Book: Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862

V >> Various >> Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862




Master-mechanic, master-farmer, _you are right_. These people _are_ your
inferiors; with all their boasts and brags of 'culture,' you could teach
them, by your shrewder intelligence, at a glance, the short cut to
almost any thing at which their intellects might be employed; and you
indulge in a very natural feeling, when, as conquerors, in glancing over
their Canaan, you involuntarily plan what you will do some day, _if_ a
farm should by chance be your share of the bounty-money, when the war is
over. For it is absurd to suppose that such a country will continue
forever a prey to the wasting and exhaustive disease of the
plantation-system, or that the black will always, as at present,
inefficiently and awkwardly fulfill those mechanic labors which a keen
white workman can better manage. Wherever the hand of the Northman
touches, in these times, it shows a superior touch, whether in
improvising a six-action cotton-gin, in repairing locomotives, or in
sarcastically seizing a 'Secesh' newspaper and reediting it with a storm
of fun and piquancy such as its doleful columns never witnessed of old.
In this and in a thousand ways, the Northern soldier realizes that he is
in a land of inferiors, and a very rich land at that. At this point, his
speculations on manifest destiny may very appropriately begin. There is
no harm in suffering this idea to take firm hold. Like ultimate
emancipation, it may be assumed as a fact, all to be determined in due
time, according to the progress of events, as wisely laid down by
President Lincoln, without hurry, without feverish haste, simply guided
by the firm determination that eventually it must be.

We can not insist too strongly on this great truth, that when a nation
makes up its mind that a certain event _must_ take place, and acts
calmly in the spirit of perfect persuasion, very little is really needed
to hasten the wished-for consummation. Events suddenly spring up to aid,
and in due time all is accomplished. Those who strive to hurry it retard
it, those who work to drag it back hasten it. Never yet on earth was a
real conviction crushed or prematurely realized. So it is, so it will be
with this 'Northing' of the South. Let the country simply familiarize
itself with the idea, and the idea will advance as rapidly as need be.
In it lies the only solution of the great problem of reconciling the
South and the North; the sooner we make up our minds to the fact, the
better; and, on the other hand, the more deliberately and calmly we
proceed to the work, the more certain will its accomplishment be. Events
are now working to aid us with tremendous power and rapidity--faith, a
judicious guiding of the current as it runs, is all that is at present
required to insure a happy fulfillment.

* * * * *

The degree to which a vindictive and malignant opposition to every thing
for the sake of 'the party' can be carried, has been well illustrated in
the amount and variety of slander which has been heaped by the
Southern-rights, sympathizing Democratic press on the efforts of those
noble-hearted women who have endeavored to do something to alleviate the
condition of the thousands of contrabands, who are many without clothes,
employment, or the slightest idea of what they are to do. It would be
hard to imagine any thing more harmless or more perfectly free from any
thing like sinister or selfish motives than have been the conduct and
motives of the noble women who have assumed this mission. Florence
Nightingale undertook nothing nobler; and the world will some day
recognize the deserts of those who strove against every obstacle to
relieve the sufferings and enlighten the ignorance of the blacks--among
whom were thousands of women and little children. Such being the literal
truth, what does the reader think of such a paragraph as the following,
which we find going the rounds of the Boston Courier and other journals
of the same political faith?

'_On dit_, that some of the schoolmarms who went to South-Carolina
several weeks ago, are not so intent upon 'teaching the young ideas
how to shoot,' as upon flirting with the officers, in a manner not
entirely consistent with morality. General Hunter is going to send
some of the misbehaving misses home.'

If there is a loathsome, cowardly, infamous phrase, it is that of _on
dit_, 'they say,' 'it is said,' when used to assail the virtue of
women--above all, of women engaged in such a cause as that in question.
We believe in our heart, this whole story to be a slander of the meanest
description possible--a piece of as dirty innuendo as ever disgraced a
Democratic paper. The spirit of the viper is apparent in every line of
it. Yet it is in perfect keeping with the storm of abuse and falsehood
which has been heaped on these 'contraband' missionaries, teachers, and
nurses, since they went their way. They have been accused of pilfering,
of lying, of doing nothing, of corrupting the blacks, of going out only
to speculate, and, as might have been expected, we have at last the
unfailing resort of the lying coward--a dirty hint as to breaking the
seventh commandment--all according to the devilish old Jesuit precept of,
'_Calumniare fortiter aliquis koerebit_'--'Slander boldly, something will
be sure to stick.' And to such a depth of degradation--to the hinting
away the characters of young ladies because they try to teach the poor
contrabands--can _men_ descend 'for the sake of the _party'!_

* * * * *

Of late years, those soundest of philanthropists, the men of
common-sense who labor unweariedly to facilitate exchanges between
civilized nations, have endeavored to promote in every possible manner
the adoption of the same system of currency, weights and measures among
civilized nations. It has been accepted as a rule beyond all debate,
that if such mediums of business could be adopted--nay, if a common
language even were in use, industry would receive an incalculable
impulse, and the production of capital be enormously increased.

