of huge shingle that, by about the fifteenth century, the sea at last found itself excluded from the harbour by its own work.

Thenceforward the isolated loch gradually changed from salt water to brackish, and then became fresh. No longer tenanted by sea-fish and oysters, fresh-water creatures began to appear and to multiply. As the waters expanded more and more, they overspread the cultivated lands on every side, transforming them to sedgy swamps, which soon were peopled by shy, man-fearing wild creatures, and became the favourite breeding-ground of all manner of water-fowl—a true paradise for naturalists and sportsmen.

Towards the close of the eighteenth century the neighbouring proprietors united in such energetic efforts to recover their lost lands that extensive drainage-works were commenced, and the area of water greatly reduced. But such difficulties were encountered that, for the first half of the last century, the Loch of Spynie held its place as a most attractive feature in the landscape, as its blue waters faithfully mirrored the noble old tower of the Bishop’s Palace, and offered a resting-place to immense flocks of wild swans, 385wild geese, and rare birds innumerable. Many a day of delight have we spent among those reedy inlets, where all my brothers taught themselves the natural history of their own home ere seeking wider fields for sport in distant lands.

But about the year 1860 agricultural interest carried the day, and the prospective value of the reclaimable lands lent new energy to the proprietors. Now only one little corner of blue lake remains to tell of the vanished waters—a little lakelet covering about eighty acres, with reedy shores extending over half as much more. But all the rest is transformed into rich arable land, beautiful only to the eye of the farmer—a dead level, which for some years waved golden in the autumn sunlight with heavy wheat-crops. But Californian competition having taught the Moray farmers to rely rather on their beasts than on their grain, turnips now carry the day, and afford cover for the more commonplace game which has replaced the strange and interesting creatures, now for ever departed.

Both the climate and the soil of “the Laich of Moray” rank exceptionally high. Of the former, as I have already observed, it is locally said to have forty days more sunshine in the year than any other part of Scotland. The old records tell that in the grievous famine which caused so much suffering in the end of the sixteenth century, Moray alone was exempt, and that meal-merchants came all the way from Forfarshire to buy the surplus produce, for which they paid very heavily, and, moreover, had the great cost and toil of transport across the Grampians.

In the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries there was a grievous period of famine. For seven years the harvests were so bad that many of the poorest folk literally died of starvation. 1740, 1782, 1799, and 1800 were also famine years, and though in each case Morayshire fared better than the neighbouring counties, the sufferings of the people were very serious.

386Even in normal years there was often grievous scarcity, for up to the middle of the eighteenth century turnips and potatoes were only known as garden vegetables; they were not grown as field-crops, and there was no sown grass. Cattle wandered over the stubble-fields and moors, and picked up a scanty living till the snow drove them to the byres, where they were kept alive on straw, marsh hay, and rushes. Sometimes the poor starving beasts were bled that their starving owners might keep themselves alive.

In Sir Robert Gordon’s accounts of his housekeeping at Dunrobin, when he was guardian to his nephew, the Earl of Sutherland, he enters orders to kill red deer in April and May (when the meat is unfit to eat), because household meal was exhausted. It was not till about 1760 that wheat was extensively grown, and that the clover, ryegrass, and turnips, now so abundant, began to be generally cultivated.

In those days, when our smart forefathers were so gaily apparelled with fine lace at breast and wrist, powdered periwig and cocked hat (terribly inconvenient in windy weather),^[77] the peasantry were looked upon simply as slaves, bound to the soil, bought and sold with it. They were ill-housed, ill-fed, ill-clothed. To them a bad harvest surely brought famine, and famine brought pestilence, and marshfever and ague annually claimed many victims.

Sheriff Cosmo Innes told me that his own father had told him how the Highlanders who came in bands to shear his harvests at Leuchars and Dunkirty used generally to take home with them a shaking ague from working in the marshy land. Now, thanks to the farmer and his drainage, ague and intermittent fever have been banished from bonnie Moray.

While Spynie’s triple change from sea-harbour to fresh-water 387lake and from lake to corn-land was gradually taking place in the neighbourhood of Elgin, an equally remarkable transformation occurred along the coast between Forres and Nairn, whereby a broad tract of about four thousand acres of rich alluvial soil was overwhelmed by drifting sands forming a strange belt of desert. Prior to the winter of 1694 and the spring of 1695, this estate was so fertile as to be commonly called “the granary of Moray,” but is now known only as the Culbin Sandhills—a most lamentable example of what strange freaks Nature can occasionally indulge in! It is now a most desolate region of yellow hillocks, composed only of the very finest pale sea-sand, always in movement, and for the most part drifting eastward, stirred by every breath of wind, and carried along in clouds, or running down the hillsides from their summits in trickles, like rills of running water.

A walk on the pale, phantom hills is like a scene in some strange dream, where the very ground beneath one’s feet is all unstable, and runs away from one’s tread. Some of these great mounds are occasionally upwards of a hundred feet in height, and from such a summit we obtain a strange and most eerie view—nothing on every side but a most desolate, dreary waste of barren sand; but even as we mount our steps are loosening the sand beneath us, and inviting the play of the wind which, perchance, ere the morrow has swept the hillock and sportively scattered its atoms over the country miles away.

On the lesser hills there is a sprinkling of dry, tufted bent—that harshest of grasses—but the larger hills are entirely devoid of any vestige of vegetation, and one marvels how even the snails subsist, whose bright-coloured, delicate shells are here so numerous. But though food seems scarce, rabbits and hares contrive to flourish (the latter, however, have of late years greatly diminished in numbers). These in their turn provide an abundant larder for numerous foxes, to whom these lonely solitudes afford 388blissful hunting-grounds, and both the foxes and rabbits of Culbin are noted for their remarkable size.

Speaking of Morayshire rabbits, the trapping and shooting of which is now so serious a care, it is interesting to note the relation between their increase and the destruction of all the rabbit foes which gamekeepers account “vermin.” In the early part of this century all such wild creatures were allowed to hunt unmolested; consequently, although rabbits were tolerably numerous along the sea-coast, they were so scarce in the woods that their occasional appearance was noted with interest.

This was especially the case on my father’s estate of Altyre, on the Findhorn River; but about the year 1816 he engaged an English keeper for the express purpose of killing down vermin. The first year’s bag showed a return of sixty-five foxes, and almost innumerable wild cats, hunting domestic cats, weasels, and pole-cats. A second, third, and fourth year’s work went far towards clearing the woods of these depredators, greatly to the benefit of the neighbouring poultry yards.

Then it began to be observed that there were a few rabbits on the estate. In the second year there was no mistake about it. In the third, my father bagged twenty couple in a single field. As years wore on they increased so as to become a pest. It was almost like the story of New Zealand. All the young oaks, so carefully planted, were devoured, and soon the damage to the woods was estimated at several thousand pounds.

In the year 1840 William Reader, a Norfolk rabbitcatcher, was engaged, and in the first year, between April and September, he killed nearly seven thousand rabbits in the Altyre woods. The annual return for the two following years was about two thousand, and the number of rabbits was soon so far diminished that the services of the rabbitcatcher were dispensed with. Not for long, however, for soon the increase of the foe, and the destruction of valuable 389young wood, necessitated his recall, and from that day to the end of the century his work was never-ending. Then, handing over his work to his son, he retired on a pension from the laird. He died in 1902, in his eighty-eighth year, after sixty-two years of faithful service. It is worthy of note that during his brief absence the rabbits had contrived to make head again, notwithstanding a corresponding increase of vermin, the return for one year showing twenty foxes and a great multitude of weasels.

In that same year, 1840, the first squirrel was shot in the Altyre woods by my brother John, then a lad of fourteen, and the unknown animal was shown to the English trapper as a great curiosity. It was, however, assumed to have been a tame squirrel escaped from captivity, as these beautiful but mischievous little creatures were never seen north of the Grampians till about the year 1844, when they were introduced by Lady Lovat, and turned loose in Beaufort woods as pretty and ornamental little innocents.

Whether these were the progenitors of all the devouring host which now make havoc in the northern forests, or whether another couple were turned out by Lady Cawdor in the woods round Cawdor Castle, is not certain; but this I know, that when in the autumn of 1855 Sir Alexander Gordon-Cumming caught a glimpse of the first squirrel which appeared on his lawn at Altyre, he could scarcely believe he had seen aright, but with the instinct of a keen forester, he very quickly despatched this poor little precursor of the destructive army which so quickly followed.

The notion that this solitary visitor was only the herald of a rapidly multiplying host of immigrants was not at first realised, and the keepers, ever on the alert to destroy all game-consuming vermin, took small heed of these pretty newcomers, which, of course, were deemed very interesting strangers. Soon, however, it became known that the Beaufort and Cawdor woods were suffering severely from their 390depredations, and that rewards had been offered for every squirrel’s head produced.

All too quickly the nibbling armies made their way through Lord Moray’s forests of Darnaway, and, crossing the Findhorn River, invaded the Altyre woods, and there finding congenial quarters, increased and multiplied so rapidly that soon the forester reported very serious damage, and consequent pecuniary loss. The young shoots and buds of all coniferous trees find especial favour with these busy and most wasteful foragers, who destroy far more than they consume, leaping from bough to bough to secure some bud or cone more attractive than that which they have just tasted and dropped, so that the whole ground is thickly strewn with their rejected fragments.

Not content with this wholesale destruction of young shoots, the squirrels have a fancy for barking trees of a considerable size within eight or ten feet of the summit, which is so enfeebled by loss of sap as to offer small resistance to the next gale, so the snapping of many a good tree is laid to the account of these depredators. Even when the wounds heal over, and the tree appears to have recovered, it carries within it ineffaceable traces of its early sufferings, and when, twenty years later, it is sold as timber, the buyer finds to his cost how serious has been the damage done. Especially do young larch-plantations suffer in the early spring, when the winter store of nuts has run short. Then the ground is thickly strewn with the tender young shoots, and, when weary of these, the foliage is devoured; so, what with squirrels overhead and rabbits below, the poor trees have no lack of foes.

Ere long the increase of the squirrels in the Altyre woods was so marked as to necessitate the employment of an extra man, whose sole work was to destroy the invaders (and it required a good marksman to bring down these agile little creatures, in their never-ending games at hide-and-seek). Though the warfare has thenceforth been incessant, each 391autumn is marked by a special campaign, when the squirrels seek a change of diet, and, forsaking the fir-woods, assemble in force among the oaks, beeches, and other hard woods, to gather their winter store of acorns, nuts, and beech-mast. Then the squirrel-slayer and his assistants find their best opportunity, and wage war unsparingly.

I have no return of the annual squirrel-slaughter on the estate previous to 1870, but from that year till 1880 the average annual destruction was a thousand head. It has now been reduced to about one hundred.

This refers only to the Altyre woods. In those round Cawdor Castle the damage done was so great that a reward of threepence per head was offered, and for upwards of twenty years this price was paid on an annual average of one thousand one hundred squirrels. In the sixteen years between 1862 and 1878, a total of fourteen thousand one hundred and twenty-three squirrels were killed, for which was paid a sum of £213, 13s. And still they abound!

Strange to say, in the adjacent forests round Darnaway Castle these pretty pests were very rare till about 1875, when their numbers rapidly increased. The forester attributes this fact to their preference for fir-trees, “from prop-wood to spar-wood size,” and to the fact that, till recently, there were few trees in the forest of this favoured size. The fastidious creatures show a marked preference for young trees of vigorous growth and full of sap. Having once established themselves, the prolific invaders increased and multiplied so rapidly that it was found necessary to put on an extra keeper for their special destruction, besides offering a reward of one penny per head for every squirrel slain, notwithstanding which Darnaway still adds from four hundred to one thousand four hundred to the annual return of little victims. The total in 1901 was one thousand three hundred and fifty-eight. And the war of extermination has to be kept up steadily, in order to prevent a truly alarming increase.

392At Beaufort Castle the annual return is almost always upwards of a thousand. In 1898 and 1899 it rose to one thousand seven hundred and eighty one, and one thousand six hundred and fifty-one.

The destructive little beauties have now invaded Ross-shire in such numbers, and have done such grievous damage to young plantations, that the owners of thirty-eight thousand acres of wood in that county have formed themselves into an Anti-Squirrel Club, allowing their gamekeepers fourpence for every tail (? brush) produced. The return for the first year, 1903, was four thousand six hundred and forty!

Changes in the natural history of a country creep in so silently and so unmarked, that it is only by looking back a few years that we become conscious that old friends have disappeared, and that new ones have taken their place. Members of the Society for the Destruction of Rooks and Pigeons in the North of Scotland, which pays a penny per bird on so many thousands annually, find it hard to realise that at the end of the eighteenth century, the arrival of one pair of wood-pigeons in certain fir-woods not far from the Lake of Spynie, furnished an interesting topic for the naturalists of Moray.

My uncle, Sir Alexander Dunbar, used to start on a long walk from the Duffus Woods to the loch, and would mention on his return that he had seen the two pigeons, or, as he preferred to call them, “the cushats.” By the time his eldest son was a bird-nesting lad, the descendants of the gentle pair were so numerous as to afford the boys good sport, and they noted with special interest that these new colonists bred all the year round, and there was not a single month in the year in which they did not find nests with newly-laid eggs. It was some time ere their quest was successful in the month of January, but at length a mild winter enabled them to complete the score of the twelve months.

Of course, the increase of “the cushie do’es” is largely 393due to the fact that proprietors began to protect their game by killing down the numerous hawks, kites, and buzzards which had hitherto preyed on all wild creatures. Hence the increase of hedgehogs, whose very existence in the country had scarcely been suspected.

Starlings too, now so abundant, were actually unknown, as was well proven by the absence of their eggs from the very perfect collection made by my bird-nesting brothers (at least from the eggs of their own finding in Morayshire). As the starlings increased, the larks (which had given their name to the Laveroch Loch) became fewer and fewer. They almost seem to have vanished with the waters. The hares, formerly so abundant in the cultivated lands of Gordonstoun and Duffus, have also greatly diminished since the extensive drainage of the neighbourhood; while, on the other hand, the increased area devoted to turnips, and the incessant war waged on the “hoodie craws” and other vermin, have been favourable to a corresponding increase of partridges.

Pheasants were in those days quite unknown in this part of Scotland, as also in the adjoining county of Banff, where now some five thousand are annually killed on the banks of the Deveron alone—an increase, however, which of course is in a great measure due to careful rearing on at least one large estate.

Here, too, starlings only made their appearance forty years ago, and the first squirrel was observed about sixty years ago. Except along the sea-board, rabbits were so scarce that when, in 1830, Lord Kintore introduced fox-hunting on the borders of Aberdeen and Banff, his keepers used to go all over the country carrying rabbits, which they dropped in couples, in order to provide tempting diet for the foxes! Indeed in these days of “Ground Game Acts” it seems difficult to realise that less than a century has elapsed since the British Parliament deemed it necessary to pass a special Act (A.D. 1792) for the “Protection of Rabbits” throughout the kingdom.

394The said “conies” have tempted me to a long digression. To return from the woods to the sandhills.

To lovers of strange wild birds (naturalists, not bird-butchers) this Moravian desert has long been a paradise, for its unbroken solitude has attracted many a shy, rare visitor. Not only are migratory birds tempted to alight on such a feeding-ground as this sea-shore (shielded from man’s territory by this desert belt, with its outer barrier of low fir-woods), but there are also at the further extremity certain marshy lochs, and a tract of peat-moss and rank heather, which afford inviting shelter to a very varied game-list, from roe-deer to wild swans.

The latter have in recent years been greatly scared by over-zealous pursuit, and the disturbance of frequent trains rushing through the fir-woods; but from forty to fifty years ago, my brothers occasionally had the luck to see flocks of fifty or sixty of these noble birds quietly feeding in the sheltered little lochs aforesaid, their presence being, moreover, a sure guarantee for that of numerous wild-duck, ever on the watch to profit by the exertions of the swans in pulling up weeds from the deeper water, of which they could snatch their share.

Besides the commoner varieties of wild-duck, such as widgeon and mallard, the rarer scoter and velvet duck, the morillon and the golden-eye were prizes occasionally secured; as also the brent goose, the bean goose, and the gossander, a fish-eating bird of beautiful plumage, with cream-coloured breast and glossy green back, which found a breeding-ground just suited to its tastes among the rank herbage beside the fresh-water lochs, yet within easy distance of the sea.

The shore is still frequented by an astonishing variety of birds, teal and snipe, curlews, peewits, golden plovers, sandpipers, and red-shanks, and great flocks of oyster-catchers, with an occasional tall grey heron, though these last are fewer since the persistent attacks of the jackdaws succeeded in driving them from their heronry on the River Findhorn. 395Neither have we heard in recent years of such immense flocks of beautiful white wild swans as occasionally assembled in the Bay of Findhorn, where as many as three hundred birds have been seen to alight, at the time of their October migrations, there remaining for some hours, to feed and talk, ere dispersing to their several destinations; for after these great swan-parliaments they started in every direction, in parties of from four to twenty, uttering far-sounding musical calls.

Another shy creature which now rarely, if ever, approaches this shore, is the seal, which in the early part of the century haunted the bay, attracted thither by the salmon. The fishers consequently waged a war of extinction, with such results that it is recorded that in the year 1790 one man actually killed a hundred and thirty!

Many conflicting theories have been started to account for the existence of this strange desert. The work of destruction appears to have been due to divers agencies, for in some parts of this region of wind-blown sand we come on tracts of hard sand, sea-shells, and high ridges of water-worn shingle, which appear to have been deposited by an influx of the ocean at some much earlier period. Here and in the neighbouring peat-moss have been found various relics of a remote past. Numerous flint arrow-heads and strange ornaments of bronze—one of which, a ponderous serpentine bracelet, supposed to have belonged to some old Viking, was treasured by my mother, and to her children was ever a talisman to awaken wondering dreams concerning the pale mysterious sandhills which had given birth to such eerie legends of diabolic agency.

For, of course, the supernatural must needs claim a place in the popular tradition which accounts for their existence; and many a time have we listened, with ever-renewed interest, to the thrilling tale of the wicked laird of Culbin, whose iniquities were crowned by refusing to leave his cards on the Sabbath morning, vowing that he would play 396all day, if the devil himself were his partner—a challenge which was straightway followed by a thunder-clap and the appearance of so skilful a card-player that the wicked laird sat engrossed, hour after hour, and knew nothing of the awful sandstorm which had overwhelmed his dwelling; and there to this day he sits in his buried hall, playing a never-ending game!

Some of the old folks told us how once, as they crossed the sandhills for the first time after a great gale, they had suddenly come on the old mansion, the upper part of which had been laid bare, but a few days later it had again entirely disappeared, and there remained no landmark on the ever-moving desert to show even its whereabouts. From time to time, at long intervals, some of its chimneys have been laid bare by the wind, and once, about a hundred years ago, an old apple-tree came to light, and proved its vitality by blossoming and bearing fruit ere it again disappeared.

Rash is the man who counts on ever finding any one spot unchanged on the morrow! A case very much to the point was that of a whole cargo of smuggled goods having been landed on the shore, and there deposited till they could conveniently be removed. A few days elapsed ere the owners returned, and vainly sought for the spot where their stuff lay concealed. The whole shore seemed to have moved—hills were level, and the valleys were hills. So from that day to this nothing has been seen of the lost goods.

At another time a dispute arose as to the boundary between the estate of Culbin and one of its neighbours, and the disputants had the incredible folly to waste labour in transporting a number of stones, eight feet in height, which were placed on the principal hills to mark the line of march. It is needless to say that after a very short time had elapsed there remained no trace of the boundary-stones!

Before examining such records as we possess concerning the origin of this strange desert tract, it may be well to look back to some earlier chronicles concerning similar disasters 397that have from time to time befallen our shores. Thus in the Red Book or Records of the Priory of Pluscarden, preserved in the Advocates’ Library in Edinburgh, it is stated that in the year A.D. 1010 the whole low country of Moray was deluged by the sea.

Less than a century elapsed ere the coast of Britain was swept by that awful wave which submerged the lands of Earl Goodwin, and left in their place the dreaded sands which still bear his name. That this same “devastation by sand” wrought desolation on the coast of Moray is affirmed by three ancient chroniclers, Fordun, Buchanan, and Bœthius. The latter tells how “villages, castles, towns, and extensive woods, both in England and Scotland, were overwhelmed by an inundation of the German Ocean, by the weight of which tempest the lands of Godowine, near the mouth of the Thames, were overwhelmed by sand; and likewise the land of Moray in Scotland was at that time desolated by the sea, castles subverted from their foundation, some towns destroyed, and the labours of men laid waste by the discharge of sand from the sea; monstrous thunders also roaring, horrible and vast!”

Of the destruction of “extensive woods” all along the coast of Moray and Nairn there is ample proof, as not only are the broad expanses of peat-moss full of remains of fine old trees, both oak and pine, furnishing the best of firewood at the present day, but the same peat is known to extend far under the sea, and occasionally, after very rough weather, large masses of peat are washed up from the ocean bed. The same old forest is known to have extended right along the coast, and peat-moss crops out from beneath the great sandhills, which have existed for the last two centuries. On the other hand, the incursion of the sea has left its mark in various beaches of water-worn stones, and beds of sea-sand, with quantities of cockle and other marine shells, lying at distances of fully a mile from the present sea-board.

Probably this great volcanic or tidal wave deposited sand 398all over the country; but it would seem to have been gradually absorbed, as the ruined forest eventually became a great marshy peat-moss, and the once cultivated lands again gradually became overspread with vegetation and restored to fertility. As regards this low-lying estate of Culbin, we find no allusion to anything amiss when, in 1240, it was held by Richard de Moravia, or when, early in the fifteenth century, it passed to the Lady Egidia Moray. The heiress of Culbin bestowed her hand and fortune on Sir Thomas Kinnaird of that Ilk, and her descendants held the estates till the end of the seventeenth century, when they were as effectually destroyed as were those of Earl Goodwin.

There is a tradition to the effect that twenty years before the final catastrophe there had been several serious alarms, owing to the vast accumulations of sand which were cast up by the sea, and which, being carried inland by every gale from the west, gradually deteriorated the value of the farms nearest to the sea-board, destroying the pastures. The first grave alarm seems to have arisen in the autumn of 1676, when the harvest was fully ripe, and the farmers rejoiced in their good-fortune in holding the richest corn-lands of the north. On the westernmost farm the reapers had assembled with their sickles (there were no steam-reapers in those days), and great was their praise of the heavy crop of barley which was to be cut on the morrow. Its richness was noted with wonder, because the summer and autumn had been so exceptionally dry.

