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 L161— O-1096
 
 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 THE 
 
 PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE; 
 
 OB, 
 
 PASSAGES FROM THE LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 HERBERT AINSLIE, B.A., 
 
 CANTAB. 
 
 ' I have always contended that obedience even to an erring conscience was 
 the way to gain light, and that it mattered not where a man began so that he 
 began on what came to hand, and in faith ; and that anything might become a 
 divine method of truth ; that to the pure all things are pure, and have a self- 
 correcting virtue and power of germinating.'— Newman's 'Apologia,' p. 333. 
 ' He faced the spectres of the mind. 
 And laid them.' 
 ' At last he beat his music out.' 
 
 Tennyson's ' In Memoriam.* 
 
 IN THEEE VOLUMES. VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE ST., STRAND. 
 
 1868.
 
 JOHN CHILDS AND feON, PRINTERS.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The Artist appends a title to his performance, 
 places it where all can behold it, and retires, 
 deeming no further introduction necessary. If 
 he has done his best there is no room for apology : 
 whether or not that best be good is for others to 
 judge. Standing aside and overhearing their 
 criticism, haply he may learn somewhat for future 
 guidance. 
 
 In the present case the Editor claims to be 
 little more than a Master of the Ceremonies, in- 
 troducing parties whom he deems worthy of each 
 other^s acquaintance, and not obtruding himself 
 more than the occasion requires. 
 
 Some eight years have passed since the 
 materials necessary to enable him to perform his 
 part came into his hands, and his task was for
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 tlie most part fulfilled ; but insuperable obstacles 
 intervened to prevent its completion,, and lie lias 
 been compelled to keep liis intention in abeyance, 
 while eacli succeeding year has brought him fresh 
 cause for regret at the delay. Watching the pro- 
 gress of the age he has seen the Romantic sub- 
 siding into the Familiar, the Prophetic into the 
 Past. Yet he takes courage from the reflection 
 that^ as Truthfulness and Earnestness are of all 
 time, this simple record of an actual life of our 
 day — this unaffected picture of a true child of 
 the century and his life in three worlds — will not 
 be found altogether stale and unprofitable through 
 its long seclusion in the studio. To himself, at 
 least, the contemplation of it has been a source 
 of deep gratification and a new Aid to Faith. 
 
 London, 1867.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIEST VOLUME. 
 
 BOOK I, 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. THE DILEMMA 
 
 II. THE ESCAPE 
 
 III. THE ISLANDS 
 
 IV. THE ISTHMUS 
 
 V. SEAWEED 
 
 VI. AN EXCURSION 
 
 VII. MORE SEAWEED 
 
 VIII. THE PENINSULA 
 
 IX. PACIFIC POLEMICS 
 
 3 
 
 37 
 
 48 
 
 68 
 
 94 
 
 109 
 
 123 
 
 145 
 
 158
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK II 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. EL DORADO 
 II. THE PRAIRIE 
 
 III. death's door . . 
 
 IV. NO SURRENDER . . 
 V. A LETTER HOME 
 
 VI. A SEVERANCE 
 
 BOOK III 
 
 I. ANARCHY 
 
 II. A VICTIM 
 
 III. THE CLAIM 
 
 IV. WITHIN AND WITHOUT 
 
 V. OLD GROUND 
 
 PAGE 
 
 175 
 194 
 
 204 
 215 
 221 
 236 
 
 251 
 261 
 273 
 
 277 
 293
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 *Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. 
 There is one direction in which all space is open to him. He 
 has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion. 
 He is like a ship in the river— he runs against obstructions on 
 every side but one ; on that side all obstruction is taken away, 
 and he sweeps serenely over God's depths into the infinite sea. 
 This talent and this call depend on his own organization, or 
 the mode in which the general soul incarnates itself in him.' — 
 R. W. Emerson, ' Spiritual Laws.' 
 
 ' Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and 
 from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee.' — 
 Gen. xii. 1.
 
 THE PILGEIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE DILEMMA. 
 
 ^ Surely if there be any merit in self- 
 sacrifice, mine will not be overlooked. 
 My motive is no mean one ; for is it 
 not the desire of sparing pain to those I 
 love ? So good as they are, too, in all 
 amenities and duties of life, could only this 
 perpetual jar be removed, we should in- 
 deed be a happy family. In fact, as far 
 as they are concerned there is but little 
 alloy ; for it is little they dream of the gap
 
 4 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 that actually separates us. Happy in their 
 ignorance, but at what cost to myself is it 
 maintained! And every week the task 
 grows harder. I shrink from all in which 
 they find delight. Their Sunday services 
 and week-day devotions are alike painful to 
 mcj till I feel constrained to declare that I 
 will never go to church again. 
 
 ^ I should like to have some of the details 
 of the early Christian life : to know how one 
 of them, a member of some devout pagan 
 family, comported himself, when the light 
 of a higher faith dawned upon him, and 
 the joy of it was succeeded by revulsion, 
 on thinking of the grief his apostasy would 
 cause his good pious old parents. 
 
 ' To be of any use to me, I must know 
 how one organized like myself would act 
 in such circumstances. I think I can guess. 
 Having a faculty of reticence and self-con- 
 trol, he would carefully avoid betraying 
 himself until he had sounded them at home;
 
 THE DILEMMA. 5 
 
 listening to their remarks on the new re- 
 ligion in reference to any of their acquaint- 
 ances who have joined it, or in answer to 
 his observations. If he found interest ex- 
 cited, and a tone of moderation used in 
 reference to the subject, he would be led 
 on by degrees to lay before them one grand 
 doctrine after another, until their own old 
 creed had, unawares, withered up into no- 
 thingness for them, as it had done for him. 
 ' But if he found scorn and anger lavished 
 upon those who were so presumptuous as to 
 forsake, or even to strive to obtain more 
 comprehensive views of, the gocls of their 
 fathers, and an utter unwillingness, if not 
 incapacity, to comprehend the spirit and 
 meaning of the new doctrine, — then, indeed, 
 would he either do as I am doing, or would 
 break away to more congenial associations. 
 For to continue to abide together after 
 having broken silence, to feel himself fol- 
 lowed by looks of grief and displeasure as
 
 6 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 a renegade and an infidel, — this, indeed, 
 would be an impossibility. In either case 
 it would be hard to remain. To stay and 
 be silent, — filled with pity for the errors of 
 those who would so regard him if they knew 
 what was in his mind ; and forced to keep 
 within his own bosom the new and glorious 
 hopes that were glowing in him, locked 
 most carefully from those to whom he most 
 longs to declare them. To stay and speak, 
 regardless of the consequences : to speak 
 and then depart : or, best of all, perhaps, 
 to go in silence and peace, without leaving 
 behind him bitterness and sorrow. 
 
 ^ But I meant to describe good pious 
 people ; would such reduce a son to these 
 straits ? How is this ? In what have I 
 misrepresented ? It must be that goodness 
 of heart and natural disposition are not in- 
 compatible with religious intolerance and 
 narrowness. Perhaps people may be better 
 than their religion ; nay, may be morally
 
 THE DILEMMA. 7 
 
 good in spite of it. Yet it is very curious 
 that the condemnation which Christ would 
 not pronounce on the grossest sinner, 
 should be by his followers so readily in- 
 flicted on the honest inquirer.' 
 
 To this half soliloquy, half address, of 
 Herbert Ainslie, as he lay stretched on a 
 certain lawn, in a certain midland county, 
 in the long vacation of 1846, his friend 
 Charles Arnold replied, 
 
 ' A man filled with burning faith in a 
 new religion which opened heaven to the 
 believer, and reserved hell for its opponents, 
 would not hesitate between the brief gain 
 of a hollow peace and the possibility, how- 
 ever remote, of achieving the conversion of 
 those he loved. All considerations would 
 be minor to this, and would be lost sight 
 of.' 
 
 Yes,' answered Herbert, ^if he ad- 
 mitted the possibility of their conversion. 
 But convinced by an irresistible instinct.
 
 8 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 backed ty both reason and experience, 
 that this cannot be, he would act as I have 
 supposed. Indeed, he could not do other- 
 wise ; for men cannot act without motives, 
 and the motive which would be supplied 
 by a chance of success would be absent.' 
 
 ^ Why so impossible in your particular 
 case ? ' 
 
 ' Nature and habit are too strong. A 
 certain versatility of mind and habit of ab- 
 stract thought are absolutely necessary to 
 enable any one to detach himself from the 
 opinions of a lifetime, and to see things 
 from a different point of view. The belief 
 which comes with the mother's milk, and 
 is so sedulously clung to ever after, not 
 only without the smallest misgiving, but 
 with a conviction that doubt (which may 
 bean inspiration from above) is only the 
 unmistakable whisper of the fiend, — few, 
 indeed, are they who can struggle out of 
 fetters so riveted.'
 
 THE DILEMMA. 9 
 
 ' It certainly is the commonest kind of 
 faith/ observed Arnold ; ' a belief not in 
 truth but in that particular statement of 
 it which happens to have been made to 
 oneself.' 
 
 ' And the effect,' said Herbert, ^ of long 
 years of undeviating habit, ploughing over 
 and over again in the same furrow, fixing 
 the bias beyond all possibility of change, 
 and closing the soul to all influences save 
 those that come through the customary 
 channel. Many avenues have been pro- 
 vided whereby knowledge may come to 
 us ; a multiplicity of senses, with reason 
 and imagination superadded, through 
 which, when kept open to the influences 
 everywhere abounding, may stream in the 
 sympathetic wisdom of the universe, dis- 
 closing to us innumerable pathways to 
 God. All these we are too often taught to 
 keep fast closed, leaving but a little chink 
 in the shutters through which the liglit can
 
 10 THE riLGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 reach us. And having thus manufactured 
 for themselves the gloom in which they 
 live, men loudly praise the tiny streak of 
 light which they suffer to relieve it.' 
 
 ^ Let us return to yourself,' said Arnold. 
 ^ You are prevented from declaring yourself 
 by the conviction that it will cause un- 
 qualified pain : that is, you regard those 
 with whom you have to do as so pre-occu- 
 picd with one idea as to be incapable of 
 admitting another. You know, I suppose, 
 in what condition of mind people are con- 
 sidered to be whom it is necessary for their 
 own welfare, or that of others, to deceive or 
 keep in ignorance ? ' 
 
 ' It is said,' rej)lied Herbert, ^ that most 
 people are of unsound mind upon one sub- 
 ject or another. Am I acting as if those 
 with whom I have to do were no exceptions 
 to this rule ? Let me think out my thought. 
 There are countless rills from the hills of
 
 THE DILEMMA. 11 
 
 God, but of one only will they drink. It is 
 one that flows hard by their cottage, through 
 their own little valley, from which they ne- 
 ver stir. They love this little stream, but 
 need they hate others? Alas ! they also con- 
 demn all others, together with those who 
 drink at them. I love to stray far away 
 upon the mountains, and slake my thirst at 
 every stream that flows. They would weep 
 and pray for me if they knew that I tasted 
 of any other waters than those which flow 
 to them. Alas ! alas ! could I but get 
 them to the hill-tops, to enjoy with me the 
 boundless glories of the uplands ! but too 
 long disuse has paralysed both will and 
 power. The conclusion is unavoidable. 
 The fear of hell, that is, the fear of God — 
 of the God of the Evangelicals — makes men 
 monomaniacs. 
 
 ^ The claim of that sect to inspiration,' 
 said Arnold, ^ does certainly seem to indi-
 
 12 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 cate a kind of madness ; and it is not easy 
 to see how to acquit people of it who so 
 firmly believe in their own infallibility.' 
 
 ^ No/ said Herbert ; ^ for holding it to 
 bo of infinite importance what men believe, 
 instead of hesitating long and balancing 
 evidence with the most anxious car^^, lest 
 anything should be received that ought to 
 be rejected J their fear is all on one side. 
 So far from fearing to hold dishonourable 
 notions of God by believing too much, 
 their only anxiety is lest they should not 
 believe enough. In short, tlieir most for- 
 tunate frame of mind is unlimited credence. 
 " Only believe," no matter what. Yet it is 
 not fair to refuse the same credit to the 
 holders of the other faiths all over the 
 world.' 
 
 ^ Of course not,' added Arnold. ' The 
 child trained in a Christian nursery must 
 receive what is taught with unquestioning 
 reverence. But the Mahomedan and Hin-
 
 THE DILEMMA. 13 
 
 doo are to see at once the absurdity of 
 their religion, and take the first opportunity 
 of turning Christian. And they refuse to 
 themselves the right to exercise that scej)- 
 ticisni and investigation which they regard 
 as the first duty of those who differ from 
 them.' 
 
 ' Clearly an assumption of infallibility/ 
 observed Herbert ; 'and one that arises 
 from that very disposition which would 
 have made these unquestioning Christians 
 equally unquestioning idolaters and canni- 
 bals, had they chanced to be born such.' 
 
 ' Yet,' observed Arnold, ' this disposi- 
 tion to hold unquestioned what they have 
 early received, is not an unmixed evil. A 
 certain amount of vis inerti(F. is absolutely 
 necessary for the general stability.' 
 
 ' In every instance that I can think of,' 
 continued Herbert, ' the undoubting Christ- 
 ian is exactly the person that would have 
 been the undoubting pagan. Such an one
 
 14 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 can I fancy — a humble and devout worship- 
 per of the godsj and even finding a blessing 
 in an uncavilling attendance on the ordin- 
 ances of religion. One in whom imagin- 
 ation has the requisite predominance over 
 reason to enable him to see a resemblance 
 in things which have no real likeness or 
 relation to each other. A native of ancient 
 Greece, entering the temple of Pallas, he 
 bows in reverence to the authorized symbol 
 of divine wisdom, and implores the boon of 
 wisdom for himself, accompanying his 
 prayers with gifts and sacrifices on the 
 altar. Say to him, ''Fool! this is an idol 
 of stone, and no deity, which you adore." 
 He replies with humility, '' This is the 
 mode of worshipping Grod revealed to my 
 fathers, and handed down to me by them ; 
 and if He will be pleased to accept my 
 prayers and my praises, and the tithes of 
 my wealth, offered in the appointed way,
 
 THE DILEMMA. 15 
 
 and to grant me a blessing withal, it is not 
 for me to play the infidel and question the 
 divine decrees. Kather should I pity you 
 who prefer the treacherous lights of reason 
 to the divine confidence of faith." ' 
 
 ^ Minds/ observed Arnold, 'are so in- 
 finitely various in their disposition, that it 
 is as impossible for one to doubt as it is 
 for another to take things for granted. On 
 one is bestowed the faculty of trusting, on 
 another that of inquiring. Each must be 
 himself and act out his own character, for all 
 things, however various, have a place and 
 a purpose in the system of the universe. I 
 grant, however, that each ought to cultivate 
 charity with regard to the other; not 
 merely to tolerate that which has at least 
 an equal right to exist, but to try to under- 
 stand and appreciate it. Because men differ, 
 it does not necessarily follow that either is 
 wrong. One plant is right to be a rose, but
 
 16 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 another is not therefore wrong in being a 
 cabbage. Each serves its proper end in 
 the general economy.' 
 
 ' My keeping silence, then,' said Her- 
 bert, ' is quite consistent with my belief. I 
 do not hold it to be of infinite importance 
 to agree with me. But that if anything be 
 important it is the keeping that frame of 
 mind, that openness of soul, in which one is 
 ever free to receive truth, come from where 
 it may ; — instead of fancying w^e have got 
 it fast in an iron chest, and fearing to 
 lose it by letting it be seen, or to dim its 
 lustre by letting in the light of day upon 
 it. Even truth is no self-luminous crystal 
 retaining its brilliancy when cut off from 
 surrounding light. I suppose, however, 
 that there is some of that same diversity of 
 nature between me and my kindred. I can 
 still appreciate and love them, while they 
 would condemn me, not so much for having 
 brought my reason to bear on these things, as
 
 THE DILEMMA. 17 
 
 for having been led to different conclusions. 
 So go on in peace, dear ones of the home, 
 for tlie remainder of your earthly course. 
 No matter how we diverge here, we shall 
 all meet in heaven at last, and then how 
 some of us will rub our eyes as we look 
 round and exclaim, ^^ How different from 
 what we expected ! This is not the heaven 
 we had imagined ! '" 
 
 ^ It is curious,' said Arnold, ^ to see how 
 these ancient difficulties reappear in our 
 modern life. Thousands of years do not 
 change human nature. This very doubt 
 of yours as to how far you are justified in 
 complying with forms which have for you 
 ceased to represent truths, out of regard to 
 the feelings of those who still believe in 
 them, finds an exact counterpart in the 
 case of the Syrian warrior of old. Persecu- 
 tion puts on many forms, — violence, depriv- 
 ation, social and political. To us it comes 
 in the shape, not less hard to bear, of cold- 
 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 18 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 ness and reproach from those we love ; well- 
 meaning and sincere, no doubt, but no less 
 a persecution for conscience' sake. But your 
 reserve hitherto has kept you from this sad 
 experience.' 
 
 ^ Hardly,' answered Herbert ; ^ for it is 
 the consciousness of these feelings of theirs 
 that compels my silence.' 
 
 ^ What think you,' asked Arnold, ^ would 
 be the effect of your putting before them 
 the Syrian's dilemma as your own ; if you 
 were to ask them, '^ would you continue to 
 go to church if you recoiled from the doc- 
 trines you heard there, and felt like 
 Naaman in the temple of his abjured 
 gods ? " ' 
 
 ^ And suggest,' cried Herbert, ' that 
 they to me are as pagans to a Christian? 
 No, no ; that would be to destroy the very 
 edifice I am labouring to build, to give the 
 very pain I am suppressing myself to spare 
 them.' i
 
 THE DILEMMA. 19 
 
 ^ Even/ said Arnold, ' if you and yours 
 are of two different natures ; if to tliem is 
 given the cultivation of the affections 
 and the decencies of daily life, and to 
 you the investigation of truth, — there can 
 be no real necessity for your clashing, or 
 even for each failing to comprehend the 
 other. The evil must be traceable to the 
 defective education which limits and con- 
 tracts, instead of enlarging and expanding, 
 our nature. The ''anything for a quiet 
 life " doctrine is a great mitigator of dif- 
 ferences, and is as often a symptom of 
 moral strength as of the reverse, though in 
 the case of conscience it is not so easy to 
 say how far truth ought to be paramount 
 to all other considerations. At any rate 
 you have decided that the force which 
 enables you to fight your way out is not 
 sufficient to enable you to carry others 
 with you, or at least to moderate if not 
 destroy their opposition. Outwardly quiet
 
 20 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 and inwardly chafing is no wholesome con- 
 dition of mind ; nor can it be a permanent 
 one. Is it not possible to find more har- 
 monious surromidings ? ' 
 
 ^ I have thought of this/ replied Her- 
 bert, ^ and am inclined to think flight 
 the better part of valour in my case.' 
 
 ' And escape,' said Arnold, ' from the 
 tyranny of affection. Well, in our present 
 social development it is oftener those whom 
 we love that bring us grief, than our ene- 
 mies, as of old. A man's foes are of his 
 own household, even the sensibilities of 
 his own heart.' 
 
 ^ There may be weakness on my part,' 
 said Herbert, ^ but remember it is not for 
 myself I am seeking to secure the ^^ quiet 
 life" you speak of. It may be a weakness 
 to be dependent on circumstances and to 
 be modifiable by the accidents of position. 
 Yet I can scarcely imagine any one so self-
 
 THE DILEMMA. 21 
 
 enfolded as to be the same always, equally 
 ice to the north wind and the south. 
 Rather are people like plants, more or 
 less sensitive, and incapable of develop- 
 ment unless in favourable conditions.' 
 
 ^ I spoke not reproachfully,' answered 
 Arnold, ^ but merely descriptively, and 
 perhaps hardly correctly, for the weak- 
 ness, if such it be, would arise from extra 
 strength in another direction ; and after 
 all there is but a temporary suppression of 
 conviction in deference to the dictates of 
 affection.' 
 
 ' The one thing needful to me,' said 
 Herbert, ^ is sympathy, to enable me to 
 fight the battle of life against all comers, 
 be they world, flesh, or devil. Without 
 this I am weak as water ; with it I feel 
 as if I could do many mighty works ; for 
 sympathy is faith. Only let me get into 
 favourable conditions of existence, that
 
 22 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHEINE. 
 
 like the oak on the mountain I may freely 
 respond to every influence and expand 
 with all the capacity of my nature.' 
 
 ^Instead of feeling like the clipped 
 shrub in the cit's garden,' said Arnold. 
 ' Though such blasphemy against nature 
 is often regarded as the highest virtue ; 
 the whole duty of man being to suppress 
 himself and be some one else.' 
 
 ' Once,' observed Herbert, ^ I should 
 have made the conventional reply, ^^ Alas, 
 that nature should have so fallen!" and 
 thought with conventional complacency that 
 I had settled the matter ; forgetting that 
 the artist's work, in whatever stage of its 
 progress, must thus far be a faithful index 
 to the artist's mind and skill. And this 
 reminds me that a greater difficulty is be- 
 ginning to loom before me. I fear that I 
 am likely to pass the limits not only of 
 family but of national orthodoxy : and 
 destined as I am for the ministry, and
 
 THE DILEMMA. 23 
 
 eager to occupy the post in which I can do 
 the most good, I fear lest, when the time 
 comesj I may find myself excluded by in- 
 ability to conform.' 
 
 * There are many most useful clergy- 
 men/ said Arnold, ^ who by no means co- 
 incide with the popular interpretation of 
 the Thirt^^-nine Articles.' 
 
 ' Possibly/ returned Herbert, ^ but I 
 think you will find that their change has 
 taken place after and not before they were 
 irrevocably committed to their profession. 
 No honest man would, with his eyes open, 
 enter on a career requiring a life-long 
 hypocrisy.' 
 
 ' Really the matter is so important,' 
 said Arnold, ' to all your future prospects 
 that I feel disposed to turn Don at once, 
 and question you in loco parentis. Does 
 it never occur to you that you are expect- 
 ing too much in a profession, pursuing the 
 phantom of an impossible ideal at the risk
 
 24 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 of allowing the living reality to escape ? 
 Why should a clergyman be entitled to the 
 luxury of a career according with every 
 peculiarity of his nature any more than 
 one who becomes soldier, lawyer, or doc- 
 tor? The bitter and the sweet must be 
 taken together. Some degree of self-sacri- 
 fice is required of all of us, as you said. 
 And nothing seems more likely than that 
 the active realities of a useful career will 
 soon eclipse those abstractions which the 
 world is disposed to regard as mere crotch- 
 ets. Forgive me for saying this, but un- 
 less you have strayed very far beyond 
 what I have any reason to suppose, I do 
 not think that any difficulties you may have 
 are such as ever to obtrude themselves 
 when once you get to work, or that your 
 doubts are upon subjects which it would be 
 edifying to bring forward.' 
 
 ' Truly not a '^ spiritual father," but one 
 of the earthliest, have you constituted your-
 
 THE DILEMMA. 25 
 
 self. My own dear theologically-minded 
 parent would settle my doubts by calling 
 them ^^ wicked;" there may be more of 
 the wisdom of the serpent in your mode of 
 treating the question, but I confess it is a 
 far more practical one than the other.' 
 
 ' I think, moreover,' added Arnold, 
 ^ that the fact of our Church being a na- 
 tional one, provided (in theory at least) by 
 all, and for all, its formularies are intended 
 to include rather than to exclude, so that the 
 greatest latitude of interpretation should 
 be given both to its tenets and to those of 
 its individual members, cleric as well as 
 lay. '' Give and take " is the fundamental 
 condition of all human association. Were 
 people to refuse assent to everything on 
 account of their objection to certain petty 
 details, co-operation and even civilization 
 itself would be impossible^ Only suppose 
 the Church required the same perfection 
 in its members that you look for in it, how
 
 26 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 many would be suffered to enter the min- 
 istry ? The set-off is mutual.' 
 
 ' I can imagine/ said Herbert, ^ people 
 for whom such arguments would be su- 
 preme. I feel, however, that they neither 
 do nor ought to weigh with me.' 
 
 ^ Of course the same motives cannot 
 sway every one/ continued Arnold. ' The 
 remedy must be adapted to the indi- 
 vidual constitution. But let us suppose 
 you are so consistent as to carry your 
 scruples into other relations of life, — into 
 marriage, for instance, which certainly 
 ranks next in importance to that of occu- 
 pation, whether above or below it. Does 
 it not look as if you run a great risk of 
 going through life in single harness, unless 
 you succeed in deceiving yourself into a 
 belief that you have found a perfect woman, 
 a goddess rather?' 
 
 ' I, an imperfect individual, having no 
 right to such a luxury ? Not a perfect
 
 THE DILEMMA. 2i 
 
 woman, however, but one tliat perfectly 
 harmonizes with myself, is what I shall 
 hope for in that remote contingency.' 
 
 ^ You have formed an idea of your des- 
 tined calling which does not please you. 
 How would you act if the question, be it of 
 work or of wife, were no longer an open 
 one, and you were fast bound when these 
 doubts make their appearance ? ' 
 
 ^You forget,' said Herbert, ^that the 
 one is a case of conscience and the other 
 of feeling, in which I should probably con- 
 sider that I had taken them for better or 
 for worse, and make the best of them.' 
 
 ^ I am not clear,' returned Arnold, ^ that 
 there is any fundamental difference. It is 
 a question of self-indulgence in either case. 
 You are betrothed to your profession, if 
 not actually wedded. At least, so you are 
 supposed to be by those who have thus far 
 guided your life. The disappointment 
 would be a terrible blow for them after all
 
 28 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 the sacrifices they have made to fit you for 
 a career of your own choosing.' 
 
 ^ And thus will the tyranny of affection 
 doom my whole life to the jarring of a per- 
 petual discord. No, I would rather lead 
 a solitary life with my dreams for my com- 
 panions than marry to find them false, and 
 my ideas destroyed by an uncongenial 
 reality.' 
 
 ' Possibly, so far as a wife is concerned : 
 but work means bread. How about that ?' 
 
 ^ I can teach. I can write. Anything 
 rather than be fettered and bound to aban- 
 don the search for truth with liberty to 
 follow wherever it may lead me.' 
 
 ^ To teach, you must have scholars, and 
 to obtain them you must be of unimpeached 
 orthodoxy. As for writing, I think you 
 will allow that the best thing a sceptical 
 unsettled man can do is to be silent.' 
 
 ' You certainly drive me into a corner 
 in a truly parental way. But I know that
 
 THE DILEMMA. 29 
 
 A'oii feel with me that the search for truth 
 is man's highest duty and privilege, and 
 that there must be a fatal defect in any 
 system that prohibits that search ?' 
 
 ' The Church prohibits the search for 
 truth, — the Church of England?' exclaimed 
 Arnold. 
 
 ' Not for the truth of its own tenets, but 
 for truth independently of them.' 
 
 ^ Believing its own doctrines to be true, 
 is it to be blamed ? ' 
 
 ^ Surely, because the search it allows is 
 not for truth, but for proof of its own doc- 
 trines. Suppose the same limitation im- 
 posed upon the students of any science : — 
 the Astronomer Royal, for instance, retain- 
 ing his appointment on condition of his 
 maintaining certain stated doctrines, as that 
 of the earth's immobility, so long firmly 
 believed in. Even now that we are so sure 
 the earth does move, it is the duty of 
 astronomers to prove that it does not if they
 
 30 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 can, and all honour will be done the man 
 who shall succeed in doing so. Similarly I 
 conceive it to be the duty of students in 
 every science to uphold nothing dogmatic- 
 ally, but simply to find out what is true, 
 no matter what existing theory they may 
 demolish. For so only can science be built 
 up on a firm foundation, and truth be 
 glorified.' 
 
 ^ Scientific truths, not religious. Would 
 you apply the same method to the truths of 
 reason and revelation ? ' asked Arnold. 
 
 ' We don't know that they are truths of 
 revelation,' answered Herbert, ^ until we 
 have applied this method to them. We 
 must treat them as in the first category, 
 before we can assign them a place in the 
 second. Not to do this is to proceed upon 
 assumption, which, if I remember aright, 
 you said most people do ; and means 
 nothing less than an assertion of infalli- 
 bility.'
 
 THE DILEMMA. 31 
 
 ' Yes, but I was not speaking in loco 
 parentis then.' 
 
 ' Without enlarging the theme,' re- 
 sumed Herbert, ^ by discussing the pro- 
 priety of severing the unity of God's uni- 
 verse, and parcelling out his truth into 
 antagonistic divisions, I must confess that 
 what I feel to be a necessity of my nature 
 is freedom : even though I might not dis- 
 sent from the matter of the dogma, I do 
 object to the dogma as such ; in exactly 
 the same way as I should object to the 
 study of astronomy being shackled by any 
 necessity of squaring its conclusions by 
 some received opinions that might or might 
 not be correct. Vast room as there is for 
 advance of religious truth, I see but little 
 hope of progress and agreement until the 
 same method is applied to this as to other 
 branches of knowledge.' 
 
 ' Do you find these ideas in vogue in 
 your university ? ' asked Arnold.
 
 32 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 ^No. There, as at Oxford, vested in- 
 terests reign supreme. There, all teaching 
 tends, not to actual investigation and real 
 jDrogress, but to building up the existing 
 state of things and opinions. In the spirit 
 of the Koran they exclaim. There is no 
 Church but the Church of England, and no 
 truth but in her 39 Articles.' 
 
 ' And all examination is forbidden ? ' 
 
 ^ No, only the conclusions are forecast. 
 It is as in the puffing advertisements of the 
 travelling show- woman, the Archbishop 
 may hold dialogue with the Dissenter about 
 church-rates, and the Emperor of China 
 discuss ethics with the oyster, but all end 
 in urging the reader to lose no time in see- 
 ing Mrs Jarley's wax-work.' 
 
 ^ May you not over-estimate the conse- 
 quences of these restrictions ? ' suggested 
 Arnold. ' Bandages are necessary for weak 
 limbs, though the strong may dispense 
 with them.'
 
 THE DILEMMA. 33 
 
 ^But in this case/ returned Herbert, 
 ^ the multitude of weaklings appoint limits 
 for the strong. One day at divinity lec- 
 ture, I was tempted by a remark of the 
 Professor to put a question respecting the 
 nature of the Trinity. The only satis- 
 faction I got was an admonition to accept 
 things as I found them, and not trouble 
 myself with trying to understand them. 
 And this is the system for training the 
 men of England, for producing master- 
 minds ! Say slaves rather ! The children 
 of love may wander at will through all 
 their Father's garden. From menials only 
 is any part reserved and shut up. Slaves 
 themselves, they would make all souls as 
 abject as their own. Fencing in a tiny 
 corner with a quickset hedge of thorny 
 dogmas and sharp definitions, they call 
 this God's universe, and proclaim that 
 beyond are mantraps of the evil one ; stray 
 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 not tliere : — as if, in the spirit of the Mani- 
 chseans of old, they believed in two Gods — 
 a good and a bad, and in terror do their 
 homage to the latter.' 
 
 ^ I see how it is/ said Arnold ; ' Insight 
 versus Authority. Pity you have not five 
 thousand a year.' 
 
 ' I am not so sure of that,' replied Her- 
 bert ; ^ my speculations about things in 
 general have sometimes led me to ascribe 
 the origin of thought to an irritation of 
 surfaces, as if there were certain tissues 
 capable of secreting and evolving ideas, 
 giving them out, as the gymnotus its elec- 
 tricity, in proportion to its excitement. So 
 it seems to me possible that in the absence 
 of all exciting causes the mind might be 
 still and stagnant. Indignation is a power- 
 ful stimulant, though not the healthiest : 
 and hitherto I have found my perception 
 the clearest and my ideas most vivid when 
 listening to a sermon that shocks and
 
 THE DILEMMA. 35 
 
 angers me, as most sermons do in some 
 degree.' 
 