Not so, however, thinks John M. Vernon, of New-Orleans, who, stimulated
by the purest secession sentiments, and urged by the most legitimate
secession and 'State rights' logic, has developed a new principle of
exclusiveness by devising a new system of decimal currency, which he
thus recommends to the rebel Congress:

'We are a separate and distinct people, influenced by different
interests and sentiments from the vandals who would subjugate us.
Our manners and customs are different; our tastes and talents are
different; our geographical position is different; and in
conformity with natural laws, nature and instinct, our
currency,--weights and measures, should be different.

'The basis of integral limit of value proposed for our currency, is
the star, which is to be divided into one hundred equal parts, each
part to be called a centime, namely: 10 centimes--1 tropic;
10 tropics--1 star; 10 stars--1 sol.

'These denominations for our currency have been selected for three
reasons: first, they are appropriate to ourselves as a people;
second, they are emblems of cheerfulness, honor, honesty of
purpose, solidity, and stability; and third, the words used are
simple, easily remembered, and are common to several languages. I
will, in addition, observe that similar characteristics distinguish
the proposed tables of weights and measures.'

'Stars'--'centimes'--'tropics,' and 'sols.' Why these words should be
more significant of cheerfulness, honor, honesty, and solidity, than
dollars and dimes, cents and mills, is not, as yet, apparent. As set
forth in this recommendation, it would really appear that the root of
all evil would have its evil properties extracted by giving the radical
a different name. To be sure, the wages of sin thus far in the world's
history, have generally been found equivalent to death, whether they are
termed guineas, francs, thalers, cobangs, pesos, sequins, ducats, or
dollars. But in Dixie--happy Dixie!--they only need another name, and
lo! a miracle is to be wrought at once.

There is something in this whole proposition which accurately embodies
the whole Southern policy. While the rest of the world is working to
assimilate into civilization, they are laboring to get away and
apart--to be different from everybody else--to remain provincial and
'peculiar.' It is the working of the same spirit which inspires the
desire to substitute 'State rights' or individual will, or, in plain
terms, lawlessness and barbarism for enlightenment and common rights. It
is a craving for darkness instead of light, for antiquated feudal
falsehood instead of republican truth; and it will meet with the destiny
which awaits every struggle against the great and holy cause of
humanity.




_KYNG COTEN._

A 'DARK' CONCEIT.

(_Being an ensample of a longe poeme._)

O muse! that did me somedeal favour erst,
Whereas I piped my silly oaten reede,
And songs in homely guise to mine reherst,
Well pleased with maiden's smilings for my meed;
Sweet muse, do give my Pegasus good speede,
And send to him of thy high, potent might,
Whiles mortalls I all of my theme do rede,
Thatte is the story of a doughty knight,
Who eftsoons wageth war, Kyng COTEN is he hight.

Kyng Coten cometh of a goodly race,
Though black it was, as records sothly tell;
But thatte is nought, which only is the face,
And ne the hart, where alle goode beings dwell;
For witness him the puissant Hannibal,
Who was in veray sooth a Black-a-Moor;
And Cleopatra, Egypt's darksome belle,
And others, great on earth, a hundred score;
Howbeit, ilke kyng was white, which doth amaze me sore.

Kyng Coten cometh of a goodly race,
As born of fathers clean as many as
The sands thatte doe the mighty sea-shore grace,
But black, as sayde, as dark is Erebus.
His rule the Southron Federation was,
Thatte was a part of great Columbia,
Which was as fayre a clyme as man mote pass;
And situate where Vesper holds his swaye,
But habited wilome by men of salvage fray.