The same dry, warm weather still continued, and there was a brooding stillness in the air which excited the misgivings of some, who said it surely presaged storm. Well were their fears verified. Soon a terrific gale sprang up from the north-west, carrying blinding clouds of driving sand; and when the morning dawned, it revealed a level plain of sand, covering the corn-fields to a depth of fully two feet, so that only the tops of the barley were visible. Then the wind fell, and the reapers set about their heavy task of rescuing 399what they could of the grain, while compelled to sacrifice the straw.

No very serious damage seems to have occurred in the next few years, for up to 1693 the rental of the estates showed no diminution, the sixteen principal farmers each paying on an average two hundred pounds Scots in money, with forty bolls wheat, forty bolls bear (rye), forty bolls oats, and forty bolls oatmeal in kind. (Proprietors in those days needed ample storehouses, and were in fact compelled to be grain-merchants.) This rental represents a sum which may have been equal to about £6000 sterling.

But in the terrible winter of 1694–95 the awful calamity occurred, and in the following summer we find the poor ruined laird, Alexander Kinnaird, petitioning the Scottish Parliament for relief of cess and taxes, on the ground that “the two best parts of his estate of Culbin were quite ruined and destroyed by great and vast heaps of sand which had overblown the same, so that there was not a vestige to be seen of his manor-place of Culbin, yards, orchards, and mains thereof, and which within these twenty years were as considerable as many in the county of Moray; and the small remainder of his estate which yet remained uncovered was exposed to the like hazard, and the sand daily gained ground thereon, where-through he was like to run the hazard of losing the whole ... as a certificate produced under the hands of thirty of the most worthy gentlemen of the shire of Moray, Nairn, and Inverness, thereto can testify.”

Not only were the fruits of the land thus destroyed, but also part of the fishing, for in 1733 we find mention of the salmon-fishings on Findhorn being now quite lost by the alteration of the course of the river, and “having yielded no rent these several years bye past.”

Very different is the rent-roll in the barony of Culbin in this year from that which I have already quoted before the sandstorm. Now we find only thirteen tenants, no longer 400holding equally-divided portions of land, and of these only six make any payment in money, amounting to an average of five pounds. Very quaint are the terms of rental. Thus:—

1. William Falconer, Laich of Culbin, pays nine bolls, two firlots bear (i.e. rye), six hears of yarn, four capons and a half, two hens, and thirteen loads of peats.

2. Robert Duncan pays two bolls, one firlot, two pecks bear, two capons and a half, two hens, and three loads of peats.

3. Margaret Innes pays two firlots bear, half a capon,^[78] and two loads of peats.

4. John Nicoll pays five pounds ten shillings money, two hens, and six poultry.

And so on. From the total of this singular rental, considerable deduction was made for payment of the minister of Dyke’s stipend, and altogether we can scarcely wonder that the poor laird found himself compelled to dispose of his estates for what they would fetch, and so in 1698 we find a lengthy legal deed of sale, by which he makes them over to Duff of Drummuir, accompanying the deed “with my goodwill and blessing”—a remarkable entry to appear in a legal document, and one which illustrates the existence of a curious old superstition, to the effect that it was exceedingly unlucky to enter into possession of any house or land which the last occupant had been obliged to leave unwillingly. The cause which had led to his being compelled to abandon his home was one which might well excuse the awakening of dormant superstition, and therefore was Kinnaird the more careful to avert any possible source of offence.

It would appear that the shock must have preyed on his 401mind, for he did not long survive the sale of his estates: within three months he was numbered with the dead.

Nor did the Duffs long retain possession of Culbin, notwithstanding poor Kinnaird’s goodwill and blessing. Only thirty-five years went by ere it was sold by public roup for the benefit of John Duff’s creditors, the sum thus realised being £11,366 Scots, which is somewhat less than £1000 sterling.

Within the last forty years much has been done to prevent the further extension of the sand, and to commence the reclamation of at least the borders of this great Sahara. The means adopted have been the planting of thick belts of young fir-trees, which seem as capable of deriving sustenance from these dry sands as their kindred in mountain districts are of existing on barren rocks.

Further efforts were also made to bind the light, shifting sands by transplanting to them large quantities of the hardy bent, which resembles a very dry rush. Its long fibrous roots throw out innumerable filaments, forming a fine net-work. To secure for it a fair start, quantities of broom and whins were laid on the sandhills and pegged down, so as in some measure to diminish their exposure to the wind. How these labours would be facilitated, if only it were possible to introduce a great family of Californian lupines, which have wrought such wonders in transforming the arid sands around San Francisco into fertile soil!

The formation of this strange desert has by no means been Nature’s only recent freak on these shores. Just beyond the sandhills lies the pleasant bay of Findhorn, at the mouth of the beautiful river of that name (not beautiful as seen at the dead level where it is crossed by the railway, but most romantic in its loveliness as it cuts its deep rock-channel through the great fir-forests). Prior to the year 1701 the fishing and seaport town of Findhorn stood upon a pleasant plain, a mile north-west from the present situation. That plain is now the bottom of the sea!

402This great change occurred suddenly, when an unusually high tide burst through the natural sand-bar at the mouth of the river, and surging shoreward, overwhelmed the town. Fortunately, however, this danger had long been foreseen, so the majority of the inhabitants had already forsaken their homes; consequently few lives were endangered.

The old town of Findhorn was situated near a level peat-moss, wherein lay embedded roots and trunks of the great trees which had once nourished in the great forest whose very existence had been forgotten. In the middle of this moorland rose a conical artificial mound about forty fathoms high, called the Douff-hillock. It now lies deep beneath the waves, for that peat-moss is now the ocean bed, and the sea has encroached so far into the land, that instead of the fisher-folk, when bound for the town of Burghead, having a five-mile walk direct to that headland, they have to make a circuit of ten miles round the bay.

The last noteworthy effort of the great waters to pass their accustomed limits on these pleasant shores of Moray occurred in the year 1755, when the fearful earthquake at Lisbon spread terror far and near. Its effects were felt even here, in the form of a volcanic wave, which swept this coast; and it is especially recorded that in the parish of Dyke, near Forres, a flock of sheep, folded in apparent security far beyond the reach of any ordinary tide, were all drowned by the overwhelming wave.

On the other hand, the sea now appears to be steadily receding from these parts of the coast. Old men tell us how, in their youth, they were wont to gather shells and dig for bait on the wet sands between Campbelton and Nairn, where now sheep graze on the brine-sprinkled grass. Moreover, in cutting turf from the older pasture further inland, they were amazed to discover, beneath the thick turf, a paved way, leading to a rude pier, which still retained the iron ring to which boats had been moored at some forgotten time, ere the waters had retreated.

C. F. Gordon Cumming.

A CAVE AT COVESEA.

403A far more remarkable instance of such recession is to be found a little further along the coast, beyond the fine Covesea Cliffs, whose fantastic caves and strangely water-quarried rocks tell of a time when they, too, must have lain for countless ages deep beneath the ocean.

But of the changes which have occurred in historic times, undoubtedly the most remarkable is that to which I have already alluded, whereby the ocean deliberately built up the mighty sea-wall which so effectually shut it out from the once beautiful harbour of Spynie.

Such are a few of the many singular changes which would doubtless amaze our ancestors considerably could they return in this nineteenth century to visit their favourite hunting-grounds in the Lowlands of Moray.

Although in speaking of the Lowlands of Moray I have briefly referred to the very remarkable changes which within the last five hundred years have befallen the beautiful Loch of Spynie, I think it well to record these in fuller detail.

The loch, which was about three miles from Gordonstoun, was till recently the fairest sheet of blue water in all the once great and important province of Moray. Now only a tiny lake, covering an area of about eighty acres, remains in that little corner, which alone of all the ancient province, still bears the name of Moray—a small lakelet in a small county.

Not fifty years have elapsed (I write in 1904) since this great fresh-water lake was one of the most important features in the scenery of the east coast. But the circumstance of chief interest connected with it is that within comparatively recent years, when our ancestors and their contemporaries built their castles on the shores of the lake, 404it was an estuary of the sea, a secure harbour, where fishing-smacks and sometimes trading-ships from far countries found secure refuge. And now, so complete is the transformation, and so utterly have the waters vanished, that the whole district is one wide expanse of rich arable land.

The two prominent objects in the midst of those level corn-fields, are the little hill on which stand the ruins of old Duffus Castle, and those of the Palace of Spynie. The former was once the fortified stronghold of Freskinus de Moravia, one of a race of barons of renown in the days of King David I. In later ages it passed to the possession of the Lords Duffus, who held it till the beginning of the eighteenth century.

One of their servants, who only died in 1760, used to tell of the time when Bonnie Dundee, the celebrated Claverhouse, was a guest in the castle, about the year 1689, and how she brought the claret from the cask in a timber stoup, and served it to the guests in a silver cup. She described Claverhouse as “a swarthy little man, with keen lively eyes, and black hair, tinged with grey, which he wore in locks which covered each ear, and were rolled upon slips of lead twisted together at the ends.”

The old castle was a square tower, with walls about five feet thick, and defended by parapet, ditch, and drawbridge; and round about it was an orchard and garden, noted for its excellent and abundant produce. The moss-grown fruit-trees remain to this day.

Speaking of this castle, my dear old friend Cosmo Innes, historian and antiquarian, and for many years Sheriff of Moray, said: “Of domestic comfort these great lords had not dreamt. This castle of Duffus had no chimneys nor any window glass. When the winter winds blew fiercely across the fen, they shut their stout window-boards—outside window-shutters—and crowded round a fire of peats in the middle of the hall, while the smoke found its way out as it could, and was welcome as communicating some feeling 405of heat to the upper chambers.” What a suggestive description of a cheerful home!

At a distance of about five miles, on another slightly raised site, stand the stately ruins of the Palace of Spynie, which, six hundred years ago, was the summer home of the Bishops of Moray, at a time ere their magnificent Cathedral of Elgin (still so beautiful in its decay) had been ruthlessly pillaged and destroyed. Notwithstanding its ecclesiastical character, this too was a stronghold, with loopholed walls of enormous thickness, watch-towers, and portcullis; and here baronial warrior-bishops, backed by a goodly company of armed retainers, held their supremacy over turbulent neighbours, not only by Divine right, but by very emphatic temporal force, for, as has been well said, “while holding the crosier in one hand, they could ever wield the sword with the other, and act the part of commanders of their stronghold at Spynie, whenever danger threatened.”

Various kings and great nobles had bestowed on the diocese of Moray grants of land, forests, and fishing, and the revenues and temporal power of its Bishops as “Lords of Regality of Spynie,” were so great, that they could well afford to live as princes, and accordingly they did so—their households including as many officials, with high-sounding titles, as those of the greatest nobles.

The title of “Lord of Regality” was no empty name. It was a grant from the Crown, conferring the right of legal jurisdiction in a specified district, both in matters civil and criminal. The Lord of Regality held the power of life and death, and was the arbitrary sovereign within its territory. These extraordinary and most dangerous powers were bestowed on various subjects, and in 1452 were granted by King James II. to the Bishop of Moray and his successors. The jurisdiction extended over the lands of the Church in the shires of Elgin, Nairn, Inverness, Ross, Banff, and Aberdeen, and included no fewer than nine baronies, besides other lands.

406These magnificent Prelates were certainly “lords over God’s heritage” in a most literal sense. Their daily lives practically exemplified how “when a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace,” for dire experience had taught them the need of supplementing their spiritual armour with every efficient temporal defence. For though their tenants and vassals were so far privileged that they were not liable to be called upon to serve the king in time of war, they were not infrequently compelled to act on the defensive.

Thus it was that when David Stewart of Lorn was made Bishop in 1461, and was so sorely troubled by the Earl of Huntly as to be compelled to pass sentence of excommunication against him, the wrathful Clan Gordon threatened to pull the Prelate from his pigeon-holes (in allusion to the small rooms of the old palace). The Bishop replied that he would soon build a house out of which the Earl and all his clan should not be able to pull him. Thereupon he built the great tower which has ever since borne his name—“Davie’s Tower,” four stories high, with walls of solid masonry nine feet in thickness.

Even the large windows of the upper rooms were defended by strong iron bars, while the casement was occupied by vaulted rooms, doubtless for the use of the men-at-arms. The roof is also vaulted and surrounded with battlements. But neither devotion nor recreation were forgotten in the building of this lordly palace, for within its great quadrangle stood the Bishop’s Chapel, and also a spacious tennis-court, while round about the precincts were gardens well supplied with fruit-trees. Here the poor of the parish daily assembled at a given hour, when a bell was rung, and from the postern gate an abundant supply of bread and soup and other food was freely dispensed to all comers.

Many a strange change have these grey walls witnessed—ecclesiastical pomp and martial display—pious and benevolent lives contrasting with scenes of cruel warfare 407and outrage—but no such changes have been half so startling as those physical transformations which have altered the whole aspect of the land. In place of rich harvest-fields extending far as the eye can reach, much of the country round and all the distant high ground, was covered with dense natural forest, haunted by wolves, which were the terror of the peasants, and afforded worthier sport for the barons than their descendants can create for themselves in the slaughter of home-reared pheasants.

Even the older members of the present generation found true sport in abundance round the reedy shores of the great fresh-water Loch of Spynie—the largest loch in the land of Moray—a beautiful sheet of water which, after long resisting successive efforts at drainage, has within the last forty years yielded to a determined attack, to the joy of the farmers and the bitter regret of naturalists and sportsmen.

The latter might (but do not) find a corner of consolation in being saved from the temptation to lay up for themselves after years of agonising rheumatism, brought on by long hours spent in creeping among marshy shallows on bitter winter mornings—such expeditions as were deemed joy by my brothers, whose well-filled bag often included some rare bird—a chance visitor of these shores. For until the middle of this century the rushes and water-grasses and rank herbage of the swamps offered such favourable breeding-grounds as to attract wild-fowl in incalculable numbers; widgeon and mallard, pochard and pintail ducks, teal, moorhens, and great flocks of coot. The loch was also the resort of numerous wild swans, though these had already become rarer visitants than of yore.

Many were the grey-brindled wild cats which haunted the neighbouring fir-woods, and many the badgers, which burrowed like rabbits in the dry banks, thence emerging to dig up the soil after the fashion of pigs. So numerous must these creatures have been in bygone times, that they have bequeathed their name to the lands of Inch-brock, “The 408Isle of Badgers,” a name worthy of note in that it tells not only of the presence of an animal now well-nigh extinct, but also of the time when the sea covered these lowlands, and this now inland farm was a wave-washed isle.

The capercailzie, too (which, being interpreted from the Gaelic, means “the cock of the woods,” and which had entirely died out of Scotland till it was recently re-imported from Norway to Perthshire, where now twenty to twenty-five brace sometimes figure in a single day’s battue), was a regular winter guest in the pinewoods of Moray,^[79] until the latter part of the eighteenth century, when it ceased to make its annual appearance, a loss not much regretted by the proprietors of the forests, in which this “cock of the woods” leaves his mark in the destruction of many a promising shoot.

But when we speak of the blue, fresh-water loch (familiar to many travellers from the fact that some fifty years ago the railroad from Elgin to Lossiemouth was constructed right across its shallow, half-drained bed, so that the passengers looked to right and left across its glassy waters),^[80] we are speaking of a comparatively modern feature in the landscape. At the time when these two grey ruins, the Palace of Spynie, and the Castle of Duffus, were built, both stood on the brink of a broad estuary of the sea—indeed, there is little doubt that prior to A.D. 1200, the Castle of Duffus, on its green hill, was actually an island. Up to the year 1380, Spynie was a secure harbour, whence “the fishers of sea-fish” were in the habit of sailing with their wives and children to the sea, thence bringing back fish in boats.

Thither came trading-vessels from France, Flanders, and Holland, for until the fifteenth century this loch, known as 409the Bishop’s Port, was the seaport for Elgin, involving only two miles of land transport. After the closing up of the lake, Findhorn became the chief port. But in its earlier days the sea-lake extended about five miles eastward of the Palace of Spynie to a spot called Kintrae, a Gaelic name signifying “the top of the tide.”

Strange to say, there are actually four places bearing this name, each but a little distance from the other, and evidently marking the gradual recession of the tide, as the coast-line changed. Finally we come to a spot which still bears the name of Salterhill, and here, about fifty years ago, the remains of a salt factory were discovered, in the course of digging deep drains. There were also salt-works on the banks of Loch Spynie itself, for they are mentioned in a deed by Bishop Bricius, bearing date A.D. 1203.

Nearly two centuries later, in A.D. 1383, a protest was made by the Lord Bishop Alexander Bar, against Lord John Dunbar, Earl of Moray, and the burgesses of Elgin, respecting the right of the fishing and of the harbour of Spynie, which he maintained to be within the ecclesiastical marches, and to have ever been held by the Bishops of Moray, who, each in his time, had “fishers, with cobles and boats, for catching salmon, grilses, and finnacs, and other kinds of fish, with nets and hooks, without impediment or opposition, the present dispute excepted.”

Later documents, bearing date 1451, still speak of the fishermen and harbour of the town or burgh of Spynie.

All manner of shell-fish abounded in this ancient sea-loch, more especially cockles and oysters. The latter, alas! have long since disappeared from our shores, together with the alluvial mud in which they formerly flourished, the sea-coast being now essentially sandy; but their presence in older days is proven by the numerous shellmounds, marking where clusters of fishers’ huts once stood. These “kitchen-middens” have in recent years been discovered all along the banks of this great basin. One of 410these (at Briggsies), which covers a space nearly an acre, and is in many places about a foot in depth, consists of masses of periwinkles, mussels, limpets, razor-shell, cockles, and oysters, but especially oysters of very large growth, such as may well increase our regret that they should have ceased to exist on these shores. A good deal of charred wood mingled with the shells, tells of the kitchen fires of the consumers, and one bronze pin has been found, as if just to prove that these villagers were possessed of such treasures.

A very remarkable confirmation of the old records regarding the ancient bounds of the sea was obtained when the loch was drained, and large beds of oysters and mussels were found buried beneath the deposit of fresh-water shells and mud. Several anchors of vessels were found, and sundry skeletons. In the same connection we may notice the name of Scart-hill, i.e., the Cormorant’s hill, which now lies at some distance inland, but which assuredly was originally on the sea-shore.

When the recession of the ocean deprived the bishops of their natural harbour, and the fish-supply could no longer be landed at their very door, they still retained their right to the coast fishing; and so, in the year 1561, we find the Bishop and Chapter of Moray granting a charter for “the fishing called the Coifsea” (which we now call Covesea), to Thomas Innes, in consideration of certain payment in kind, the Bishop reserving the right of purchasing the fish caught at the rate of twenty haddocks or whitings for one penny, a skate or ling, twopence, a turbot, fourpence, and a seleich, or seal, for four shillings.

The harvest of the sea included cod, skate, halibut, haddocks, whitings, saiths, crabs, and lobsters. The latter continued abundant until the close of the eighteenth century, when an English company established a lobster-fishery in the bay of Stotfield, for the London market, and in the first season forwarded sixty thousand lobsters alive to town, in wells formed in the hold of the ship, the 411prisoners simply having their claws tied to their sides. They were captured in iron traps, which seem to have had the effect of frightening the lobsters away from the coast, for, like the oysters, their presence here is now a tale of the past.

The lobsters, when captured, were stored in a marine prison, till an opportunity presented itself for sending them to the southern market; and the lobster-catchers were apparently not very discriminating in their selection of a suitable spot where these cases should be sunk. Hence, in April 1677, we find an appeal from the Captain of a trading-ship, The Margaret of Inverness, who, having occasion to call at the port of Crail, summoned a pilot to take in his vessel. He says: “Ane Inglish man being heir had two Lapister-kists^[81] in the harbour-muth, and the boatmen towed close to them, and they aleadge that they did losse two hundred Lapisters, for which the Bailies heir has fyned me in thretie punds Scots, and arested and lodged me in prison till I will pay the same, which I doe think ought not to be payed by me, since that I had a Poileot, and the chists lay right in the midle of the harbour-muth.”

No historical record tells how or when the sea threw up the wide barrier of shingle and sand which in later ages separated it from the loch, transforming the broad estuary into a brackish lake with wide-spreading marshy shores, extending as far as Gordonstoun.

That the change was gradual seems proven by the formation of a series of raised beaches, distant about a mile inland from the present coast-line, and forming a succession of plateaus covered with large rounded stones, extending for about three miles along the shore. This curious ridge averages a height of twenty feet above the sea-level, and is from fifty to a hundred yards in width. It is known that in these remote times, the River Spey, which now enters the sea at Fochabers, flowed far more to the west, and probably brought down from the mountains 412those vast supplies of gravel and water-worn boulders. But though the Spey may have brought the material, the process by which the separation of the sea and lake was effected is all a mystery.

Whether, as some suppose, by sudden storms, or else by gradual recession of the ocean, certain it is that when Boece wrote his History of Scotland (which, though not published till 1526, was probably written earlier, since we learn that the author was born in Forfarshire in 1465), the sea was shut out from the lake; and though he mentions that in his time old persons remembered the lake being stocked with sea-fish, and although the river Lossie continued to flow right through the loch, certainly as recently as 1586 even salmon had all forsaken the loch, and were replaced by pike and trout, and multitudes of eels.

The cockles and oysters, too (the possession of which the Bishops maintained as their right), had disappeared with all other denizens of the salt sea, and in place of the brown, tangled seaweeds, fresh-water plants had sprung up. The old historian specially noted the abundant growth of swangirs, whatever they may be, on the seeds of which the wild swans love to feed, and large flocks of these beautiful birds floated in stately pride in the calm blue loch, while multitudes of wild-duck and all manner of water-fowl found refuge among the tall bullrushes and sedges.

C. F. Gordon Cumming.

THE PALACE AT SPYNIE, 1860.

“In this region,” says he, “is a lake named Spiney, wherein is exceedingly plentie of swans. The cause of their increase in this place is ascribed to a certeine herbe, which groweth there in great abundance, and whose seed is verie pleasant unto the said fowle in the eating, wherefore they call it swangirs; and hereunto such is the nature of the same, that where it is once sowne or planted it will never be destroyed, as may be proved by experience. For albeit that this lake be five miles in length, and was some time within the rememberance of man verie well-stocked 413with salmon and other fish, yet after that this herbe began to multiplie upon the same, it became so shallow that one may now wade through the greatest part thereof, by means whereof all the great fishes there be utterlie consumed.”