 ^ The irritation gives intensity of feel- 
 ing to the mind, as the acid which the dis- 
 honest gambler applies to his finger to 
 increase its sensitiveness so as to be able to 
 detect the minute punctures with which he 
 has marked the cards. In your case, how- 
 ever, one function of the sermon is to sup- 
 ply material for thought. But are you 
 not abandoning your advocacy of sympa- 
 thy, and favouring the claim of opposition 
 as the favourable condition of develop- 
 ment ? ' 
 
 ' One does not care to live in close con- 
 tact with one's irritant,' answered Herbert ; 
 ^ but I think the contradiction is only ap- 
 parent. They are as the two opposing 
 poles of the magnet ; the effect of one is 
 healthy and the other unhealthy. What 
 is unpleasant cannot be good, unless nature 
 is an unintelligible mass of contradictions.
 
 '36 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 And I am sure we make more progress in 
 our search after truth when you enact your 
 own natural part, than when you put your- 
 self in loco imrentis^ no matter how shrewdly 
 you may play the character.' 
 
 ^ In another year you will take your 
 degree, and be called on to sign the 
 Articles.' 
 
 ' Ah, yes ; but at present I do not 
 allow myself to think of it. All seems so 
 dark and doubtful when I attempt to pry 
 into the future, that I find myself utterly 
 unable to foresee how I shall act when the 
 time comes for decision. This long talk 
 has been a great help to me ; relieving 
 feelings long pent up, and giving me a 
 clearer view of my own mind and position. 
 You live so far off that it may be long 
 before we meet again. I shall not hesitate 
 to trouble you when I want to disburden 
 myself, and hope you will find time to 
 answer my letters.'
 
 37 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 Nearly two years passed without any 
 communication between the two friends, 
 beyond an exchange of letters on the 
 occasion of Herbert's taking his degree. 
 Little or no change had taken place in 
 his mind in respect to the great difficulty 
 that confronted him. He shrank equally 
 from his intended profession, and from 
 revealing to his parents the real state of 
 his mind. 
 
 But it was impossible to conceal from 
 them that something was not well with him.
 
 38 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE, 
 
 The variableness of his manner, between 
 long fits of moody silence and an almost 
 spasmodic cheerfulness, gave rise to sur- 
 mises that his mind had received a strain 
 from hard study and late hours, which 
 would soon yield to rest and the regular 
 habits of home. 
 
 Of calm and equable temperament, and 
 unexercised in mental conflicts about re- 
 ligious matters, Herbert's parents could 
 little comprehend the severity or even the 
 nature of those struggles which harass so 
 many of our generation, concerning ques- 
 tions which it was the fashion of all respect- 
 able contemporaries of their own to take 
 for granted, or to consider that, like the 
 Ark of the Covenant, it was sacrilege to 
 touch them. 
 
 He plunged with apparent eagerness into 
 those amusements and gaieties of society 
 which are so often resorted to as a drug to 
 banish reflection or deaden pain. His
 
 THE ESCAPE. 39 
 
 parents observed this with grief, fearing 
 their son was forsaking religion for ' the 
 world.' Herbert saw their regret, and at 
 once gave up all his social excitements for 
 solitary exercises of the most muscular 
 kind. Whereupon they comforted them- 
 selves with the thought that he had only 
 been sowing his few wild oats — a necessary 
 part of his great preparation for the minis- 
 try — and that he would be all the more 
 exemplary in his calling from having had 
 some personal experience of pomps and 
 vanities. He had graduated nearly a year 
 when Arnold received the following letter : 
 
 ' Steamsliip Great Western, 
 
 off Barhadoes, Nov. 1848. 
 ' You will hardly be surprised, dear 
 friend, at the solution of my difficulty 
 which the above date will at once have 
 suggested to you. The result thus far has 
 entirely justified my somewhat hasty reso- 
 lution. The clouds and thick darkness that
 
 40 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 well nigh overwhelmed me while in Eng- 
 land, have all cleared away, and here, on 
 the broad bosom of the Atlantic, have I 
 first seen the clear sky above and around 
 me, and felt myself no alien but a very 
 part of this glorious universe. 
 
 * Though agonized beyond all previous 
 conception for the first week by sea-sick- 
 ness, the throes of which were as those of 
 birth into a new life, I could not but re- 
 joice in the beauty of the big, bounding, 
 blue billows of Biscay, as they raced along, 
 shaking their snowy crests as for very 
 wantonness. There was a strange pheno- 
 menon for me (I don't know if others have 
 experienced it) in the intense feeling of 
 exaltation which followed the paroxysms 
 of the malady. The mind seemed to grow 
 vast and luminous in proportion as the body 
 sank in weakness and lassitude. That whole 
 week I was in ecstasy. As if quite independ- 
 ent of the senses, I seemed possessed of uni-
 
 THE ESCAPE. 41 
 
 versal intuition, and could jump at a bound 
 over all ordinary steps of reasoning to the 
 just conclusion beyond. Past and future 
 were as near to me as the present. At 
 once prophet, poet, and clairvoyant, and 
 gifted with tongues to boot, all thought 
 expressed itself for me in perfectly rhyth- 
 mical verse ; and in this state of mind I 
 read for the first time Carlyle's Hero- 
 worship. 
 
 ^ I know now what is meant by " revela- 
 tion." In addition to the wondrous power 
 of the book, there was that in myself that 
 made each sentence spread out into a whole 
 chapter, each page into a volume. 
 
 ' The book was the book of truth, and 
 the finite contained the infinite. 
 
 ^My feeling to the author himself was 
 that of a rescued patient to the physician. 
 No fee seemed too large for gratitude. And 
 indeed I have found here not only medicine 
 but food, such as my nature craved. Now
 
 42 THE PILGEIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 I have nourishment that I can digest and 
 assimilate ; and now methinks I can grow 
 to the stature of a man ! Hail ! happy 
 release from those weary years of mental 
 dyspepsia, when growth was arrested, and 
 life kept down at zero, and the whole system 
 crammed and choked with the forced meat 
 of dogmatic theology. 
 
 ^ Never more let me be told that there 
 are good people, much less happy ones, 
 who hold the notions instilled into me. 
 They don^t believe them. I did. Not that 
 they are hypocrites. But by belief I don't 
 mean mere assent through habit and early 
 education, and the going on indifferently 
 through life, much as they would if they 
 did not believe. No ; for me there was a 
 God who made devils as well as men ; a 
 hell as well as the fair earth and heaven ; 
 and who required a sacrifice of blood and 
 agony, ay, even that of the innocent, 
 before he could receive and pardon the
 
 THE ESCAPE. 43 
 
 poor straying babes of his own begetting. 
 And it was even sucli a Being as this who 
 made the rainbow and the flowers, and 
 music and laughter. No, no ; there is no 
 real belief until one discerns the necessary 
 harmony between every part of the divine 
 whole. 
 
 ' I think I can tell you, in a few words, 
 the condition of mind that I have been so 
 long craving. I want to get out of the 
 strife — away from the noise, and dust, and 
 confusion of the combatants upon the plain, 
 and to overlook, as from an eminence, the 
 conduct of the whole battle. I want to 
 get away from the atmosphere redolent of 
 opinions, and doctrines, and authority, and 
 technicality, — to breathe the pure air that 
 blows on the old silent hills of God. 
 
 ' It seems that if 1 can get away from 
 all mention of religion, and pass months 
 without seeing even a Bible, I shall come 
 to understand far more than ever. It is
 
 44 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 the reverse of faith that has come to me by 
 hearing. 
 
 ^ The constant repetition has utterly 
 darkened the meaning of words for me. 
 Some time ago I tried the effect of fre- 
 quently repeating to myself one of the 
 commonest words, until I became con- 
 vinced that no such term existed, so en- 
 tirely did it cease to convey any idea to 
 my mind. It is the same with the tech- 
 nical phrases which so abound in the 
 pulpit, and in the private life of the some- 
 what narrow circle in which I have lived. 
 
 ' I know your large sympathy will read 
 kindly all the crude jottings I hope to send 
 you from time to time. You will not brand 
 me with the harsh names so freely bestowed 
 by ^'good Christian folk" on all whose in- 
 tellectual conclusions diverge from their 
 own. Often have I thought how little 
 people can know the full value of words,
 
 THE ESCAPE. 45 
 
 wlien they give so much pain by their 
 reckless use of hard names. You, on the 
 contrary, can comprehend how scepticism 
 itself may be but a name for a higher 
 faith. 
 
 ^ But I must not close this letter without 
 telling you of the immediate cause of my 
 departure from England. The year after 
 I took my degree was passed apparently in 
 reading for orders, but really in seeking 
 for a way of escape from the necessity of 
 taking them. Not that I no longer felt 
 the Church to be my truest vocation ; but 
 because the Church itself was fitted with 
 such narrow doors that I felt there was no 
 room for me to enter without leaving out- 
 side the views which were expanding 
 themselves before me ; or, if I entered, to 
 abide there in peace, content with seeing 
 God and nature through a chapel window. 
 
 ' And so, after much disquietude to my
 
 46 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 own mindj and some puzzlement to parents 
 and guardians, from whom I concealed the 
 real state of the case, allowing them to 
 place my restlessness to the score of natural 
 love of adventure and desire to see more of 
 the w^orld, before settling down in one spot 
 probably for life, I have obtained a year's 
 grace and means to do as I like. So here 
 I am, resolved to enjoy the present and 
 ignore the future. I have undertaken, too, 
 a sort of mission to one of the West India 
 islands, to see what has become of some 
 estates that are, or rather were, in the 
 family ; for some years have elapsed since 
 they have been heard of. We are ap- 
 proaching the first land that we have 
 seen for a month. Barbadoes its name ; 
 a place associated in my mind with sugar 
 and sharks, yellow fever and dignity balls. 
 I shall post this there, and look for a letter 
 from you in the post-office at Kingston,
 
 THE ESCAPE. 47 
 
 Jamaica ; at which place, though dcA-oid of 
 any definite plans, I have a strong convic- 
 tion I shall find myself before many weeks 
 are over.'
 
 48 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE ISLANDS. 
 
 ' Jamaica, 'February, 1849. 
 
 ^My Dear Arnold, 
 
 ^ These West Indies are glorious. 
 Their beauty is beyond anything I had 
 imagined of scenery. All my prejudices 
 against them have vanished. So utterly 
 have they been misrepresented, that I am 
 perhaps only too ready now to believe all 
 that is here said in their favour. I have 
 visited nearly every island between Bar- 
 badoes and Jamaica. A climax of beauty. 
 The former, plainest of all, yet made the
 
 THE ISLANDS. 49 
 
 deepest impression upon me. It was my 
 first experience of tropical scenery. An 
 unexpected chance, too, was in my favour. 
 Instead of finding myself a stranger on a 
 foreign strand, the very first person who 
 came on board when the steamer dropped 
 anclior was a friend whom I supposed to 
 be far away in England. I was at once 
 '^ in town," to use the phrase of a Yankee 
 fellow passenger. Dinner ashore and a 
 bachelors' ball that very evening. Here 
 was good fortune ; at once to see all the 
 youth and beauty of the place in their best 
 clothes. Everything was done in English 
 fashion, with the addition of a general yel- 
 lowness of complexion, and a tremendous 
 over-dressing on the part of the men. 
 
 ' The afiairs of the island had long been 
 in a depressed state, Wilberforce and wea- 
 ther having combined to ruin the planters. 
 Years had passed without any heart for 
 gaiety. Now there was an improvement. 
 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 Prosperity was dawning again, in token 
 whereof the bachelors of the island projected 
 a ball, and with so much spirit did they go 
 into it that an extra allowance of wax was 
 bestowed on the floor of the dancing-room, 
 and several days were spent by the com- 
 mittee in sliding upon it. The result was 
 that several couples tumbled down in the 
 quadrilles, and few had the hardihood to 
 waltz at alL 
 
 ^I accepted an invitation to visit a plant- 
 ation some miles away. The night was 
 far spent when I started with my new 
 friend in an open carriage. The road ran 
 for some distance near the shore, over 
 the hollow coral, which resounded thunder- 
 ously beneath the wheels. And the passage 
 through fields of sugar-cane, guinea-corn, 
 orange, tamarind, banana, and manchineel 
 trees, was to me one of perpetual strange- 
 ness. 
 
 ' The low booming of the waves against
 
 THE ISLANDS. 51 
 
 the reef, the peculiar balminess of the 
 tropical night with its clear starry sky, and 
 the silent rule over all of the moon, now 
 near its full, made the scene one of such 
 enchantment that I shall never forget that 
 drive. 
 
 ' By-and-by the silver light began gra- 
 dually to withdraw from oversjDreading the 
 whole heavens, and to concentrate itself in 
 the west, as the glow in the east increased. 
 "We had reached a j)art where the island 
 was so narrow as to allow the sea to be 
 visible on either hand. And the eastern 
 waves still reposed in darkness as the em- 
 pire of day dawned above them. There was 
 something almost touching in the gentle 
 dignity with which the moon abdicated her 
 soft sway in favour of the kinglier orb. She 
 vanished below the horizon. And presently, 
 as with a jump, the sun revealed himself, 
 for a moment pillowing his chin upon the 
 edge, and flinging out long golden stream- 

 
 52 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 ers towards us on the dancing waters, and 
 then bounding upwards on liis career of 
 victory. 
 
 ^ I enjoyed immensely my few days at 
 the plantation. The kindness of the owners 
 and the novelty of the whole scene made it 
 full of delight. One never appreciates the 
 land so much, I fancy, as after a first voy- 
 age. The intense pleasure of being still, 
 of lying on the grass, by turns dozing and 
 gazing up into the boundless blue, or 
 watching the blacks at work, — a happy, 
 chattering race, described exactly in some 
 of Captain Marryatt's novels. One day I 
 found myself drawn into a reverie about 
 the ^^ vestiges of creation," and the develop- 
 ment theory, by seeing a monkey rolling a 
 bottle within the limits of his tether, in 
 imitation of the black gardener who was 
 rolling the garden walk. An ascending 
 series indeed, — the monkey, the negro, and 
 myself, — and complacently enough did I
 
 THE ISLANDS. 53 
 
 speculate as to where was the greatest 
 interval, between the two former or the 
 two latter. If absence of pain be the cri- 
 terion, thought I, surely the monkey has 
 the best of it. If capacity for pleasure, 
 surely myself. But then, this involved the 
 greatest capacity for pain. And so my 
 thoughts ran on until it appeared to me 
 that the mean or starting-point of all om- 
 natures is much the same, only that the 
 higher organization extends to a greater 
 distance in all directions, involving greater 
 capacity. We are all concentric circles, 
 ellipses, rather, but some are larger than 
 others. But I could not solve the question 
 for the developmentalists. Can the small 
 circle grow into the large one ? Can mon- 
 key become man ? Neither did I take him 
 by the hand, and say, '' Hail, brother (or 
 father) monkey ! " for I might have got 
 bitten in return. It does not matter though, 
 for, distant as any relationship may be now,
 
 54 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 trace our pedigrees far enough and we 
 surely have a common ancestor in — God. 
 Moreover, despite the monkey's imitative- 
 ness, it does not appear that he is so nearly 
 allied to man in his moral and intellectual 
 faculties as other animals that have less out- 
 ward resemblance. I was told some extra- 
 ordinary stories about the force of the wind 
 in the great hurricane of 1831. The loss of 
 life is computed at two thoasand, and of 
 property at a million and a half. But when 
 one hears of a woman being cut in two by a 
 piece of board, of pebbles embedded in rock 
 and hard wood, and of a twelve-pound car- 
 ronade carried a hundred yards by the 
 wind, it is difficult to reconcile these things 
 with our temperate experience of atmo- 
 spheric pressure. Add to such a scene 
 the dashing dowai of meteors like red-hot 
 masses of molten metal, and it is little 
 wonder that the affrighted people fancied 
 the end of the world, or at least of their
 
 THE ISLANDS. 55 
 
 little portion of it, had indeed come. What 
 tremendous fellows must the indigenous 
 deities of these regions have been ! 
 
 ^I must refer you to my general epistles 
 home for full accounts of the merely ob- 
 jective parts of my progress. Those that 
 I send to yourself are rather as pictures for 
 you to copy on canvas. Would that I 
 could send you sketches of the many scenes 
 that strike me as well worth taking like- 
 nesses of, which you, with your artistic skill, 
 might develop into real pictures. But, 
 alas ! words, words, are all that are at my 
 command. 
 
 ^ Should you ever need change of air and 
 scene, you cannot do better than take a 
 winter's cruise in these seas. You would 
 return to the old world, its toils and its 
 troubles, cheered and invigorated by your 
 glimpse of a beauty before unknown, like 
 one who has dreamt of heaven and woke 
 smiling, or the Peri, whose peep into Para-
 
 56 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 dise changed lier sadness into joy and hope 
 — (not always the result of looking behind 
 the scenes). 
 
 ' The only other picture I shall paint for 
 you this time is of San Domingo. This 
 immense island, as we steamed towards it, 
 was entirely wrapped in clouds, massive, 
 black, and impenetrable, and such rain ! 
 Towards noon the veil was slowly lifted, 
 disclosing lovely valleys in among hills 
 covered with perpetual verdure, with innu- 
 merable waterfalls tumbling down the sides 
 and glistening like silver threads amid the 
 dark foliage. And then the sun conies out 
 behind us, and beats upon the huge cloud 
 as it still rests upon the hills, and it straight- 
 way responds with a rainbow, nay, two, 
 which thread the dark mass, seeming to 
 arch over the entire island, and rest on the 
 sea beyond ; and not a momentary glory 
 either, but lasting nearly all the afternoon, 
 moving as we moved, and ever crowning
 
 THE ISLANDS. 57 
 
 the beautiful' isle with more beauty, making 
 a frame and a picture worthy of each other. 
 
 ' Nor is San Domingo less lovely in 
 detail. Fancy a narrow valley running 
 for miles between two lines of hills, culti- 
 vated with all art along its whole length, 
 and for some little way up the slopes on 
 either side, and immediately above this 
 concession to mortal needs, nature resuming 
 her sway and rioting in all tropical profu- 
 sion, — flinging, as in playful affection, an 
 abundance of wild tendrils over the farthest 
 tops of the rugged hills. 
 
 ' Can it be to the influence of such sur- 
 roundings that the prevailing lighthearted- 
 ness is owing ? 
 
 ' Dwelling in a little village among a 
 black chattering population, I came across a 
 French marquis of the old school. Long- 
 ago despoiled of all inheritance at home, 
 he lives by keeping a little shop, and sup- 
 plying the negroes with needles and thread.
 
 58 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 and tape, and such small deer. A man of 
 courtly manners, evidently a gentleman; 
 there he lives among these people, as one 
 of themselves, loquacious and happy, and 
 without a shade of discontent, serving out 
 his wares, and receiving tiny copper coins 
 in exchange with as much apparent satis- 
 faction as if he were at the head-quarters 
 of life and could imagine no superior 
 fate. 
 
 ^I wonder if he is always so. There 
 may be natures so equable as never to have 
 a moment of depression or reaction. 1 
 cannot help having a theory on the subject : 
 self-consciousness must involve intervals of 
 unhappiness, not to be self-conscious is to 
 be as bird or beast, living without knowing 
 it, having no remembrance or anticipation 
 of joy or sorrow. Self- consciousness, too, 
 must involve the consciousness of an ideal 
 or tyj)e ; a sense of that which nature in- 
 tended us to be, and how far we fall short
 
 THE ISLANDS. 59 
 
 of it. To finish my homily, if man be the 
 highest result of Nature's long effort to be- 
 come self-conscious, to ^^know herself; "not 
 to be self-conscious, that is, to be always 
 happy, is to be not one of Nature's highest 
 results. The ^^ perfect man,"then, must be 
 one ^^ acquainted with grief." My French 
 friend may have been '^acquainted" with 
 it, but he certainly has long since dropped 
 all knowledge of it ; yet does being 
 thoughtful necessarily involve a degree of 
 morbidness ? 
 
 ' Many, many thanks for the letter which 
 awaited me here. I trust to receive many 
 such from you. Truly like the face of a 
 friend in a strange land was it. Your 
 criticisms upon what you are pleased to 
 call my sea-sick theory of Inspiration had 
 already occurred to me. No doubt the 
 spirit is most willing when the flesh is most 
 weak, in matters which require Will rather 
 than deed ; or rather not Will, which is the
 
 60 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 power of Willing, but Fancy. There is a 
 greater power of imagining, or perhaps 
 less power of controlling the imagination, 
 at such times. Music, and other delicate 
 delights, require a light diet. But still I 
 do not see that we need call in the aid of 
 any extraordinary, unnatural faculty to 
 enable man to hold converse with his 
 Maker, or to rise to that heiglit of spiritual 
 intensity which is the necessary condition 
 of inspiration. Are not all who love truth 
 in a like attitude ? Each one reaching to- 
 ward heaven brings down all that comes 
 within his grasp, and he who reaches 
 farthest brings down most. 
 
 ' The difference is rather one of degree 
 and condition. The same man can at one 
 time rise in the loftiest aspirations towards 
 the invisible, and at another time is so 
 utterly dull and depressed, as to easily 
 believe that it was not himself, but some-
 
 THE ISLANDS. 61 
 
 thing super-added that was operatmg in 
 him. 
 
 ' I regard the infinite and eternal as 
 the constant, always there, and always 
 ready. Man, the inferior, is the variable, 
 only occasionally rising into divine con- 
 tact. If we must admit caprice (or, as the 
 Calvinists call it, grace) ; making right the 
 consequence of will, instead of will the 
 consequence of right ; let it be on the part 
 of man rather than of God. 
 
 ^ So you still think that I ought to have 
 made a clean breast of it before leaving 
 England. 
 
 ' Vary the phrase, and say that things 
 ought to have been such as to enable me to 
 do so, and I agree with you. But as they 
 were I coidd not do it. There are moral 
 impossibilities as well as physical. The 
 stream cannot flow when chilled into ice. 
 Neither can the sorrow-stricken or the
 
 62 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 criminal pour his grief or his confession 
 into an ear that he knows to be utterly 
 cold and unsympathizing. 
 
 ' You cannot realize what it is to en- 
 counter the coldness, and the sneer, and 
 the charge of ^ spiritual pride,' ay, and 
 even of impertinence at presuming to doubt 
 the truth of what has been taught one from 
 childhood. And when on the one side 
 where one has most right to look for help, 
 the cautious suggestion of any difficulty is 
 met with advice to thrust all such thoughts 
 aside as a ' temptation of the devil ; ' and 
 to the simple and implicit faith of the other, 
 the very idea of doubt causes acute pain 
 and dread; surely silence becomes not 
 only excusable, but inevitable. I have 
 not forgotten your ascription of the phe- 
 nomena to the too common habit people 
 indulge of assuming themselves to be in- 
 fallible, instead of regarding the world as
 
 THE ISLANDS. 63 
 
 a school, in which none have finished their 
 education. 
 
 ' Besides, how could I be certain that all 
 difficulty would not vanish with time, so 
 that I might return to fill my post untainted 
 with the charge of youthful ^^ freethinking.'' 
 
 ^ I cannot help fancying that you speak 
 more dogmatically than of old about ^^ right" 
 and " wrong," and the danger of individuals 
 judging for themselves when the broad 
 paths of truth and frankness are open to 
 them. I am greatly pleased to hear that 
 you have succeeded to the deanery of your 
 college ; but am I wrong in attributing the 
 change I have noted to the influence of 
 your new occupation of lecturing trans- 
 gressing under-graduates ? It must be 
 more "dangerous" not to judge for our- 
 selves, and the position of the sharp bound- 
 ary dividing right and wrong must vary 
 with circumstances. We cannot be wrong
 
 64: THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 in trusting to the analogy between, or 
 rather the unity of, the moral and physical 
 imiverse here. We find no absolute in 
 nature, but only order or adaptation. 
 '' Dirt " in the house, is not '^ dirt " in the 
 garden. It is only something out of its 
 place. And so no action can be judged by 
 itself, any more than the meaning of a 
 word or a sentence apart from its context. 
 
 ' And so with everything in life ; until 
 we possess all knowledge of a circumstance, 
 ^' judge not,'' seems by far the wisest frame 
 of mind. It ought to be the only practic- 
 able one. All other is prejudgment, pre- 
 judice, 
 
 ^ But I don't apply this sermon to you 
 and your most friendly letter My usual 
 '' subjectivity" has drawn me into a train 
 of thought that hardly grows out of the 
 occasion. Indeed I have rather needed 
 the admonition for mj^self, for I found it 
 no easy matter to reserve judgment until I
 
 THE ISLANDS. 65 
 
 liad tlioroughly completed tlie task which 
 I had undertaken in this part of the world. 
 The estates have too surely gone out of 
 the family for ever. At first irritated by 
 the huge neglect of which the plantations 
 everywhere bore evidence, and the in- 
 difference with which I and my credentials 
 were received, it was with much distaste 
 that I brought myself to make personally 
 the investigation that is usually entrusted 
 to a local agent. 
 
 ' The story is, however, simple enough. 
 Absenteeism, followed by emancipation. 
 The manager lived upon the property and 
 devoted himself entirely to it, his remit- 
 tances on behalf of ^ profits ' becoming 
 small by degrees until they vanished alto- 
 gether. With his own salary in arrears, he 
 struggled on and w^orked the estate in hope 
 of preserving it for its owners, and of being 
 repaid when better days should come, re- 
 ceiving no aid from the absent proprietors.
 
 66 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 And when he at last died, the management 
 naturally fell to his sons, who had no 
 difficulty in proving its indebtedness to 
 their father in more than, in the then 
 depreciated value of property, it would 
 bring in the market. And so it became 
 theirs, and they were soon glad to part 
 with it to the party whom I found in 
 possession. 
 
 ^ Matter enough for moralizing. Suf- 
 ferers though I and mine be, it is difficult 
 to quarrel with the justice of the retribution 
 thus inflicted on proprietors who forget 
 that property has its duties as well as its 
 privileges. As for emancipation, it has 
 ruined the negroes as well as the planters. 
 
 ^ Well meant, it was badly done ; and 
 with about as much wisdom as if in love 
 of liberty we were to set loose all the 
 inmates of Bedlam, or invest the denizens 
 of an infant school with the responsibilities 
 of mature life.
 
 THE ISLANDS. 67 
 
 ^ My next letter will be from some part 
 of South America, for I have resolved to 
 wander on to the full length of my tether, 
 and my inclinations are drawn thither by 
 some fellow-travellers with whom I have 
 fraternized. So please direct your next 
 letter to — I think Panama will be the best 
 place, as I shall leave instructions there as 
 to my whereabouts. Some of my new 
 friends live there, and I shall be sure to 
 get my letters, so don't write sparingly, 
 as with an impression that they may not 
 reach me.'
 
 es 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ISTHMUS. 
 
 From Herbert Ainslie's Journal, 
 
 Panama. 
 
 In curious time have I lit upon this 
 place, when the old Spanish population are 
 roused from their quiet repose of decay- 
 by an irruption of gold-hunters from the 
 North American States, boimd for that 
 newly acquired territory which rejoices in 
 the pleasant name of California. The ac- 
 counts that are constantly arriving are 
 truly marvellous, and yet there is a con- 
 sistency in them that makes them look so 
 like truth that it is difficult to doubt them. 
 It is curious to observe the contrast be-
 
 THE ISTHMUS. 69 
 
 tween tlie different races now here, the 
 indolent, easy-going, half-caste Indo-Span- 
 ish, and the active, enterprising, self-suffi- 
 cient Anglo-American. One soon under- 
 stands how the United States have attained 
 their rapid growth. The Spaniards must 
 have once had similar qualities, but their 
 energy has evaporated, and this new in- 
 cursion from the hardier north may be 
 needed to keep the soil from reverting to 
 barbarian hands. Perhaj)s a succession of 
 races, like a rotation of crops, is part of 
 nature's method for turning the earth to 
 best account. The currents of population 
 so much resemble those of the atmosphere : 
 rising heated from the earth in the tropics, 
 the vacancy is supplied with cool air from 
 the direction of the poles. The great move- 
 ments of mankind, too, like the trade-winds, 
 are always westwards, as well as towards 
 the equator, and so a perpetual current 
 is established and stagnation prevented.
 
 70 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 It was in the face of innumerable ad- 
 verse reports that I came here. At St 
 Thomas's it was asserted that the cholera 
 was raging both at Jamaica and on the 
 Isthmus. 
 
 At Jamaica, that the emigrants were 
 dying like rotten sheep at Chagres, that 
 all respectable people had left Panama, and 
 that three thousand men are waiting there 
 for passage to the gold-fields. 
 
 At Santa Martha, that throat-cutting 
 is much in fashion at San Francisco. 
 
 Now that I am here I find but little 
 sickness, yet many hundreds of emigrants, 
 almost all from the United States, rough 
 stalwart fellows, well fitted to cope with the 
 difficulties of the wilderness. 
 
 The other night I mingled with a group 
 of them who were eagerly listening to a 
 man who said he had just returned from 
 tbe ' Placers.' He gave a glowing account 
 of their wealth, and said that large for-
 
 THE ISTHMUS. 71 
 
 tunes were being made in a single season ; 
 that spring was the time for working, the 
 summers being hot and sickly. He had 
 gold-dust in his possession which he said 
 he had himself dug and washed. Cer- 
 tainly if he was merely acting a part on 
 behalf of the passenger vessels or Califor- 
 nian merchants, he did it admirably. All 
 that he said had an air of veracity about it, 
 and the indifference about trifles with which 
 he exciianged a bag of gold-dust, weighing 
 about three ounces, for a pistol, with one 
 of the crowd, looked natural enough to be 
 genuine. And why should the news be 
 false ? I hope, if only for the sake of these 
 poor fellows, many of whom have sold their 
 farms and otherwise mortgaged all their 
 property at home in order to obtain means 
 for the enterprise, that it is true. 
 
 The shopkeepers are making the most 
 of the unusual demand for their wares. It 
 is unfortunate for them that their custom-
 
 72 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 ers are on tlieir way to, instead of from, 
 the gold country. However, tliey charge 
 all the same as if they were, and take it 
 for granted that every stranger is bound 
 thither. My remonstrances about tlie enor- 
 mous price of everything are invariably 
 met with the grinning reply, ^ Mucho oro 
 en California.' 
 
 The people here seem to regard their 
 absorption into the United States as inevit- 
 able. They are aghast at the overwhelm- 
 ing energy of the new race that is mani- 
 festly destined to supersede the Spaniard, 
 as the Spaniard superseded the aborigines. 
 And no wonder; for if energy be the proof 
 of life, w^hatever life these Spanish Ameri- 
 cans once had is long ago departed. They 
 are simply cumbering the ground, imtil, 
 like an old tree, they are grubbed up to 
 make way for something that can make a 
 better use of its advantages. 
 
 He who looks upon luheels as almost tlie
 
 THE ISTHMUS. 73 
 
 soul of civilization, can hardly credit liis 
 senses when he finds the highway of 
 nations between the Atlantic and Pacific 
 Oceans a mere trail along which a mule 
 can with difficulty pick his way even in 
 the best of seasons. And I am assured 
 that even the great roads leading to the 
 metropolis of Central America, the city of 
 Mexico itself, are not a whit better. 
 
 My expeditions are generally made on 
 foot, for then I can carry a gun, and 
 wander away without anxiety on behalf of 
 my quadruped's, rations, in case of being 
 benighted, and unable to make home. For 
 myself, there are native huts to be found 
 almost everywhere, and coffee, eggs, and 
 a sort of insipid pancake called Hortillas,' 
 are always to be had. 
 
