Read Ebook: Harper's New Monthly Magazine Vol. 2 No. 8 January 1851 by Various

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FOOTNOTES:

VISIT TO AN ENGLISH DAIRY.

Let the reader accompany us half-a-dozen miles out of town. We pass through Camberwell, through Peckham, and Peckham Rye, and we presently find ourselves in a district that looks uncommonly like "the country," considering how short a time it is since we left the "old smoke" behind us. We alight and walk onward, and certainly, if the sight of green fields, and cows, and hedges, and farm-yards, denote the country, we are undoubtedly in some region of the kind.

We pass down a winding road, between high hedges of bush and trees, then climb over a gate into a field; cross it, and then over another gate into a field, from which we commence a gradual ascent, field after field, till finally the green slope leads us to a considerable height. We are on the top of Friern Hill.

It is a bright sunny morning in September, and we behold to perfection the most complete panorama that can be found in the suburban vicinities of London. Step down with us to yonder hedge, a little below the spot where we have been standing. We approach the hedge--we get over a gate, and we suddenly find ourselves on the upper part of an enormous green sloping pasturage, covered all over with cows. The red cow, the white cow, the brown cow, the brindled cow, the colley cow, the dappled cow, the streaked cow, the spotted cow, the liver-and-white cow, the strawberry cow, the mulberry cow, the chestnut cow, the gray speckled cow, the clouded cow, the black cow,--the short-horned cow, the long-horned cow, the up-curling horn, the down-curling horn, the straight-horned cow, and the cow with the crumpled horn--all are here--between two and three hundred--spread all over the broad, downward sloping pasture, feeding, ruminating, standing, lying, gazing with mild earnestness, reclining in characteristic thoughtfulness, sleeping, or wandering hither and thither. A soft gleam of golden sunshine spreads over the pasture, and falls upon many of the cows with a lovely, picturesque effect.

And what cows they are, as we approach and pass among them! Studies for a Morland, a Gainsborough, a Constable. We had never before thought there were any such cows out of their pictures. That they were highly useful, amiable, estimable creatures, who continually, at the best, appeared to be mumbling grass in a recumbent position, and composing a sonnet, we never doubted; but that they were ever likely to be admired for their beauty, especially when beheld, as many as these were, from a disadvantageous point of view, as to their position, we never for a moment suspected. Such, however, is the case. We have lived to see beauty in the form of a cow--a natural, modern, milch cow, and no descendant from any Ovidian metamorphosis.

We will now descend this broad and populous slope, and pay a visit to Friern Manor Dairy Farm, to which all these acres--some two hundred and fifty--belong, together with all these "horned beauties." We find them all very docile, and undisturbed by our presence, though their looks evidently denote that they recognize a stranger. But those who are reclining do not rise, and none of them decline to be caressed by the hand, or seem indifferent to the compliments addressed to them. In passing through the cows we were specially presented to the cow queen, or "master cow," as she is called. This lady has been recognized during twelve years as the sovereign ruler over all the rest. No one, however large, disputes her supremacy. She is a short-horned, short-legged cow, looking at first sight rather small, but on closer examination you will find that she is sturdily and solidly built, though graceful withal. "She is very sweet-tempered," observed the head keeper, "but when a new-comer doubts about who is the master, her eye becomes dreadful. Don't signify how big the other cow is--she must give in to the master cow. It's not her size, nor strength, bless you, it's her spirit. As soon as the question is once settled, she's as mild as a lamb again. Gives us eighteen quarts of milk a day."

We found that besides beauty, cows possessed some imagination, and were, moreover, very susceptible. The above excitement and mad panic sometimes occurs as the effect of other causes.

Once some boys brought a great kite into the field, with a pantomime face painted upon it; and directly this began to rise over the field, and the cows looked up at it, and saw the great glass eyes of the face looking down at them--then, oh! oh! what a bellowing! and away they rushed over each other, quite frantic. On another occasion, some experimental gentlemen of science, brought a fire-balloon near the pasturage one night after dark. It rose. Up started all the cows in a panic, and round and round they rushed, till, finally, the whole herd made a charge at one of the high fences--tore down and overleaped every thing--burst into the lanes--and made their way into the high-road, and seemed to intend to leave their owners for some state of existence where fire-balloons and horrid men of science were alike unknown.