Very lovely in those days must have been the view from “Bishop Davie’s Great Tower,” overlooking the wide expanse of quiet lake, fringed with willows and rustling reeds and dark green alders (precious to the fishers as yielding a valuable dye for their nets), while beyond the recently created ridge of shingle lay the great stormy ocean, and the watchers on the tower might mark the incoming of the fleet of brown-sailed fishing-smacks, or catch the first glimpse on the horizon of the approach of some gallant merchantman (or perchance a smuggler’s craft) bringing stores of claret and brandy, and other foreign goods. The lake extended from Aikenhead in the east, far to the west of the ancient salt-works at Salterhill, etc., close to Gordonstoun, and ferry-boats took passengers across from point to point.

About the centre of the loch rose the island of Fowl Inch, where multitudes of water-fowl found a quiet breeding-place, while the west end of the loch was dotted with green islets called holmes, which were covered with coarse, rank pasture, called star grass. In days when no foreign grasses had yet been imported, this natural growth was precious, so in the summer-time the cattle were carried by boat and turned loose on the isles to graze. Of these isles, the principal were those known as Wester Holme, Easter Holme, Tappie’s Holme, Skene’s Holme, Picture Holme, Long Holme, Little Holme, and Lint Holme. This precious star grass also grew luxuriantly on some parts of the shore at the west end of the loch, and gave its name to those favoured spots—such were the Star Bush of Balornie, the Star Bush of Salterhill, and the Star Bush of Spynie.

Now, he who has a steady head and sufficient nerve to 414venture on climbing the ruined and broken spiral stairs (through the gaps of which he looks down into the empty space left by the total disappearance of the rafters and flooring which once divided the great tower into four stories) may still stand on Bishop Davie’s battlement, but in place of the broad lake, he will see only one little corner of blue water, sparkling like a sapphire in a setting of yellow gold—the withered reeds of autumn.

This small lakelet, covering about a hundred and ten acres, of which eighty are open water, lies on the edge of the dark fir-woods of Pitgaveny, and is carefully preserved by means of strong embankments separating it from the broad main ditch, which has so effectually carried off most of the water. Small as it is, it suffices to attract a considerable number of wild-duck, and a number of black-headed gulls breed on its margin, notwithstanding that their nests are freely pillaged, as their beautiful green, russet, or brown eggs are in great request for the table. About eighty dozen are thus taken each week during the breeding-season.

A neighbouring tract of rush-land still shows that art has not yet wholly triumphed over nature, but to all intents and purposes Loch Spynie has vanished “like as a dream when one awaketh.” Gone are the quiet pools, well sheltered by tall reeds, where wild geese and ducks, herons and coots, were wont to rear their young; no longer does the otter haunt the shore, or the booming note of the bittern echo from the swamp whence the white mists rose so eerily, and where the fowlers devised cunning snares for the capture of wild-fowl.

The thick mud, once tenanted by multitudinous eels, and which afforded such excellent sport to the spearers, was turned to good account by large tile-works, and the waters are everywhere replaced by rich green pasture, dotted over with sheep and cattle or comfortable homesteads with well-filled stack-yards; while straight, dull roads take the place 415of the old ferries; the boatmen have vanished, the wayfarer trudges on mile after mile across a monotonous expanse of ploughed land or harvest-fields, and the wild cries of the water-fowl are replaced by the shrill steam-whistles that tell of railway-trains, steam-ploughs, or reaping-machines. In short, the days of romance and of ague are a dream of the past, and unpoetic wealth and health reign in their place.

The means by which in the course of many generations this transformation has been effected, form a curious chain of incidents in the history of reclaimed lands. For many years after the separation of the sea from the loch, the River Lossie continued to flow in its ancient channel, passing right through the loch, draining the surrounding land, and carrying superfluous water to the sea. There is reason to believe that the Bishops, who were then almost sole proprietors, assisted this natural drainage by the cutting of deep lateral ditches, by which means some land was reclaimed, and the loch became so shallow that a road of stepping-stones was constructed right across it, so that the Bishop’s Vicar, after preaching to his congregation at Kinnedar (or “The head of the water”) might thereon cross to hold another preaching in Oguestown (the ancient name for the parish church at Gordonstoun).

This road across the water was carefully constructed, and was known as “The Bishop’s Stepping-Stones.” These were three feet apart, and on them was laid a causeway of broad, flat stones, along which the great Church dignitaries might walk in safety. There was also an artificial island near the Palace of Spynie—measuring about sixty paces by sixteen. For what purpose it had been constructed no one can guess, but it was built of stone, bound together by crooked branches of oak—a strange survival of those oak-forests which flourished in this district at the time when the Danes occupied Burghead, and came to repair old galleys and build new ones at Rose Isle, compelling the inhabitants to cut timber for this purpose in the oak-forests.

416Now only bleak, bent-clothed sandhills stretch along the shore, and from time to time an old root or log is upturned as if to prove that the tradition was not wholly a delusion.

Not only have the oak-forests disappeared, but the inlet of the sea where the galleys were constructed has been so wholly blocked up with sand, that not a trace of it is to be found, nor is there any mark to suggest at what period this portion of the coast can have been an island, as its name indicates.

Strange to say, however, the fisher-folk in the neighbouring village of Hopeman tell us that about forty years ago a foreign vessel (“we call them all foreigners unless they’re British,” say the fishers), bound for Burghead, being caught in a storm, ran right ashore near Lossiemouth, as the captain understood by his very old chart that he could run into Spynie harbour, and thence sail round under shelter by the back of Rose Isle.

A similar change, though in a smaller matter, is suggested by the name of Brae-mou, which was formerly Burn-mouth, at Hopeman, and also by the neighbouring farm of Burnside, which lies on rising ground near the sea-board of crags, but where now not the tiniest trickling brooklet is to be found, nor the faintest indication of any fresh-water stream having ever flowed.

There is, however, a tradition that two hundred years ago this and several other burns flowed westward into the lochs of Rose Isle and Outlet, both of which were filled up, and their very sites obliterated in the awful sand-storms which, in the autumn of 1694 and spring of 1695, overwhelmed so many miles of the most fertile land along the shores of Moray.

These streams, thus diverted from their natural channel, turned eastward, and thenceforward flowed into the Loch of Spynie, thus adding to its water-supply at the same time as the drifting sand had partly filled up its basin. Consequently the loch overflowed its bounds, and did vast 417damage to the surrounding lands. The Bishop’s causeway and other artificial roads, the Spynie islet and various homesteads, were lost to sight, and well-nigh to tradition.

After the Reformation, when Church and lands were divorced, the Protestant Bishops, shorn of all temporal power, might indeed inhabit the Palace of Spynie, but were compelled to be passive witnesses of the decay of the ancient drain-works, and the enlargement of the lake. The newly-created Lord Spynie never lived in the country, and suffered everything to go to ruin, so the accumulating waters encroached on the arable land to such an extent as to necessitate some very energetic measures—nothing less than turning the course of the river Lossie and providing it with a new seaward channel.

So in the year 1599 two of the proprietors, Sutherland of Duffus and Archibald Douglas of Pittendreich, whose lands chiefly suffered, agreed on this action.

How these “twa lairds” set about their work does not appear, but they evidently failed, for early in the seventeenth century most of the neighbouring proprietors combined, and having taken counsel with Anderson of Finzeach of Aberdeen, a skilful engineer, they succeeded in turning the Lossie into a new channel, separating it from the loch by a great embankment. A map of the province of Moray, published in 1640 by Sir Robert Gordon of Straloch, shows that this great work had been successfully accomplished.

After this the waters were fairly kept within bounds for half a century, during which men were too much occupied with stormy politics to give much heed to the care of their lands. But in 1694 their attention was rudely reawakened by the terrible calamity to which I have already referred. The drifting sands which desolated so wide a belt of the most fertile lands of Moray did similar damage, though in a less degree, in this district, and so effectually filled the channels of all streams and a great part of the bed of Loch 418Spynie, that its waters, now greatly enlarged, again overflowed their bounds, covering the cultivated lands, and presenting a wide but very shallow surface.

There was danger, too, lest the river Lossie should break its artificial banks, and return to its original channel. So in 1706 the neighbouring lairds bound themselves “to maintain and support the banks of the said river with earth, feal (i.e. turf), stone, creels, etc., ... in order to keep her in the channel where she now runs, and where she had been put by art and force.”

Dunbar of Duffus next attempted to reclaim his own swamped lands, which bore the appropriate name of Waterymains. He made great dykes and embankments, set up a windmill with pumping machinery, and all went well till a great tempest overthrew the mill and destroyed the machinery, whereupon the waters once more overswept the arable lands, of which they retained possession for many years, during which the neighbouring proprietors endeavoured to decide on some system of concerted action.

This, however, was effectually prevented by the counter interests of the family of Gordonstoun. It appears that when, in A.D. 1636, Sir Robert Gordon purchased these estates, he had obtained a charter from John Guthrie, Bishop of Moray, bestowing on him various lands, including those of Salterhill, otherwise called Little Drainie, “with all singular parts, pendicles, and pertinents, together with the passage or ferry-boat in the Loch of Spynie, with the privileges, liberties, profits, and duties of the same.”

In consequence of this charter, the family of Gordonstoun claimed the sole right, not only to the possession of boats on the loch, but also to the fishing and fowling and the use of the natural pastures on the shores, and the determination to preserve these rights was a fruitful source of litigation. It was therefore evident that whatever means were adopted to diminish the lake would infringe on the “profits and privileges” of the Gordons.

419Thus matters were left until the year 1778, when we find local chroniclers bewailing the neglect which had suffered “the ancient ditch” to be so filled up that the loch was daily increasing westward, forming a level sheet of water upwards of four miles in length, and covering a space of 2500 acres, besides the broad margin of marshy land which, owing to occasional overflows, was rendered worthless.

In the following year Mr. Brander of Pitgaveny (whose low-lying lands near the loch suffered more severely than those of his neighbours), resolutely set to work at his own expense, aided by his brother, to restore the old drain, and enlarge it so as to form a canal of some importance. He succeeded in lowering the surface of the lake upwards of three feet, and recovered 1162 acres of land, of which eight hundred fell to his own share, and the remainder to Gordonstoun and other adjacent estates, which touched the shores of the loch.

Then it was that the stone causeway (which was dimly remembered in local tradition) reappeared, as did also the artificial islet aforesaid, and an isle at the west end of the loch, on which were the ruins of a turf cottage. On excavating these, there were found a quantity of peat-ashes and a number of coins, which had apparently been here buried on some sudden alarm. Little did their possessor dream what changes would pass over his humble home ere his hidden treasure was again brought to light!

For a while Sir William Gordon (the last of the strong-minded, energetic race of the Gordonstoun family) looked on with comparative indifference, supposing that this effort to drain the loch would prove as unsuccessful as those of the past. But when he found that the waters had actually fallen so low as to stop his ferry-boat, he deemed it necessary to take active steps for the protection of his rights; and by application to the Crown he obtained a new charter, bearing date 22nd July 1780, giving him a right to “the whole lake or loch of Spynie, and fishings of the same, 420with all the privileges and pertinents thereof, together with the ferry-boat upon the said loch, with the privileges, liberties, profits, and duties of the same.” The granting of this charter was vehemently opposed by the neighbours, and the Messrs. Brander raised a counter-action and counter-claims, which kept all the lawyers busy for many years.

Meanwhile, nature and art continued in conflict. Three years after Mr. Brander’s canal was finished, a great flood occurred which did it considerable damage; the loch regained much of its lost ground, and the ferry-boat continued to ply even to Salterhill until the beginning of the nineteenth century.

By this time Sir William Gordon was dead, and the neighbouring proprietors awoke to a conviction that it would prove remunerative to unite their efforts in making a great new canal so as to reclaim more land. Telford, the most eminent engineer of his day, was consulted. (He was then engaged in the construction of the great Caledonian Canal.) His suggestion was that a canal should be cut through the high ramparts of shingle so as to give the loch a direct outlet to the sea, with mighty sluices at the mouth to keep back the tide.

It was determined to carry out this scheme, but a considerable time elapsed ere the neighbouring proprietors could come to an agreement respecting their several shares in the expenditure, and in the division of land to be reclaimed. This matter involved so much discussion, so many surveys and reports, such examination of witnesses, and other legal forms, that it dragged on, at an enormous expense, from 1807 to 1822! when the dispute was finally submitted to arbitration by the Dean of Faculty.

The work was, however, not allowed to suffer by these long legal proceedings, and by 1812 it was completed, at a cost of £12,740, a sum in which law-expenses formed a heavy item. The lowering of the waters put a stop to ferry-boats, so it became necessary to construct a turnpike 421road right across the loch. The workmen stood in some places breast-deep in the water: thus the Bishop’s stepping-stones, ere many years passed, were succeeded by a substantial turnpike road; and the eels and pike, which still found a home in the shallow water, were further disturbed by the construction of a pathway for “the iron horse.”

For about seventeen years all went well, and although the sluices at Lossiemouth were of wood and not self-acting, involving constant watchfulness on the part of the men in charge, the surface of the loch was maintained at an almost permanent level. Some expensive alterations were made in 1827 to avert a threatened danger of inundation in the fishing town of Lossiemouth; but all such minor fears were swallowed up in the reality of the great calamity which befell the whole land of Moray in the memorable floods of 1829, when very heavy rains on the high lands caused all the rivers to overflow their natural bounds and ravage the land. Even the little Lossie, usually so peaceful, was transformed into a raging torrent, and, bursting the barriers which had grown up between her and the loch, overflowed the canal, leaving it choked with great stones and earth; and rushing seaward, carried away the sluices. Thus in a few brief hours did the mocking waters destroy the labour of years.

In that widespread desolation, men had neither money nor inclination to return at once to the battle; but ere long the canal was partially cleared, the Lossie turned back into her accustomed channel, and high banks were raised to keep her therein. The sluices, however, had vanished, consequently the canal was simply a great tidal ditch, so that the loch itself rose and fell about three feet with every tide. The said ditch was, however, so far effectual that although the loch did overflow a considerable amount of cultivated ground, its limits were well defined, and the raised turnpike road continued perfectly dry.

As years passed by, however, the bottom of the canal 422gradually filled up, and the loch thereupon commenced to spread further and further, so that the neighbouring farms suffered severely, as field after field was inundated. Finally, in 1860 all the tenant-farmers united in a petition to the proprietors to set about a thorough drainage of the loch. This was agreed upon, and after many consultations, the landowners resolved to send a deputation to the fen-country of England, there to study the various methods successfully adopted for marsh drainage. Three reliable men were accordingly selected to represent the proprietors, the factors, the tenants, while a fourth was added to the number as professional adviser. These made a careful examination of the principal waterworks in England, and of all the various kinds of sluices in use, together with the methods of working them.

On their return they drew up a report, recommending, in the first instance, a partial drainage by means of self-acting sluices, which they calculated would, at a cost of £2430, so reduce the waters as to leave only a pool covering about a hundred acres near the old Palace of Spynie. Steam power, they considered, might, if requisite, be applied later to a final drainage.

As there were at that time two thousand acres of land either under water or so moist as to be worthless, there appeared a fair prospect of a good return for the outlay. The works were accordingly commenced. Sluices were put on at the sea, but months of toil and grievous expense were incurred ere they were in working order. In the first instance, a foundation of solid masonry had to be raised on what proved to be a quicksand, and an artificial foundation of heavy piles had to be prepared. Then the water poured into the cutting made through the shingly beach on the one hand, and through the sand on the other—so that the works were inundated both by sea and loch. The unhappy contractor, who had never calculated on such a contingency, pumped and pumped with might and 423main for months, till at length in despair, “out of heart and out of pocket,” he quietly disappeared from the country.

It was necessary, however, that the work, once begun, should be finished. It was accordingly undertaken by two local tradesmen, who in due time accomplished it satisfactorily, but at a very heavy loss on their contract. Four sluices of cast iron, each weighing eighteen hundredweight, were so finely poised as to be opened or closed by the rise or fall of a quarter of an inch in the surface of the water; and when shut not one drop of water could ooze through from the sea into the canal. Then followed the great labour of again digging and deepening the canal, and ere the works were finally accomplished, the expenditure was found to have been about £8000—rather an increase on the estimate! Nevertheless, the work is considered to have been remunerative, as the greater part of the two thousand acres thus reclaimed has proved first-class soil, and even the poorer portions are capable of considerable improvement.

Of course there is a necessity for some annual expenditure, as repairs are needed to keep the whole in working order; but so far the drainage of what was once the beautiful Loch of Spynie may be deemed a complete success from an agricultural point of view, though to the naturalist and the sportsman the farmer’s gain is an irreparable loss.

Much of the low-lying land thus reclaimed proved to be heavy clay, which produced rich wheat-crops, and till about thirty years ago a large proportion of this, and indeed of all the lowlands of Moray, was devoted to this grain. Now, however, since Russia and California furnish such abundant supplies, home-grown wheat is no longer a remunerative crop, so the wheat-fields have vanished, and are replaced by barley and oats, and especially by turnips, for Moray is now emphatically a stock-rearing 424district, and the farmer’s energies are concentrated on care of his beasts.

As concerns the fine old palace with “regality,” its glory rapidly waned after the date of the Reformation. The last Roman Catholic Bishop, Patrick Hepburn, was a man who fully understood the art of making friends with the unrighteous mammon, and, foreseeing the storm of 1560, he made provision in due season, and sought to secure a powerful ally against the day of need. He therefore presented a large part of the most valuable land of the diocese to the Earl of Moray, Regent of Scotland, with fishing and other privileges. He also handsomely endowed many of his own kinsfolks and friends, including his own sons, which was indeed adding injury to insult, so far as his relation to the church was concerned! Having thus disposed of her property for his own benefit, forestalling other robbers of church lands, he settled down to a less harassing life in the old palace, and there died at an advanced age.

At his death the remaining lands of the diocese were confiscated by the Crown, and in 1590 were granted to Sir Alexander Lindsay, son of the Earl of Crawford, who had found favour with King James VI. by advancing ten thousand gold crowns to help to defray his majesty’s travelling expenses when journeying to Denmark to wed the Princess Anne. Sir Alexander accompanied his sovereign as far as Germany, when he was attacked by severe illness, and had to remain behind. King James wrote from the castle of Croneburg, in Denmark, promising to bestow on him the lordship of Spynie, with all lands and honours pertaining thereto. “Let this,” said he, “serve for cure to your present disease.” Sir Alexander was accordingly created Lord Spynie, but not caring to live in the north, he appointed a neighbouring laird to act as constable of the Fortalice and Castle of Spynie. He himself afterwards lost favour with the king, and in 4251607 had the misfortune to get mixed up in a family fight in the streets of Edinburgh, which resulted in his death.

This method of settling a family difficulty was curiously illustrative of the times. The Earl of Crawford had assassinated his kinsman, Sir Walter Lindsay, whereupon Sir David Lindsay of Edzell, nephew of the murdered man, assembled his armed retainers to avenge the death of his uncle. The two armed forces met at Edinburgh, whereupon Lord Spynie interposed and strove to bring about a reconciliation. Hot words soon resulted in a fray, and the mediator was accidentally slain, and fell pierced with eleven wounds. Altogether this is a very pretty picture of the mediæval method of settling such questions.

The title died out in the third generation, when the lands reverted to the Crown, and have since passed from one family to another, till both lands and ruined palace reached the hands of the present owner—Captain Brander Dunbar.

Three centuries have passed by since the death of Bishop Hepburn, for the first hundred of which the old palace was the seat of the Protestant Bishops, to whom it was transferred after the Reformation. One of these, John Guthrie of that Ilk (which means that he was the proprietor of Guthrie in Angus), held it in the year 1640, when the Covenanters took arms, whereupon he garrisoned the palace and prepared for a siege. But when General Munro arrived with a force of three hundred men, the Bishop was persuaded to surrender, so only his arms and riding-horses were carried off.

Again, in 1645, when Montrose laid waste the lands of Moray with fire and sword, the inhabitants of the neighbouring town of Elgin (the cathedral town of the diocese) fled at his approach, to seek shelter for themselves, their wives, and their treasure, in the Palace of Spynie, which continued to be the episcopal residence till the time of Bishop Colin Falconer, who died there in 1686.

426Two years later, in the Revolution of 1688, the palace was annexed to the Crown, as the lands had already been, and since that date it has remained uninhabited. As a natural consequence, its timber and iron-work have gradually been removed by the neighbouring farmers—the doors and flooring, the oaken rafters, the iron gate, the iron chain of the portcullis, have all disappeared, and only a portion of the massive stone walls now remains to tell of the glory of this ancient palace. Even the best of the hewn stones, and the steps of the old stairs, have been thus appropriated. Never was transformation more complete than that which has changed this once mighty ecclesiastical fortress and palace of the sea-board into a peaceful inland ruin, whose grey walls, now tottering to their fall, re-echo only the scream of the night-owl, or the bleating of the sheep which crop the sweet grass within its courts.

Nevertheless, the position of those who occupy the reclaimed lands is by no means one of absolute security. Not only might another year of unwonted rainfall on the hills repeat the story of the floods of 1829, and restore the Lossie to its self-chosen channel through Loch Spynie, to the total destruction of all sea-sluices—but there exists the ever present and far more serious danger on the west, where only a narrow belt of low sandhills protects the cultivated lands from the sea, which in the eighteenth century made such serious encroachments on the neighbouring bay of Burghead.

When we note its ceaseless activity all along this coast (one year building up huge barriers of great boulders to a height of perhaps thirty feet or more, and in the following year carrying them all away, to leave only a gravelly shore), we cannot ignore the possibility that a day may very possibly come when, after a night of unwonted storm, the morning light may reveal a gap in the sandhills, and the fertile lands, which at eventide appeared so safe and 427so peaceful, may lie deep beneath the salt sea, which, reclaiming its rights, has once more resumed its original channel, passing round the back of Rose-isle, to restore to the ancient harbour of Spynie its long-lost character.