 I have become quite indifferent to the 
 charms of a bed, rather preferring to sleep 
 in the open air. Doubtless the novelty 
 has somethins: to do with it. But a
 
 74 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 tropical night (in the fine season) is a 
 glorious thing. Last night there was a 
 degree of ecstasy in it for me. On my 
 way back from Gorgona (a village on the 
 Chagres river, whither I had gone to look 
 after some missing baggage), finding my- 
 self benighted, I stopped at a hut which 
 stood alone on the top of a round hill, in a 
 small open space surrounded by a wilder- 
 ness of trees. The half-dozen inmates 
 were people of uncomfortable, not to say 
 ruffianly, aspect. Neither was the interior 
 of their abode reassuring on the score 
 either of cleanliness or of anything else. 
 So having got what refreshment I needed, 
 I accepted their offer of a bit of canvas, 
 and laid myself down at a little distance, 
 with my gun handy, in case of being 
 visited by any of the wild beasts that in- 
 fest the forests, over one of which, a jaguar, 
 I had almost stumbled on the previous 
 evening. He did not, however, molest
 
 THE ISTHMUS. 75 
 
 me, but went slowly and sulkily away, and 
 soon disappeared in the tliicket. 
 
 After a few hours' sound sleep, I woke 
 with the stars shining full in my face, 
 brighter it seemed than ever they shone 
 before. The night and stillness were upon 
 me and all this western world ; and a wild 
 joy it was to feel oneself detached from 
 all the ties and strivings of life, with no 
 hedge between me and the Universe of 
 reality, holding silent communion with the 
 stars, and returning gaze for gaze. 
 
 Again I slept, and woke with a blast of 
 hot air in my face. Starting up, I found 
 an ox bestriding me, and curiously inspect- 
 ing the stranger. Huge he looked in the 
 darkness, but a rap on the nose at once 
 sent him scampering. It was no easy 
 matter to get to sleep again, for the howl- 
 ing and chattering of beasts and monkeys 
 in salutation of the expected day. 
 
 The third time I woke, and the gentle
 
 76 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 breath of tlie early dawn soon fanned away 
 all traces of sleep. The golden light spread 
 along on the hills, and sank in among 
 the dark masses of trees that fringed the 
 horizon ; a warning to start without delay 
 before the heat should become too inten.' e 
 for travelling. 
 
 One misses here the sweet country 
 sounds that in England greet one by night 
 and by day. 
 
 Eesting in the shade of these tall trees, 
 covered with luxuriant parasites twining 
 about them in every direction, and hanging 
 from the topmost boughs down to the 
 ground, like ship's cables, so regularly and 
 evenly are they twisted ; oppressed with 
 the soft languor of the balmy air, and the 
 rich beauty of the strange foliage, how de- 
 licious it would be to b 3 sung to sleep by 
 the sweet birds of one's own land. Noise 
 in abundance there is, but no music. Over- 
 head fly troops of brilliant - plumaged
 
 THE ISTHMUS. 77 
 
 parroquets and flamingoes, screaming with 
 harsh discordant voices, and no ear to tell 
 them how harsh. (I wonder if anybody 
 ever finds his own voice disagreeable ?) No 
 nightingale ever wakes the echoes of these 
 woods with her soft flowing notes. No 
 songster here soars aloft to greet the morn- 
 ing sun. One mute worshipper indeed 
 there is in the magnificent blue butterfly, 
 which, on wings each a hand broad, soars 
 high above the trees, as if to match the 
 azure of heaven with its own. For once I 
 find Samuel Rogers a poet to my mind. 
 Had he ever seen such butterflies when he 
 sang thus — 
 
 * Child of the sun ! pursue thy rapturous flight, 
 Mingling with her thou lov'st in fields of light ; 
 Or where the flowers of Paradise unfold 
 QuaflT radiant nectar in their cups of gold : 
 There shall thy wings, rich as an evening sky, 
 Expand and close in silent ecstasy. 
 Yet wert thou once a worm, — a thing that crept 
 On the bare earth — then wrought a tomb, and slept.
 
 78 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 And so shall man rise from his cell of clay, 
 To burst a seraph on eternal day.' 
 
 And all day long, on hill and dale, in 
 sun and shade, the ear is pierced as by in- 
 numerable railway whistles by the shrill 
 chicharra, or cicala, of which there may be 
 half a dozen within as many yards, but 
 sought in vain to be seen. Listen ; one is 
 beginning. It commences with a low gur- 
 gling sound, which gradually increases in 
 rapidity and volume, like the run taken 
 by the bowler before delivering the ball, 
 and now bursts forth into a clear intense 
 whistle, which lasts a minute or two, and 
 may be heard a mile away. Many a fruitless 
 search have I had for them. Fortunate at 
 last, one leaps across my path, and straight- 
 way becomes a captive to my stick. It is 
 a sort of locust or grasshopper, light green, 
 and about three inches long. 
 
 A rustling in the underwood ! What is 
 this gliding along ? It looks like the lash
 
 THE ISTHMUS. 79 
 
 of an animated coacli-wliip of tlie biggest 
 dimensions and the brightest yellow. An 
 ugly fellow, no doubt, witli all his beauty, 
 is that same whip snake. No place this 
 for a noonday nap. Two or three dexter- 
 ous blows with my trusty stick near the 
 foremost end, at which I suppose the head 
 to be, and all power of mischief is past. 
 He measures eleven feet in length, and is 
 little thicker than my thumb. 
 
 And now that I have examined his 
 teeth, I don't think he is a venomous snake. 
 And even if he were, what right had I to 
 kill him ? Exactly the same right he had 
 to kill me — the right of the strongest ; and 
 the motive the same — fear. I ought to 
 have known better. He too enjoyed life ; 
 and this wilderness, which belonged to him 
 more than to me, is surely wide enough 
 for both. But I did not feel afraid of him. 
 There was another reason ; even the 
 antipathy against all the serpent tribe, so
 
 80 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 early instilled as to be reckoned instinct- 
 ive. I can fancy the ghost of the dead 
 snake quoting Lucretius against me : 
 
 ' Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum ! ' 
 
 O theology ! would that thou hadst 
 no other and worse cruelties to answer for ! 
 Be this the last feather on thy camel's 
 back. Perhaps, however, it is the instinct 
 that has produced the theology. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Old Panama. 
 
 And this is the city of Pizarro. Here 
 were planned the expeditions of the rob- 
 ber chieftain, and hence he sailed on his 
 missions of violence and plunder. Silent 
 enough now. But a pleasant seven miles 
 canter by dense wood and palm groves, 
 and open down and sandy shore, from its 
 prosperous supplanter, Old Panama re- 
 quires a guide to find it. Dead enough, 
 and buried too. Buried so effectually that
 
 THE ISTHMUS. 81 
 
 one may pass within ten paces of its walls 
 and yet discover no city. Fallen, and 
 crumbled, and covered with forest, Old 
 Panama attests Nature's wondrous power 
 of self-repair from the damage inflicted 
 by man. She buries the cities of the East 
 in yellowest dust, and of the West in 
 greenest foliage. 
 
 If man is ever doomed to revisit the 
 scene of his earthly deeds, what a city of 
 tombs must the ruffian soul of Pizarro find 
 this ! 
 
 Yet not ruffian now, perchance. Three 
 centuries of meditation, three centuries of 
 silence, and thoughts may have taken root 
 and sprung up, even as yonder noble tree 
 between those four broken walls, to over- 
 shadow and hide the ruins, and replace 
 them with something of life and beauty. 
 How strangely jars the voice of man here, 
 like laughter in a graveyard. Well sings 
 Hood—
 
 82 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 ' Here in green ruins, in the desolate walls 
 Of antique palaces where man hath been, 
 Though the dun fox or wild hyaena calls, 
 And owls, that flit continually between, 
 Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan ; 
 Here the true silence is self-conscious and alone.' 
 
 # * * # 
 
 Sunday. 
 
 Here is a place to spend a Sunday 
 morning. My old college deliglit again, 
 wandering in the meadows beside the lazy 
 river, instead of listening to the harsh 
 polemics of a University sermon. 
 
 How delicious is this cool upland air, 
 after the toil of climbing a thousand feet 
 and more. A noble reward is this mag- 
 nificent panorama for one's patient perse- 
 verance in not allowing a single backward 
 glance until the summit was gained. 
 Stretching away to right and left are the 
 indented shores of the bay ; on either side 
 are the hills, and the town is just below, 
 while the smooth Pacific holds half the 
 horizon in its embrace. The atmosphere
 
 THE ISTHMUS. 83 
 
 is in that state that tlie horizon appears 
 inconceivably distant. 
 
 Sea and sky spread out like two vast 
 parallel plains, gradually approaching each 
 other in the perspective, yet never meeting 
 until infinity has been spanned in the 
 process. 
 
 It was such a view of the Pacific from 
 one of these Isthmian hills that first broke 
 upon the astonished Balboa, an omen to 
 his ardent mind of boundless wealth and 
 honour. 
 
 To a more subjective nature, to the 
 man of thought rather than of action, it 
 suggests an oppressive sense of littleness. 
 As wave after wave rolls onward in cease- 
 less undulation, as if deriving its impetus 
 from the infinite unseen ^ only to break 
 on the shore below ; so man comes, he 
 knows not whence, to work, to wonder, 
 and to vanish. An atom in space, and an 
 atom in time, it is not strange if his wonder
 
 84 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 culminates in worship. And where better 
 than in such a scene as this can his emo- 
 tions towards the Infinite find a stimulus 
 and an expression ? 
 
 How pleasantly does the sound of 
 yonder church bells steal up from below, 
 and fall on the ear, — not as coming from a 
 single point, but diffused through the whole 
 air and mingling with the landscape. 
 
 I looked in as I came along, and saw 
 the painted images decked in the tawdry 
 finery of dirty white satin, artificial flowers, 
 and tinsel. The music, — instrumental and 
 vocal, alike vile ; and I thought of Southey's 
 words — 
 
 ' Go thou, and seek the house of prayer ; 
 I to the woodlands wend, and there 
 In lovely nature see the God of prayer : ' 
 
 And of him, too, who denounced church- 
 goers as hypocrites, and went up into a 
 mountain to pray. The Pharisees of old 
 denounced only the plucking the ears of
 
 THE ISTHMUS. 85 
 
 corn on the Sabbath. Those of our day- 
 forbid the very walk in the corn-field. 
 Arnold, my friend, would you were here 
 to talk with me. If thy spirit is at my 
 call, I summon thee to my side. Methinks 
 I hear the old well-known tones, with no 
 dean-like twang — 
 
 ' Yet these people must find their de- 
 votional feelings excited by their rituals. 
 They must have some kind of faith in 
 them, or why continue them ? Man seems 
 to have in his nature a want of something 
 tangible to connect him with the Invisi- 
 ble.' 
 
 Myself, ' The office of symbolism. At 
 first designed to be a sort of half-way house 
 between the finite and the infinite, — a 
 mediator, in fact, invested with its func- 
 tions by no inherent fitness, but solely by 
 grace of the human imagination, — one has 
 only to look down yonder to see that the 
 symbol has become the slayer and sup-
 
 86 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHKINE. 
 
 planter of tlie two divine witnesses, Nature 
 and Reason.' 
 
 A. ' Idolatry being defined to be ^' not 
 the use but the worship of symbols." ' 
 
 Myself. ^ Unless there be an identity 
 between the thing symbolized, that is, the 
 Actual, and the Symbol.' 
 
 A. ' Hardly possible for the middle- 
 man to be the principal ; or, as you have 
 just put it, for the half-way station to be 
 the terminus.' 
 
 Myself, ^ Yet you and all Christians 
 hold that only God is to be worshipped ? ' 
 
 A. ^ Of course, the worshippers of a 
 mere mediator cannot escape the charge of 
 idolatry.' 
 
 Myself ^ And does the circumstance of 
 Christians calling their symbol God, clear 
 them of the charge ? They would not 
 allow the plea to others.' 
 
 A. ' You want a theology without mys- 
 teries ! But to worship, often means only
 
 THE ISTHMUS. 87 
 
 to pay reverence ; a homage such as the 
 ambassador may receive on behalf of his 
 master.' 
 
 Mijself. ' Then, either there is no such 
 thing as idolatry ; or else all worshippers, 
 no matter of what, are idolaters.' 
 
 A . ' You mean that the difference is in 
 degree and not in kind.' 
 
 Aff/self. ^And the degree varies with 
 the nature of each individual worshipper ; 
 from the rude savage, with his uncouth 
 image symbolizing to him all physical 
 energy, even up to the Christian who ac- 
 cepts the Perfectest Man as the express 
 image of the Universal Father.' 
 
 A. 'Of course the finite can in no de- 
 gree represent the Infinite ; but having 
 this Unsurpassable One, can we do better 
 than accept Him as our Mediator with 
 God?' 
 
 Myself. ^ Not only can we not do bet- 
 ter, but we cannot do otherwise, so long
 
 88 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 as we conceive God to be but the ultimate 
 product of our own faculties ; a j^rojection 
 of ourselves, as I think some one has put 
 it, like the image of the wayfarer reflected 
 from the mist upon the Brocken, himself, 
 only huge and indefinite. But surely a 
 still higher reach is possible to us, one in 
 which all personification serves only to 
 obscure our perception of Deity.' 
 
 A. ' Until at last it comes to be re- 
 garded as a mere abstraction ; an Intelli- 
 gence, an Energy, but no Person. This 
 was the character of poor Shelley's atheism, 
 as people call it. His conception of Deity 
 was so far removed beyond all power of 
 representation, that it ceased for him to 
 be a person : it was the Pervading Influ- 
 ence, the Spirit or Disposition of Nature, 
 viewed through the medium of his own 
 loving temperament. But how many men 
 can thus gaze out into the infinite ? Men
 
 THE ISTHMUS. 89 
 
 must have a background to their view 
 on which the eye can rest.' 
 
 Myself. ^ To reflect back their own 
 image, and they call that God V 
 
 A, ^ Rather, like the clouds which re- 
 flect back the earth's heat, to prevent the 
 warmth of the venerational part of theii 
 nature from radiating into space and being 
 lost. But you are the same as ever, re- 
 jecting the possible Relative, to grasp at 
 the shadow of the impossible Absolute. 
 As I said long ago, you will never marry 
 till you discover, or invent, a goddess.' 
 
 And with this characteristic argumentum 
 ad hominem the Shade of my friend departs, 
 and I descend the mountain alone.
 
 90 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 From a letter to Arnold. 
 
 I have cauglit the infection and my 
 plans are laid. It only remains to suc- 
 ceed, and the thorn is extracted from my 
 life. 
 
 ' I am going to California 
 A digger for to be.' 
 
 ^ I defy any one to be here without shar- 
 ing the general enthusiasm. We quite look 
 down upon the Crusaders of old, whose 
 success could do no one any good, and 
 involved misery and death to myriads, 
 and we run far greater risks in getting to 
 our coveted destination. You see I speak 
 of myself already as one of the noble army 
 of diggers. Fancy six men starting yester- 
 day in a whale boat, hoping, by coasting 
 three or four thousand miles along an 
 unknown shore, some day to reach San 
 Francisco : and not one of the crowd that 
 watched their departure but longed to 
 change places with them. The impatience
 
 THE ISTHMUS. 91 
 
 to be off and at work Is almost unbearable, 
 but there are no means of going, every- 
 thing that can float being taken up. The 
 only possibility of getting onwards is in 
 the chance of trading vessels in the 
 southern ports hearing of the demand and 
 hastening hither for passengers. As I 
 write I hear a shout and a rush to the 
 beach. A ship is in sight, and with Eng- 
 lish colours. Later, when I finish this, 
 it may be in the capacity of a booked 
 passenger. 
 
 ' It is all right. The consul has secured 
 me a passage — T was going to write berth, 
 but as the vessel is a barque of some 300 
 tons, and it is intended to fit her with 
 accommodation for about 200 men who 
 will have to be packed as close as slaves 
 on the ^' middle passage," anything like a 
 berth is obviously out of the question. A 
 rough lot I shall have for associates, judg- 
 ing by the agglomeration here, and I
 
 92 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 must expect to rough it in more ways 
 than one, but I never was a slave to per- 
 sonal comfort, and with the hope of win- 
 ning an independence and getting free from 
 all obligation to take orders, I have a hope 
 before me attractive enough to lure me 
 through uglier experiences than ever will- 
 of-the-wisp did unwary follower. In an- 
 other week I hope to be off, and in the 
 mean time I have to' equip myself with 
 all things needful for the wilderness : im- 
 plements for cooking and digging, physic 
 for probable fevers (which I am assured 
 are the rule in Western America), and 
 materials for a tent which I have to sew 
 together myself. This will be a good ship 
 task : we may be several weeks on the 
 voyage. Pray don't think from my ob- 
 servations above that I have become a bit 
 more ^' practicable " than of old. I don't 
 shrink from any amount of physical dis- 
 comfort for a time^ though it may far exceed
 
 THE ISTHMUS. 93 
 
 any 1 might have found in an uncongenial 
 profession. I am by no means inclined 
 to confound conscience and comfort, as you 
 seemed to do long ago in our memorable 
 talk ; of which, by the way, I afterwards 
 attempted to make some notes. They 
 were unsatisfactory ones, however.'
 
 94 
 
 CHAPTER y. 
 
 SEAWEED. 
 
 From Herbert Ainslie's Journal. 
 
 On board at last, and well away from 
 port. I begin to shake down tolerably into 
 my place. If I can only retain the privi- 
 lege of my hammock slung up in the rig- 
 ging, I shall escape the discomfort of the 
 crowded cabin below. Really this floating 
 box ' Killooney ' is as complete a Noah's 
 ark of incongruities as ever swam. We 
 have lawyers from ^ down-east,' hunters from 
 the west, farmers from the north, and slave- 
 owners from the south ; Texan rangers, 
 Mexican volunteers, doctors and traders,
 
 SEAWEED. 95 
 
 distressed politicians and professed gam- 
 blers, both of which occupations seem to be 
 a regular business in the States; two or 
 tliree English merchants, and a couple of 
 English brothers not very long from school, 
 who have turned their patrimony into cash, 
 and started on venturous quest for the 
 newest part of the New World, like a 
 couple of sheep seeking their fortune among 
 a pack of wolves. Really one must have a 
 wooden head and an impervious heart if one 
 fails to find infinite instruction and amuse- 
 ment amid this varied association. 
 
 The history of ^ a day on board the 
 Killooney ' would make as spicy a volume 
 as any of Murray's half-crown library. 
 Joining a knot of eager listeners, I have 
 the benefit of the yarn that holds them 
 breathless. An old Texan ranger is telHng 
 of his own hair-breadth chances among the 
 warlike Indian tribes. ^ We knew no- 
 thing,' he continues after I have joined liis
 
 96 THE PILGRIM A^D THE SHRINE. 
 
 audience, ^ of the hostility of the Chero- 
 kees to the whites. One evening our 
 guide, an old trapper, said he was sure we 
 were being followed ; and if two of us 
 would go back a mile he would undertake 
 to show us Indians. So, after pursuing 
 our trail through the dense wood until we 
 reached a convenient spot for halting, I 
 and another accompanied the guide into 
 the prairie, crawling among the grass for 
 nearly the distance he had named, when 
 two dark forms appeared about half a mile 
 from our hiding-place, reconnoitering the 
 plain. They soon discovered the smoke 
 rising from our camp, upon which they 
 vanished, as if satisfied with the knowledge 
 of our locality. On rejoining our party, 
 we found them waiting our assistance to 
 devour some squirrels which they had shot 
 and cooked in our absence. We then re- 
 mounted and rode on leisurely in a straight 
 line by the compass, having no fear of
 
 SEAWEED. 97 
 
 being overtaken by the Indians, as they 
 would be obliged to make a circuit of 
 several miles in order to reach us unob- 
 served. Besides it wasn't likely they 
 would follow us, as they would know from 
 our quitting camp so late that we were on 
 the alarm, and not to be taken by surprise. 
 But T should like to have seen their faces 
 when they found we had gone. Right 
 mad they were, I guess. Well, next even- 
 ing we arrived at a log-house, the only 
 tenants of which were, to our surprise, an 
 American woman and two children. The 
 Indians had, some few years back, at- 
 tacked the house ; and when she saw her 
 husband and brother lying dead outside, 
 she hastily closed and fastened the door, 
 and seizing the only remaining gun fired 
 through the window upon her savage foes. 
 There she was all that night, with but a 
 plank between her children and the mur- 
 derers of her husband and brother, in
 
 98 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 horrid suspense as to their intentions. At 
 daylight, apparently content with their 
 devastations, they departed ; and she re- 
 mained, supporting her family by cultivat- 
 ing a small piece of ground, assisted occa- 
 sionally by wayfaring hunters. She took a 
 great fancy to a short pipe 1 was smoking, 
 and inquired if I had another which I would 
 part with. I replied that it was the only 
 one I had, but that it was at her service. 
 She accepted it joyfully, and next morning 
 sent us away with a loaf of bread apiece, 
 refusing any payment, saying that the pipe 
 was ample compensation.' 
 
 Here a knot of young fellows are roar- 
 ing with laughter, as they try to ' cap ' 
 each other's stories. One or two of them 
 are worth ' making a note ' of. 
 
 The renowned Davy Crockett is the 
 theme of one. ' Davy was sauntering 
 in the forest near his clearing one day.
 
 SEAWEED. 99 
 
 when he fell in with a bear climbing a 
 tree ; his paws embracing the trunk ap- 
 peared on tlie side towards Davy. So, 
 coming up cautiously, keeping the tree be- 
 tween the bear and himself, he caught hold 
 of the animal's feet, and held them there 
 for an hour or so ; until his brother coming 
 along, he desired him to run home for his 
 gun. After an unreasonably long absence, 
 the brother returned, observing that as 
 dinner was just ready he had waited for 
 it. 
 
 • ^^ Well, then," said Davy, " hurry now, 
 and kill this beast, for my arms are aching 
 the worst kind : or, perhaps, I reckon you 
 had better catch hold here, and let me 
 shoot." 
 
 ^ So the brother seized the bear's paws, 
 just as Davy had done. 
 
 ' '' Hold fast ! " says Davy. '' If you let 
 him get loose it's all up with you!" And
 
 100 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 then, instead of shooting the bear, he 
 shoulders the gun and walks- off, saying, 
 ^^ Now, I guess, I'll go home and get iwj 
 dinner." 
 
 The story is inimitably told, and the 
 laughter having subsided, another follows 
 suit, and relates how that, at a ball in 
 Kentucky, a well-known bully placed his 
 hat upon the floor, declaring he would 
 punish any one who should dare to touch 
 it. One who entered the room after this 
 happened to kick it over in dancing. His 
 partner told him of the threatened penalty, 
 upon which he at once kicked it across the 
 room, and then placed it on the blazing 
 fire. The owner coming up, inquired 
 fiercely, ^ Did you put my hat there ? ' 
 
 ^ Yes, I did,' was the reply, in a still 
 fiercer tone ; ^ and if you come bothering 
 me about your hat I'll put you there too ! ' 
 
 ' Ah ! that's your temper, is it ? ' 
 
 '• Yes, that's just my temper.'
 
 SEAWEED. 101 
 
 ^ In that case tlien I'll have nothing to 
 do with you.' 
 
 But my young countryman yonder 
 seems to be in a scrape. One of the pas- 
 sengers is making a list of the names and 
 occupations of all on board, and this youth 
 has described himself as a ' gentleman- 
 farmer.' 
 
 ^ What, in the name of thunder, do you 
 mean by that ? ' inquires a big bearded 
 Yankee of the cowering lad. ' Do you go 
 for to assert that a farmer isn't a gentle- 
 man ? 'Cos if you do — ' I whispered to 
 the fellow, upon which he said, ^ Ah, I can 
 guess what he means ; but I'm giving 
 him a lesson, or he'll find himself insulting 
 some one who won't treat him so gently.' 
 
 It has been remarked that if any 
 number of persons were to give a descrip- 
 tion of the same occurrence, no two of their 
 accounts would exactly coincide. This
 
 102 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 seems to be a necessity arising from the 
 infinite variety of the human mind, which 
 causes each individual to see things from 
 a different point of view. Each lays a 
 stress on some particular item according to 
 his own bias, unconsciously magnifying 
 or diminishing, and therefore distorting 
 certain facts in their proper relation to 
 other facts. I have not the slightest doubt 
 that both my fellow journalists, who have 
 just favoured me with a view of their notes, 
 firmly believe they have spoken only 
 the exact truth, when one describes the 
 weather during the voyage as consisting of 
 fresli breezes with but one calm day, while 
 the other (an Irishman, by-the-by) main- 
 tains that we have been becalmed all the 
 way. 
 
 There has been a discussion about 
 having a religious service on Sundays, but 
 as the company appears to consist of per- 
 sons of every variety of faith, there is
 
 SEAWEED. 103 
 
 little united interest in the movement^ and 
 it has been dropped. Rather curiously, I, 
 the most isolated stranger of the party, 
 have been asked to ^ do chaplain,' which, 
 considering that not a soul on board has 
 any idea that I was specially brought up 
 for that very purpose, seems to indicate a 
 natural fitness for the office, at least as far as 
 appearance and demeanour go. I refused 
 decidedly, though not quite clear as to 
 my reasons ; perhaps I shall discover them 
 by-and-by. My instinct was strong enough 
 to make all search for reasons quite super- 
 fluous. I shrink from all verbal religion, 
 perhaps because I have never known it, 
 except as associated with dogma. Could 
 I join, and assist these men in simple 
 worship, which is all they want ? I would 
 do what they wish, but I don't know how. 
 There is a marked difference between Sun- 
 day and other days, however. We are some- 
 what more lazy on Sunday. There is less
 
 104 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 card-playing. Here and there one may 
 be seen reading a Bible instead of a novel. 
 The negro melodies, which seem to form 
 the national music of the United States, 
 are hushed, and a small band of singers 
 supplies the void by hymns and sacred 
 choruses. Neither are Ave quite without 
 ministrations, for one of the passengers 
 turns out to be a Mormon preacher, who 
 loves to hold forth for the general edifica- 
 tion. He is a man of strong character, of 
 a general illiteratism, yet possessing a 
 considerable aptitude for quoting Scripture. 
 Of a passionate and intolerant disposition, 
 he loves to descant on the beauty of good- 
 will to all men. He enforces his ad- 
 monitions with ' my brethren, the Bible 
 says so, and I am very glad it does say so, 
 because I am sure it is the truth,' and 
 winds up with ^ and that you may all be 
 for ever happy, is tlie prayer of your hum- 
 ble servant.' He seems careful not to toucii
 
 SEAWEED. 105 
 
 upon any of the peculiar tenets of liis sect, 
 but deals in sucli general moralities as are 
 of common acceptance. 
 
 Strange and exceptional as tlie po- 
 sition and aim of us all, one cannot 
 be here without feeling that, one is doing 
 the thing that is fashionable and right. 
 The furor in the States must be of extra- 
 ordinary intensity. One poor fellow here 
 struck me at once by the profound melan- 
 choly which marked him as one apart. He 
 had been married just one week when he 
 was seduced by the equivocal attractions 
 of California. He soon found relief, for he 
 encountered one whose fate is similar, only 
 that he had been married but four and 
 twenty hours before leaving home. The 
 misery of the first paled before that of the 
 second, and since the hour of his discovery 
 his melancholy has vanished. 
 
 A man was asked to take a hand at 
 whist last Sunday, and refused, saying he
 
 106 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 wouldn't play cards on Sunday, but he 
 didn't mind laying a dollar on the game. 
 A conscientious Scotchman, I imagine. 
 Not a bad subject for a book would be 
 ' Lines : If, why, how, when, and where 
 they should be drawn.' I suppose they are 
 indispensable for people who have no prin- 
 ciples to guide them ; but it must require 
 vast ingenuity to define them. I have 
 heard of a Jew banker, who on the Sab- 
 bath never opened a letter, or signed his 
 name, but made the postman break the 
 seal and unfold the letter for him to read. 
 He would pay away money too, if it in- 
 volved no writing. I wonder if we owe 
 this hair-splitting formulism to the Jews, 
 and whether the Scotch inherit it by 
 virtue of any blood descent. I have Scotch 
 blood in me, and my parents are deeply 
 imbued with Jewish theology. In my 
 own evangelically nurtured youth, I was
 
 SEAWEED. 107 
 
 allowed to go to the circus, but not to the 
 theatre ; to play bagatelle, but not billiards; 
 to eat hot potatoes on Sunday, but not hot 
 meat. And one of our neighbours rebuked 
 his children for going up-stairs two steps at 
 once on that terribly sacred day; while 
 another, who was regarded as a very pillar 
 of the faith, forbade the opening of the 
 letter which arrived on a Sunday morning 
 to announce the result of a son's university 
 degree examination, till after service, and 
 so kept the poor mother in an agony of 
 anxiety, instead of sending her to church 
 with a heart overflowing with joy and 
 thankfulness for the capital place her son 
 had taken. 
 
 This Central American coast is very 
 striking in its abrupt changes from rich- 
 ly cultivated valleys to rugged volcanic 
 peaks. Many of the passengers are trying 
 to sketch the curious outlines, or cut them
 
 108 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 out on paper. One suggests that the crea- 
 tion of this country must have been begun 
 at half-past eleven on a Saturday night, 
 when there were neither time nor materials 
 for finishing it.
 
 109 
 
 CHAPTER yi. 
 
 AN EXCURSION. 
 
 From Herbert Ainslies Journal. 
 
 At sea again, after a deliglitful week 
 ashore. We put into Realejo, a port of 
 Nicaragua, for water and provisions not a 
 moment too soon. May our fresh supply 
 of the former tm^n out better than the first. 
 Whether it was the fault of the water itself, 
 or of the new casks in which it was stored, 
 I know not ; but its odour was such that a 
 bucket of it brought into the cabin was the 
 signal for every one to rush out upon deck. 
 The Captain has a theory of fermentation 
 to account for it, which I don't understand.
 
 110 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 and says it was wholesome though so nasty. 
 Certainly his way of mixing was calculated 
 to avert any ill effects from that source ; — 
 half rum. half lime juice, and the rest 
 water. Judging by the change these few 
 days ashore have made in us all, I think 
 we must have been undergoing a process of 
 poisoning by it. I don't see why the 
 supply from the broiling harbour of Realejo, 
 with its deadly-looking mangrove swamps 
 and profuse tropical vegetation, should be 
 any better. At first it seemed as if we 
 should not get anything there, for they 
 took us for ' Filibusteros,' and forbade our 
 landing, and even marched a file of soldiers 
 down to the beach ; but the idea of citizens 
 of the United States not being able to get 
 what they wanted from these half-caste 
 Nicaraguans, and being opposed by half- 
 naked negro troops, was too much of a 
 joke. On a couple of boats, filled with 
 passengers well armed with rifles and re-
 
 AN EXCURSION. Ill 
 
 volvers, pulling to the beacli, the blacks 
 ran awaj, and the commandant came down 
 and said that if it was quite true there was 
 no cholera on board he would let us have 
 supplies. Some half-dozen of us engage 
 horses and gallop through forty miles of 
 such dust as I never imagined before, to 
 the capital, San Leon. It is holy week, 
 and the religious pastimes of a population 
 that is more Indian than Spanish, and more 
 pagan than Christian, though called Cath- 
 olic, afford both amusement and instruction. 
 The various scenes of the last days of 
 Christ are enacted in the streets, much, I 
 suppose, in the way of the old miracle 
 plays at home, so that one seems simply 
 to have stepped back five hundred years. 
 Going out early on the Thursday morning, 
 I find, hanging by the neck from a pole 
 thrust out of the belfry of the churches, and 
 variously dressed, according to the taste of 
 the devout, the figure of a man, who is evi-
 
 112 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 dently the equivalent of our Guy Fawkes. 
 Asking a woman what Ilomhre Santo that 
 is, I learn that it is Saint Judas, who tlius 
 yearly repeats his fate. Judging from his 
 costume, one is led to suppose that it was 
 a passion for fine clothes that prompted 
 his treachery, for he is here represented in 
 a cocked hat and feathers, blue velvet 
 mantle, red satin jacket, yellow trowsers, 
 and patent leather boots. Mounting the 
 tower of the cathedral, which, like all the 
 buildings in the city, is low and massive, 
 so as to be earthquake proof, I saw in a 
 little chamber huddled together in a heap 
 a pile of dolls of various sizes and degrees 
 of tawdry €nery ; these, my guide told me, 
 were the images of the saints, waiting the 
 recurrence of their respective anniversaries 
 to be brought out for the adoration of the 
 faithful. 
 