Instead of proceeding directly down the sloping fields toward the Dairy Farm, we made a detour of about half a mile, and passed through a field well inclosed, in which were about a dozen cows, attended by one man, who sat beneath a tree. This was the Quarantine ground. All newly-purchased cows, however healthy they may appear, are first placed in this field during four or five weeks, and the man who milks or attends upon them is not permitted to touch, nor, indeed, to come near, any of the cows in the great pasture. Such is the susceptibility of a cow to the least contamination, that if one who had any slight disease were admitted among the herd, in a very short time the whole of them would be affected. When the proprietor has been to purchase fresh stock, and been much among strange cows, especially at Smithfield, he invariably changes all his clothes, and, generally takes a bath, before he ventures among his own herd.

The milk is all passed through several strainers, and then placed in great tin cans, barred across the top, and sealed. They are deposited in a van, which starts from the Farm about three in the morning, and arrives at the dairy, in Farringdon-street, between three and four. The seals are then carefully examined, and taken off by a clerk. In come the carriers, commonly called "milkmen," all wearing the badge of Friern Farm Dairy; their tin pails are filled, fastened at top, and sealed as before, and away they go on their early rounds, to be in time for the early-breakfast people. The late-breakfasts are provided by a second set of men.

Such are the facts we have ascertained with regard to one of the largest of the great dairy farms near London.

SAILING IN THE AIR.--HISTORY OF AERONAUTICS.

Aeronautics, or the art of sailing in the air, is of very modern date; if, indeed, we are warranted to say that the art has yet been acquired, for we have only got a machine or apparatus capable of sustaining some hundreds of pounds in the air, the means of guiding and propelling it having yet to be discovered. The attention and admiration of men would doubtless be attracted from the beginning to the ease, grace, and velocity with which the feathered race soar aloft, and wing their way in the upper regions; but there is no reason to believe that any of the nations of antiquity--not even Greece and Rome, with all their progress in science and art--ever made the smallest advances toward a discovery of a method of flying, or of aerial navigation.

Archytas of Tarentum, a celebrated Pythagorean philosopher, who flourished about four hundred years before the Christian era, is indeed said to have constructed a wooden flying pigeon; but, from the imperfect accounts transmitted to us of its machinery, there is every probability that its flight was one of the many deceptions of the magic art which the ancients so well understood and so expertly practiced. The attention of man was much earlier, as well as more earnestly and successfully turned to the art of navigating lakes, rivers, and seas. To gratify his curiosity, or to better his condition, he was prompted to emigrate, or to pass from one place to another, and thus he would tax his ingenuity to discover the means by which he might be enabled to accomplish his journey. To make the atmosphere the medium of transit, would, in the early stages of society, hardly strike the mind at all, or, if it did, it would only strike it as a physical impossibility. Nature has not supplied man with wings, as it has done the fowls of heaven, and to find a locomotive means of transportation through the air was in the infancy of all science absolutely hopeless. But advantage would be early taken of the buoyant property of water, particularly of the sea, which must have been known to mankind from the creation. The canoe and the raft would be first constructed, and, in the course of time, experience would teach men to build vessels of a larger size, to fix the rudder to the stern, to erect the mast, and unfurl the sails. Thus would the art of navigating the ocean advance from step to step, while the art navigating the air remained a mystery, practiced, it may be, by flying demons, and flying witches, and the like ethereal beings of a dark mythology, but an achievement to which ordinary mortals could make no pretensions.

Our object in this paper is to give a concise history of aeronautics, commencing at that period when something like an approach was made to the principles upon which the art could be reduced to practice.

