LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 135, 5 November 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

ADVENTURES ON THE MOSQUITO. [From Temple Bar.] ‘ Well, then,’ began the Caballero, ‘ as the subject seems to interest us, and the night is young, I will tell you how I saw one of the bravest fellows on earth grow “amok ” from very fear. It was in America, as I have said, that the adventure happened; that time I was gold-washing on the Mosquito coast. You have already heard many tales of our camp on the wild Indio river, when every day brought its own adventure, and every night I listened to the odd conversation of my comrades. We were five altogether in the party, and a stranger assortment of characters could not easily be found in company. Two of us were ci-devant filibusters; one a Down-East Yankee; the fourth a Kingman, or Mosquito Indian; and myself the fifth. We got along pretty well, for I stood always ready to act as an impartial arbiter when difficulties arose between the Western and Northern spirit, and the two filibusters admired each other too much to quarrel. One of them was an especial favorite of mine—a Missourian of colossal size,_ and courage of that desperate kind which is almost peculiar to Western men, stamped into their very nature by long generations of warfare with wild beasts and savage Indians. He was a noble fellow in all that makes a man, but very far indeed removed from the hero of our society. I know that Jem Beasley would give his life for a friend, and that without thought of the world’s applause. I know he was more punctilious than Bayard as to the point of honor, and, for all the wildness of his language, for all the reckless oaths and strange profanities so frequent in his mouth, I never, during two months we passed together, heard one foul word from him or from Fraser, his old companion of “The War.” The Yankee, Vansten, sometimes offended in this way at first, but when he marked the stern disapproval of the others’ look, and found his best efforts greeted with cold distaste, he top was seized wit ' their manlier spirit, and held his peace about the things held sacred by these Western men whom our world calls savage. And believe it, gentlemen, Beasley and Fraser were but common types of that most contradictory of races. They had been taught but in no school and from no pulpit—to honor weakness, if naught else; and that is the last lesson of gentle life in Europe, and very, very few are they who master it. But X must not dwell on this favorite theme. Tn s hero of my tale is introduced to you, and a discussion of the Western character might lead us far into those first principles which are alwar s dangerous ground, especially after the geographical, and past midnight. ‘ We were seated round the fire just before sundown, Fraser and Vansten and T. Our camp lay under a lofty cliff, washed bare in in every ‘ rains,’ but now mantled ovei with various foliage. From its face great trunks of mahogany leaned forward in a line almost horizontal, their weight supported by a thousand cable-like roots which clung to each barren crevice of the rock. The largest were marked with hieroglyphics of the Canb ‘cutters,’ who thus establish a claim upon the timber which no succeeding paity of these honest negroes will dream of disiegaiding On the lower land, cotton trees, scarcely less gigantic, towered up, wrapped round from base to crown in long shrouds of Spanish moss, swinging and shuddering slowly in each breath of wind. Very solemn and weirdly is a big ‘ cciba tree ’ at evening time, clad in its long grej cloak ; very solemn and still. From tlie Ctiili to Panama the Indians still reverence the trunk which their ancestors worshipped, and bold to impiety would he be held who made hia camp fire beside the tree under which A tit, the demon of the plague, first showed herself to his Toltec ancestors. But brightly mingling with those pale green branches of .ti*

