Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium (Vol. 1&2) E-Book
George Catlin
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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Lebensstil
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium," George Catlin presents a captivating firsthand account of his experiences with Native American tribes during his travels in Europe. Written in the early 19th century, the text blends ethnographic observation with personal narrative, reflecting Catlin's unique literary style that emphasizes vivid descriptions and passionate advocacy for the cultures he encountered. The book immerses readers in the cultural richness of the Ojibbeway and Ioway peoples, while also scrutinizing the Western perceptions of Indigenous life during a time of increasing colonial expansion. George Catlin, a painter and early anthropologist, undertook this journey to preserve the traditions and customs of Native American tribes in a world rapidly altering their existence. His deep admiration for Native cultures and his commitment to their representation informed the writing of this book, making it a crucial artifact in understanding Indigenous history and the 19th-century mindset regarding American Indians. This seminal work is not only a valuable historical document but also a passionate defense of Native American rights and identity. For scholars, students, and general readers alike, Catlin's "Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians" serves as a compelling exploration of cultural encounters that invites reflection on the complexities of colonialism and cultural preservation.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium (Vol. 1&2)
Table of Contents
Introduction
At the meeting point of curiosity, commerce, and cultural encounter, George Catlin traces how Indigenous travelers and European audiences tested one another’s limits. In Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium (Vol. 1&2), Catlin offers an extended narrative of transatlantic contact as lived spectacle and sober record. An American painter and observer of Native North American communities, he turns from the North American frontier to European capitals, following experiences that unfolded in public halls, salons, and streets. The result is a study of performance and perception in which every display becomes a negotiation over meaning.
This two-volume work sits at the crossroads of travel writing, ethnographic reportage, and memoir, charting journeys through England, France, and Belgium during the mid-nineteenth century. Catlin, known for portraying Native peoples and exhibiting his collections, writes with the authority of a participant-witness to a volatile cultural marketplace. Without abandoning his painter’s eye for detail, he situates scenes within the rhythms of European urban life, where novelty, news, and notoriety coexist. The volumes belong to a period shaped by expanding print culture and international exhibition, and they reflect the pressures such contexts placed on representation, reliability, and respect.
The premise is straightforward and compelling: members of the Ojibbeway and Ioway nations travel to Europe and appear before paying audiences, while Catlin documents what they show, how they are seen, and what follows. Readers encounter an episodic chronicle that moves from venue to venue and city to city, interlacing first-hand observations, press reactions, and backstage logistics. The voice is assertive and attentive to scene-setting, with digressions that probe motive and consequence. The experience offered is vivid and outward-facing, standing at the threshold between diary and public report, intent on capturing the mood as well as the motion of events.
Beneath the itinerary lies a sustained inquiry into representation: who frames whom, for what purposes, and at what cost. Themes of authenticity and artifice thread through descriptions of dances, dress, and dialogue, as do questions about translation—linguistic and cultural. The books examine how the promise of educational uplift can blur into entertainment, and how audiences bring expectations that performers must either satisfy or resist. Catlin is alert to misunderstanding and fascination in equal measure, inviting readers to consider the unstable line between documentation and display, and the ways agency and stereotype collide in the crucible of public attention.
For contemporary readers, these volumes matter both as historical testimony and as prompts for ethical reflection. They illuminate how nineteenth-century Europeans consumed images and narratives of Indigenous North Americans, and how those narratives were curated, contested, and sold. The account raises enduring questions about who narrates cross-cultural contact, how power shapes visibility, and what it means to be seen in contexts not of one’s own making. It also preserves moments of presence that resist abstraction, reminding us that individuals navigated these encounters with intention, strategy, and constraint within systems not designed for their own purposes.
The style is observational and argumentative, balancing scene with commentary, often pausing to weigh rumor against report and to answer critics in real time. Its structure favors serial episodes that accumulate force: a procession of rooms, stages, and receptions where reactions are measured and reputations are made. Readers should expect the language and assumptions of its era, alongside an effort to persuade as well as to record. Part of the book’s value lies in that candid mixture, which exposes how claims of impartiality were entangled with exhibition, livelihood, and the desire to influence public opinion.
