Kitabı oku: «Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 423», sayfa 4

STEEPLE-JACK'S SECRET

You want me to tell you how it comes to pass that I am able to glide up a steeple like a spider, get astride upon the cross, and pull off my cap to the crowd below, like a gentleman on horseback saluting his acquaintances.² You want me to explain on what principle, as you call it, I do this. Well: principle, I suppose, means the rule or law by which a man does what he ought to do; and if so, it is a very good word to use. I will oblige you by explaining my principle, for I am as affable as any man that creeps to his dying day upon the surface of the earth; and I will tell you how it chanced that I found it out: at least I will try, for I am no scholar; and if you wish to understand me, you must have your ears open, and catch a meaning when you can. And this will do you good, whether you make anything out or not. I know fellows that go to the lectures, and come back as empty as they went. But what of that? They think they understand, and thought breeds thought; and when a man's mind is fairly astir, it is odds but something good turns up.

You must know, then, I began the world as a sailor; and I marvel to this day how I ever became anything else. Sailors are the stupidest set in creation. They are mere animals, except in the gift of speech; good, honest, docile animals, perhaps, but dull and narrow. They go round the small circle of their duties like a blind horse in a mill. Their faculties are rocked by the waves and lulled by the winds; and when they come ashore, they can see and understand nothing for the swimming of their heads. Drink makes them feel as if at sea again; and when the tankard is out, they return on board, and exchange one state of stupefaction for another. Well, I was a sailor, and the dullest of the tribe. No wonder, for I was at it when a young boy. I was never startled by the sights or sounds of the sea. The moaning of the wind, the rush of the waves, the silence of the calm, were parts of my own existence; and in the wildest storm, my mind never took a wider tack than just to think what the poor devils on shore would do now.

I was a handy lad, however. I could go aloft with any man on board, and never troubled the shrouds in coming down when a rope was within springing distance. But this was instinct or habit: thought was not concerned in it—I had not found the principle. One day, it blew what sailors call great guns; our bulwarks were stove in pieces, and the sea swept the deck, crashing and roaring like a whole herd of tigers. There was something to do at the mast-head; and when the order came through the speaking-trumpet, seeing the men hesitate, I jumped upon the shrouds without thinking twice. But at that moment the ship gave a lurch, and, holding on like grim death, I was buried deep in the waves. Although still clutching the ropes, I had at first an idea that they had parted, and that we were on our way to the bottom together. This could not have lasted above a minute or so; but it seemed to me like a year. I heard every voice that had ever sounded in my ear since childhood; I saw every apparition that had ever glided before my fancy: the Sea-Serpent twisted his folds round my neck, and the keel of the Flying Dutchman grated along my back. When the vessel rose at last, and I rose with her, the waters gurgling in my throat and hissing in my ears, I did not attempt to spring up the shrouds. I looked round in horror for the objects of my excited thoughts; and as I saw another enormous wave advancing till it overhung me, instead of getting out of its reach, which I could easily have done, I kept staring at it as it broke into what seemed innumerable goblin faces and yelling voices over my head. I was down again. My leading thought now was that I would strike out and swim for my life. But when I had just made up my mind to this—which the sailors would have called being washed away—I rose once more to the surface—and struck up like a good one! I was at the cross-trees in a breath, and once in safety there, I looked back both with shame and indignation.

When my job was finished, I went higher up in a sort of dogged humour. I went higher, and higher, and higher than I ever ventured before, till I felt the mast bending and quivering in the gale like the point of a fishing-rod; and then I looked down upon the sea. And what, think you, I found there? Why, the goblin faces were small white specks of foam that I could hardly see; and their yelling voices were a smooth, round, swelling tone, that rolled like music through the rigging. The mountain-waves were like a flock of sheep in a meadow, running and gamboling, and lying down and rising up; and in the expanse beyond the neighbourhood of the ship, they were all lying down together, or wandering like shadows over a smooth surface. I felt grand then, I assure you. I looked down, and around, and above, till thoughts that were not the instincts of an animal, came dancing up in my mind, like bubbles upon the face of the sea. And as I returned slowly to the deck, these thoughts grew and multiplied, and began to arrange themselves into a form which I am not scholar enough to describe. But through this new medium, I saw things as they are, not as habit and prejudice make them. I did not fear the waves, and I did not despise them. I humoured the sea as I got down towards the bulwarks, which were still buried every now and then; and so I reached my quarters in safety.

