"Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. LX, No. ccclv, Dec. 1879 (2)": electronic edition

Harper's New Monthly Magazine (1) by Various Vol. LX., No. ccclv, Dec. 1879.

The City of Atlanta by Ernest Ingersoll

ATLANTA, the present metropolis of Georgia, has had a history peculiar for a Southern town. Those who have spoken of the city as the `Chicago of the South,' appear to have struck not very wide of the mark. Forty years ago there was nothing at all here. Maps of the period, very minute and careful in their topography, show no such place. All the wagon roads centred at Decatur, at Marietta, and at Canton. Creeks and Cherokees occupied the whole region, and there was hardly even a cross-roads at this point. The turnpike between Georgia and Tennessee did not pass through it, and no large river furnished facilities for navigation, or offered power to move machinery. How, then, did Atlanta come to exist at all; and, much more, how did she succeed, like the goddess whose name she suggests, in outstripping all her older sisters, Augusta, Savannah, Macon, and the rest?

The answer is found in one word—railways.

Atlanta is a `flat' town, and was put where she is by act of Legislature rather than by the natural course of events. It is an interesting and exceptional example of prosperity ensuing from forced conditions, and came about in this wise: When the experiment of steam locomotion had proved a success in England, and was being introduced on this side of the Atlantic, Georgians were quick to perceive that they needed this new invention, and as early as 1833 charters were granted to several interior railway companies. It was also seen that the State required railway communication with the West and Northwest, in the shape of a trunk line, in the advantages of which all the interior roads could share. The Legislature was therefore consulted, and in 1835 an act was approved authorizing the construction of a railway from the Tennessee line, near the Tennessee River, to the southwestern bank of the Chattahoochee River, `at a point most eligible for the running of branch roads thence to Athens, Madison, Milledgeville, Forsyth, and Columbus.' A Survey was made accordingly, and it was found that at this point, seven miles east of the Chattahoochee, spurs of the Blue Ridge intersected in such a manner that a natural centre occurred for all the most likely routes of railway communication then surveyed or likely to be laid out. Here, then, right out in the woods, it was resolved to begin the `State' railway north to the Tennessee line, and the spot naturally came to be known as Terminus.'

Passengers on the Air Line road to Washington will remember a little breakfast station called Central, up in the mountains of Western South Carolina. As the train comes round the bend of the hill, and slows up, a dinner-bell is heard, and the eye takes in a white building, with a long cool piazza, where stands a man whose genial smiling face and fat throat, whose generous amplitude of waist and solid support of legs, augur well for the fare that awaits within. He rings the bell steadily with one hand, and with the other busily welcomes the passengers as though they were all old friends. Then how urgently he presses upon you a choice of good things! how distressed he is if you do not eat as heartily as he thinks you ought! how solicitous to assure you that there is time enough! and with what benignity, mildly protesting against the necessity, does he take your fifty cents! Do you wonder that he is known from one end of the Cotton States to the other, and that everybody loves `Cousin John' Thrasher? The path to a man's heart lies through his stomach, it is said, and this generous, easy-natured caterer has secured the right of way in this part of the world. Well, the point of this digression is that `Cousin John' is the original oldest inhabitant of Atlanta, because in 1839 he came here and built the first house. Soon after, other families settled at Terminus, and Mr. Thrasher opened a store; but he had little faith in the future of the village, for in 1842 `Cousin John' sold out, for a few hundreds, land now worth half a million or more, and departed.

Patience fails to recount the growth of the settlement into a village, and the expansion of the village into the city which now calls itself a metropolis. It seems to have been essentially a pioneer town, owing its life wholly to the railways, augmenting its size as new lines were opened and the business of the older roads increased. It was in 1842 that the first locomotive was seen in Atlanta. It did not come, as locomotives usually do, upon tracks laid up to that point, but was dragged across the country from Madison—then the terminus of the Georgia Railroad—upon a wagon drawn by sixteen mules. To most of the rustics of that region a locomotive was a novel sight, and they gathered in a great crowd to witness its trial trip. The engineer saw a chance for a practical joke, and claiming that he must have help to get the machine started for the first time, persuaded a great number of young men to push. Their first efforts were of no avail, and the crowd began to jeer at the engineer. But he induced them to make a second trial, and just as they were putting forth their strength prodigiously, he turned on the steam, and sprang from under them, leaving a sprawling and dusty crowd to take his place as the butt of rustic raillery.

This same year also witnesed the first sale of real estate by public auction, and one of those three town lots, bought then for an insignificant sum, has remained ever since in the hands of its original purchaser. It stands at the very centre of business, is covered by a block of brick building, and simply by increase of value now forms a snug fortune, giving a large annual yield to its owner.

Speculation in real estate soon began, however, when it was seen that the prediction of John C. Calhoun, made years before, that Altlanta would be the metropolis of Georgia, was about to be verified. Before many years fancy prices were asked for property, and rents required that were out of all proportion to value. It was supposed at first that the town would be built some distance west of its present position, and money was invested in that region. Then a shrewd land-owner gave the site of the present Union passenger station, which was accepted by the railroads, bringing the centre of growth in the town over to that spot. Thus money was lost and made, but the city increased in population, got rid of the criminal element which had predominated in her earlier history, educated the country people, became enterprising, and in assuming the powers and legal privileges of a municipality, took to herself city-like ways and pride, and asserted herself to be the gate to the South, through which all commerce and emigration from the Northwest must pass.

The map of Atlanta shows a circular line representing the boundary, and having for its centre the railway station. The radius is one and a half miles. Within this circle (and somewhat also outside of it) is an array of streets so utterly irregular that you wonder how it was possible they ever could have been built up in that way. They go crooked where it would have been easier to go straight, show acute angles where a square corner could be made with less effort, and come to a sudden stop or run away into vacancy at the most unexpected points. The explanation is ready,, and reminds one of the Dutch cowpaths which are said to have determined the pattern of lower New York. It must be remembered that before the town existed the east-and-west road from Marietta to Decatur and beyond crossed at this point a road running north and south. They were such irregular rambling turnpikes as are characteristic of this hilly region, and the village extended itself along them without any attempt at straightening. Reckoning from the junction, as habitation spread, the road to Marietta naturally became Marietta Street, while that leading in the opposite direction was soon called Decatur Street. Not far north of the village was an old justice-court ground (a State reservation) known as the Peach-tree Court-House. A few miles southward stood a tavern, famous among all the teamsters through Georgia as the White Hall. The two crooked roads leading north and south thus became Peach-tree and Whitehall streets; and in the case of the latter it is told that the detour made by the stage-driver in going about a bad mudhole one winter is preserved by an elbow in the street. The bend is there, certainly, but the evidence of the `chuck-hole' has gone, or rather it is distributed throughout a mile of bad paving. Then the three railway lines introduced new factors of discord, and finally the owners of the original half-dozen farms and land lots each laid out streets for himself entirely irrespective of his neighbor. The result is a city in some parts easy, and in others very difficult, to get about in, and which, from a bird's or balloonist's point of view, must appear very confused.

So, deriving her success from a multitude of business advantages, and from her favorable situation in point of geography and climate, Atlanta has waxed great and powerful, and, withal, very attractive. All the evidences of busy life are around you, and only unless you are fresh from New York or Baltimore or Chicago do you notice the provincial air. The telegraph pole at your elbow bears the little red box that carries the electric fire-alarm to ever-ready steamers and ladder trucks; the lamp-post serves as standard for the mail drop-letter box; and a policeman in full uniform will assist you into a street car for any part of the city, if you need the help of the `force.' There are banks, and boards of trade, and business exchanges, and all the rest of the list of `modern conveniences,' from artificial ice to a Turkish bath or a complete system of telephonic communication. Yet, however comfortable this is for the citizen, it has the drawback to the magazine writer and artist that it makes Atlanta too much like a hundred other large towns with which we are all acquainted in the North, and leaves less that is peculiar, characteristic, and picturesque than perhaps exists in any other city in the South. She looks to me more like a Western town, since her newness and enterprise hardly affiliate her with Augusta, Savannah, Mobile, and the rest of the sleepy cotton markets, whose growth, if they have any, is imperceptible, and whose pulse beats with only a faint flutter.

Yet there are certain features that strike the stranger's eye. On Monday you may see tall straight negro girls marching through the street carrying enormous bundles of soiled clothes upon their heads; or a man with a great stack of home-made, unpainted, and splint-bottomed chairs, out from among the white legs and rungs of which his black visage peers curiously; or urchins under baskets of flowers poised like crowns. Troops of little black boys, bare-footed, bare-headed, and ragged `to a degree,' as a certain English novelist is fond of expressing it, go about carrying bags in which they gather up rags in a manner wholly different from the New York chiffoniers. At certain corners stand farmers in scant clothing of homespun, and the most bucolic of manners, waiting for some one to buy for a dollar, or even half a dollar, the little load of wood piled up on the centre of a home-made wagon so diminutive that two men could walk away with the whole affair, while a third carried the mule under his arm. It is great fun, too, to go to the post-office after the arrival of the noon mails from the North. The office closes its windows, although it is in the middle of the day, and devotes itself to the task of distribution. Meanwhile a crowd accumulate—mostly the rabble who get a letter about once in four weeks, but mixed up of all sorts—and amuse themselves by making remarks not always complimentary to the rule of the office, or stand patiently in line until the window opens. This delay in a post-office which supports the delivery system looks like a `relic'; but everybody has time enough in Georgia.