 I expressed some surprise at the images 
 being treated as sacred only on their birth-
 
 AN EXCURSION. 113 
 
 days, and learnt that there is a mystery 
 about tliem which the priests only under- 
 stand. Not long ago, he said, a man had 
 died very suddenly and been buried with- 
 out receiving the last rites of the Church. 
 The priests thereupon assured the son that 
 his father had no chance of happiness, unless 
 a wax image of him was made, and the 
 extreme unction administered to it as it 
 ought to have been to the father. It was a 
 costly operation, but the priests had their 
 way, and there was no longer any obstacle 
 to the dead man's eternal blessedness. The 
 story may be true or false, but I see nothing 
 here to make it improbable. It is easy to 
 see how the original theory of vicarious 
 atonement can be extended to all the 
 minutiae of religion. For a priesthood in 
 the least given to priestcraft it would be 
 an invaluable means of extorting gain. To 
 be able to sin oneself and repent by proxy 
 must, to many people, impart a vast charm 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 to religion. It is so much easier for the 
 rich to j)ay than to pray. Such a repre- 
 sentative system, too, creates a general 
 reciprocity between clergy and laity, 
 whereby each becomes necessary to the 
 other, and secures the Church being duly 
 honoured. Mounting to the flat roof of 
 the catliedral, the man directed my atten- 
 tion to a neighbouring church, having a 
 stone crucifixion over the gateway. In the 
 recent revolution, he said, cannon were 
 planted by the opposing parties on the 
 roofs of the two churches, and a French 
 artilleryman on the cathedral made a bet 
 that he would hit the good thief on the 
 other church, and won it. 
 
 I wonder why the good thief? Perhaps 
 he thought the other has been punished 
 enough ; perhaps for the same reason that 
 increased the majority against Aristides by 
 one — he was tired of hearing him called 
 ^ good.'
 
 AN EXCURSION. 115 
 
 I found ill Nicaragua a Scotchman who 
 has lived there many years, and is engaged 
 in gold-washing. It does not seem to be 
 a very thriving business there, the gold 
 being exceedingly fine and scarce. He 
 took me by a picturesque road among vol- 
 canic hills to a region of earlier formation, 
 where he has a rancho and a number of 
 Indians working for him. He does not 
 seem to think much of our chances in Cali- 
 fornia, but I suspect there are other reasons 
 for his not going there. In the huts around 
 liis own many of the younger generation 
 are of a lighter complexion than is com- 
 mon to the country, and he is evidently 
 looked up to with a sort of patriarchal 
 respect. A pretty picture would one fair 
 girl make whom I found swinging in a 
 grass hammock slung between two shady 
 trees, her long black hair hanging over one 
 end almost to the ground, and licr tiny 
 wdiity-brown feet hanging bare over the
 
 116 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 other, while she was intent upon the 
 wreaths of smoke rising from her cigarette. 
 Women have no education here beyond 
 that of nature, as they are believed capable 
 of but one idea — that of love. How she 
 delighted in questioning me about my own 
 home and my travels, and wished she could 
 see the world if it could be done without 
 leaving her own country ; for that is a 
 thing the women here never do ; even if 
 married to foreigners the laws make it 
 very difficult for the husband to take his 
 wife away. 
 
 I was sur]3rised to learn from a simple- 
 hearted old Padre who took the rancho in 
 his rounds, that the ancient paganism is 
 still maintained by the Indians of Central 
 America, with idols and sacrifices as of old, 
 though they take care that no white man 
 shall see them. ' I talk to my Indians 
 about it,' he said, ^ and tell them how supe- 
 rior our religion is to theirs, but they seem
 
 AN EXCURSION. 117 
 
 to treat religion as a matter of constitution 
 or race, for tliey say ours may be the best 
 for us, but theirs is tlie best for them. 
 And when I thought I had persuaded one 
 of the best of them to come into the 
 Church, and was telling him how little 
 change he need really make, just to give 
 up those nasty ugly idols and worship the 
 blessed saints and so on, he said, ^^If the 
 difference be so slight. Padre mio, it is 
 hardly worth while to make the change." ' 
 From the little I have seen I should 
 judge the Spanish part of the population 
 to be rather the lowest in intelligence of 
 the two races. I wonder if Englishmen 
 could ever sink so low. Perhaps if they 
 were cut off from all connection with the 
 mother country, and associated only with 
 an inferior race, they would gradually 
 descend to their level. It may thus be 
 the very independence of these republics 
 that has ruined them, and the same thing
 
 118 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 might befall the United States if the 
 supply of fresh blood was stopped, espe- 
 cially if the white and black races became 
 blended. Here the very climate tends to 
 encourage laziness of mind and body : 
 there is no literature, and little stimulus 
 to physical exertion. If a tree falls across 
 the high-road it is left there till it rots 
 away, and in the mean time all vehicles 
 have to go round it. Indeed I am inclined 
 to think that half the power of the priests 
 is derived from the people being too indo- 
 lent to resist, and so allow themselves to be 
 plundered freely. My host in the capital 
 had a notice of indulgence posted on his 
 door, promising the remittance of a third 
 part of his sins to the purchaser. I asked 
 why, if he believed in the promise, he did 
 not get three and so have all his sins re- 
 mitted. He answered with a shrug that 
 every good Christian is expected to buy 
 one — it costs little and does no harm. A
 
 AN EXCURSION. 119 
 
 sharp Yankee fellow-traveller, hearing this 
 conversation, observed that there would 
 still remain a residuum of sin no matter 
 how many indulgences were bought, for 
 that each remits only a third of the re- 
 mainder. I had to tell the host, therefore, 
 that to get rid of all his sins it was neces- 
 sary to buy the three indulgences all ex- 
 actly at the same moment. But, alas ! this 
 emergency also has been foreseen and 
 guarded against. The sinner can buy in- 
 dulgences as often as he pleases, but only 
 one at a time ! His liabilities may by 
 repeated purchases become ^ small by de- 
 grees and beautifully fine,' but there is no 
 place here below for one altogether sin- 
 less. 
 
 The night before we left San Leon 
 there was a shock of an earthquake, slight 
 but yet sufficient to send the women out 
 into the streets, where they fell on their 
 knees and told their beads, and cried ^ Ave
 
 120 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 Maria purissima,' which was no doubt a 
 great comfort to them under the circum- 
 stances. It suggested to me a new view of 
 the proverb that says ' A drowning man 
 will catch at a straw.' It is true that the 
 straw cannot help him, but it may comfort 
 him to catch at it. At any rate he has the 
 satisfaction of feeling that he is doing his 
 best : he is acting up to the light that is in 
 him. 
 
 And now that we are on board once 
 more, with a stock of water, provisions, 
 and health, that ought to be ample for the 
 rest of the voyage to the Golden Gate of 
 the New Dorado, the captain is no longer 
 creeping along the coast, but has put out 
 to sea in search of fair and steady winds. 
 One character that I have fallen in with 
 interests me much. He is known only as 
 ' The Major.' His reserved and melan- 
 choly disposition has kept him during the 
 earlier part of the voyage so much in the
 
 AN EXCURSION. 121 
 
 fore part of the ship, near his own berth, 
 that I should not have observed him but 
 for his magnificent height and build, and 
 his dark gipsy-like eyes. Just before re- 
 embarking at Realejo I saw him kick off 
 his shoes and give them to a sailor who 
 had got tipsy and lost his own, saying he 
 was used to going barefoot on his own 
 Welsh hills. Finding another sailor in the 
 boat without a hat he insisted on giving him 
 his own during the nine miles heavy pull 
 under that frightful sun, making only the 
 same observation that he was ' used to it.' 
 And when I had twisted into a turban, and 
 dipped into the water, and clapped upon 
 his head a towel that I have learnt always 
 to carry with me when journeying in these 
 regions, he looked at me with a gleam of 
 strange tenderness in his eyes, and asked 
 why I should take any trouble about him. 
 To which I replied by asking why he 
 should risk his life for those sailors. ^ Oh,
 
 122 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINK. 
 
 my life is of no consequence,' he said, ' I 
 should be rather glad to be rid of it than 
 otherwise.' ^ That may be,' I answered, 
 ^ but I have no wish to nurse you through 
 a brain fever on board.' He again darted 
 on me a singular look, and presently mur- 
 mured to himself, ' You'll do.' 
 
 He is by no means a man of ungenial 
 temperament, but seems to have some 
 secret over which he broods.
 
 123 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 MORE SEAWEED. 
 From Herlert Alnslie's Journal. 
 
 April has nearly passed, and we are 
 entangled in the calm latitudes that lie 
 some six hundred miles south of Mazatlan. 
 All the books are read to pieces, all the 
 stories are past further repetition, all the 
 cards are worn out, energy is wanting for 
 learning Spanish, and no wood remains 
 for whitling. 
 
 There is something very beautiful in a 
 calm at sea ; one of these perfect and 
 thorough calms that are so frequent of 
 late. Entirely isolated from any care and
 
 124 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 responsibility, the state must very nearly 
 resemble that of a disembodied spirit in 
 the interval before commencing its new 
 career, resting from the toils of life and 
 quietly awaiting its next development. 
 Asleep, and conscious of it. There is 
 absolutely nothing to be done but to wait. 
 Indolence and languor rule the day, as 
 stretched beneath the awning we doze the 
 hours away, or gaze listlessly over the side, 
 watching the gambols of the strange mon- 
 sters that come up to visit us ; a whale up- 
 blowing his fountain, or a huge blackfish 
 snorting and plunging by : now a shoal of 
 porpoises leaping along preceded by my- 
 riads of flying-fish ; then the sea-birds 
 swooping to their roost on the motionless 
 rigging. Sometimes when gazing into the 
 translucent depths spread below, one is 
 seized with an irresistible impulse to plunge 
 into them. Off with shirt and shoes, and
 
 MORE SEAWEED. 125 
 
 down, down, till the black ship is dimly 
 visible overhead : down, down, 
 
 ' To the blue depth of waters 
 
 Where the wave hath no strife ; 
 Where the wind is a stranger, 
 And the sea-snake hath life.' 
 
 Down, down, till the waters around grow 
 dark, and fresh breath becomes necessary, 
 and then with a bound shoot rapidly to the 
 surface, rising half out of the water with 
 the impetus, taking care to be well clear of 
 the vessel. What can be more delicious ? 
 Then the reaction that comes when on 
 board again, something almost to swoon- 
 ing, and one feels as if a fever were for 
 ever impossible. How easy would death 
 thus be, melting out of life ! Evening 
 comes. What gorgeous sunsets are in 
 this torrid zone ! No twilight here ; the 
 nightly sky shines out at once in all its 
 wondrous brilliancy, girdled wich the via
 
 126 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 lac tea as with a rainbow of constellations. 
 Each star is clearly mirrored in the deep : 
 no undulations break the lone: lines of lio^ht 
 reflected from the water. So entire is the 
 calm that the sails have ceased to flap. 
 
 ' jSTo stir in the air ; no stir in the sea ; 
 The ship is still as it can be : 
 Her sails from heaven receive no motion ; 
 All things are silent on the ocean.' 
 
 And then the moon glides slowly up- 
 wards above the clear horizon. It is a 
 little past the full, and yellow as any 
 harvest-moon. The least possible undula- 
 tion in the water changes her wake from 
 an unbroken line like the outpouring of 
 molten gold, to a succession of regular bars 
 of the same rich appearance, such as fancy 
 might depict for the visionary ladder of the 
 sleeping patriarch, although a golden lad- 
 der to heaven is among the declared im- 
 possibilities, and
 
 MORE SEAWEED. 127 
 
 * "We must not own a notion so unholy 
 As thinking that the rich by easy trips 
 
 May go to heaven, — "Whereas the poor and lowly 
 Must work their passage, as we do in ships.' 
 
 The murmur of many voices has ceased, 
 and the deck is strewn with the slumber- 
 ing forms of my fellow voyagers. Mount- 
 ing to my favourite station in the maintop, 
 there to watch the stars and muse, one 
 seems to dilate, and become transfused in- 
 to the infinite expanse spread above and 
 around. I wonder not at the enthusiastic 
 vagaries of the astrolaters of old. How 
 they would sit alone and vigilant when the 
 world was asleep, and, forgetful of the 
 strivings of the outward life, hold com- 
 munion with the stars until thev felt their 
 souls detached from the organism and were 
 able to realize the idea of a distinct spirit- 
 uality. A daily connection with the world 
 and its engrossments ; a constant implica- 
 tion in the acts and relations of mankind.
 
 128 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 creates a tendency to materialism which 
 here finds an antidote. For here the soul 
 makes itself felt in its entire individuality. 
 Freely expanding to the farthest range of 
 its capacity, and placing itself en rapport 
 with all spiritual existences, 
 
 'It hears a voice we cannot hear, 
 It sees a hand we cannot see,' 
 
 while we remain in contact with mere 
 temporalities. In this state of exaltation 
 the unseen becomes the seen, the impos- 
 sible becomes the necessary. Man ap- 
 proaches so near to God that he becomes 
 one with him : the part is in harmony with 
 the whole. Who shall say how many of 
 its religious faiths the work-a-dav world 
 owes to the ecstatic dreamer ? 
 
 Maij %%d. Airs light and variable. Signs 
 of wind every evening and at day -break ; 
 but all signs fail. We have crept on 
 till our position is 13« 30' north, 104" 
 west. For the last few days there has
 
 MORE SEAWEED. 129 
 
 been much discussion forward about the 
 ship's course and the supphes : we being 
 400 miles from the nearest" land, still steer- 
 ing west, with 15 days' water on board 
 (reduced allowance), in a latitude liable to 
 calms for an indefinite period. At last the 
 other passengers request us of the cabin to 
 demand the Captain's intentions, adding 
 that such is the character of many forward, 
 that if they are placed upon a short 
 allowance of water, they will force open 
 the spirit casks, get drunk, and fire the 
 ship. The result is an explosion in the 
 cabin. The Captain offers the command 
 of the ship to any one who can manage 
 her better, and states his intention of 
 making Cape San Lucas as soon as possible. 
 A breeze springing up, the dispute termin- 
 ates. 
 
 3fay dth. About 50 miles from Cloud 
 Island, having passed near Socorro with- 
 out seeing it. This name indicates that
 
 130 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 former navigators have here been in like 
 straits and here found succour. There are 
 still about a thousand gallons of water on 
 board. The allowance is further reduced 
 to three pints a day. Half of this is given 
 in the shape of tea and coffee. Each 
 individual receives a pint in a bottle, and 
 the remaining half-pint is used in cooking. 
 The staple of our food consists of rice and 
 beans, which are boiled in sea-water, and 
 the little meat we have being also salt, a 
 thirst is produced which requires more 
 water than ever. It is amusing to see the 
 allowance doled out, and how every one 
 watches his neighbour. Thus in the cabin 
 one morning one F. loq. 
 
 ^ Captain, you borrowed half- a- tumbler 
 full of me this morning.' 
 
 ' Carlos, give Mr F. an extra half- 
 tumbler full,' says the Captain. 
 
 ' And, Carlos, don't forget to give the
 
 MORE SEAWEED. 131 
 
 Captain so much less I ' cries an old Yankee 
 shipmaster. 
 
 * Carlos, you have filled my bottle,' 
 says the Captain ; ^ put half-a-glass back 
 again.' 
 
 ^ Si Senor.' So Carlos returns the 
 quantity under discussion from the Cap- 
 tain's bottle to the ship's tank. 
 
 Ilay 10tl(. Wind dead against us. 
 
 Great excitement this afternoon about 
 a passenger who has been discovered using 
 his allowance for washing instead of drink- 
 ing, and a court-martial was held to try 
 the offender. At first the irritation was so 
 strong against him that he seemed to have 
 no chance of propitiating the crowd, and 
 escaping whatever penalty they might 
 think of inflicting, which probably would 
 have been no slight one. The suggestion 
 of a regular trial rather diverted the 
 general feeling from one of anger to one
 
 132 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 of curiosity, and a judge and jury being 
 appointed^ the accused asked me to defend 
 liim, a task wliicli I undertook, but rather 
 shrunk from when I found how excited the 
 audience became as the counsel for the 
 prosecution, a practised advocate, de- 
 scribed in harrowing terms the horrors of 
 the situation, and the extreme heinous- 
 ness of wasting a drop of that which was 
 already so scarce and so necessary to sup- 
 port Hfe. ' If one of us dies for want of 
 water the prisoner at the bar is his mur- 
 derer, and a wilful murderer too,' was the 
 conclusion to a most vehement harangue. 
 I found myself so interested in the pro- 
 ceedings and so put on my metal to get 
 the man off, that I was quite indifferent to 
 the many eyes which were then turned 
 upon me, and which at any other time 
 would have called forth all my native shy- 
 ness. So the cries of ^ Good, good : that's 
 the talk,' had not abated v/hen I shouted,
 
 MORE SEAWEED. 133 
 
 'Yes, gentlemen, I too, though on the 
 prisoner's side, can say '^ good " also. For 
 most true it is that if the prisoner be the 
 wilful cause of any one's death he is a mur- 
 derer. But is any one dead ? and can we 
 call a man a murderer till he has at least 
 tried to kill some one ? In common justice, 
 then, we must wait till the mischief is done 
 before we proceed to punish the author of 
 it. But my eloquent opponent has forgot- 
 ten that property has its rights as well as 
 its duties, and he has not attempted to 
 show that the pint of water daily doled 
 out to each of us belongs to any but the 
 person who receives it. His position is 
 that that water is given to us either to be 
 drunk or to be returned to the common 
 stock. The prisoner's defence is that each 
 may do as he likes with his own. Are you 
 prepared to say you may not ? We have 
 heard a truthful description of the horrors 
 of thirst, but nothing has been said about
 
 134 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 the misery of feeling oneself thickly en- 
 crusted with a coating of dry and sticky 
 salt, which clings to one's skin and stiffens 
 all the muscles of one's face. My client 
 declares that he suffered so much from this 
 hitherto unmentioned annoyance, that 
 from daily washing in sea-water both him- 
 self and his towel for so long a period, the 
 brine has so thickly accumulated on both 
 that the one cannot remove it from the 
 other, so that he is made to feel as if rubbed 
 all over with tar or molasses : and that in 
 this predicament he resolved to apply a 
 portion of his allowance to removing the 
 coating of brine from his face and hands, 
 even at the risk of suffering additional 
 thirst. Now I assure you that in this 
 resolution I myself can deeply sympathize 
 with him, for my greatest discomfort 
 during this voyage has arisen from the 
 very same cause, from feeling perpetually 
 clammy and sticky. Yet bad as it is
 
 MORE SEAWEED. 135 
 
 with me, it is far worse with him, for I 
 happen to have a larger stock of towels 
 with me. I appeal then to all those of you 
 who are in the habit of washing yourselves 
 for a favourable verdict on my client. If 
 condemned, he will at least have the 
 satisfaction of knowing that it is only by 
 the unwashed among you.' There was 
 some laughing, which I took for a good 
 sign, and the judge observed that the fact 
 being admitted, the only question was as 
 to whether any wrong had been done, 
 and as there was no law bearing on the 
 case for him to expound, he would leave it 
 to the jury to decide if the law had been 
 broken. Here a sudden shift of wind 
 made it necessary to break up the court in 
 order to tack ship, and as we were pre- 
 sently speeding along in the desired direc- 
 tion the cased closed without any verdict 
 being recorded. 
 
 May I2th. We have made about 150
 
 136 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 miles since the last entry. A week's 
 water is left at the present rate of con- 
 sumption, which by no means supplies the 
 daily evaporation of each recipient. A 
 dead calm all day makes the people rather 
 savage, and they fight over their rations 
 so as to remind me of feeding-time at the 
 Zoological Gardens. Several have broken 
 out with horrible boils from coarse food 
 and want of fluids. No doubt scurvy will 
 soon make its appearance unless we all 
 die of thirst first. If the calm lasts a week 
 we shall be nowhere. 
 
 May IS til. Sunday. The Mormon 
 preacher has done the state some service 
 to-day, for he has given us something to 
 laugh about. It appears that some thirsty 
 soul, finding his own allowance insufficient 
 to satisfy his cravings, and selfish enough 
 to disregard those of others, helped himself 
 in the night to the contents of several 
 bottles of water while their owners were
 
 MORE SEAWEED. 137 
 
 sleeping. One of the individuals thus 
 wronged was the Mormon. When the 
 time for holding forth arrived he delivered 
 a long address inculcating general good 
 humour and resignation, as being great 
 Christian virtues at all times and especially 
 under the present circumstances. After 
 speaking thus in allusion to the quarrelling 
 over the rations of yesterday, he strongly 
 animadverted on the practice of stealing 
 as ' one of the meanest things a man can 
 do,' and concluded with the following 
 startling climax: ^And as for the nasty 
 sneaking thief who goes prowling about 
 the ship at night stealing the drop of 
 water that men have laid by for their 
 necessities, — if such a one as that was in 
 trouble, was sick and afflicted, do you 
 think I would go to him and aid him and 
 comfort him ? No, he might die and be 
 damned ! ' Tremendous was the emphasis, 
 and tremendous the laughter that followed.
 
 138 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 as may be readily imagined from the na- 
 ture of the audience. 
 
 These calms, picturesque though they 
 be, are terribly ill-timed just now. A 
 strong faith in one's destiny is necessary 
 to counteract the prevailing gloomy fore- 
 bodings. What shall I do for a pastime ? 
 How extract sweets from this bitter ? The 
 blessed poets ! Without denouncing the 
 man who has no ear or soul for music to 
 the same extent as our great high priest of 
 nature, it is difficult to give him who has 
 no poetry in his soul credit for possessing 
 a whole one. He is minus one great means 
 of enjoyment ; he has, in fact, one sense 
 the less. You were a true prophet, 
 Author of the ' Ancient Mariner,' if, having 
 never experienced such a predicament, you 
 thus exactly described it : 
 
 ' Down dropped the breeze ; the sails dropped down ; 
 'Twas sad as sad could be, 
 And we did speak only to break 
 The silence of the sea.
 
 MORE SEAWEED. 139 
 
 All in a hot and copper sky, 
 
 The blood-red sun at noon 
 Eight up above the mast did stand, 
 
 No bigger than the moon. 
 
 Day after day, day after day. 
 
 We stuck, nor breath nor motion ; 
 
 As idle as a painted ship 
 Upon a painted ocean.' 
 
 Here from my eyrie in the maintop do I 
 invoke thee, bard of the silvery tongue, to 
 minister to my relief, and win me from my 
 woes. Thine is a right royal prerogative, 
 Imagination ! for thou hast power to ignore 
 the hunger and thirst of the body, and lap 
 the soul in Elysium. Entranced by thee 
 were martyrs and heroes of old, insensible 
 to their sufferings. Ever may est thou 
 maintain thy sway over the spirits of thy 
 votaries. Yonder poor humanities scat- 
 tered below, moody, and apart from each 
 other, with tongues too dry and hearts too 
 heavy to converse — tell them that some day 
 they may look back upon their present ex-
 
 140 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHUINE. 
 
 periences and even derive pleasure from 
 the reminiscence, and you will be regarded 
 as one that mocks. 
 
 ' Day after day, day after day, they, sitting there alone, 
 Vex the inconstant wave with their perpetual moan.' 
 
 What can be done for them ? come, thou 
 singer of sweet songs, together let us in- 
 voke the favouring breeze. 
 
 ' southern wind, 
 Long hast thou lingered midst those islands fair, 
 That lie like jew-els on the Indian deep. 
 
 On green waves all asleep. 
 Fed by the summer suns and azure air ; 
 
 O sweetest southern wind, 
 
 "Wilt thou not now unbind 
 
 Thy dark and crowned hair ? ' 
 
 May \4ith. Still the inexorable calm. 
 In order to avoid the reproaches of the 
 thirsty ones, the Captain keeps close in his 
 cabin, visiting the deck only at night. Sud- 
 denly he remembers that it is possible to 
 transmute salt-water into fresh. Sending
 
 MORE SEAWEED. 141 
 
 for the carpenter lie gives directions for 
 the construction of a wooden retort. The 
 passengers derive much satisfaction from 
 watching its progress until the question is 
 raised as to where the fuel is to come from, 
 — a question to be asked but not to be 
 answered, for on my suggesting the same 
 to the artisan, he raised his head from his 
 work, looked me in the face for some mo- 
 ments, and, without replying a single 
 word, put down his tools and walked away, 
 the materials upon which he was then em- 
 ployed being the last available for burning 
 left in the ship. 
 
 Maij I6th. A thunderstorm to the rescue! 
 What a change is this fresh, cheerful, spark- 
 ling, breezy air, from the heavy, lurid, over- 
 charged, motionless atmosphere of yester- 
 day ! The situation, too, how changed ! 
 It is like a reprieve after a sentence of 
 death. How slowly and silently the cloud 
 gathered over us ; not coming up from a
 
 142 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 distance, but actually forming and taking 
 existence over and among us. There was 
 a singular strangeness in the sensations of 
 all on board during the day, — a conscious- 
 ness of being in contact with something 
 weird, mysterious, and awful. We were 
 all thrown off our electric equilibrium, and 
 felt it would be a relief when the evidently 
 impending catastrophe should come. To- 
 wards evening the gloom thickened into a 
 massive cloud, so black and impenetrable 
 it was impossible to say at what moment 
 night fell. Early in the evening every one 
 was crowding to the side and gazing on 
 the strange freaks of the dolphins, darting 
 backwards and forwards under the ship, 
 and drawing after them bright phospho- 
 rescent trails. They soon departed, and 
 the blackness grew more and more intense, 
 and not a sound broke the dread silence. 
 Presently some one close beside me said in
 
 MORE SEAWEED. 143 
 
 a subdued but excited voice, ' Can't you 
 feel it ? I can.' 
 
 ' Feel what ? ' 
 
 ^ The darkness ! ' 
 
 It was the Major; and as he spoke 
 there came a blinding flash, cleaving the 
 massive cloud, and wrapping everything in 
 intensest flame ; followed instantaneously 
 by a crash of thunder that seemed an epi- 
 tome of all the possibilities of sound, and 
 to bring all heaven down upon our devoted 
 heads. The first conscious impulse was to 
 look up at the rigging, thinking the whole 
 of it must have come down ; but the 
 lightning, that now played incessantly, 
 showed that to be all right. And then 
 came the rain, as if another sea poised 
 overhead had given way, and was tumb- 
 ling upon us in solid masses of water. A 
 word to the Major, and we both ran to the 
 Captain. The same idea had already
 
 144 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 struck him, and soon all hands were busy 
 in spreading sails and stopping the scup- 
 pers, and filling the casks with the water 
 fresh from heaven's own manufactory. 
 Now was the time for getting rid of the 
 accumulations of brine ; so hastening below 
 I reappeared on deck in my shirt, where, 
 so mercilessly did the rain pelt, that it was 
 almost more than I could bear. The idea 
 spread, and with the enthusiasm of young 
 converts, who always outstrip their leaders, 
 the rest of the vo3^agers stripped themselves 
 to the skin ; and presently a hundred white 
 forms were dancing and rolling on the 
 deck, lit fitfully up by the ceaseless flashes 
 of lightning, mingling their shouts of 
 laughter with the pealing thunder, and 
 altogether forming a picture that would 
 defy the combined efforts of an Etty, a 
 Martin, and a Turner.
 
 145 
 
 CHAPTER yill. 
 
 THE PENINSULA. 
 From Herbert Ainslie's Journal. 
 
 After thirty-five days of intense dis- 
 comfort the barque anchored in the open 
 bay of San Jose, a small town to the east- 
 ward of Cape San Lucas, the extreme end 
 of Lower California. By good fortune, 
 close to the landing-place, we found a well 
 which was sunk by the crew of Her 
 Majesty's frigate ^ Constance ' but a few 
 months ago. The majority of my fellow- 
 voyagers started at once for the town, 
 nine miles off ; but as it was a scorching 
 day, I remained on board till the heat was 
 
 VOL, I. 10
 
 146 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 somewhat abated, and then strolled to- 
 wards a rancho, where, I was told, the 
 luxury of milk might be obtained. The 
 road, a mere mule track, lay sometimes 
 over the sands, sometimes over rugged 
 rocks of trap and quartz, and hills whose 
 surface is broken and crumbled as if by the 
 forcible upheavings that ushered them forth 
 into the light of day. Nature has afforded 
 this portion of her empire but a scanty 
 allotment of vegetation; scarcely a tree is 
 to be seen, unless the cactus be reckoned 
 as such ; and I think the tree-like magni- 
 tude it attains certainly entitles it to the 
 rank. 
 
 Pitched on a little hill, nearly sur- 
 rounded by bigger hills, and looking to- 
 wards the bay, I found the most primitive 
 of dwellings, consisting of a single apart- 
 ment of bamboo rods tied together with 
 twigs ; the sole furniture being a bed of 
 raw hide, an earthenware jug, and a table.
 
 THE PENINSULA. 147 
 
 A few steps off stood a shed, which was 
 used as a kitchen, in which an iron pot 
 was suspended over a small fire of sticks. 
 Three or four dusky children were playing 
 about, the eldest, which was about six 
 years old, being in charge. These were 
 the sole occupants when I arrived. At 
 first they were rather shy, but soon be- 
 came familiar, and laughed heartily on my 
 inspecting the iron pot. They said their 
 mother was washing their clothes at a 
 stream hard by. This accounted for their 
 having none on. But it did not trouble 
 them ; they were evidently accustomed to 
 wearing their skins outside. 
 
 Soon the mother returned, seeming in 
 no way astonished at finding a stranger 
 stretched upon the bed. She was a fine 
 specimen of the Mexican-Indian race, and 
 manifestly proud of the strajDping little 
 fellows that called her ^ Madre.' She 
 spoke very positively of the suddenly de-
 
 148 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 V eloped wealth of Alta California ; said 
 that the whole of this country is deserted 
 by its male inhabitants for the placers of 
 the Sacramento ; and that letters have 
 been received from them confirming the 
 most extravagant reports of their success. 
 
 The sun sinking behind the hills, I was 
 compelled to hurry away in order to avoid 
 being benighted in those wild uplands. 
 Passing over the summit of the highest 
 hill that lay in my road, my attention was 
 arrested by the scene around, and I could 
 not but pause to contemplate it. Here I 
 was in a country that from my earliest 
 years has attracted me. Its inaccessibility, 
 I believe, has been its principal charm. 
 No one knew anything about it. No one 
 could tell me how to get to it. Even 
 the Cyclopedia confessed its ignorance; 
 and on the admitted principle of ' omne 
 ignotum pro magnifico^ I have always been 
 imbued with corresponding ideas of its
 
 THE PENINSULA. 149 
 
 wildness and strangeness. The desire ob- 
 tained, I have not been disappointed. 
 