Approached with a critical eye, Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium offers a layered account of travel, performance, and perception that remains relevant to debates over cultural display and narrative authority. It rewards interest in art and anthropology, media history, and Indigenous studies, providing a textured view of how spectacle and sincerity coexist. Readers looking for a reflective travel narrative with documentary ambition will find it here, as well as an invitation to compare perspectives and seek complementary sources. These two volumes open a conversation whose questions extend far beyond their century.
Synopsis (Selection)
George Catlin’s two-volume work recounts his extended residence in Europe with his North American Indian collection and the parallel travels of Ojibbeway (Ojibwe) and Ioway delegations who exhibited their customs to European audiences. Framed as notes, letters, and observations, the narrative explains Catlin’s goal of preserving and presenting Indigenous cultures through paintings, artifacts, and living demonstrations. He describes how exhibitions were organized, how contracts and managers mediated appearances, and how the public and press responded. The account traces the movement from initial London displays to broader tours, establishing the practical arrangements, interpretive framework, and ethical concerns that shape the book’s subsequent episodes.
The first phase centers on London, where the Ojibbeway troupe appears alongside Catlin’s Indian Gallery. Crowds gather to see dances, songs, athletic feats, and ceremonial items contextualized by the author’s explanations. Catlin relays newspaper commentary, visits from scholars and patrons, and formal calls from members of the nobility. He records how the performers present their identities and respond to curiosity, while also noting the logistical routines of exhibition life. Through day-to-day details—rehearsals, costume maintenance, shared meals, and interpreters—he outlines how the troupe navigates the city’s stages, salons, and museums, setting the pattern for encounters repeated throughout their stay.
Beyond the stage, Catlin documents excursions that reveal mutual observation: the Ojibbeway viewing monuments, factories, churches, and collections, and European audiences studying them in return. He summarizes conversations about language, kinship, healing practices, diet, and beliefs, and notes reactions to urban crowds, architecture, and transport. Contacts with missionaries, physicians, and scientific societies are described, alongside sketches made by artists and measurements taken by investigators of the time. The account remains descriptive, reporting conversations and demonstrations—archery, games, and ceremonial protocols—without argument, positioning these scenes as a record of how Indigenous people and Europeans assessed one another in organized, supervised settings.
The narrative follows the troupe to provincial towns, where receptions vary with local interest and press coverage. Catlin includes practical matters—ticketing, halls, and transport—and occasional mishaps that test schedules and finances. He reports bouts of illness that arise in unfamiliar climates, medical consultations arranged by managers, and the adaptations performers make to food and clothing. Press reviews and private visits continue to shape reputation and attendance. As the tour extends, Catlin notes disputes about contracts and expenses, and he describes efforts to secure fair treatment and adequate care, using correspondence and witness statements to establish timelines and responsibilities without entering polemics.
A subsequent section introduces an Ioway delegation, whose distinct regalia, songs, and protocols draw renewed attention. Catlin outlines differences in dress, social organization, and ceremony compared with the Ojibbeway, and records councils in which leaders discuss terms of travel and performance. The Ioway program includes similar public demonstrations and private interviews, with naturalists, antiquarians, and patrons attending. The account emphasizes orderly presentation: entrances, ritual forms, and interpretive remarks that guide audiences through meanings and symbols. In describing both groups, Catlin maintains a consistent method, cataloguing practices and reactions to preserve a comparative view across nations and venues.
The itinerary expands to France and Belgium, where theaters, galleries, and civic halls host the exhibitions under local regulations. Catlin summarizes official permissions, police oversight, and the press’s varied interpretations. He notes visits to academies, artists’ studios, and private collections, and highlights the interest of painters and sculptors in recording likenesses. Public responses range from curiosity to formal receptions by notable figures, and occasional political disturbances alter plans or attendance. Catlin reports how differences in language and custom are managed by interpreters and printed programs, and he describes the practicalities of travel—sea passages, customs inspections, and lodging—within the broader focus on orderly display.
