LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1876, 27 February 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT'S CHRISTMAB. Br Fbedeiuc Boyle. [[Arthur of "Camp Notes," &c, &c] When, at the outset of life, a man finds something he can do better than his neighbours, he makes a very pleasant and useful discovery. Most people cannot even persuade themselves that they have a peculiar genius, unless for the compounding of punch > or salad, or for some graceful but unremunerative employment of that class. Others mistake their bent, and thus start in a wrong direction ; others follow the right track unwillingly, believing that their real strength lies elsewhere. It is a great blessing for himself, sometimes for humanity, when a Samson feels hia thews and puts them to their best nse, but I imagine that it is scarcely less important for him to know where his strength will not avail. And this latter study becomes more difficult as he grows emboldened by success. If a late Prime Minister had been less clover and versatile, to accuse him of aspiring to command the Channel fleet and to perform a surgical operation, would have raised nobody's laughter. Lord Verulam knew very well what he conld do, but he evidently did not know, what everyone else perceive*, that he could not write a philosophical romance. History is full of great men who do not measure their tether.

This introduction is in the grand manner of our ancestors, who would preface a recipe for marmalade with an essay on the Hesperides, and would bring the laws of Solon to bear upon a parish pump. The point of my allusion to Lord Verulam lies in this, that neither he nor I could write an interesting fiction; —he. however, did not know his im. potency whilst I recognise mine. Construction and imagination are not granted to all who write glibly enough—pray understand that the parallel with Lord Bacon is dropped. When the editor of this journal asked me for a Christmas tale, he showed a flattering Ignorance of my moyen*, Fortunately, if I cannot invent stories, I can tell what my own eyes have seen, and some Christmas days I have passed in strange company. It must be my fault if the reader does not find some interest in the plain truth of these descriptions, Elsewhere you will read what exciting incidents of one kind or another may mark Christmastide at home ; I have had none such as yet. In the hard winter of 's4—or was it '55 ?—I remember picking up a post, man, asleep in the snow and almost dead, as we drove from the family gathering. Perhaps his story had thrilling fascination, but I never heard it. Let us pass on to Egypt, where I spent my first Yule, after embarking on those travels which seem destined to ontdo the legendary wanderings of Ulysses, or of the gentleman who wore that irrepressible cork leg. My Nile trip, thank Heaven! preceded the era of steamers and Cook's tourists. Not many consolations do I perceive for advancing age, having distrusted Cicero when young, and now forgotten the very language of his wisdom. But one I find, neglected of that philosopher for reasons good, which somewhat comforts me. Who now could hope to land at Thebes, and find the place his own—no touts to rush at him, no photograph-sellers, no guide*, nor •' box wallahs,' no nothing but the stupendous ruin and Its blear, sad, denizens? Two do.-,key boys from Esne, squatted and watched on a sand drift. In the vast colonnade looming over us, a few sordid, bluerobed women flitted by, a few naked children stood staring. Presently, with whoop and halloo, these descended to beg, but their fictitious soirits soon died away, and they drooped off silently. And we, on that Christmas morning, we rode through stately gates and avenues of broken statues, through colonnades and courts, beneath cyclopean walls, towards Karnak. Do not tremble prematurely, thinking I mean to describe these wonders. I remember too vaguely, and is it not {all chronicled in guide books ? What dwells in my mind is a vision of buildings loftier than Western raving has imagined, erect, symmetrical, an abode of giants divine of soul. Miles of temple, acres of palace, incised with stories of triumph and devotion, all carved, wrought, gilded, painted What I recollect distinctly, though nearly twenty years have gone, is that world's marvel Karnak, and the tingling of my blood as I rode into its silent hall. How many are the trunks in that stone forest ? You can look it up in the books, but I think they are fourteen in the central avenue, and a hundred and fortyfour in the aisles. Such pillars ! my neck ached with sketching their capitals, six men with hands joined cannot encircle them. Those in tho aisles are smaller, but huge single shafts of granite. And not one has fallen in 3000 years ; one only leans against its neighbor. The paint is there upon them, bauds and stripes of color. Before that time or since, I have beheld all the monuments of human grander. I have trod that hall which records its boast in gold and marble : "If Paradise be on earth, it is here—here—here 1" And the vaunt is justi tied. The Delhi palace stands beyond all that mortal senses could desire ; but Karnak was built for the gods. And here—ignorant youths !