On certain days you will hear the beating of triangles, and have your attention attracted to the red flag of the curb-stone auctioneer, whose volubility will be heard above the din of traffic. These out-of-door auctions are always amusing, and the crowd of negroes, `poor whites,' and loungers that they gather afford an interesting study to the lover of physiognomy. It is like a bit of the Bowery or Chatham Street turned out of doors; but the articles sold are more miscellaneous and wretched. You may buy worn-out stoves and tables, second-hand bacon, muddy croquet sets, rubber hose of one kind and cotton hose of quite another, canary-birds, hat racks, baby carriages, old fruit jars, clothing, bath tubs, straw sun-bonnets and hats, squirrel cages, carpets, books, bedclothes made `befoh de wah,' sweet-oil, saws, crockery, iron garden settees, ice-cream freezers, saddles, window-sashes—everything out of time and miserable, from a pair of snuffers to a horse and wagon alive and harnessed.

As yet Atlanta has no market-house; but it is proposed to build one at an early day, which shall be supported upon arches over the railway tracks between Whitehall and Broad streets. This would utilize (and handomely too) a waste space; but if a locomotive should explode its boiler under there, wouldn't the rise in breadstuffs be so sudden as to disturb the market?

Another event of the traveller's life in Atlanta, which may or may not be amusing, is his contact with the brush fiend. This imp, or rather this species of imp, for there are many individuals, finds its home at the hotel, and there lies in wait for the unwary tourist, as the spider crouches in quiet anticipation of its muscine meal. You enter the door and walk half way across the marble floor, when you feel a gentle stroke upon your shoulders, and turn your head to see an uplifted whisk in the hand of a darky, who grins in a conciliatory manner. But you harden your heart, proceed to the register, and lend your autograph in suppport of the eminent respectability of the house to which that much-blotted book is supposed to testify. The flourish is not yet from under your pen, when your modest hand-bag is seized, and down comes a broom upon your coat tail. A look fails to arrest the brush, and you flee. At the foot of the stairway is a shadowy corner. You are unsuspicious, not having yet learned to give it a wide berth. Just as your foot is upon the first stair, out leaps a whisk-broom and begins upon you. Now you must shout your menaces in language strong if you would be saved. Escaped this, you meet a fiend at the first landing. You watch him firmly grasping a brush as you approach, but you are ready. Fixing upon him your eagle eye, you say, `Lift that whisk-broom but one inch, and I pitch you down stairs!' You turn your head as you go past, and never relax the deadly gleam of your eye until he is far behind. Finally you reach your room, and the porter opens the door, sets down your baggage, raises the curtains, glances at the toilet arrangements, and being satisfied, civilly retires to the door, hesitates, seems to be trying to remember something, and softly asks, `Would you—you like to have your coat—' while out of his pocket steals the handle of a broom. The heavy match-box is nearest, and it flies, while you look for the iron poker with one hand and feel for your pistol with the other. But the imp is used to this, and has prudently vanished. You bolt the door, and find youself in possession of the field; but he is the real victor, and until you either maim him for life or pay generous tribute of dimes, the brush fiend will torment, and the spirit of whisk-brooms refuse to be laid.

Atlanta has been a military post for United States troops for many years, and the McPherson Barracks, in the northwestern edge of the city, is one of the points of interest for a stranger. The Barracks are commodious, and the officers' quarters, surrounded by neat gardens and hidden in masses of honeysuckle and wisteria, form attractive homes. A succession of regiments has held them, and they have bewailed when orders came sending them to the frontier, or transferring their post to some fever-haunted garrison on the sea-coast. At present the Fifth Artillery are stationed here, and making themselves agreeable to the citizens, who find the presence of the garrison pleasant as well as profitable. From the Barracks, which are upon high ground, a wide and enchanting landscape spreads northward before the eye, terminating in the pale outlines of Tennessee mountains, where Lookout, Mission Ridge, Resaca, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga recall such exciting memories. Near by towers the lofty double peak of Kenesaw Mountain, scene of the most severe fighting of the whole Atlanta campaign; and my companion, captain of a Confederate battery, has a bloody incident to tell of each landmark as he guides my eye over the wide expanse of this vast field of battle. Imagination alone must fill the distance with the action which his stories relate: but as he explains the method of advance, the successive retreats and conquests by which the lines of attack were narrowed more and more upon the beleaguered city, the evidences of war become more apparent, and we can bring the remains of hostile operations actually before the eye, helping the fancy to picture the stirring scene. Down there in the valley stretches a long, low, irregular embankment, not yet overgrown with grass. That is the inner line of intrenchment which surrounded the city. Beyond it, appearing now and then in the second growth of woods, here lost in a valley, there enlarging into a fort upon a commanding hill-top, is an outer line, and all about are scattered the little piles of earth thrown up at the rifle-pits, and the half-filled trenches which the pickets dug to protect themselves from sharp-shooters and stray cannon-shot. Georgia seems to have little desire to hide her scars. The red soil upturned by the soldier's spade contains no dormant seeds, and takes so slowly to a new planting that for fifteen years compassionate Nature has tried in vain to hide these marks of Mars under her mantle of herbage and wild shrubbery. Everywhere as you ride out of Atlanta you cross cordon after cordon of earth-works, pass through woods torn with round shot, where shells cut long pathways, and wander across fields sown with the leaden seed.

Gradually the city is extending itself beyond these red lines of embankments, and in twenty years their scant remains will become curiosities to the traveller. In the rural districts, however, they bid fair to last a very long time. Five or six miles out on the Peach-tree Road, for example, is a fort crowning a hill, whose lines and angles and full height are as well preserved to-day as though the work was thrown up only yesterday. It saw no fighting, however. The tide of war swept by without coming under the range of its guns, and its symmetrical outlines were never trampled beneath the feet of a storming column.

On the other hand, some of the fields of the fiercest battles leave little to show of the strife and carnage once enacted over their sunny slopes. To the stranger's eye the city itself presents few marks of that tide of war which crept up to it, and finally surged so destructively across its whole area. There are ruins in the suburbs of what were once stately mansions, that have never been rebuilt, and you see scattered about the lonely stone chimneys that stand as monuments of a fireside forsaken, and a roof-tree long ago thrown down or burned away. The city itself has been rebuilt, and the houses that survived the shelling are already becoming dignified with historical interest. Usually it is some very insignificant incident which preserves the recollection of the conflict in particular places. Atlanta is a region of roses. A lover of them never tires of peeping over the fences and pausing before the conservatories in this early May season, so rich in the superb blossoms. One day we came to a modest garden, where an old lady was busy among her thorny pets. We stopped and talked with her a few moments. She told us she had one hundred and twenty-five kinds there, but that her rose garden now was nothing compared with its splendor before the war. `We had to leave during the siege,' she said; `the cannonading ruined the house, and the soldiers and all just spoiled my beautiful flower beds. I had a rare lily that was given to me by the royal gardener at Berlin, and that was killed; and I do believe, when I got back, of all the dreadful ruin, the loss of that flower hurt me the most.'

It was in 1865 that the citizens and merchants came back to their desolate homes. Only one building, of all the commercial part of the town, had survived the flames. Business had to be built up from the very foundation again, and the energy with which this task was attempted shows the strong faith Atlanta men feel in their lively town. One of the first to return was the present president of the Board of Trade. He secured a cellar under the sole remaining building (on Alabama Street), paying $150 a month for its use, and began the produce and groceries trade, increasing his income by renting ground privileges of a few feet square on his sidewalk at $20 a month each. Soon the owner of a corner lot on Whitehall Street built a brick building containing two store-rooms. As soon as these were ready, our merchant and another moved in, paying $3000 a year rent each, and giving half of it in advance, in order to aid the proprietor to go on with his construction. (The accommodations for which that $6000 a year was paid now rent for $1500.) Thus by mutual help and enterprise, together with a vast amount of personal labor, the ruins were replaced by substantial business edifices, new hotels of magnificent proportions were erected, churches more lofty in gable and spire arose upon the sites of those destroyed, and the vacant streets were refilled with people. Atlanta became at once the distributing point for Western products, and now finds tributary to her a wide range of country. She handles a large portion of all the grain of Tennessee and Kentucky, besides much from the Upper Mississippi Valley. Much of the flour of the Northwestern mills comes into her warehouses, and thence finds its way southward and eastward. The same is true of the canned meats of Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati packing-houses: this is a very important item of her wholesale business. The provision men naturally were the first to obtain foothold in the new town. After them came the dry-goods people. Most of them began in a very modest way—brought their goods tied up in a blanket almost—yet now the jobbing trade in dry goods alone amounts to some millions of dollars annually. No tobacco can be grown in the vicinity of Atlanta, hence she is without tobacco factories; but she used to handle an enormous quantity of it, and there are half a dozen firms who deal wholly in it now. It was found that Atlanta's dry, equable climate, consequent upon her great altitude, made this point the safest place to keep stores of the grateful plant: it would not mould, as it is liable to do in a damp atmosphere. A few years ago the revenue regulations were not as effective as at present. The practice of stencil-plating packages of tobacco afforded easy means of evading the payment of duty, and great warehouses here were stored with `blockade' tobacco, from which Uncle Sam had derived very little, if any, pocket-money. Enormous profits accrued, but the introduction of the stamp system put a stop to this, though Atlanta was left a very large legitimate business in storing and selling tobacco at whosesale.

