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ture of Jephthah meeting his daughter, which hung opposite. Jephthah, in a very plumy helmet, starting back on very strong legs, I thought very expressive of a father's feelings. His tall daughter, arrayed in a lilac mantle, and pink dress with a long train, immediately became my ideal of unattainable female beauty. The attendant damsel, with her willowy figure and white dress, I thought extremely pretty also; I knew a slender little girl who wore a white dress and blue sash to church, whom she looked very much like.

The next day I made a fine drawing of this picture on our barn door. Jephthah was drawn in a black tunic, with red chalk legs. The daughter's mantle was stained lilac with iris-petals, her train pink with rose ditto. The maiden was drawn in white chalk with bewitching grace. I could not make Jephthah stand very firmly on his legs, and start back at the same time; but Miss Jephthah's train gave great steadiness and composure to her figure. This spirited sketch was the admiration of all the neighboring boys, and they came every day for me to draw them in warlike positions, to represent Jephthah's army standing around him. One day I made a hasty sketch of my dog, Skyblue, in his favorite attitude, and, stepping back to mark the effect, found he was biting the heels of Jephthah. How the boys laughed! I made a new drawing of the anguished father, and greatly improved upon the hands, spreading them out like Mr. Flamdown's, when he was giving the parting blessing to his congregation, only opening the fingers wider to express con

sternation.

One day one of the boys brought an artist, who was boarding at his house, to look at my frescoes. He laughed, and told me if I would come to his room, he would paint Jephthah for me. With a feeling approaching awe I watched him conjuring into life the well-known forms. Yet I was not wholly satisfied with the result. I thought Jephthah's figure was not thrown back enough to express his emotion with sufficient force, and that the daughter had lost much of her queenliness with her train. The damsel who followed was no longer white, and did not look in the least like Fanny Ann.

Mr. Ochre went away the next day, but left me a few paints and brushes, and told me if I would come to New-York in the winter, he would teach me something. This now became the height of my ambition; and I tried to devise schemes by which I could earn a little money to pay

my board there. "I could live out at some farmer's, and earn good wages by my labor," I told my mother, I was just twelve years old.

She smiled, and told me they would only give me my clothes.

"I can draw, and sell my drawings."
She smiled again.

"Well, then, after I have improved a little, I can take portraits, and be paid for them."

She smiled approvingly this time, and I felt that my way lay open before me.

I wished to run directly to Fanny Ann's house-into which I had never yet entered-and ask her to sit to me; but I felt a little timid about it. I might not take a good likeness, and she would laugh at me-girls did laugh so! I had better take private sketches of her at church in the hymn-books, I thought, and practise upon my mother first, who immediately proposed putting on her black silk dress, which she had worn for the last ten years on state occasions; but her everyday short-gown would be more picturesque, I thought. She could not be quite reconciled to this. The villagers were accustomed to the black silk, and she thought it due to them and to me that she should be taken in it. However, the portrait was painted in the short-gown; but the villagers never saw much of it. It was not considered a very good likeness, for somehow I got a dark frown about the eyes, and a very dejected expression about the mouth. My mother never frowned, and looked particularly smiling while I was painting her.

I had a hard time of it that winter: so many brave designs launched forth upon the tide of hope, and run aground upon unknown bars. In the summer Mr. Ochre came again and taught me how to steer my way better. He told me that faces should not appear to be pasted flat to the canvas, and that a dark outline all round them was not perfectly true to nature; that lips were not exactly vermilion, nor cheeks pure lake; and eyes were not made of stone; that shadows were not a distinct feature of the face; and lights did not consist entirely of white paint. I learned a wonderful deal from him in a few weeks; and having painted many portraits of the worthy people about me, which sold for two dollars a piece, and scraped together a little money, I went to New-York in the winter with a bounding heart-perfectly conscious that I was the great American genius.

