No More Learning

The scope of this
work being juristic and philosophical, it JAMES BRYCE
does not admit of much historical narra-
tive, and the style is lucid but not brilliant. It is not in fact as
a historian that Mr. Bryce is best known, but rather as a jurist, a
politician, and a student of institutions.
The most striking characteristic of the man is his versatility; a
quality which in his case has not been accompanied by its usual
defects, for his achievements in one field seem to have made him no
less conscientious in others, while they have given him that breadth
of view which is more essential than any special training to the
critic of men and affairs. For the ten years that followed his Oxford
appointment he contributed frequently to the magazines on geograph-
ical, social, and political topics. His vacations he spent in travel and
in mountain climbing, of which he gave an interesting narrative in
(Transcaucasia and Ararat" (1877). In 1880 he entered active poli-
tics, and was elected to Parliament in the Liberal interest. He has



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2644
JAMES BRYCE
continued steadfast in his support of the Liberal party and of Mr.
Gladstone, whose Home Rule policy he has heartily seconded. In
1886 he became Gladstone's Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and
in 1894 was appointed President of the Board of Trade.
The work by which he is best known in this country, the Amer-
ican Commonwealth (1888), is the fruit of his observations during
three visits to the United States, and of many years of study. It is
generally conceded to be the best critical analysis of American insti-
tutions ever made by a foreign author. Inferior in point of style to
De Tocqueville's Democracy in America,' it far surpasses that book
in amplitude, breadth of view, acuteness of observation, and minute-
ness of information; besides being half a century later in date, and
therefore able to set down accomplished facts where the earlier
observer could only make forecasts. His extensive knowledge of for-
eign countries, by divesting him of insular prejudice, fitted him to
handle his theme with impartiality, and his experience in the prac-
tical workings of British institutions gave him an insight into the
practical defects and benefits of ours. That he has a keen eye for
defects is obvious, but his tone is invariably sympathetic; so much
so, in fact, that Goldwin Smith has accused him of being somewhat
hard on England in some of his comparisons. The faults of the
book pertain rather to the manner than to the matter. He does not
mislead, but sometimes wearies, and in some portions of the work
the frequent repetitions, the massing of details, and the absence of
compact statement tend to obscure the general drift of his argument
and to add unduly to the bulkiness of his volumes.
THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES
From The American Commonwealth)
Soc
OCIAL intercourse between youths and maidens is everywhere
more easy and unrestrained than in England or Germany,
not to speak of France. Yet there are considerable differ-
ences between the Eastern cities, whose usages have begun to
approximate to those of Europe, and other parts of the country.
In the rural districts, and generally all over the West, young
men and girls are permitted to walk together, drive together, go
out to parties and even to public entertainments together, with-
out the presence of any third person who can be supposed to be
looking after or taking charge of the girl. So a girl may, if
she pleases, keep up a correspondence with a young man, nor
will her parents think of interfering. She will have her own


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JAMES BRYCE
2645
friends, who when they call at her house ask for her, and are
received by her, it may be alone; because they are not deemed
to be necessarily the friends of her parents also, nor even of her
sisters.
In the cities of the Atlantic States it is now thought scarcely
correct for a young man to take a young lady out for a solitary
drive; and in few sets would he be permitted to escort her
alone to the theatre. But girls still go without chaperons to
dances, the hostess being deemed to act as chaperon for all her
guests; and as regards both correspondence and the right to
have one's own circle of acquaintances, the usage even of New
York or Boston allows more liberty than does that of London or
Edinburgh. It was at one time, and it may possibly still be,
not uncommon for a group of young people
who know one
another well to make up an autumn “party in the woods. ” They
choose some mountain and forest region, such as the Adirondack
Wilderness west of Lake Champlain, engage three or four
guides, embark with guns and fishing-rods, tents, blankets, and
a stock of groceries, and pass in boats up the rivers and across
the lakes of this wild country through sixty or seventy miles of
trackless forest, to their chosen camping-ground at the foot of
some tall rock that rises from the still crystal of the lake. Here
they build their bark hut, and spread their beds of the elastic
and fragrant hemlock boughs; the youths roam about during the
day, tracking the deer, the girls read and work and bake the
corn-cakes; at night there is a merry gathering round the fire,
or a row in the soft moonlight. On these expeditions brothers
will take their sisters and cousins, who bring perhaps some lady
friends with them; the brothers' friends will come too; and all
will live together in a fraternal way for weeks or months, though
no elderly relative or married lady be of the party.
There can be no doubt that the pleasure of life is sensibly
increased by the greater freedom which transatlantic custom per-
mits; and as the Americans insist that no bad results have fol-
lowed, one notes with regret that freedom declines in the places.
which deem themselves most civilized. American girls have been,
so far as a stranger can ascertain, less disposed to what are
called “fast ways than girls of the corresponding classes in
England, and exercise in this respect a pretty rigorous censorship
over one another. But when two young people find pleasure in
one another's company, they can see as much of each other as


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2646
JAMES BRYCE
Soon
they please, can talk and walk together frequently, can show
that they are mutually interested, and yet need have little fear
of being misunderstood either by one another or by the rest of
the world. It is all a matter of custom. In the West, custom
sanctions this easy friendship; in the Atlantic cities, so
as people have come to find something exceptional in it, con-
straint is felt, and a conventional etiquette like that of the Old
World begins to replace the innocent simplicity of the older
time, the test of whose merit may be gathered from the univer-
sal persuasion in America that happy marriages are in the middle
and
upper ranks more common than in Europe, and that this
is due to the ampler opportunities which young men and women
have of learning one another's characters and habits before
becoming betrothed. Most girls have a larger range of intimate
acquaintances than girls have in Europe, intercourse is franker,
there is less difference between the manners of home and the
manners of general society. The conclusions of a stranger are
in such matters of no value; so I can only repeat that I have
never met any judicious American lady who, however well she
knew the Old World, did not think that the New World customs
conduced more both to the pleasantness of life before marriage,
and to constancy and concord after it.
In no country are women, and especially young women, so
much made of. The world is at their feet. Society seems organ-
ized for the purpose of providing enjoyment for them. Parents,
uncles, aunts, elderly friends, even brothers, are ready to make
their comfort and convenience bend to the girls' wishes. The
wife has fewer opportunities for reigning over the world of
amusements, because except among the richest people she has
more to do in household management than in England, owing
to the scarcity of servants; but she holds in her own house
a more prominent if not a more substantially powerful position
than in England or even in France. With the German haus-
frau, who is too often content to be a mere housewife, there is
of course no comparison. The best proof of the superior place
American ladies occupy is to be found in the notions they pro-
fess to entertain of the relations of an English married pair.
They talk of the English wife as little better than a slave;
declaring that when they stay with English friends, or receive
an English couple in America, they see the wife always defer-
ring to the husband and the husband always assuming that his