Financial and legal complications recur as managers, hall proprietors, and agents negotiate terms. Catlin documents agreements, costs, and contested accounts, and records interventions to secure medical attention, clothing, and remittances home. The narrative neutrally reports illnesses and deaths occurring during the tours, describing funerals, mourning customs, and public sympathy. Letters from families and authorities are summarized to verify identities and intentions. Through these episodes, the book shows how performances, care, and accountability intersected, using contemporary newspaper notices, affidavits, and correspondence to establish what was arranged, what occurred, and how responsibilities were addressed when difficulties arose.
As the tours conclude, Catlin outlines arrangements for returning survivors to North America, including assistance from consuls, shipmasters, and charitable committees. He follows the closing of engagements, the disposition of costumes and equipment, and payments made to fulfill contracts. The fate of the Indian Gallery is also traced: ongoing efforts to secure institutional support, continued exhibitions, and the preservation of portraits and artifacts. Catlin records assessments by learned societies and benefactors regarding the educational value of the collection and the tours, presenting outcomes without advocacy. The narrative ends with participants dispersed, agreements settled where possible, and a documentary record established for future reference.
Throughout, the book’s central purpose is documentary: to record how Ojibbeway and Ioway representatives presented their culture abroad, how European institutions received them, and what arrangements enabled or hindered those encounters. By sequencing events from London openings to continental tours and final departures, Catlin emphasizes observation, dates, and corroboration over commentary. The volumes underline the value of careful description—portraits, vocabulary, ceremony, and daily routine—in preserving information amid change. Set against the practicalities of performance, health, and finance, the narrative conveys an overall message of cultural presentation under scrutiny, and the importance of accurate records in understanding those public exchanges.
Historical Context
George Catlin’s two-volume narrative unfolds in the 1840s and early 1850s across London, Paris, and Brussels—capitals at the heart of industrial, imperial, and cultural power. In Britain, the setting is early Victorian, under Queen Victoria (from 1837), with vast urban audiences, new railways, and a mass press eager for spectacle. In France, the late July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe (1830–1848) gives way to the Second Republic after 1848, reshaping public life and venues. In Belgium, the young constitutional monarchy of Leopold I (from 1831) anchors a neutral, cosmopolitan crossroads. Catlin stages his Indian Gallery and accompanies Ojibwe and Ioway performers through theaters, salons, and courts in these intertwined urban worlds.
U.S. Indian policy and land cessions in the 1830s–1840s formed the crucial backdrop. The Indian Removal Act (1830) under Andrew Jackson accelerated pressures on tribes. The Ojibwe ceded vast timber and mineral lands in the 1837 Treaty of St. Peters (Fort Snelling, Minnesota) and the 1842 Treaty of La Pointe (Lake Superior), while the Ioway, after boundary arrangements at Prairie du Chien (1830) and subsequent cessions, were confined by the late 1830s to reservations along the Great Nemaha River in present-day Kansas and Nebraska. Catlin’s book follows individuals whose communities had been dislocated by these measures, explaining why public exhibitions became both livelihood and platform, and embedding personal journeys within the geopolitical aftershocks of removal.
The rise of ethnographic exhibitions and metropolitan show culture shaped Catlin’s enterprise. In London he rented large halls—most notably Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly—during the early 1840s, displaying paintings made on the Plains (1832–1839) alongside Ojibwe and Ioway dances, songs, and archery. The Illustrated London News (founded 1842) and daily papers amplified curiosity, while railways delivered provincial visitors to the capital. In Paris, public rooms and private salons hosted comparable performances for scientific societies and fashionable audiences. The book details logistics, translation, and protocols, revealing how Indigenous performers negotiated the urban stage and how an Anglo-French-Belgian public, steeped in imperial hierarchies, consumed what it called living ethnology.