Another source of prosperity to the city is cotton. The `cotton belt' of Georgia is a strip of country between here and Augusta. Years ago the land became exhausted, and the cultivation of cotton came to be of small account. Then followed the discovery of the guano island of Peru, and the subsequent invention of artifical fertilizers having similar qualities to the natural manure. These superphosphates are manufactured mainly in Boston, and cost the farmer about forty dollars a ton. It was proved that by their use the worn-out cotton belt could be made to produce as bountiful crops in a series of five years as the Mississippi bottoms did; and, moreover, that cotton could be raised as far north as the foot of the Tennessee mountains. Atlanta, therefore, has come to be not only a great dépôt of supply for this guano, furnishing its vicinage a hundred thousand tons a year, but also the entrepôt of all the cotton produced within a circle of nearly two hundred miles. This cotton is bought mainly for foreign export, and is shipped under through bills of lading to foreign ports, thus dodging the factors at New York, Savannah, and other coast cities. The business is not done on commission, but by buying and selling on a margin of profit.

There are other extensive business interests. Iron is mined near by, and extensive foundries and rolling-mills manufacture it. Great crops of corn and grain are raised throughout the central part of the State, which find their way into Atlanta distilleries, while her wine-merchants are many and rich. She can make the best brick, and has a whole mountain of solid granite close by, with other building material accessible and cheap. She sighs for only one more commercial advantage, namely, a railway to the coal regions of Alabama. Now her coal is largely supplied from ex-Governor Brown's mines in the extreme northwestern corner of the State.

Looking away from the city, Barracks Hill furnishes a good vantage point, as I have already hinted; but to view the town itself, let me commend a ride along the new `boulevard' on the eastern edge. This broad, well-formed driveway follows the crest of one of the many ridges into which the surface of the country is cut up, and the solid squares of the city's business houses, the lofty proportions of her great hostelries, the scores of spires of her handsome churches and school-houses, and the charming, foliage-hidden avenues of her dwelling-places and suburbs—all appear to the best advantage. No one will deny that she is attractive.

Just at the northern extremity of the boulevard is a pretty little vale, upon which some slight cultivation has been attempted, mineral waters having been discovered bubbling out of the bank a few years ago. The name Ponce de Leon Spring was at once given to it, and the spot has become a pleasure resort, always visited in the course of an afternoon's drive. The horse-cars run out there along a wonderful tramway, laid through a series of cuts and over a long trestle-work, like a steam railroad. The waters have a sulphurous, nasty taste, and therefore it is quite likely that they possess some at least of the medicinal properties ascribed to them. But I fancy the bracing violet-scented air, the tramping about under the trees, and the vigorous bowling over of ten-pins have more efficacy in accomplishing cures.

On the outer side of the boulevard, as it follows the circle of the city boundary eastward and southward, runs a strip of tangled woodland, where two or three little streams meander in shadow and negligence. The ground is rough, and the authorities propose to take advantage of all this prettiness by annexing the vale and forming it into a park. It is certainly to be hoped that the scheme will be carried out. Atlanta has no park at all at present, excepting the grounds about the City Hall.

This is less to be deplored here, however, than in any other town you could find in the country, perhaps. One doesn't appreciate how healthful is the position of this favored spot until he studies it. Atlanta stands upon an outmost spur of the Blue Ridge, eleven hundred feet above the sea—an altitude equalled by no other city of her size in the United States. Her climate is equable and pleasant. `The nineties,' with which New Yorkers and Philadelphians are so familiar, are an almost unexplored region to Atlanta's mercury, while in winter the southern latitudes preserve her from long or severe cold. The head waters of the Ocmulgee and several minor streams spring within her very boundary and flow both east and west to the Atlantic and to the Gulf. Her drainage is therefore excellent. Men and women do die there—no denying it; but epidemics are unheard of, and the locality is an island of health in the treacherous yellow-fever climate of it regions. It is all Dei gratia, however. No sanitary measures worthy of mention have ever been effected, or even tried; yet Atlanta is by no means a dirty city.

From a consideration of her healthfulness we turn by antithesis to Oakland, the most artistic and beautifully cared-for cemetery south of the oak groves. It shows a marked contrast to the decay and complete neglect of grave-yards prevailing in all the rural towns. Here lie some thousands of dead Confederate soldiers, and a plain but enduring monument watches over the graves. At this grateful season the cemetery becomes a garden of flowers, and is worth being seen for these alone. Here too, as elsewhere in Atlanta, the number and perfect growth of the hedges are very noticeable; but that finest of all Georgia's hedge plants, the historic holly, is not often seen, though abundant in a wild state in all the hilly regions of this part of Georgia.

Public buildings in Atlanta are not imposing. The United States is just finishing a custom-house, court-room, and post-office in the shape of an attractive structure of brick and granite, modelled in a manner happily different from the ordinary government architecture. The State-house of Georgia is a square, business-looking building on a prominent street, having as unofficial an air as any warehouse, and almost as roughly furnished within. The Court-house and City Hall form a large square building, surmounted by an accumulation of cupolas, reminding one of the touching ballad of `Kafoozalum,' where the hero appears as a `gentleman in three old tiles.' The site is high and beautiful, and will before long be adorned by an ornamental building for public purposes.

A noted trial for homicide was in progress, and I went in to witness the proceedings. The court-room was crowded to repletion with men, half of whom were smoking, though all had their hats off except an officer or two. The prisoner was in a happy mood, perhaps following Mark Tapley's rule as to jollity under creditable circumtances. The lawyers and jury and everybody else were mixed up in the most picturesque style, and the judge's bench had been seized upon as a good point of view by a dozen or more eager spectators. Notwithstanding these seemingly unfavorable conditions, good order was preserved. It was a good place to study faces. The audience was just such a throng as naturaally would gather at a murder trial in the provinces. No city man or person of delicacy did more than glance in out of momentary curiosity, unless he had a direct part in the proceedings. It was interesting to watch these farmers and roughs, the consumption of unlimited quantities of tobacco in every shape forming a bond of union among them. I fancied an indefinable air hung over the assemblage which would not pervade a Northern crowd of similar character, or want of character. Each one of these gaunt-limbed, high-cheeked, swarthy loungers seemed to say; `I may be poor, ignorant, diseased, and bevermined, may have come here in a two-wheeled cart with a mule in a rope harness, and sat on the bottom because I was too lazy to arrange a seat; no doubt I'm an utterly useless Corn-cracker—but, Sir, I am a Georgian!' There have been persons in the halls of Parliament and on the floor of Congress who have attempted to assert themselves Englishmen and Americans, with the intent to be impressive in their patriotism, but I am perfectly sure none of them ever really did make the asseveration half so strong as do these butternut-dyed Crackers by a single glance of the black eyes and a single toss of the shaggy head. Well, to be a Georgian is something; otherwise these fellows would be hard put to it to define their position in the economy of nature.

Atlanta boasts, undoubtedly upon a firm basis of facts, that she offers the best educational privileges to her citizen of any community, large or small, south of `the line.' Unless Richmond, Virginia, be excepted, this is true. Atlanta has a complete system of graded and high schools, and they are fully attended. Then there are two or three commercial colleges, two `universities' for colored pupils who desire more than a common-school education, two medical colleges, and an instructive display of the geological and agricultural resources of the State at the State-house. The Library of Atlanta is peculiarly Southern in its associations. Around the walls of it handsome hall on Marietta Street are hung portraits and engravings of Confederate leaders, some in the gray uniform of the defeated `cause,' and some in the flowing robes with which painters love to enshroud their statesmen. Swords and banners and maps and other relics of war are profusely displayed. The Library is self-supporting, contains some thousands of well-selected and, what is more, well-read volumes, has chess-rooms and reading-rooms attached, and is a matter of just pride and comfort to the town.

A feature of the city to which no well-ordered resident will be likely to direct a stranger's attention is `Shermantown'— a random collection of huts forming a dense negro settlement in the heart of an otherwise attractive portion of the place. The women `take in washin',' and the males, as far as our observation taught us, devote their time to the lordly occupation of sunning themselves. When General Sherman occupied Atlanta, it is said, barracks were located here; hence the name.

After dinner I take a cigar and saunter out. The streets are very quiet. People have hardly risen from their evening meal; and as I walk on out Peach-tree Street, and the moon rises proof-bright toward the starry zenith, it is not easy to realize that I am in the midst of forty thousands of busy men and women. Beautiful homes, varied, tasteful, sometimes grand in exterior appearance, luxurious in interior appointments, stand thickly on either side, embowered in trees and surrounded by hedges and lawns, thickets of shrubbery, and parterres of flowers. Between the sidewalk and the hard but unpaved roadway stand lines of venerable shade trees, through whose dense foliage the moonbeams struggle in uncertain manner, and sketch a flickering mosaic of light and shadow across the path.

Attracted by music down a dark alley-way, I find five laborers, each black as the deuce of spades, sitting upon a circle of battered stools and soap boxes, and forming a `string' band, despite the inconsistency of a cornet. The whole neighborhood is crowded with happy darkies, and though the music is good, I choose the enchantment of distance. Not far away I strike another little circle of freed-men, and discover that a guitar and a banjo are the attractions. On a vacant lot near the railway station a vendor of patent medicine has set up a rough platform, and hung about it some flaring paraffine lamps. Two negroes—genuine negroes, but corked in addition to make themselves blacker!—dressed in the regulation burlesque style familiar to us in the minstrel shows of the North, are dancing jigs, reciting conundrums, and banging banjo, bones, and tambourine to the amusement of two or three hundred delighted darkies.

Ten o'clock arrives, and with many another lounger I saunter down to the station to see the trains from the north and east come in. Then the lights of the station are extinguished. Even the `Raven' who croaks his dismal forebodings of fatality, and sells accident policies to travellers, has disappeared.