The first thing I did in New-York, after settling myself in the little attic

40,000 whites, 500,000 slaves, and 24,000 free colored. Not only its rich plains, but in many parts its mountains were cultivated to their summits. The cultivated lands amounted to 2,289,480 acres; which were divided into 793 plantations of sugar, 3117 plantations of coffee, 3160 of indigo, 54 of chocolate, and 623 smaller ones for raising grain, yams, and other vegetable food. Its exports, as stated by the intendant of the colony, were £4,765,229 sterling. An active commerce united it with Europe, and twenty ports of trade were filled with 1500 vessels, waiting to freight home its rich productions. In riding over the island the mementos of this prosperity are every where to be seen. Large broken kettles, the remains of immense sugar houses, are scattered along the roads and over the fields. The remains of massive and magnificent gateways, and the ruins of princely dwellings, scattered over the island are evidences of the highest state of wealth and luxury. But these rich plains and mountains, are now almost an uncultivated waste. A few coffee plantations are to be found, which are kept up with the greatest difficulty on account of the impossibility of securing among the natives the necessary laborers. The most of the people out of the towns live in rudely constructed houses, unfurnished with the usual comforts of life, and but a few degrees above the huts upon the shores of their native Africa. The soil is so exceedingly productive, and there is so much that grows spontaneously, that very little labor indeed is necessary to secure the food necessary to sustain life; and the climate is such that, if so disposed, they need spend very little for clothing. Being thus under no compulsory necessity to labor, industry is the exception, indolence and idleness the rule.

They generally inclose around or near their dwellings a small patch of ground, which is cultivated mostly by the females, and where, with very little labor, they raise coffee, bananas, corn, and other vegetables for their own consumption, and a small surplus for sale, from the proceeds of which they procure their clothing and such other articles of convenience as they are able or disposed to purchase. I should judge that far the largest part of all the coffee that is exported from the island is raised in these small quantities, and brought to market in small lots upon the backs of mules. The logwood, mahogany, and other exports are mostly procured in small quantities in much the same way,the men of course doing most of this heavy labor.

Bountiful as are the provisions for supplying the wants of man here, there is, incredible as it may seem, a vast deal of suffering for want of the very necessaries of life. The government being in reality an irresponsible despotism, every male citizen is liable to be seized at any moment and forced into the army; so that if he raises a crop there is no certainty but that in the very act of securing it, he may be torn away from his family, and the fruits of his labor be left to perish while he is marched away to the frontier, to return he knows not when. In addition to this, multitudes are so thriftless and improvident that they will not make any provision for the future-they will not even gather those productions that are every where so bountifully spread around them. I have rode through wild uncultivated woods, and seen on every hand groves of orange trees groaning under their delicious golden loads, as I have seen the orchards of western New-York weighed down with their heavy burdens. A little farther on, I have come upon thickets of coffee bushes matted over with their rich purple berries. Besides these, tobacco, ginger, and other valuable products grow wild in the same profusion over these mountains, and year after year there waste away and perish like the rank grass of our own prairies. I have wandered over the rich rice and cotton fields of the South, and the prairie and bottom lands of the West, but their bountiful products are meagre compared with those to be seen here.

But bountiful and Eden-like as is this island, the contemplation both of its past history and present state excites only the saddest emotions. The history of Hayti from its discovery to the present day is a most melancholy history. When discovered by Columbus it is supposed to have contained more than 1,000,000 of the Carrib tribe of Indians, but, incredible as it may appear, in consequence of their wholesale butchery by the Spaniards, and the severe drudgery they were compelled to undergo in the mines, in the short space of sixteen years they were reduced to 60,000. These outrages upon humanity, entailing such a lasting stigma upon the Spanish name, were followed by the wellknown introduction of slavery into the island, with all its indescribable cruelties and horrors, and its subsequent fearful end. But the gloomy chapter of its woes does not terminate with the tragic, wellknown "horrors of St. Domingo." From that day to the present it has been an almost uninterrupted scene of conflict and

are more valued than genius. Oh Italy!" I sighed, and locked my door, and went home to my attic.