The person who is entitled to the honor of the discovery of the main principle of aeronautics--atmospheric buoyancy--is Roger Bacon, an English monk of the thirteenth century. This eminent man, whose uncommon genius was, in that superstitious and ignorant age, ascribed to his intercourse with the devil, was aware that the air is a material of some consistency, capable, like the ocean, of bearing vessels on its surface; and, in one of his works, he particularly describes the construction of a machine by which he believed it was possible to navigate the air. It is a large, thin, hollow globe of copper, or other suitable metal, which he proposes to fill with "ethereal air or liquid fire," and then to launch from some elevated point into the atmosphere, when he supposes it will float on its surface, like a vessel on the water. He afterward says, "There may be made some flying instrument, so that a man, sitting in the middle of the instrument, and turning some mechanism, may put in motion some artificial wings, which may beat the air like a flying bird." But, though Bacon knew the buoyancy of the atmosphere, he was very imperfectly acquainted with its properties. His idea seems to have been, that the boundaries of the atmosphere are at no great height, and that the aerial vessel, in order to its being borne up, must be placed on the surface of the air, just as a ship, in order to its being supported, must be placed on the surface of the water. And, whatever may be meant by his "ethereal air and liquid fire," there is no evidence that he, or any one living in that age, had any knowledge of the various and distinct gases. Bacon merely reasoned and theorized on the subject; he never attempted to realize these flying projects by actual experiment.

It was not till the year 1782 that the art of aerial navigation was discovered, and the merit of the discovery is due to two brothers, wealthy paper manufacturers, at Annonay, not far from Lyons--Stephen and Joseph Montgolfier. This discovery they did not arrive at from any scientific reasoning founded on the elasticity and weight of the atmosphere, for, though attached to the study of mathematics and chemistry, they do not appear to have particularly turned their attention to aerostatics; but, from observing how clouds and smoke rise and float in the atmosphere, it occurred to Stephen, the younger of the two, that a light paper bag, filled with cloud or smoke, would, from the natural tendency of these substances to ascend, be carried by their force in an upward direction.

About the middle of November, 1782, they made their first experiment in their own chamber at Avignon, with a light paper bag of an oblong shape, which they inflated, by applying burning paper to an orifice in the lower part of the bag, and in a few minutes they had the satisfaction of seeing it ascend to the ceiling of the chamber. Constructing a paper bag of larger dimensions, they made a similar experiment in the open air, with equal success, and, the bag being of a spherical shape, they gave it the name of balloon, from its resemblance to a large, round, short-necked, chemical vessel so called. Finding, from repeated trials, that the larger the balloon the more successful was the experiment, they proceeded to construct one of linen lined with paper, 35 feet in diameter; and, on the 25th of April, 1783, after being filled with rarified air, it rapidly rose to the height of 1000 feet, and fell to the ground at the distance of three-quarters of a mile from the spot where it ascended. Encouraged by this success, the Montgolfiers came to the resolution of making a public experiment with this last constructed balloon at Annonay, on the 5th of June following. It was inflated with heated air, by the lower orifice being placed over a pit or well, in which were burned chopped straw and wool. Two men were sufficient to fill it; but, when fully inflated, eight men were required to prevent it from ascending. On being released from its fastenings, it rose majestically to the height of six or seven thousand feet, and made its descent at the distance of a mile and a half from the point of its departure.

This novel experiment, which forms an important epoch in the history of the art of aeronautics, attracted universal attention, and Stephen Montgolfier, having soon after arrived in Paris, was requested by the Royal Academy of Sciences, whose sittings, immediately on his arrival, he had been invited to attend, to repeat the experiment at their expense. He gladly availed himself of their proposal, and speedily got prepared a large balloon of an elliptical shape, 72 feet high, and 41 feet in diameter. It was finished in a style of great magnificence, and elegantly decorated on the outer surface with beautiful and appropriate designs. When completed, it weighed 1000 pounds. As a preliminary experiment, it raised eight men from the ground, and, on the 12th of September, 1783, it ascended, in the presence of the Royal Academy, with a load of from 400 to 500 pounds; but, in consequence of an injury it received in rising from a violent gust of wind, it did not present the same interesting spectacle as the public experiment previously made, and, upon its descent, it was found to be so seriously damaged, as to be unfit for future experiments. A new one of nearly the same dimensions was, therefore, ordered to be made, to which was added a basket of wicker-work, for the accommodation of a sheep, a cock, and a duck, which were intended as passengers. It was inflated, in the presence of the king and royal family, at Versailles, and, when loosened from its moorings, it rose, with the three animals we have named--the first living creatures who ever ascended in an aerial machine--to the height of about 1500 feet, an accident similar to what befell the other preventing it from attaining a higher elevation. It, however, descended safely with the animals, at the distance of 10,000 feet from the place of its ascent.