The Palestine of To-Day by Dr. J. F. Hurst

The position of Palestine on the map of the world has fitted it and its successive peoples for a remarkable place in history. Here is a little country, with only eight thousand square miles, or two thousanad less than our State of Vermont, which, if we measure it by the scope of its history, the remote antiquity of its literature, and the great forces it has started into irresistible movement, we must place among the foremost in the ancient family of nations. It is practically the meeting-place of three continents—Africa, Asia, and Europe. If Belgium is the `cockpit of Europe,' where many of the chief battles of modern times have been fought, Palestine holds the same relation to the ancient world. Her plain of Esdraelon has been the battle-ground of nations and civilizations from Abraham's day to Napoleon Bonaparte's. This little country was the pathway of the nations on land, while on the sea it was her Phœnicia which planted colonies all around the shores of the Mediterranean, created Carthage, rival of Rome, and dared to send her ships as far north as Britain. There is something, too, akin to magnetism in this wonderful little land. It gave a certain measure of historical importance, and, indeed, of immortality, to every people and land it touched. Take from our knowledgve of Egyptian history all we have learned from the Mosaic narrative, and there will be a marvellous diminution of the fund. It is only where Assyria in an early day came into relations with Syria that we get something of a definite knowledge of that great Oriental power. We find Rawlinson, in his Five Monarchies, and Wilkinson, in his Manners and Customs of the Egyptians, contantly appealing to and leaning on the Scripture hitory, in order to treat the subject in hand in consecutive form. It is Palestine that brings all great ancient countries within our vision. It is our best telescope for a view of the remote past. We read the fortunes of other peoples through her. Of right she did not possess the Greek language. It was foisted upon her through Alexander's conquest, and yet so carefully did she learn the new tongue that it became the receptacle for the new faith from Him of Nazareth, and the medium of its communication to the remotest shores known to men. Palestine long resisted Rome, and finally suffered destruction through Titus. Her acres and faith were bartered like a piece of merchandise, and were, in turn, owned by Canaanite, Jew, Assyrian, Greek, Syrian, Maccabæan, and Roman. But in three centuries we find Bethlehem supplanting Rome. Christianity held the sceptre on the Seven Hills, and paganism became a thing of the country village, or pagus.

This historical importance of Palestine does not come within the purpose of Dr. Thomson. While he admits this fact, and could have drawn upon his rich experience in the country for abundant illustration, he has aimed to show that the country of which he writes, though now in wretched decline, and broken up many a score of times by the ploughshare of war, can still tell the story of its own varied fortunes. He goes farther than this, and proves that the people who live in the country, and the very surface of the land itself, with the vegetation and animals that exist now, are all witnesses to the exactness and authenticity of the Biblical narrative. The Bible, then, has taken the coloring of the country itself. No other country could have produced it. A stranger drifted ashore at Jaffa, and never inquiring what country he was in, could see from the people and their daily life, and from the fields, and houses of the poor, and humble labors of the husbandman, that he was in the country of the Bible. The firt edition of Dr. Thomson's work, in two volumes, is now to give place to a larger one, in three volumes, which adheres to the same fundamental thought, but is essentially a new work. It reverses the itinerary of the former edition, and begins with the south country, traverses the entire hill country of Judæa, and concludes with Jerusalem and the environs. In our examination of the volumes we shall make liberal use of the author's own language.

With Jaffa as a starting-point, one of the first things we observe is the system of irrigation. The use of the water-wheel is constant in Egypt, but it was one of the inducements which Moses held out to the Israelites, that if patient and earnest in their journey, they would not need the water-wheel in their new home: `For the land whither thou goest in to possess it is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs.' Nothing could be more laborious and tedious than the plying of the little Egyptian water-wheel by the feet. If the whole of the promised land had to be irrigated by such a process, it would require a nation of slaves like the Hebrews, and task-masters like the Egyptians, to make it succeed. The Hebrews had learned by bitter experience what it was to water with the foot, and this would add great force to the allusion, and render doubly precious the goodly land which drank of the rain of heaven, and required no such drudgery to make it fruitful. But the labor of the feet does not cease with getting the water upon the surface of the ground. The farmer or gardener is often compelled to conduct the water about from plant to plant and furrow to furrow by his feet alone. When one place is sufficiently saturated, he pushes aside the soil between it and the next furrow with his foot, and continues to do so until all are watered. He is thus sometimes knee-deep in mud, and many diseases are generated by this slavish work. But the people of Palestine, while they do not use the little wheel worked only by the feet, make use of the large and clumsy Persian water-wheel. Hundreds of these are to be seen in the Jaffa region, and to them must be attributed largely the delicious fruit of the gardens and orchards. Simple in construction, cheap, quickly made, soon repaired, easily worked, they raise an immense quantity of water. Many efforts have beem made to introduce pumps, but they always fail, and get out of repair; and as there is no one able to mend them, they are thrown aside, and the gardener returns to his nâ'urah. A clumsy cog-wheel, fitted to an upright post, is made to revolve horizontally by a camel attached to a sweep; this turns a similar one perpendicularly placed at the end of a heavy beam, which has a large wide drum built upon it directly over the mouth of the well. Over this drum revolve two rough hawsers, or thick ropes, made of twigs and branches twisted together, and upon them are fastened small jars or wooden buckets. One side descends while the other rises, carrying the small buckets with them, these descending empty, those ascending full, and as they pass over the top they discharge into a trough which conveys the water to the cistern. The length of these hawsers and the number of these buckets depend of course upon the depth of the well, for the buckets are fastened on the hawser about two feet apart. The depth of wells in Jaffa varies from ten to forty feet. If the mule or camel turns the wheel rapidly—which he rarely does—a bucket with about two gallons of water will be carried over the top of it and discharged into the trough every second, and it must be a good pump that will steadily do as much. The hawser is made of twigs, generally of myrtle, not merely because it is cheap and easily plaited by the gardener himself, but because its extreme roughness prevents it from slipping round on the wheel, as an ordinary rope would do, and thus fail to carry up the loaded buckets.

There are other kinds of water-wheels in use. The shadûf, so conspicuous on the Nile, is nowhere to be seen in Palestine, but the well-sweep and bucket are used in many places.

Another method is common in Philistia. A large buffalo-skin is so attached to cords that, when let down into the well, it opens, and is instantly filled, and being drawn up, it closes so as to retain the water. The rope by which it is hoisted to the top works over a wheel, and is drawn by oxen, mules, or camels, that walk directly from the well to the length of the rope, and then return, only to repeat the operation, until a sufficient quantity of water is raised. This also is a very successful mode of drawing water.

The wheel and bucket, of different sorts and sizes, are much used where the water is near the surface, and also along rapid rivers. For shallow wells, merely a wheel is used, whose diameter equals the desired elevation of the water. The rim of this wheel is large, hollow, and divided into compartments answering the place of buckets. A hole near the top of each bucket allows it to fill, as that part of the rim, in revolving, dips under the water. This, of course, will be discharged into the trough when the bucket begins to descend, and thus a constant succession of streams falls into the cistern. The wheel itself is turned by oxen or mules.

This system of wheels is seen on a grand scale at Hums, Hamath, and all along the Orontes. The wheels there are of enormous size. The diameter of some of those at Hamath is eighty or ninety feet. Small paddles are attached to the rim, and the stream is turned upon them by a low dam with sufficient force to carry the huge wheel around with all its load of ascending buckets. There is, perhaps, no hydraulic machinery in the world by which so much water is raised to so great an elevation at so small an expense. Neither is there any so pictureque or musical. These wheels, with their enormous loads, slowly revolve on their groaning axles all day and all night, each one singing a different tune, with every imaginable variation of tone—sobs, sighs, shrieks, and groans, loud, louder, loudest, down to the bottom of gamut—a concert wholly unique, and half infernal in the night, which, heard once, will never be forgotten.

In 1834, Dr. Thomson resided for several months in Jaffa, and, to pass away the time, frequently came out in the afternoon `to the gate through the city, and prepared his seat in the street.' There the governor, the cadi, and the elders of the people assembled daily, `in a void place,' and held an extemporaneous divan, at which affairs of every kind were discussed and settled with the least possible ceremony. But recently from America, Dr. Thomson was greatly amused with this novel open-air court, conducted amidst the din, confusion, and uproar, of a thronged gateway—men, women, and children jostling each other, horses prancing, camels growling, donkeys braying, as they passed in and out of the gate; but nothing could interrupt the proceedings, or disturb the judicial gravity of the court. The scene, with all its surroundings, was wholly Oriental, and withal had about it an air of remote Scriptural antiquity which rendered it doubly interesting.

The Biblical descriptions of pottery are singularly applicative to the present process of manufacture. Now, in this nineteenth century, the potter sits at his frame and turns the wheel with his foot. Or, as we read in the Apocrypha: `So doth the potter, sitting at his work and turning the wheel about with his feet: he fashioneth the clay with his arm.' The potter had a heap of the prepared clay near him, and a pot of water by his side. Taking a lump in his hand, he placed it on the top of the wheel, which revolves horizontally, and smoothed it into a low cone, like the upper end of a sugar-loaf; then thrusting his thumb into the top of it, he opened a hole down through the centre, and this he constantly widened by pressing the edges of the revolving cone between his hands. As it enlarged and became thinner, he gave it whatever shape he pleased, with the utmost ease and expedition.

It is evident, from numerous expressions in the Bible, that the potter's vessel was the synonym of utter fragility; and to say, as David does, that Zion's King would dash his enemies in pieces like a potter's vessel, was to threaten with ruinous and remediless destruction.