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JAMES BRYCE
2647
pleasure and convenience are to prevail. The European wife,
they admit, often gets her own way, but she gets it by tactful
arts, by flattery or wheedling or playing on the man's weak-
nesses; whereas in America the husband's duty and desire is to
gratify the wife, and render to her those services which the
English tyrant exacts from his consort. One may often hear
an American matron commiserate a friend who has married in
Europe, while the daughters declare in chorus that they will
never follow the example. Laughable as all this may seem to
English women, it is perfectly true that the theory as well as
the practice of conjugal life is not the same in America as in
England. There are overbearing husbands in America, but they
are more condemned by the opinion of the neighborhood than
in England. There are exacting wives in England, but their
husbands are more pitied than would be the case in America.
In neither country can one say that the principle of perfect
equality reigns; for in America the balance inclines nearly,
though not quite, as much in favor of the wife as it does in
England in favor of the husband. No one man can have a
sufficiently large acquaintance in both countries to entitle his
individual opinion on the results to much weight. So far as I
have been able to collect views from those observers who have
lived in both countries, they are in favor of the American prac-
tice, perhaps because the theory it is based on departs less from
pure equality than does that of England. These observers do
not mean that the recognition of women as equals or superiors
makes them any better or sweeter or wiser than English women;
but rather that the principle of equality, by correcting the
characteristic faults of men, and especially their selfishness and
vanity, is more conducive to the concord and happiness of a
home. They conceive that to make the wife feel her independ-
ence and responsibility more strongly than she does in Europe
tends to brace and expand her character; while conjugal affec-
tion, usually stronger in her than in the husband, inasmuch as
there are fewer competing interests, saves her from abusing the
precedence yielded to her. This seems to be true; but I have
heard others maintain that the American system, since it does
not require the wife habitually to forego her own wishes, tends,
if not to make her self-indulgent and capricious, yet slightly to
impair the more delicate charms of character; as it is written,
"It is more blessed to give than to receive. ”


## p. 2648 (#210) ###########################################

2648
JAMES BRYCE
woman
cross
A European cannot spend an evening in an American draw-
ing-room without perceiving that the attitude of men to women
is not that with which he is familiar at home. The average
European man has usually a slight sense of condescension when
he talks to a
on serious subjects. Even if she is his
superior in intellect, in character, in social rank, he thinks that
as a man he is her superior, and consciously or unconsciously
talks down to her. She is too much accustomed to this to resent
it, unless it becomes tastelessly palpable. Such a notion does not
an American's mind. He talks to a woman just as he
would to a man; of course with more deference of manner, and
with a proper regard to the topics likely to interest her, but
giving her his intellectual best, addressing her as a person whose
opinion is understood by both to be worth as much as his own.
Similarly an American lady does not expect to have conversation
made to her: it is just as much her duty or pleasure to lead it
as the man's is; and more often than not she takes the burden
from him, darting along with a gay vivacity which puts to
shame his slower wits.
It need hardly be said that in all cases where the two sexes
come into competition for comfort, the provision is made first for
women. In railroads the end car of the train, being that farthest
removed from the smoke of the locomotive, is often reserved for
them (though men accompanying a lady are allowed to enter it);
and at hotels their sitting-room is the best and sometimes the
only available public room, ladyless guests being driven to the
bar or the hall. In omnibuses and horse-cars (tram-cars), it was
formerly the custom for a gentleman to rise and offer his seat to
a lady if there were no vacant place. This is now less univer-
sally done.
In New York and Boston (and I think also in San
Francisco), I have seen the men keep their seats when ladies
entered; and I recollect one occasion when the offer of a seat
to a lady was declined by her, on the ground that as she had
chosen to enter a full car she ought to take the consequences.
It was (I was told in Boston) a feeling of this kind that had
led to the discontinuance of the old courtesy: when ladies con-
stantly pressed into the already crowded vehicles, the men, who
could not secure the enforcement of the regulations against over-
crowding, tried to protect themselves by refusing to rise. It is
sometimes said that the privileges yielded to American women
have disposed them to claim as a right what was only a courtesy,
1
1
1
1


## p. 2649 (#211) ###########################################

JAMES BRYCE
2649
and have told unfavorably upon their manners.
I know of sev-
eral instances, besides this one of the horse-cars, which might
seem to support the criticism, but cannot on the whole think it
well founded. The better-bred women do not presume on their
sex, and the area of good breeding is always widening. It need
hardly be said that the community at large gains by the softening
and restraining influence which the reverence for womanhood
diffuses. Nothing so quickly incenses the people as any insult
offered to a woman. Wife-beating, and indeed any kind of rough
violence offered to women, is far less common among the rudest
class than it is in England. Field work or work at the pit-mouth
of mines is seldom or never done by women in America; and the
American traveler who in some parts of Europe finds women
performing severe manual labor, is revolted by the sight in a
way which Europeans find surprising.
In the farther West, that is to say, beyond the Mississippi, in
the Rocky Mountain and Pacific States, one is much struck by
what seems the absence of the humblest class of women. The
trains are full of poorly dressed and sometimes (though less fre-
quently) rough-mannered men. One discovers no women whose
dress or air marks them out as the wives, daughters, or sisters
of these men, and wonders whether the male population is celi-
bate, and if so, why there are so many women. Closer observa-
tion shows that the wives, daughters, and sisters are there, only
their attire and manner are those of what Europeans would call
middle-class and not working-class people. This is partly due
to the fact that Western men affect a rough dress.
Still one
may say that the remark so often made, that the masses of the
American people correspond to the middle class of Europe, is
more true of the women than of the men; and is more true of
them in the rural districts and in the West than it is of the
inhabitants of Atlantic cities. I remember to have been daw-
dling in a book-store in a small town in Oregon when a lady
entered to inquire if a monthly magazine, whose name
unknown to me, had yet arrived. When she was gone I asked
the salesman who she was, and what was the periodical she
wanted. He answered that she was the wife of a railway work-
man, that the magazine was a journal of fashions, and that
the demand for such journals was large and constant among
women of the wage-earning class in the town. This set me to
observing female dress more closely; and it turned out to be
was