Royal and courtly patronage provided political theater. In Britain, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert received Native delegations in London and at royal residences, reinforcing soft power through ceremonial hospitality. In France, King Louis-Philippe, who cultivated an image of a citizen-king, extended interest in such displays until his abdication in 1848; in Belgium, King Leopold I, presiding over a young state since 1831, also received visits. Catlin records audiences at Buckingham Palace, the Tuileries, and the Brussels Royal Palace, including gift exchanges, costume presentations, and formal dances. These encounters transformed the tours into quasi-diplomatic events, positioning Indigenous representatives before Europe’s apex of authority and curiosity.
The 1848 revolutions profoundly disrupted the cultural economy that sustained touring shows. In Paris, the February Days toppled Louis-Philippe on 24 February 1848 and proclaimed the Second Republic, bringing barricades, closures, and new restrictions on public assembly. Unrest rippled across the continent, altering travel, venues, and patronage. Simultaneously, the 1848–1849 cholera pandemic strained urban life in London and Paris and heightened mortality risks for itinerant troupes. Catlin’s narrative registers canceled engagements, sudden moves from Paris to more stable locales, and episodes of illness, mourning, and burial. The book thereby documents how political upheaval and public health crises materially shaped the fates of Indigenous performers abroad.
Continental events intersected with U.S. expansionism and frontier transformation. The idea later termed Manifest Destiny was popularized by John L. O’Sullivan in 1845, the Mexican–American War (1846–1848) expanded U.S. territory to the Pacific, and the 1846 Oregon Treaty fixed the boundary with Britain at the 49th parallel. The 1848–1849 California gold rush and accelerating overland migration intensified pressures on Plains nations. Catlin had painted many tribes between 1832 and 1839 and sought U.S. congressional purchase of his Indian Gallery in the 1840s without success. The European tour, recounted here, functioned as both financial strategy and preservationist mission in the face of rapid geopolitical and ecological change.
Scientific ethnology and popular racial theories framed public perceptions. The Société Ethnologique de Paris (1839) and the Ethnological Society of London (1843) debated human diversity amid the Victorian vogue for comparative anatomy and phrenology. Earlier transatlantic precedents—the Four Indian Kings’ London visit (1710) and the Osage troupe in France (1827–1830)—had taught European audiences to read Indigenous presence through spectacle and science. Catlin’s book situates the Ojibwe and Ioway within these circuits: he stages demonstrations for learned societies, records measurements and inquiries, and juxtaposes scientific scrutiny with performer agency. By narrating conversations and ceremonial protocols, he complicates reductive taxonomies without escaping the era’s exhibitionary logic.
As a social and political critique, the book exposes the commodification inherent in imperial entertainment and the asymmetries that governed it. Catlin chronicles how displacement under U.S. policy meets European curiosity, revealing a traffic in bodies, images, and data that profits impresarios and flatters courts while precariously sustaining Indigenous families. Scenes in London, Paris, and Brussels lay bare classed spectator cultures, philanthropy tinged with paternalism, and a press oscillating between sympathy and sensationalism. By juxtaposing royal ceremony with backstage negotiation, illness, and death, the narrative indicts the moral economy of mid-century modernity and interrogates how power, science, and spectacle collaborated to normalize dispossession.
Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium (Vol. 1&2)
Volume 1
PREFACE.
The reader of this book, being supposed to have read my former work, in two volumes, and to have got some account from them, of the eight years of my life spent amongst the wild Indians of the “Far West,” in the forests of America, knows enough of me by this time to begin familiarly upon the subject before us, and to accompany me through a brief summary of the scenes of eight years spent amidst the civilization and refinements of the “Far East.” After having made an exhibition of my Indian Collection for a short time, in the cities of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, in the United States, I crossed the Atlantic with it—not with the fear of losing my scalp, which I sometimes entertained when entering the Indian wilderness—and entirely without the expectation of meeting with excitements or novelties enough to induce me to commit the sin of writing another book; and the thought of doing it would never have entered my head, had not another of those untoward accidents, which have directed nearly all the important moves of my life, placed in my possession the materials for the following pages, which I have thought too curious to be withheld from the world.