There are some points of special interest connected with these ancient buildings, apart from the ruthless destruction by “the Wolf of Badenoch” of all that was beautiful in the town of Forres and the cathedral city of Elgin. (It is a moot-point whether the possession of a picturesque ruin still entitles the burgh of Elgin to this honorary title—a doubt carefully expressed by a conscientious young revivalist in his prayer for a special blessing on “this city of Elgin, if it be a city!” By the way, it is interesting to note that in the Chartulary of Moray, about A.D. 1190, the name Elgin was spelt as at present, although in various later writings it is called Elgyn, Helgun, and Aigin.)

The first bishop of the Roman Church in the diocese of Moray (dating about A.D. 1115) by some means obtained possession of the Culdee Church, which had long been established at Birnie, near Elgin—a simple building of wood and clay. The present church was built about A.D. 1150. Here the first four bishops lived and died in all simplicity; but Richard, the fifth bishop, removed the seat of the diocese to Spynie, and there a stately palace was erected overlooking the lake, and in 1215 a site was chosen for a cathedral. But Andrew de Moravia, the seventh bishop (a son of the powerful family of Duffus^[82]), deeming this site too isolated, and otherwise inconvenient of access for the people, obtained the sanction of Pope Honorius (about 1224) to build the cathedral at Elgin on the fertile 428banks of the river Lossie. This was accordingly done, and the noble building was completed ere the middle of the century, as were also twenty-two manses as residences for the canons, all enclosed within the great precinct wall. The canons were the clergy of parishes in all parts of the diocese.

But misfortunes soon began, for the cathedral and the manses were partially burnt in 1270, and in 1390 the ruthless Wolf of Badenoch (Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan) raided the town and set fire to the cathedral, destroying the nave and roof and all woodwork. The great steeple, which is said to have been a hundred and ninety-eight feet in height, was cracked by the heat, but the western steeples and beautiful stone arches resisted the fire. All the manses were totally destroyed.

Only twelve years elapsed ere the town was again raided by another “noble savage,” namely, Alexander Macdonald, son of the Lord of the Isles, who plundered whatever had escaped the covetous Wolf. After this the work of rebuilding the cathedral progressed slowly, the most energetic worker being Bishop John Innes, who was consecrated in 1407 and died in 1414—a brief seven years, in the course of which he also erected the Bishop’s House in Elgin, and carried out important works at Spynie.

At the time of the Reformation no damage was done to the noble pile, but eight years later, in 1568, the Privy Council ordered that all lead should be stripped from the cathedral churches of Elgin and Aberdeen and sold for the maintenance of soldiers, the sheriffs and bishops being commanded to assist the spoilers. It seems certain that the nave and side aisles were covered with slates and the chapterhouse with freestone slabs, and that the lead only covered wooden spires crowning the three steeples to protect them from rain and frost. Every trace of spires and steeples has disappeared, doubtless from that cause.

This mean and sacrilegious theft was the first step towards 429the destruction of the grand old cathedral, and met its just reward, in that the vessel on which the lead was shipped at Aberdeen for sale in Holland foundered on its voyage.

In 1637 a terrible gale unroofed the choir and blew down the rafters. On 28th December 1640 Gilbert Ross, the iconoclastic Presbyterian minister of Elgin, in company with the lairds of Brodie, of Innes, and others, took upon him to destroy the beautiful carved woodwork, their special spite being directed against the Rood screen, separating the nave from the choir, on one side of which was depicted the Day of Judgment, and on the other the Crucifixion—all in colours and gold so rich that neither had faded or tarnished, although for well-nigh eighty years they had been exposed to rain and snow, sun and frost, which had free access to the unroofed temple.

Mr. Ross, being of a utilitarian spirit, had the woodwork cut up and brought to his own house as fuel. In those days, ere lucifer matches were invented, it was very desirable to keep sufficient fire smouldering all night to secure a kindling for the following morning, but it was found that the wood so sacrilegiously hewn down would not keep alight, so that it was necessary each morning to kindle fresh fire by means of the cumbersome flint and steel, which required such patience ere light could be obtained.

When, ten or twelve years later, a party of Cromwell’s soldiers were quartered here, they could find nothing left for them to destroy save the beautiful stone tracery of the great windows, and this they did most effectually, especially in the western window over the grand porch.

In 1711 the great steeple fell, crushing the whole body of the building, and for the next hundred years this mass of finely-hewn stone served as a convenient quarry for the builders of modern houses in the town, while the cathedral precincts became the receptacle for all the dirt and rubbish of the town.

Not till the beginning of the present century was there 430a trace of even antiquarian reverence for this sacred spot. Then, happily, an enlightened provost was elected (Mr. King of New-mill) who commenced the work of protection, and in course of time the Board of Public Works was induced to take the matter in hand and undertake such repairs as have prevented further decay, and preserve at least a memorial of how nobly our ancestors could once build.

Though all the bishops were buried here, few of their tombs bear any inscriptions. Among those of most special interest are a large, bluish slab on the south side of the choir, beneath which lies the quiet dust of Bishop Andrew de Moravia, the founder, under whose energetic supervision it is probable that the stately building was completed. Once it was covered with fine brass, but that, of course, was soon pillaged.

Another grave of interest, which can still be recognised by a sculptured stone showing a recumbent figure in episcopal robes, is that of Columba Dunbar, who was Bishop in A.D. 1430. He was a son of the Earl of March, and nephew of John Dunbar, Earl of Moray, and was himself a powerful noble who, on his journeys to Rome and to the Council of Basle, travelled with a retinue of thirty servants. He died in his palace at Spynie, and was buried in the cathedral, in the north transept, in the aisle of St. Thomas the Martyr, now known as “Dunbar’s Aisle.”

Near his dust lies that of Sir Alexander Dunbar of Westfield, son of the fifth Earl of Moray. He died in 1498, and is represented as a recumbent figure in armour, having his armorial bearings on his breast-plate. Both these monuments were much injured by the fall of the great steeple, which totally destroyed so much that was interesting and beautiful.

Among the modern memorials is a slab of red granite in the chancel, above the high altar. It was placed there in 1868 to the memory of the Rev. Lachlan Shaw, who died 431in 1777, aged ninety-one, and was buried here. He was the author of a very valuable History of the Province of Moray, up to his own times.

Two burials of interest in the last century were those of the very latest Duke of Gordon and his wife. He died in London, 28th May 1836. His body was brought by sea, and landed near Gordon Castle, whence it was conveyed to Elgin. On 31st January 1864 Elizabeth, his widow, died at Huntly Lodge, and she was buried beside the Duke in the last available space in the family vault beneath the ruins of the cathedral.

Lastly, I must not fail to claim reverent notice for the humble grave of a truly devout lover of the cathedral, namely, John Shanks, one of the earliest keepers appointed to protect the ruins, when the whole place was still a wilderness of dirt and rubbish overgrown with tall grass, brambles, and rank nettles. By his own exertions, without any one to help him, this frail old man gradually cleared away the rubbish, laying bare the original outlines of the building, and collecting such sculptured stones as had escaped the spoilers. On his tomb is the epitaph written by Lord Cockburn:—

“For seventeen years he was the keeper and the shower of this Cathedral, and while not even the Crown was doing anything for its preservation, he, with his own hands, cleared it of many thousand cubic yards of rubbish, disclosing the bases of the pillars, collecting the carved fragments, and introducing some order and propriety.

“Whoso reverences the Cathedral will respect the memory of this man.”

The fine parish church of St. Giles, which likewise was destroyed by the malignant “Wolf,” was ere long rebuilt, and held its position as “The Muckle Kirk” till the year 1826, an ugly but venerable building, which for six hundred 432years had been the centre of worship in its successive phases—Roman Catholic, Reformed, Episcopal, and Presbyterian. The two latter prevailed alternately from A.D. 1560 to the present day, changing seven times, and the internal fittings of the church having to be altered accordingly, with very quaint effect.

Of course the chief changes were effected after the Reformation, when all the altars were removed, and the side aisles, formerly left free for private worship, were filled with hideous pews, as were also the galleries erected in every available corner, and apportioned to all the trades. There was the shoemakers’ loft (always well filled), the glovers’ loft (these were once a numerous body, but they dwindled away till only two remained, and when they died that craft disappeared from the town). The blacksmiths had their loft, as had also the tailors and weavers, who sat in a corner so dark that they could see nothing. For the carpenters a special loft was erected, A.D. 1751, perched so very high as to seem extremely insecure. The merchants of the town occupied a gallery, which was hence called “the guildry loft,” and the magistrates sat in state in a great pew of carved oak, beneath a canopy of the same. There was a considerable amount of old carved oak about the church, and the emblems of the various crafts were carved on all the trades’ lofts. The north galleries were apportioned to the chief heritors of the parish, namely, the Earls of Fife, Seafield, and Moray, and their tenants and friends.

Prior to 1753 the roof of the church was of open woodwork, showing the strong rafters, from which hung antique brass chandeliers, suspended by chains of twisted iron. Though picturesque, the open roof was voted draughty, so it was then plastered, and altogether the appearance of the building was as unlike our reawakened views of seemly church architecture as could well be imagined, notwithstanding five massive pillars and arches on either side. Four of these on each side were square, and the central one 433circular. They and the walls were supposed to date from the twelfth century, having withstood the flames which destroyed the roof and all woodwork when, in 1390, the church was burnt by the ruthless Wolf of Badenoch.

Accustomed as we are to fine churches, brilliantly lighted for all evening services, it is strange to think that till a quarter of the nineteenth century had elapsed, this, the principal church of the county, was only lighted once a year,^[83] on the evening of the first Sunday of November, when the half-yearly celebration of the Holy Communion involved extra services. Then only were candles placed in the four old chandeliers, twelve in each. The pulpit and the precentor’s seat were likewise illuminated. The magistrates and all master tradesmen had their own candlesticks, as had also each family and many private individuals, so that the gloom was in a measure dispelled by about five hundred flickering candles, most of which must have been tallow, with long wicks constantly requiring snuffing, while the poorer folk could only afford rush-lights, so the light could not have been very brilliant; and as doubtless many candles were snuffed with fingers, the result, combined with the then prevalent habit of spitting on the floor, is not suggestive of cleanliness!

Now that lightning has become man’s ministering servant, and one magic touch floods home, church, or street with vivid electric light, it is really very difficult to realise how different all this was even in the last century. I myself can recollect the housemaid’s box containing flint and steel and tinder, with which to kindle a spark should the smouldering kitchen fire have died out in the night. Just imagine how wearisome was such a process on a cold winter morning, and how great was the advance when the first large, coarse, lucifer matches were invented. Well do I remember their strong sulphurous smell, and that of the servants’ tallow candles, flaring and guttering. And in all 434the cottages the only lamp was that small iron cruisie, specimens of which are now treasured as antiquarian curios.

The old church narrowly escaped being the scene of a dire tragedy, for on a certain Sunday in 1669, just after the congregation had “scaled” (i.e. dispersed), the roof of the nave fell in with an awful crash. The timber (which for three hundred years had supported the heavy slabs of freestone which were used instead of slates) had decayed, and at last suddenly gave way. The annals of the burgh record a meeting, “in the South Yle of Saint Geilles Church,” for considering the rebuilding of the said church, “laittlie fallen.”

Five years elapsed ere the necessary repairs were effected, after which all was secure till 1826, when symptoms of decay were again detected in the roof, and though the walls, pillars, and arches were so strong that they would doubtless have stood for centuries, and the old church could have been preserved at comparatively small expense, the town authorities decided, to the dismay of the people, that the whole must be pulled down, and a modern church of Grecian design be erected in its stead. The Holy Communion was celebrated for the last time in the venerated building of such varied memories, on the 1st October 1826, and the following day our good old friend Dr. Rose, minister of Drainie (near Gordonstoun), preached the thanksgiving sermon, and few of his hearers failed to share in the regret he expressed at the doom of the time-hallowed building. But no time was allowed for reconsideration, and no sooner had the congregation dispersed than the contractor commenced his work of demolition by unslating the roof, and two months later the destruction was complete, and included the carting away of a vast quantity of human bones from beneath the church and the surrounding street, which for five hundred years had been the hallowed “God’s-acre” of the burgh.

435Just two years later, October 1828, the first service was held in the new church, the congregation being summoned by the self-same bells which had called their forefathers for so many generations to worship. The account of them, culled by Mr. Robert Young from the annals of the burgh, is so interesting that I venture to quote it:—

“The larger one, for sweetness and clearness of tone, is equal to any in Scotland. It is said to have been recast in 1589 or 1593. The little bell, called ‘the minister’s bell,’ bears the following inscription—‘Thomas de Dunbar, me fecit. 1402.’ It therefore was the gift of the Earl of Moray, and is a venerable relic of Roman Catholic times.

“The big bell was rent in 1713 by a woman striking it violently with a large key, for the purpose of rousing the inhabitants to quench a fire which had broken out in the town during the night. It was recast 17th August 1713, at the head of Forsyth’s Close, by Albert Gelly, founder, from Aberdeen, the expense being defrayed by the magistrates; and it is stated that upon this occasion many of the rich inhabitants of Elgin repaired to the founding-place, and cast in guineas, crowns, and half-crowns, and the poorer people smaller silver coins during the time the metal was smelting, which contributed to enrich the sound as well as the substance.

“On the king’s birthday, 4th June 1784, it was over-rung and rent by the boys of the town, when it was taken down and recast at London on the 17th October the following year, having the names of the magistrates cast upon it. The expense was again paid by the town. Since that time no further accident has occurred. It has continued to pour out its sweet sounds daily, morning and evening, and to summon on Sundays the congregations of the various churches in the burgh to public worship, and may continue to do so for ages to come.”

It must be confessed that from a picturesque point of view Old Elgin in the first half of the seventeenth century must have been a very much more interesting town than it is now. Besides the fine old houses of the cathedral dignitaries—the dean and canons—all the principal county families had their “house in town,” occupying both sides of the High Street, and foot-passengers walked beneath low arcades formed under the projecting houses. All these were pulled down by degrees.

Curiously enough, though there is nothing to suggest that Elgin was ever enclosed by walls, it had four gateways, 436which were all standing till about a hundred years ago—namely, the East Port, the West Port, the Lossie Wynd Port, and the School Wynd Port. It is supposed that each had a portcullis, which was pulled down at night, but if so, they had been removed at some earlier period. These gateways being narrow, and a hindrance to modern traffic, their removal was decreed towards the end of last century.

Speaking of the separate “lofts” in the old church assigned to each trade, the gradual changes in these, as recorded in the annals, are interesting. In the thirteenth century we find mention of gardeners, carpenters, builders, armourers, shoemakers (called sutors), tailors (called cissors), and glaziers, whose rare art entitled them to a French or Latin name—vitrearii. About the year 1650 seven crafts were recognised in the burgh—i.e. saddlers, smiths, metallers, tailors, shoemakers, weavers, and butchers. But by the end of the century only six are named—namely, smiths, tailors, glovers, shoemakers, weavers, and carpenters—and these held the “exclusive right of exercising their own trade,” any outsider venturing to encroach on their privileges being forthwith prosecuted—a tyranny which became intolerable, and was finally swept away after the Reform Bill was passed.

While the Loch of Spynie was still an arm of the sea, bringing cargoes from France, Holland, and Germany, there and to Lossiemouth, within two miles of Elgin, there was a considerable foreign trade; but even allowing for a large export, the amount of malt manufactured in the town was startling. There were between thirty and forty kilns and barns, each substantial stone buildings about a hundred feet in length, for malting and drying the grain; and in A.D. 1697, out of a population of three thousand persons, no less than eighty were professional brewers and distillers. One of these showed that within three months he had brewed four thousand gallons of ale and four hundred gallons of aqua vitæ, alias whisky. Considering the very large amount of foreign 437wines, brandy, and gin, which were imported from abroad, either above-board or by smugglers, we may infer that the home consumption of our ancestors was considerably in excess of that of their degenerate descendants.

I record this with something of the feeling of the man who, when he heard any very bad story, always said: “Now, I DO like to hear that. I say to myself, ‘I know I am bad, but I am NOT so bad as that!’”

It is, however, satisfactory and interesting to learn that early in the eighteenth century the malting-trade had so fallen off that the kilns were given over to the weavers, and were filled with their looms, each a centre of busy work, and this continued till well into the nineteenth century, when hand-looms gradually disappeared before the steady advance of spinning-jennies and other machinery.

It is really very difficult to realise how few of the modern comforts which we deem necessities existed a hundred years ago. Even in so important a burgh as Elgin there seems to have been no attempt at lighting the streets, and the first reference thereto in the burgh annals is in November 1775, when the Council considered the propriety of so doing, and decided to lay the matter before the principal inhabitants and the trades, in consequence of which, in the following February, “Mr. William Robertson was authorised, when he went to London, to purchase twenty lamps, and also to buy caps for these lamps.” This tentative effort was, however, soon given up, and once again the streets were left in total darkness through the long, long hours of winter nights.

Prior to eight o’clock, there was here and there a faint ray from a solitary lamp or candle in some shop window, but after that hour all was darkness, and if any convivial entertainment was prolonged till after dark (remember that sixty years ago the dinner-hour was generally about 3 P.M., and tea and card-parties began at 6), each party of guests was escorted home by a servant carrying a lantern; and very necessary was this precaution, for not only were there no 438side pavements for foot-passengers, and carts were left standing all night at the sides of the streets, but filth of every description was there accumulated.

But in 1830 a giant step in advance was made, and the town was lighted with gas. At that time almost every one who journeyed at all did so on horseback; so there were scarcely any private carriages in the town—only a few post-chaises for hire at the principal inn, and to hire one of these for conveyance to an evening party would have been deemed ostentatious extravagance. Even two sedan-chairs, which were imported for this purpose about 1818, obtained small patronage.

As regards the state of the streets, the town annals contain various suggestive entries. In September 1776 the magistrates resolved to stop the practice of thrashing and winnowing corn upon the street, and there depositing heaps of stones and manure. They therefore empowered “the officer who keeps the keys to secure and detain whatever corn and straw may be found thrashing upon the street, and the dung or stones flung thereon, until trial.”

In the following year the barking of dogs at night on the High Street was declared to be so annoying that their owners were required to keep them indoors, under a penalty of five shillings fine, and that the offending dog be shot.

In 1778 the Council took note of the spouts or scuttles projecting from holes in the side-walls of many houses, through which all manner of filth was constantly ejected into the street, endangering the clothes of passers-by. It was therefore ordained that these holes should all be filled up. Large dunghills or “middens” were, however, allowed to lie undisturbed in all the narrow wynds, at the doors of the houses, breeding frequent fevers.

In 1818 it was recorded that the streets were full of holes, dangerous to carriages and horses; and even so late as 1822 there were no side pavements, and the safest place to walk was the raised ridge in the centre of the street known as 439the “kantle of the causey,” or crown of the causeway, which was in fact a ridge of stepping-stones, which in wet weather afforded the only means of picking one’s way dryshod. The road sloping downward on either side ended in wide open gutters, which carried streams of rain-water and sewage to open ditches and larger gutters (which were often so flooded as to be impassable), whence they flowed into the river Lossie.

Yet—we must hope it was from some higher point!—water was daily brought from the Lossie in pails for cooking purposes, and clothes were carried to the river-bank to be washed. There were comparatively few wells in the town, either public or private, and it was not till 1850 that the town was fully supplied with pure water.

As regards firing, our ancestors were wholly dependent on peat and wood. It was not till the year 1754 that a ship loaded with coals came to Lossiemouth, the first cargo of the kind known to have been received at that port. The demand was so small that “the importer could not dispose of 100 barrels, but the country soon found out the value of the fuel. On 11th July 1768 the magistrates purchased from Thomas Stephen, senior, merchant in Elgin, 40 chalders of coals, deliverable at Lossiemouth, for behoof of the inhabitants of Elgin, at the price of 21 shillings and sixpence Scots (1s. 9½d. per barrel), a very considerable price for those days. On the 10th September they purchased 22 chalders additional from Alexander Davidson, shipmaster in Aberdeen, at 1s. 10d. per barrel.”

To ensure early hours, it was the duty of the town drummer to rouse the inhabitants at 4 A.M., and to go the round of the town a second time at 5 A.M., lest perchance they might have fallen asleep again; and in like manner at 9 P.M. he and his drum went round to give notice to all wise folk that it was time to sleep, because

440and that

The town annals record that in 1769 George Edward, tailor, was appointed to this office, and as regards the healthiness of the system, there could not be a better example than himself, for he never knew ache or sickness till disabled by old age, and his son, who succeeded him in office, carried on the tradition of his father.

In those days few people ever left their homes. In the whole parish of Elgin there were not more than four gigs in use, and it was a very rare thing for any one to go so far as Edinburgh; few indeed had ever visited London. There was no public conveyance north of Aberdeen. A mail-coach was started about 1812 to run between Aberdeen and Inverness. This it did very slowly, being run by only a pair, and those between Elgin and Torres are said to have been very decrepit old horses.

About the year 1819 a four-horse coach was started, which, leaving Inverness at 6 A.M., reached Aberdeen at 10 P.M. The original mail-coach followed suit, and the competition improved matters. About 1826 “The Star” was started, to leave Aberdeen at 8 A.M. and reach Elgin at 5 P.M. Other local coaches were started, but were frequently half empty. In 1835 “The Defiance” was started. Well do I remember it with its first-class team, and the scarlet coats of the cheery driver and guard, whose brass horn was the signal that news from the south was arriving.

In those days postage was so costly that letters were few and far between. So small was the correspondence even in the beginning of the nineteenth century, that the mailbags containing a very few letters were carried by a post-rider on horseback three times a week. And now our half-a-dozen heavy posts each day are too few for the present generation, who must needs telegraph about every trifle, often to the exceeding disgust of the country recipients of totally unnecessary 441messages, for which they have to pay large sums as porterage.

“The Defiance” continued to keep up its credit, till it was driven aside by the arrival of the railway, which was somewhat late in the day, as the idea that so gigantic an undertaking could ever pay, was considered preposterous, more especially the Highland line between Forres and Perth, crossing barren mountains. However, energetic men pushed the matter, and bit by bit from the year 1846 onwards, local railways were made, and finally in 1865 all were amalgamated under the name of The Highland Railway Company, with branches in every direction, and crowds of busy folk and tourists from every corner of the world—a change indeed since 1800! with the solitary post-runner and an occasional gig or post-chaise.

One very important reason against travelling on wheels was that till quite recent times there were no bridges: small streams were crossed on stepping-stones, and large ones by ferry-boats, and when rivers were in flood, passengers had to wait till the waters subsided, sometimes being detained for days in most uncomfortable quarters, while each year had a record of persons drowned in rashly attempting to ford the rivers.