## p. 2650 (#212) ###########################################

2650
JAMES BRYCE
an
perfectly true that the women in these little towns were follow-
ing the Parisian fashions very closely, and were in fact ahead
of the majority of English ladies belonging to the professional
and mercantile classes. Of course in such a town as I refer to,
there are no domestic servants except in the hotels (indeed,
almost the only domestic service to be had in the Pacific States
was till very recently that of Chinese), so these votaries of
fashion did all their own housework and looked after their own
babies.
Three causes combine to create among American women
average of literary taste and influence higher than that of women
in any European country. These are the educational facilities they
enjoy, the recognition of the equality of the sexes in the whole
social and intellectual sphere, and the leisure which they possess
as compared with men. In a country where men are incessantly
occupied at their business or profession, the function of keeping
up the level of culture devolves upon women. It is safe in their
hands. They are quick and keen-witted, less fond of open-air
life and physical exertion than English women are, and obliged
by the climate to pass a greater part of their time under shelter
from the cold of winter and the sun of summer. For music and
for the pictorial arts they do not yet seem to have formed so
strong a taste as for literature; partly perhaps owing to the fact
that in America the opportunities of seeing and hearing master-
pieces, except indeed operas, are rarer than in Europe. But
they are eager and assiduous readers of all such books and
periodicals as do not presuppose special knowledge in
branch of science or learning, while the number who have de-
voted themselves to some special study and attained proficiency
in it is large. The fondness for sentiment, especially moral and
domestic sentiment, which is often observed as characterizing
American taste in literature, seems to be mainly due to the
influence of women, for they form not only the larger part of
the reading public, but an independent-minded part, not disposed
to adopt the canons laid down by men, and their preferences
count for more in the opinions and predilections of the whole
nation than is the case in England. Similarly the number of
women who write is infinitely larger in America than in Europe.
Fiction, essays, and poetry are naturally their favorite provinces.
In poetry more particularly, many whose names are quite un-
known in Europe have attained wide-spread fame.
some


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JAMES BRYCE
2651
Some one may ask how far the differences between the posi-
tion of women in America and their position in Europe are due
to democracy? or if not to this, then to what other cause ?
They are due to democratic feeling, in so far as they spring
from the notion that all men are free and equal, possessed of
certain inalienable rights and owing certain corresponding duties.
This root idea of democracy cannot stop at defining men as male
human beings, any more than it could ultimately stop at defining
them as white human beings. For many years the Americans
believed in equality with the pride of discoverers as well as with
the fervor of apostles. Accustomed to apply it to all sorts and
conditions of men, they were naturally the first to apply it to
women also; not indeed as respects politics, but in all the social
as well as legal relations of life. Democracy is in America more
respectful of the individual, less disposed to infringe his freedom
or subject him to any sort of legal or family control, than it has
shown itself in Continental Europe; and this regard for the
individual inured to the benefit of women. Of the other causes
that have worked in the same direction, two may be mentioned.
One is the usage of the Congregationalist, Presbyterian, and
Baptist churches, under which a woman who is a member of the
congregation has the same rights in choosing a deacon, elder, or
pastor, as a man has. Another is the fact that among the west-
ward-moving settlers women were at first few in number, and
were therefore treated with special respect. The habit then
formed was retained as the communities grew, and propagated
itself all over the country.
What have been the results on the character and usefulness
of women themselves ?
Favorable. They have opened to them a wider life and more
variety of career. While the special graces of the feminine
character do not appear to have suffered, there has been pro-
duced a sort of independence and a capacity for self-help which
are increasingly valuable as the number of unmarried women
increases. More resources are open to an American woman who
has to lead a solitary life, not merely in the way of employment,
but for the occupation of her mind and tastes, than to a Euro-
pean spinster or widow; while her education has not rendered
the American wife less competent for the discharge of household
duties.


## p. 2652 (#214) ###########################################

2652
JAMES BRYCE
How has the nation at large been affected by the develop-
ment of this new type of womanhood, or rather perhaps of this
variation on the English type ?
If women have on the whole gained, it is clear that the
nation gains through them. As mothers they mold the character
of their children; while the function of forming the habits of
society and determining its moral tone rests greatly in their
hands. But there is reason to think that the influence of the
American system tells directly for good upon men as well as
upon the whole community. Men gain in being brought to treat
women as equals, rather than as graceful playthings or useful
drudges. The respect for women which every American man
either feels, or is obliged by public sentiment to profess, has a
wholesome effect on his conduct and character, and serves to
check the cynicism which some other peculiarities of the country
foster. The nation as a whole owes to the active benevolence of
its women, and their zeal in promoting social reforms, benefits
which the customs of Continental Europe would scarcely have
permitted women to confer. Europeans have of late years begun
to render a well-deserved admiration to the brightness and
vivacity of American ladies. Those who know the work they
have done and are doing in many a noble cause will admire still
more their energy, their courage, their self-devotion. No coun-
try seems to owe more to its women than America does, nor to
owe to them so much of what is best in social institutions and
in the beliefs that govern conduct.
By permission of James Bryce and the Macmillan Company.
1
THE ASCENT OF ARARAT
From (Trans-Caucasia and Ararat)
1
A
BOUT I A. M. we got off, thirteen in all, and made straight
across the grassy hollows for the ridges which trend up
towards the great cone, running parallel in a west-north-
westerly direction, and inclosing between them several long
narrow depressions, hardly deep enough to be called valleys.
The Kurds led the way, and at first we made pretty good
progress. The Cossacks seemed fair walkers, though less stal-
wart than the Kurds; the pace generally was better than that
with which Swiss guides start. However, we were soon cruelly


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JAMES BRYCE
2653
undeceived. In twenty-five minutes there came a steep bit, and
at the top of it they flung themselves down on the grass to rest.
So did we all. Less than half a mile farther, down they dropped
again, and this time we were obliged to give the signal for
resuming the march. In another quarter of an hour they were
down once more, and so it continued for the rest of the way.
Every ten minutes' walking – it was seldom steep enough to be
called actual climbing – was followed by seven or eight minutes
of sitting still, smoking and chattering. How they did chatter!
It was to no purpose that we continued to move on when they
sat down, or that we rose to go before they had sufficiently
rested. They looked at one another, so far as I could make out
by the faint light, and occasionally they laughed; but they would
not and did not stir till such time as pleased themselves. We
were helpless. Impossible to go on alone; impossible also to
explain to them why every moment was precious, for the
acquaintance who had acted as interpreter had been obliged to
stay behind at Sardarbulakh, and we were absolutely without
means of communication with our companions. One could not
even be angry, had there been any use in that, for they were
perfectly good-humored. It was all very well to beckon them,
or pull them by the elbow, or clap them on the back; they
thought this was only our fun, and sat still and chattered all the
same. When it grew light enough to see the hands of a watch,
and mark how the hours advanced while the party did not, we
began for a second time to despair of success.
About 3 A. M. there suddenly sprang up from behind the
Median mountains the morning star, shedding a light such as no
star ever gave in these northern climes of ours, - a light that
almost outshone the moon. An hour later it began to pale in
the first faint Aush of yellowish light that spread over the eastern
heaven; and first the rocky masses above us, then Little Ararat,
throwing behind him a gigantic shadow, then the long lines of
mountains beyond the Araxes, became revealed, while the wide
Araxes plain still lay dim and shadowy below. One by one the
stars died out as the yellow turned to a deeper glow that shot
forth in long streamers, the rosy fingers of the dawn, from the
horizon to the zenith. Cold and ghostly lay the snows on the
mighty cone; till at last there came upon their topmost slope,
six thousand feet above us, a sudden blush of pink. Swiftly it
floated down the eastern face, and touched and kindled the rocks