We who are accustomed to strong stone-ware of considerable value can scarcely appreciate some of these Biblical references, but for Palestine they are still as appropriate and forcible as ever. Arab jars are so thin and frail that they are literally dashed to shivers by the slightest stroke. Water jars are often broken by merely putting them down upon the floor; and the servant frequently returns from the fountain empty-handed, having had all his jars smashed to atoms by some irregular behavior of the donkey.

The steam-plough has not yet reached Palestine. To witness the primitive method of separating the grain from the husk, one would suppose himself living far back in the primitive days. Yusef the Moslem gets at the kernel in precisely the same fashion as did Abraham the patriarch. Some very interesting incidents of Biblical history are connected with this peculiar agricultural custom.

The common mode of threshing is with the ordinary mowrej, which is drawn over the floor by a yoke of oxen, until not only the grain is shelled out, but the straw itself is ground into chaff. To facilitate this operation, bits of rough lava are fastened into the bottom of the mowrej, and the driver sits or stands upon it. It is rare sport for children to get out to the baidar, as the floor is called, and ride round upon the mowrej.

These floors, which one sees at Yebna and elsewhere, have, perhaps, changed less than almost anything else in the country. Every agricultural village and town in the land has them, and many of them are more ancient than the places whose inhabitants now use them. They have been just where they are, and exactly as they were, from a period `to which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.' In very many cases the topographical conditions of the sites necessarily decided the place of the threshing-floors. It must be an unoccupied spot near the outside of the village, in a place exposed to the prevailing wind, and sufficiently large for one or more of these floors. Generally there are several in the same vicinity.

The construction of the floors is very simple. A circular space, from thirty to fifty feet in diameter, is made level, if not naturally so, and the ground is smoothed off and beaten solid, that the earth may not mingle with the grain in threshing. In time the floors, especially on the mountains, are covered with a tough, hard sward, the prettiest, and often the only, green plots about the village; and there the traveller delights to pitch his tent. Daniel calls them summer threshing-floors, and this is the most appropriate name for them, since they are only used in that season of the year. The entire harvest is brought to them, and there threshed and winnowed; and the different products are then transferred to their respective places. In large villages this work is prolonged for several months, but all is finished before the autumn rains, and from thence on to the next harvest the floors are entirely deserted; but when occupied, and the threshing in full operation, the scene is both picturesque and eminently Oriental.

The Egyptian mowrej is quite different from this, having rollers which revolve on the grain, and the driver has a seat upon it, which is certainly more comfortable. In the plains of Hamath, Dr. Thomson saw this machine improved by having circular saws attached to the rollers. It is to this instrument in all probability that Isaiah refers in the forty-first chapter of his prophecies: `Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff.' This passage has several allusions which residents in Palestine can readily understand.

Treading out the corn was also employed to separate the grain from the husk and stalk. On some floors—at Yebna, for example—there is no machine of any kind, but boys ride or drive horses, donkeys, and oxen, either separately or yoked together, round upon the grain, and it is this in part which makes the scene so peculiar. Some run from left to right, and others the reverse, and no one continues long in the same direction, but changes every few minutes, to keep the animals from becoming dizzy, while some seek to secure the same result by fastening blinders over the eyes of the bewildered animals.

Elihu says, `The whirlwind cometh out of the south.' Is that still the case? According to Dr. Thomson's experience it is, and also that `fair weather cometh out of the north.' There is in both statements an indication that the author of them dwelt in the `south country,' in which these phenomena are most frequently witnessed, and where one looks earnestly northward for relief from persevering and relentless rain. With regard to whirlwinds, there is something in the manner in which they catch up the chaff, and whirl it hither and thither, over hill and plain and thorn hedge, in a sort of manifest fury, that vividly excited the imagination of the Hebrew poets. For example, in the first Psalm, and the thirty-fifth, and the eighty-third, and in Isaiah xvii. and xxix., and Hosea xiii., and elsewhere, every incident is noticed which could intensify the destruction denounced against the ungodly `as chaff of the mountain, chased by the wind, and driven out of the floor by the whirlwind.' These whirlwinds are extremely common, and very curious. Without warning or apparent cause, they start up suddenly, as if by magic or spirit influence, and rush furiously onward, swooping dust and chaff up to the clouds in their wild career.

The intention of the farmer is to grind down his unthreshed grain to chaff, and much of it is reduced to fine dust, which the wind carries away. The references to the wind which drives off the chaff are numerous in the Bible, and very forcible. The grain, as it is threshed, is heaped up in the centre of the floor, until it frequently becomes a little mound, higher even than the workmen. This is particularly the case when there is no wind for several days, since the only way adopted to separate the chaff from the wheat is to toss it up into the air, when the grain falls in one place and the chaff is carried on to another.

There seems, likewise, to be no change in preparing food for bread. The grinding of the grain by two women goes on now as in the remote times. One hears this low rumbling sound in every town in the land, and can see for himself this unchanged custom. Solomon says, `The grinders cease because they are few; the sound of the grinding is low.' Jeremiah also saddens his picture of Israel's desolation by Nebuchadnezzar with the prediction that `the sound of the millstones' should cease. And upon Babylon, whose king stilled the voice of the grinding in Jerusalem, John denounces the like desolation: `The sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee.'

Southward through Philistia there are no mill-streams, and one constantly hears the hum of the hand-mill at every village and Arab camp, morning and evening, and often deep into the night. When at work, two women sit at the mill facing each other; both have hoid of the handle by which the upper is turned round upon the nether millstone. The one whose hand is disengaged throws in the grain, as occasion requires, through the hole in the upper stone, which is called el rukkâb, the rider, in Arabic, as it was long ago in Hebrew. It is not correct to say that one pushes it half round, and then the other seizes the handle. This would be slow work, and would give a spasmodic motion to the stone. Both retain their hold, and pull to or push from, as men do with the whip or crosscut saw. The proverb of Christ is true to life, for women only grind. Dr. Thomson recalls no instance in which men were grinding at the hand-mill. It is tedious, fatiguing work, and slaves or servants are set at it. >From the king to `the maid-servant that is behind the mill,' therefore, embraced all, from the very highest to the very lowest inhabitants in Egypt. This grinding at the mill was often imposed upon captives taken in war. Thus Samson was abused by the Philistines, and, with Milton for his poet, bitterly laments his cruel lot: `To grind in brazen fetters under task, Eyeless, in Gaza, at the mill with slaves.'

Every traveller in Palestine learns from experience that he has to pay an ample price for everything he receives and enjoys. There seems to be no fixed price, but the vender or employé gets all he finds it possible to procure. But one of his methods, peculiar enough, is to begin his bargain by making no charge. We remember that the dragoman to whom we applied at Nablus to conduct us to Damascus refused at first to make any charge whatever for his services, but declared he would be amply rewarded for his eight days' going and returning by the mere companionship of a Frank. On urging him to name a price, he put so high an estimate upon his valuable aid that we were compelled to forego the pleasure of his company. We found out that it was all a ruse. He was hoping to be offered our price, thinking it might be a large one, and was determined that if it did not suit him, he would then raise it as high as he might see fit. Every one who has travelled at all leisurely through the country has met with similar instances of shrewd bargaining. Dr. Thomson says he has been presented with hundreds of houses and fields and horses, and by-standers were called in to witness the deed, and a score of protestations and oaths were taken to seal the truth of the donation; all of which meant just nothing, or rather just as great a price as he could possibly be induced to pay. A knowledge of this adroit method of dealing, still current in Palestine, greatly facilitates our understanding of Abraham's purchase of a burial-place for his wife. Hebron is much the same to-day as in his time. If one were to arrange for the purchase of a tomb for a member of his family, he would likely be told that he could have one for nothing. There is great exclusiveness in the matter of tombs, and a high price is expected. The Hittites said to Abraham, on his application for the purchase of one: `Hear us, my lord: thou art a mighty prince among us: in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead; none of us shall withhold from thee his sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury thy dead.' Beautiful compliment! but only compliment. Abraham, however, was too shrewd a man not to see through the trick; so he repelled the liberal offer, but insisted on paying for the burial-place. Ephron, with all due politeness, said: `Nay, my lord, hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee: bury thy dead.' But Abraham undertood the proposition for buksheesh too well to accept, and insisted on an outright purchase. So Ephron named four hundred shekels of silver. But `four hundred shekels; what is that betwixt me and thee?' A mere trifle by name, but a very large price in fact. This, however, was serious business for Abraham, and he made no objection. So he proceeded to weigh out the money, just as men do now in Palestine, with a little pair of scales, to see that none of the coins are clipped. But Oriental custom requires that all the specifications be named in every contract. When you buy a house, not only the building, but every room in it, must be named, above and below, down to the kitchen, pantry, stable, and hen-coop. So when Abraham bought a field, he also bought the cave that was therein, and all the trees in the field, and all that were in all the borders round about. Then this sale was effected in public, just as all similar transactions in these days are brought about. When any sale is now effected in a town or village, the whole population turn out to witness it, in the space about the city gate. All the people take part in discussing the matter with as much interest as if they were personally concerned. In this way the transaction acquires legal force; it has many living witnesses.