And what has all this to do with it? I will tell you. With the means of doing a thing, nothing is difficult, if you only understand thoroughly the nature of the thing. The obstacles that commonly deter you are not in the thing, but in you; and until you understand this, you will keep gaping and shrinking, and saying, 'It is impossible.' Some folk, when looking out of a three or four storey window, feel as if they were going to fall. This is their own fault, not the fault of the window, for that is just like a parlour window, where they have no sensation of the sort. A man sits peaceably enough on the top of a tall, three-legged stool, and could hitch himself round and round, and then get up and stand upon it erect for half a day, without any risk of falling. Now, a steeple is much more securely fixed than a stool; its top is as broad as a table; and there is nothing to prevent anybody from standing upon it as long as he pleases, if he only will not think he is going to fall. You go up half-a-dozen steps of a ladder without fear, and then persuade yourself you can go no farther; but there is nothing more dangerous in the next half-dozen, so far as they are themselves concerned; nor in the next hundred, nor the next thousand, for that matter. My secret consists in my knowing all this, although I feel that I have only described when, not how the knowledge came. Perhaps you, who are book-learned, may be able to make it out, and shew how it is that, when anything occurs to awaken the mind, and enable one to work from knowledge, not habit, he is ten times the man he was. Without this, I should have climbed a mast all my life; but with it, I took to leaping up steeples by means of a kite, in a way that makes many ignorant persons report that I manage it by holding on by the tail.

But a man who goes up a steeple must take care how he behaves, for the eyes of the world are upon him. He is not lost in a crowd, where he is seen only by his next neighbours. That man must pull off his cap and be affable; but he must not do even that to extravagance. When the Queen was passing up the Clyde, an American seaman got on the topgallant, and stood on his head. What was that for, I should be glad to know? Suppose her Majesty was coming along Princes Street, just to take the air like a lady, and look into the shop-windows, and I was to go right up to her, and stand on my head—what would she say? I surmise, that she would turn round to her Lord Gold Stick, and order him to give me a knock on the shins. I know she would, for she is a regular trump, and knows how people in every station should behave. I am ashamed of that American: he is a Yankee Noodle!

It may be said, that the Queen has the same advantage as myself—that she is up the steeple; but so is every ordinary bricklayer or emperor. The thing is to be able to look and understand when you are up. I once saw a curious sight as I sat with the swallows flying far under my feet. The people did not wander about the street here and there as usual, but hundreds after hundreds of small objects came on in regular array. Then I could see long lines of Lilliputian soldiers marching in the procession, with their tiny bayonets glancing in the sun; and every now and then came up a soft swell of music, feeble but sweet. 'What is all this about?' thought I. 'Are they going to set one of these little creatures over them for a bailie or a king?' And one did march in the middle with a small space round him; 'but perhaps,' thought I again, 'he is only a trumpeter.' Howbeit, the procession at last halted, and gathered, and closed, and stood still for a time; and there was another small swell of the instruments, with a feeble shout from the throng, and then they all stirred, and broke, and dispersed, and disappeared. This was just like the view from the mast-head: it made me feel grand. But when I came down, I had not replaced one prejudice with another. I did not despise the creatures I came among; for they were then of the same size as myself. I pulled off my cap to them, and was affable; only it did give me a queer thought—not a merry one—when I heard that the official they had made that day, on going home to his house, out of the grandeur and the din, was heard to commune with himself, saying: 'And me but a mortal man after all!'

Poetry? No, sirs, I have learned no poetry. I had poetry enough of my own without learning it, and so has everybody else. I once knew a fellow who wrote very good poetry; but few of us understood it. That man lost his labour. It is nature that makes poetry; the poet has merely found out the art of stirring it in the hearts of men, where it lies ready-made, like the perfume of a flower. A poet who is not understood only makes a noise; and he is the greatest poet who makes the greatest number of human hearts to leap and tingle. But the fellow I mean piqued himself on not being understood. Like the Yankee Noodle, he cut capers that had no intelligible meaning in them, just to make people stare. As for my own share of poetry, I will tell you when I feel it stirring most. You must know that in the view from a steeple the form of objects is changed only in one direction—that is downwards. The small houses, the narrow streets, the little creatures creeping along them, and the feeble sounds they send up, make me feel grand. But when I turn my eyes to the heavens, I see no shadow of change. The clouds look awful, as if despising my poor attempt at approach; and they glide, and break, and fade, and build themselves up again—all in deep silence—in a way that makes me feel mean. Now this mean feeling is real poetry. The meaner I feel, the grander are they; and when I look long at them, and think long, and then begin to descend to the earth, to mingle with the little creatures who are my fellows, I tremble—but not with fear.

A philosopher, do you say? Fie! don't call names: I am a bricklayer. I know that such distance as human beings can climb to is but a small matter. I see things as they are. I do not fancy that it is more difficult to stand on a steeple than on a stool, or that it is more difficult to hold on by a rope at one height than at another. I observe that men and their affairs, when viewed from a steeple, are very insignificant; but the same insight into things teaches me, when I am among them myself, to pull off my cap and be affable. I know that the things of earth change according to distance, but that the things of heaven are unchangeable. And all I have got further to say is, that I am quite sensible that although when up in the air I am a sign and a marvel to the people below, when down among themselves I am but plain.