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2654
JAMES BRYCE
just above us. Then the sun flamed out, and in a moment the
Araxes valley and all the hollows of the savage ridges we were
crossing were flooded with overpowering light.
It was nearly six o'clock, and progress became easier now
that we could see our way distinctly. The Cossacks seemed to
grow lazier, halting as often as before and walking less briskly;
in fact, they did not relish the exceeding roughness of the jagged
lava ridges along whose tops or sides we toiled. I could will-
ingly have lingered here myself; for in the hollows, wherever a
little soil appeared, some interesting plants were growing, whose
similarity to and difference from the Alpine species of Western
Europe alike excited one's curiosity. Time allowed me to secure
only a few; I trusted to get more on the way back, but this
turned out to be impossible. As we scrambled along a ridge
above a long narrow winding glen filled with loose blocks, one
of the Kurds suddenly swooped down like a vulture from the
height on a spot at the bottom, and began peering and grubbing
among the stones. In a minute or two he cried out, and the
rest followed; he had found a spring, and by scraping in the
gravel had made a tiny basin out of which we could manage to
drink a little. Here was a fresh cause of delay: everybody was
thirsty, and everybody must drink; not only the water which, as
we afterwards saw, trickled down hither under the stones from a
snow-bed seven hundred feet higher, but the water mixed with
some whisky from a flask my friend carried, which even in this
highly diluted state the Cossacks took to heartily. When at last
we got them up and away again, they began to waddle and
strangle; after a while two or three sat down, and plainly gave
us to see they would go no farther. By the time we had reached
a little snow-bed whence the now strong sun was drawing a
stream of water, and halted on the rocks beside it for breakfast,
there were only two Cossacks and the four Kurds left with us, the
rest having scattered themselves about somewhere lower down.
We had no idea what instructions they had received, nor whether
indeed they had been told anything except to bring us as far as
they could, to see that the Kurds brought the baggage, and to
fetch us back again, which last was essential for Jaafar's peace
of mind. We concluded therefore that if left to themselves they
would probably wait our return; and the day was running on so
fast that it was clear there was no more time to be lost in trying
to drag them along with us.


## p. 2655 (#217) ###########################################

JAMES BRYCE
2655
an-
Accordingly I resolved to take what I wanted in the way of
food, and start at my own pace. My friend, who carried more
weight, and had felt the want of training on our way up, de-
cided to come no farther, but wait about here, and look out for
me towards nightfall. We noted the landmarks carefully,—the
little snow-bed, the head of the glen covered with reddish masses
of stone and gravel; and high above it, standing out of the
face of the great cone of Ararat, a bold peak or rather project-
ing tooth of black rock, which our Cossacks called the Monas-
tery, and which, I suppose from the same fancied resemblance
to a building, is said to be called in Tatar Tach Kilissa, “the
church rock. " It is doubtless an old cone of eruption, about
thirteen thousand feet in height, and is really the upper end of
the long ridge we had been following, which may perhaps rep-
resent a lava flow from it, or the edge of a fissure which at this
point found a vent.
It was
an odd position to be in: guides of two different
races, unable to communicate either with us or with one
other; guides who could not lead and would not follow; guides
one-half of whom were supposed to be there to save us from
being robbed and murdered by the other half, but all of whom,
I am bound to say, looked for the moment equally simple and
friendly, the swarthy Iranian as well as the blue-eyed Slav.
At eight o'clock I buckled on my canvas gaiters, thrust some
crusts of bread, a lemon, a small flask of cold tea, four hard-
boiled eggs, and a few meat lozenges into my pocket, bade
good-by to my friend, and set off. Rather to our surprise, the
two Cossacks and one of the Kurds came with me, whether per-
suaded by a pantomime of encouraging signs, or simply curious
to see what would happen. The ice-axe had hugely amused the
Cossacks all through. Climbing the ridge to the left, and keep-
ing along its top for a little way, I then struck across the semi-
circular head of a wide glen, in the middle of which, a little
lower, lay a snow-bed over a long steep slope of loose broken
stones and sand.
This slope, a sort of talus for
screen,”
they say in the Lake country, was excessively fatiguing from
the want of firm foothold; and when I reached the other side, I
was already so tired and breathless, having been on foot since
midnight, that it seemed almost useless to persevere farther.
However, on the other side I got upon solid rock, where the
walking was better, and was soon environed by a multitude of
as


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2656
JAMES BRYCE
rills bubbling down over the stones from the stone-slopes above.
The summit of Little Ararat, which had for the last two hours
provokingly kept at the same apparent height above me, began
to sink, and before ten o'clock I could look down upon its small
flat top, studded with lumps of rock, but bearing no trace of a
crater. Mounting steadily along the same ridge, I saw at a
height of over thirteen thousand feet, lying on the loose blocks,
a piece of wood about four feet long and five inches thick, evi-
dently cut by some tool, and so far above the limit of trees that
it could by no possibility be a natural fragment of one. Darting
on it with a glee that astonished the Cossack and the Kurd, I
held it up to them, and repeated several times the word "Noah. ”
The Cossack grinned; but he was such a cheery, genial fellow
that I think he would have grinned whatever I had said, and I
cannot be sure that he took my meaning, and recognized the
wood as
a fragment of the true Ark. Whether it was really
gopher wood, of which material the Ark was built, I will not
undertake to say, but am willing to submit to the inspection of
the curious the bit which I cut off with my ice-axe and brought
away. Anyhow, it will be hard to prove that it is not gopher
wood. And if there be any remains of the Ark on Ararat at
all,-a point as to which the natives are perfectly clear,— here
rather than the top is the place where one might expect to find
them, since in the course of ages they would get carried down
by the onward movement of the snow-beds along the declivi-
ties. This wood, therefore, suits all the requirements of the case.
In fact, the argument is for the case of a relic exceptionally
strong: the Crusaders who found the Holy Lance at Antioch,
the archbishop who recognized the Holy Coat at Trèves, not to
speak of many others, proceeded upon slighter evidence.
however, bound to admit that another explanation of the pres-
ence of this piece of timber on the rocks of this vast height did
occur to me.
But as
man is bound to discredit his own
relic, and such is certainly not the practice of the Armenian
Church, I will not disturb my readers' minds or yield to the
rationalizing tendencies of the age by suggesting it.
Fearing that the ridge by which we were mounting would
become too precipitous higher up, I turned off to the left, and
crossed a long, narrow snow-slope that descended between this
ridge and another line of rocks more to the west. It was firm,
and just steep enough to make steps cut in the snow comfortable,
I am,
no