—we had proposed to eat our Christmas feast; hither had we despatched a lordly hamper. Hushed and full of shame, we ordered it away, and found refuge in Joseph's Sanctuary, where the learned trace that patriarch's name as that of a benefactor; he presented the temple with a canoe of purest gold and much besides. There, beneath the azure roof adorned with stars—not sky, but enamelled granite—we ate a meal not unworthy of the spot whence " luxury" has passed into every civilised tongue. What a good cook was our dragoman, who is still alive and working, as I rejoiced to hear when I passed through Bgypt the other day. He had the secret of some dishes unequalled in merit for campaigning. Does anyone know, besides he, how to spatchcock pigeons in cl aret ? I have travelled over the world, asking vainly. My next Christmas worth recording was spent aboard of the Messageries steamer Cambodge, in the Indian Ocean. Well do I remember amongst my fellow-passengers the Anglo-Indian widow of a Consul-Geueral in China, returning with two fair daughters The patronymic escapes me, but not the petits noma. Bless us! Lili, that slender, black-eyed girl, is a middle-aged matron by this time; and Daisy, the bright little cadttte in socks, may very well be nursing her sixth. Do you remember Mademoiselle, or, I should say, Madame Lili, the concoction of that plum-pudding which you pretended to supervise in right of sex, and a quarteroon of English blood ? Do you re- ! member how hard you were upon my errors in the sacred phraseology of the French cuisine, and how chivalrously I abstained from recrimination ? What a mess we made of that pudding with Mile. Daisy's uninvited assistance ! The cook brutally sent it np in a tureen, and the stewards served it with a ladle.

If this harmless allusion should bring a gentle note of reproof from the ladies whom I quitted at Alexandria sixteen years ago, I shall be greatly pleased, but not at all surprised. Strange cases of this sort have occurred iu my own experience. The incidental mention of a name in some record rf my wanderings has twice led to the discovery of persons long lost to sight. Christmas of 1864 I shall never forget, though its story may be dismissed in few words. I had embarked at Marseilles in a steamer bnund for Cagliari, the filthiest, most abominable craft I have ever tried in Europe. Very rough weather we made, even for that bad time of year, and on Christmas Eve the oaptain laid our anchors bow and stern whilst the gale blew over. So. instead of dining at Ajaccio, we lay pitcbinc off the coist. nearly everyone seasick and resigned for the worst. To ire, as I paced the heaving deck, the captain came secretly—a shaggy ruffiaD, of the class de' scribed hy Smollett. " The lady below ; s very ill," he said, in a frightened voice " There's neither stewardess nor doctor on board. All the other passengers are seasick. I rely on you to help me if it gets serious !" Never in all my lite was I more frightened. "What—why—how?" I exclaimed, but the fellow's arguments were unanswerable. I went desperately into the ladie.j' cabins fore and aft, with all my w. rl l!y fortune In my hand, so to speak ; but one glance showed that none there could he'p herself, much more another. Then the captain insisted that I should behold the woman whose cries rang through the ship—one of those eilty fancies which the vagaries of pre-revolutionafy law have planted deep in Gallic breasts. She lay in a state-room

apart;, and I looked from the threshold. That moment's glaace showed me one of three loveliest women whom fate has presented to my eyes. A most miserable Christmas Day I passed, expecting each moment to be summoned for I knew not what, nor the captain either. Bat a kinder fate prevailed. Next day, with considerable risk, we made Ajaccio, and the first boat which reached ns contained the lady's mother and half-a-dozen relatives. An hour afterwards she was carried down the gangway, whilst the captain and I, mightily relieved, drank a glass of wine together. The nest strange Christmas recalled to my mind was spent in the mining village of Libertad, on the gold mountains of Nicaragua. Does the quaint little hamlet still exist ? has it grown to the dimensions of a " rush," or have the Woolwa Indians burnt it. as they threatened ? Heaven knows, but few mortals. No voice can reach the world of civilised men through those close woods of Mosquito, across the bare, sad uplands of Chontales. I had wandered thither—l don't quite know how or why—in company with John Gladwyn Jebb, Esq., i£ it be disrespectful towards the public to write down my old friend as "Jack." J. G-. J. and f had been to school together; then, -whilst I went to Brasenose, he joined the Connaught Bangers in India ; tired of the service and sold out ; entered at Skimmery as a fellow-commoner; tired of that, and agreed to accompany me in seeking the Itzimaya. You do not know what the