Hazardous as it might be, it was now fully demonstrated, that it was quite practicable for man to ascend in the atmosphere, and individuals were soon found sufficiently daring to make the experiment. Another balloon was constructed, 74 feet high, and 48 feet in diameter, and M. Pilatre de Rozier, superintendent of the royal museum, and the Marquis de Arlandes, volunteered to make an aerial voyage. At the bottom, it had an opening of about 15 feet in diameter, around which was a gallery of wicker-work, three feet broad, with a balustrade all around the outer edge, of the same material, three feet high; and, to enable the aeronauts to increase or diminish at pleasure the rarified state of the air within, it was provided with an iron brazier, intended for a fire, which could easily be regulated as necessity required. On the 21st of November, in the same year, the adventurers having taken their places on opposite sides of the gallery, the balloon rose majestically in the sight of an immense multitude of spectators, who witnessed its upward course with mingled sentiments of fear and admiration. The whole machine, with fuel and passengers, weighed 1600 pounds. It rose to the height of at least 3000 feet, and remained in the air from 20 to 25 minutes, visible all the time to the inhabitants of Paris and its environs. At several times it was in imminent danger of taking fire, and the marquis, in terror for his life, would have made a precipitate descent, which, in all probability, would have ended fatally, but M. Pilatre de Rozier, who displayed great coolness and intrepidity, deliberately extinguished the fire with a sponge of water he had provided for the emergency, by which they were enabled to remain in the atmosphere some time longer. They raised and lowered themselves frequently during their excursion, by regulating the fire in the brazier, and finally landed in safety five miles distant from the place where they started, after having sailed over a great portion of Paris. This is the first authentic instance in which man succeeded in putting into practical operation the art of traveling in the air, which had hitherto baffled his ingenuity, though turned to the subject for two thousand years. The news of the novel and adventurous feat rapidly spread over the whole civilized world, and aerial ascents in balloons constructed on the same principle were made in other cities of France, in Italy, and in the United States of America.

The two Montgolfiers soon obtained a high and wide-spread reputation; and the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences of Paris voted a gold medal to Stephen, the younger brother. It was to heated or rarified air that these balloons owed their ascending power; but the Montgolfiers, in the paper in which they communicated their discovery to the Royal Academy, erroneously attributed the ascending power, not to the rarified air in the balloon, but to a peculiar gas they supposed to be evolved by the combustion of chopped straw and wool mixed together, to which the name of Montgolfiers' gas was given, it being believed for a time, even by the members of the Academy, that a new kind of gas, different from hydrogen, and lighter than common air, had been discovered.