## p. 2657 (#219) ###########################################

JAMES BRYCE
2657
on
though not necessary; so the ice axe was brought into use.
The
Cossack who accompanied me there was but one now, for the
other Cossack had gone away to the right some time before, and
was quite lost to view — had brought my friend's alpenstock, and
was developing a considerable capacity for wielding it. He fol-
lowed nimbly across; but the Kurd stopped on the edge of the
snow, and stood peering and hesitating, like one who shivers
on the plank at a bathing-place, nor could the jeering cries of the
Cossack induce him to venture the treacherous surface.
Meanwhile, we who had crossed were examining the broken cliff
which rose above us. It looked not exactly dangerous, but a
little troublesome, as if it might want some care to get over or
through. So after a short rest I stood up, touched my Cossack's
arm, and pointed upward. He reconnoitred the cliff with his eye,
and shook his head. Then, with various gestures of hopeful-
ness, I clapped him on the back, and made as though to pull
him along. He looked at the rocks again and pointed to them,
stroked his knees, turned up and pointed to the soles of his
boots, which certainly were suffering from the lava, and once
more solemnly shook his head. This was conclusive: so I con-
veyed to him my pantomime that he had better go back to the
bivouac where my friend was, rather than remain here alone,
and that I hoped to meet him there in the evening; took an
affectionate farewell, and turned towards the rocks. There was
evidently nothing for it but to go on alone. It was half-past ten
o'clock, and the height about thirteen thousand six hundred feet,
Little Ararat now lying nearly one thousand feet below the eye.
Not knowing how far the ridge I was following might con-
tinue passable, I was obliged to stop frequently to survey the rocks
above, and erect little piles of stone to mark the way. This not
only consumed time, but so completely absorbed the attention
that for hours together I scarcely noticed the marvelous land-
scape spread out beneath, and felt the solemn grandeur of the
scenery far less than many times before on less striking mount-
ains. Solitude at great heights, or among majestic rocks or
forests, commonly stirs in us all deep veins of feeling, joyous or
saddening, or more often of joy and sadness mingled. Here the
strain on the observing senses seemed too great for fancy or
emotion to have any scope.
When the mind is preocupied by
V-167


## p. 2658 (#220) ###########################################

2658
JAMES BRYCE
the task of the moment, imagination is checked. This was a race
against time, in which I could only scan the cliffs for a route,
refer constantly to the watch, husband my strength by morsels
of food taken at frequent intervals, and endeavor to conceive
how a particular block or bit of slope which it would be neces-
sary to recognize would look when seen the other way in
descending
All the way up this rock-slope, which proved so fatiguing
that for the fourth time I had almost given up hope, I kept my
eye fixed on its upper end to see what signs there were of crags
or snow-fields above. But the mist lay steadily at the point
where the snow seemed to begin, and it was impossible to say
what might be hidden behind that soft white curtain. As little
could I conjecture the height I had reached by looking around,
as one so often does on mountain ascents, upon other summits;
for by this time I was thousands of feet above Little Ararat, the
next highest peak visible, and could scarcely guess how many
thousands. From this tremendous height it looked more like a
broken obelisk than an independent summit twelve thousand
eight hundred feet in height. Clouds covered the farther side of
the great snow basin, and were seething like waves about the
savage pinnacles, the towers of the Jinn palace, which guard its
lower margin, and past which my upward path had lain. With
mists to the left and above, and a range of black precipices
cutting off all view to the right, there came a vehement sense
of isolation and solitude, and I began to understand better the
awe with which the mountain silence inspires the Kurdish shep-
herds. Overhead the sky had turned from dark blue to
intense bright green, a color whose strangeness seemed to add
to the weird terror of the scene. It wanted barely an hour to
the time when I had resolved to turn back; and as I struggled
up the crumbling rocks, trying now to right and now to left,
where the foothold looked a little firmer, I began to doubt
whether there was strength enough left to carry me an hour
higher. At length the rock-slope came suddenly to an end, and
I stepped out upon the almost level snow at the top of it, com-
ing at the same time into the clouds, which naturally clung to
the colder surfaces. A violent west wind was blowing, and the
temperature must have been pretty low, for a big icicle at once
enveloped the lower half of my face, and did not melt till I got
to the bottom of the cone four hours afterwards. Unluckily I
an


## p. 2659 (#221) ###########################################

JAMES BRYCE
2659
was very thinly clad, the stout tweed coat reserved for such
occasions having been stolen on a Russian railway. The only
expedient to be tried against the piercing cold was to tighten in
my loose light coat by winding around the waist a Spanish faja,
or scarf, which I had brought up to use in case of need as a
neck wrapper.
Its bright purple looked odd enough in such
surroundings, but as there was nobody there to notice, appear-
ances did not much matter. In the mist, which was now thick,
the eye could pierce only some thirty yards ahead; so I walked
on over the snow five or six minutes, following the rise of its
surface, which was gentle, and fancying there might still be a
good long way to go. To mark the backward track I trailed the
point of the ice-axe along behind me in the soft snow, for there
was no longer any landmark; all was cloud on every side. Sud.
denly to my astonishment the ground began to fall away to the
north; I stopped; a puff of wind drove off the mists on one side,
the opposite side to that by which I had come, and showed the
Araxes plain at an abysmal depth below. It was the top of
Ararat.
THE WORK OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
From «The Holy Roman Empire)
N°
O ONE who reads the history of the last three hundred years
no one, above all, who studies attentively the career
of Napoleon — can believe it possible for any State, how-
ever great her energy and material resources, to repeat in mod-
ern Europe the part of ancient Rome; to gather into one vast
political body races whose national individuality has grown more
and more marked in each successive age. Nevertheless, it is in
great measure due to Rome and to the Roman Empire of the
Middle Ages that the bonds of national union are on the whole
both stronger and nobler than they were ever before. The latest
historian of Rome [Mommsen), after summing up the results to
the world of his hero's career, closes his treatise with these words:
« There was in the world as Cæsar found it the rich and noble
heritage of past centuries, and an endless abundance of splendor and
glory; but little soul, still less taste, and least of all, joy in and
through life. Truly it was an old world, and even Cæsar's genial
patriotism could not make it young again. The blush of dawn