With the exception of an old wooden bridge which crossed the Spey at Boat of Bridge, and which was ruined at the time of the Reformation, and a few other slight wooden bridges, there were none north of Aberdeen till the early part of the sixteenth century, when the first stone bridge over the Lossie was erected—a single arch founded on each side on the rock, and consequently so secure that it remains in use to this day. Unmindful of the wisdom of the earlier builders, a two-arch stone bridge across the Lossie was built in 1814, but being founded on gravel, it was swept away in the flood of 1829. Now we have stone or metal bridges for road or rail in every direction.

Anne Seymour Conway was the only child and heiress of Field-Marshal Conway, second son of the first Lord Conway. In 1747 he married Lady Caroline Campbell, daughter of John, Duke of Argyle, and widow of the Earl of Aylesbury. By her previous marriage she had another daughter, who married the third Duke of Richmond. The mother and daughters were all beautiful.

Anne Seymour Conway married the Honourable John Damer, eldest son of Lord Damer, afterwards Earl of Dorchester. He proved a worthless spendthrift, and on his father refusing to pay £70,000 for his gambling debts, he shot himself, after a riotous supper at the Bedford Arms in Covent Garden. Thus his young widow was left free to devote her long life to her loved art, and to the congenial society of the most cultivated of her generation.

When quite a young girl she had been taught by Mrs. Samon to model dainty statuettes in wax; but when only eighteen, being provoked by a sneer from David Hume, the historian, she set herself to chisel his bust in marble, and succeeded so admirably that she then studied anatomy under the best masters available. Her uncle, Charles Fox, and her cousin, Horace Walpole, encouraged her wish to excel, and the former was wont to say that “he prided himself more upon her talent than upon his ancient descent.”

She worked very rapidly, and produced spirited groups of horses and deer. Among her best-known busts are those of Mrs. Siddons, Miss Berry, Miss Farren, Horace Walpole, one of Charles Fox, which she gave to Napoleon, three of Nelson, one of which she presented to William IV., and which is now at Windsor Castle; another is in the Council Chamber at the Guildhall. She executed a statue of George III., a bust of Queen Caroline, and many others.

The two heads of Thamesis and Isis on Henley Bridge are her handiwork, the latter being a portrait of her friend, 443Miss Freeman of Fawley Court. The Academy in Florence awarded high honour to her life-like dog; while Horace Walpole gave her osprey eagle the place of honour in his gallery at Strawberry Hill.

On his death he left to her that fascinating home with all its contents, but on the death of her mother, who lived there with her, she made it over to the next heir, Lord Waldegrave, together with £2000 per annum assigned for its upkeep. She then bought York House, Twickenham.

In 1828, being eighty years of age, she died and was buried in the church at Sundridge, Kent, where her mother was already laid, probably because Coombe Bank in that parish had long been in the possession of the Argyll family.

Her tablet in the chancel of the church describes her as

By her desire, her working tools, apron, and the leash of her favourite little dog, Fidele, were buried with her.

Most Christians have been brought up to such implicit belief in our being all necessarily immortal, that the mere suggestion that the plain literal teaching of the Bible is that immortality is a conditional, special gift, is generally received with grave disapproval. Yet if the references to this subject are read without preconceived convictions, all seem to prove that although God created man capable of Eternal Life, man did not secure the gift, and I find nothing whatever to show that immortality either of soul or body was then conferred on him.

The story of man’s first disobedience simply records the warning, “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die,” followed by the curse, “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.” There is not a word that could 444possibly suggest that immortality was conferred on him, to enable him to endure eternal punishment for temporal sin. On the contrary, everything goes to show that the Gift of Immortality was specially reserved. “Lest” (having now sinned) “he take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live for ever,” man was driven out of Paradise, and cherubim and a flaming sword were placed to guard the approach to the Tree of Life.

Observe that before he sinned he was not debarred from eating of it. He had the option of doing so, but did not.

No sooner had the Devil succeeded in inducing man to subject himself to the penalty of death, than One stronger than he undertook to take man’s nature upon Him that by His perfect Sacrifice He might “destroy death, and him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil,” and obtain the right to bestow on man the Gift of Immortality. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have Everlasting Life.” In Romans ii. 7 St. Paul says that to those who by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for Immortality, God gives Eternal Life.

Again, in the plainest and simplest words we are told that “The wages of sin is death” (simple death—not miraculously preserved life in torture), “but the Gift of God is Eternal Life, through Jesus Christ.” This Gift of Life is the key of the whole Gospel—the “good news” concerning Him, in knowledge of Whom standeth our Eternal Life. “Whom truly to know, is Life Everlasting.”

Having thus “brought Life and Immortality to light through the Gospel,” Christ is justly said to have abolished Death; and now He proclaims to all, “Whosoever will, let him take the Water of Life freely.” Now, for the first time since the expulsion of man from Eden, do we hear again of the Tree of Life, no longer guarded by a flaming sword, but as the gift which Christ offers to His redeemed. “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life, which 445is in the midst of the Paradise of God.” “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the Tree of Life.”

The horrible doctrine of the eternity of evil has developed as the natural sequence of a belief in inherent immortality. If once we fully grasp the grand central truth that everlasting life is ours solely through union with Christ, Who is our Life, the Pagan theories of a hell as meaning everlasting life in torture, crumble away almost of their own accord, yet by their lurid light men have for centuries distorted the words of Scripture, forcing them to fit their preconceived ideas.

Look, for instance, at the general character of the illustrations used by Our Lord and His inspired servants, as symbols of the doom of the unsaved. If they intended to suggest continuity of existence under most adverse circumstances, they would certainly have made use of such figures as are most enduring in a furnace—such as minerals or metals. So far from this, every type seems purposely selected to denote utter frailty and the most perishable nature, or the most evanescent, such as “smoke,” “the early dew that passeth away,” “light clouds,” “a dream when one awaketh.”

Of enduring materials, such as metals, we hear only when they are “to be tried in the fire” for their own purification, to make them fit for the Master’s use, as when “He sits as a Refiner of Silver,” patiently waiting till the purified metal reflects His own image.

But the swift destruction of those who will not accept His salvation is invariably compared to that of the most fragile substances—“an earthenware vessel broken to pieces” (frail, crumbling eastern pottery), “a garment eaten by the moth,” “thorns cut up and burned in the fire,” “bundles of tares tied up ready for burning, BEFORE the grain is garnered” (Matt. xiii. 30), “as stubble devoured by fire,” “like withered grass,” “as wax melteth before the 446fire,” “like burning tow,” “like chaff in the furnace of unquenchable fire” (that is, a fire which will burn till there is no more fuel to consume), like wood or hay—in short, every image suggests the most total and absolute destruction of whatsoever is cast into that furnace.

To those who refuse “Him that speaketh from Heaven,” St. Paul has told us that “Our God is a Consuming Fire”—not a Preserving Fire which shall endow whatever is thrown into it with miraculous vitality in order to enable it to endure torture for Ever, and Ever, and Ever, without being consumed.

The same Master Who told us that He came to seek and to save lost men, told us that He will also say: “Those Mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before Me.” They would not accept His gift of enduring life, so even the life which they have is taken from them. That He will utterly destroy His enemies is most plainly revealed, but by swift destruction, not prolonged existence in agony.

How can any one believe that He Whose Name is Love would choose from His realm of perfect bliss, to look for ever and ever upon the beings He once so dearly loved, enduring never-ending agony, which is only made possible by His miraculously endowing each with the capability of continued existence in ceaseless enmity to Himself—or else uttering vain agonised prayers, to which (still more incredible) He can listen unmoved throughout Eternity. Which of the creatures in whom He has kindled one spark of His love could endure to know that this mass of individual misery was to continue day and night for ever and ever, while they themselves were in perfect bliss?

Apart from the certainty that the divine flower of mercy CANNOT thus wither and die in Heaven, the eternal suffering of human beings necessarily implies the eternal continuance of evil, and therein an everlasting triumph of the Devil, whereas we are expressly told by St. John that the 447Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the Devil. And the same reason is given by St. Paul, “That through Death, He might destroy him that had the power of Death, that is the Devil.” St. Paul has also told us that “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death.”

Not till this is accomplished can Christ’s victory be completed. The Lord of all Creation must reign alone in His universe, and THAT CANNOT BE till every trace of the consequences of sin—the work of the usurper—has been utterly effaced.

Then, only when all things that do offend have been totally and for ever destroyed, can His perfect reign begin on that “new earth, wherein dwelleth only Righteousness.”

Then, too late, it will be known how large a share of antagonism to God has resulted from the false teaching about His revelation concerning future life and death. I doubt whether in any other way has His love been so persistently “wounded in the house of His Friends,” as by this unjust misconstruction of His words.

The marvel is how Christians can have gone on from generation to generation, blindly accepting such horrible tradition. It can only be accounted for by the belief that the devil has persuaded them to hold this dark, discoloured glass between themselves and God. Yet they do hold it, and cling to it, quite as strongly as to any article of the creed, and it is only too certain that a multitude of really earnest Christians will buzz like angry hornets round any one who ventures to suggest a future less appalling than the hell of their imagination—that most subtle device of the adversary to misrepresent God, and estrange men from His love.

Yet from the careless attitude of even earnest Christians it is impossible to believe that they in the smallest degree realise the meaning of the eternal duration of such a life in death, otherwise their whole lives would of necessity be 448absorbed in one agonised effort to rouse their fellows to repentance.

As an instance of the perverted meaning attributed to many passages, take such an one as 1 John v. 11–13: “God hath given to us Eternal Life, and this Life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath Life; and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not Life.” This statement is in the plainest words reiterated throughout the Gospel, yet so skilfully has the enemy sown his tares amid the good seed, that men’s perverted reading of this and all kindred verses is: “He that hath the Son shall have Life after Death, and he that hath not the Son shall live for ever in torment.”

Is not this precisely the meaning commonly attached to the same message as spoken by St. Paul? “As sin hath reigned unto Death, so might grace reign unto Eternal Life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” “The Wages of Sin is Death, but the Gift of God is Eternal Life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Surely these words are very clear; but the sower of tares has so skilfully added his evil grain, that wherever in the Holy Scriptures we find this contrast of death and eternal life, men mentally insert the word “Eternal” before “Death,” and thus entirely pervert God’s message of Love.

To me this view of Christ’s work, that the Eternal Life now begun in me by Him is the special gift which He died to obtain for me, is infinitely more precious and love-inspiring than was the belief that the primary object of His dying for us was to save us from an immeasurable intensity of punishment which in my secret heart I felt to be in excess of my own deserts, or those of my fellow-creatures. Whereas now I can realise that the life which I NOW live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me. Thus the dreaded hour of the separation of body and soul which we call Death, becomes merely an unpleasant incident in life nowise affecting its continuity.

449I believe the choice of life to be entirely in our own option. If any one prefers that death shall be to him the end of life and love, he has only to glide along, and (always allowing for the last awful awakening to judgment, and to realise what he has failed to secure) I believe that he will eventually cease to exist in any form.

For my own part, I prefer the certainty of an eternity in light and love, WHICH CAN ONLY BE SECURED BY ACCEPTING IT NOW, as the gift freely offered to each one of us. And having accepted it, with my whole heart, of course, I do most earnestly wish that all I care for here should do likewise, that we MAY BE TOGETHER FOR EVER in that life of light and gladness.

If any one cares to go deeper into this subject, I would refer them to the volume which first awoke my own interest in it, The Glory of Christ in the Reconciliation of all things, with special reference to the Doctrine of Eternal Evil, by the Rev. Samuel Minton, M.A., of Worcester College, Oxford, published in 1869 by Longmans, Green and Co. (Of course the doctrine of the Eternity of Evil is a natural sequence of a belief in Inherent Immortality.)

Amongst other authorities whom he quotes are Martin Luther and Archbishop Whately. The former says, “I permit the Pope to make articles of faith for himself and his faithful, such as, that the soul is Immortal.” The latter says, “To the Christian all this doubt would be instantly removed if he found that the Immortality of the Soul was revealed in the Word of God. In fact, no such doctrine is revealed to us.”

Life in Christ, by the Rev. Edward White, published about thirty years ago, came as a revelation of undoubted truth to many perplexed Christians, who felt that their gravest difficulty crumbled to nothing if the human soul was not created immortal. But so certain was the storm of opposition which would encounter any Christian teacher or worker who ventured to proclaim the new light which had 450dawned on his own soul, that comparatively few had the courage to face it. (Just as men who love the Episcopal Church too dearly to leave it, are compelled to make such mental reservations as enable them to repeat that arrogant definition of the Christian faith said to have been composed by a French Archbishop in the fifth century, which is so unjustly attributed to poor St. Athanasius, and which, I am told, was not adopted at Rome till the middle of the tenth century, though it seems to have been accepted in England about the eighth century.)

In his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, vol. ii. p. 212, Bishop Gore says:—

“Careful attention to the origin of the doctrine of the necessary immortality or indestructibility of each human soul ... will probably convince us that it was no part of the original Christian message, or of really Catholic doctrine. It was rather a speculation of Platonism taking possession of the Church.”

In his book on Bishop Butler, the late W. E. Gladstone wrote:—

“Another consideration of the highest importance is that the natural immortality of the soul is a doctrine wholly unknown to the Holy Scriptures, and standing on no higher plane than that of an ingeniously sustained, but gravely and formidably contested, philosophical opinion.... We may perhaps find that we have ample warrant for declining to accept the tenet of natural immortality as a truth of Divine Revelation.”—Studies on the Works of Bishop Butler, p. 197.

As regards the teaching of the Old Testament, or even of Jewish tradition, it is certain that natural immortality could not possibly have been understood, else how could the Sadducees, who denied any life after death, have formed so strong a party?

The sect of the Sadducees seems to have originated about B.C. 250, and that of the Pharisees about B.C. 150. Whereas the former denied that there was any Resurrection, the Pharisees believed in an immortality which doomed the wicked to endless torment, and the righteous to transmigration. The latter doctrine is plainly implied in the question 451which was asked by the disciples regarding the blind man to whom Jesus gave sight, “Did this man sin, or his parents, that he was born blind?” It is mentioned as an article of faith by several Jewish writers, including Josephus. (Quoted by Dr. Pusey, Everlasting Punishment, p. 69, 3rd edition.)

When Christ put the Sadducees to silence (Matt. xxii. 31–34), it was by telling them of the CONTINUITY OF LIFE of those who, while yet on earth, have attained to be the recognised servants of God.

In a volume of Biblical notes I find the following concerning the Sadducees:—

“‘They divided the hierarchy with the Pharisees, and the Chief Council seems to have been equally balanced between the two’ (see Acts xxiii. 6–8). When Paul, in presence of the High Priest Ananias, perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the Council, ‘Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. Of the hope and resurrection of the dead, I am called in question.’ And when he had so said, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the multitude was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit, but the Pharisees confess both. In our Lord’s time the family of Annas the High Priest belonged to this faction (Acts v. 17): ‘Then the High Priest rose up, and all that were with him (which is the sect of the Sadducees).’”

Mr. Minton points out the literal origin of many of the illustrations used concerning the awful fate of all who refuse to accept Christ’s gift of eternal life, and that His references to them were illustrations which those to whom they were addressed would certainly understand figuratively, such as those alluding to “unquenchable fires,” which all present knew to have long since burnt themselves out, having finished their work of destruction.

He quotes the Rev. H. Constable, who writes concerning the last judgment:—

“That awful scene represents the final destruction of evil, and not the eternal perpetuation of it in its most aggravated and malignant forms. All evil, physical as well as moral, represented by Death and Hades, 452has been cast into the Lake of Fire. All who have wilfully continued to be evil have been consigned to one awful place of punishment. According to their deserving is their chastisement—‘few stripes or many stripes.’ Gradually life dies out in that fearful prison. They who WOULD NOT find Life, have found Death, and the dead know not anything. There is no eternal antagonism of good and evil, no eternal jarring of the notes of praise and wailing. Evil has died out, and with it sorrow. Throughout God’s world of Life, all is joy and peace and love.”

“Then (after the accomplishment of the doom described in Rev. xx. 14, 15, and Rev. xxi. 8) there shall be no more curse, and no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain. For God Himself shall dwell with men, and shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. He will swallow up Death in Victory.

“Is it not amazing that men should profess to believe these glorious and most blessed promises and yet for one moment conceive such a possibility as that their fulfilment should be co-existent with the Eternity of Evil, and of the continued existence through endless ages of countless myriads of God’s creatures, enduring the most appalling torture, and (so far from His wiping all tears from off all faces) that the weeping and gnashing of teeth (which our Lord has told us will accompany the terrible moment when He has finally shut the door of mercy), shall continue through all eternity!

“Whereas He has said that nothing shall then exist which is not reconciled to Him.

“Lord, open the eyes of Thy servants to see the horror of horrors that their imagination has substituted for the glorious future set before us in Thy Word of a universe reconciled to Thee, and Thyself all in all.”

While touching on such solemn subjects, I cannot refrain from referring to another matter in this present life, in which the God of infinite love and compassion is maligned. He says of Himself that, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. He doth not willingly afflict the children of men.”

He created everything in His world “very good” and very happy, and there was no pain or suffering till His enemy had succeeded in bringing in sin and consequent death. God’s will is the happiness of His children. And 453yet it is chiefly when horrible accidents occur, and in every form of sorrow and anguish, that we strive to say “Thy Will be done,” ignoring the context “as it is done in Heaven,” where His Will is done, and there is no pain, nor any grief, because His enemy who causes the suffering has no power there.

On this subject Mrs. Josephine Butler writes:

“Not until we recognise that there are two ruling powers in the world can we ever be right in our estimate of or relation to the God of Love—never till we recognise the dual government can we see straight. It is a dual government which is at war now, but with a progressive victory for the Benign and Blessed One, and defeat (with our help) for the malign one....

“Have readers of the Gospel never fathomed the significance of the words of Jesus: ‘Shall not this woman, whom Satan hath bound these eighteen years, be healed?’ Again and again He was angry with the evil spirit which afflicted men and women. God is not the author of sin, disease, pain, evil, death. These all come from another source. They are maliciously inflicted evil” [as we read in the story of poor Job and his trials—inflicted by Satan, though for some mysterious purpose permitted by God up to a certain limit]. “Yet God is ever mending, healing, bringing good out of Satan’s bad, making us heroic under pains inflicted by the enemy, walking with us through the flames and the floods of the Evil One’s creating, and making us His own companions, working for the final victory.

“Was it God who tortured the demoniac boy, whose father brought him to Christ? If it had been, would God’s Son have said: ‘Come out of him, thou foul spirit, and enter no more into him?’ ‘God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him.’”

On the other hand, of course we must not forget that some sufferings and trials are for our education. According to His own Word, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.” And those marvellous sayings regarding our Lord Himself in His human life—that “Though He was the Son of God, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered,” and that He, the Captain of our salvation, was made perfect through sufferings.”—Heb. v. 8; ii. 10.

454But when in that awfully mysterious hour of His human agony He cried, “Thy will be done,” that surely was, because He was about to “taste death for every man,” in order that “through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil” (Heb. ii. 9–14), and so by Himself enduring all, He might conquer our enemy.

Well did Tennyson write—

Little does the world know how many a mighty change has been wrought in answer to the unknown prayers of many a faithful heart. The guardian angel who thus ceaselessly pleaded for Roualeyn was a saintly woman, Davina M. ... who in her beautiful girlhood had been the one pure love of his life, and who loved him with such devotion that she stedfastly refused to link her life with his from a conviction that it would be to his disadvantage to marry beneath his own social rank. She lived to know that her life-long prayer had been granted, and soon after his death she also passed to the brighter world.

Something of that romance of sixty years ago is suggested in the poem of “Euphemia” by his niece Eisa (the Hon. Mrs. Willoughby, now Lady Middleton) in her volume On the North Wind, Thistledown, published by King and Co. In that volume and in The Story of Alastair Bhan Comyn, published by Blackwood, are woven many traditions of Morayland.

When travelling in the Hawaiian Isles, I chanced to see in a local paper some anonymous verses on intercessory 455prayer, which seemed to me so touching, that I will venture to reproduce them here:—

As these pages are not intended for publication during my lifetime, but are my last message to many friends personally unknown to me, I venture here to quote two letters addressed to a very dear friend, in the hope that they may possibly prove helpful to some one who finds the like difficulty in coming into personal touch with the Master.

“Dear...,—The few words we exchanged last night have made me wonder whether the doubts you seemed to express were genuine, or just spoken for the sake of argument. But because I know too how many minds such as yours, intellectual difficulties do seem insuperable (their very wisdom raising earth-born clouds, which hide the truth, that to ‘babes’ seems so clear and simple), I feel that I am bound to say plainly that the result of my own fifty years of thinking on the subject has been to bind me more firmly than ever to the simplest child’s faith in the Old Story of the Cross and in The Friend whose love and presence are to me infinitely more real and more precious than those of any human being.

457“And I do feel that, knowing Him as I do, beyond all possibility of doubt—and loving Him, however unworthily—realising, as I have done even in the brightest years of life’s young morning, how utterly dark and cheerless my own life would be but for this ‘fellowship’ (St. John’s own word—1 John i. 3—so I may write it without presumption), it would be unpardonable in me not to say so plainly to any friend who may not yet have been able to realise this—the only Life-giving truth—the old, old story which Saul, the cultivated Roman Jew, the persecutor of the despised sect, was impelled to go and preach to the super-refined and learned Corinthians, that the crucified peasant Jew was in truth Incarnate God, Who saw fit ‘to humble Himself even to death on the Cross that He might make us the children of God and exalt us to everlasting life,’ and Who does care for each one of us individually.

“As concerns our intellectual difficulties, we can surely trust these to Him who made our minds, till He sees fit to make us capable of understanding all that now perplexes us. Our personal acquaintance with Himself is FAR CLOSER than any outside difficulty of that sort, and so I for one am content to believe that there are many things far beyond my comprehension in its present undeveloped capacity—things which I know I must accept on trust till I pass from the present caterpillar stage to the full, free-winged life when we shall know all the mysteries.