STEEPLE JACK.

FOOD OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS—FRANKLIN'S EXPEDITION

A certain class of reasoners have argued themselves into the belief that, setting all other considerations aside, Sir John Franklin and his companions must have necessarily perished ere now from lack of food. When the four years, or so, of provisions he took out with him for the large crews of the vessels were all consumed, how, say they, would it be possible for so great a number of men to obtain food sufficient to support life in those awfully desolate regions? Let us examine the question a little.

Men in very cold climates certainly require a much larger amount of gross animal food than in southern latitudes—varying, of course, with their particular physical constitutions. Now, let us grant—though we do not positively admit it—that, however the provisions taken from England may have been economised, they have, nevertheless, all been consumed a couple of years ago, with the exception of a small quantity of preserved meats, vegetables, lemon-juice, &c. kept in reserve for the sick, or as a resource in the last extremity. As to spirits, we have the testimony of all arctic explorers, that their regular supply and use, so far from being beneficial, is directly the reverse—weakening the constitution, and predisposing it to scurvy and other diseases; and that, consequently, spirits should not be given at all, except on extraordinary occasions, or as a medicine. Sir John Ross, in his search of the North-West Passage in 1829, and following years, early stopped the issue of spirits to his men, and with a most beneficial result. Therefore, the entire consumption of the stock of spirits on board Sir John Franklin's ships must not be regarded as a deficiency of any serious moment.

We shall then presume, that for upwards of two years the adventurers have been wholly dependent on wild animals, birds, and fish for their support. Here it becomes an essential element of consideration to form some approximate idea of the particular locality in which the missing expedition is probably frozen. Captain Penny tracked it up Wellington Strait and thence into Victoria Channel—a newly-discovered lake or sea of unknown extent, which reaches, for anything that can be demonstrated to the contrary, to the pole. It has long been noticed, that the mere latitude in the arctic regions is far from being a certain indication of the degree of cold which might naturally be expected from a nearer approach to the pole. For instance, cold is more intense in some parts of latitude 60 degrees than in 70 or 77 degrees; but this varies very much in different districts of the coast, and in different seasons; and we may remark in passing, that whenever there is a particularly mild winter in Britain, it is the reverse in the arctic regions; and so vice versâ. The astonishment of Captain Penny on discovering the new polar sea in question was heightened by the fact, that it possessed a much warmer climate than more southern latitudes, and that it swarmed with fish, while its shores were enlivened with animals and flocks of birds. Moreover, trees were actually floating about: how they got there, and whence they came, is a mysterious and deeply-interesting problem. Somewhere in this sea Sir John Franklin's ships are undoubtedly at this moment. We say the ships are; for we do not for one moment believe that they have been sunk or annihilated. It is not very likely that any icebergs of great magnitude would be tossing about this inland sea in the summer season—in winter its waters would be frozen—and in navigating it, the ships would, under their experienced and judicious commander, pursue their unknown way with extreme caution and prudence. It is more probable that they were at length fast frozen up in some inlet, or that small floating fields of ice have conglomerated around them, and bound them in icy fetters to the mainland. Or it may be that Franklin sailed slowly along this mystic polar sea, until he reached its extremity and could get no farther; and that extremity would actually seem to be towards the Siberian coasts. One thing is quite certain—namely, that so far as Captain Penny's people were able to penetrate the channel—several hundred miles—there was no indication whatever that up to that point Franklin had met with any serious calamity, or that he had suffered from a fatal deficiency of the necessaries of life.

Wherever his exact position may be, there is every reason to suppose that the country around him produces a supply of food at least equal to any other part of the arctic regions; and probably much more than equal, owing to the greater mildness of the climate. But we will only base our opinion on the fair average supply of food obtainable in the arctic regions generally; and now let us see what result we shall fairly arrive at.

The first consideration that strikes us, is the fact that all over these icy regions isolated tribes of natives are to be met with; and they do not exist in a starved and almost famished condition, like the miserable dwellers in Terra del Fuego, but in absolute abundance—such as it is. When Sir John Ross's ship was frozen up during the remarkably severe winter of 1829-30, in latitude 69 degrees 58 minutes, and longitude 90 degrees, he made the following remarks concerning a tribe of Esquimaux in his vicinity, which we quote as being peculiarly applicable to our view of the subject:—'It was for philosophers to interest themselves in speculating on a horde so small and so secluded, occupying so apparently hopeless a country—so barren, so wild, and so repulsive, and yet enjoying the most perfect vigour, the most well-fed health, and all else that here constitutes not merely wealth, but the opulence of luxury, since they were as amply furnished with provisions as with every other thing that could be here necessary to their wants.'