## p. 2660 (#222) ###########################################

2660
JAMES BRYCE
returns not until the night has fully descended. Yet with him there
came to the much-tormented races of the Mediterranean a tranquil
evening after a sultry day; and when after long historical night the
new day broke once more upon the peoples, and fresh nations in free
self-guided movement began their course toward new and higher
aims, many were found among them in whom the seed of Cæsar had
sprung up, — many who owed him, and who owe him still, their
national individuality. ”
If this be the glory of Julius, the first great founder of the
Empire, so is it also the glory of Charles, the second founder,
and of more than one among his Teutonic successors. The work
of the mediæval Empire was self-destructive; and it fostered,
while seeming to oppose, the nationalities that were destined to
replace it. It tamed the barbarous races of the North and
forced them within the pale of civilization. It preserved the arts
and literature of antiquity. In times of violence and oppression, ,
it set before its subjects the duty of rational obedience to an
authority whose watchwords were peace and religion. It kept
alive, when national hatreds were most bitter, the notion of a
great European Commonwealth. And by doing all this, it was
in effect abolishing the need for a centralizing and despotic
power like itself; it was making men capable of using national
independence aright; it was teaching them to rise to that concep-
tion of spontaneous activity, and a freedom which is above law
but not against it, to which national independence itself, if it is
to be a blessing at all, must be only a means. Those who mark
what has been the tendency of events since A. D. 1789, and who
remember how many of the crimes and calamities of the past are
still but half redressed, need not be surprised to see the so-called
principle of nationalities advocated with honest devotion as the
final and perfect form of political development. But such undis-
tinguishing advocacy is after all only the old error in a new
shape. If all other history did not bid us beware the habit of
taking the problems and the conditions of our own age for those
of all time, the warning which the Empire gives might alone be
warning enough. From the days of Augustus down to those of
Charles V. , the whole civilized world believed in its existence as
a part of the eternal fitness of things, and Christian theologians
were not behind heathen poets in declaring that when it perished
the world would perish with it. Yet the Empire is gone, and
the world remains, and hardly notes the change.


## p. 2661 (#223) ###########################################

2661
FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
(1826–1880)
ERTAINLY, among the most useful of writers are the popular-
izers of science; those who can describe in readable, pictur-
esque fashion those wonders and innumerable inhabitants of
the world which the Dryasdusts discover, but which are apt to
escape the attention of idlers or of the busy workers in other fields.
Sometimes — not often — the same man unites the capacities of a
patient and accurate investigator and of an accomplished narrator.
To such men the field of enjoyment is boundless, as is the oppor-
tunity to promote the enjoyment of others.
One of these two-sided men was Francis Trevelyan Buckland,
popularly known as “Frank Buckland, and so called in some of
his books. His father, William Buckland, — at the time of the son's
birth canon of Christ College, Oxford, and subsequently Dean of
Westminster, — was the well-known geologist. As the father's life
was devoted to the study of the inorganic, so that of the son was
absorbed in the investigation of the organic world. He never tired
of watching the habits of living creatures of all kinds; he lived as
it were in a menagerie and it is related that his numerous callers
were accustomed to the most familiar and impertinent demonstrations
on the part of his monkeys and various other pets. He was an
expert salmon-fisher, and his actual specialty was fishes; but he could
not have these about him so conveniently as some other forms of
life, and he extended his studies and specimens widely beyond ich-
thyology.
Buckland was born December 17th, 1826, and died December 19tir,
1880. Brought up in a scientific atmosphere, he was all his life
interested in the same subjects. Educated as a physician and sur-
geon and distinguished for his anatomical skill, his training fitted
him for the careful investigation which is necessary on the part of
the biologist. He was fortunate too in receiving in early middle
life the government appointment of Inspector of Salmon Fisheries, and
so being enabled to devote himself wholly to his favorite pursuits.
In this position he was unwearied in his efforts to develop piscicult-
ure, and to improve the apparatus used by the fishermen, interesting
himself also in the condition of themselves and their families.
He was always writing. He was a very frequent contributor to
The Field from its foundation in 1856, and subsequently to Land


## p. 2662 (#224) ###########################################

2662
FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
and Water, a periodical which he started in 1866, and to other
periodicals. He published a number of volumes, made up in great
part from his contributions to periodicals, most of them of a popular
character and full of interesting information. Among those which
are best known are the Curiosities of Natural History) (1857–72);
the Log-Book of a Fisherman and Geologist' (1875); a Natural
History of British Fishes) (1881); and Notes and Jottings from Ani-
mal Life,' which was not issued until 1882, though the material was
selected by himself.
Buckland was of a jovial disposition, and always sure to see the
humorous side of the facts which were presented to him; and in his
social life he was extremely unconventional, and inclined to merry
pranks. His books are as delightful as was their writer. They are
records of accurate, useful, eye-opening details as to fauna, all the
world over. They are written with a brisk, sincere informality that
suggest the lively talker rather than the writer. He takes
a-walking in green lanes and woods, and a-wading in brooks and still
pools — not drawing us into a class-room or a study. He enters into
the heart and life of creatures, and shows us how we should do the
A lively humor is in all his popular pages. He instructs
while smiling; and he is a savant while a light-hearted friend. Few
English naturalists are as genial — not even White of Selborne - and
few as wide in didactics. To know him is a profit indeed; but just
as surely a pleasure.
us
same.
A HUNT IN A HORSE-POND
From (Curiosities of Natural History)
W*
ELL, let us have a look at the pond-world; choose a dry
place at the side, and fix our eyes steadily upon the dirty
water: what shall we see? Nothing at first; but wait a
minute or two: a little round black knob appears in the middle;
gradually it rises higher and higher, till at last you can make
out a frog's head, with his great eyes staring hard at you, like
the eyes of the frog in the woodcut facing Æsop's fable of the
frog and the bull. Not a bit of his body do you see: he is much
too cunning for that; he does not know who or what you are;
you may be a heron, his mortal enemy, for aught he knows.
You move your arm: he thinks it is the heron's bill coming;
down he goes again, and you see him not: a few seconds, he
regains courage and reappears, having probably communicated
the intelligence to the other frogs; for many big heads and many