After I had been more than four years in England, making an exhibition of my collection, and endeavouring, by my lectures in various parts of the kingdom, to inform the English people of the true character and condition of the North American Indians, and to awaken a proper sympathy for them, three different parties of Indians made their appearance, at different dates, in England, for the purpose of exhibiting themselves and their native modes to the enlightened world, their conductors and themselves stimulated by the hope of gain by their exertions.
These parties successively, on their arrival, (knowing my history and views, which I had made known to most of the American tribes,) repaired to my Indian Collection, in which they felt themselves at home, surrounded as they were by the portraits of their own chiefs and braves, and those of their enemies, whom they easily recognised upon the walls. They at once chose the middle of my Exhibition Hall as the appropriate place for their operations, and myself as the expounder of their mysteries and amusements; and, the public seeming so well pleased with the fitness of these mutual illustrations, I undertook the management of their exhibitions, and conducted the three different parties through the countries and scenes described in the following pages.
In justice to me, it should here be known to the reader, that I did not bring either of these parties to Europe; but, meeting them in the country, where they had come avowedly for the purpose of making money, (an enterprise as lawful and as unobjectionable, for aught that I can see, at least, as that of an actor upon the boards of a foreign stage,) I considered my countenance and aid as calculated to promote their views; and I therefore justified myself in the undertaking, as some return to them for the hospitality and kindness I had received at the hands of the various tribes of Indians I had visited in the wildernesses of America.
In putting forth these notes, I sincerely hope that I may give no offence to any one, by endeavouring to afford amusement to the reader, and to impart useful instruction to those who are curious to learn the true character of the Indians, from a literal description of their interviews with the fashionable world, and their views and opinions of the modes of civilized life.
These scenes have afforded me the most happy opportunity of seeing the rest of Indian character (after a residence of eight years amongst them in their native countries), and of enabling me to give to the world what I was not able to do in my former work, for the want of an opportunity of witnessing the effects which the exhibition of all the ingenious works of civilized art, and the free intercourse and exchange of opinions with the most refined and enlightened society, would have upon their untutored minds. The reader will therefore see, that I am offering this as another Indian book, and intending it mostly for those who have read my former work, and who, I believe, will admit, that in it I have advanced much further towards the completion of a full delineation of their native character.
I shall doubtless be pardoned for the unavoidable want of system and arrangement that sometimes appears in minuting down the incidents of these interviews—for recording many of the most trivial opinions and criticisms of the Indians upon civilized modes, and also the odd and amusing (as well as grave) notions of the civilized world, upon Indian manners and appearance, which have got into my note-book, and which I consider it would be a pity to withhold.
I have occasionally stepped a little out of the way, also, to advance my own opinion upon passing scenes and events; drawing occasional deductions, by contrasting savage with civilized life (the modes of the “Far West” with those of the “Far East”); and, as what I have written, I offer as matter of history, without intending to injure any one, I do not see why I should ask pardon for any possible offence that may be given to the reader, who can only be offended by imagining what never was meant.
During the series of lectures which I had been giving in various parts of England, and in my own country, wherein I had been contending for the moral and religious elevation of the Indian character, many of my hearers have believed that I had probably been led to over-estimate it, from the fact that I had beheld it in the wilderness, where there was nothing better to contrast it with. But I venture to say, that hundreds and thousands who read this book, and who became familiar with these wild people whilst in the enlightened world, and in the centre of fashion, where white man was shaking the poor Indian by the hand, and watching for his embarrassment while he was drawing scintillations from him, as the flint draws fire from the steel, will agree with me that the North American Indian rises highest in the estimation of his fellow-men, when he is by the side of those who have the advantage of him by their education, and nothing else.
Contemplated or seen, roaming in his native wilds, with his rude weapons, lurking after game or his enemy, he is looked upon by most of the world as a sort of wild beast; but when, with all his rudeness and wildness, he stands amongst his fellow-men to be scanned in the brilliant blaze of the Levée into which he has been suddenly thrown, the dignified, the undaunted (and even courteous) gentleman, he there gains his strongest admirers, and the most fastidious are willing to assign him a high place in the scale of human beings.