Farre in the North he had an enimie,
Who certes was the knight's true soveraine,
Who liked not his wicked slaverie,
Which 'cross God's will was counter-wisely laine,
Whiles he himself, it seemeth now right playne,
Did seek to have a kyngdom of his kynde,
Where he, as tyrant-like, mote lonly raine;
So to a treacherie he fetched his mynde,
Which soon was rent in four, and sent upon each wynde.

His enimie thatte liveth in the North,
Who, after all, was not his enimie,
Ydeemed he was a gentilman of worth,
Too proud to make so vile a villianie,
And, therefore, did ne tent his railerie,
But went his ways, as was his wont wilome;
Goliah, he turned out eftsoons, ah! me,
Who leaned upon his speare when David come,
And laughed to scorn the sillie boy his threat'ning doom.

But when his stronghold in ye Southron land,
Of formidable front, Forte Sumter hight,
Did fall into Kyng Coten's rebell hand,
Who coward-wise did challenge to the fight,
Some several men again his host of might;
Then Samuel, for so was he yclipt,
Begun in batail's gear himself to dight,
As being fooled by him with whom he sippt,
And hied him out, loud crying, 'Treason must be nippt!'

O ye who doe the crusades' musters tell,
In wise that maketh myndes incredulous,
And paynte how like Dan Neptune's sweeping swell
The North bore down on the perfidious!
Ne nigh so potent thatte as was with us;
Where men, like locusts, darkened all the land,
As marched they toward the place that's treacherous,
And shippes, that eke did follow the command,
Like forests, motion-got, doe walk along the strand.

Fierce battails ther were fought upon the ground,
Thatte rob'd the heavens alle in ayer dunne;
And shoke the world as doth the thunder's sound,
Till, soth to say, it well-nigh was undone:
But of them alle, ther is an one
That frayle pen dispairs for to descrive,
Which mortalls call the Battail of Bull Run;
But why I mote ne tell, as I'm alive,
Unless it haply he ther _running_ did most thrive.

LAWRENCE MINOT.





'Our Orientalist' appears this month with

_EGYPT IN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS._

BY A FAST TRAVELER.

'You ought to go to the East,' said Mr. Swift, with a wave of his hand;
'I've been there, and seen it under peculiar circumstances.'

'Explain, O howaga! Give us the facts.

'Immediately. Just place the punch-pitcher where I can reach it easily.
That's right! Light another Cabanas. So; now for it. In 1858, month of
December, I was settled in comfortable quarters in the Santa Lucia,
Naples, and fully expected to winter there at my ease, when, to my
disgust, I received letters from England, briefly ordering me by first
steamer to Alexandria, thence per railroad to Cairo, there to see the
head of a certain banking-house; transact my business, and return to
Naples with all possible dispatch. No sooner said than done; there was
one of the Messagerie steamers up for Malta next day; got my passport
visaed, secured berth, all right. Next night I was steaming it past
Stromboli, next morning in Messina; then Malta, where I found steamer up
for Alexandria that night; in four days was off that port, at six
o'clock in the morning, and at half-past eight o'clock was in the cars,
landing in Cairo at four o'clock in the afternoon. Posted from the
railroad-station to the banker's, saw my man, arranged my business, was
to receive instructions at seven o'clock the next morning, and at eight
o'clock take the return train to Alexandria, where a steamer was to sail
next day, that would carry me back to Naples, _presto_! as the jugglers
say.

'There, breathe a little, and take another glass of punch, while I
recall my day in the East.

'Through at the banker's, he recommended me to the Hotel ----, where I
would find a good table, clean rooms, and none of my English
compatriots. I love my native land and my countrymen _in it_, but as for
them out of it, and as Bohemians--ugh! I am too much of a wolf myself to
love wolves. Arrived at the hotel, with my head swimming with
palm-trees, railroad, turbans, tarbooshes, veiled women, camels, pipes,
dust, donkeys, oceans of blue calico, groaning water-wheels, the Nile,
far-off view of the Pyramids, etc., I at once asked the headwaiter for a
room, water, towels; he passed me into the hands of a very tall Berber
answering to the name of Yusef, who was dressed in flowing garments and
tarboosh, and who was one of the gentlest beings entitled to wear
breeches I have ever seen; he had feet that in my recollection seem a
yard long, and how he managed to move so noiselessly, unless both pedals
were soft-shod, worries me to the present time. Well, at six o'clock the
gong sounded for dinner, and out I went over marble floors to the dining
hall, where I found only three other guests, who saluted me courteously
when I entered, and at a signal from Yusef, a compromise between a bow
and a salaam, we seated ourselves at table. Of the three guests, one was
particularly a marked man, apart from his costume, that of a cavalry
officer in the Pacha's service; there was something grand in his face,
large blue eyes, full of humor and _bonhommie_, a prominent nose, a
broad forehead, burned brown with the sun, his head covered with the
omnipresent tarboosh, a mustache like Cartouche's; such was my
_vis-a-vis_ at the hotel-table.