## p. 2663 (#225) ###########################################

FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
2663
big eyes appear, in all parts of the pond, looking like so many
hippopotami on a small scale. Soon a conversational "Wurk,
wurk, wurk,” begins: you don't understand it; luckily, perhaps,
as from the swelling in their throats it is evident that the colony
is outraged by the intrusion, and the remarks passing are not
complimentary to the intruder. These frogs are all respectable,
grown-up, well-to-do frogs, and they have in this pond duly de-
posited their spawn, and then, hard-hearted creatures! left it to
its fate; it has, however, taken care of itself, and is now hatched,
at least that part of it which has escaped the hands of the gip-
sies, who not unfrequently prescribe baths of this natural jelly
for rheumatism.
In some places, from their making this peculiar noise, frogs
have been called “Dutch nightingales. ” In Scotland, too, they
have a curionis name, Paddock or Puddick; but there is poetical
authority for it:-
«The water-snake whom fish and paddocks feed,
With staring scales lies poisoned. ” — DRYDEN.
Returning from the University of Giessen, I brought with me
about a dozen green tree-frogs, which I had caught in the woods
near the town. The Germans call them laub-frosch, or leaf-frog;
they are most difficult things to find, on account of their color
so much resembling the leaves on which they live. I have fre-
quently heard one singing in a small bush, and though I have
searched carefully, have not been able to find him: the only way
is to remain quite quiet till he again begins his song. After
much ambush-work, at length I collected a dozen frogs and put
them in a bottle. I started at night on my homeward journey
by the diligence, and I put the bottle containing the frogs into
the pocket inside the diligence. My fellow-passengers were sleepy
old smoke-dried Germans: very little conversation took place, and
after the first mile every one settled himself to sleep, and soon
all were snoring. I suddenly awoke with a start, and found all
the sleepers had been roused at the same moment. On their
sleepy faces were depicted fear and anger. What had woke us all
up so suddenly? The morning was just breaking, and my frogs,
though in the dark pocket of the coach, had found it out; and
with one accord, all twelve of them had begun their morning
song As if at a given signal, they one and all of them began
to croak as loud as ever they could. The noise their united


## p. 2664 (#226) ###########################################

2664
FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
concert made, seemed, in the closed compartment of the coach,
quite deafening. Well might the Germans look angry: they
wanted to throw the frogs, bottle and all, out of the window; but
I gave the bottle a good shaking, and made the frogs keep quiet.
The Germans all went to sleep again, but I was obliged to re-
main awake, to shake the frogs when they began to croak. It
was lucky that I did so, for they tried to begin their concert
again two or three times. These frogs came safely to Oxford;
and the day after their arrival, a stupid housemaid took off the top
of the bottle to see what was inside; one of the frogs croaked at
that instant, and so frightened her that she dared not put the
cover on again. They all got loose in the garden, where I be-
lieve the ducks ate them, for I never heard or saw them again.
ON RATS
From (Curiosities of Natural History)
O
ONE occasion, when a boy, I recollect secretly borrowing
an old-fashioned Aint gun from the bird-keeper of the farm
to which I had been invited. I ensconced myself behind
the door of the pig-sty, determined to make a victim of one of the
many rats that were accustomed to disport themselves among the
straw that formed the bed of the farmer's pet bacon-pigs. In a
few minutes out came an old patriarchal-looking rat, who, having
taken a careful survey, quietly began to feed. After a long aim,
bang went the gun-I fell backwards, knocked down by the
recoil of the rusty old piece of artillery. I did not remain prone
long, for I was soon roused by the most unearthly squeaks, and
a dreadful noise as of an infuriated animal madly rushing round
and round the sty. Ye gods! what had I done? I had not
surely, like the tailor in the old song of the Carrion Crow,'
« Shot and missed my mark,
And shot the old sow right bang through the heart. ”
But I had nearly performed a similar sportsman-like feat. There
was poor piggy, the blood flowing in streamlets from several
small punctures in that part of his body destined, at no very
distant period, to become ham; in vain attempting, by dismal
cries and by energetic waggings of his curly tail, to appease the
pain of the charge of small shot which had so unceremoniously


## p. 2665 (#227) ###########################################

FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
2665
awaked him from his porcine dreams of oatmeal and boiled
potatoes. But where was the rat? He had disappeared unhurt;
the buttocks of the unfortunate pig, the rightful owner of the
premises, had received the charge of shot intended to destroy the
daring intruder.
To appease piggy's wrath I gave him a bucketful of food
from the hog-tub; and while he was thus consoling his inward
self, wiped off the blood from the wounded parts, and said
nothing about it to anybody. No doubt, before this time, some
frugal housewife has been puzzled and astonished at the
unwonted appearance of a charge of small shot in the centre of
the breakfast ham which she procured from Squire Morland, of
Sheepstead, Berks.
Rats are very fond of warmth, and will remain coiled up for
hours in any snug retreat where they can find this very neces-
sary element of their existence. The following anecdote well
illustrates this point:-
My late father, when fellow of Corpus College, Oxford, many
years ago, on arriving at his rooms late one night, found that
a rat was running about among the books and geological speci-
mens, behind the sofa, under the fender, and poking his nose
into every hiding-place he could find. Being studiously inclined,
and wishing to set to work at his books, he pursued him, armed
with the poker in one hand, and a large dictionary, big enough
to crush any rat, in the other; but in vain; Mr. Rat was not to
be caught, particularly when such "arma scholastica ” were used.
No sooner had the studies recommenced than the rat resumed
his gambols, squeaking and rushing about the room like a mad
creature. The battle was renewed, and continued at intervals, to
the destruction of all studies, till quite a late hour at night, when
the pursuer, angry and wearied, retired to his adjoining bed-
room; though he listened attentively he heard no more of the
enemy, and soon fell asleep. In the morning he was astonished
to find something warm lying on his chest; carefully lifting up
the bed-clothes, he discovered his tormentor of the preceding
night quietly and snugly ensconced in a fold in the blanket, and
taking advantage of the bodily warmth of his two-legged adver-
sary. These two lay looking daggers at each other for some
minutes, the one unwilling to leave his warm berth, the other
afraid to put his hand out from under the protection of the cov.
erlid, particularly as the stranger's aspect was anything but