Hydrogen gas, or, as it was also called, inflammable air, whose specific gravity was first discovered in 1766, by Henry Cavendish, though the gas itself had been known long before to coal-miners, from its fatal effects, was, from its being the lightest gas known, early taken advantage of for inflating balloons. It indeed occurred to the ingenious Dr. Black of Edinburgh, as soon as he read Mr. Cavendish's paper, which appeared in the Philosophical Transactions for 1766, that if a sufficiently thin and light bladder were filled with this gas, the bladder would necessarily ascend in the atmosphere, as it would form a mass lighter than the same bulk of atmospheric air. Not long after, it suggested itself to Tiberius Cavallo, an Italian philosopher, when he first began to study the subject of air, that it was possible to construct a vessel which, when filled with hydrogen gas, would ascend in the atmosphere. In 1782, he actually attempted to perform the experiment, though the only success he had was to let soap balls, filled with that gas, ascend by themselves rapidly in the air, which, says he, were perhaps the first sort of inflammable air balloons ever made; and he read an account of his experiments to the Royal Society at their public meeting on June 20, 1782. But, during the later part of the year 1783, two gentlemen in the city of Philadelphia actually tested the value of hydrogen gas as a means of inflating balloons. The French Academy, guided by the suggestion of Dr. Black, and the experiments of Cavallo, also concluded to make the experiment of raising a balloon inflated with the same gas. To defray the expense of the undertaking, a subscription was opened, and so great was the enthusiasm excited by the design among people of all ranks and classes, that the requisite sum was speedily subscribed for. A silken bag from lute-string silk, about thirteen feet in diameter, and of a globular shape, was constructed by the Messrs. Roberts, under the superintendence of M. Charles, professor of experimental philosophy; and, to render the bag impervious to the gas--a very essential object in balloon manufacture--it was covered with a varnish composed of gum elastic dissolved in spirits of turpentine. It had but one aperture, like the neck of a bottle, into which was fastened the stop-cock for the convenience of introducing and stopping-off the gas. It was constructed and inflated near the Place of Victories, in August, 1783, and after being inflated, which was then no easy task, occupying several days, it was removed on the morning of the 27th of that month, before daylight, to the Camp of Mars , the place appointed for its ascent. About five o'clock in the afternoon, it was released from its fastenings, and rose, in the presence of some hundred thousands of applauding spectators, to a height upward of 3000 feet; and, after remaining in the atmosphere for three-quarters of an hour, descended in a field near Gonesse, a village about fifteen miles distant from the Camp of Mars. This marks another important era in the history of aeronautics. The hydrogen-gas balloon, in the first place, is attended with less risk than the Montgolfiers' balloon, which requires the dangerous presence of a fire to preserve the air in a sufficiently rarified state; and, in the second place, it has a much greater ascending power than rarified air balloons of the same size, in consequence of its superior lightness.

M. Charles and the two Messrs. Roberts now resolved to undertake an aerial excursion in a balloon of this description. With this view, the Messrs. Roberts formed one of silk, varnished with gum elastic, of a spherical shape, 27 feet in diameter, with a car suspended from it by several cords, which were fastened to a net drawn over the upper part of the balloon. To prevent the danger which might arise from the expansion of the gas under a diminished pressure of the atmosphere in the higher regions, the balloon was furnished with a valve, to permit the free discharge of gas, as occasion might require. The hydrogen gas with which it was filled was 5-1/4 lighter than common air, and the filling lasted several days. On December 17, 1783, M. Charles and one of the Roberts made their ascent from the garden of the Tuilleries, and rose to the height of 6000 feet. After a voyage of an hour and three-quarters, they descended at Nesle, a distance of 27 miles from the place of their departure. On their descent, M. Roberts having left the car, which lightened the vessel about 130 pounds, M. Charles reascended, and in twenty minutes mounted with great rapidity to the height of 9000 feet. When he left the earth, the thermometer stood at 47 degrees, but, in the space of ten minutes, it fell 21 degrees. On making this great and sudden transition into an atmosphere so intensely cold, he felt as if his blood had been freezing, and experienced a severe pain in the right ear and jaw. He passed through different currents of air, and, in the higher regions, the expansion of the gas was so great, that the balloon must have burst, had he not speedily opened the valve, and allowed part of the gas to escape. After having risen to the height of 10,500 feet, he descended, about three miles from the place where M. Roberts stepped out of the car.

During the course of the year subsequent to the Montgolfiers' discovery, several experiments on the ascending power of balloons had been made in England; but the first person who there ventured on an aerial voyage was Vincent Lunardi, an Italian, who ascended from London, September 21, 1784. In the succeeding year, he gratified the inhabitants of Glasgow and Edinburgh with the spectacle of an aerial excursion, which they had never witnessed before.