I thought my pictures might have sold, if the subjects had been of more general interest. "No one wants portraits except relations, and the relations of these cannot afford to purchase such luxuries," I said. "If I paint a composition, it will find a ready sale,-what shall it be?" My imagination was filled with the remembrance of Jephthah and his daughter; but I did not care to attempt the warrior, and the daughter alone would hardly suffice; so I determined to paint Iphigenia as priestess at Aulis.

I draped my lay figure with a sheet, and commenced. The treatment was purely classical. The garment fell in dignified folds to the feet, broken only by an invisible girdle at the waist: it was fastened on each shoulder by a burning gem, -I painted them from two brass brooches, set with crimson glass, which I bought for the occasion. One hand rested lightly upon an altar, represented by my table and the bordered shawl-the other was pressed upon her breast. The arms were very white, and one of them quite round. The face was raised, and the expression of pious resignation was very well given. The hair was beautifully dishevelled. The blue Mediterranean in the distance led the eye to the horizon, and the mind to revery. The figure was half-size, and I was a whole week painting it. I worked quite steadily, fearing visitors might come if I went out. Occasionally, exhausted by the inspiration of my subject, I took a short walk; but always pinned up a paper to say that I should return immediately, and placed a chair outside my door, thinking ladies would be out of breath coming up so many stairs, and would wait longer if they found a resting-place. When I returned, I always felt quite sure that some one had called during my absence, and I regretted that I had been out.

When my painting was finished, I doubted whether I had better ask Mr. Ochre to come and look at it, or not. I knew there was great jealousy among artists, and feared he might not be pleased to find his pupil had become his rival; but I told him in an off-hand way, one day, that I had a picture on my easel he might like to step in and look at some time when he was passing; and he came.

I saw a smile quivering upon his lips as he stood before it. He walked about my studio, looked at the torso, praised my Venus, asked me where I bought my paints, approached the priestess, and

burst into a loud laugh. "I can't stand it, Gumbo," he exclaimed: "It is too good!"

not

I knew it was good myself, but its merits had a very different effect upon me. I was astonished at his laughing; I had intended that the painting should produce exalted emotions, mingled with sorrow. "How did you make the folds of that drapery so straight?" he said, "you must have ruled them, and there are no limbs under them. The arms are like chop-sticks; they are half so good as those of little Patrick Mahone, you painted six months ago. The head is stuck on with a skewer, is it not? Nothing else could keep it up so. And the figure does not stand-a breath of air would puff it all away. No, no; this will never do. You must keep to real life; your fancy pictures are absolutely good for nothing." And he turned to me with what he intended for a goodnatured smile, I suppose; but I saw that jealous look in the corner of his eye.

"The public shall judge between us," I said, quite grandly.

He looked at me as if he would laugh again; but laying his hand on my shoulder, said "Come, my boy, I see how it is. You think you have done something very good, and that I am envious of you. I assure you by all I know of art that the whole thing is ridiculous. Place it in the exhibition, and you will see that it is so considered; but send it anonymously, I beg of you. I should not like to have your name laughed at."

"Yes," thought I; "he wishes to have the credit of it himself; and it is a little in his style, certainly."

"And now I will tell you what I will do for you," he continued. "A little cousin of mine wishes me to paint her before her father's birth-day; but I have too much on my hands just at present. You shall do it. You can sometimes hit upon a likeness,-and if you do not satisfy her, why, I will paint her afterwards. She is rich, and can afford to pay for two pictures, and ought to encourage young artists, she has a fancy for these things herself. She has some beauty, and if you treat the subject artistically, you can make a pretty picture of it. I will make the proposal to her this evening, and let you know her answer, if you will call upon me to-morrow." And taking my half-reluctant hand, he bade me good morning.