 Not a breath of air was stirring. The 
 birds, if any there were, had retired to 
 their silent eyries; the shrill chicharra 
 was hushed, and even the restless lizard 
 was still between the clefts of the rocks. 
 My station was on a precipitous hill that 
 overtopped the innumerable other hills 
 which, like itself, rose abruptly from the 
 shore. Nothing was in sight to tell that 
 the region had ever been trodden by man. 
 It was to such a place that Coleridge 
 imao^ined the first murderer to have wan- 
 dered. ^ Taking your stand upon any of 
 the rugged volcanic peaks that tower aloft 
 from the sea-shore, the scene around is 
 desolate ; as far as the eye can reach it is 
 desolate. The bare rocks face each other, 
 and leave a long, wide interval of thin 
 white sand. One may wander on, and 
 look round and round, and peep into the
 
 150 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 crevices of the rocks, and discover nothing 
 that acknowledges the influence of the 
 seasons, — no spring, no summer, no au- 
 tumn ; and winter's snow, that would be 
 lovely, falls not upon these hot rocks and 
 scorching sands. Never has morning lark 
 poised himself over this desert ; but here 
 the vulture screams and the serpent hisses.' 
 In the west a silvery light, uninter- 
 rupted by a cloud, pervaded the whole 
 region of the setting sun. In the opposite 
 half of the heavens, resting upon the 
 horizon and parallel with it, was a broad 
 belt of deep purple, and above it all the 
 colours of the prism in order, imperceptibly 
 melting into each other. From the centre, 
 radiating upwards to the zenith, were in- 
 numerable auroral streaks of many-coloured 
 light, as if a flight of rainbows were being 
 shot up from beneath the sea ; while a few 
 clouds above, catching the last rays of the
 
 THE PENINSULA. 151 
 
 departing sun, were glowing like liquid 
 metal in a fierce furnace. 
 
 So might the first sunrise have opened 
 upon a hitherto rayless world. So may 
 the sky appear when the earth itself is 
 dissolved and the heavens melt with fer- 
 vent heat. Such the last sunset, with 
 Campbell's ^ Last Man ' gazing upon it. 
 
 ^ What kept you so long upon the 
 hills ? You are very lucky to find your 
 way back in the dark/ said the Major. 
 
 ^ I have been gazing upon a real Tur- 
 ner, my friend, a most magnificent Tur- 
 ner ! ' 
 
 The next day I visited San Jos6, where 
 T found my fellow-voyagers already quite 
 at home, and already showing symptoms 
 of recovery from the effects of their recent 
 privations. There are no inns, as the 
 people are not used to travellers or given 
 to locomotion ; but every house was con-
 
 152 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 verted into an inn for our benefit; and 
 there is a delightful simplicity in their 
 domestic arrangements. At one end of a 
 large room are three or four stretchers, on 
 which recline the hostesses, while the floor 
 at the other end is covered with the shake- 
 downs of the guests, who care little about 
 sleeping luxuriously, so long as they can 
 run about at liberty, and have plenty to 
 eat and drink. I found quarters in the 
 house of an old Italian who is married to a 
 remarkably handsome Mexican girl. If 
 ever there was a jealous husband, poor 
 Doha Tula, it is thine ! Never would the 
 old fellow allow her, for one moment, to be 
 out of his sight. If he went into an ad- 
 joining room, or into the garden, the door 
 must be left open, that he may see her ; 
 and if she chance to move away out of his 
 sight, he would call out for her to return. 
 At first I thought it might be only the
 
 THE PENINSULA. 153 
 
 doting affection of an old man, until I 
 heard liim rating lier in his vile Spanish - 
 Genoese dialect ; ' Ah, you need not think 
 to make a fool of me. I am an Italian, I 
 am.' 
 
 I wandered about, entering into con- 
 versation with these dusky daughters of 
 the sun, as they sat at the door of their 
 adob^ cottages, smoking cigarettes, or 
 writing letters to the relations who were 
 absent at the placers. Family after family 
 I found to consist entirely of women and 
 children. The shops are entirely closed, 
 and at least one-fourth of the houses are 
 deserted, or left to the sole occupancy of a 
 cat or a pig. I saw several letters from 
 the absentees, confirming and even exceed- 
 ing the most exorbitant accounts of the 
 wealth of the country to which they have 
 gone. One young damsel told me she is 
 anxiously expecting the return of her
 
 154 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 brother, who has promised to endow her 
 with ten thousand dollars out of his earn- 
 ings. They were all eager to avail them- 
 selves of the offer to take letters ; and it 
 surprised me to find so many able to write, 
 for books and post-offices are little in their 
 way. Every pen in the town was put in 
 requisition, and every here and there 
 might be seen a group of three or four 
 anxiously engaged in concocting a de- 
 spatch. Curiously enough, they could not 
 do it within-doors, but always sat in the 
 verandahs with the paper in their laps. 
 Unaccustomed to strangers, they are quite 
 free from shyness or reserve, and with an 
 engaging artlessness they would request 
 assistance from a passer-by, making no 
 secret of the family affairs on which they 
 were writing. These people, with their 
 simple habits and unaspiring ideas, will be 
 quite at a loss how to employ their newly- 
 gotten wealth. Money is a scarce article
 
 THE PENINSULA. 155 
 
 with them ; the little they possess being 
 chiefly derived from occasional trade with 
 whalers, and some three or four hundred 
 ounces of gold annually collected from the 
 neighbouring ravines. 
 
 San Jos^ is situated in a charming 
 little valley, which is watered by a charm- 
 ing little stream on whose banks are charm- 
 ing gardens and vineyards. Such is the 
 character of this strange peninsula, — a de- 
 sert of rugged peaks, with here and there, 
 at wide intervals, an oasis down in a cleft, 
 looking exquisitely delightful from the 
 contrast. All the waters here glitter 
 strangely with yellow mica. After such a 
 month at sea, wandering here at will, 
 
 ' By shallow rivers to whose falls 
 Melodious birds sing madrigals ; ' 
 
 lying down either by the water or in it ; 
 letting it run through one's fingers as a 
 miser his gold, this fresh and sparkling 
 fluid seems to be the real summum honunij
 
 156 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 as any one may discover for himself when 
 panting beneath a tropical sun with 
 
 ' Water, water everywhere, 
 Tet not a drop to drink.' 
 
 Here, too, I have learnt how the Mexicans 
 become such excellent horsemen, and ac- 
 quire their expertness with the lasso. 
 Children of three or four years old gallop 
 about on the sands on bare-backed horses, 
 with a bridle of string, chasing and pulling 
 each other from their seats, yet rarely fall- 
 ing to the ground; and, when they do, 
 climbing up again by the mane or tail. 
 They love to practise with lassos of small 
 cord, and soon acquire a wonderful knack 
 of catching the goats, pigs, and even 
 chickens by the leg. 
 
 With regret I bade adieu to my fair 
 hostess, hoping her curmudgeon of a spouse 
 may become, if not younger, yet more 
 kind. Adieu also to the fair vale, with
 
 THE PENINSULA. 157 
 
 thanks for its pleasing addition to the pic- 
 ture-gallery of my remembrances. May 
 I preserve as grateful memories of all 
 other places to which my destiny may lead 
 me.
 
 158 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PACIFIC POLEMICS. 
 
 From Herhert Ainslie's Journal. 
 
 We have gained an addition to our 
 numbers in a small party of Americans, 
 who came over from Acapulco on hearing 
 there was a vessel off San Jose. They 
 have left their homes in Ohio on the same 
 quest as ourselves, and have walked across 
 Mexico on the chance of finding a ship on 
 this side. Among them is an Episcopalian 
 clergyman named Meade, who is hence- 
 forth to exercise bis office on Sundays. He 
 is a man of cultivated mind and singularly 
 gentle disposition, and the passengers
 
 PACIFIC POLEMICS. 159 
 
 generally seem to expect better luck with 
 him on board. One thing is certain, we 
 can't have much worse, and we are getting 
 into latitudes where the wind is pretty 
 sure to blow one way or another. I can't 
 fancy our new chaplain in the diggings, 
 there is such a ^ tea-meeting ' look about 
 liim ; and he, too, says that I shall never 
 do for a trader if I give away things I 
 might sell, as he saw me doing this morn- 
 ing. One of the passengers having taken a 
 fancy to something of mine asked if I 
 would sell it. I said I would give it to him, 
 as I had another ; whereupon he thrust his 
 hands into his pockets, and gave me a long 
 scrutinizing look, as if that was quite a 
 new idea to him, and could only be 
 prompted by an intention to get some- 
 thing out of him in return, — a regular 
 ^ timeo-Danaos-ei-dona-ferentes ' look, in fact. 
 Seeing that he was rather put out by my 
 unintentional attempt to place him under
 
 160 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 an obligation to nie, I hastened to tell him 
 what it cost, and how much I considered 
 its value enhanced by its transport thus 
 far ; upon which he brightened up, and 
 handed me the dollars, saying he was 
 always ready for a trade, but didn't under- 
 stand the other thing. 
 
 I gather from some conversations with 
 Mr Meade that he belongs to a party that 
 is modelled after the English Evangelicals, 
 and copies them closely in all things, ex- 
 cept, perhaps, their bitterness against 
 Popery ; which exception he accounts for 
 naturally by the facts that the population 
 of the States is composed of people of many 
 different religions ; that all have an equal 
 right to exercise their religion ; and that 
 all are found to be equally good citizens, 
 no matter what their religion. In fact, that 
 no one set of opinions is considered more 
 respectable than another. Ecclesiastical 
 svstems are there all internal to the State ;
 
 PACIFIC POLEMICS. 161 
 
 as much so as a mutual benefit society or a 
 joint stock company : they are private to 
 the members who compose them. All 
 contribute to the support of the State ; all 
 are equally citizens ; and their respective 
 religions are matters of private concern. 
 Government has no more to do with re- 
 ligious than with scientific or medical dif- 
 ferences. And it would be considered 
 as absurd to entrust the selection of a re- 
 ligion for the people to the general govern- 
 ment as to a local body, such as a mayor 
 and corporation. He considers the Church 
 of England to be a political body, origin- 
 ally established to form a barrier against 
 Papal domination ; but that it has served 
 its time, and must gradually subside into 
 a purely ecclesiastical organization. Its 
 clergy, as a vv^orking and preaching body, 
 he says, are held in the highest respect in 
 America ; and in many parts it is as com- 
 mon to hear a British sermon preached 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 162 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 as a native one. I certainly might have 
 heard the only sermon he has yet given us 
 without coming all this way from home. 
 I hoped that a denizen of another country, 
 reared among different scenes and associa- 
 tions, and preaching to such a congrega- 
 tion, under such circumstances, would have 
 travelled in a somewhat different track 
 than the one I had been all my life accus- 
 tomed to ; and given me, at least, a fresh 
 argument or a novel illustration. But as it 
 was, the Man vanished in the Parson, and 
 a perfunctory repetition of trite, thread- 
 bare Evangelicalisms was all that he could 
 treat us with. 
 
 It strikes me as very odd and repulsive 
 that there should be such a total absence 
 of anything like earnestness or enthusiasm 
 in a man who has taken up such a pro- 
 fession by choice. He seems to look upon 
 himself and fellow-clergy as merely a sort 
 of tradesmen to supply a particular sort of
 
 PACIFIC POLEMICS. 163 
 
 article for which there is a demand. He 
 allows that there is more activity in some 
 other sects, especially the Baptists and 
 Methodists, and even more than these the 
 Universalists, or people who believe in the 
 ultimate salvation of everybody. It is 
 easy to understand that people who have 
 such really good tidings to tell should 
 be enthusiastic propagators of their faith. 
 The nearest approach to strong feeling 
 shown by my clerical friend is in reference 
 to this party, for he says they are in re- 
 ality enemies of all religion by teaching 
 that none is necessary, inasmuch as all 
 men will reach heaven at last. The Bible 
 teaches that it is as necessary to believe in 
 the devil and hell as in God and heaven, 
 and the Universalists practically deny the 
 former. I reminded him that even the 
 Bible affords them some ground for their 
 doctrine, when it says, ^ He is the Saviour 
 of all men, especially of them that be-
 
 164 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 lieve ;' but he said that no one understands 
 that passage, unless it means that there is a 
 hell to be saved from, whereas all the rest 
 are plain enough. He does not seem to 
 care to talk about these matters, and recom- 
 mends me to read the books of a Universalist 
 preacher, named Theodore Parker, if I want 
 to know more about their tenets. He says 
 that, however wrong he is, his power, elo- 
 quence, and originality are wonderful. 
 
 June 15. Another tedious calm has 
 been followed by a three clay's gale, during 
 which we drove along under double-reefed 
 topsails at a north-east course. Yesterday 
 at noon the captain reckoned that we were 
 in lat. 34, and about 150 miles from the 
 coast of Upper California, but no observa- 
 tion could be taken. Towards night the 
 wind increased, and a thick fog rendered 
 invisible any object a few yards off. A 
 change of colour in the water made many 
 think we were much nearer land than the
 
 PACIFIC POLEMICS. 165 
 
 captain affirmed. It promised to be a 
 thoroughly dirty night, and was pitch- 
 dark but for the luminosity of the sea. 
 The waves were all broken into foam, and 
 each breaker was a billow of light tumbling 
 and tossing about, and ever and again 
 from their breaking crests shot forth bril- 
 liant sprays and streams of light like 
 flashes from a luminous snowdrift, the 
 whole scene calling up the idea of the 
 awful lake of the Apocalyptic visions. The 
 cold driving mist soon sent below the few 
 who ventured up to gaze, and soon after 
 nine all were stowed away for the night, 
 but it was impossible to sleep without 
 holding on. About one I saw the mate 
 coming down-stairs, and the captain im- 
 mediately hurrying trowserless on deck. 
 Then followed rapid orders to tack ship, 
 and a cry of ^ land ahead ' was heard. I 
 hastened up with a few others, and found 
 that the fog had lifted and disclosed the
 
 166 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 moon just risen over high land right ahead 
 of us, at what distance it was impossible to 
 say, but the guesses varied from two to 
 seven miles, the latter being the captain's. 
 Anyhow it looked startlingly close. With 
 some difficulty the ship was got round, all 
 on deck lending a hand. I never felt any- 
 thing colder than the ropes as I handled 
 them. It was like grasping the open blades 
 of razors, yet I don't think there was any 
 ice on them. The wind hauling round a 
 little we made a good offing, and were 
 soon back in the thick mist which, had it 
 extended to the shore, would have con- 
 cealed it from view till too late to escape 
 going on it. 
 
 Sunday. Certainly it was not for me 
 that it was said ' faith cometh by hearing.' 
 The pleasant feelings induced by the sense 
 of a danger escaped have been altogether 
 dissipated since Mr Meade endeavoured to
 
 PACIFIC POLEMICS. 167 
 
 ' improve the occasion.' "What an illogical 
 use people make of the term ' providence.' 
 As they only apply it to something which 
 they themselves like and approve, I won- 
 der to what they ascribe the disagreeable 
 and calamitous. ^ Man's carelessness or ig- 
 norance brings him into danger, and the 
 hand of Providence is straightway held 
 out to rescue him,' says the preacher. But 
 are not man's shortcomings, which lead 
 him into the danger, equally ^providen- 
 tial ' ? And what becomes of the hand of 
 Providence in the myriad inistances where 
 there is no escape ? If one be ^ provi- 
 dentially ' saved, is not the other ' provi- 
 dentially ' lost ? 
 
 The whole is a vast riddle, and he does 
 only mischief who attempts to explain it. 
 An all-abiding sense of inexorable law 
 takes possession of one who broadly con- 
 templates the universe, and only the pre-
 
 168 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 sumptuous will declare that the ' finger of 
 God ' is anywhere specially present. There 
 must be a kind of double consciousness 
 which enables the class to which the chap- 
 lain belongs to exist and enjoy life. I 
 cannot otherwise account for the wide dif- 
 ference in the two characters he has by 
 turns to maintain. As a clergyman lie 
 not only holds but teaches a number of 
 tenets which, as an educated thinking man, 
 he utterly repudiates. And all the time 
 he is as clearly unconscious of being open 
 to any charge on the score of dishonesty, 
 or even inconsistency, as if he consisted of 
 two distinct selves of which one slept while 
 the other is vigilant. I had ascribed the 
 existence at home of such a phenomenon 
 to the action of a State-supported Church, 
 but I am now inclined to suppose that the 
 fact that a respectable position and main- 
 tenance can be derived from teaching any 
 particular set of opinions, induces many to
 
 PACIFIC POLEMICS. • 169 
 
 profess those opinions without really hold- 
 ing them. 
 
 I quite forgot that Mr M. was an Evan- 
 gelical parson committed to the Mosaic 
 view of the world's creation while we were 
 discussing the various geological phe- 
 nomena and theories one Saturday even- 
 ing. He spoke with so much knowledge 
 and intelligence of the system apparent in 
 the earth's construction and gradual de- 
 velopment, and quoted Professor Philip's 
 remark about the folly of people thinking 
 that the eternity of the future is somehow 
 endangered by an admission of the im- 
 mensity of the past ; and was actually de- 
 lighted with my saying that the old ortho- 
 dox system represents God not as the 
 ^Father of Lights' but as a maker of puz- 
 zles ; for that if the universe, in spite of its 
 evidences of growth and change lasting 
 through countless ages, ought to be re- 
 garded as a sudden creation at a specific
 
 170 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 moment, we have no proof that this veiy 
 ship is the slow product of hmnan la- 
 bour, gradually built up one part after an- 
 other ; and even more, that we cannot be 
 certain that our own individual past has 
 had any actual existence, for that we may all 
 liave been this very moment called into ex- 
 istence with the impressions on our minds, 
 which we take for memories of a real his- 
 tory, ready made. And next morning he 
 not only reads us the first chapter of Gene- 
 sis, but preaches of the six day's work of 
 creation as if he, or we, had just come out 
 of the nursery. I have a great mind to 
 ask him how he does it. . 
 
 The advocates of the plenary inspira- 
 tion of Scripture surely incur the charge 
 of fixing a frightful act of injustice on 
 God, when they represent a man's eternal 
 welfare as depending upon the conclusions 
 he may come to respecting the origin, 
 authenticity, and meaning of a number of
 
 PACIFIC POLEMICS. 171 
 
 ancient manuscripts written no one knows 
 when or by whom. 
 
 I got a curious suggestion from the 
 Mormon. Evading all catechising about 
 their practice of polygamy, he said he 
 didn't see why Providence shouldn't pro- 
 vide extraordinary means to attract popu- 
 lation to those great central solitudes of 
 North America, for the purpose of connect- 
 ing the East and West. And he did not 
 see how without Mormonism it could bo 
 done. 
 
 One hundred days from Panama, and 
 we enter the Golden Gate. The pilot 
 tells us of a schooner which we can charter 
 to take us up the Sacramento. The Ma- 
 jor and I have agreed to keep together. 
 Several others wish to join us, so we shall 
 proceed in a large party to the Diggings. 
 The custom-house officer recommends the 
 plan, and says our principal enemies will 
 be Indians and mosquitoes. All are eager
 
 172 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 to be off. Hope reigns supreme. The 
 promised land lies before us. A few meals 
 of fresh meat and vegetables in yonder 
 city of tentsj and then farewell for ever to 
 the Killooney.
 
 BOOK II.
 
 ' A man's genius determines for him the character of the 
 Universe. As a man thinketh, so he is. A man is a method, 
 a selecting principle, gathering his like to him wherever he 
 goes. * * * 
 
 ' He takes only his own out of the multiplicity that sweeps 
 and circles around him.' — R. W. Emerson's ' Spiritual Laws.'
 
 175 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EL DOEADO. 
 
 From Herlert Ainslies Journal. 
 
 August 30, 1849. 
 I AM certainly gaining strength. This 
 is a pleasant interval of rest. While alone 
 I cannot do better than to recommence my 
 journal. Curious, how short and discon- 
 nectedly the sentences come — like my 
 breathing. My fingers can hardly grasp 
 the pencil. They are become strangers — 
 there is no rapport between them. Per- 
 chance the pencil has a perception of its 
 own, and sees in me one unexpectedly 
 returned from the confines of another 
 world, and trembles at the contact. No
 
 176 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 matter : effort though it be, perseverance 
 will soon make us better acquainted- 
 How delicious after the burning day is 
 the calm and cool of this oasis in the vast 
 prairie desert. Were it not for the sake of 
 the others I should wish that the strayed 
 cattle might not be found for a week. 
 May be they will never be found. Hun- 
 gry Indians, or hungrier travellers, may 
 have made roast beef of them by this time. 
 What would I not give for some roast beef 
 too ! Beside this lagoon, and under these 
 shady trees, with yonder waggon for my 
 fortress of retreat from wild beasts, I could 
 gladly remain here so long as the provi- 
 sions last. I little thought when I descried 
 the greenness of this spot through the 
 heated exhalations of the weary, weary 
 plain, that it would be my home so long. 
 This is the third day of rest. The 
 strength I have gained since I left the 
 diggings, on the river, encourages me to
 
 EL DORADO. 177 
 
 hope it may not be very long before I can 
 get to work again. The waggon reminded 
 me of a coffin when they lifted me into it. 
 Certainly a corpse could hardly have been 
 more helpless. I am sure tlie doctor meant 
 me when he shook his head and said some- 
 thing to the Major about not lasting many 
 days. But even at my worst I have had no 
 notion of dying in this country — I have 
 another destiny than that : — then the jolting 
 and struggling up that dreadful hill, — yet 
 the mere breathing of the air on the top 
 was like champagne to me. I wonder if 
 the exhalations from the river are poison- 
 ous. I have certainly taken a new lease 
 of life since I left it. My food seems to do 
 me some good now — perhaps leaving off 
 physic has something to do with it. How 
 I loathed that dreadful salt pork, and those 
 tough greasy slapjacks. If healthy men 
 get the scurvy upon them, small hope of 
 my recovering my health with nothing 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 else to eat. How fortunate I was in being 
 able to buy these hams, and what an in- 
 spiration was the idea of substituting boil- 
 ing for that perpetual frying. And now 
 with the addition of the Major's venison, 
 and bread made of sweet flour, all I want 
 is time. And then to work again ; to draw 
 forth from the banks of mother earth the 
 rich deposits that there await my draft. 
 
 The labour is harder than I had any 
 idea of, but the gold is there. What a 
 predicament we should now be in if it had 
 not been ! What with the cost of travel- 
 ling up from the coast, and provisions and 
 tools, we were almost penniless on reaching 
 the mines. And most of the party were 
 still worse off, and I have made no provi- 
 sion for obtaining money from England. 
 I little thought to be the first to benefit by 
 the rule I insisted upon as a condition of 
 partnership. I believe the two brothers 
 left the party in consequence of it. Yet
 
 EL DORADO. 179 
 
 what could be more fair, independently of 
 its humanity, than that a sick man should 
 receive a half-share of the produce in con- 
 sideration of his ownership in the claim ? 
 How full of hope were we all during the 
 first fortnight when we all worked together, 
 and how pleasant the excitement of guess- 
 ing at the result of the day's washings pre- 
 vious to weighing it. Nearly one hundred 
 ounces were divided between the four in 
 the first fortnight, and the ground was 
 getting richer. Then came that terrible 
 sunstroke. Shall I ever forget the horror 
 of the burning fever and the stifling tent, 
 when all sense of time ceased, and I was 
 conscious only of an intense longing to get 
 cool. The early sensations were exactly 
 opposite to those I felt once on board ship 
 after sleeping exposed to the full moon- 
 light. Then my head felt light, and de- 
 prived of the force necessary for control- 
 ling my movements whether mental or
 
 180 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 physical. 1 lost all power of application. 
 The brain seemed shrunk or partially 
 paralyzed, but the effect passed away in 
 two or three days. The first action of the 
 sunstroke was to make me throw myself 
 on the ground in an exceedingly ill tem- 
 per, and break into tears. The head 
 seemed suddenly filled to bursting, and I 
 longed for some one to draw off the super- 
 fluous electricity, or whatever I was sur- 
 charged with, by making mesmeric passes 
 over me. That I felt would cure me at 
 once. Certainly, so far as sensations go, I 
 have proved the truth of the mesmeric 
 theory of the opposite nature of the mag- 
 netic influence of the sun and moon. The 
 one is positive and imparts force, and the 
 other negative and withdraws it. 
 
 How kind the Major has been all 
 through my illness, sticking to me, and 
 declaring he won't leave me till I can take 
 care of myself, and not even then unless
 
 EL DORADO. 181 
 
 I \Yisli it. I verilv believe the fever would 
 have burnt me up during the three worst 
 days, but for the perpetual buckets of cold 
 water which he carried up from the river 
 and flung over me. Even that could not 
 cool me : it seemed to fly off as from a hot 
 iron. I am sure that second and worst 
 attack was brouglit on by the morphine 
 the doctor gave me. If I had not always 
 taken a great interest in mental phenomena 
 those spectral illusions would have driven 
 me wild with terror. But I knew what 
 they were, and could think of Abercrom- 
 bie's book while watching them. It seemed 
 akin to magic that the eye should see 
 whatever the mind thought of, and I 
 delighted in exercising the power. They 
 only came one night. Though distinct 
 and bright, I could, by gazing intently, 
 look completely through them, and see 
 the side of the tent beyond. I could 
 always lose sight of them by changing
 
 182 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 the focus of the eyes to a greater or less 
 distance. After the first few changes they 
 got beyond my control. I could not call 
 them up or change them at will, and cer- 
 tainly some of them were horrid enough 
 to scare any one out of his senses who did 
 not keep in mind their unreality. Whether 
 it was a shot really fired or not that sug- 
 gested the vision I don't know, but I 
 fancied I saw a fight between a party of 
 Mexicans and Indians, and then two big 
 ferocious-looking savages marched slowly 
 by me carrying on their shoulders a half- 
 killed Mexican, whose tongue was hanging 
 out black and swollen, and his eyes start- 
 ing from their sockets, and as they carried 
 him along they bit large mouthfuls of 
 flesh out of their writhing captive, and 
 chewed them with delight. I recognized 
 the Mexican's face. It was one that had 
 haunted my childhood in a picture of a 
 sailor with the black vomit being flung
 
 EL DORADO. 183 
 
 overboard while yet living. This horrid 
 vision was dispelled by a movement of 
 the tent wall close beside me. Turning 
 towards it I saw it gently lifted up, and a 
 figure enveloped in a dark cloak crept in 
 and lay down beside me. I raised the 
 cloak and discovered a headless trunk. 
 Then the tent seemed full of water running 
 rapidly past me, an illusion probably 
 caused by the sound of the river, as it was 
 the most persistent of the illusions, ever 
 recurrino^ in the interval of the others. 
 Then tlie ground was covered with huge 
 ants, busily digging and bringing up large 
 grains of gold, which they deposited on 
 the surface, and then went down for more. 
 And then I saw through the openings 
 they made that the soil below was all gold, 
 and gold, and gold without end. Pre- 
 sently a bright light appeared in the air, 
 and as it descended towards me, took the 
 appearance of a wreath of flowers, and in
 
 184 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 the midst of the wreath were two hands 
 clasped, and two initial letters over them ; 
 and while I wondered what this could 
 mean (for although I knew some one bear- 
 ing those initials, I never was in love with 
 her, though I used to fancy I might easily 
 become so), the wreath vanished, and the 
 light diffused itself, lighting up the whole 
 tent, so that I could see my companions 
 sleeping beside me, and the arms stacked 
 against the pole, almost as distinctly as by 
 daylight. In two or three minutes all was 
 dark again. I sank back exhausted, and 
 slept. The action of the drug had reached 
 another stage. The sleep was not one of 
 refreshment, but was filled with dreams 
 so terrific that my cries roused my com- 
 panions from the depth of their weary 
 slumbers. I can remember every parti- 
 cular of my waking visions, but I cannot 
 recall the dreams. Only the vague sense 
 of their horror remains with me. During
 
 EL DORADO. 185 
 
 the next three days raged the fever, from 
 being consumed by which the Major pre- 
 served me by buckets of water. Here they 
 come with a hare, or, as the teamster calls 
 it, a 'jackass rabbit,' and some grey squir- 
 rels, but no oxen. This writing has quite 
 exhausted me, but I must at least save them 
 the trouble of making coffee. 
 
 3l5^. The major and the teamster are 
 off again in the prairie. Thinking over 
 my notes of yesterday, as I lay awake and 
 feverish last night, it occurred to me that 
 it must be utterly impossible for any one 
 to be certain that the source from which he 
 gets visions and revelations is a super- 
 natural or extraordinary one. The wliole 
 of such recorded wonders may, like my 
 illusions, be due to pressure on the brain 
 from the excitement of fever or inflamma- 
 tion. The agent in the sudden conversion 
 of St Paul may have been a sunstroke 
 acting on a mind already in a state of
 
 186 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 extreme tension, as we know his was. A 
 slight fact affords sufficient foundation for 
 a vast fabric of legend. The whole proof 
 that can exist for any man is only a strong 
 impression on his mind. Its indelibility is 
 no proof of its truth. To assert that any- 
 thing is supernatural, is to assert that we 
 know all that is in nature, and also some- 
 thing of that which lies beyond. It seems 
 to me to be absolutely impossible for any 
 man to be certain that he has held direct 
 communication with God. Man may have 
 an overwhelming sense that something 
 claiming to be God has spoken to him ; but 
 unless he has a prior and personal know- 
 ledge of God, he knows not but that it 
 may be a demon assuming the garb of 
 light, or a fantastic creation of his own 
 excited fancy. It still behoves him to 
 judge the communication by its own in- 
 trinsic character, and to deliberate upon 
 the actions to which it impels him. Thus
 
 EL DORADO. 187 
 
 reason must be the judge of revelation. The 
 principles of our nature are for us the only 
 sure revelation. Supposing one impelled 
 without provocation to take the life of tlie 
 innocent, and ascribing the impulse to 
 God. AVhat shall be said of him ? A 
 jury of his countrymen might have recom- 
 mended Abraham to mercy on the ground 
 of insanity, but they would surely have 
 advised that he be locked up for the 
 general security ; — supposing the story of 
 Isaac to be more than a mere legend, or a 
 moral fable, illustrating the superiority of 
 second thoughts over hasty impressions. 
 There can be little doubt however, that, 
 whether true or not, it was written to in- 
 culcate the duty of unquestioning obedience 
 to whatever might be deemed a divine 
 command, without making oneself a judge 
 of the propriety of the action, and written 
 therefore with an immoral purpose. But 
 though it bears this upon the face of it,
 
 188 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRmE. 
 
 the narrative may yet have had another 
 signification, and one suited to those times 
 — namely, that human sacrifice is not ac- 
 ceptable to the Deity; for Abraham was 
 arrested in the act of offering it. A con- 
 demnation, by the way, of the Calvinistic 
 theory of the atonement 
 
 Our teamster is a native of Missouri. 
 He has never seen the sea, never tasted 
 porter, and does not know what an orange 
 is. But he is even more astonished at the 
 limited character of my experiences than I 
 am at that of his. He can scarcely credit 
 that I had never ridden in a bullock wag- 
 gon before I rode in his. He takes the 
 time lost in hunting for his cattle wonder- 
 fully easily, considering that time is indeed 
 money to him ; but it seems that a back- 
 woodsman generally spends at least half 
 his life in the same pursuit. I inquired if 
 the prevailing salt pork was the staple food 
 in Missouri ? ' No, Sirr,' was the indig-
 
 EL DORADO. 189 
 
 nant response ; ' there we have good fat 
 bacon, and plenty of it ! ' I wish we 
 could have worked out our claim instead 
 of selling it. If tliat American had not 
 fallen ill just as I began to mend, it might 
 have been done. But I should never have 
 got w^ell there. The Major might have 
 made a good thing of it by hiring hands 
 to work it out, and I could still have 
 retained my share, for I should feel no 
 hesitation in trusting my interests with 
 him. Even though he cannot take care of 
 his own money, so reckless and profuse is 
 he; and he knows it himself, for he insisted 
 on my taking charge of all he had, before 
 we left the ship — still I feel sure that he 
 would be scrupulously careful of anybody 
 else's interest. And the fact of feeling in 
 honour bound to be careful, v/ould be good 
 discipline for him. However, he insisted 
 on selling out too, saying that he could 
 return to the mines when I got well. Or
 
 190 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 if I am tired of the country, he will go 
 home, or anywhere else with me. He re- 
 commends the Sandwich Islands, and says 
 I shall certainly die of consmnptlon if I 
 remain the winter in this country. On 
 this point we differ, for I feel that all I 
 want is cool bracing weather to set me up 
 again. He reminds me that the year for 
 which I told him I came abroad is nearly 
 over — will be up, in fact, by the time I 
 can get home. Shall I go ? and for what ? 
 To be a nine days' wonder among my 
 friends, and to be ordained. I am in 
 honour bound to take orders if I return. It 
 is the only way in which I can make any 
 return for the expense both of my educa- 
 tion and of this year's grace. 
 