“Only once in my life was there a time—a long, weary time of sad darkness, when cold earth-born clouds closed round me, so as to shut out all the light of His companionship. I do not mean that I doubted His real presence any more than I doubt the shining of the sun beyond our visible rain-clouds, but for me there were only leaden skies, impenetrable and unresponsive, with only now and then a gleam of the blessed light. But I knew it was the just punishment of wilful wrong-doing—‘a needful time of trouble.’ (For of course in one who does know the Master 458and His love, sins which the world would not recognise as such, must rank very differently from the world’s standard, and though He has promised to be our defence, that we may not GREATLY fall, we all know too well how continually we do stumble.) But at last the earnest of forgiveness was granted in the restored consciousness of His presence—a change quite as distinct as that from the darkness of a November fog to the glad summer sunlight.

“And now with my whole soul I do thank Him for His gift of light, and I do realise ever more and more, how closely He does draw us to Himself when we WILL come to Him, and what a real and blessed possession is the Eternal Life, which is His gift to us NOW—the gift of Him ‘Whom truly to know, is Life Everlasting.’

“This is the truth which myriads have believed, acknowledging how unnecessary it is that they should understand how or why it should be, but have simply taken Him at His word, surrendering themselves wholly to Him, and have found in Him all-sufficient rest for their souls. And not only rest, but perfect sympathy and companionship.

“I know you do not class me as quite an idiot in other matters; surely, then, you can believe that it is no mere delusion which is to me so intensely real that it fills and satisfies my heart and all my being, and which makes what we call living or dying so entirely matters of contentment, because I am perfectly certain that nothing except my own wilful yielding to what I recognise as sin can possibly separate me from Him, and from the Love wherein He enfolds all who do willingly give themselves to Him to be His own.

“Though we all do instinctively shrink from revealing our inner lives to one another, yet those who have once realised all that this means, cannot but crave that all ‘who call them Friend’ should share the same secret of inward peace....”

On one occasion I sent this friend a very beautifully 459illuminated card with the words, “The Lord shall guide thee continually,” and “Underneath are the Everlasting Arms.” Much to my surprise, it called forth a letter so unlike her usual gentle courtesy, that I felt constrained to reply:—

“You and I are constituted so strangely alike in almost every respect, that from you, beyond any other friend I possess, I feel entitled to the sympathy of a true understanding all round. This is why I cannot bear that words which are to me the expression of all that is most precious and restful in life should seem to you merely ‘ridiculous charms.’ I know you only mean that keeping such words before one’s eyes is so, but when I look back over all the years of my past life, and recognise that the consciousness of ‘continual guiding’ and the sense of perfect safety in the enfolding of ‘the Everlasting Arms’ have been my own mainstay in almost every hour of every day, I feel that simply to keep such words where my outward eyes must often rest upon them does help me continually to remember that the events of my life are not a mere matter of chance, but are all being planned for me by One who loves me.

“Alas! dear, I know this does not come home to you as it does to me; and I fear that when you see me fussing over the trivial cares of every day, you must think that my daily outward life tells little of the inward peace that passeth understanding—a just inference, I own, judging from outward seeming—yet not really true, for though I so often forget for awhile, I do most truly believe that every tiny detail of everyday life IS over-ruled, and ordered for me in perfect wisdom, as I have proven through long years.

“When you told me how a very great botanist had asserted to you the impossibility of your having found the night-blowing Cactus in a country where you had actually sat up all night to paint it, I could not but think how exactly his reasoning coincided with that of the intellectual people who cannot believe what WE KNOW of the personal Love of our Lord. You know these flowers grow there, because 460you saw them. We know the Love of our dear Lord because we are conscious that He is ALWAYS present with us, and never fails or forsakes us, in sunshade or in shade.

“I quite sympathise with you as to formal ‘saying prayers,’ but if you realise that you are always in the company of a dear Friend, whose sympathy is so perfect that he understands every thought and wish of your heart, so that all day long consciously, or even unconsciously, you instinctively refer everything to Him, how can you think of a special morning and evening talk with Him as ‘saying’ a form of words, no matter how perfect?

“I do fully enter into your delight in your garden, though I have none of your scientific knowledge of plants. But apart from joy in the loveliness of flowers, I find a wondrous fascination in the perpetual showing forth of ‘the resurrection of the body that shall be’ in the ever-new miracles of glorious colour and fragrance evolved from apparently dead sticks, ugly brown bulbs, and insignificant seeds.

“All such hints from the visible world become to me increasingly precious, for the last few years have been marked by so very many wrenches in parting from our nearest and dearest, that the whole life-plant feels uprooted, at least all its fibres are loosened from Mother Earth....”

Among the most noteworthy social changes within my memory, none is more marked than the diminution in the use of alcoholic drinks of all sorts in “respectable” society.

I cannot myself remember, what was a common occurrence up to a few years before my birth, when the ladies frequently left the drawing-room before the gentlemen left the dinner-table, knowing from their prolonged absence that they would not be pleasant company. But up to thirty or 461forty years ago the amount of wine which, as a matter of course, every girl took at luncheon, dinner, and dessert, and often also at bed-time, seems strange to remember, now that fashion has happily so greatly changed. And if the girl was delicate, instead of recommending hockey or tennis, the doctor’s prescription was generally an extra bumper of port at 11 A.M.

It needed a Sir Andrew Clark to have the courage to proclaim that “Alcohol is a poison, and as such must be classed with strychnine, arsenic, and similar drugs.”

Here I must remark that although the old practice of hospitably “pressing” guests to eat is happily an abomination of the past, this is by no means the case as regards drink. If I refuse white bread at dinner, no host expresses anxiety as to whether I would prefer brown bread, or Hovis, or French roll. But in regard to wine, the variety of offers is often wearisome, ending with, “Surely you are not a teetotaller?”

And yet we know that there are a multitude of men and women to whom the use of alcohol in any form is a really grave danger, and MANY WOULD WILLINGLY ESCHEW IT BUT FOR THE DREAD OF BEING PECULIAR, AND OF HAVING ATTENTION CALLED TO THEIR ABSTINENCE. It is partly with a view to helping such as these that it is so desirable to multiply the number of total abstainers, so that this fatal standard of good-fellowship may soon become obsolete, and that it may be as much a matter of indifference whether a guest drinks wine or not as whether he eats bread.

But since we know that

perhaps I may venture to point out to some hospitable ladies that the practice of saturating many of the most attractive sweets with brandy, rum, or liqueurs, is a most insidious source of danger to many who are honestly trying to 462conquer the “drink crave,” and whose good resolution has enabled them to resist the temptation when it comes undisguised, but who are thrown quite off their guard by the innocent-looking cream, or cake, or bon-bon, which contains quite enough of spirit to reawaken the craving for more. Surely this thought, together with the danger of temptation in our own kitchens, might avail to banish the use of alcohol from our cookery.^[84]

But quite apart from any desire to benefit our tempted brethren, the strongest reasons for total abstinence are supplied by the plain statements of the very highest medical authorities on the evil effects on the human body of even the most moderate habitual use of alcohol, Sir Andrew Clark says that more than three-fourths of the disorders in what we call “fashionable life” arise from the use of alcohol, “a poison of which even very small daily doses are injurious to perfect health, and tend to gradually enfeeble various organs, whose breakdown some day is really due to no other cause.” He asserts that it is the greatest enemy of the human race.

Sir William Gull says: “I hardly know any more powerful source of disease than alcoholic drink. I should say that alcohol is the most destructive poison we are aware of.” Dr. Norman Kerr says he has been able to trace three-fourths of his cases of heart-disease to its use. Sir Henry Thompson, in a letter to the late Archbishop of Canterbury (Temple), states that A VERY LARGE PROPORTION OF SOME OF THE MOST PAINFUL AND DANGEROUS DISEASES WHICH HAVE COME UNDER HIS NOTICE ARISE FROM THE DAILY 463USE OF ALCOHOLIC DRINKS, TAKEN IN THE QUANTITY WHICH IS ORDINARILY CONSIDERED MODERATE. “As to this fact,” he says, “I have a right to speak with authority, and I do so solely because it appears to me a duty not to be silent on a matter of such extreme importance.”

Dr. Murchison enumerates the diseases of various organs of the body which render life a burden, and which might never have occurred had it not been for the daily dose of alcohol. Dr. Alfred Carpenter says: “Alcohol is a virulent poison, and as such should be placed in the list with arsenic, mercury and other dangerous drugs.”

May I advise all who are interested in the subject to invest one penny in Sir Andrew Clark’s pamphlet, An Enemy of the Human Race, and another in Strong Drink and its Results, by D. S. Govett, M.A., Archdeacon of Gibraltar, both published by the National Temperance Depot, 33 Paternoster Row, London, E.C. The latter contains the evidence of many leading medical men, and sums up thus: “Let no man think himself or his family safe from drink’s deadly fascination. Remember how in every generation men of the highest genius have become its slaves. Every one of these was once a moderate drinker, and intended so to continue. Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.”

Most noteworthy is the change in the attitude of the clergy in this matter. Fifty years ago it would have been considered infra dig. for a clergyman to be a total abstainer. Now a very large proportion of all denominations are so, and many of our Bishops and Archbishops throw the whole weight not only of their teaching, but of their very practical example into this effort to check the moral and physical ravages wrought in our own land, as well as in those other countries to which we so largely export the cruel fire-water.

This question in all its bearings formed the subject of many of Archbishop Temple’s most powerful appeals to his 464countrymen. But I cannot refrain from here quoting one passage from Dean Farrar, partly because of the one Scriptural quotation which is so frequently waged against total abstinence, namely concerning our Lord Himself having provided wine at the marriage-feast—wine which was probably the non-fermented juice of the vine. But few people seem ever to notice the Scriptural references to the Teetotalers of Judea.

Dean Farrar writes:—

“You sneer at Total Abstainers from the altitude of your worldly superiority, but the Scripture gives them its heartiest approbation. God commanded His prophets to pronounce on the Rechabites a conspicuous blessing because they abstained from wine. Jeremiah speaks of the health and happiness of the Nazarites as the flower of the youth of Jerusalem, for their strength and their beauty. Samson was a Total Abstainer, whose drink was only from the living brook, and he was the strongest man time records. John the Baptist, whom Christ calls ‘the greatest of those born of woman,’ was a Total Abstainer. The angel of the Lord in announcing his birth said, ‘He shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.’”

This widespread tendency to the telling of beads is certainly one of the strangest developments of devotion. We are apt to consider such vain repetitions as peculiar to the Church of Rome, whereas we find that not only do some four hundred and fifty million Buddhists find solace therein, but also a vast multitude of Brahmins and Mohammedans.

Now, that Brahmins and Buddhists should thus keep a numerical tally of their devotions is strange enough, but the adoption of this spiritual treadmill by Mohammedans is more remarkable (though whoever has heard the frenzied shouts of “Allah el Allah! Allah el Allah!” can never doubt their faith in the efficacy of much speaking.) But that a

465practice so little in accordance with the spirit of Christianity could have been a spontaneous growth appears quite impossible, so it is only natural to assume that it was imported from some heathen land, just as the veneration for relics, the canonization of saints, the use of rosaries, the divers orders of monastic life, the rigid vows of poverty and asceticism, celibacy of the clergy, priestly robes and shaven crowns, processions carrying banners, chanted litanies, use of incense and holy water, and very many other ecclesiastical details—can only be accounted for on the supposition, which, indeed, is well-nigh a certainty, that they were adopted by the Christians of Egypt from the practice of the Buddhists, by whom all these things were as religiously observed long before the Christian era, as they continue to be at this day.

Concerning the origin of the use of the rosary in Christendom (not its Pagan origin, however!) Dr. Rock tells us that in early days the truly devout were in the habit of reciting the whole Psalter daily. But as a hundred and fifty psalms were certainly rather a lengthy recitation, it became customary to substitute short prayers, which might be uttered rapidly amid the stir and business of life, without requiring undivided attention. Hence a hundred and fifty short “Aves” varied by ten intervening Paternosters, and five Doxologies (thus dividing the whole into ten decades, came to be accounted as meritorious an act of devotion as the repetition of the whole Psalter.)

But as the omission of any of the number would have been esteemed sinful, and the calculation was apt to be inexact, some mechanical aid was desirable, and various expedients were devised. Thus Palladius has recorded how the Abbot Paul, who made a point of repeating the Paternoster three hundred times daily, that he kept count of his prayers by the aid of a number of small pebbles, which he dropped into his lap one by one till the tale was told. Then the simpler method of counting on a string of beads worn round the neck was suggested, and soon found favour with the devout.

The division of the Rosary into the fifteen decades of small beads for the Ave Maria, with the large intervening beads for the Paternoster, is generally ascribed to St. Dominic (born in Old Castille A.D. 1170); but there is little doubt that this use of beads was common in Spain before his time, and that it had been borrowed by the Spanish Catholics from the Mohammedan dervishes who accompanied the Moors on their invasion of Spain in A.D. 711, and who, in common with their Syrian brethren, had adopted it from nations further east.

The ordinary Mohammedan rosary or tasbih numbers ninety-nine beads, often made of sacred earth brought from Mecca, but frequently only of date-stones. Instead of a large bead to mark each tenth, a silken tassel does this duty, and assists the pious Islamite in his repetition of the ninety-nine names of God.

The Mohammedan rosary figures in a very curious ceremony practised 466on the night immediately following a burial, commonly called “the night of desolation” while the soul is believed still to abide with the body, ere winging its flight to the place of spirits. About fifty devout men assemble to perform an act of merit on behalf of the dead. After reciting certain chapters of the Khoran, they repeat “Allah el Allah” three thousand times, while one of the party keeps count on a rosary of a thousand beads, each as large as a pigeon’s egg. Between each thousand the exhausted worshippers pause to rest and drink coffee. Afterwards several short prayers are uttered, each being repeated a hundred times. The whole merit of this very severe bodily exercise is formally assigned to the deceased; and on behalf of wealthy men it is sometimes repeated for three nights running—a fact rather suggestive of the pecuniary cost of such services!

How far Christianity has improved on this original may be somewhat a nice question, for in such means of acquiring merit for the dead neither Christians nor Buddhists are lacking, and in all Catholic countries oft-told rosaries number Christian prayers for the deceased by ten thousand times ten thousand.

It is believed that this celestial abacus—this method of reckoning with heaven—originated with the Hindoos, who certainly are known to have kept count of their oft-told prayers by means of bead-strings from very early ages; but whether the invention was due to Hindoo Buddhists or Hindoo Brahmins is not known. Probably, however, the former may claim this merit, as they were so long the dominant religion of India, and indeed three centuries before the Christian era they had overspread all Asia, so that traces of their influence and teaching are discernible even where successive waves of differing faith have overswept the land.

To this day, the Brahmins of Guzerat and some other parts of India carry chaplets of one hundred small and eight large beads, made of sacred wood; and a truly devout man recites the gāyatri one hundred and eight times at the rising of the sun ere he proceeds to wash and dress his idols. This mystic sentence is a short extract from the Rig Veda—a meditation on the divine glory of the sun-god, and a prayer that the Divine Giver of Life and Light may enlighten his understanding.

The rosary commonly used by the worshippers of Vishnu numbers 108 smooth beads, made of the wood of the sacred Tulasi shrub.^[85] These represent the 108 most sacred titles of Krishna. In the course of the elaborate daily morning ritual, certain formulas of worship are repeated 108 times, count being kept by the aid of the rosary, which, together with the counting-hand, is concealed under a 467cloth or in a bag (which is called a Go-mukhi). Why this concealment is necessary does not appear, unless there is some idea of not letting the left hand know what the right is doing!

But it is equally incumbent on the worshippers of Siva, who, while reciting his 1008 names and sacred attributes, keep count of their task on rosaries of 32 or 64 rough berries of the Rudrāska tree,^[86] which are said to have originally been formed from the tears shed by Siva in passionate anger. These berries have five sides, which are considered symbolic of Siva’s five faces.

The hideous Saiva Yogis occasionally use grim rosaries of human teeth collected from funeral-pyres, a more agreeable variety allowed by the Vishnuvites being the use of lotus-seeds. The various sects have slight differences in this respect. One at least, (that of Vallabha) bestows the rosary of 108 Tulasi beads on each child as a token of church membership, when it attains the age of from three to four years, and is capable of repeating the eight-syllabled charm, “Sri-Krishnah saranam mama,” which is, being interpreted, “Great Krishna is the refuge of my soul.” Another Vishnuvite sect invests each member with two rosaries—one in honour of Krishna, and the other for the worship of Radhā.

The votaries of Ganesa, the elephant-headed god, use the seeds of the kumala, or lotus, for this purpose, while the worshippers of Surya, the Sun, prefer a string of small balls of crystal—miniatures of the great crystals which symbolize the sun on the Shinto altars of Japan.

It is always interesting to note the same superstitions in divers countries. In my book on The Hebrides, page 39, I related the Gaelic-Danish legend of the “Whirlpool of Corrie Vreckan,” in which the young Danish prince might have anchored in safety had he been provided with a cable woven entirely of the long fair tresses of Danish maidens of faultless purity. But, alas! one lock had been shorn from the head of one whose fair fame was no longer spotless, so the cable parted, and the prince and his vessel were sucked down, down, in the raging waters.

I am told that in Malabar a cure for some diseases, and also a recognised penance, is being tied up to a tree and undergoing a severe flogging, after which a piece of growing hair is securely pegged into the bark, and by a sudden wrench it is torn from the head and left hanging on the tree as a votive offering.

Strange to say, this identical ceremony (minus the flogging) was long 468practised at the village of Berkhampstead in Hertfordshire. The object to be gained was the cure of ague, and a group of fine old oaks was the scene of action.

I am told that in Sunderland a popular cure for whooping-cough is to shave the crown of the head and hang the hair on a bush, in full faith that as the birds carry away the hair, so will the cough vanish. In Lincolnshire, a girl suffering from ague cuts a lock of her hair and binds it round an aspen tree, praying it to shake in her stead. In Ross-shire, where within the last fifty years living cocks were occasionally buried as a sacrificial remedy for epilepsy, some of the hair of the patient was generally added to the buried offering.

In Ireland, at Tubber Quan, near Carrick-on-Suir, there is a holy tree beside a holy well, which are held in the deepest veneration. Thither, chiefly on the last three Sundays in June, Roman Catholic peasants make pilgrimage to worship St. Quan (whoever he may be); and having gone thrice round the holy tree on their bare knees, each cuts off a lock of his own hair and ties it to a branch as a charm against headache. By the end of June the tree is fringed with countless locks of human hair of all shades.

A recent visitor to some of these Irish holy wells enumerated amongst many other votive offerings, thirty-nine crutches, six hand-sticks, and a pair of boots!

These quaint druggists’ shops were indeed a strangely vivid illustration of what must have been the general appearance of the laboratory of the learned leeches of Britain from olden times until really quite recent days—literally until the eighteenth century—as we know from the official pharmacopœia of the College of Surgeons of London, published in A.D. 1724, that unicorn’s horn, human fat, human skulls, dog’s dung, toads, vipers, worms, and all manner of animal substances, either dried, seethed, or calcined, were accounted valuable medical stores. In the same medical directory for A.D. 1724, centipedes, vipers, and lizards are especially enumerated as possessing valued properties!

It will be interesting to glance at a few of these old prescriptions as compared with those still in favour in China. Here is a letter from a French Catholic Missionary in Mongolia. “May Heaven preserve us from falling ill here! It is impossible to conceive who can have devised remedies so horrible as those in use in the Chinese pharmacopœia, such as drugs compounded of toads’ paws, wolves’ eyes, vultures’ claws, human skin and fat, and other medicaments still more horrible, of which I spare you the recital. Never did witches’ den contain a collection of similar horrors!”

469Mr. Mitford has told us how at Peking he saw a Chinese physician prescribe a decoction of three scorpions for a child struck down with fever; and W. Gill, in his River of Golden Sand, mentions having met a number of coolies laden with red-deers’ horns, some of them very fine twelve-tyne antlers. They are only hunted when in velvet, and from the horns in this state a medicine is made which is one of the most highly prized in the Chinese pharmacopœia.

With regard to the singular virtues supposed to attach to the medicinal use of tiger, my cousin, General Robert Warden, told me that on one occasion when, in India, he was exhibiting some trophies of the chase, some Chinamen who were present became much excited at the sight of an unusually fine tiger-skin. They eagerly inquired whether it would be possible to find the place where the carcase had been buried, because from the bones of tigers dug up three months after burial, a decoction may be prepared which gives immense muscular power to the fortunate man who swallows it.

I was indebted to the same informant for an interesting note on the medicine folklore of India, namely, that while camping in the jungle, one of his men came to entreat him to shoot a night-jar for his benefit, because from the bright, prominent eyes of this bird of night an ointment is prepared which gives great clearness of vision, and is therefore highly prized.

Miss Bird, when travelling in the Malay Peninsula, was eyewitness of a very remarkable scene when, a tiger having been killed, a number of Chinamen flew upon the body, cut out the liver, heart, and spleen, and carefully drained every drop of its blood. Those who failed to secure these, cut out the cartilage from the joints. She learnt that the blood, dried at a temperature of 110°, is esteemed the strongest of all tonics and gives strength and courage. The powdered liver and spleen are good for many diseases, but the centre of the tiger’s eyeball is supposed to possess well-nigh miraculous virtues. So all these treasured fragments were sold at high prices to Chinese doctors, who doubtless knew they would not lose on the retail price!

From the qualities here attributed to tigers’ blood, we can better understand how it came to pass that in the Tai-ping rebellion the Imperial troops, having captured a rebel leader at Shanghai, roasted him, and ate his heart and other vital organs in order to make them brave! The case is not unique, as in that same terrible civil war the Tai-pings were guilty of similar atrocities during the siege of Nanking, though cannibalism per se is a crime as deeply abhorred in China as in Britain.

In Perak Miss Bird saw rhinoceros’ horn selling at a high price in the drug-market, a single horn being priced at fifty dollars; and in Japan a native doctor showed her a small box of unicorn’s horn which, he said, was worth its weight in gold. He also expressed his faith in the 470value of rhinoceros’ horn. One of the said rhinoceros’ horns was, as we have seen, among the most valued treasures of the old druggist of Osaka. This horn, and that of the unicorn, which seems generally to mean the narwhal,^[87] have ever been held in high repute throughout the East as an antidote to poison, and cups carved from these horns were used as a safeguard, because they possessed the property of neutralising poison, or at least of revealing its presence.