Into many such positions were these three parties of the denizens of the American forest thrown, during their visits to the capitals and provincial towns of England, Scotland, Ireland, France, and Belgium; and as I was by their side, their interpreter, at the hospitable boards, the Soirées and Levées to which they were invited by the gentry, the nobility, and crowned heads of the three kingdoms, I consider it due to them, and no injustice to the world, to record the scenes and anecdotes I have witnessed in those hospitable and friendly efforts of enlightened and religious people, to elicit the true native feelings of, and to commune with, their benighted fellow-men.
The Author.
CHAPTER I.
The Author embarks at New York, with his Indian Collection, and cage with two grizly Bears, for England, in the fall of 1839—Packet-ship Roscius, Captain Collins—Gale in the middle of the ocean—A ship dismasted and in distress—The Captain and twenty-eight men taken off and saved—The shipwrecked Captain and his faithful dog—“My man Daniel”—Sailor’s nose taken off by grizly bear—Dr. Madden—Terrible gale—Sea-sickness of the grizly bears—Alarm on deck—“Bears out of their cage”—Passengers rush below and close the hatches—A supposed Bear enters the cabin!—Great excitement—The explanation—The gale subsides—Amusing mistake—The Author in the steerage—Two eccentric characters—Arrival in Liverpool.
In the fall of the year 1839 I embarked at New York on board of the packet-ship Roscius, Captain Collins, for Liverpool, with my Indian collection; having received a very friendly letter of advice from the Hon. C. A. Murray, master of Her Majesty’s household, who had formerly been a fellow-traveller with me on the Mississippi and other rivers in America; and who, on his return to London, had kindly made a conditional arrangement for my collection in the Egyptian Hall, in Piccadilly.
Mr. George Adlard, an Englishman, residing in the city of New York, had also exerted a friendly influence for me in procuring an order from the Lords of Her Majesty’s Treasury for passing my collection into the kingdom free from the customary duties; and under these auspices I was launched upon the wide ocean, with eight tons freight, consisting of 600 portraits and other paintings which I had made in my sojourn of eight years in the prairies and Rocky Mountains of America—several thousands of Indian articles, costumes, weapons, &c., with all of which I intended to convey to the English people an accurate account of the appearance and condition of the North American tribes of Indians.1
On board also, as a part of my heavy collection, and as a further illustration of the rude inhabitants of the “Far West” I had, in a huge iron cage, two grizly bears, from the Rocky Mountains; forming not only the heaviest and most awkward part of my freight, but altogether the most troublesome, as will be seen hereafter.
The wind was kind to us, and soon drove us across the Atlantic, without more than an incident or two worth recording, which I had minuted down as follows:—About the middle of the ocean, and in the midst of a four or five days’ heavy gale, we came suddenly upon a ship, partly dismasted, with signals of distress flying, and water-logged, rolling about at the mercy of the merciless waves. We rounded-to with great danger to our own craft, and, during the early part of the night, succeeded, with much difficulty, in taking off the captain and crew of twenty-eight men, just before she went down. This was a common occurrence, however, and needs no further notice, other than of a feature or two which struck me as new. When the poor, jaded, and water-soaked fellows were all safely landed on the deck of our vessel, they laid down upon their faces and devoutly thanked God for their deliverance; and last of all that was lifted on board from their jolly-boat was their keg of rum, the only thing which they had brought with them when they deserted the ship. “This,” good Captain Collins said, “you will not want now, my boys,” and he cast it into the sea.
Captain James, a bland and good-natured Scotsman, commander of the Scotia, the unfortunate vessel, was invited by Captain Collins to the cabin of the Roscius, and into his state-room, where he was soon put into a suit of dry and warm clothes, and afterwards seated at the table; where, suddenly, a sullen resistance to food, and contemplative tears rolling over his cheeks, showed his rough shell to contain a heart that was worthy of the fondest affections of a dear wife and sweet little ones—none of which was he blessed with, if I recollect aright. But when his grief found utterance, he exclaimed, “My God! I have left my poor dog tied to the mast of my old craft. There he is, poor fellow! When we took to the jolly-boat I never thought of my poor Pompey!”