From the grave we turn to a more cheerful scene, namely, a marimonial event in this same family of the emeer Abraham, and near this same Hebron. The chief servant in the family of a sheik or emeer has very great functions in these days. So it was not at all an unusual occurrence that Eliezer, the steward of Abraham, should have so much respect and confidence shown him as to be made the manager of the matrimonial engagement for Abraham's only son Iaac. Abraham was solicitous that his son should marry one of his own kindred—a desire in exact accord with the custom of Oriental nobility, where a relative has always the preference. The oath of fidelity which Eliezer took was very sacred, and in harmony with his delicate mission. The preparation and outfit for the journey were just what would be made to-day for such an errand and such a distance as that from Hebron to Mesopotamia. On reaching Nahor, Eliezer made his camels kneel down by a well of water at the time of evening, when women go out to draw water. The place of a well, in all the East, determines the site of the village. The people build near it, but the well remains outside of the city. It is about the fountain that travellers and caravans assemble. About the large cities the men carry water, both on donkeys and on their own backs, but in the country villages it is only women who carry the water. The way that Rebekah carried her pitcher or jar was precisely the present Palestinian mode—on her shoulder. She went down to the well, for in the East the wells are in the wadies, and are often reached by steps. She watered the camels, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, just as one always sees now beside the fountain. The jewels for the head, neck, and arms are still worn by the women, probably without any variation between Eliezer's days and ours. Laban's address, `Come in, thou blessed of the Lord,' was the ordinary Oriental compliment, while the inclusion of the camels in the invitation to come into the house is still kept up. The water to wash the feet, the mode of negotiating the marriage contract, the presenting of the gifts, and the management of the whole affair by the parents, with the advice of the eldest son, however, are all in precise accord with the customs of our time in Syria and Mesopotamia.

In taking leave of this first installment of the new edition of Dr. Thomson's work, we can not forbear to express our admiration for his great fidelity to his original plan of tracing the truth of the Scriptures in the Oriental life of the present times, and for the important additions he has made to his group of evidences. Were it not for his array of indisputable facts, it would seem almost incredible that a land which has undergone so many changes, or rather complete revolutions, should preserve so many traces of its original life and thought. We suspect, however, that with the new interest in Palestine, there will be large accessions to this store of parallels between the former times and the present. We observe in this new edition of Dr. Thomson's work that the publishers have provided it with an entirely new set of illustrations, derived from fresh observations in Palestine. Having been for nearly half a century an American missionary in Palestine, Dr. Thomson has had better opportunities than any man now living for close observation of the life and habits of the people. In addition, he has made wise use of the labors of Warren, Wilson, Conder, and all the recent explorers sent out by the exploration societies of Great Britain, France, Germany, and America.

Sea-Drift From a New England Port by Lizzie W. Champney

Heavy and regular, like the recurrent strokes of a sledge-hammer, the hoofs of Sheriff Joshua Hempstead's horse strike the Norwich turnpike, and horse and rider, alike stout of heart and strong of limb, go lumbering on through the darkness. The dwellers in the scattered farm-houses, as they turn in their beds, recognize that steady thud, thud, and it gives them a sense of security, for they know that all rogues must flee before the valiant sheriff of New London. Every three miles he passes a tavern. At Dodge's, nearest the town, they are putting up the shutters, and a colored valet is endeavoring to persuade an inebriated gentleman to leave the basset table, and venture on what is sure to prove a tempestuous voyage, to his home just around the corner. At Fink's tavern, further on, fiddles and bassoon still keep up a jovial din, and flying silhouettes are thrown upon the window-shades, a kaleidoscopic panorama of ribboned queues and high combs on cushioned hair, for Fink's is the favorite tavern to which to drive for dances. The horses waiting in the shed, and harnessed to quaint sulkies, gigs, chaises, one-horse chairs, and phaetons—very different vehicles from those which bear the name nowadays (for this was during the war of the Revolution)—neigh to the powerful horse that strides over the road; and the sleepy hostlers and grooms shake themselves, and wonder what rascal is doomed now. Then they note the good points of the sheriff's horse, and tell how when a thief sprang down an `off-set' eight feet high, the horse leaped after him, and pinned him down by the clothing with his forefeet until his master could alight and secure him. At Horton's tavern all is dark and quiet, but Hempstead refreshes his horse at the trough, and the landlord, unbolting a shutter, first shows a nightcapped head, and then brings out a stirrup-cup to strengthen the arm of the law. On through the night, till at Norwich the sheriff secures his prisoners—two runaway sailors, who, having pocketed the bounty paid for enlisting, have determined to quit the service while they are still in a condition to enjoy it—and at early dawn he sets out again for New London, tying his prisoners together, and driving them before him. While still at a distance from the town he notices that the fastenings have become loosed, and that the sailors are free. He springs from his horse, but the men at the same instant exchange glances: their only safety is in separation, and they set out at a run in different directions. The sheriff plunges after one, but the other is already out of sight in the wood, and his escape seems very probable. Joshua Hempstead has returned to the place where he alighted from his horse, holding the arm of the unlucky sailor in his powerful clutch, but the animal which he neglected in his haste to fasten is no longer there. The captive grins at this contretemps; but a whinny is heard a little further on, and the sheriff drags his unwilling companion toward the sound. There stands the black horse, with his teeth in the collar of the other runaway. When his master had given chase to the firt, he had comprehended the situation, and dashed after the other. Sheriff and deputy-sheriff return in triumph with their prisoners, and deputy is after this a public character in New London. He carried the dispatches between Boston and New London during the war, bringing the news of the battle of Bunker Hill in one day and night—a distance, as the road was then travelled, of one hundred and ten miles. And Joshua Hempstead was no light weight: `there were giants in those days. When lately the sheriff's bones were removed from one cemetery to another, men gazed with wonder at his colossal frame, whose huge jaw-bones would have fitted easily as a visor over any modern countenance.

The work of New London during the Revolution was very much the same as Sheriff Joshua Hempstead's—that of furnishing sailors, willing or unwilling, for the American navy. The antiquarian, turning over snuff-colored files of the Connecticut Gazette, a little sheet published in New London during the Revolution, will be struck by the frequent insertion of notices such as the following:

`All Gentlemen Volunteers who are desirous of making their fortunes in 8 weeks' time are hereby informed the fine Privateer called the New Broome, mounting 16 pieces and 4 Pounders, besides swivels, is now fitted out for an 8 week' cruise near Sandy Hook, in the Sound, and will have the best chance that there has been this War of taking Prizes. She only waits for a few more Men, and then will immediately sail for her cruise. `July 25, 1778.'

`The new and swift sailing Privateer Brigantine Le Marquis de la Fayette, mounting sixteen 6 pound Cannon, with Swivels and Small Arms compleat, will sail on a Cruise against the enemies of these United States in eight days from the date hereof at farthest. All Gentlemen Seamen and able-bodied Landsmen who are desirous of making their fortune an Opportunity now presents, by applying on Board said Brig, when they will meet with good Encouragement. Peter Richards. `New London, Feb. 7, 1781.'

The call is repeated again and again, with very little variation except in the name of commanders and vessels. In the latter a grim humor is often diplayed. The New Broome, already mentioned, was evidently designed to become a `besom of destruction.' The Wilful Murder and the Sturdy Beggar, both authentic names of privateers, strike a somewhat piratical key-note, but they were regularly commissioned vessels of war sailing under letters of marque and reprisal issued by the government, and stand in the relation of great-grandfathers to our present navy. The official history of the navy of the Revolution is comprised in the corsair-like exploits of these privateers.

In December, 1775, Congress chose a committee for carrying into execution its resolutions for fitting out armed vessels. New London became the head-quarters for the Connecticut quota. Its fitness as a naval station is demonstrated by a report made to the British government in 1774, before the breaking out of the Revolution:

`New London, the best harbor in Connecticut, from the light-house at the mouth of the harbor to the town is about three miles, a breadth of three-fourths of a mile, from five to six fathoms of water, and entirely secure and commodious one mile above the town for large ships. The principal trade is to the West India Islands, excepting now and then a vessel to Ireland and England, and a few to Gibraltar and Barbary. There are 72 sail now belonging to this district, in which there are 406 sea-faaring men employed, besides upward of 20 sail of coasting vessels. Almost every sort of British manufactures are here imported, of £150,000 or £160,000 sterling per annum. The custom-house officers here are attentive to their duty, besides which this harbor is so situated that the coming in from the sea is between the east end of Long Island and Block Island, and by the west end of Fisher's Island, where the king's cruisers are generally upon the look-out, and very critical in examining the vessels they meet with,' etc.

Blank letters of marque were sent to the Governor of Connecticut, vessels were built and remodelled, notices requesting `Gentlemen Volunteers' began to appear in the Gazette, and the work of enlisting went merrily on. Four captains' commissions were issued by Congress at this time—one to Dudley Saltonstall, of New London, who afterward rose to the rank of commodore. Among those receiving the rank of lieutenant at the same date was the famous John Paul Jones. Twenty-six vessel were fitted out from Conneticut, and sailed away to dispute the arrogant boast: `The winds and seas are Britain's wide domain, And not a sail but by permission spreads.'

Prizes as they were brought in were amnnounced in the Gazette, and referred to the decision of the Maritime Court, where the owners of the property seized were summoned to appear and claim their goods, first having proved themselves loyal to the new government. The following summons is taken at random from a score of similar one, and will serve as an example of the established procedure: `State of Connecticut, ss., County of New London. To whom it may concern:

`Know Ye that Libels are filed before the Honorable Richard Law, Esq., Judge of the Maritime Court of New London, in Favour of John Murow, Commander, Elias Parshal, Owner, and the Men on board the Sloop Hulker, against two Whale Boats laden with British Goods taken on the 18 of March, 1781....In Favour of Amos Judson, Commander of Boat Revenge, and his Associates, against two trunks and a Box of European and India Goods seized and taken on Long Island....Which Whale Boats and Goods the Libellants claim as Lawful Prizes. The hearing of said Libels will be at New London the 17 Day of April, 1781: of which all persons claiming Property are to take due notice. Per Order of the Judge. Winthrop Saltonstall, Regr.'