And indeed the same virtue was attributed to them by the learned leeches of Europe. At the close of the sixteenth century, the doctors of medicine in Augsberg met in solemn conclave to examine a specimen of unicorn’s horn, which they found to be true monoceros and not a forgery, the proof thereof being that they administered some of it to a dog which had been poisoned with arsenic, and which recovered after swallowing the antidote. They further administered nux vomica to two dogs; and to one they gave twelve grains of unicorn horn, which effectually counteracted the poison; but the other poor dog got none, so he died. Similar statements concerning this antidote, and also concerning the value of elk’s and deer’s horns powdered, as a cure for epilepsy, appear in various old English medical works of the highest authority.

Not less remarkable is the efficacy supposed to attach to antediluvian ivory, more especially the tusks of the mammoths which have been so well preserved in Siberian ice that their very flesh has been found untainted. There they have lain hermetically sealed for many a long century, and now, when the rivers from time to time wash away fragments of the great ice-cliffs, they reveal the strange treasures of that wondrous storehouse. It may be a great woolly elephant with a mane like a lion, and curly tusks, or a huge unwieldy hippopotamus, or a rhinoceros, and the hungry Siberian bears and wolves fight and snarl over these dainty morsels.

Here, then, in these marvellous ice-fields lie inexhaustible stores of finest ivory, and this it is which the learned professors of the Celestial Medical Hall value so highly. So these precious tusks are dragged forth after thousands of years to be ground down and boiled to a jelly, for the cure of vulgar Chinese diseases of the twentieth century. Alas! poor mammoth!

Nor are these the only antediluvian relics which are thus turned to account. Professor H. N. Moseley tells us of the “Dragon’s teeth and bones” which he bought from the druggists of Canton, where they are sold by weight as a regular medicine, and are highly prized in the materia medica both of China and Japan as specifics in certain diseases.

They proved, on examination, to be the fossil teeth and bones of 471various extinct mammalia of the tertiary period, including those of the rhinoceros, elephant, horse, mastodon, stag, hippotherium, and the teeth of another carnivorous animal unknown. He obtained a translation of the passage in the medical works of Li-She-Chan, which specially refers to the use of this medicine. It states that “Dragon’s bones come from the southern parts of Shansi, and are found in the mountains.” Dr. To-Wang-King says that if they are genuine, they will adhere to the tongue. This medicine must not come in contact with fish or iron. “It cures heart-ache, stomach-ache, drives away ghosts, cures colds and dysentery, irregularities of the digestive organs, paralysis, etc., and increases the general health.”

Another medical authority, The Chinese Repository, published in Canton A.D. 1832, states that the bones of dragons are found on banks of rivers, and in caves of the earth—places where the dragon died. Those of the back and brain are highly prized, being variegated with different streaks on a white ground. The best are known by slipping the tongue lightly over them. The horns are hard and strong, but if these are taken from damp places, or by women, they are worthless.

From his examination of these so-called relics of the dragon (which prove to belong to so many different animals which, in successive ages, have crept to the same cave to die), Mr. Moseley points out how some imaginative person probably first devised a fanciful picture of the mythical animal combining the body of the vast lizard with the wings of a bat, the head of a stag, and carnivorous teeth, which has become the stereotyped idea of the dragon in all lands.

Even in Europe, fossil bones thus found together in caves were long known as dragon’s bones, and accounted useful in medicine. Indeed, so great was the demand for these and similar relics, that our museums and scientific men have good cause to rejoice that their ancestors failed to discover what stores of old bones lay hidden in our own sea-board caves—as, for instance, in that wonderful Kirkdale cavern where the mortal remains of several hundred hyenas were found guarding the teeth of a baby mammoth, a patriarchal tiger, a rhinoceros, and a hippopotamus. Or the caves along the Norfolk coast where Hugh Miller tells us that within thirteen years the oyster-dredgers dragged up the tusks and grinders of five hundred mammoths! Or those wonderful zoological cemeteries where the fossil bones of cave-lions, cave-hyenas, elephants, mammoths, hippopotami, woolly rhinoceros, red deer and fallow deer, oxen, sheep, and horses, lay so securely stored for untold ages beneath Charing Cross and Trafalgar Square!

Of the firm belief of the Chinese in the efficacy of medicines compounded of the eyes and vitals of a human body we have had too terrible proof, for it is well known that one cause which led to the appalling Teintsin massacre in 1870 was the widespread rumour that the foreign doctors (whose skill all were forced to admit) obtained their 472medicines by kidnapping and murdering Chinese children and tearing out their hearts and eyes. As this nice prescription is actually described in their own books as a potent medicine, the story obtained ready credence, and we all remember the result. Moreover, the same accusation has repeatedly been spread on other occasions of popular excitement against foreign teachers, and we need scarcely wonder that it should obtain credence, when we find that one of the most esteemed acts of filial devotion is for a son or a daughter to bestow a good slice of his or her own flesh, to be administered, with other ingredients, to parents suffering from certain forms of disease, which are otherwise deemed incurable. Archdeacon Grey of Canton was personally acquainted with various persons who had endured this voluntary mutilation!^[88]

I am not aware whether the Lamas of Peking have there introduced the fashion of administering medicine from a drinking-cup fashioned from the upper part of a wise man’s skull, but such medicine-cups are greatly esteemed in Thibet and Mongolia, where they are mounted in gold, silver, or copper.

Such details as all these are apt to sound to us somewhat as far-fetched travellers’ tales, but it is certainly startling to realise how exactly they describe the medicine-lore of our own ancestors, of which traces survive amongst us even to this day. We know of several cases within recent years when in the north of Scotland the skull of a suicide was with great difficulty procured, and used as a drinking-cup for an epileptic patient. Still surer was it deemed to reduce part of the skull to powder and swallow it. Even the moss which grew on such skulls was deemed a certain cure for divers diseases. In the official prescription of the London College of Physicians, A.D. 1678, the skull of a man who has died violent death, and the horn of a unicorn, appear as highly approved medicines. In 1724 all human skulls are declared useful, and multitudes were exported from Ireland to Germany for the manufacture of a famous ointment.

Equally precious to the British leech of the last century were the ashes of a burnt witch collected from her funeral-pyre. Such were deemed a certain cure for gout or for fever, and eagerly were they gathered up and treasured.

But just as the Chinese doctor sets most store by the animals imported from foreign lands, so did our ancestors chiefly prize a preparation of long-deceased Egyptians, or, as they were described among the standard medicines quoted in the medical books of Nuremberg only two hundred years ago, “The embalmed bodies of man’s flesh, called mumia, which 473have been embalmed with costly salves and balsams, and smell strongly of myrrh, aloes, and other fragrant things.”

The learned doctors of France, Germany, Italy, and Britain all made great use of mummy, which was pronounced to be an infallible remedy for many diseases. And so great was the demand for this ingredient, as to lead to the establishment in Alexandria of a secret factory for converting all manner of dead bodies into such profitable articles of trade.

The apothecaries of England found an economical substitute in the bones of ancient Britons. Thus Dr. Toope of Oxford, writing in 1685, tells how, at the circles on Hakpen Hill, in Wiltshire, he had discovered a rare lot of human bones—skeletons—arranged in circles, with the feet towards the centre. He says, “The bones were large and nearly rotten, but the teeth extream and wonderfully white.” Undisturbed by any qualms of reverence for the ancestors of his race, he adds: “I dug up many bushells with which I made a noble medicine!”

In truth, the human form divine received small veneration from the philosophers of those days, when the bait most highly recommended for the luring of fish was a compound of man’s fat, cat’s fat, heron’s fat, powdered mummy, assafœtida, and various oils. In The Angler’s Vade Mecum, published in 1681, it is stated that man’s fat for this purpose could readily be obtained from the London chirurgeons concerned in anatomy!

Referring to the little shops of the old Japanese apothecaries; the most remarkable point of similarity between these and those of early English druggists is suggested by the extensive use of calcined animal-matter, recommended in the prescriptions which were most highly valued in England before the Norman Conquest, and which are recorded in the elaborate Saxon manuscripts, carefully preserved in our national archives.

These “Leechdoms” are written in ancient black-letter characters, and are curiously illustrated with pictures of the herbs and animals which are recommended for medicinal use. From these it appears that upwards of eight hundred years ago the Saxon hairdressers prevented the hair from falling by applying a wash of dead bees burnt to ashes, and seethed in oil with leaves of willow; but should hair be too thick, then must a swallow be burnt to ashes, and these be sprinkled on the hair.

Wood ashes seethed in resin, or goat’s flesh or goat’s horn burnt to ashes and “smudged on with water,” are recommended for any hard swelling. For pain in the jowl, burn a swallow to dust, and mingle him with field-bees’ honey, and give the man to eat frequently. For erysipelas, failing a plaister of earthworms, take a swallow’s nest and burn it, with its dung, rub it to dust, mingle with vinegar, and smear therewith.

But, in truth, all animals were turned to good account in these Saxon 474leechdoms, and the wolf seems to have been as highly esteemed as is the tiger in Japan—a wolf’s head under the pillow was a pleasant cure for sleeplessness, and the skull of a wolf, when burnt thoroughly and finely powdered, would heal racking pains in the joints. An ointment made from the right eye of a wolf was the best prescription the Saxon oculist could command.

The bite of a mad dog might be cured by laying on the ashes of a swine’s jaw; while the head of a mad dog, burnt to ashes and spread on the sore, was a cure for cancer. The ashes of the elder-tree were applied in cases of palsy, and imperfect sight was improved by an ointment of honey mixed with the ashes of burnt periwinkles, always provided that certain mystic words were uttered while gathering this plant (a wort which had special power to counteract demoniacal possession).

Such “Leechdoms” as these were all very well in the tenth and eleventh centuries; but it certainly is startling to find how little, if any, advance medical science had made by the early part of the eighteenth century, when the medical works most in repute contain numerous prescriptions of animal substances, so inexpressibly loathsome as to make it a matter of marvel how any one could be found either to prepare them or to submit to their application. Salts of ammonia in the crudest form were a favourite remedy for external or internal use.^[89]

By far the least objectionable compounds were those prepared from carbonised animals in the Japanese or early Saxon manner. We find the ashes of burnt swallows and of their nests still in high favour for the cure of dangerous sore-throats, and among the remedies for beautifying the hair are enumerated, “burnt ashes of little froggs,” “ashes of bees mixt with oyl,” ashes of goat’s dung, goat’s hoof, and cow’s dung, as also the blood of a shell-crab. But a preparation of the burnt ashes of swan’s bones, and the blood of a bat or a little frog, with the milk of a bitch, is effectual for preventing the growth of hair.

For the disease called lethargie, the whole skin of a hare must be burnt, also “the smoak of kid’s leather burnt, holden to the nose.” The burnt hairs of the hare cures erysipelas, ashes of a hare burnt whole, with ashes of burnt willow or ashes of the bark of the elm-tree cureth scalding. The burnt hoofs of a cow or ankle-bones of a swine are the cure for colic. For cancer, nothing better has been discovered than the ashes of a dog’s head, or burnt human dung. As a valuable styptic to staunch bleeding of the nose, burn the blood of the patient and snuff up the powder thereof. Ashes of hen’s feathers burnt, and ashes of nettles are also 475beneficial. So likewise were spiders pulverised, or a dried toad worn round the neck. “Ashes of a burnt frog gleweth veins and arteries and cures burning.”

The merit of these simple remedies was greatly enhanced by the use of fine Latin names. Thus the most powerful known remedy in the treatment of smallpox and dropsy, both for internal and external use, was a preparation of powdered toad, administered under the name of Pulvis Æthiopicus. In fact, the more nonsensical the remedy, the more need was there for a high-sounding name!

We may well believe that for convenience sake many of these calcined plants and animals were prepared at leisure, and stored, ready for use, in cases of emergency. Consequently (though we can hardly flatter ourselves that our ancestors were as exquisite in their neatness as the Japanese) there is no doubt that the little druggist shops in Osaka gave us a very fair notion of the surroundings, not only of an ancient Saxon leech, but of the learned, Latin-quoting doctors of the last century, in whose magician-like laboratories were stored earthenware jars of every size containing the ashes of goat’s flesh, of dead bees, of wolf’s skull, or swine’s jaw, of divers shell-fish, of worts and rinds without number—nay, even of human skulls and bones. On the walls hung bunches of dried herbs, and remains of birds and lizards, rats, moles, and such small deer, together with skins of serpents, portions of mummies, horns of stags, rhinoceros, narwhal, elephants’ tusks, and many another item of the strange materia medica of our own ancestors.

Nor need we at the beginning of the twentieth century (with all the amazing progress made by medical science in the last fifty years) pretend to have altogether extinguished faith in the old superlatively nasty remedies. Certainly the simple ingredients are now generally so refined as to be unrecognisable. Who that inhales the fragrance of eau de mille fleurs remembers that its principal ingredient is the drainage of the cow-byre? or that the brilliant, transparent gelatine which enfolds our bonbons is made from the sweepings of the slaughter-house?

But what I allude to is the survival of the old specifics as popular folk-medicine, in use to this day among the peasantry in various districts of Great Britain. The catalogue is almost endless, including divers methods of applying black snails, eels’ blood, the hand of a dead child or of a suicide, living spiders, hairy caterpillars, and other strange remedies. For instance, there are places in England where the country people still believe that the best specific for all complaints of the human eye is to burn the flesh of a swallow and apply the ashes to the part affected. The Japanese, who carefully prepared his dried frogs, toads, and lizards, may learn with interest that the approved treatment for scrofula at the present day in Devonshire is to dry the hind leg of a toad and wear it round the neck in a silken bag, while for rheumatism the toad must be burnt to ashes, and its dust, wrapped in silk, is to be worn round the 476throat. Both in Cornwall and Northampton poor toads are still made to do duty for the cure of nose-bleeding and quinsy, while in various parts of England “toad-powder,” or even a live toad or spider shut up in a box, is accounted a charm against contagion.

Frogs are well-nigh as valuable as toads to the sick poor. In Aberdeenshire it is accounted a sure cure for sore eyes to lick the bright eyes of a live frog, while the peasants of Donegal find wondrous comfort in rubbing rheumatic limbs with dissolved frog’s spawn. It is also believed in Ireland that the tongue which has licked a lizard all over will thenceforth be endowed with a wondrous gift of healing whatsoever it touches.

But it is when we come to the mystic serpent that we find the most startling connection between the folk-medicine-lore of Britain and Japan. Considering what insignificant little creatures are our British snakes, it certainly is strange that they should be quite as highly esteemed as are the great python-skins in the Chinese school of medicine, wherein the skin of a white spotted snake is valued as the most efficacious remedy for palsy, leprosy, and rheumatism.

Strange to say, in our old Gaelic legends there is a certain white snake which receives unbounded reverence as the king of snakes; and another legend tells of a nest containing six brown adders and one pure white one, which latter, if it can be caught and boiled, confers wondrous medical skill on the lucky man who tastes of the serpent broth.^[90]

In some of the Hebridean Isles, notably that of Lewis, the greatest faith prevails in the efficacy of water in which a so-called serpent-stone has been dipped. Should such a charmed stone be unobtainable, the head of an adder may be tied to a string and dipped in the water with equally good result.

In Devonshire any person bitten by a viper is advised at once to kill the creature, and rub the wound with its fat. I am told that this practice has survived in some of the Northern States of America, where the flesh of a rattlesnake, and especially its oil, are accounted the best cures for its own bite. Some of the sturdy New Englanders even wear a snake-skin round their neck, from a firm faith in its power of curing rheumatism, a faith certainly carried by their fathers from Britain, where the same remedy is still sometimes applied.

It is not many years since an old man used to sit on the steps of King’s College Chapel, at Cambridge, and earn his living by exhibiting common English snakes, and selling their cast-off sloughs to be bound round the forehead and temples of persons suffering from headache—a valuable remedy for overworked students!

In Durham an eel’s skin, worn as a garter round the naked leg, is considered a preventive of cramp, while in Northumberland it is esteemed the best bandage for a sprained limb.

477So, too, in Sussex, the approved cure for a swollen neck is to draw a snake nine times across the throat of the sufferer, after which operation the snake is killed, and its skin is sewn in a piece of silk and worn round the patient’s neck. Sometimes the snake is put in a bottle, which is tightly corked and buried in the ground, and it is expected that as the victim decays the swelling will subside.

This, however, relates to a different class of subject to that which has led me into this long digression—namely the little drug-stores at Osaka, with all their curious contents. I can only hope that, should these pages ever meet the eye of my Japanese friend, he will acknowledge that my interest in the medicine-lore of his ancestors was certainly justifiable.

My first experience of writing a magazine article was in 1869, when I sent a sketch of our “Camp Life in the Himalayas” to Dr. Norman Macleod, who promptly inserted it in Good Words.

In subsequent years I contributed many papers to a great variety of periodicals and newspapers, chiefly on topics which afterwards found a place in my books of travel, such as one on “Oiling the Waves,” which appeared in the Nineteenth Century for April 1882, and contained much information gleaned from many sea-captains, seamen, and fishers on the practical value of a very small amount of oil in preventing waves from breaking in white crests, and so swamping vessels. So many cases were quoted of ships which were undoubtedly saved by this simple safeguard, that Lord Cottesloe called the attention of the House of Lords to the paper, with the result that some small experiment by a lifeboat was ordered, but the result was nil. The principal evidence on the subject was reproduced in my book, In the Hebrides.

Of other oily papers I may mention one on “The World’s Oil Supply,” which appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine in September 1884, and some papers on “Washing Made Easy,” which told how some ingenious women in New Zealand had discovered that by adding a little paraffin to the water in which they were boiling their dirty linen all the dirt separated, and scarcely involved any further trouble.

I was told that those papers attracted much attention; and it was interesting to note how many new soaps straightway came into existence, and have ever since been enormously advertised. But only one of them gave any clue to the simple new ingredient to which they owe their success, and of that one I have never seen a single advertisement, therefore I have real pleasure in confiding to all my readers that it is called “Evelyn’s Paraffin Soap,” made by Messrs. Ogston and Sons, soap-makers, Aberdeen, and I consider it the best of any I know. (Of course 478it will be said that this is an advertisement, but it is simply the statement of a fact.)

In looking over a list of the subjects about which I wrote, not connected with any of my books, I see that NOW they would be quite commonplace; but they were by no means so at the time they were written—as, for instance, my paper on cremation in the Contemporary Review for June 1883, “De Mortuis.”

So also in regard to a paper on “The Leper Hospitals of Britain,” which appeared in The Gentleman’s Magazine, September 1884. The subject was then so old as to be practically new to the current generation, so of course it was pleasant to have been the one to disinter it. Rather a curious thing occurred with regard to its publication. I had offered it to one of the principal periodicals, which detained it for so many months that I was satisfied that it had been accepted, and so I abstained from asking troublesome questions. At length, however, I ventured to do so, and my paper was at once returned to me, and at the same time I observed that an article on the same subject was advertised for the next number of the magazine in question. I at once despatched mine to The Gentleman’s Magazine, and by the exceeding courtesy of Messrs. Chatto and Windus (who at the very last moment managed to postpone an article and insert mine), it was launched on the same day as its rival. The similarity of the two was remarkable, all quotations being identical.

A paper of specially curious interest, and for which I collected a great number of very telling illustrations from ancient sculptures and from modern life in many countries, was one to prove the evolution of the tall pagoda from the original honorific umbrellas carried in procession before or after a great man, not for use, but as a badge of rank. At last, as in Burmah, seven or nine came to be placed above one another, and so doubtless led to these silken umbrellas being reproduced in stone erections of five, seven, nine, or even thirteen stories in height. This paper, which I called “Umbrellas, Aurioles, and Pagodas,” was published in the June and July numbers of the English Illustrated Magazine for 1888, and was very well received by the world which cares about such matters.

Of some interest also were such papers as—

Some Eventful Voyages. Blackwood’s Magazine, March 1890.

Wolves and Were-Wolves. Temple Bar, November 1890.

Unfathomed Mysteries. (Spiritualism at Boston.) Blackwood’s Magazine, May 1883.

Musical Instruments and their Homes. Blackwood’s Magazine, April 1891.

Professions for Dogs. Blackwood’s Magazine, November 1888.

Strange Medicines. Nineteenth Century, June 1887.

The Locust War in Cyprus. Nineteenth Century, August 1883.

479Locusts and Farmers of America. Nineteenth Century, January 1885.

The World’s Wonderlands. (In Wyoming and New Zealand.) Overland Monthly, January 1885.

In the Old Muniment Room of Wollaton Hall. New Review, October and December 1889.

Our Oldest Colony, Bombay. Macmillan’s Magazine, January 1887.

Sunny Days in Malta. National Review, September 1886.

Of Furred and Feathered Foes. (New Zealand.) Gentleman’s Magazine, May 1882.

Revered Footprints. (Held sacred.) Time, July 1886.

Footprints of Old. (Fossil and other.) Sun, March 1891.

Prophecies by a Highland Seer. (Very remarkable facts in Ross-shire.) Belgravia, September 1884.

A Legend of Inverawe and Ticonderoga. Atlantic Monthly, September 1884.

A Night of Horror at a Highland Castle. Belgravia, October 1886.

Two British Pilgrimages in the Nineteenth Century (to Iona and Lindisfarne). Cornhill Magazine, August 1883.

Striking “Ile.” (Petroleum springs.) Atalanta, July 1889.

Earth’s Fiery Fountains of Molten Rock. Atalanta.

Earth’s Boiling Fountains. Atalanta, February and March 1888.

A Fiery Flood in Pennsylvania. Atalanta, August 1892.

Divining Rods, Ancient and Modern. Quiver, July 1887.

The Postmen of the World. Cassell’s Family Magazine, July and August 1885.

The Newspapers of the World. Cassell’s Family Magazine, August 1884.

On Cuttle-fish as a Dainty Dish. Cassell’s Family Magazine, July 1883.

On the Social Position of Divers Animals. Cassell’s Family Magazine, May 1887.

Alligator-Farming. Cassell’s Family Magazine, June 1883.

Destruction of the American Bison. Good Words, June 1884.

How Mother Earth Rocked her Cradle. (In Japan.) Newberry House Magazine, July and August 1892.

Real Estate in Volcanic Regions. (Japan.) Cornhill Magazine, February 1890.

Volcanic Frolics. Monthly Packet, September 1886.

The Eruption of Mount Tarawera. (Destruction of the Pink and White Terraces, New Zealand.) Leisure Hour, October 1886.

480The Ending of the Carnival. (On the Riviera.) Leisure Hour, May 1887.

Earthquakes in Divers Places. Leisure Hour, June 1887.