## p. 2666 (#228) ###########################################

2666
FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
or
friendly, his little sharp teeth and fierce little black eyes seeming
to say, “Paws off from me, if you please! ”
At length, remembering the maxim that “discretion is the
better part of valor” — the truth of which, I imagine, rats under-
stand as well as most creatures, — he made a sudden jump off the
bed, scuttled away into the next room, and was never seen
heard of afterwards.
Rats are not selfish animals: having found out where the
feast is stored, they will kindly communicate the intelligence to
their friends and neighbors. The following anecdote will con-
firm this fact. A certain worthy old lady named Mrs. Oke,
who resided at Axminster several years ago, made a cask of
sweet wine, for which she was celebrated, and carefully placed
it on a shelf in the cellar. The second night after this event
she was frightened almost to death by a strange unaccountable
noise in the said cellar. The household was called up and a
search made, but nothing was found to clear up the mystery.
The next night, as soon as the lights were extinguished and the
house quiet, this dreadful noise was heard again. This time it
was most alarming: a sound of squeaking, crying, knocking, pat-
tering feet; then a dull scratching sound, with many other such
ghostly noises, which continued throughout the livelong night.
The old lady lay in bed with the candle alight, pale and sleep-
less with fright, anon muttering her prayers, anon determined to
fire off the rusty old blunderbuss that hung over the chimney-
piece. At last the morning broke, and the cock began to crow.
“Now,” thought she, “the ghosts must disappear. ” To her
infinite relief, the noise really did cease, and the poor frightened
dame adjusted her nightcap and fell asleep. Great preparations
had she made for the next night; farm servants armed with
pitchforks slept in the house; the maids took the family dinner-
bell and the tinder-box into their rooms; the big dog was tied to
the hall-table. Then the dame retired to her room, not to sleep,
but to sit up in the arm-chair by the fire, keeping a drowsy
guard over the neighbor's loaded horse-pistols, of which she was
almost as much afraid as she was of the ghost in the cellar.
Sure enough, her warlike preparations had succeeded; the ghost
was certainly frightened; not a noise, not a sound, except the
heavy snoring of the bumpkins and the rattling of the dog's
chain in the hall, could be heard. She had gained a complete
victory; the ghost was never heard again on the premises, and


## p. 2667 (#229) ###########################################

FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
2667
the whole affair was soon forgotten. Some weeks afterward
some friends dropped in to take a cup of tea and talk over the
last piece of gossip. Among other things the wine was men-
tioned, and the maid sent to get some from the cellar. She
soon returned, and gasping for breath, rushed into the room,
exclaiming, « 'Tis all gone, ma'am;" and sure enough it was all
gone. «The ghost has taken it” - not a drop was left, only the
empty cask remained; the side was half eaten away, and marks
of sharp teeth were visible round the ragged margins of the
newly made bungholes.
This discovery fully accounted for the noise the ghost had
made, which caused so much alarm. The aboriginal rats in the
dame's cellar had found out the wine, and communicated the
joyful news to all the other rats in the parish; they had assem-
bled there to enjoy the fun, and get very tipsy (which, judging
from the noise they made, they certainly did) on this treasured
cask of wine. Being quite a family party, they had finished it
in two nights; and having got all they could, like wise rats they
returned to their respective homes, perfectly unconscious that
their merry-making had nearly been the death of the rightful
owner and founder of the feast. ” They had first gnawed out
the cork, and got as much as they could: they soon found that
the more they drank the lower the wine became. Perseverance
is the motto of the rat; so they set to work and ate away the
wood to the level of the wine again. This they continued till
they had emptied the cask; they must then have got into it and
licked up the last drains, for another and less agreeable smell
was substituted for that of wine. I may add that this cask, with
the side gone, and the marks of the rats' teeth, is still in my
possession.
SNAKES AND THEIR POISON
From "Curiosities of Natural History)
B®
E it known to any person to whose lot it should fall to rescue
a person from the crushing folds of a boa-constrictor, that
it is no use pulling and hauling at the centre of the brute's
body; catch hold of the tip of his tail, - he can then be easily
unwound, he cannot help himself;— he “must ” come off.
Again, if you wish to kill a snake, it is no use hitting and trying


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2668
FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
to crush his head. The bones of the head are composed of the
densest material, affording effectual protection to the brain under-
neath: a wise provision for the animal's preservation; for were
his skull brittle, his habit of crawling on the ground would ren-
der it very liable to be fractured. The spinal cord runs down
the entire length of the body; this being wounded, the animal is
disabled or killed instanter. Strike therefore his tail, and not
his head; for at his tail the spinal cord is but thinly covered
with bone, and suffers readily from injury. This practice is
applicable to eels. If you want to kill an eel, it is not much
use belaboring his head: strike, however, his tail two or three
times against any hard substance, and he is quickly dead.
About four years ago I myself, in person, had painful expe-
rience of the awful effects of snake's poison. I have received
a dose of the cobra's poison into my system; luckily a minute
dose, or I should not have survived it. The accident happened
in a very curious way. I was poisoned by the snake but not
bitten by him. I got the poison second-hand. Anxious to wit-
ness the effects of the poison of the cobra upon a rat, I took up
a couple in a bag alive to a certain cobra. I took one rat out
of the bag and put him into the cage with the snake. The
cobra was coiled up among the stones in the centre of the cage,
apparently asleep. When he heard the noise of the rat falling
into the cage, he just looked up and put out his tongue, hissing
at the same time. The rat got in a corner and began washing
himself, keeping one eye on the snake, whose appearance he
evidently did not half like.
Presently the rat ran across the
snake's body, and in an instant the latter assumed his fighting
attitude. As the rat passed the snake, he made a dart, but
missing his aim, hit his nose a pretty hard blow against the side
of the cage. This accident seemed to anger him, for he spread
out his crest and waved it to and fro in the beautiful manner
peculiar to his kind. The rat became alarmed and ran near him
again. Again cobra made a dart, and bit him, but did not, I
think, inject any poison into him, the rat being so very active;
at least, no symptoms of poisoning were shown. The bite
nevertheless aroused the ire of the rat, for he gathered himself
for a spring, and measuring his distance, sprang right on to the
neck of the cobra, who was waving about in front of him. This
plucky rat, determined to die hard, gave the cobra two or three
severe bites in the neck, the snake keeping his body erect all


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FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND
2669
this time, and endeavoring to turn his head round so as to bite
the rat, who was clinging on like the old man in (Sindbad the
Sailor. Soon, however, cobra changed his tactics. Tired, possi-
bly, with sustaining the weight of the rat, he lowered his head,
and the rat, finding himself again on terra firma, tried to run
away: not so; for the snake, collecting all his force, brought
down his erected poison-fangs, making his head tell by its
weight in giving vigor to the blow, right on to the body of the
rat.
This poor beast now seemed to know that the fight was over
and that he was conquered. He retired to a corner of the cage
and began panting violently, endeavoring at the same time to
steady his failing strength with his feet. His eyes were widely
dilated, and his mouth open as if gasping for breath. The cobra
stood erect over him, hissing and putting out his tongue as if
conscious of victory.