The first aerial voyage across the sea was made by M. Blanchard, in company with Dr. Jeffries, an American physician, who was then residing in England. On the 7th January, 1785, a beautiful frosty winter day, they ascended about one o'clock from the cliff of Dover, with the design of crossing the Channel between England and France, a distance of about twenty-three miles, and, at great personal risk, accomplished their purpose in two hours and a half. The balloon at first rose slowly and majestically in the air, but it soon began to descend, and, before they had crossed the Channel, they were obliged to reduce the weight, by throwing out all their ballast, several books, their apparatus, cords, grapples, bottles, and were even proceeding to cast their clothes into the sea, when the balloon, which had then nearly reached the French coast, began to ascend, and rose to a considerable height, relieving them from the necessity of dispensing with much of their apparel. They landed in safety at the edge of the forest of Guiennes, not far beyond Calais, and were treated by the magistrates of that town with the utmost kindness and hospitality. M. Blanchard had the honor of being presented with 12,000 livres by the King of France. Emboldened by this daring feat, Pilatre de Rozier, already mentioned, and M. Romain, prepared to pay back the compliment of M. Blanchard and Dr. Jeffries, by crossing the Channel from France to England. To avoid the difficulty of keeping up the balloon, which had perplexed and endangered Blanchard and his companion during nearly their whole course, Rozier had recourse to the expedient of placing underneath the hydrogen balloon a fire balloon of smaller dimensions, which was intended to regulate the rising and falling of the whole machine. This promised to unite the advantages of both kinds of balloons, but it unhappily terminated in the melancholy death of the two adventurers. They ascended from Boulogne, on the 15th of June, 1785, but scarcely had a quarter of an hour elapsed from the time of their ascent, when, at the height of 3000 feet, the whole machine was discovered to be in flames. Its scattered fragments, with the mangled bodies of the unfortunate aeronauts, who were probably killed by the explosion of the hydrogen gas, were found near the sea-shore, about four miles from Boulogne. This was the first fatal accident which took place in balloon navigation, though several hundred ascensions had by this time been made.

In compliance with the request of several philosophers of Paris, who were anxious that the same observations should be repeated at the greatest height that could be reached, Gay Lussac alone made a second ascent, on the morning of September 15, 1804, from the garden of the Repository of Models, and rose, by a gradual ascent, to a great elevation. He continued to take observations at short intervals of the state of the barometer, the thermometer, and the hygrometer, of which he has given a tabular view, but he unfortunately neglected to mark the time at which they were made--a point of material importance, for the results would of course be modified by the progress of the day; and it would have added to their value, had these observations been compared with similar ones made at the same time at the observatory. During the ascent of the balloon, the hygrometer was variable, but obviously marked an increase of dryness; the thermometer indicated a decrease in the heat of the atmosphere, but the decrease is not uniform, the ratio being higher in the elevated regions than in the lower, which are heated from the earth; and it was found, by not fewer than fifteen trials at different altitudes, that the oscillations of a finely-suspended needle varied very little from its oscillations on the surface of the earth. At the height of 21,460 feet. Lussac admitted the air into one of his exhausted flasks, and at the height of 21,790 feet, he filled the other. He continued to rise, till he was 22,912 feet above Paris, or 23,040 feet--that is upward of four miles and a quarter--above the level of the sea, the utmost limit of his ascent, an elevation not much below the summit of Nevado de Sorato, the highest mountain of America, and the loftiest peak of the Himalaya in Asia, the highest mountains in the world, and far above that to which any mortal had ever soared before. One can not but admire the intrepid coolness with which Lussac performed his experiments at this enormous elevation, conducting his operations with the same composure and precision as if he had been seated in his own parlor in Paris. Though warmly clad, he now began to suffer from the excessive cold, his pulse was quickened, he was oppressed by difficulty in breathing, and his throat became parched, from inhaling the dry, attenuated air--for the air was now more than twice as thin as ordinary, the barometer having sunk to 12.95 inches--so that he could hardly swallow a morsel of bread. He alighted safely, at a quarter before four o'clock afternoon, near the hamlet of St. Gourgan, about sixteen miles from Rouen. On reaching Paris, he hastened to the laboratory of the Polytechnic School, to analyze the air he had brought down in his flasks from the higher regions; and, by a very delicate analysis, it was found to contain exactly the same proportions as the air on the surface of the earth, every 1000 parts holding 215 of oxygen, confirming the identity of the atmosphere in all situations. The ascents of these two philosophers are memorable, as the first which were made for purely scientific purposes.