'Yes,' exclaims our friend the reasoner, 'but the constitution of an Esquimaux is peculiarly adapted to the climate and food: what he enjoys would poison a European; and he also possesses skill to capture wild animals and fish, which the civilised man cannot exercise.' Is this true? We answer to the first objection: only partially true; and the second, we utterly deny. The constitution of vigorous men—and all Franklin's crew were fine, picked young fellows—has a marvellous adaptability. It is incredible how soon a man becomes reconciled to, and healthful under, a totally different diet from that to which he has been all his life accustomed, so long as that change is suitable to his new home. We ourselves have personally experienced this to some extent, and were quite amazed at the rapid and easy way in which nature enabled us to enjoy and thrive on food at which our stomach would have revolted in England or any southern land. In every country in the world, 'from Indus to the pole,' the food eaten by the natives is that which is incomparably best suited to the climate. In the frozen regions, and every cold country, the best of all nourishment is that which contains a large proportion of fat and oil. In Britain, we read with disgust of the Greenlander eagerly swallowing whale-oil and blubber; but in his country, it is precisely what is best adapted to sustain vital energy. Europeans in the position of Franklin's crew would become acclimatised, and gradually accustomed to the food of the natives, even before their own provisions were exhausted; and after that, we may be very sure their appetites would lose all delicacy, and they would necessarily and easily conform to the usages, as regards food, of the natives around them. We may strengthen our opinion by the direct and decisive testimony of Sir John Boss himself, who says: 'I have little doubt, indeed, that many of the unhappy men who have perished from wintering in these climates, and whose histories are well known, might have been saved had they conformed, as is so generally prudent, to the usages and the experience of the natives.' Undoubtedly they might!

Secondly, as to the Europeans being unable to capture the beasts, birds, and fishes so dexterously as the natives, we have reason to know that the reverse is the case. It is true that the latter know the habits and haunts of wild creatures by long experience, and also know the best way to capture some of them; but a very little communication with natives enables the European to learn the secret; and he soon far excels his simple instructors in the art, being aided by vastly superior reasoning faculties, and also by incomparably better appliances for the chase. Firearms for shooting beasts and birds, and seines for catching fish, render the Esquimaux spears, and arrows, and traps mere children's toys in comparison. Moreover, a ship is never frozen up many weeks, before some wandering tribe is sure to visit it; and all navigators have found the natives a mild, friendly, grateful people, with fewer vices than almost any other savages in the World. They will thankfully barter as many salmon as will feed a ship's crew one day for a file or two, or needles, or a tin-canister, or piece of old iron-hoop, or any trifling article of hardware; and so long as the vessel remains, they and other tribes of their kindred will frequently visit it, and bring animals and fish to barter for what is literally almost valueless to European adventurers.

An important consideration, is the variety of food obtainable in the arctic regions. We need not particularly classify the creatures found in the two seasons of summer and winter, but may enumerate the principal together. Of animals fit for food are musk-oxen, bears, reindeer, hares, foxes, &c. Of fish, there is considerable variety, salmon and trout being the chief and never-failing supply. Of birds, there are ducks, geese, cranes, ptarmigan, grouse, plovers, partridges, sand-larks, shear-waters, gannets, gulls, mollemokes, dovekies, and a score of other species. We personally know that the flesh of bears, reindeer, and some of the other animals, is most excellent: we have partaken of them with hearty relish. As to foxes, Ross informs us that, although his men did not like them at first, they eventually preferred fox-flesh to any other meat! And as to such birds as gannets and shear-waters, which are generally condemned as unpalatable, on account of their fishy taste, we would observe that the rancid flavour exists only in the fat. Separate it, and, as we ourselves can testify, the flesh of these birds is little inferior to that of the domestic pigeon, when either boiled or roasted. The majority of the creatures named may be captured in considerable numbers, in their several seasons, with only ordinary skill. But necessity sharpens the faculties of men to an inconceivable degree; and when the life of a crew depends on their success in the chase, they will speedily become expert hunters. It is true that the wild animals habitually existing in a small tract of country may soon be thinned, if not altogether exterminated; but bears, foxes, &c. continue to visit it with little average diminution in numbers. The fish never fail. The quantity of salmon is said to be immense, and they can be preserved in stock a very long period by being simply buried in snow-pits. The birds also regularly make their periodical appearance. Besides, parties of hunters would be despatched to scour the country at considerable distances, and their skill and success would improve with each coming season. In regard to fuel, the Esquimaux plan of burning the oil and blubber of seals, the fat of bears, &c. would be quite effective. In the brief but fervid summer season, every inch of ground is covered with intensely green verdure, and even with flowers; and there is a great variety of wild plants, including abundance of Angelica, sorrel, and scurvy-grass, also lichens and mosses, all of antiscorbutic qualities. We have ourselves seen the Laplanders eat great quantities of the sorrel-grass; and the Nordlanders told us that they boiled it in lieu of greens at table. These vegetables might be gathered each summer, and preserved for winter use.