 No. I shall never take orders till I 
 either change my opinions or am disposed 
 to perjure myself. That settles the question 
 of returning to England. Here will I re- 
 main until I am rich enough to be able to
 
 EL DORADO. * 191 
 
 profess my own opinions, or at least not 
 to act contrary to them, whenever I may 
 go home. Living out of the world of ac- 
 tion as my parents and all their friends do, 
 I have no chance of finding any occupation 
 which will afford me a living, except that 
 for which I was brought up. 
 
 What a bitter satire upon my native 
 country have I just written. But so it 
 must be while the vested interests of society 
 prefer their own aggrandiezment to truth. y 
 Oaths, oaths ; on all sides oaths. Oaths 
 political and oaths ecclesiastical ; all to 
 maintain the existing fabric of opinion and 
 custom. If they really believe that what- 
 ever is is really best, and can be demon- 
 strated to be so, why so anxious to bind 
 men forcibly not to change it, unless to 
 render all j^rogress impossible ? What can 
 be more demoralizing than to make the 
 very bread of whole classes depend upon 
 their either suppressing their real opinions,
 
 192 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 or having none, and acting a sham instead ? 
 Looking at the young men of the best 
 class 1 have known in England, I can see 
 that the necessity of squaring their con- 
 clusions according to a fixed set of opinions, 
 either blunts that fine sense of honour 
 which would make them maintain truth 
 above all things, or dulls their whole per- 
 ception of the divine harmony of the 
 universe. The common feeling of the 
 people with regard to the teachings of the 
 clergy may be expressed thus : ^ Oh, of 
 course ; they are bound to say so, whether 
 they think it or not. And if they really 
 do believe all they say, why the more fools 
 they.' Thus a Church with a creed makes 
 a nation of atheists, or dissenters, unless 
 when the people are absolutely unintelligent 
 or credulous. Truly it may be said of Eng- 
 land, ^Because of swearing the land mourn- 
 
 eth.' 
 
 The people who live there don't see it.
 
 EL DOEADO. 193 
 
 But neither do fish know that the sea is 
 salt, till they taste fresh water. (Is all 
 knowledge by contrast ?) 
 
 ' Here I am free, as Nature first made man, 
 When -wild in woods the noble savage ran, 
 Ere the base laws of servitude began :' 
 
 servitude of mind as well as of body ; and 
 here will I remain so long as I can hope to 
 win an independence. Strange that the 
 feeling of home sickness should be so 
 strong, when I can so clearly see that to re- 
 turn would be to forfeit the liberty of my 
 whole life. I hope it will pass off as I 
 get stronger. 
 
 VOL. T. 13
 
 194 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PEAIRIE. 
 
 From Herhert Ainslie's Journal. 
 
 I can't help fancying that something 
 preys upon the Major's mind; something 
 that he broods morbidly over. With all his 
 confidingness and openness of character, 
 he is very reserved about that part of his 
 history that relates to his leaving home. 
 He enjoys telling of his feats in swimming 
 and hunting. How, in a terrible flood, 
 it was ' such fun ' plunging into the cur- 
 rent and catching his poor neighbours' 
 sheep by their tails, and propelling them 
 ashore. How he used to lie out in swamps
 
 THE PRAIRIE. 195 
 
 whole nights watching for wild fowl, and 
 how he had rescued his cousin from 
 drowning, at the narrow risk of his own 
 life. And he tells all without a particle 
 of boasting, from a mere exuberant relish 
 for everything partaking of danger and 
 excitement. Full of tenderness and con- 
 sideration for others, he can do nothing 
 for himself. Perfectly careless of his own 
 comfort or health, he flings himself down 
 to sleep on sharp rocks or wet ground, 
 unless I spread something for him. He 
 cannot bear the details of a camp life, such 
 as cooking his food, and will eat nothing 
 unless provided for him, saying he is 
 strong enough to go without food for days. 
 He is just the man who would join a tribe 
 of Indians, and enjoy their wandering life, 
 working tremendously hard in procuring 
 game, and then after roasting it upon the 
 embers and tearing it with his teeth, would 
 sleep as hard, until compelled by hunger
 
 196 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 to the next exertion. I can fancy I 
 see liim already such an one, roaming 
 through the forests with his rifle, his black 
 hair hanging long and matted down his 
 shoulders, and as wild, and genial, and 
 guileless as ever was unsophisticated savage, 
 and probably as unable to resist the ex- 
 cessive use of ardent spirits, if they came 
 in his way, as the most impulsive of red- 
 skins. I must not complain of his reserve, 
 for I am much the same. In answer to 
 his wonder at my staying in such a 
 country when I might be in a snug living, 
 I have only told him that I am in no 
 hurry to give up my liberty and settle 
 down. And lie quite agrees with me that 
 it is much better to come for a year's travel 
 to the vigorous new world of the West, 
 than to go to the worn-out old deserts of 
 the East, as I once tliought of doing ; and 
 that when I do ' become a parson, a little
 
 THE PKAIEIE. 197 
 
 Californlan gold will not come amiss in 
 the parish, if I can get it.' 
 
 One of our fellow-passengers slept at 
 our camp last night on his way to the city 
 for articles of trade with the Indians. We 
 learn from him that Mr Meade took one 
 look at the mines and ' made tracks ' for 
 home again. A capital specimen of the 
 subtle ^downeaster' is this man. (The 
 same who preferred purchasing to accept- 
 ing a gift from me on board ship.) Hav- 
 ing had experience of the Indians in the 
 States, he tells us he was not afraid to 
 venture alone among them here with some 
 mules laden with such things as they love. 
 Finding them without gold, he sent them 
 off to dig some. ^ In dealing with them,^ 
 he said, ^ I always make a point of care- 
 fully weighing their gold, and returning 
 some of it, however little there is, so that 
 they think me the honestest white man
 
 198 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 in California, though I take good care to 
 help myself.' He is certainly wiser in his 
 generation than a party of Irishmen who, 
 finding the Indians on Bear River had 
 a good deal of gold, caught one and threat- 
 ened to kill him unless he led them to the 
 place where they found it. Pretending 
 to yield to their threats, he led them away 
 into the hills, till they suddenly found 
 themselves close upon a large body of 
 armed Indians ; upon which the Irishmen 
 were glad to put spurs to their horses and 
 gallop away as fast as they could. 
 
 Here are the cattle at last. So to-mor- 
 row we shall be on the road again. I 
 shall be sorry to leave this spot. It seems 
 like a home. And I have got so much 
 stronger while here, I hope to be able to 
 walk part of the way, and perhaps get a 
 shot at something. 
 
 Vernon. A pleasant spot this, at the
 
 THE PRAIRIE. 199 
 
 junction of these two fine streams. The 
 new town consists at present of two tents 
 and a waggon. My strength has returned 
 rapidly in the last week ; so that even the 
 Major has hopes of me. The wished-for shot 
 at something the other morning was nearly 
 coming off in a manner anything but 
 desirable. We were woke by a surly 
 grumbling noise down by the water, which 
 proceeded from a bear. The Major wanted 
 to get up and shoot, which, in the dark, 
 would have been madness. ' But he's 
 coming towards us,' said he. ^ Bears don't 
 care for blankets that I know of. Lie 
 still and cover yourself up,' I whispered. 
 Presently we heard the beast's heavy 
 breathing as he came nearer, and walked 
 round and round to inspect us. I felt that 
 the Major was in a tremor of eagerness 
 to make an onslaught, and I was equally 
 anxious lest he should move. The bear.
 
 200 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 as if perplexed, slowly returned to the 
 water, and there held a grumbling collo- 
 quy with himself. Weak and exhausted, I 
 fell asleep. In the morning I learnt that 
 the bear had again returned, and walked 
 round and round, fairly mounting guard 
 over us for at least two mortal hours, until 
 warned off by approach of day. The 
 grass close to us — for we lay upon the 
 ground — was all trampled down by his 
 great wet heavy paws, and on commencing 
 our day's march, we were able to track 
 him along our route, to the edge of a 
 thicket, into which he had evidently 
 turned. We were walking with our guns 
 in advance of the waggon, and on peering 
 into the wood the Major exclaimed, ^ There 
 he is.' And I could see a black shaggy 
 head apparently crouching behind a bush 
 some seventy yards off. I stepped a little 
 on one side to get a better view, and
 
 THE PRAIRIE. 201 
 
 agreed to reserve my sliots until they were 
 wanted in close quarters. The Major was 
 taking a steady aim when I called to him 
 to hold, as it was no bear but an Indian. 
 He lowered his rifle, when the owner of 
 the shaggy head jumped up with a yell 
 and darted away into the wood, so that 
 we saw him no more. When the waggon 
 came up, the driver was actually angry at 
 the Indian's escape, saying, ' they ought to 
 be shot down like vermin wherever they 
 are seen. That the two races can never 
 agree, and that now the whites have got the 
 country, and can turn it to account, the 
 sooner it is cleared of them the better.' 
 This seems to be the feeling of all Western 
 Americans. They regard the Indian but as 
 one of tlie wild beasts, or wild plants, whose 
 business it is only to occupy the soil until 
 wanted for cultivation. I reminded him 
 that if we had killed this Indian, even
 
 202 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 thougli we ourselves might escape from 
 his tribe, the next white men who came 
 in their way would undoubtedly pay the 
 penalty for us ; and so we should be their 
 murderers. He thought ^ such doctrine 
 might do for the old country, but here it 
 is every man for himself.' I was talking 
 on one occasion with a trapper and hunter 
 from the Rocky Mountains about rifles, 
 and he said that for small things, such 
 as rabbits and squirrels, he preferred 
 the Kentucky pea rifle ; but for buffa- 
 los, Indians, and other large game, he 
 wanted something that carried a bigger 
 ball. 
 
 The Major has been quite downhearted 
 ever since. He seems to feel, perhaps 
 more seriously than the occasion warrants, 
 his narrow escape from killing a man. Of 
 late he has been very anxious to hear from 
 home, and it is settled that I am to go
 
 THE PRAIRIE. 203 
 
 down to the Bay for letters and sea air, 
 while he amuses himself here fishing. After 
 which we intend to return to the mines 
 for the winter.
 
 204 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 death's door. 
 
 JFrom Herbert AinsUe's Journal. 
 
 San Francisco. There seems to be a 
 doom on me in this country. And the 
 climate was said to be so liealthy. The 
 last fortnight I have been again knocking 
 at death's door. These bitter cold sea 
 breezes, or rather gales, from the north 
 were too much for me in the weak state 
 in which I arrived here. In one hour 
 I was struck down with acute inflamma- 
 tion. I am on a stretcher in a wooden 
 hotel, my room consisting of one of the
 
 death's door. 205 
 
 small compartments into which the story 
 is divided by canvas partitions. 
 
 If the other inmates can hear me as 
 well as I can hear every movement of 
 theirs, what a nuisance I must have been 
 in the house. I remember now seeing the 
 door occasionally opened and a head thrust 
 in, and after an inquisitive look, liastily 
 withdrawn on catching a sight of me. 
 They probably thought me past help, and 
 that a little while would end it. And well 
 they might if my dim recollections of how 
 I have gone on be correct. Though I can- 
 not stand, and this is the first day I have 
 retained a particle of food for — I don't 
 know how long, — I will ask the doctor 
 when he comes how long I have been ill, — 
 yet I have never thought of dying, — 
 perhaps because I have been too exhausted 
 to think of anything. 
 
 September SOth. The doctor has been 
 here. He tells me that he has been with
 
 206 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 me two or three times a day for a fortnight, 
 but that I was often unconscious of his 
 presence, and he did not disturb me. 
 
 He is an English physician ; I remem- 
 ber now I told them to get me an English 
 doctor if there was one to be found. He 
 came here, he tells me, to go to the mines. 
 But a merchant to whom he had an intro- 
 duction asked him if he had ^ ever worked 
 as a railway navvy, because if he hadn't, 
 and didn't want to begin, he had better 
 stay and practise his profession in tlie 
 city. There would be lots of sickness, and 
 all the miners who had any gold would be 
 sure to come there to be doctored.' So he 
 remained, and is doing capitally. He 
 promises to inquire for ni}- letters and the 
 Major's. 
 
 October 4:th. Got my letters yester- 
 day. The doctor has had them in his 
 pocket for a week, but >ays I was too weak 
 to read them. There are none for the
 
 death's door. 207 
 
 Major. All well at the dear old home, and 
 their letters are full of affection. My let- 
 ters from Nicaragua took them to a strange 
 part of the world, and they were obliged 
 to consult the atlas. How it would shock 
 them to see me now without being able to 
 help me. 
 
 They don't know yet that I am in 
 California, but they are terribly alarmed at 
 the idea of my coming here. It appears 
 that the papers are full of dreadful ac- 
 counts of murders and lynchings. I dare- 
 say this country does look bad from a 
 distance, and I believe that in the southern 
 mines, where the Mexicans are, things are 
 in a much more disturbed state than where 
 I have been. They remind me that the 
 year is nearly up, and caution me against 
 going so far from home that my money 
 will not hold out to take me back. What 
 will they say when they know that I am 
 actually here ! and twice almost given up
 
 208 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRIKE. 
 
 for dead. My poor mother ! fortunately I 
 have not told them the worst until it has 
 been over, and I could joke about the 
 wonderful effects of ^ making an effort/ as 
 Mrs Chick said Mrs Dombey ought to do : 
 and how I made a point of recovering 
 because I knew that my mother would 
 never forgive my doing so mean a thing 
 as to go and die in such an uncivilized 
 place. 
 
 By the by, I have never had an}^ of 
 those thoughts which I have always been 
 told crowd upon people when face to face 
 with death. I have had neither fear nor 
 curiosity ; my consciousness has rather 
 been of unconsciousness — of not thinking 
 at all. I have been quiescent, and impa- 
 tient only of being disturbed. How easily 
 in this state I might have glided out of 
 life. I may do so yet, for my hold upon 
 it feels very slight. Yet the thought 
 excites no apprehension. Perhaps most
 
 death's door. 209 
 
 people when tliey die from disease are 
 reduced to that condition that they don't 
 care about it. So that death is not the 
 evil to them that it seems to one in the 
 full enjoyment of health. It has never 
 occurred to me to fear the future. Why is 
 this ? Is it the peculiar triumph of Christi- 
 anity, or rather of Orthodoxy, to impart to 
 death the sting of terror ? 
 
 They would call me ungrateful be- 
 cause I express no thankfulness for my 
 preservation. I am glad, because life and 
 health to me mean enjoyment, but ought 
 I to be thankful until I know for what I 
 am preserved ? There's a Socratic senti- 
 ment ! 
 
 5 /A. Strange property of a bit of 
 paper to be able thus to annihilate time 
 and space and transport me thousands of 
 miles. Ever since those letters came I 
 seem to have been bodily at home. How 
 wonderful is the power of the sul)jectivc 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 210 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 element in man. Who shall say that the 
 ideal is not the more real of the two. At 
 this moment I can distinctly fancy myself 
 there in the old situation and with all my 
 old feelings, and the same longing to 
 escape that I had before I left. I see 
 myself enduring all I before endured ; 
 bearing in silence all that shocked me ; 
 passing my life in constant self-suppres- 
 sion, scarcely daring to associate with 
 any one, and never dreaming of becoming 
 really attached to any one. Why, what 
 decent girl that I have any chance of 
 meeting there would marry an ' Infidel ' ? 
 And, of course, I could not marry without 
 telling her my opinions. Though the term 
 ' Infidel ' only really means that I have 
 formed views of the divine nature and 
 method which differ considerably from 
 theirs, yet to them it conveys something 
 full of horror. And a j;oor Infidel too ! 
 If I can get tolerably rich, I may find
 
 death's door. 211 
 
 other circles of acquaintance where people 
 think differently. I don't like those who 
 don't think at all. I have never heard of 
 any rich men in England objecting to the 
 popular faith. Are all rich men indiiferent, 
 or do they suppress their feelings out of 
 deference or fear ? Fear ! I fancy if I 
 were alone in the world — and had none 
 w^ho would be grieved to the heart by my 
 apostasy, it would be my glory to stand 
 like Paul to denounce the prevailing super- 
 stition and idolatry of priests and people. 
 But what would I give them instead ? 
 
 Sweep away the clouds and the sun 
 w411 shine out of itself! Yes, I would at 
 least do something to clear away the solid 
 mass of paganism that still interposes to 
 veil from view the God whom they so 
 ignorantly, so degradingly worship. Yes, 
 I too would be an iconoclast, and break to 
 pieces the hideous idol they have set up, 
 and by removing the fetters of bigotry,
 
 212 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 set humanity free to develope itself to the 
 utmost capacity of its nature. 
 
 But I have no mission to break my 
 father's heart, — or my mother's. 
 
 Would it break them ? 
 
 They would sorrow intensely and pray 
 without ceasing. And with what result ? 
 My mother would feel, though hardly 
 owning it to herself, ' If the Almighty has 
 a mother's heart he will consider that 
 perhaps the intention of her erring son is 
 not bad ; that he believes himself to be 
 right, poor fellow, but has some strange 
 twist of mind.' But it would be to her a 
 perpetual suffering. 
 
 And my father ? — 
 
 He would resign himself with a sigh to 
 the inscrutable divine decree that makes 
 a son of his a reprobate, and try to com- 
 fort himself with the belief that it is all 
 for the glory of God; and therefore a 
 cause of ultimate rejoicing to everybody,
 
 
 death's door. 213 
 
 except myself ; who by getting my deserts 
 hereafter for my sinfulness, will glorify 
 God by my torments. Pity they don't 
 allow the poor damned ones some mitiga- 
 tion of their penalty in consideration of 
 the amount of glory they are the means of 
 contributing to the divine stock. If this 
 be blasphemy, who are the blasphemers? 
 
 No, no — I cannot return home. Here 
 where I am free ; free to obey the natural 
 laws of my being : here where there are 
 no disguises to pierce through to discover 
 God ; where He dwells, not in the ac- 
 cumulated conventionalities of ages, but in 
 his own direct workings ever going on in 
 the forest and the prairie, in the mountains 
 and the rivers, in my own unbiassed self, 
 and in all the manifestations of his power : 
 here where I can feel myself face to face 
 with Him, and there is no man to come 
 between and obstruct my view : here too 
 where I can with my own hands extract
 
 214 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 from tlie earth all tliat I need for all bodily 
 wants by fear or favour of no man : — here 
 will I remain, a hermit in the desert of 
 nature, unredeemed, because needing no 
 redemption, being still primitive and un- 
 exhausted ; here will I remain, to hope, to 
 work, and to win — or die. Better to do 
 even that, to die outright here, than to 
 return to a living death there. 
 
 And they at home, knowing only this 
 of me, shall say, ' He was no coward or 
 changeling. Having put his hand to the 
 plough, he looked not back. And in our 
 grief at losing him, we are comforted by 
 thinking of his courage and perseverance, 
 and trust to meet in joy hereafter.' 
 
 October %th. The doctor says he is 
 sorry he gave me the letters, as I have 
 considerable fever to-day. I rather think 
 he is right.
 
 215 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 NO SURRENDEK. 
 
 The die is cast. I am on my way up 
 the Sacramento again. I have written 
 home to say that I feel myself entirely 
 unfit for the profession for which I have 
 been brought up : that I hope they will 
 forgive my disappointing their hopes in 
 that respect, and that my prospects in this 
 country are so good that by remaining a 
 few years I may reasonably look forward 
 to being no further expense to them. And 
 that, as for the living, I hope that my
 
 216 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHEINE. 
 
 younger brother may prove more worthy 
 of it than myself. 
 
 I had a curious dream the night after 
 writing home. We were all at breakfast 
 together as usual, and my father was ex- 
 pressing great indignation at a horrible 
 account he had just been reading- in the 
 paper about the King of Dahomey sacri- 
 ficing a thousand human victims to his 
 gods. ' It would not take much to make 
 him a Christian/ I observed, ^ for he 
 already believes in a god that requires a 
 sacrifice of agony and blood, before he can 
 receive and pardon his erring children.' 
 
 ^ Your remark is worthy of an Infidel/ 
 
 said my father, ^ and while under my 
 
 roof, I beg you will make no more of that 
 nature.' 
 
 ^ But supposing an Infidel to hit upon 
 the truth ? truth is truth wherever it comes 
 from.' 
 
 ^ Such a perverted notion of truth could
 
 NO SURRENDER. 217 
 
 only have occurred to one who was half 
 an Infidel already. If you are such, the 
 sooner we part the better. It would cut 
 me to the heart to think a child of mine 
 held such opinions, and I could not bear to 
 be constantly reminded of it by seeing him.' 
 
 AYith a persistence unusual to me when 
 at home, and which showed me that it was 
 of my present, and not of my past, self I 
 was dreaming, I replied, ' But even an 
 Infidel honestly believes his opinions to be 
 true. Supposing I was such, you would 
 be persecuting me for conscience' sake. Is 
 that a Christian duty ? ' 
 
 The rest of the dream is lost in a con- 
 fused sense of anger and irritation. But 
 the whole was a singularly natural and 
 vivid realization of what my position would 
 be if I went home, and served to confirm 
 me in my resolution. 
 
 What a magnificent stream is this to 
 me. The Americans are accustomed to
 
 218 THE PILGKIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 sucli immense rivers that they think little 
 of it. Not three months ago I came up 
 here in a canoe — a week's voyage under 
 constant torture from the unremitting 
 attentions of the mosquitoes. Now, a 
 single day is sufficient. When I went 
 down in this steamer last month one of 
 the passengers declined paying for his 
 ticket, on the plea that he had no money. 
 They threatened to put him ashore. He 
 said that of course they could do so if they 
 pleased, but he should starve to death, or 
 be devoured alive by mosquitoes in those 
 endless swamps, and he didn't suppose it 
 was worth murderinsf a man for ten dollars. 
 He had friends in the city who might ad- 
 vance him the money, if they would wait 
 till he could find them. At last it was 
 determined to search him, when a splendid- 
 looking specimen of gold and quartz was 
 found upon him, whicli was, of course, im- 
 pounded. The man showed great distress,
 
 NO SUERENDER. 219 
 
 saying he could not possibly part with that ; 
 it belonged to a friend up country, who had 
 entrusted him with it to send home, and 
 he should be in a terrible strait if they 
 took it from him ; that he had no idea they 
 would not give a poor fellow a passage or 
 trust him if he was hard up ; and so he 
 went on till there was a strong feeling of 
 commiseration excited for him among the 
 passengers. However, the specimen was 
 weighed and valued, and the passage 
 money being deducted, the balance was 
 paid him in cash, amounting to some sixty 
 dollars, he refusing for some time to take 
 it, saying he should be making himself a 
 party to the robbery of his friend. On 
 the arrival of the steamer he went ashore, 
 and was seen no more. I learn now that 
 on testing the specimen it proved to be 
 an artificial composition of brass and 
 quartz, and of course utterly worthless. 
 The cunning Yankee had taken this mode
 
 220 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 of passing it without risk to himself. He 
 did not offer it — didn't want them to take 
 it ; but they would have it, and forced it 
 from him. Altogether it was an inimitable 
 piece of acting. 
 
 Vernon. The Major is terribly disap- 
 pointed about his letters. In vain I tell 
 him the current stories of post-office mis- 
 management, and that they may have been 
 taken out bv some one of the same name. 
 He lies awake at night groaning and 
 talking to himself about no one caring for 
 him now, and the sooner he is dead the 
 better ; and once I caught the words 
 ^ heavy punishment for an accident.' The 
 sooner I get him to a more active life the 
 better.
 
 221 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A LETTER HOME. 
 
 A LETTER to his joungost brother fills up 
 the gap in Herbert's history for the next 
 six months. 
 
 As you are a British boy I take it for 
 granted that you long to be a Robinson 
 Crusoe as much as I did at your age. In 
 this country we are all Robinson Crusoes. 
 And I will tell you how I spent my 
 Christmas. The Major (of whom you 
 have already heard) and I were prevented 
 by the bad weather and flooded rivers
 
 222 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 from reaching the part of the mountains 
 where we wanted to winter. So we stopped 
 at the ford on a stream named Deer 
 Creek, where an English gentleman has a 
 trading post. As we had large supplies 
 with us we joined our stores to his, and 
 while my business was to help him in the 
 disposal of them, the Major looked after 
 some gold-washing operations a few miles 
 off, with a number of hired men. When 
 Christmas Day came I was alone in the 
 camp, with one man. Having discovered 
 the night before that we had nothing to 
 eat except flour and beans, I sent him to 
 the nearest settlement for some fresh meat, 
 and took my gun and looked round near 
 the camp, but could not find even a squir- 
 rel. Evening came, but no man or beef. 
 So I sat down somewhat sulkily to a mess 
 of stewed beans, and in due time went to 
 bed. My man came back next day, some- 
 what ashamed of himself, but the attrac-
 
 A LETTER HOME. 223 
 
 tlons of the settlement liad proved too 
 strong for him. 
 
 ^ The evenings being too long to admit 
 of sitting up to see the new year in, I de- 
 termined to see the first sunrise. So about 
 five o'clock, the moon shining brightly, I 
 took my gun, and wended towards the 
 top of a neighbouring hill where I had 
 before killed deer, and hoped to distinguish 
 the day by feasting on venison. 
 
 ' Arrived at the top, I sat down on a 
 great grey rock, whence I could descry on 
 one side the distant valley, with its many 
 streams and sheets of water glistening 
 in the moonlight, and on the other the 
 snowy hill-tops. I waited long and 
 quietly, making short excursions around, 
 but no deer appeared. By-and-by the 
 wind began to howl in the pine-tree tops, 
 and the clouds scoured along the hills, and 
 rain fell, and pitchy darkness hid the very 
 ground from sight. A rustling in the
 
 224 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 brush, then a step, coming nearer and 
 nearer, then a rush close by me of some 
 heavy animal; I instinctively raised my 
 gun, but all was invisible, and soon the 
 sound had died away in the distance. No 
 use remaining there any longer, and no 
 easy matter to return to the camp. How- 
 ever, I got back at last, after stumbling 
 over fallen trees and sharp rocks, one 
 moment stepping into a ravine of rushing 
 water, and the next entangled in the 
 boughs of a tree, and narrowly copying 
 the evil example of Absalom. There was 
 no sunrise that morning. 
 
 ^ There are a great many Indians in 
 that part of the country. The way some 
 of them spent Christmas was a very sad 
 one for them. They had been stealing 
 cattle from the white men, and molesting 
 parties of miners, and when some of their 
 number had been shot in return, they took 
 revenge upon a harmless old Baptist
 
 A LETTER HOME. 225 
 
 minister, shooting « him to death with 
 arrows, as he sat rocking his cradle in 
 a lonely ravine. So the day after Christ- 
 mas-day three parties went out to punish 
 them. One marched before daylight to an 
 Indian village, and shot several Indians, 
 including, I am sorry to say, some women, 
 and burnt their winter stores of acorns and 
 roots. Another party took an Indian 
 prisoner, and led him bound past my tent 
 to the next settlement to be tried. An 
 ugly-looking fellow he was, and quite 
 capable, to judge by his looks, of murder- 
 ing some dozen white men, as they said 
 he had. The jury listened to what could 
 be said about him, and gave their verdict 
 that ^^ he was one of the meanest Indians 
 round, and ought to be hung anyhow." 
 So they took him to the top of a hill, and 
 while they put a rope round his neck, an 
 Indian of a tribe friendly to the whites 
 taunted him, but the poor wretch took no 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 notice of him, but looked eagerly round in 
 the distance as if to see if help was near. 
 Seeing none, he met his fate bravely 
 enough. 
 
 ^ The other party took three prisoners, 
 who confessed, and boasted of their share 
 in the outrages. The first who was hung 
 cried out loudly ; the other two were per- 
 fectly calm. The rope of one broke before 
 he was quite dead, upon which an old 
 Texan ranger seized it, and putting his 
 foot on the Indian's body, hauled it tiglit, 
 saying, '^ There, you thundering rascal, 1 
 guess you won't shoot another partner of 
 mine." The bodies, which were buried 
 there, were afterwards dug up by their 
 tribe. The one who had cried out was 
 left on the ground for the wolves, and the 
 other two w^ere taken away to be burnt 
 with all honours. 
 
 In the midst of all this, however, I felt 
 DO alarm, for I always found the Indians
 
 A LETTER HOME. 227 
 
 grateful for kindness. They soon learn to 
 distinguish between the Americans and the 
 English, and to look upon the latter as 
 their friends. You would often have found 
 me without another white man near, sur- 
 rounded by a crowd of them, and exchang- 
 ing flour, beads, and blankets, for gold 
 dust. The only beads they care for are the 
 very small white ones, and of blankets red 
 ones. I wished I had more of the beads, 
 for they willingly gave their weight in gold 
 for them. They string them into neck- 
 laces and bracelets, and they are at least as 
 valuable to them as diamonds and pearls to 
 the people at home ; and when you consider 
 what we have gone through to get those 
 beads there to them, you won't think them 
 dear at the price. I make a point of never 
 giving spirits to an Indian. One day one 
 of them seeing a black bottle begged for 
 brandy. It happened to be vinegar. I 
 gave him some, hoping it would cure him
 
 228 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 of wanting brandy. He swallowed it, 
 making many faces, and declared it was 
 ' muclio bueno.' But he never asked me 
 for brandy again. 
 
 * One day wlien I was out hunting, and 
 threading the forest in an absent sort of 
 manner, I came suddenly upon a creature 
 wrinkled, and haggard, and chattering.. 
 I at once cocked my gun, thinking that 
 though it might be only the long ' missing 
 link ' its ignorance of our relationship 
 might render it dangerous. I had never 
 heard that there are any apes in the 
 country, yet the features were exactly 
 those of one of the baboons in your * Beast 
 book.' On closer inspection, however, it 
 proved to be only an Indian squaw, almost 
 blind with age, and hideous and repulsive- 
 looking in the extreme, just what I believe 
 some poet has described as having ^ none of 
 the charms of Eve except her nakedness.' 
 Indeed it was not until I perceived upon
 
 A LETTER HOME. 229 
 
 her head the remains of the pitch which is 
 always worn as mourning by the Indians 
 that I was quite sure of her womanity. 
 