"Very patronizing!" I thought. "He will paint her himself if I do not succeed! I will have nothing to do with it. But,

admiral of modern Greece, lie mouldering on the shores of the Ægean, within a few yards of each other. Themistocles, it is well known, was buried by the sea side, in full view of the Straits of Salamis, the scene of his most splendid victory over the Persian fleet.

We varied our course as soon as we had cleared the promontory of Munychia, and leaving on our right the island of Salamis, took a southerly direction towards the eastern headland of Argolis. This brought us within a very short distance of the temple of Ægina, dedicated of old to Jupiter Panhellenius. Through the Captain's glass we could distinguish the different columns without difficulty in this clear atmosphere. It is one of the most perfect ruins out of Athens itself; but we saw it to little advantage, and I reserved a visit for a future occasion.

There are quite a number of passengers on board our little steamer, and as the day was fair and mild, every body congregated on deck. Indeed, most of them were deck passengers, the trip being a short one. The Greeks are talkative and easy of access, so that it is not at all difficult to form a number of acquaintances in a short time. Our company was a lively one, too; and, as they had nothing else to do, most of them amused themselves with cards. One party of eight or ten were seated in Turkish fashion on the deck near the helm, forming a circle around a cloth, on which figured a large piece of cold mutton and several bottles of wine. The men helped themselves plentifully, and disdaining forks, made use of their jackknives to cut the meat, or else tore it in pieces with their fingers. These evidently were all from the same neighborhood, and members of the same clan. Some of them had that free and easy look, mingled with a considerable share of fierceness, which distinguish the old Klefts; others who were younger, evidently belonged to the no less energetic but more tractable class, which is now springing up to take the place of the others. I fell into conversation with some students of the University, who were returning from Athens to spend the Easter week vacation at home.

Like

all the rest of Greek students they were poor, and evidently were self-made men. Another set were gathered around a musician, who diverted them by playing on an instrument much resembling the banjo, and singing their country songs.

There were but two cabin passengers besides ourselves; and they were members of the house of representatives. One of them, M. A., I found disposed to be very

communicative. He informed me that an election was to take place at Argos, the next day or the day after, and that he was going there to see about it. Being a partisan of the king, he was commissioned to procure as favorable a result for the ministry as he could. The officer to be chosen on the occasion was the demarch, or mayor of the town, the most important municipal authority. The mode of election is certainly a most curious one. The people choose twelve men as electors, with twelve more for substitutes. These twelve choose from their own number four men, with their substitutes; and finally these four select three candidates for the office of mayor. Their names are presented to the king or ministry, and they designate the one who shall be mayor. Out of the three candidates, I presume, the monarch may safely depend on one who will advocate the ministerial measures for the purpose of gaining office. Of course in so complicated a procedure the government will find plenty of opportunity for wielding an influence over the election. My friend A- had undoubtedly some part to take in the election of a mayor in the important town of Argos, as he was furnished by the ministry with an order for an escort of soldiers through the dangerous passes from Argos to Corinth, of which he invited me to avail myself in returning to Athens.

By eleven o'clock we had crossed the Saronic Gulf, passing close to the island of Poros, remarkable of late years for the burning of the Greek fleet in its little harbor; but much more famous under the name of Calauria, as the scene of the death of Demosthenes. It is a bleak,. barren rock, without the sign of a habitation on this side. We kept on close to the mainland, and inside of the island of Hydra, which rises high and rocky from the sea. The town of Hydra itself is picturesquely situated on the side of the hill, rising in the shape of a theatre. A ridge, however, divides it into two parts, which running out into the water, forms two harbors, the smaller of which, as usual, serves for quarantine. The house of Conduriotti, the famous Hydriote, stands on the narrow tongue of land between the two harbors, and was pointed out to me. Hydra, I am told, has declined very much of late years. Its losses were immense during the revolutionary war. All its commerce was, of course, ruined, and as, together with Spezzia, it sustained the whole burden of the war by sea, the prizes obtained never compensated for the expenditures it incurred. Since the revolution