ceiba, shone the dark, glossy leaves of the ‘rubber tree,’ and the lace-like plumes of the bamboo, and the thorny fronds of climbing palms. Through the mass of dry white moss, flowers of the lianas, yellow and purple and crimson, gleamed like stars, and hanging orchids dropped their long festoons of blossom. Near to earth, great tree-ferns flourished in the shade, and baby palms and delicate branchless stems, which struggled up towards the shrouded sky. The ground itself in this wet river-land was densely clothed with ferns and tall moss and reeds, bearing here and there a tassel of silky seeds. Dusk was settling down over the lovely land ; already the green tree-frogs had uttered a note or two dubiously, as if to beg support of surrounding friends. The evening cry of the black baboons had almost ceased. Mosquitoes and their kind began to lift their thin voices angrily. The sounds of day were almost hushed, and those of night were faintly threatening. The loaded breeze of sunset brought strange murmurs from the river. What is that ? Somewhat of a grunt, somewhat of a growl, much of a peevish mew ? The stranger on this shore would most certainly think of wild boars, or of little vicious tiger-cats, but he who has once heard it cannot fail to recognise, for ever after, the voice of the American lion, the pretty cowardly puma. He is rousing himself for a foray among the deer and monkeys and ‘ cimaron ’ cattle, and this is his evening benediction to the little ones at home. A beautiful, dreamy, sacred scene it is, that camp of ours on the Mosquito shore, as the sun goes redly down upon the river, before darkness rushes over it. ‘ There, Tuan ! ’ laughed the Caballero, wiping his forehead “America has not hitherto received her due share of honor from poetic travellers, but in point of truthful beauty I will match that picture against the best of your Oriental memories. We have not your solemn silences on our continent, nor your labyrinths of naked trunks, where twilight glimmers at noonday; but we have such flowers and softness of variety, such genial sounds of sunny life, as should well make us indifferent to any majestic beauty we cannot boast. A * flower-savan-nah ’ is no way impressive to the ■nerves of superstition, nor does a mile-wide network of convolvulus rouse any wierdly feelings in the beholder ; but these common scenes of the American wilderness resonant all the bright day through with parrots’ chuckling and monkeys’ call, shot with the flash of flaming wings of bird and butterfly—summon, as I think, more tender religion from man’s soul than any horror of still solitude.’ ‘ Tityre, tu patulse, ’ &c., murmured the Shikari. ' The Lord preserve us from these new old fashions ! In our father’s time a forest was just a forest, and was so spoken of, whether in Asia or America. Now, if you please, it’s a religious edifice; every tree is a missionary, and each cock-sparrow a sacred spirit! Bless you, men ! bless you, and cross yourselves at sight of every daisy and hawthorn bush ! The rose-leaves our dear grannies used to press between the pages of their prayer-books have grown into cocoa-palms and mile-wide networks of convolvulus. Heaven save this country from dilettante pantheism ! Why, man, a tree is a tree, the sun’s the sun, and a spade’s a spade. St Patrick converted his Irish heathen by the triumphant exhibition of a shamrock, but devil a soul will you save in this day of common sense by the example of all trees that grow and all mountains that tower. I am willing to make allowances for the weakness of human nature, which has a leaning towards pretty in its weakliest phases, but do stick to one profession at a time, and, in lay society, leave the things of our church alone !’ ‘ Oh these tiger-slayers !’ cried the Haciendero. , They are the last savages of our time ! Go on, Caballero, and _ string your descriptions into rhyme to vex him.’ ‘No, I have done,’laughed the offender. ‘ It was merely my wish to show that American scenery lent itself to the poetical spirit as readily as Asiatic. Give your soul peace, Shikari !’ ‘ We were seated round the fire, as I have said, and the laugh raised by a droll complaint of Fraser was still on my lips, when ’ ‘ Let us hear the protest then,’ interrupted the sailor; ‘ and in the original tongue, which we know you can speak.’ We all joined in this request, and the Caballero good-naturedly assumed the quaint phraseology of his Western friend. ‘Vansten was cleaning a brass cooking pot with stones and sand, making a dreadful noise. To him Fraser spoke with solemnity ‘ I’m knowed as a patient man, Yank ! No man knowder! But if you don’t drop that kettle right smart, there’ll be one of ua as’ll regret the caircomstance —an’ that one ain’t me neither ! Tarnal thunder, hoss! You’ll have the bottom out o’ that machine, and our kitchen fixings ain’t now equal to a crowd !’ ‘ Vansten emptied out the rattling stones, and said, laughingly : ‘ ‘ 1 han’t been able for this fortnight past to know one dish from another, boy ! Iguana tastes like monkey, and tortus like cat-fish—-young alligator ain’t to be known at all, unless one puts one’s nose into the pot. I call it a waste of precious ’intment, I do ! Say! Jem Beasley takes a durued long minute to soak that big carcase of his. ‘Scarcely had the Yankee spoken when our tall companion pushed aside the white curtain of moss that hung around us, and came out into the open. He had nothing on his body but a pair of wet trousers, and his naked feet were bleeding with the scratches of bamboo thorns. The little thick-set Indian, on whose shoulder he leaned, was carrying his upper clothes and boots. Our Missourian’s sallow face was drawn and deadly, but his dark eyes blazed out from a broad circle of bistrous colour. He reeled in walking. Something very terrible must that danger have been whicli could so affect the dauntless filibuster. I was about to address him in anxious inquiry, when Fraser grasped my arm, and whispered, ‘ F'or the Lord’s sake, don’t speak to him! He’s rierht-down bad ! Look at his eyes ! Keep still!’ ‘ Beasley glared at us for awhile without speaking, nor did he apparently recognise his old friends. We moved never a muscle under his gaze, but I could feel Fraser’s strong fingers twisting nervously as one on the watch. At length the Missourian, probably overawed by the stillness, which was indeed only broken by the murmuring noises of the awakened forest, turned suddenly and seized the Kingman by his The stout little Indian bent and shook in the clasp of those huge arms, which dashed him backwards agd forwards as a sapling is tooted

by a hurricane. And then he spoke, in a harsh and terrible voice, while the foam dew from his lips as from the jaws of a wounded boar. 1 You’re a man, he cried, throwing the Kingman about. ‘\ou re a man, you leathery-hided cuss! I say so! I, Jem Beasley, as can scream from Pike County to sundown! Who says you ain’t? Show the man to me, an’ I’ll crush him so small, as you shall put his whole carcase in your medicine-bag. D’yer think I’m lying, you greasy coyote? Sure as I can make thunder on the prairies, I’ll kill you, Kingman, if ever you tell how you saved my life!’ He glared at us silently for a moment after this outburst, then threw himself fulllength upon the ground. We did not move, and after awhile he uncovered his face, and looked up with returning consciousness. ‘An Indian skunk’s saved my life, Jos Fraser! Look at this skunk, he’s saved my life!’ Overcome by such a curious reflection, the gigantic filibuster rolled face downwards on the ground. The crisis was over. * * What in thunder has happened, Kingman?’ asked Vansten, in a low voice. The Indian began to tell the tale in his extraordinary patois of Spanish, Rama, and English; but before he had succeeded in giving us any definite notion of the event, Beasley raised his head, and asked for something to eat. We had supper together, carefully avoiding all allusion to the scene just passed; and after it was over, while the rough tobacco and the fiery schnaps passed round, our companion related his adventure : ‘ ‘ I went down to bathe,’ he said, ‘ in that clear pool beyond the shallow, almost opposite to us here. The Kingman came with me, to wash his clothes, or some durned foolery or other. I paddled about right merrily for awhile, up and down the reach, an’ then I clung on to one of them low rocks as lie just beneath the surface on t’other side. I was breathing my pipes a bit, an’ kinder wondering at the pretty leaves as overhang the pool, when my attention was suddenly called to the neck of the shallow just above. The water’s mightily low now, you see, and there ain’t above a foot upon them speckled pebbles. Great God, boys ! there was as fine an alligator as ever you see creeping over the stones and sand there, lumbering down towards me. To be continued.