 ^ One day an American came to me and 
 complained that his almanac was wrong. 
 He had wished to influence the Indians as 
 Columbus did once by predicting an eclipse 
 of the moon, and dreadfully small he said 
 he felt when, after making great preten- 
 sions to knowledge, and getting the whole 
 tribe out to watch the moon's disappear- 
 ance, it went on shining just the same. 
 He quite forgot that he was two thousand 
 miles away from the place where the eclipse 
 was visible. 
 
 ' This man considers himself a great as- 
 tronomer. He was telling me one day of 
 the difference between his native State in 
 the East and the Pacific side, and how 
 much longer the days are here. The lati- 
 tude being the same, I suggested that that 
 might be because he gets up earlier here.
 
 230 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 ^^ Oh no," he said ; ^^ it's because the far- 
 ther West one goes the longer the days are." 
 I thought of saying, '' How very long, then, 
 they must be when one gets all the way 
 round," but thought it better to leave him 
 in his happy, contented ignorance. 
 
 ' One evening a party of Indians came 
 to my camp and sat down by the fire. 
 Presently they produced a number of field 
 mice, nearly as big as rats, which, without 
 any preparation, they buried in the ashes 
 of my wood fire, and heaped live embers 
 over them. In about half an hour, the 
 Indians, considering them done, took them 
 out, and commenced eating them, skin, 
 bone, cinders, and all, putting them into 
 their mouths head foremost, and munching 
 them gradually up to the tip of the tail. 
 I did not continue to watch them closely, 
 but it sounded very like eating walnuts. 
 
 ' They procure them by watching, bow 
 in hand, close to their holes ; and the in-
 
 A LETTER HOME. 231 
 
 stant the mouse puts his head out it is 
 pierced almost to a certainty by an arrow. 
 ' When the frost came the rivers fell, 
 and we came up here. It was a tre- 
 mendous journey, but we were anxious to 
 choose a good spot for the summer before 
 the whole country was overrun. In one 
 part of the way the ground was so rotten 
 that we were perpetually digging our 
 mules out. It took nine days to make 
 twelve miles. The last forty miles our 
 road lay over mountain-ridges covered with 
 deep snow. Some considerable streams 
 also had to be crossed. The mode of 
 operation is as follows : — On reaching a 
 river, some commence unloading the 
 mules, while others select the largest pine 
 near the edge, and cut it down so as to 
 fall across the stream. All the baggage 
 is carried over upon the log, and the ani- 
 mals swim across and are reloaded on the 
 other side. On reaching a good spot for
 
 232 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 camping, all hands go to work unloading, 
 cutting poles for tents and wood for fire, and, 
 if the snow be deep, a tree for the beasts 
 to browse on, making bread and cooking 
 meat. So that in an hour from halting we 
 are all comfortably feeding round a blazing 
 fire. Then the prospects of success are 
 discussed, songs are sung, and stories told, 
 those by the old trappers and backwoods- 
 men being exceedingly curious and charac- 
 teristic. These men have an immense deal 
 of quaint humour in them. 
 
 ' One morning as we were camped by 
 one of the branches of the Yuba, one of the 
 party looking out early saw a herd of deer 
 beside the water. We jumped up with 
 our guns and secured five of them. All 
 hands fell to, skinning and cutting them 
 up, with the exception of myself, who 
 preferred the office of making a fire, and 
 rigging a grating of boughs over it for 
 drying the meat in Mexican . fashion,
 
 A LETTER HOME. 233 
 
 SO as to preserve it for several weeks. 
 
 ' You may think it difficult to camp in 
 deep snow. But knowledge is comfort. 
 In half an hour's digging a spot is cleared 
 at the foot of some huge pine tree ; a few 
 chips are cut from a dry stick and lit at its 
 foot, and presently the rich old tree flares 
 up with such fury that one cannot go near 
 it till the flames subside. What more 
 could be wanted than to be thus comfort- 
 ably surrounded by a rampart of snow 
 high enough to keep off cold winds. 
 
 ' The novelty and freedom of this life 
 make it very delightful, for a time at least. 
 Though occasionally the charm is rudely 
 shaken by such an incident as coming, 
 when hunting, upon the body of some poor 
 murdered miner, stowed away in the 
 bushes, and half-eaten by wolves ; mur- 
 dered perhaps by his own partner when 
 carrying his hard earnings to the home 
 where wife and children are waitintr to
 
 234 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 welcome him who will retm*!! to them no 
 more. Every man here may be said to 
 carry his life in his waistcoat pocket. He 
 must take care of it himself. The only 
 law is lynch-law ; even that is much better 
 than none. We hear terrible stories of 
 sudden justice inflicted in other parts of 
 the country. Here there is but a scanty 
 population, and all is quiet as yet. 
 
 ' I wish you could see me. You would 
 find me dwelling ^^like truth, at the bot- 
 tom of a well," and a very deep one too, 
 for it is necessary to climb some 3000 feet 
 up an angle of 70° to get out. Our men 
 are at work on a small '^ bar," which is only 
 partly uncovered by water. There is no 
 level ground on which we can pitch a tent, 
 so we are perched upon a ledge some thirty 
 feet up the hill-side, to which we ascend by 
 a staircase of rocks, the whole looking very 
 much like a robber's cave, and somewhat 
 dangerous for somnambulists. Our month's
 
 A LETTER HOME. 235 
 
 work here has paid pretty well, but 
 nothing to what we expect when the water 
 falls, and we can turn the river and work 
 in the channel. If ever you or any of 
 your friends want to know if you are well 
 off at home, come to California. Our only 
 shelter is a tent just big enough to sit or 
 sleep in. If you want provisions you 
 must pack them on your back and trudge 
 over rocks, and hills, and rivers, and 
 snows, for miles. When hungry, wood 
 must be cut, fire made, and food cooked by 
 yourself before you can eat. You get wet 
 through, and must remain so till the 
 weather clears. You want clean clothes, 
 and must wash them yourself in the freez- 
 ing stream. Climbing up and down the 
 frozen hills you tear your hands with the 
 brush, and almost set yourself on fire with 
 sliding. And if you wish to know what 
 good things potatoes are, you should come 
 here, and be glad to get them for twelve 
 shillings a pound.'
 
 236 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A SEVERANCE. 
 
 April, 1850. 
 
 Again the scene changes. The snows 
 are melting under the warm rains of spring. 
 The rivers are far over their banks, and 
 the valley of the Sacramento is one vast 
 sea. Boats, and even steamers, go about 
 the streets of the ill-fated cities of the plain. 
 Here and there is a piece of ground some- 
 what higher than the rest, to which the 
 flood does not reach. Between the junc- 
 tion of the Yuba and Feather rivers, a con- 
 siderable space is thus left dry. On the
 
 A SEVERANCE. 237 
 
 bank of one of these streams is a rancho, 
 or cattle station, belonging to some Span- 
 iards, who intend to start a town there. 
 Many miners have taken refuge here. 
 Having nothing to do but to wait until the 
 waters subside, they pass their time chiefly 
 in drinking, gambling, and fighting. The 
 noise of their revels reaches to a little 
 copse, a mile or more away, beside the 
 now rushing Feather river. A small 
 steeple-shaped tent is pitched there. Its 
 only tenants are two sick men, who have 
 been stopped on their way to the bay by 
 the rapid flooding of the prairies. One of 
 them may be occasionally seen, in the 
 intervals of his ague fits, wandering slowly 
 and feebly along the bank with a rifle, 
 seeking for a rabbit or a bird, which, if he 
 is fortunate enough to obtain it, he takes 
 home and cooks for the other inmate of 
 the little tent. One looking in at such a 
 moment would see the wreck of what had
 
 238 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 evidently been a splendid man, — tall, dark, 
 and strong, but now pale and emaciated ; 
 and the other rousing him from his leth- 
 argy and gently persuading him to take 
 some food. A few mouthfuls — no more ; a 
 look beaming with grateful affection ; a 
 vain attempt to articulate ; and he sinks 
 back into his stupor. He has long since 
 told his story to his friend ; there is now 
 no reserve between tliem, and his mind is 
 at ease. Poor, simple, and yet great- 
 souled Major ! blameless in every action of 
 thy life towards others, it was indeed ' a 
 heavy penalty to pay for an accident ; ' 
 and many and bitter will be the tears that 
 flow for thee when Herbert's next letter 
 reaches its destination at thy distant home. 
 Betrothed to a fair girl, for whom he was 
 indeed a hero, he had but a short time 
 before that appointed for the wedding, 
 taken her young and only brother out to 
 shoot wild-fowl by night. Posting the
 
 A SEVERANCE. 239 
 
 youth in a favourable position, and giving 
 him strict charge not to move from it, lie 
 himself went a little farther round the 
 pool, in order to place the game nearly 
 between them. The lad, eager and vola- 
 tile, waded in among the reeds to take, as 
 he fancied, a better position, and the 
 startled birds flew close over his head. A 
 hasty shot from the Major, who had little 
 idea he was there, indeed brought down 
 some of them ; but a single shot entered 
 the poor boy's head, and he was taken 
 home a corpse. In her boundless distress, 
 the mother declared she could never again 
 bear the sight of him who had been the 
 innocent cause of her child's death. To 
 her, indeed, time seemed to bring no alle- 
 viation of feeling ; but the first shock over, 
 it was felt by others that the misfortune 
 was too heavy in itself, without the added 
 wreck of the happiness of two lives. In 
 this feeling the true-hearted girl sliared.
 
 240 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 The more she had loved her brother, the 
 more she felt pity for the unhappy cause of 
 his death. The first time the poor Major 
 had held his head up since the accident 
 was when she forgot her own grief in his, 
 and assured him their mutual misfortune 
 should only bind them closer together. 
 As a ray from the centre of infinite com- 
 passion was this declaration of her sympa- 
 thy. He had supposed such a thing im- 
 possible. Willingly he now acceded to the 
 proposal that he should go abroad for a 
 time, and live in hope. 
 
 She promi-sed to write ; but no letters 
 ever reached him. Determined not to 
 return until called back by her, for a year 
 and a half he continued to wander and to 
 hope. He then gave way to a settled de- 
 spondency. At length, he revealed his 
 history to Herbert. A gleam of hope 
 revived in him, as he admitted the proba- 
 bility of the suggestion that the mother
 
 A SEVERANCE. 24.1 
 
 had positively forbidden the correspond- 
 ence, or that letters might easily miss him 
 in his wanderings; or that, as he owned 
 that he had never written to her, she might 
 think he no longer cared for her ; or again, 
 that even now there might be letters await- 
 ing him at San Francisco, for he had 
 adopted Herbert's advice, and written to 
 his relatives, begging for the fullest in- 
 formation, and desiring them to add the 
 name of his native place after his own 
 name in the address, so that none other 
 might receive it in mistake. 
 
 ^ Let us get this work done,' said he, 
 ^ and then I will go down myself. We 
 shall have money enough then for the 
 journey home, and something more, too ; 
 and you, my boy, will go with me.' 
 
 And this, alas, is the end of his hopes ! 
 Now is the strong man stricken down, and 
 tended in his turn by him whom he had 
 nursed even at death's door. With blood 
 
 VOL. I 16
 
 242 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 impoverished, and the whole frame weak- 
 ened by scurvy, — fatal to how many thou- 
 sands in that country, — the result of cold 
 and wet, and of scanty nourishment ; and 
 in addition to this, with acute inflammation 
 of the chest, the poor Major has too late 
 discovered that the armour of even his 
 constitution is not proof against all assaults. 
 In vain is aid sought from one sojourning 
 at the rancho, and styling himself doctor. 
 ' It is nothing ; a touch of scurvy and a 
 cold. Good food and care only are neces- 
 sary.' 
 
 No use longing to reach the settlements 
 now, more than if they were upon an 
 island in the ocean and had no boat there. 
 There they are, and there they must remain 
 until either the dry land reappears, or the 
 soul of at least one of them wings its flight 
 over the waste of waters to regions even 
 more strange than the wilds of California. 
 Yes, to this it must come. The outworks
 
 A SEVERANCE. 243 
 
 are taken ; the inmost citadel of the house 
 of life is mined, and the fortress is no 
 longer tenable. Worst of all signs, the 
 very will to resist lies dormant. So 
 silently and rapidly has the enemy won 
 his way that Herbert's first serious alarm 
 is also his last one. He returns one day 
 from his wonted hunt for such delicate diet 
 as their corner of the prairie may afford, 
 to find the cold beads of death standing 
 upon the forehead of his friend. Seizing 
 him by the shoulders he called out loudly 
 to him. The dying man opened his eyes, 
 rose a little from his bed, gleamed once 
 wildly upon him, and grasped his arm as in 
 a vice, and then fell back to rise no more. 
 
 Yes ; the strong, brave, tender man is 
 dead. Over him weeps the sole friend in 
 all that far-off wilderness. He needs a 
 friend now, most when he least knows it ; 
 for who else will place him in his last 
 home of rest, where the waters shall not
 
 244 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 bear him away, or the wild beasts make 
 merry over him. Without is the wind 
 sighing over the rushing waters, and tlie 
 harsli mirth of the distant revellers ; within 
 is silence, and sorrow, and sacred death. 
 * *- * * 
 
 ' Oh that I knew what thou knowest 
 now. Thou hast solved the mystery of 
 death. Thou hast thy flight now through 
 realms forbidden to me, and dost read the 
 problem of God and the universe. And 
 thou hast satisfaction therein ; for is not 
 deep calm and content written in thy face ? 
 and death does not lie. The dead know 
 all things. Why then should I live ? ' 
 * * * * 
 
 And so intensest curiosity takes the 
 lead of all other feelings as Herbert lies 
 that night beside his dead comrade. Not 
 yet does he comprehend his loneliness, for 
 are they not still together ? Nay, as night 
 wears on does he not hear a breathing, a
 
 A SEVERANCE. 245 
 
 movement? Starting up in eager hope, 
 he reaches out his hand in the darkness 
 and places it upon the Major's forehead. 
 Cold, cold. The sleep was kinder than 
 the waking, had the dream only lasted. 
 
 To dig a grave was beyond Herbert's 
 strength. Aid must be obtained from the 
 rancho. It must be told to the credit of 
 those reckless Californians, that they never 
 grudge help in this last sad office. Money 
 could procure materials and labour to 
 fashion them into a coffin. All the rest was 
 granted freely. They even come to the 
 burial in a large party, occupying two wag- 
 gons, some of them even nearly sober. 
 And having carried the dead to his resting- 
 place, and replaced the earth amid a cer- 
 tain silence and aspect of wonderment, 
 they remount their waggons, begging Her- 
 bert to ^ come and have something to 
 drink.' Then as fast as their half-broken 
 horses can take them they race back, their
 
 246 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 shouts and laughter ringing over the prairie, 
 making sad discord to poor Herbert's 
 mood. Then he remembers for the first 
 time that it is customary to repeat prayers 
 over the dead, in order to constitute what 
 is called ^ Christian burial.' ^ Prayers : and 
 for whom ? For the dead ? oh no. For 
 the living ? for thejn ? What are prayers 
 to them ? For myself ? I can grieve 
 without putting my grief into words. And 
 I can wish, without making my wish into 
 prayers. Indeed I know not exactly for 
 what I wish, or for what I should pray. 
 The uppermost feeling is that he should be 
 restored to me. Prayers, then, would be a 
 mockery here, and no mockery shall dese- 
 crate the tomb of one so simple and so 
 
 true.' 
 
 * * -* * 
 
 It is impossible not to fancy him still 
 living somewhere^ while the image of him 
 lives so clearly in the mind. A few weeks,
 
 A SEVERANCE. 247 
 
 and the prairies are a vast carpet of beauty. 
 The sea of water changes to a sea of flow- 
 ers which wave gently in the soft breath 
 of the summer airs that called them forth. 
 Life is change, and death is change. Life 
 and death are one. 
 
 * * * * 
 Nature suffers no loss. Her redundancy 
 and infinite resource has no need of us that 
 we should be preserved in our individuality 
 for ever. From the ashes of the dead does 
 she produce the living. From decay, the 
 beauty of flowers. From living memories, 
 souls. Men go ; man remains. Just as 
 we waste a sheet to try a pen, so nature 
 works. So many men are spoiled in try- 
 ing What ? 
 
 ^ ^ y^ y^ 
 
 ' Can so much excellence perish ? Can 
 a soul so noble and true fail to endure for 
 ever? Can God bear to be perpetually 
 losing those whom he loves ? ' Alas, does
 
 248 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 not the beauty of everything fade and de- 
 part ; the bright hues of the cloud and the 
 aurora ; the loveliness of bird and flower ; 
 and the noble grandeur of trees ? 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Just such a beauty may be human ex- 
 cellence in the Infinite eyes. Its memory 
 may exist when the beautiful thing itself 
 is no more. For what else is individual 
 excellence than a temporary manifestation 
 of eternal goodness ? As well may the 
 drops in the rainbow deem each other's 
 beauty as worthy to endure for ever, as for 
 man to expect immortality for any excel- 
 lence he can perceive in man. The in- 
 forming Spirit may indeed be eternal, but 
 forms are ever changing and passing away.
 
 BOOK III.
 
 'Even doubts are often instnictive, for hasty conclusions 
 may be avoided when we are assured either that what we know 
 is little beyond probable surmise, or that our knowledge is only 
 a few degrees removed from mere ignorance.' — Saturday 
 Review, July 21, 1860, p. 84.
 
 251 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ANARCHY. 
 
 It is a summer morning, and Herbert 
 is riding through the picturesque hills that 
 skirt the valley of the Sacramento, to a 
 spot that has before attracted him as likely 
 to repay labour. He is alone, and well- 
 armed, for violence is now common in the 
 land. Travellers approaching from op- 
 posite directions waive each other off the 
 road. If one insists on coming too close, 
 usage permits him to be shot down with- 
 out waiting for an attack. Bandits from 
 Upper Mexico are abroad ; barbarians of
 
 252 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE, 
 
 wondrous skill in horsemanship, who at 
 full gallop fling the terrible lasso with un- 
 erring certainty over the helpless travel- 
 ler, and drag him to death at full speed. 
 There are fearful reports in the settlements 
 about these murderous gangs. The con- 
 versation at the wayside inn where Her- 
 bert put up last night was all about them. 
 An American, who has been in the ]\[exi- 
 can war, there tells how that many were 
 made prisoners in that way. And how 
 an officer of his regiment was caught, but 
 being better mounted than his captor he 
 outrode him and shot him down with his 
 revolver ; but tlie lasso being made fast to 
 the saddle, the affrighted horse still gal- 
 lopped on, and a long chase was necessary 
 before he too could be shot down, and 
 the officer could release himself They 
 talk also of how the miners dwelling in 
 lonely places, barricade their log-huts and 
 prepare loop-holes for their rifles. Her-
 
 ANARCHY. 253 
 
 bert's road lies through a district believed 
 to be infested, but he thinks the danger 
 not greater there than in other parts of 
 the country. He has ridden far and met 
 with no one, and his thoughts gradually 
 turn from danger to other subjects. He 
 has been to the Bay and deposited the 
 monev he took down from the mines in 
 the city banks, having written to the 
 Major's relations to tell them his fate, and 
 to ask for instructions respecting the dis- 
 posal of his share. He has found and read 
 the long-delayed letters. Poor Major, thou 
 art happier thus. Thy bride waits not for 
 thee. Death has been busy in that care- 
 ful land as well as here. Now are ye 
 united, and all doubts are cleared up for 
 ever. And there is one less to weep for 
 thee at home. 
 
 The inclination of his horse towards a 
 rich plot of grass reminds Herbert' that it 
 is near noon, and therefore time for rest
 
 254 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRIXE. 
 
 and refreshment. Horse and rider occupy 
 themselves accordingly. A delightful little 
 hollow it is, adorned with mountain oaks 
 and splendid tiger lilies, whose red and 
 speckled blossoms hang heavily in the 
 noon-day heat. Pleasant reposing in such 
 a spot, watching the tiny humming-birds 
 shedding soft murmurs as they dart through 
 the air, and hover around the tiger-lilies, 
 poising themselves a moment on their 
 quivering wings, and then diving up into 
 the overhanging petals; and even wheel- 
 ing close round Herbert as he sits motion- 
 less in order to tempt their approach. 
 
 And so from the sweet scenes of na- 
 ture, and perhaps suggested by the very 
 contrast, his thoughts recurred to the city 
 he had just visited and the wild deeds 
 there enacted. There he has seen all the 
 order of things completely inverted ; pri- 
 vate citizens protecting themselves, and 
 punishing crime, while constituted author-
 
 ANARCHY. 255 
 
 ities aided and abetted it. He had seen 
 the streets patrolled day and night by 
 bankers, lawyers, merchants, and shop- 
 keepers, all carrying arms, and doing with 
 their own hands that which the appointed 
 guardians of society conspired to prevent. 
 He has seen men seized in the act of rob- 
 bery, the citizens summoned by the ring- 
 ing of an alarm bell, and the offender ex- 
 ecuted on the spot. He has seen a mob, 
 composed of the principal citizens, assault 
 the gaol, take out the felons confined 
 there, and hang them in the street, be- 
 cause they had been placed there for im- 
 munity, and not for justice. In the ne- 
 cessity for thus acting he sees the penalty 
 for their own neglect of all the duties of 
 citizenship for the frantic engrossment of 
 money-making. With full power to be 
 governed in the most perfect manner they 
 could devise, and to select the best agents, 
 they have left all to the worst classes of
 
 256 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 society, forgetting that Liberty not only 
 confers privileges, but also imposes duties. 
 From the lowest police, through officers, 
 sheriffs, and, it is said, up to the judges 
 and governor of the State, all offices have 
 been filled with ruffians elected by ruffians 
 assembled from all parts of the earth, and 
 leagued together for plunder and rapine, — 
 a terrible disease indeed, and threatening 
 speedy dissolution to society. The remedy 
 must be sharp in proportion. There was 
 something majestic in the determined at- 
 titude of the better classes, when thorough- 
 ly aroused to a sense of their danger and 
 their duty. 
 
 With that faculty for organization which 
 the American system seems to bestow as a 
 birthright upon its children, committees 
 of vigilance are everywhere appointed, 
 either to see that justice is done, or to do 
 it themselves. Sharp watch is kept, and
 
 ANARCHY. 257 
 
 detection followed by instant execution ; 
 little compassion being bestowed on men 
 who commit their depredations with their 
 eyes open, and in full knowledge of what 
 their fate will be ; — for men who steal, not 
 because there is no work awaiting them 
 with ample reward, but from pure prefer- 
 ence for stealing to working. The effect 
 is magical. The state is saved. Driven 
 from the settlements, crime now haunts 
 the unpeopled districts through which 
 travellers must pass. 
 
 Herbert's tendency to philosophize na- 
 turally leads him to thinking about punish- 
 ment and its meaning. In this simplest 
 form of society he thinks can best be 
 found the true theory of human associ- 
 ation, as physiologists seek among the 
 simplest organisms for theories of life and 
 health. Punishment, when not mere re- 
 venge, is only in self-defence. Justice 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 means only restitution ; not vengeance, or 
 retaliation. Man, that is, civilized man, 
 has nothing to do with that. There is but 
 one limit to a man's liberty of action, 
 namely, the liberty of other men. We 
 have no right to punish or prevent any 
 action except in so far as it militates 
 against our own liberty. The nature and 
 quality of punishment must be determined 
 by, and is an indication of, the stage at 
 which any society has arrived, in its pro- 
 gress towards civilization. Here in its 
 early stage, and where the offenders 
 against liberty form a large proportion of 
 the whole, is actually a condition of civil 
 war. The upholders of order, that is, 
 those who do not infringe upon the liber- 
 ties of others, cannot afford to make 
 prisoners, for they have no means of guard- 
 ing them; far less of reforming them. 
 They can therefore give no quarter.
 
 ANARCHY. 259 
 
 Death Is no deliberate capital punishment : 
 it occurs in the fight for existence. To 
 punish implies unquestioned superiority. 
 Here it is as yet doubtful which side is 
 the stronger. To spare, therefore, would 
 be suicidal. By and by, when life and 
 property are respected by the vast ma- 
 jority, and crime becomes rare, security, 
 leisure, and experience may suggest a 
 mode of disposing of offenders with ad- 
 vantage to both parties. Judicious treat- 
 ment may even make them useful members 
 of society, and by being remunerative, 
 prove even cheaper than hanging. But 
 wljat may be cheap then is ruinously ex- 
 pensive, even impossible, now. The inflic- 
 tion of death, then, is neither right nor 
 wrong in the abstract, but is determined 
 entirely by the condition of each society. 
 The ruder and simpler society is, the ruder 
 and simpler must be its modes of defence
 
 260 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 against aggression. The reformation of 
 criminals (a very different thing to their 
 punishment) is a luxury to be reserved 
 for a wealthier and securer society, with 
 more advanced and complex civilization.
 
 261 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A VICTIM. 
 
 The arms examined, the sharp knife 
 loosened in its sheath, as the only possible 
 defence against the encircling lasso, Her- 
 bert resumes his journey — a sample of 
 many journeys made by him and others 
 in that country. He has reduced the 
 chances of danger by leaving the ordinary 
 track, but neglects no precaution. He 
 rides along making as little noise as 
 possible, and wherever there are trees he 
 keeps near them, remembering that the 
 lasso is useless without free scojdc to fling
 
 262 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 it in. Night finds him far from any settle- 
 ment ; but this is a contingency expected 
 and provided against. A little rivulet of 
 clearest water, and a patch of grass, supply 
 all the traveller's necessities, be he man or 
 horse. A tree to sleep under out of the 
 dew is a luxury. The horse feeds around 
 until it is time to sleep. He is then 
 picketed out with a long rope carried for 
 the purpose. His master rolls himself in 
 a blanket, and with his hollow Mexican 
 saddle for a pillow, soon falls asleep. 
 Happy life, with its dreams by day of 
 hope, and by night of realization. Pleas- 
 ant contrast this quiet starry night makes 
 to some of Herbert's late winter experi- 
 ences, when camped out in the forest, with 
 the storm driving through the trees, and 
 sending their big branches crashing down 
 on all sides, and the roar of the wind 
 mingled with the howling of wild beasts, 
 and the rain fallino^ in torrents covered the
 
 A VICTIM. 263 
 
 ground with running water, which gradu- 
 ally won its way even through the indian- 
 rubber blanket in which the traveller 
 enveloped himself on such occasions. 
 
 But even then Herbert managed to get 
 through a good deal of sound sleeping, 
 even when the night was such that his poor 
 mule fell across him, chilled to death by 
 the bitterness of the blasts. 
 
 Once perhaps the sleeper wakes, looks 
 to see that his horse is all right ; looks at 
 the stars, and thinks how much more pic- 
 turesque he must be than the worthy 
 citizen shut in four walls, decorated with a 
 night-cap, and buried to the nose in a 
 feather-bed. He thinks that heart could 
 not wish for more, had he but eome 
 one to care for besides himself. Yes, he 
 feels lonely, but thrusts it away somewhat 
 in this fashion : ^ Never mind ; let me but 
 succeed, and it will all come — some day. 
 But the luxury of having some one who
 
 264 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 would enjoy battling it out with me ; who 
 would make part of my history, instead of 
 merely listening to it afterwards ! I sup- 
 pose there are such beyond the circle of 
 my limited experience. It seems to me as 
 if I had never really known anybody — 
 only a few prim, timid, contracted phan- 
 toms, made up of conventionality and 
 theology, shrinking from the thought of 
 their own nature, and wearing a per- 
 petual mask, as if to hide their reality 
 even from themselves ; the sole visible aim 
 of their lives being to dry up all human 
 sympathy into the spiritual selfishness of 
 devotees. Oh for one whose rich abound- 
 ing soul dared to be true, and real, and 
 loving : one to whom I might reveal all of 
 myself, and who would glory in revealing 
 all to me ! What heights of being might 
 we not tread together ! But these are new 
 thoughts for me. Since I lost the poor 
 Major I find myself longing for a com-
 
 A VICTIM. 265 
 
 panion who would indeed be a friend, and 
 my fancy as usual frames an ideal, and 
 this time changes it into a woman. It, 
 certainly is not good for man to be always 
 alone. Alone he may be, even in a crowd 
 of intimate acquaintances, from whom all 
 the deeper thoughts and feelings which 
 constitute his actual self, are entirely con- 
 cealed. Thus he becomes morbid. Alone 
 with none to care for or consider beside 
 himself. Thus he becomes selfish. Selfish 
 pleasure is only half pleasure. Happiness 
 doubles by reflection. Self-sacrifice is a 
 necessary result of the law of duality, 
 and verily it hath its reward. That is, 
 self-sacrifice for the good of another ; not 
 for its own sake, for then it is a vice, a 
 rebuke to the bounty of nature, and a 
 surly rejection of the good things provided 
 for our enjoyment.' 
 
 Herbert continues his reverie as he 
 rides along. ' Is it possible to be absolutely
 
 266 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 alone, one and sole in space, a conscious 
 unit without any existence external to 
 itself? A subject, with no object — neces- 
 sarily ignorant of all, and even of self? 
 for self must be dual to act on self. Know- 
 ledge of self implies duality of parts, one 
 of which is conscious of the existence of 
 the other, and thence of its own. If the 
 whole be individual there can be no self- 
 consciousness. Man communes with him- 
 self by reflecting on his impressions. But 
 these come from without. If there was no 
 without, there would be no impression. 
 Ideas all result from experience, experience 
 of something external, and perhaps in- 
 ternal, to oneself Absolute loneliness, or 
 oneness, is non-existence. Had Grod ever 
 been alone creation had never been : that 
 is, there would have been no Grod. Was it 
 the perception of this necessity that led 
 the subtle Hindoos and the later Christians 
 to the ecclesiastical figment of multiplicity
 
 A VICTIM. 2G7 
 
 in the divine personality ? — one sole exist- 
 ence necessitating a duality, and this again 
 resulting in a third existence : — the prime 
 essence, or ^' Father," impelled by his 
 breath, disposition, or ^' Spirit," and utter- 
 ing the Word, or ^^ Son : " the Self, the not- 
 self, and the effect of one upon the other. 
 And so the triune God appears as a logical 
 necessity. And the divine self-sacrifice 
 appears as no mere happy thought, or 
 mechanical adjustment, but as a necessary 
 result of the law of reflexion, and founded 
 inevitably in the nature of things ; and 
 Unconscious Selfishness as the basis of all 
 morals. 
 
 ^I think the different theories of modern 
 sects may be classified thus. The Romish 
 deities the family. The Calvinist the two 
 opposing princij)les of Good and Evil, 
 after the Pythagoreans. To this latter the 
 '^ Evangelicals" superadd the principle of 
 atonement and propitiation by sacrifice
 
 268 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 borrowed from the Levitical code. And 
 the true worshipper (can I call him '' Chris- 
 tian " ?) acknowledges one God, who is the 
 universal Spirit, to be ^' worshipped in 
 spirit and in truth," accessible without 
 Mediator, symbol, or ceremonial.' 
 