MAURICE TIERNAY, THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE

"THE BAY OF RATHFRAN."

Our voyage was very uneventful, but not without anxiety, since, to avoid the English cruisers and the Channel-fleet, we were obliged to hold a southerly course for several days, making a great circuit before we could venture to bear up for the place of our destination. The weather alternated between light winds and a dead calm, which usually came on every day at noon, and lasted till about sunset. As to me, there was an unceasing novelty in every thing about a ship; her mechanism, her discipline, her progress, furnished abundant occupation for all my thoughts, and I never wearied of acquiring knowledge of a theme so deeply interesting. My intercourse with the naval officers, too, impressed me strongly in their favor, in comparison with their comrades of the land service. In the former case, all was zeal, activity, and watchfulness. The look-out never slumbered at his post; and an unceasing anxiety to promote the success of the expedition, manifested itself in all their words and actions. This, of course, was all to be expected in the discharge of the duties peculiarly their own; but I also looked for something which should denote preparation and forethought in the others; yet nothing of the kind was to be seen. The expedition was never discussed even as table-talk; and for any thing that fell from the party in conversation, it would have been impossible to say if our destination were China or Ireland. Not a book nor a map, not a pamphlet nor a paper that bore upon the country whose destinies were about to be committed to us, ever appeared on the tables. A vague and listless doubt how long the voyage might last, was the extent of interest any one condescended to exhibit; but as to what was to follow after--what new chapter of events should open when this first had closed, none vouchsafed to inquire.

Even to this hour I am puzzled whether to attribute this strange conduct to the careless levity of national character, or to a studied and well "got up" affectation. In all probability both influences were at work; while a third, not less powerful, assisted them--this was the gross ignorance and shameless falsehood of many of the Irish leaders of the expedition, whose boastful and absurd histories ended by disgusting every one. To listen to them, Ireland was not only unanimous in her desire for separation, but England was perfectly powerless to prevent it, and the only difficulty was, to determine the future fortune of the liberated land, when once her freedom had been proclaimed. Among the projects discussed at the time, I well remember one, which was often gravely talked over, and the utter absurdity of which certainly struck none among us. This was no less than the intention of demanding the West India Islands from England, as an indemnity for the past woes and bygone misgovernment of Ireland. If this seem barely credible now, I can only repeat my faithful assurance of the fact, and I believe that some of the memoirs of the time will confirm my assertion.

The French officers listened to these and similar speculations with utter indifference; probably to many of them the geographical question was a difficulty that stopped any further inquiry, while others felt no further interest than what a campaign promised. All the enthusiastic narratives, then, of high rewards and splendid trophies that awaited us, fell upon inattentive ears, and at last the word Ireland ceased to be heard among us. Play of various kinds occupied us when not engaged on duty. There was little discipline maintained on board, and none of that strictness which is the habitual rule of a ship-of-war. The lights were suffered to burn during the greater part of the night in the cabins; gambling went on usually till daybreak; and the quarter-deck, that most reverential of spots to every sailor-mind, was often covered by lounging groups, who smoked, chatted, or played at chess, in all the cool apathy of men indifferent to its claim for respect.

Now and then, the appearance of a strange sail afar off, or some dim object in the horizon, would create a momentary degree of excitement and anxiety; but when the "look-out" from the mast-head had proclaimed her a "schooner from Brest," or a "Spanish fruit-vessel," the sense of danger passed away at once, and none ever reverted to the subject of a peril then suggested.

With General Humbert I usually passed the greater part of each forenoon, a distinction, I must confess, I owed to my skill as a chess-player, a game of which he was particularly fond, and in which I had attained no small proficiency. I was too young and too unpracticed in the world to make my skill subordinate to my chief's, and beat him at every game with as little compunction as though he were only my equal, till, at last, vexed at his want of success, and tired of a contest that offered no vicissitude of fortune, he would frequently cease playing, to chat over the events of the time, and the chances of the expedition.