Itzimaya is ? Well, we dii not find it, and what the legends say woald be too long to tell. Ah, if I had to describe a Christmas Day in the Itzimaya ! then would I have a tale that would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue in every reader's mouth to cry derisive epithets at me ! But that penalty would be cheap for one glance at the Maya city. I should like to have heard the worthy Ellis recount those travels. Ellis was our joint groom. I imagine that he would have summed them up as a "daft spree," a view we should have bitterly resented at the time, bat perhaps not now. Why we went where we did, and went not where we intended, I can't explain to my own satisfaction, and J. G. J. is equally at a loss. Much effort of memory induces the suspicion that Captain Bedford Pirn deranged our lucid plans. He persuaded us to take Nicaragua on our own way, and thus unwittingly diverted the only expedition which has yet been made to seek the Itzimaya. For in Nicaragua we heard of tombs mighty curious, and then again enthusiasts talked of white Indians dwelling in mysterious seclusion on the San Carlos River. Fired by the inspiriting tale, we tried to raise an expedition of discovery, and this effort, I know not how, led us to San Jose de Costa .Kica. The vague impression dwelling on my mind is that the reputed prowess of a certain Colonel Cauty drew us to San Jose ; bnt that gallant soldier of fortune was jnst returning to England. So, having ridden across America frcm sea to sea, we rode back again. Then J. G. J. went to the Brazils, and I know not where. He is now settled in Colorado, whither I shall send this brief explanation of our joint proceedings in Central America. How relieved will he be, bless him! I can picture my dear old friend in his log hut at night, with head bent upon his hand, reflecting year after year, wondering till the brain reels, how and why and wherefore we did what we did, and left undone those things which were expected of us. But what larks! That is how it was, as nearly as can be made oat at present, that I spent a Christmas on the borders of Mosquito. Beport had not lied about big cairns and ruins there. We explored them diligently, employing all the "ladrones" of the country side. If such eager researches brought little result, the reason is that there was little to bring You may see our trophies duly ticketed in the British Museum, and I keep somewhere the assurance of the trustees' gratitude for our valuable and important gift. The acknowledgment would have seemed more warm, had it not been printed and misdhected. But these digressions must cease. I can generally guide my pen straight enough to facts ; but the memory of our devious, heedless, joyous scurry from ocean to ocean and back, would justify, if aught can, a wandering style. So to Libertad, for the third time. Imagine a little settlement of frame houses and reed huts, where the rain it raineth every day at Christmas time. To gain it one has ridden several hundred miles over bare, burnt highlands, where small hillocks rise, one over another, round and smooth as bubbles. Such they are, in truth—bubbles of earth aud stone, floating above a molten sea. They rise or flatten, people tell you, when with sick, noiseless shivering, the fire rolls in sudden flood beneath to burst throngh the open shafts of Cosequina and the Merivalles. Few dwell in that perilous waste, and these seek the valleys and winding ravines, where trees, hung from crown to root with Spanish moss, stand like cloaked mourners in procession. At the edge of this scene, where the deep woods of Moaquits block it like a wall, is libertad, or was, among glens and torrents, groves of banana, fields of maize, and cactus hedges. It had perhaps 500 inhabitants, a tenth part foreigners Droll fellows these were, French most of them, always at issue with the native population, and at war with the authorities. At this time they had assembled from lonely mines and diggings in the wood, to see a Christian face, eat Christian meats, and, above all, drink of Christian liquor. If I might digress, dear me 1 what reams of copy I could fill with the record of a week's absurdities. Incidents of love and war, with sports and songs between, employed our time as in the days cf chivalry. No one went to bed much that week, amongst the foreigners at least. Some dozen of us slept, off and on, in the back premises of "the store," on casks and bales. Each hour, day and night a jovial crew from the other house of entertainment came to congratulate their friends with us, or these, suddenly fired by Christmas sentiment, leapt clattering from their perches to seek companionship below. The fiddling and the dancing ceased not from early afternoon till midnight, but the conversation of partners had always one shrill refrain, half angry, half admiring, "Homtre sin vergaenza, da!" Mark that these girls were all respectable, as respectability goes in that country ; also, that I caw no French digger intoxicated, though they drank enormons quantities of claret.

{To be centinned.')