'In conversation with this officer, it turned up that one of my most
intimate friends was his cousin, and so we had a bottle of old
East-India pale sherry over that; then we had another to finally cement
our acquaintance; I said finally--I should say, finally for dinner.

'I have seen the interiors of more than three hundred hotels in Europe,
Africa, and America; but I have yet to see one that appeared so
outrageously romantic as that of the Hotel ----, at Cairo, after that
second bottle of sherry! The divans on which we reposed, the curious
interlacing of the figures on the ceiling, the raised marble floor at
the end of the room overlooking the street, the arabesques on the doors,
and finally the never-ending masquerade-ball going on in the street
under the divans where we sat and smoked.

'I can't tell you how it happened, but after very small cups of very
black coffee and a pousse cafe, in the officer's room, of genuine
kirschwasser and good curacoa, I was mounted on a bay horse; there was a
dapple-gray alongside of me; and running ahead of us, to clear the way,
the officer's _sais_ afoot, ready to hold our horses when we halted. We
were quickly mounted and off like the wind, past turbans, flowing
bournouses, tarbooshes, past grand old mosques, petty cafes, where the
faithful were squatting on bamboo-seats, smoking pipes or drinking
coffee-grounds, while listening to a storyteller, possibly relating some
story in the _Arabian Nights_; then we were through the bazaars, all
closed now and silent; then up in the citadel, and through the mosque of
Yusef; then down and scouring over the flying sand among the grand old
tombs of the Mamelukes and of the caliphs; then off at break-neck speed
toward the Mokatamma mountains, from a rise on the lower spur of one of
which we saw, in the shadow of the coming night, the Pyramids and the
slow-flowing Nile.

'Again we were in Cairo, and now threading narrow street after street,
the fall of our horses' hoofs hardly heard on the unpaved ways, as we
were passing under overhanging balconies covered with lace-work
lattices. As it grew darker, our _sais_ preceded us with lighted
lantern, shouting to pedestrians, blind and halt, to clear the road for
the coming effendis.

'_Halte la!_

'My foaming bay was reined in with a strong hand, I leaped from the
saddle, and found the _sais_ at hand to hold our horses, while we saw
the seventh heaven of the Koran, and by no means _al Hotama_.

'With a foresight indicating an old campaigner, the officer produced a
couple of bottles of sherry from the capacious folds of the _sais_'
mantle, and unlocking the door of the house in front of which we stood,
invited me to enter. Two or three turns, a court-yard full of
rose-bushes, and an enormous palm-tree, a fountain shooting up its
sparkling waters in the moonlight, a clapping of hands, chibouks, sherry
cooled in the fountain.

'Then, in the moonlight, the gleam of white flowing garments, the
nervous thrill breathed in from perfumes filling the evening air; the
great swimming eyes; the kiss; the ah!--other bottles of sherry. The
fingans of coffee, the pipe of Latakiah tobacco, the blowing a cloud
into dreamland, while Fatima or Zoe insists on taking a puff with you.

'But as she said, '_Hathih al-kissah moaththirah_, which, in the
vernacular, is. 'This history is affecting,' so let us pass it by. We
finished those two bottles of sherry, and if Mohammed, in his majesty,
refuses admittance to two Peris into paradise, because they drank sherry
that night, let the sins be on our shoulders, WE are to blame.

* * * * *

'Next morning, at seven o'clock, I was at the banker's, and received his
orders, and at six o'clock that evening was steaming out of Alexandria,
bound to Naples _via_ Malta. A little over twenty-four hours, and I had
SEEN THE ORIENT THROUGH SHERRY--pale, golden, and serenely beautiful!

'Pass the punch.'

* * * * *

Very welcome is our pleasant contributor--he who of late discoursed on
'honeyed thefts' and rural religious discipline--and now, in the
present letter, he gives us his views on meals, feeds, banquets,
symposia, or by whatever name the reader may choose to designate
assemblies for the purpose of eating.