Next to this sentiment was his hatred of England, and all that was English. Treachery, falsehood, pride, avarice, grasping covetousness, and unscrupulous aggression, were the characteristics by which he described the nation; and he made the little knowledge he had gleaned from newspapers and intercourse, so subservient to this theory, that I was an easy convert to his opinion; so that, ere long, my compassion for the wrongs of Ireland was associated with the most profound hatred of her oppressors.

To be sure, I should have liked the notion, that we ourselves were to have some more active share in the liberation of Irishmen than the mere act of heralding another and more successful expedition; but even in this thought there was romantic self-devotion, not unpleasing to the mind of a boy; but, after all, I was the only one who felt it.

The first sight of land to one on sea is always an event of uncommon interest; but how greatly increased is the feeling, when that land is to be the scene of a perilous exploit--the cradle of his ambition, or perhaps his grave! All my speculations about the expedition--all my day-dreams of success, or my anxious hours of dark forebodings--never brought the matter so palpably before me, as the dim outline of a distant headland, which, I was told, was part of the Irish coast.

This was on the 8th of August, but on the following day we stood farther out to sea again and saw no more of it. The three succeeding ones we continued to beat up slowly to the north'ard, against a head wind and a heavy sea; but on the evening of the 21st the sun went down in mellow splendor, and a light air from the south springing up, the sailors pronounced a most favorable change of weather, a prophecy that a starry night and a calm sea soon confirmed.

The morning of the 22d broke splendidly--a gentle breeze from the sou'west slightly curled the blue waves, and filled the canvas of the three frigates, as in close order they sailed along under the tall cliffs of Ireland. We were about three miles from the shore, on which now every telescope and glass was eagerly directed. As the light and fleeting clouds of early morning passed away, we could descry the outlines of the bold coast, indented with many a bay and creek, while rocky promontories and grassy slopes succeeded each other in endless variety of contrast. Towns, or even villages, we could see none--a few small wretched-looking hovels were dotted over the hills, and here and there a thin wreath of blue smoke bespoke habitation, but, save these signs, there was an air of loneliness and solitude which increased the solemn feelings of the scene.

All these objects of interest, however, soon gave way before another, to the contemplation of which every eye was turned. This was a small fishing-boat, which, with a low mast and ragged piece of canvas was seen standing boldly out for us; a red handkerchief was fastened to a stick in the stern, as if for a signal, and on our shortening sail, to admit of her overtaking us, the ensign was lowered, as though in acknowledgment of our meaning.

The boat was soon alongside, and we now perceived that her crew consisted of a man and a boy, the former of whom, a powerfully-built, loose fellow, of about five-and-forty, dressed in a light-blue frieze jacket and trowsers, adroitly caught at the cast of rope thrown out to him, and having made fast his skiff, clambered up the ship's side at once, gayly, as though he were an old friend coming to welcome us.

"Is he a pilot?" asked the officer of the watch, addressing one of the Irish officers.

"No; he's only a fisherman, but he knows the coast perfectly, and says there is deep water within twenty fathoms of the shore."

An animated conversation in Irish now ensued between the peasant and Captain Madgett, during which a wondering and somewhat impatient group stood around, speedily increased by the presence of General Humbert himself and his staff.

"He tells me, general," said Madgett, "that we are in the Bay of Killala, a good and safe anchorage, and, during the southerly winds, the best on all the coast."

"What news has he from the shore?" asked Humbert, sharply, as if the care of the ship was a very secondary consideration.

"They have been expecting us with the greatest impatience, general; he says the most intense anxiety for our coming is abroad."

"What of the people themselves? Where are the national forces? Have they any head quarters near this? Eh, what says he? What is that? Why does he laugh?" asked Humbert, in impatient rapidity, as he watched the changes in the peasant's face.

"He was laughing at the strange sound of a foreign language, so odd and singular to his ears," said Madgett; but for all his readiness, a slight flushing of the cheek showed that he was ill at ease.

"Well, but what of the Irish forces? Where are they?"

For some minutes the dialogue continued in an animated strain between the two; the vehement tone and gestures of each bespeaking what sounded at least like altercation; and Madgett at last turned half angrily away, saying, "The fellow is too ignorant; he actually knows nothing of what is passing before his eyes."

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