It is an acknowledged fact that navel stations are the gayest society centres, and while the perononel of the little navy of the Revolution were busied with exciting enterprises taxing their courage and endurance on the high seas, they were all the more ready to indulge in social enjoyments when in port. The ladies of New London, too, were as patriotic as they were handsome, and devised innumerable entertainments for their gallant defenders. The Marine Tavern and the Golden Ball in the town, as well as the inns on the Norwich and Old Lyme turnpikes, became scenes of revelry, while private mansions outvied each other in hospitality. Some of the old mansions of the town are particularly rich in miniatures and others in oil-paintings of the ladies of this period—refined, sweet faces, set off by elaborate coiffures and great ruffs. The miniatures painted by Mrs. Champlin at the beginning of this century, in especial those of the Coit sisters, have a delicacy of treatment and a purity of sentiment peculiarly suited to the fair young faces of her sitters. The family portrait gallery of the Shaw family introduces us most vividly to the early society of New London. It is difficult not to imagine while gazing on these aristocratic dames, stately gentlemen, and gentle girls who surround us, standing at full length in their tall frames, that they are lookling at us through open doors—that Madam Temperance Shaw, in her white satin and mob-cap, with the open Bible in her hand, is not expecting a visit from her pastor, the Reverend Gurdon Saltonstall. Nathaniel Shaw, her son, with his long light locks, sober dress, and knee and shoe buckles, reminds us of William Penn, but of William Penn minus his rotund figure. In his almost Quaker simplicity of attire he forms a decided contrast to his courtly wife, in her stiff gold-colored satin dress, bosomed like Rubens's wife, with pearls in her hair and around her beautiful throat; she holds a red rose in one shapely hand, and as she stands there is the embodiment of haughty aristocracy. And yet this proud dame, when the war ships in Shaw's Cove, on which the mansion fronts, were full of men dying with ship-fever, opened her house, turning it into a hospital, nursed the stricken men with her own hands, and fell at last, sad to say, a victim to the same malignant disease. What a romance might be written in this picture gallery! The next portrait is that of pretty Polly Shaw, sister of Nathaniel Shaw. The portrait represents her at fifteen, in a dress of white satan, simply cut, with a square neck; its only ornament is a formal cross-of-Malta-shaped rosette of four loops of satin ribbon, with a tear-shaped pearl in the centre. All innocence, is our thought as we look at the serious young face. She stands in a garden, with a basket of fruit and a shade hat upon her arm. `She is going to visit the poor,' said my companion; `we need not be told that she married a minister.' Here too is the portrait of her daughter, a coquettish woman in a `bee-hive' headdress, which reminds us of the portraits of Madame Le Brun in her white muslin turban. She holds a baby on her lap—a baby who, grown to man's estate, became the father of the present generation now occupying the house. How far back it throws everything! And yet, as we walk through the manorial house, peep into the library with its portrait of Cromwell in armor, stand reverently in the room that entertained Washington, half expecting to see his figure held as by a sensitive plate in the high mirror, and stroll through alleys of box that rise a high hedge on either hand, up the knoll crowned with a summer-house a century and a half old, where Lafayette, who visited the place twice, probably toasted the bright eyes of pretty Polly Shaw in those spiral-stemmed, monogram-engraved Champagne glasses, and Washington presided at the lawn party, ladling the punch from the magnificent Chinese bowl—how real and near it all seems! These pictured ladies are the real and only dwellers here; we flesh-and-blood intruders are only ghosts.

There are not many old houses in New London so rich in associations, for when Arnold burned the town in 1781 he made thorough work, anxious to ingratiate himself with his commanders by doing all the injury in his power to the cause he had deserted. Every locality has its epoch to which it refers in determining the date of every event; in New London nothing is old which did not exist `before the burning.'

No attempt was made to defend the town at this time, the militiamen, one hundred and fifty-seven in number, attempted only the defense of Fort Griswold, on the other side of the river, under the command of Colonel Ledyard. The greater part of the town was laid in ashes. While it was being fired, Arnold dined at the Christopher house—a quaint old wooden building, still standing, and next to the imposing stone mansion of the Shaws; its roof projects like that of a Swiss chalet over a porch, and from it depend ancient trellises of antiquated pattern. Mr. Christopher was a rank old Tory, but a very good friend of Mr. Shaw; and when the beautiful old manor-house, which had been built of limestone, was fired, he extinguished the flames by pouring on them a vat of vinegar from the roof of his wood-house.

Miss Caulkins, the author of The History of New London, laments in a little poem the absence of antiquities in the town: `We're nothing old; our parchment proofs, Our red-ink print, our damask woofs, All perished with our gabled roofs When Arnold burnt the town. `The strange, quaint fashions of old time— Three-cornered hats, white wigs sublime, Red cloaks, knee-buckles—left our clime When Arnold burnt the town. Hood-pinners, and blue homespun dye, The pillion, and the ride and tye, The spinning-wheels, long since went by, When Arnold burnt the town. Our London is forever New, Our Father Thames runs on as blue, As smooth, as on that day of rue When Arnold burnt the town.'

It is possible that the very destruction of the greater part of their household gods caused those that were rescued to be cherished with greater care than is usually the case. Certain it is that New London is quite as rich in relics of old time as most towns of it size. Old china of exquisite shape and translucency may be found carefully treasured here. I recall one set that would have made the heart of an Avis swell with envy. Each piece was decorated, not with a single bright feather, but with a different bird, herons, doves, hawks, storks, and sparrows pencilled so finely that they resembled drawings or engravings. The Washington and sailor's keepsake pitchers so much prized by collectors are occasionally found. The owner of the bird set possesses one with the inscription: `When riding o'er the Mountain wave, The Hardy Sailor, ever brave, He laughs at danger, smiles at fate, And risks his life to save his mate.' A pewter porringer supported by dolphins, and a coffee-urn of very graceful shape, are heirlooms in the same family. The coffee at evening parties was often not only made but ground at the table. The lover of Pope will recall the lines: `For lo! the board with cup and spoons is crown'd, The berries crackle, and the mill turns round; On shining altars of Japan they raise The silver lamp; the fiery spirits blaze; From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide, While China's earth receives the smoking tide: Coffee which makes the politician wise, And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.' The fragrant cups were passed, it is very possible, by some negro footman, for slavery early found a lodgment here. It is interesting to see how this question was viewed by some of the wise and good of ancient times. In the early days of the colony, before the importation of negroes, the Indians were sold as slaves. We quote from a letter to John Winthrop:

`Sir,—Mr. Endecot and myself salute you in the Lord Jesus, etc. Wee have heard of a dividence of women and children [Pequot captives] in the bay, and would bee glad of a share, viz., a young woman or girle and a boy, if you think good. I wrote to you for some boyes for Bermudas.'

In the following letter, to the same, written in 1645, a scheme for the slave-trade is broached:

`If upon a Just warre with the Narraganset, the Lord should deliuer them into our hands, wee might easily haue men, women and children enough to exchange for Moores, which wil be more gaynefull pilladge for us then wee conceive, for I doe not see how wee can thrive vntil wee gett into a stock of slaves sufficient to doe all our buisines, for our children's children will hardly see this great Continent filled with people, soe that our servants will still desire freedome to plant for them selves, and not stay but for very great wages. And I suppose you know verie well how wee shall maynteyne 20 Moores cheaper than one Englishe servant.'

The Connecticut Gazette during the Revolution contained frequent advertisements for runaway slaves, among them, `very black negro men,' branded with scars received in Africa, `Mustee boys,' and `Indian women.' The time seemed to have been seized upon for a general hegira. The reward offered for their return was seldom more than five dollar.

Dr. Johnson's derisive taunt, that `the loudest yelps for liberty' were heard from a slave-keeping people, seems to us at this day to have been not without its justice.

We have already touched on the matter of dress. The enaction of rigid sumptuary laws was proposed during the Revolution by a letter of instruction to the Connecticut members of Congress, written in 1774 by Rev. Gurdon Saltonstall, chairman of a committee from the counties of New London and Windham.

`However, gentlemen,' says Mr. Saltonstall, `it is at least possible that this almost infinitely important dispute [between England and the colonies] may be brought to a decision without the intervention of carnage. The Nation [England] are not blind and callous to their own interest, and what can so effectually touch that in the most tender place as in good earnest to break off all commercial intercourse with Great Britain? What a trifling hardship should we be subjected to! Why, truly no more than for many to cease impoverishing themselves in the pursuit of the extravagancies and luxuries of the rich and great in the Mother Country. But even if we were for a while reduced to Bread and Water, or Mallows and Juniper for food, and Sheep-skins and Goat-skins for covering, what would that be to deluging our country with blood too pretious to be spilled in vain? and yet that would be preferable and far sooner take place than a submission to such horrid and unnatural oppression.'

Some of the people of Connecticut were not satisfied with `sheep-skins and goat-skins' au naturel for clothing, but preferred the intervention of the looms and dyes of England to convert them into elegant fabrics, and a small business was done in surreptitious importation. British manufactures, whether smuggled or seized as prizes by privateers, were advertised throughout the entire war. We quote again from the Gazette: `A number of pieces of choice brocaded and other English silks, flowr'd, strip'd, blossom'd, blue, pink, and green lutestrings and sarcenets,' are advertised with `Pad Locks, Raisons, Ostrich Feathers, Rum, Sickles, Allum, and Bohea Tea. Good Pork taken in pay for goods.'