 And now Herbert's curiosity is excited 
 by observing a broad fresh-looking trail 
 through the long grass across the line of his 
 route. A trivial circumstance until it be 
 remembered that a trail does not make 
 itself ; and who was there to make that 
 one ? Examining it, he finds no footstep 
 of man or beast, but the grass is laid 
 smooth into a long narrow trough, as if by 
 something being drawn along. A thought 
 strikes him. He draws a pistol and cocks 
 it, and rides cautiously along the trail ; a 
 foolish thing perhaps to do in a country 
 where every man is for himself : but he 
 does it. It soon leads to a thicket. There 
 are indications that the trail is one, per-
 
 A. VICTIM. 269 
 
 haps two days old. Never mind, lie will 
 see the end of it. Certainty is better than 
 apprehension. And certainty he soon has, 
 though the murderers are probably far 
 enough away now from the wretclied vic- 
 tim that lies there, all torn and mangled, 
 dragged to death, and flung into the bush 
 to rot. A miner evidently, but with fea- 
 tures indistinguishable and pockets torn 
 out, and nothing to be done but hastily 
 tear down boughs, and cover the ghastly 
 dead from sight, and then to horse again 
 and away, first, however, examining the 
 tracks to see which way the bandits have 
 taken. Not his way it appears, but out of 
 the valley by the shortest cut, over the 
 hills to the rear of the thicket. Herbert 
 returns to his route casting many a sharp 
 glance around under the trees and to the 
 ridges of the hills, and deep wrath amount- 
 ing to exasperation takes possession of his 
 mind, driving away all thought of fear on
 
 270 THE PILGEIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 liis own account. So that he even longs to 
 fall in with the assassins, and take venge- 
 ance for the foul deed. It would be a 
 relief to him. 
 
 By night he has put many a mile of 
 hill and valley, and forest, and river be- 
 tween himself and the thicket. Within a 
 mile or two of his destination, he finds, to 
 his disappointment, a new settlement. The 
 spot he has come so far to survey may not, 
 however, have been disturbed. The miners 
 gather round him, and ask what news from 
 the city. He has a newspaper or two, which 
 are welcome indeed ; and he tells the tale 
 of the murdered man in the wood. There 
 are eager inquiries from men who are 
 expecting comrades ; but there is little 
 satisfactory to be told. Will he go back 
 with a party and bury him ? Yes ; the 
 day after to-morrow will be Sunday, an 
 idle day, and his horse will be fit for the 
 journey, for it is a long way there and
 
 A VICTIM. 271 
 
 back. Let all who have horses arm them- 
 selves, and bring a couple of spades, and 
 come. He inquires about the diggings. 
 They are new, but promise well. There 
 is no one else in their neighbourhood. 
 There is work on the spot for all there, 
 and it is hardly safe to be away from a 
 settlement. They hope he will stay with 
 them, for they like the looks of him, though 
 he is a Britisher, and they guess he knows 
 more than they do, though they shouldn't 
 have taken him for a miner. ^ Can he 
 do any doctoring ? ' for there are two or 
 three sick men, and they don't know what 
 to give them. Herbert does not wish to 
 divulge his intention by seeming in haste, 
 so he passes next day in the camp, looks 
 round the diggings, and performs the re- 
 quired ^ doctoring.' He carries medicines 
 always, and in cases of ague and dysentery 
 will back himself against any regular prac- 
 titioner. They offer payment. Remember-
 
 272 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 ing his former experiencGj he does not 
 altogether decline, but says wait till they 
 get well, and then they shall pay him some- 
 thing: that he does not profess to doctor, 
 but likes to be neighbourly. Next day the 
 party sets out. The dead man is buried 
 unrecognized, and Herbert returns to ex- 
 ecute his plan.
 
 273 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CLAIM. 
 
 The trial proved satisfactory and Her- 
 bert is settled in his new location ; and 
 with the aid of some men, whom he 
 manages to hire, is engaged in washing 
 out the gold that lies scattered through the 
 soil of a small valley lying some 3500 feet 
 above the sea. It is a pleasant spot, 
 adorned with oaks and firs in park-like 
 order. Higher up on the mountain-side 
 runs a vein of quartz, of which vast quan- 
 tities have been broken off and decomposed 
 in tlie course of ages, enriching all the 
 
 VOL. I. 18
 
 274 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 lower ground with tlie gold tlius detached. 
 The soil, nowhere more than three feet in 
 depth, is loose, black, and rich, and 
 covered with roses now in full bloom, wild 
 cherries, pea-vines, mint, and what the 
 miners call the soap plant, from the root 
 of it, when rubbed in water, making a 
 white lather. A singular plant this last, 
 being somewhat like a large onion covered 
 by a wig of black shaggy hair. ' Ah, 
 there's some poor fellow's scalp,' was the 
 exclamation of one on first seeing the soap 
 plant. Altogether a beautiful bit of garden 
 ground, with little lumps of bright gold 
 scattered evenly throughout, from the very 
 grass roots to the rock beneath. Herbert 
 cannot help regretting the destruction of 
 such a spot for all purposes of future use 
 and beauty. By means of a small stream 
 of water directed through a series of 
 wooden troughs, he and his men are 
 causing the whole of the soil to disappear
 
 THE CLAIM. 275 
 
 by putting it into the troughs to be washed 
 away. The weight of the gold causes it to 
 remain behind, and by this simple process 
 it is secured. An ideal place for gold- 
 digging, the labour is so easy ; but they 
 work very hard, notwithstanding, for time 
 is indeed money to the miner, and Herbert 
 pays his men according to the number of 
 hours they work ; and none of them wish 
 to remain in California longer than is neces- 
 sary to make the desired sum with which 
 to return home. It seems that one or two 
 thousand dollars is the aim of most workers 
 there ; an important sum to a mechanic 
 or labouring man in the United States, 
 but very inadequate to Herbert's notions. 
 Tliere are three Americans in the party, 
 a Scotch sailor who has left his ship at 
 San Francisco, and an Irishman who has 
 deserted from the United States army. 
 The best educated of them is a ' full-blooded 
 Yankee,' whom Herbert has made his fore-
 
 276 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE, 
 
 man, — a witty fellow, whose great delight 
 is to ^ do the judicious misrepresentation ' 
 for too inquisitive inquirers ; for a foreigner 
 holds his claim only by grace of his neigh- 
 bours ; and if it be a good one, it is as well 
 that they should not know it. Herbert's se- 
 curity lies in the friendly terms he has estab- 
 lished, and in there being abundant room 
 for all comers. So universal, however, is 
 the habit of misrepresenting the quality 
 of a claim, that the surest way of deceiving 
 is to tell the exact truth, and to make a 
 show of being very exact in telling it.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WITHIN AND WITHOUT. 
 
 Sunday comes, and is prized as they 
 alone can prize it who have toiled all the 
 week from early dawn to dewy eve be- 
 neath a hot sun, who have, in fact, worked 
 extra hard on the strength of the day of 
 rest. His men have gone to the settle- 
 ment, according to miners' wont, to spend 
 the day in anything but work ; and Her- 
 bert betakes himself, with his gun and his 
 note-book, to the recesses of the forest. 
 Though high noon under the sun of a 
 Californian summer, and the air is magic-
 
 278 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 ally clear and bright as it only can be at a 
 height of some three or four thousand feet, 
 there is gloom and coolness down among 
 the thick pines. Herbert often feels lonely, 
 for he finds no companionship such as he 
 desires among those who surround him. 
 It is a relief to get away from them, good 
 fellows though they be, with their small 
 and oft-repeated jokes, and noisy mirth, to 
 the society of the tall trees who now bear 
 him solemn company. In this respect he 
 dares to differ from Plato, who preferred 
 town to country on the plea that more 
 is to be learnt from men than from 
 trees. From some men, perhaps. In these 
 lofty pines he sees grand old heroes of 
 many a hard-fought battle with wind and 
 lightning, thrusting their venerable heads 
 far up into heaven, and bringing down 
 revelations of Nature and her doings alto- 
 gether incomprehensible to the tiny roses 
 that cluster so lovingly at their feet, con-
 
 WITHIN AND WITHOUT. 279 
 
 tent there to shed the fragrance of their 
 lives as in grateful return for the shelter 
 and the home. He loves to listen to the 
 low hum of Nature purring over her end- 
 less work of transmutation, serving as it 
 does only to intensify the deep stillness, 
 which is now and then broken by the sharp 
 tapping of the woodpecker on some giant 
 stem. Lying there with his ear close to 
 the ground it is difficult to avoid fancying 
 he can feel the throbbing of the great heart 
 of earth, the mother of himself, as of those 
 trees, and of the grey squirrels that play 
 in their branches. At times, indeed, the 
 feeling of loneliness becomes terribly op- 
 pressive. The indefiniteness of his future ; 
 the abandonment of the cherished inten- 
 tion of his whole earlier life ; the severance 
 of every tie of kindred, severed even less 
 by remoteness of place than by difference 
 of sentiment; the loss of the one com- 
 panion to whom he had attached himself;
 
 280 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 and the possibility of failing in his present 
 quest, all combine to make him feel acutely 
 his present isolation. Able to call no man 
 friendj or brother, he looks out into infinity 
 and there finds none whom he can call 
 Father. In his weariness and solitude the 
 universe is for him a blank. His bark is 
 launched upon the mighty ocean, with 
 neither chart nor compass for a guide : he 
 is drifting he knows not whither. Yet he 
 will not invent a fiction to bear him com- 
 pany. A fiction ? Has it come to that ? 
 Yes, he sees nowhere in nature, room for 
 such a being as men call God. He sees 
 growth and change, but nowhere creation. 
 Uniform succession of phenomena, but no- 
 where will, or caprice. He has traced the 
 flower and the tree, the insect and the 
 animal, and even the earth itself, back 
 step by step to their possible earliest forms, 
 and resolved them into their component 
 atoms. He says, ' Give me only matter and
 
 WITHIN AND WITHOUT. 281 
 
 motion ; and all things, even to mine own 
 self, are accounted for. Matter struggles 
 into life, and life into consciousness. But 
 wlience the matter, and its law of motion ? 
 Must there not be a Maker and a Law- 
 giver ? No, he says, for wlience the Maker 
 and whence the Lawgiver ? Had nothing 
 ever existed, nothing would still exist. 
 Matter is certainly eternal, and it is far 
 easier to believe in that than in the com- 
 plex deity of the priests. Say they that 
 all things have existed from all eternity in 
 God ? That is only to deify matter, or at 
 least to make it a part of God. If matter 
 be self- existent, why not also its inherent 
 law of the mutual tendency of its atoms ? 
 In all growth I can discover only a process 
 of accretion varying with its conditions. 
 All things tend towards those for which 
 they liave the strongest attraction. Such 
 inclination is part of their nature, and they 
 are in no wise able to alter it. Even man,
 
 282 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 who claims to be something apart from all 
 other beings, is only free to obey the 
 strongest motive, to follow that which at- 
 . tracts him most. 
 
 ^ Where then is responsibility ? What is 
 that '^Sin" of which so much account is 
 made by our instructors ? Can anything 
 y act in variance to its own nature ? Surely 
 not ; and no one is the author of his own 
 nature. Thus it would seem that there is 
 no merit or desert, no punishment, no re- 
 ward. There are consequences that grow 
 naturally out of previous conditions ; and 
 whicli are more or less pleasant to the 
 individual in proportion as they are in 
 harmony with his nature and conditions. 
 Man may have a perception of the condi- 
 tions most favourable to him, and act so as 
 to obtain the greatest amount of happiness 
 of which his nature is capable. But he 
 must be previously endowed with such 
 powers of perception, and is in no way
 
 WITHIN AND WITHOUT. 283 
 
 blameable for being without them. To 
 blame the nature of anything is to blame 
 the source from which that nature pro- 
 ceeds. The past has produced the present, 
 and the present is producing the future. 
 There is a kind of pantheism which repre- 
 sents all tilings as a manifestation of a Su- 
 preme Being that underlies all phenomena, 
 and teaches that these manifestations vary 
 with the divine will, and depend in no 
 way upon one another. In the most ob- 
 vious sense such a theory is a deification 
 of caprice, but it is not necessarily so, for 
 even the Supreme Will cannot act without 
 motives, and those motives must have their 
 basis in the nature and condition of things. 
 So that in this manner, also, the sequence 
 of events appears governed by constant 
 laws. What men mean by one being 
 ^' wicked '' is that he does not act in accord- 
 ance with what they believe to be their 
 greatest convenience, and his own greatest
 
 84 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 satisfaction. That is, they believe that they 
 know better than he does what is the best 
 course for him to follow. Every man must 
 act so as to please himself according to the 
 best knowledge he has. He cannot help 
 doing so ; for that which seems to him to 
 produce for him the most happiness is his 
 strongest motive, and he cannot do other- 
 wise than follow that. To assert that the 
 best men are governed by a sense of duty 
 rather than of pleasure, is not to contra- 
 vene this argument; it is only to assert 
 that there are men to whom the perform- 
 ance of duty gives the most joleasure. 
 
 ' The only sin then is ignorance ; ignor- 
 ance of the conditions of our being, and of 
 the things most suitable to its largest de- 
 velopment. What blasphemy it would be 
 against the intelligence and justice of any 
 being to charge him with entertaining in- 
 finite wrath against creatures to whom he 
 has given existence, because they are ig-
 
 WITHIN AND WITHOUT. 285 
 
 norant, he not having given them the 
 knowledge, or tlie impulse, or disposition, 
 or power to acquire the knowledge of the 
 best proportion in which they can use the 
 things provided for them. Yet this is what 
 Christians believe in with respect to their 
 God. I speak of Christians as if I were 
 not one. Am I not ? I don't know, but 
 I sometimes think that others have for- 
 feited their claim to the title more than 
 myself. I feel that I have faitli^ though 
 no helief. While my heart draws me to- 
 wards an ideal of perfection, my intellect 
 is unable to show me that such a being has 
 any objective personal existence. Most 
 people seem to me to have a belief, but no 
 faith. No faith either in man, or in the 
 God in whom they profess to believe. They 
 regard him as an enemy ever watching for 
 an opportunity to take advantage of any 
 slips of theirs to do tliem a mischief. They 
 speak of tempting Providence," as if Pro-
 
 286 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 vidence were some monster waiting to 
 spring upon them the instant their watch- 
 fulness is relaxed. If they believed in 
 God as a friend and father, they would 
 hardly talk of temj)ting their friend or 
 father to do them an injury. Ordinary 
 Christians, so far from granting me the 
 title, would call me atheist. Yet it seems 
 to me that none deserve the name more 
 than themselves. At least all whom 1 
 have ever known seem to me to be such, 
 and I think it can be put so clearly as to 
 convince themselves. I will imagine a 
 right, proper Christian, not Charles Arnold, 
 but an evangelical one, and ask him what 
 he means by '^ God." He answers, ^^A 
 being infinite, eternal, perfect. The sole 
 maker. The supreme ruler. The just judge. 
 Whose nature is love, and whose will is 
 law.' 
 
 ^ And you appeal to the inmost con- 
 sciousness of every man to recognize the
 
 WITHIN AND WITHOUT. 287 
 
 harmony between sucli a bein^^ and the 
 articles of your belief ? ' 
 
 ' Most confidently ; for I firmly believe 
 that by no other scheme than the Christian 
 one can the existence of evil and the various 
 attributes of God be reconciled.' 
 
 ^ Bear with me, while I put your belief 
 into plain language, and correct me if I 
 misrepresent it. The being whom you 
 believe to be God, having chosen to make 
 the universe, when he might have remained 
 alone in ineffable repose, finds himself 
 baffled by his own creation — ' 
 
 ^ No ; baffled by sin, but only moment- 
 arily. He did not make sin.' 
 
 ^ Then something besides God, and 
 independent of him, existed prior to the 
 creation ? I think you mislead yourself by 
 making sin an entity. By sin you really 
 mean a going wrong.' ' Well.' ^ AVell, 
 God's creation goes wrong. He has to 
 struorg'le Ion Of with difficulties, and strive
 
 288 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 by schemes and contrivances to save the 
 countless host of his children from the 
 deadly malice of one whom he hath Him- 
 self made, and made too in full fore-know- 
 ledge (on the Maker's part) of all the 
 mischief he w^ould do, and what it w^ould 
 cost to subdue him. And after all He suc- 
 ceeds in rescuing but a small fraction from 
 the Evil One's hands. For you hold the 
 gate of hell to be wide, so that many walk 
 into it unawares, and that of heaven to be 
 narrow and easily missed. Thus far I am 
 unable to recognize either the wisdom, the 
 power, the beneficence, or the justice of 
 your God.' 
 
 ' You forget that, having made man free, 
 He could not control liis use of his free- 
 dom.' 
 
 ^ I remember that, having made His 
 children weak and ignorant of what was 
 best for them, you hold that He placed 
 them in a garden of forbidden delights,
 
 WITHIN AND WITHOUT. 289 
 
 and required of them an obedience which, 
 by your deification of Christ, you admit 
 could not be rendered by mere man, how- 
 ever perfect, and when they yielded to the 
 first temptation to transgress a little. He 
 condemned them and their unborn off- 
 spring to unspeakable tortures for ever- 
 more. That is, having made them finite 
 and imperfect, He damned them for not 
 being infinite and perfect, and would only 
 be propitiated towards them by the blood 
 and agony of the only innocent one, the 
 only one who had never offended Him in 
 his life. No human father requires a sacri- 
 fice or compensation before he can pardon 
 a repentant child. Is man more tender 
 than God, and is the thing made an unfaith- 
 ful index to the character of the Maker ? 
 
 ^ Again, when man punishes he has in 
 view the reformation of the offender as well 
 as self-defence, whereas the punishment in- 
 flicted by your God, having for its end, 
 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 290 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 not the benefit, but the increasing reproba- 
 tion of the sufferer, can proceed only from 
 the bitterest feelings of revenge, worthy 
 the most malignant fiend the imagination 
 can conceive.' 
 
 ^What, does not the glory of a pure 
 God demand the infinite punishment of 
 sin ?' 
 
 * Do as you please with the sin. I am 
 speaking of the sinner. According to your 
 doctrine he perpetuates, not destroys it. 
 If He be so infinitely pure as to detest 
 that which you call sin, how came He to 
 admit its defilement into His work ? If so 
 infinitely just, how comes He to make the 
 work of his own hands responsible for the 
 flaws of its construction ? If so infinitely 
 merciful and loving, why so averse to 
 pardon his erring children ? If so infin- 
 itely powerful, why allow an evil demon 
 to devastate the fair domains of his crea- 
 tion ? Why, your doctrine deposes God
 
 WITHIN AND WITHOUT. 291 
 
 from his high place, and makes the devil 
 triumphant to all eternity. Calvinism, in 
 spite of your calling it '' Evangelical 
 Christianity," is devil worship. Calvinism 
 is Atheism. It is thus precisely because I 
 accept your definition of God, that I can- 
 not accept your account of His dealings.' 
 
 ^ But the revelation He has given us in 
 His word ? ' 
 
 ^ A man's meaning is ever better known 
 by his deeds than his words. Were an 
 angel from heaven to come and tell me 
 such things of a being whom I loved and 
 respected, I should reject it as a slander 
 and a lie. But what you call a revelation 
 is an impossibility, for it necessitates a 
 prior knowledge of the divine in order to 
 know that anything is divinely predicated. 
 All that a man can know is that he has a 
 strong, an overpowering impression, it may 
 be : but of the source of that impression he 
 can know nothing. And of its nature he
 
 292 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 can only judge by comparing it with his 
 ordinary experience. An infallible revela- 
 tion requires an infallible interpreter, and 
 both are useless without an infallible un- 
 derstanding to comprehend the interpreta- 
 tion.'
 
 293 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OLD GROUND. 
 
 Thus the God and the revelation of his 
 youth and of his kindred abandoned, and 
 their place in his imagination as yet un- 
 filled, Herbert writes to Arnold about the 
 time that the above notes are dated : — ^ I 
 cannot find any innate or intuitive percep- 
 tion of what men call Deity. Is this my 
 peculiar feeling, or is it universal ? I can 
 with others reason back to find a First 
 Cause for all that exists, and call that by 
 the name of God. But I cannot see that 
 He has a necessary existence in space.
 
 294 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 except as a solution to the problem of tlie 
 universe, or rather as a single hypothesis 
 to save us from many assumptions. So 
 far from perceiving the necessity of His 
 existence, unless to account for my own, it 
 seems to me that I can with much greater 
 ease imagine an infinite vacuum, an utter 
 void. I have thus no perception of the 
 necessity of God ; and of course none of 
 that sense of a father's feeling towards me 
 which a child is said to have of its parent. 
 In all my attempts to form a conception of 
 God as a person, I feel that I am only 
 deifying the final product of my own 
 faculties. The lowest rock we call God. 
 You know the story : — the child inquired 
 of its grandmother what supported the 
 ground? Rocks, answered the old lady. 
 And what supports the rocks ? Why other 
 rocks to be sure. But what is there under 
 all the rocks ? Why, bless the child, there 
 are rocks all the way doimi.
 
 OLD GROUND. 295 
 
 ^ You will say, liappy is the man who 
 finds ^' rocks all the way down." He has 
 firm standing ground : he can spring up. 
 
 ^ I am thuSj you see, swimming in a 
 deep sea, " an atom between two infinities." 
 Above is the illimitable sky ; below is the 
 bottomless, no, not bottomless, fathomless 
 ocean. But I want to feel the bottom ; 
 not to have to take it for granted that it 
 must be there to support the sea. Could I 
 once touch it, once gain this certainty, me- 
 thinks I could spring up. But as it is, I 
 can only float on, sometimes a little more 
 above water than at others, and hope some 
 day to reach the verge where all meet. 
 
 ^But ought we not to be able to demon- 
 strate the necessary existence of God, in- 
 dependently of all secondary and derived 
 existences ? to be able to reason from Him 
 to them, instead of from them to Him ? 
 
 ^ But in the absence of such intuition, I 
 strive, though I fear in vain, after the lofty
 
 296 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 results ascribed by Pope to 
 
 " The poor Indian, whose untutored mind 
 Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind ;" 
 
 — a result, it seems to me, unattainecl by 
 any Christian I have known. But the poet 
 is mistaken. The Indian sees, not God, 
 but gods, or rather big invisible men. 
 Every natural operation is to him the 
 work of a separate personage. That is, 
 every operation that is not constant, or 
 that seems to his ignorance to indicate ex- 
 ceptional power and force ; an eclipse, or 
 a thunderstorm. Curiously enough, the 
 regular and benign course of nature is 
 taken as a matter of course, and excites no 
 feelings of joy or wonder, of thankfulness, 
 or even of admiration. A party of Indians 
 came up to me one day while I was gazing 
 with delight on a hollow in a hill-side 
 covered with a carpet of flowers of most ex- 
 quisite colours, a perfect marvel of beauty, 
 which I tried in vain to make them see
 
 OLD GROUND. 297 
 
 and appreciate ; but I could get nothing 
 out of them, but that it was always so at 
 that spring-season, and that the flowers were 
 not good to eat. Only the more special 
 providences indicate the action of the 
 savages' gods. It was much the same with 
 the ancient Greeks and Romans. They 
 had no god of the air unless it was in mo- 
 tion : a god of the gale and another of the 
 breeze, but none of the absolute calm. I 
 want to find the one God: the universal 
 unity that underlies and harmonizes all 
 manifestations.' 
 
 So Herbert, in the welcome intervals 
 of rest, lies in the forest and ponders, and 
 makes note of his ponderings ; allowing 
 his thoughts to wander whither they will 
 without fear of trespass or losing his way. 
 At length he begins to feel that he is not al- 
 together without a guide. Though without 
 a Belief he still has Faith. Otherwise why 
 should he care to know ? Reviewing his
 
 298 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. ^ 
 
 mental condition, he congratulates himself 
 on having outstripped the phantoms that 
 haunted his youth and threatened to in- 
 gulf his soul. He has struggled out of 
 the Slough of Despondj out of the dismal 
 swamp of Calvinistic theology. His eyes 
 are cleared of obstructions from that source. 
 He knows not whither he will wend his 
 w^ay, but he sees the vast plain of truth 
 spread out before him, and anything is 
 better than that from which he lias escaped. 
 Something is done towards the new edifice 
 when the rubbish of the old one is cleared 
 from the ground. So he drives away the 
 feeling of loneliness and goes on his way 
 rejoicing. He claims brotherhood with all 
 living things, and accepts all for his teach- 
 ers. Watching yon eagles soaring far up 
 in the glowing sunlight, he thinks how his 
 old instructors, to be consistent, must bid 
 them clip their wings and no longer dare
 
 OLD GROUND. 299 
 
 to soar aloft, but to cower down among the 
 valleys and the mists. They would tell 
 them that they ought not to trust their 
 own pinions, and to gaze on heaven with 
 their own eyes ; because that, forsooth, 
 centuries ago certain ancient eagles soared 
 higher than any modern eagles can hope 
 to soar, and brought down all that can be 
 knovvn of the upper regions of light, and 
 that they must be content with those por- 
 tions of their accounts which have survived 
 to their time. So he learns that man can 
 behold God and truth as well now as in the 
 days that are gone ; and that the experi- 
 ences of others should be used, not to 
 supersede and obstruct, but to encourage 
 and aid our own efforts. He sees that to 
 assert that God has revealed himself once 
 for all, is to limit him to a time and to a 
 speech, and to expel him from his works, 
 from nature, that is, from his own revela-
 
 300 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE* 
 
 tion of himself in deeds. To place God 
 and nature in antagonism is to set up two 
 Gods, tliat is, none. 
 
 So, look at it how he will, he finds all 
 mankind liable to the charge for which 
 they would anathematize him. 'Then why,' 
 he wonders, ' should they be so incensed 
 against me ? 
 
 ' Out of the thousand religions of the 
 earth, they believe all to be false except 
 one. I go but a very little farther. I 
 believe one more to be false than they do. 
 That is, the whole thousand. 
 
 ' Very remarkable is the presumption of 
 men who require me to limit and shape 
 my conception of the divine nature and 
 method of working, so as to agree with 
 theirs. They require God to limit his 
 revelation of himself to me to the degree 
 vouchsafed to them. Not to themselves 
 but, as far as our English churchmen are 
 concerned, to that of sundry individuals
 
 OLD GROUND. 301 
 
 who lived some 300 years ago. The fact 
 is they endow the reformers of the 16th 
 century with infallibility. Had these gone 
 farther and rejected yet more of the 
 Romish doctrine and practice, their con- 
 clusions would still have been implicitly 
 accepted. Then why blame me for going 
 farther on my own account, unless they 
 believe the reformers infallible, and them- 
 selves infallibly right in believing so ? 
 
 ^ But I find myself too much engaged in 
 these retrospections, I want the clash of 
 other minds more advanced than myself to 
 help me forward. I wish I could get books 
 here. I am in danger of becoming like 
 Lot's wife, petrified in looking back * ever 
 contemplating the ruins of the past. 
 Heaven knows, not with any longing 
 towards that past ; yet out of their ruins 
 would I reconstruct a habitation for my 
 soul. The name of God is a tower of 
 strength. For me he is indeed living and
 
 302 THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE. 
 
 pervading all things, and is not merely a 
 being apart. Man has a trinity of wants : 
 a Faithj an Occupation, and a Home. The 
 last means something to love. Let me 
 have patience.' 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PRINTERS.
 
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 Price One Shilling. 
 
 CONDUCTED BY EDMUND YATES. 
 
 Now Ecady, price One Shilling, 
 
 STORM-BOUND, 
 
 BEING THE CHRISTMAS NUMBER OF TINSLEYS' MAGAZINE. 
 WITH SEVERAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 CONTENTS : 
 
 INTRODUCTION. By Edmund Yates. With an Blustration by P. Skelton. 
 
 The SOLICITOR'S STORY. By Sliiiley Brooks. 
 
 The QUEENS MESSENGERS STORY. By the Author of ' Guy Livingstone.' 
 Witli an Ilhistration by Alfred Thompson. 
 
 A STORY of the HILLS. By Mrs Lynn Linton. 
 
 The ST(JRY of SUZETTE. By the Author of 'Archie Lovell.' With an Illus- 
 tration by A. W. Cooper. 
 
 The DETRIJflENTAL'S STORY. With two Illustrations by E. C. Barnes and 
 A. W. Cooper. 
 
 The STORY of a MAN in a HURRY. By George Augustus Sala. 
 
 The STORY of SALOME. By the Author of ' Barbara's History.' With an 
 Illustration by P. Skelton and L. Huard. 
 
 The STORY of a MAN who was DRESSED to DEATH. By Andrew Halliday. 
 
 The STEWARDESS'S STORY. By 'Aunt Anastatia.' Illustrated by Alfred 
 Thompson. 
 
 The STORY of the YELLOW BANDANNA. By Charles Allston Collins. 
 
 The MANAGERS STORY. By J. Palgrave Simpson. With an Illustration by 
 A. B, Houjrhton. 
 
 CONCLUSION. By Edmund Yates. 
 
 THE SAVAGE CLUB PAPERS FOR 1868. 
 
 A NEW VOLUME OF LITERARY AND ARTISTIC CONTRIBUTIONS 
 BY NU3IER0US AUTHORS AND ARTISTS OP EMINENCE. 
 
 EDITED BY ANDREW HALLIDAY. 
 
 AuTHOES -.—Thomas Archer, E. C. Barnes, Dion Boucicanltj William Brough, 
 Henry J. Byron, Mortimer Collins, I^dward Draper, H. Sutherland Edwards, 
 George Manville Fenn, J. Hain Friswell, James Greenwood, George Grossmith, 
 Andrew Halliday, E. P. Hingston, John Hollingshead, ' The Journeyman Engi- 
 neer,' W. Kirkus, Henry S. Leigh, H Leslie, Arthur Looker, Justin M'Carthy, 
 Westland Marston, John Oxenford, EFoward Paul, J. R. Planch6, German Reed, 
 T. W. Robertson, George Augustus Sala, William Sawyer, Walter Thornbury, 
 Godfrey Turner, Frank Younge. 
 
 Arti.sts :— F. Barnard, E. C. Barnes, Isaac Brown, William Brunton, George 
 Cruikshank, Gustave Dor6, P>lward Draper, E. Hull, C. Morgan, J. O'Connor, J. 
 Palmer, Harry Rogers, A. Slader, Gordou Thomson, G. S. Walters, Harrison 
 Weir, D. T. White. 
 
 Engeavkes :— Dalziel Brothers.
 
 The LIFE of DAVID GAERICK. From Family Papers 
 and nmneroiis Published and Unpublished Sources. By 
 Percy Fitzgerald. 2 vols. 
 
 NOTES and SKETCHES of the PAEIS EXHIBITION. 
 
 By G. A. Sala, Author of ' My Diary in America,' &;c. 
 1 vol. 
 
 The HISTOEY of MONACO. By H. Pembertox. 
 1 vol. 
 
 JOHNNY ROBINSON : the Story of the Childhood 
 and School-days of an 'Intelligent Artisan.' By the 
 Author of ' Some Habits and Customs of the Working 
 Classes.' 2 vols. 
 
 HOG-HUNTING in the EAST; and other Sports. 
 With numerous Illustrations. By Captain J. T. Newall. 
 Author of ' The Eastern Hunters.' In 1 vol. 8vo. 
 
 MEMOIRS of the LIFE and REIGN of KING 
 GEORGE the THIRD ; with Original Letters of the King 
 and other unpublished MSS. By J. Heneage Jesse, 
 Author of ' The Court of England under the Stuarts,' &c. 
 3 vols. 8vo. Second Edition. 
 
 TINSLEY BROTHERS^ NEW NOVELS 
 
 AT ALL LIBRARIES. 
 
 HIGH STAKES : the New Novel. By Annie Thomas 
 (Mrs Pender Cudlip), Author of * Called to Account,' 
 &c. 3 vols. 
 
 NOT WISELY, BUT TOO WELL : the New Novel. 
 By the Author of 'Cometh up as a Flower.' 3 vols. 
 Second Edition. 
 
 The TENANTS of MALORY : a Novel. By J. S. Le 
 FA2fU, Author of ' Uncle Silas,' &c. In 3 vols. 
 
 TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.
 
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