Please make room at this table, right here, for me. Surely at a
table of such dimensions, there should be plenty of room. Many a
table-scene do I now recall, in days gone by, 'all of which I saw,
and part of which I was,' but nothing like this. Tables of all
sorts and sizes, but never a CONTINENTAL table before. I suppose
the nearest approach to it was _the_ picnic dinner the wee
youngsters used to eat off the _ground_! A CONTINENTAL table! The
most hospitable idea imaginable. Give place! Do you demand my
credentials, my card, my ticket? Here we have it all; a little note
from mine host, Mr. LELAND, inviting the bearer to this monthly
repast, and requesting, very properly--it was the way we always
did, when we used to get up picnics--that the receiver of the note
bring some sort of refreshments along. Thank you. This seat is very
comfortable. What more appropriate, at such a time, than the
discussion of _the Meal?_

I protest I am no glutton; in fact, I despise the man whose
meal-times are the epochs of his life; yet I frankly confess to
emotions of a very positive character, in contemplating the
associations of the table, and I admit farther, that I take
pleasure in the reality as well as in the imagination. I like to be
'one of the company,' whether in palace or in farm-house. I always
brighten up when I see the dining-room door thrown open to an angle
hospitably obtuse, and am pleased alike with the politely-worded
request, 'Will the ladies and gentlemen please walk out and partake
of some refreshments?' or the blunt, kindly voice of mine host,
'Come, friends; dinner's ready.' Still I assert my freedom from any
slavish fondness for the creature comforts. It is not the bill of
fare that so pleases me. In fact, some of the best meals of which I
have ever partaken, were those the materials of which I could not
have remembered twenty minutes after. Exquisite palatal pleasures,
then, are not a _sine qua non_ in the enjoyment of table comforts.
No, indeed. There is a condiment which is calculated to impart a
high relish to the humblest fare; but without this charmed
seasoning, every banquet is a failure. Solomon was a man of nice
observation, even in so humble a matter as a meal. Let him reveal
the secret in his own words: 'Better is a dinner of herbs, where
LOVE is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.'

By a merciful arrangement of Providence, man is so constituted that
he may think, talk, and eat, all at one and the same time. Hence,
the table is often the scene of animated and very interesting
conversations, provided _love is there_. Many of our Saviour's most
interesting and instructive discourses were delivered while
'sitting at meat,' and the 'table-talk' of some authors is
decidedly the most meritorious of all their performances.

But the truth is, there are not many meals where love _is_ entirely
absent. Cheerfulness is naturally connected with eating; eating
begets it probably. It is difficult for a man to eat at all, if he
is in a bad humor. Quite impossible, if he is in a rage; especially
if he is obliged to sit down to his dinner in company with the man
he hates. There are so many little kind offices that guests must
perform for each other at table, so many delicate compliments may
be paid to those we love or revere, by polite attentions to them,
and so necessary, indeed, have these become to our notion of a
satisfactory repast, that to banish such amiable usages from our
tables would be not only to degrade us to the level of the brute,
but would deprive us of a most humanising and refining means of
enjoyment. How beautiful and necessary, then, is the arrangement by
which, morning, noon, and night, (I pity folks who only eat twice a
day,) the members of the household are brought together in such
kindly intercourse around the family board! How seldom would they
assemble thus pleasantly, were it not for the meal!

The little wounds and scratches which the sharp edges of our
characters will inflict upon each other, when brought together in
the necessary contact of daily intercourse, would otherwise be
suffered to fret and vex us sorely; but before they have had time
to fester and inflame, meal-time comes, and brings with it the
magic, mollifying oil.

It is meet, then, (we spell the word with two e's, mind you,) that,
on any occasion of public rejoicing, the banquet should be an
indispensable accompaniment. The accomplishment of some important
public enterprise, the celebration of the birth-days of great and
good men, a nation's holidays, the reuenions of friends engaged in a
common cause, are occasions in which the dinner, very properly,
constitutes one of the leading features.

And what can be more exhilarating than the innocent mirthfulness,
the unaffected kindnesses, the witty speeches, the sprightly
conversations which are universally incident to such occasions? No
wonder Lycurgus decreed that the Spartans should eat in public.
Ostensibly, it was for the sake of the grave conversations of the
elders at such times, but really, I imagine, it was to keep the
citizens (who had been at swords' points with each other) in a good
humor, by bringing them around a common table.

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