Even the very first of the New London settlers gave some attention to fashion and to smart clothing, as we may judge from one of the oldest wills extant in the county, that of Mary Harries, in 1655:

`I give to my daughter Mary my blew mohere peticote and my straw hatt and a fether boulster. And to her eldest sonne a silver spoone. To her second a silver whissel.

`I give to my youngest daughter a piece of red broad-cloth; alsoe a damask livery cloth, a gold ring, a silver spoone, a fether-bed and a boulster, my best hat, my gowne, a brass kettle. Alsoe I give my three daughters of the dyaper table cloth.

`I give to my sister Migges a red peticoat, a silke hud, a quoife, and a neck cloth.

`To my daughter Elizabeth, my great chest. To Mary, a ciffer [coiffure?]. To my brother Kawlin, a lased band.

`I give to Rebekah Bruen a pynt pot of pewter, a new petticoat and wascote weh she is to spin herselfe; alsoe an old byble and a hat weh was my sonn Thomas his hat. `The mark of Mary Harries. `Wittness hearunto: `John Winthrop' and others.

In the Hemptead house, the oldest building now standing in New London—a fortified house which dates back to the founding of the town in 1645—is still carefully preserved a sky-blue satin waistcoat heavily embroidered with silver thread; it belonged to some ancestor of the sturdy sheriff, whose huge gun, of a make anterior to the old Queen's arm, still hangs on the hooks in the `summer-tree,' a rafter running across the `keeping-room' ceiling. The waistcoat's owner could not have been of the same stuff as the bearer of the heavy musket. We fancy him some cavalier `Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain, And the nice conduct of a clouded cane.'

It was probably when the sumptuary laws were favorably regarded that Patty Hempstead, finding her father averse to the purchase of a new ball dress in which she might shine before the young naval officers, desecrated the sacred vestment of the courtier ancestor by a pair of rash little scissors, which changed the relic of stately awkwardness into a jaunty `jockey' or jacket, which, worn over an India muslin, must have been `marvellous becoming' to Miss Patty. The waistcoat has been restored as nearly as possible to its original shape, but it still bears the snippings of the scissors which adapted it to the softer outlines of the feminine form. The `jockey' must have figured at a dance, for dancing was about the only amusement. There was no theatre or opera here; no `art atmosphere,' as at Newport. The popular sports, the dance excepted, were of a grim nature. Pope-day was annually celebrated on the 5th of November, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. Two effigies were exhibited, one representing the pope and the other the devil, each with a head of hollow pumpkin, illuminated from within by a candle, the pope wearing a paper tiara and the archfiend a pair of horns. The procession passed through the principal streets, the effigies being borne on men's shoulders. Songs were sung, and it halted frequenly to levy contributions of money or refreshments from every house of any importance. The day closed with the burning of the two figures, while the crowd danced around the pyre.

In 1729 the first approach to a circus visited the town—a lion drawn in an ox-cart. The previous autumn it had travelled from New York to Albany. While in New London the illustrious stranger was lodged in Madam Winthrop's stable.

Deer were hunted on Fisher's Island. A record remains of a famous hunting party in 1739, in which Colonel Saltonstall brought down a doe and Mr. George Mumford two bucks, one of which was immediately sent by a carrier to Mr. Wanton at Newport. Fisher's Island remained through six generations the property of the Winthrops. This family is the one most celebrated in the early annals of the town. Fitz-John Winthrop, major-general in the Indian wars, was for many years Governor of Connecticut.

The records of the State of the year 1693 state that

`This Court by their vote made choyse of Major General Fitz John Winthrop to be their agent to goe ouer for England and to endeauoure to present our addresse to their Maties and to obteeyn in the best way and maner he shall be capeable a confirmation of our charter priuiledges. The Court grants a rate of a penny upon the pound of all the rateable estate in the Colony to defray the charge of sending an agent to England, and if any can not pay money they haue liberty to pay doble in wheat, rye, pease, or indian. Rev. Gordon Saltonstall is invited to go to England with Gen'l Winthrop.'

This was the event selected by Walcott as the basis of a heroic poem, from which we make a quotation. It opens thus: Learned Winthrop then by general consent Sat at the helm to sway the government, Who prudently the people doth advise To ask the King for chartered liberties. All like his counsel well, and all reply, Sir, you must undertake our agency.'

The Winthrop mansion still stands, and is an exceedingly interesting one; the `best room' is panelled, and the fireplace surrounded with tiles of Scriptural design. Another building that escaped `the burning' is the old `Manwaring house.' The family deserted it on the approach of the British, and returning after their departure, found a wounded Hessian lying upon the floor. The `General Huntington house—an imposing mansion, but not so old as those already mentioned—was modelled after Washington's residence at Mount Vernon. There remains little record of schools; probably Yale College supplied the needs of higher education. Nathan Hale, the martyr spy, taught a boys' school here before the Revolution.

The church history of these early times abounds in interesting episodes. The Rev. Mather Byles, so well remembered as the son of the wittiet of clergymen after Swift, was first settled in New London. But he found his parish little to his liking. The people were given to practical jokes. The Quakers came and sat in his church with their broad-brims on, their wives bringing their spinning-wheels and spinning in the aisles.

Gurdon Saltonstall, another facetious minister, resigned his functions as a preacher for the office of Governor. A religious sect arose professing allegiance to Christ only, and acknowledging no authority in the civil law. Among other peculiarities of their creed was the right to contract marriage without the sanction of the civil authorities. A man named Gorton was their leader. He appeared before Gvoernor Saltonstall one day, as his Excellency was peacefully smoking his long pipe, and announced that he was married to a woman whom he had brought with him, and that without the sanction of the law. The Governor serenely removed his pipe, and asked, `And thou art determined to have this woman to thy wife?' `I am,' replied Gorton. `And you, madam, have you taken this man for your husband?' `That I have, Sir,' was the prompt reply. `Then,' exclaimed the Governor, `by the authority and in accordance with the laws of the State of Connecticut, I pronounce you legally man and wife.' `Gurdon, thou art a cunning creature.' replied the discomfited Gorton.

All the religious sects then known in America were represented in New London. Here were to be found the `Churchman,....fond of power; The Quaker, sly; the Presbyterian, sour; The smart Freethinker, all things in an hour.' It was in New London, says Trumbull, that the Separatists, or Baptists, carried their enthusiasm to such a degree that they made a large fire to burn their books, clothes, and ornaments, which they called their idols. This imaginary work of piety and self-denial they undertook on the Lord's day, and brought their clothes, books, necklaces, and jewels together in the main street. They began with burning their erroneous books, but were prevented from detroying their clothes and jewels.

Among the scientific inventions of the period, one that seems to foretell Jules Verne's dream of submarine navigation claims our attention, It was called the American Turtle, and was so arranged as to be propelled under water toward the enemy's ships, where an infernal machine could be attached which would blow up the ship five hours afterward. Only the electric light, which the commander of the Nautilus made so useful, was lacking.

How many luckless expeditions for buried treasure have been carried on along these shore, stimulated by the history of Kidd's visit to Gardiner's Island, just across the Sound, in his black-flag sloop Antonio, which he commanded after sinking his first ship, the Adventure. How like an old romance is the account of Mrs. Gardiner's roasting a pig for the pirate prince, and `cooking it so very nice` that he made her a present of enough cloth of gold to make dresses for her two daughters, while her frightened husband was made the unwilling guardian of the iron chests buried in the swamp, with the injunction that he must answer for their safe-keeping with his head. No wonder that even after Kidd was secured at Boston Mr. Garadiner trembled and hesitated when ordered by the Earl of Bellmont to give up the chests.

A favorite haunt of Captain Kidd's was at Block Island, at a lonely house occupied by Mercy Raymond, whose husband was much of the time absent at New London. Here, the legend says, Captain Kidd brought a strange lady, whom he called his wife, and whom Mercy Raymond boarded for a considerable time. When he finally departed he bade Mercy hold out her apron, which he filled with handfuls of gold and jewels.

The lamentable ballad of Captain Kidd, which we subjoin, gives his name as Robert, but more authentic records assert that it was William: The Song of CAPTAIN KIDD Oh, my name was Robert Kidd, as I sail'd, as I sail'd' Oh, my name was Robert Kidd, as I sail'd. My sinful footsteps slid; God's laws they did forbid; But still wickedly I did, as I sail'd. I'd a Bible in my hand when I sail'd, when I sail'd; I'd a Bible in my hand when I sail'd. I'd a Bible in my hand, by my father's great command, And I sunk it in the sand, when I sail'd. I spied three ships of France, as I sail'd, as I sail'd; I spied three ships of France, as I sail'd. I spied three ships of France; to them I did advance, And took them all by chance, as I sail'd. I spied three ships of Spain, as I sail'd, as I sail'd; I spied three ships of Spain, as I sail'd. I spied three ships of Spain; I fired on them amain, Till most of them were slain, as I sail'd. I murdered William Moore, as I sail'd, as I sail'd; I murdered William Moore, as I sail'd. I murdered William Moore, and I left him in his gore, Not many leagues from shore, as I sail'd. I'd ninety bars of gold, as I sail'd, as I sail'd; I'd ninety bars of gold, as I sail'd. I'd dollars manifold, and riches uncontrolled, And by these I lost my soul, as I sail'd.