Spezzia has regained some of its former importance, but the fleet of Hydra on the Black Sea has diminished exceedingly. The privileges which Hydra used to enjoy under the Turks were such, that the inhabitants had little reason to complain of tyranny. The island was almost free from the government of the Porte, governing itself, allowing no Turk to set foot on land, and paying only a small annual tribute. Commerce has usually the effect of diminishing national prejudices, and making men more tolerant of each others' customs; but at Hydra it seems to have had a directly opposite effect. A Smyrniote lady at Athens told me that her father once entered Hydra in Frank dress, and came very near losing his life by doing so. So inveterate was the dislike of the inhabitants for the foreign costume, that the gentleman was pursued and hooted at in the streets, and compelled to take refuge in a house. It was a characteristic feeling of patriotism, that led their admiral Tombazi to reply to one who exclaimed, "What a spot you have chosen for your country;" "It was liberty that chose the spot, not we." But along with this noble sentiment, and with others distinguishing them above even the rest of their countrymen, the Hydriotes possess a good deal of sordid love of gain. It is said that there actually existed in the city at the time of the revolution three mints for the manufacture of counterfeit Turkish coin, which was taken into Turkey and there put into circulation.*

66

Our steamboat stopped but a few moments off Hydra, to land some passengers, and then continued its course until coming between Spezzia and the mainland, we entered the Gulf of Argos. The town of Spezzia is less picturesquely situated on a less rocky island; and has a long and narrow harbor similar to that of Hydra. The remainder of the afternoon was spent in steaming up the bay, with the bare rocks of Argolis on the right and the equally precipitous hills of Laconia on the other side, coming down to the very margin of the water. We approached Nauplia, and after turning a promontory, our steamer anchored directly between the town and the small fort of St. Nicolas or Bourtzi.

Nauplia is finely situated, and appears to great advantage from the water. The houses are usually built of white limestone, and have for the most part, roofs not very much inclined. They rise one above another on the side of a hill, forming the end of the promontory, which is crowned

by the fort of Itch-kali. But these fortifications are slight compared with the Palamede, a hill 740 feet in height, which commands the town to the southeast, and renders Nauplia one of the three strongest places in the Morea,-the Acrocorinthus and Monembasia being the others. It is singular that so remarkable a situation as this should not have been occupied in the times of the ancient Greeks by a populous town. But Nauplia is scarcely mentioned by historians or geographers. Towards the bay the town is protected by a high wall, which rises directly from the water's edge, and allows people to land in a single place. It is said, too, that a double chain used to be stretched from the little fort of Bourtzi to the mainland. It is no wonder that the Turks were foiled in the attempt to take this place by storm from the hands of the Greeks.

When we arrived off Nauplia, though it was not late in the afternoon, we found it raining violently, and therefore determined to remain on our steamboat for the night, and have the next morning for an excursion. The sun rose the next morning in a clear sky, revealing to us all the features of the surrounding landscape. To the northward we saw the low and level plain of Argos, with the mountains beyond, and on the east, before the high hills that ran southward as far as the eye could distinguish them, was the low, marshy ground, where now stand the few houses of Myli. That was the ancient Lerne, the haunt of the famous Lernian Hydra, whose slaughter was one of the great achievements of Hercules. If the Hydra, as German critics pretend, was only symbolical of the pestilential vapors from the marsh, which Hercules remedied by effectually draining it, the monster is as active as ever; for the neighborhood of Lerne, like all other low and boggy grounds in this warm country, is infested with fever and ague during nearly two thirds of the year.

After waiting a long time impatiently for our guide, who had gone off to the shore, Demetri at last appeared, and we repaired in a boat to the small landing place, where we found the horses which had been procured for us. We set off at once, without stopping to look about Nauplia, for the curious old ruined cities of Mycenæ, Tiryns, and Argos. We rode through a number of narrow streets, brushing past the little open shops, and now and then drawing our beasts near to the walls, in order to avoid a train of mules laden

*Howe's Greek Revolution p. 155, Note in fine.

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