The Great Yellow River Inundation. Leisure Hour, March 1886.

The Home of the Blizzard. Leisure Hour, April 1888.

Our Borrowed Plumes. (Fine feathers make fine birds in many lands.) Leisure Hour, August 1883.

The Hot Lakes of New Zealand. Sunday at Home, October and November 1886.

INDEX

• Abercromby, Louisa, Lady, 31.
• Aberlour, 159.
• —— Orphanage, 167.
• Accident to my father, 124.
• Adam’s Peak in Ceylon, 212.
• Affectation, 33 and note.
• Agnostic, 351, note.
• Airthrie Castle, 151.
• Alcohol, a dangerous poison—Evidence of Sir Andrew Clark, Sir William Gull, Dr. Norman Kerr, Dr. Murchison, Dr. Alfred Carpenter, etc., 462, 463.
• Alexandria, 197.
• Allahabad, 202.
• Alma, The Battle of, 132.
• Alnwick Castle, 107, 141;
  • school for wood-carving, 142;
  • electric light even in dungeon, 146.
• —— an Italian wedding, 143;
  • coming of age, 143.
• Altyre, 1, 6, 53.
• —— Gardens, 35.
• Anaradhapura, 211.
• Anglesea, Marquis of, 16.
• Anstruther in Fife, 229.
• Ant-hills, 46.
• Any Soul to any Body, 377.
• Applecross in Ross-shire, 206.
• Apprentice, quaint agreement, 80.
• Archbishop of Athens, 86.
• Archery, Japan, 339.
• Ard Patrick, Campbells of, 24.
• Argyll, Duke of, 144, 214.
• Arndilly, 159.
• Ashburton, Lady, 108.
• “As it is done in Heaven,” 453.
• “At Last,” 378.
• Atlantic Cable, 153.
• Auchintoul, 207.
• Australia, 218.
• Badenoch, Lords of, 1.
• Badgers, “Inch-Brock,” 407.
• Barnscleugh, 157.
• Bass Rock, 123.
• Bathing in Japan, 286, 310, 330, 382.
• Batticaloa, Ceylon, 174.
• Belhaven, Baron, 21, 157.
• Ben Agan, 159.
• Benares on the Ganges, 201.
• Ben Rinnes, 159.
• Birdsall House, 205, 206 note.
• Birnie near Elgin, Culdee Church, 427.
• Bishops of Argyll and the Isles, Ewing, 33, 45, 156.
• —— Brechin, Forbes, 31;
  • Jermyn, 33, 171 note, 207.
• —— London, Blomfield, 109.
• —— Moray and Ross, Eden, 158, 188, 191.
• —— Samoa, Elloi, 227.
• Blind Chang of Manchuria, 362–364.
• Bonnie Dundee at Duffus, 404.
• Bothwell, Countess of, 85.
• Boy nurses in Japan, 300.
• Braille’s symbols adapted to Chinese, 355.
• Brander, Mrs., 228.
• Brechin, Forbes, Bishop of, 31.
• Breechloaders, 117.
• Bridge of Allan, 138.
• Bridges, the lack of, 441.
• Brief lives, 51.
• Buddha’s tooth, 213.
• Buddhist Pantheon, 275.
• —— sects in Japan, 292.
• 482Burghead, 69, 111, 402.
• —— Burning the Clavie, 69.
• Burning of New Testaments in Fiji, 224.
• Cadman, The Rev. William, 109.
• Cadzow Park, 157.
• Calcutta, 198.
• California, 230.
• Callum’s Hill, Crieff, Legend of, 376.
• Campbell, Lady Charlotte, 15, 21;
  • her daughters, 15;
  • second marriage to Rev. Edward Bury, 19.
• —— Lady Emma, 184.
• Carbonised animal medicine, 297.
• Castle Grant, 151.
• Ceylon, first glimpse, 198.
• —— two years in, 207.
• Changes, 119.
• Charleville, Countess of, 15.
• “Chérie,” 43, 48, 103, 105.
• Cherry blossom festival, 280.
• Chillingham Castle, 107, 154.
• —— cattle, 157.
• Chrysanthemum shows, 283–286.
• Circulating libraries in Japan, 253–263.
• Clan Comyn or Cumming, 1.
• —— Grant, last rising of, 161.
• Claverhouse, 404.
• Coaching days, 108, 440.
• College House, Crieff, 371–375.
• Compiègne, Life at, 154.
• Comrie, village of, 192.
• Comyn, The Red, 2.
• Conditional Immortality, 443–452.
• Consumption, 155, 156.
• Conway, Anne Seymour (the Hon. Mrs. John Damer), 102, 422.
• Cornish estates, 26.
• Cornwall, 209.
• Coronach, The Chieftain’s, 189.
• Cothall, 6.
• Covesea cliffs, 56, 57 note.
• Craig-Ellachie, 159.
• Cremation, 244–252.
• Cresswell Hall, 102;
  • old customs, 105, 141;
  • dialect, 112.
• Cresswell, Captain William, 125, 132.
• Crieff, 192, 370.
• Crimean War, 125.
• Cruelty of telling irreverent, or merely funny stories about sacred verses, 462 note.
• Cryptomerias, 289, 313.
• Crystal Palace of 1851, 115.
• —— at Sydenham, opening ceremony, 127.
• Culbyn Sandhills, 55, 387, 395, 398.
• Cullen House, 164.
• Cumming the Fair, Seventh Bishop of Iona, 13.
• Cumming, varied spelling, 2.
• Cumming-Bruce, 12.
• —— Elma, Countess of Elgin, 12.
• —— The Rev. Charles, 13.
• “Daily dose of Alcohol, the cause of disease,” 463.
• Dallas, 6, 70.
• Darsie, Mrs., 229.
• Death of my mother, 43;
  • of my father, 136;
  • of Captain Cresswell, 132;
  • of Oswin Cresswell, 147;
  • of my sister Seymour Cresswell, 156;
  • of The Master of Grant, 164;
  • of Earl of Seafield, 166;
  • of my sister Alice, 171;
  • of my brother John, 174;
  • of Roualeyn, 175–181;
  • of Penrose, 183–190;
  • of my sister Ida, 180;
  • of my sister Eleanora and George Grant, 193;
  • of my half-brother Frederick, 194 note;
  • of the Rev. Fred. and Mrs. Langham, 222–224.
• Devie and Dorbach rivers, 53.
• Doll festival in Japan, 301.
• Dovecots, 73, 97, 98.
• Drainie, 87.
• —— Dr. Rose, minister of, reminiscence, 70;
  • his last service in St. Giles’, 434.
• Druggists’ shops of old Japan and old England, 296–299.
• Duffus Castle, 404, 408.
• Dunbar of Northfield and Duffus, 28–30.
• 483Dungeons at Gordonstoun, 74, 94–96.
• Dunphail, 8;
  • old castle of, 9, 10.
• Dunrobin, 87, 94.
• Duthil, 165.
• Dyer, Henry, 232.
• Dysart, Countess of, 151.
• Earthquakes in Japan, 319–326.
• Easter Elchies, 159;
  • leave, 192.
• Easy reading for illiterate Chinese, 359.
• Ecclesiastical Censures, 83, 84.
• Eddystone Rock, 207.
• Elgin, formerly a picturesque old town, 435;
  • very numerous malt-kilns, 436;
  • street lamps, 437;
  • condition of streets, 438;
  • water-supply, 439;
  • coals first imported, 439.
• —— Church of St. Giles, 431;
  • seats apportioned, 432;
  • lighting, 433;
  • bells, 435.
• —— Cathedral built, 427;
  • burnt, 428;
  • rebuilt but lead stripped by order of Privy Council, 428.
• Election, bitterly contested, 163.
• Empress Eugenie and Louis Napoleon, 154.
• —— Haruku, 240, 335.
• “Enemy of the Human Race,” by Sir Andrew Clark, 463.
• Fautong, wadded quilt, 315.
• Feudal sports revived, 337.
• Figure 9 minus a tail!, 383.
• Fiji, “At home in,” 216.
• —— in 1903, 225.
• Findhorn Bay, 395, 401.
• —— river, 53.
• First Book, 204.
• “Fish,” 37, 39.
• —— Festival in Japan, 300.
• Five o’clock tea an innovation, 115.
• Flower festivals in Japan, 276–286.
• Flowers, favourite, 136, 156.
• —— Camelia trees in Japan, 243.
• —— useful selection and packing, 113.
• —— wild, 88, 105, 113, 312.
• Folklore anent foxes, 290.
• Footprint held sacred, 212.
• Forres and Elgin, 382.
• Fort Augustus, 175.
• Fortune-telling, 15.
• Forty-seven Rônins, 277.
• Fox-god, his shrines, 288.
• —— demoniacal possession by, 290.
• Fujiyama, 109;
  • ascent of, 307–330;
  • view from summit, 318.
• Funeral, a double, 164.
• —— pall, 76.
• Gallows Hill, 7, 87.
• Garratt, the Rev. Mr., 109.
• Geologists at Altyre, 38.
• George Gordon, prentice to Robt. Blaikwood, 80.
• Gibraltar, 203.
• Gipsies, 63, 64.
• Glass-works, 82, 153.
• Glenelg, Lord, 32, 160.
• Glenlee, Lord, 30.
• Goodenough, Commodore, 218.
• “Goodwill and Blessing,” 400.
• Gordon-Cumming, Major Frederick, Note, 194.
• —— John, William, and Frank, 42.
• —— Henry, 32, 33, 196.
• —— Jane, Lady, 107, 196.
• —— double surname, Gordon of Gordonstoun, Cumming of Altyre, 26, Note.
• —— clan tartans, badges, and mottoes, 14.
• Gordonstoun, 27, 56, 72.
• —— charter-room, 77.
• —— lairds of, 85–100.
• —— library, 99, note.
• —— great picture by Gavin Hamilton, 75.
• —— Sir William Gordon’s will, 100.
• Gordon Castle, ancient name, 72, 102.
• Grant, Field-Marshal Sir Patrick, 161.
• —— General Ulysses, 333, 334, 342–346.
• 484Grant, George, 125, 140.
• —— of Glen Morriston, 189.
• —— Lodge, 162, 159 note.
• Grant of Grant, Lady Ann and Lady Penuel rouse the clan, 160.
• —— —— Earls of Findlater and Seafield, 27, 28.
• Grantown on Spey, 159.
• Granville, Earl, 16, 18.
• Great Eastern, s.s., 152.
• Gregory, Mrs., 211.
• Grey, Sir George, New Zealand, 221.
• Gull’s Castle, 65.
• Gunning, the three beauties, 20.
• Hair, offerings of, 291, 467;
  • court hairdressing in Japan, 241.
• Hakoni Lake, 311.
• Hamilton Gordon, the Hon. Lady, 216.
• Handsome Hays, 124.
• Hanlin Library burnt, 365.
• Hara kiri, 178.
• Hardwar on the Ganges, 201.
• Harehope, 106, 140, 154.
• Harford Battersby of Keswick, 130.
• Havelock, Sir Arthur, 222.
• Hawaiian Islands, 347.
• Hell’s Hole, 63;
  • seven hells of Buddhism, 331.
• Helston in Cornwall, 25.
• Hill Murray, the Rev. William, 353;
  • inventions, 355, 359;
  • blindness, 368.
• Himalayas, 200.
• Hindoo, s.s., 207;
  • foundering of, 208.
• Historic Festival, Japan, 336.
• Hong Kong, 243.
• Hooker, Sir Joseph, 350.
• Hopeman, 57.
• —— “Holy Well” of Brae-mou or Burn-mouth, 70, 416.
• Hospitable days, 130.
• Hunt, Alfred, R.A., 195.
• Idols, how punished and rewarded, 303–306.
• —— their intestines, 304.
• Images under repair, 302.
• Immortality, by Nature, not taught in the Bible, Archbishop Whately, Martin Luther, Bishop Gore, W. E. Gladstone, 449, 450.
• Impenitence, 110.
• Imperial College of Engineering, 232.
• India, Life in, 198.
• Indian Mutiny, 155.
• Inkerman, Battle of, 134.
• Intercessory Prayer, 454.
• Inventor of the numeral-type for China, 353–370.
• Inveraray, 214.
• Inverness Gathering, 131–151;
  • cathedral, 158.
• Islay, Campbell of, 16, 18.
• Ivy-leaves, their motto, 14.
• Japan and China, 231–346;
  • cremation and earth-burial, 244–252.
• Jessica’s First Prayer, 186 note.
• Jin-riki-ya, 236.
• Jupp, the Rev. Charles, 168.
• Kandy in Ceylon, 211.
• Kinsfolk, numerous, 5.
• Kite-flying in Japan, 302.
• Kobu-dai-Gakko, 232.
• Kwan-non, Goddess of Mercy, 275–6, 296.
• Lady’s Cruise on a French Man-of-War, 227.
• Langford Brooke of the Mere, 16.
• Langham, The Rev. Fred., 219, 222.
• Larks in Moray, fewer, 393.
• Le Hunte, Sir George Ruthven, 221.
• Lennox, Lady Arthur, 16.
• —— Lady Walter Gordon, 193.
• Le Seignelay, 227.
• Letters, old, 3, 40–43.
• “Letters of horning,” 83, 84.
• Liddill, The Honble. Misses, 154.
• Liddon, Canon, 205.
• Lindisfarne, 140.
• —— Archdeacon of, 141–148.
• Longfellow, 348.
• 485Lord Lovat’s cold bath, 79.
• —— Scouts, 78.
• “Lords of Regality,” 405.
• Lotus blossom festival, 282.
• —— emblem of Buddha, 253.
• Lucifer matches, a recent blessing, 433.
• Lyndhurst in 1854, 129.
• Macdowal Grant of Arndilly, 167.
• M‘Gregor, Sir William, 221.
• Macleod, Dr. Norman, 107.
• Madame de Staël, 103.
• Magazine Articles, 477–480.
• Malta, 197, 202.
• Manchuria, first copy of the Bible, 361.
• —— 25,000 staunch Christians, 362.
• Mandarin dialects in China, 361.
• Maple, scarlet foliage, 286.
• Mar and Kellie, Earl of, 31.
• Marianne North, Miss, 350.
• Martyrs, the noble army of, 366.
• Medicines, quaint, 96, 290 note, 310, 468–477.
• Medwyn, Lord (Forbes of), 30.
• Menzies of Menzies, Sir Robert, 28, 192.
• Michael Kirk, 44 note, 92, 137, 182, 188.
• Middleton, Lord, 205.
• —— Lady, 455.
• Mikado, the, 234, 239, 335.
• Minton, the Rev. Samuel, 205 note.
• Mission to the Blind in China, 352.
• Montana, s.s., 209.
• Monto, or Shin-shiû, reformed Buddhism, 292–295.
• Montebello, Duc de, 22.
• Monument over 5000 pairs of Korean ears, 276.
• Moray Floods, 49, 421.
• —— fertility, 385.
• —— province of, 381.
• Morrison, Lady Mary, 19.
• Moy, The Moy Aunts, 31.
• —— my first journey, 34.
• Murray, The Rev. Will. Hill, 353;
  • inventions, 355–359;
  • blindness, 368.
• Navvies on Speyside, 167.
• Noel Paton (Sir), 188.
• “Nô,” or Mythological Plays, 271.
• North, Miss Marianne, 350.
• Northern Meeting, 131, 151.
• Northumberland, 102, 105, 140.
• —— Dukes of, 141, 144.
• ‘Not so bad as that,’ 437.
• Notes of a Naturalist, 175 (Roualeyn).
• Numeral-type for China, 353.
• Nurses, my, 48.
• Oak forests (Burghead), 415.
• Ochtertyre, “God’s-acre,” 193, 376.
• Ogilvie, Grant of Grant, 193.
• Old Nan, 48.
• Old Red Sandstone fossils, 38–39.
• Oliver Wendell Holmes, 348.
• Opera, crude criticism of, 121.
• Ossulston, Lady Olivia, 154.
• Otomitonga Pass, Japan, 311.
• Oysters and Lobsters, no more, 410.
• Parentage, 5.
• Parkes, Sir Harry, 333–334.
• Penrose of Penrose, Grace Pearce, 25.
• —— 209.
• “Pen’s sylvania,” 158.
• Perthshire, kind neighbours, 192, 193.
• Percy, Earl, 144.
• Pibroch, the last, 187.
• Pigeons, superstitions concerning, 97.
• “Pigs” of jam, school stores, 115.
• Pilgrims in Japan, 309.
• Pillows in Japan, etc., 292.
• Pit and gallows, 87.
• Pitgaveny, 414, 419.
• Pittyvaich, 33, 196.
• Planting Forests, 52.
• Plymouth, 207.
• Poetic heroes in Japan, 276.
• Pollanarua, 211.
• Portfolios, a wearisome possession, 203, 213, 351.
• —— of China, 352.
• 486Portland, Dukes of, 92.
• Posting, 40, 103.
• Prayer, a remarkable answer to, 365.
• —— Wheels, 253–266.
• Primitive Plays, 272.
• Prisons, as reformatories in Japan, 239.
• Punishment of obdurate idols, 303.
• Quirang, 194.
• Rabbits in Morayshire, 388;
  • Protection Act, 393.
• Raigmore, Mackintosh of, 28, 131.
• Railway, first line completed in the north, 408 note.
• —— Highland, 441.
• Randolph’s Leap, 10.
• Relugas, 10, 130.
• Rheumatic Fever, 149.
• Rheumatism, cure for, 149 note.
• Rivers of Morayshire, 10.
• Robinson (Clifford), 33.
• Rosaries, 267–269, 309, 464–467.
• Rose-isle, 6.
• Roualeyn, 5, 36, 37, 42, 116–119, 152;
  • his name, 41.
• Round Square, 73.
• Royal Albert, launch of, 126.
• Russell, Lord William, 16.
• —— Sir George, 16.
• —— Mrs. William, 124.
• Ruthven, Mary Lady, 22.
• Ruyter, 116, 119.
• Sacred Book Wheels, 253–266.
• Salisbury system of diet, 149 note.
• Salt superstitions, 252.
• Samuel Pepys, 89.
• Samurai of Japan, 236, 238.
• Sandhills, 55, 387, 395.
• Sandwich Isles, 347.
• “Says Tweed to Till,” 107.
• School-days, 108.
• Sculpture Cave, 59, 68.
• Seafield, Earls of, 151 note, 159.
• Seals, 395.
• Sebastopol, 133.
• Sequoia Gigantea, 230.
• Sergison of Cuckfield Park, 191, 195.
• Seventy-eighth Highlanders’ Welcome Home, 169.
• Shawfield, Campbell of, 16, 18.
• Shinto Worship, 270, 313.
• Siege of the Legations, 367.
• Simla, 200.
• Sinclair, Jamie, Prince Worenzow’s Crimean gardener, 36.
• Singapore, 217.
• Sir Robert’s Stable, 66, 93.
• Skipness, Campbells of, 24, 157.
• Skye, Isle of, 194.
• Slaginnan, Legend of, 9.
• Sligachan in Skye, 194.
• Smugglers, 67.
• Social drinking customs, 461.
• “Spate” on the Findhorn, 39.
• Spey river, 159, 384.
• Spiritualism, at Boston, 349.
• Sporting trophies dispersed, 174 note.
• Sportsman’s paradise, 407.
• Sportsmen, true, 42, 117, 173.
• Spurgeon, 152.
• Spynie, Loch of, 87, 384, 403.
• —— Lord, title created, 424;
  • killed, 425.
• —— Palace of, 384, 406, 413, 427.
• Squirrel foes, 389–392.
• Stanmore, Lord, 216.
• Star-grass, 413.
• Starlings in Moray, 393.
• —— in Banff, 393.
• Straw shoes, 329.
• Stuart, Randolph, 9.
• —— Alexander, Wolf of Badenoch, 9, 379.
• St. Columba, Legend of, 376.
• St. Margaret’s College, Crieff, now College House, 373.
• St. Quintin, Geoffrey, 193.
• Sutherland, Earls of, 85, 87.
• —— Duchess of, 124.
• Sutledge river, 201.
• Sutors of Cromarty, 60.
• Swans, wild, 384, 395, 407, 412.
• Sydney, 218.
• 487Tankerville, Earl, 157.
• Tarbat, Viscount, 81.
• Teetotalers in Judea, Commended, 464.
• “The Lion Hunter,” 42, 116.
• The Te Deum, 366.
• Theatres in Japan, 270–274.
• —— at Trincomalee, 272.
• Titaua, 228.
• Tonga, Taheiti, and Samoa, 227, 230.
• Total abstinence made difficult, 461.
• —— commended by wise physicians, 462, 463.
• —— commended in the Bible, 464.
• Travel, wearisome, 13, 46, 86, 103, 170.
• Trespass, 95.
• Triangular Shadow of Adam’s Peak, 212.
• —— of Fujiyama, 317.
• Tulli Duvie (Relugas), 10 note.
• Ugadale, Macneal of, 24.
• Uxbridge, Countess of, 16, 102.
• Vanished waters, 383, 403.
• Varna Bay, 133.
• Volcanic activity in Japan, 319–326.
• Von Hügel, Baron Anatole, 227.
• Voyages, my first, 111, 123.
• War-cry of the Grants, 159.
• Warkworth, Lord, coming of age, 144.
• Wasp’s nests, 46.
• Weddings, my sisters: Seymour, 192;
  • Eleanora, 141;
  • Ida, 134;
  • Emilia, 191;
  • my brother William, 193.
• Wemyss, Earl of, 21.
• Wheels, sacred symbols, 260.
• —— for images, 265.
• White terraces, New Zealand, 221.
• —— wild cattle, 157.
• Wig, cost of a, 386 note.
• “Wild men and wild beasts,” 155.
• Willoughby, 205 note.
• —— The Hon. Mrs., 454.
• Winchester College, founder’s kin, 14.
• Window-tax, 73, 99.
• Winthrop, Mrs., 348.
• Winton Castle, 22.
• Wishaw, 157.
• Wistaria blossom, 281.
• Witch-burning, 91.
• Wizard, Sir Robert, 89–92.
• Woodhorne Church, 148, 156, 171.
• Wood-pigeons in Moray, 392.
• Wolf of Badenoch, Alexander Stuart, 9, 379.
• Wollaton Hall, 206 note.
• Worcester, climb the beacon, 150.
• Worship by machinery, 253–269, and 464–467.
• Yeddo, 235.
• Zurick, marriage at, 15.