The briny tears seemed to burn this veteran’s hardened features as they ran over his cheeks; and hunger and fatigue, and all gave way to them and grief, until sleep had dried them up, and taken the edge from his anguished mind.
The next morning, his recital of the affectionate deeds of the life of his faithful dog, “who had made eighteen voyages across the Atlantic with him, and who would always indicate land a-head by his nose sooner than the sailors could discern it from the mast-head—whom he had, in kindness, lashed to the mast for his safety, and in carelessness abandoned to his unavoidable fate,” brought tears of pity in my own eyes. Poor man! he often wept for his faithful dog—and I as often wept for him, on our way from the middle of the ocean to Liverpool. We were, at this time, still in the midst of the terrible gale, which was increasing in its fury, and had already become quite too much for the tastes and the stomachs of the grizlies—a few words more of whom must go into this chapter.
These two awkward voyageurs from the base of the Rocky Mountains, which I had reared from cubs, and fed for more than four years—for whose roughness in clawing and “chawing” I had paid for half a dozen cages which they had demolished and escaped from, and the prices of as many dogs “used up” in retaking them, had now grown to the enormous size of eight or ten hundred pounds each; requiring a cage of iron so large that it could not be packed amongst the ship’s cargo below, but must needs occupy a considerable space on the deck, in the form and size somewhat of a small house.
The front of this cage was formed of huge iron bars, kindly indulging the bruins to amuse themselves with a peep at what was progressing on deck, whilst it afforded the sailors and steerage passengers the amusement of looking and commenting upon the physiognomy and manœuvres of these rude specimens from the wilderness of America. This huge cage, with its inmates, had ridden into and partly through the gale with us, when the bears became subjects of more violent interest and excitement than we had as yet anticipated or could have wished. What had taken (and was taking) place amongst the sick and frightened group of passengers during this roaring, whistling, thrashing, and dashing gale, was common-place, and has been a thousand times described; but the sea-sickness, and rage, and fury of these two grizly denizens of the deep ravines and rocky crags of the Rocky Mountains, were subjects as fresh as they were frightful and appalling to the terrified crew and passengers who were about them, and therefore deserve a passing comment.
The immediate guardian of these animals was a faithful man by the name of Daniel Kavanagh, who had for several years been in my employment as curator of my collection, and designed to accompany me in my tour through England. This man has occupied a conspicuous place in my affairs in Europe, and much will be said of him in the following pages, and the familiar and brief cognomen of “Daniel” or “Dan” applied to him. On embarking with this man and his troublesome pets at New York, I had fully explained to Captain Collins their ferocious, and deceitful, and intractable nature, who had consequently issued his orders to all of his crew and to the steerage passengers not to venture within their reach, or to trifle with them. Notwithstanding all this precaution, curiosity, that beautiful trait of human nature, which often becomes irresistible in long voyages, and able to turn the claws of the Devil himself into the soft and tapering fingers of a Venus or a Daphne, got the better of the idle hours of the sailors, who were amusing themselves and the passengers, in front of the iron bars, by believing that they were wearing off by a sort of charm the rough asperities of their grizly and grim passengers by shaking their paws, and squaring and fending off the awkward sweeps occasionally made at them by the huge paw of the she bear, which she could effectually make by lying down and running her right arm quite out between the iron bars. On one of these (now grown to be amusing) occasions, one of the sailors was “squared off” before the cage, inviting her grizly majesty to a sort of set-to, when she (seemingly aware of the nature of the challenge) gradually extended her arm and her huge paw a little and a little further out of her cage, with her eyes capriciously closed until it was out to its fullest extent, when she made a side-lick at his head, and an exceedingly awkward one for the sailor to parry. It was lucky for him, poor fellow, that he partly dodged it; though as her paw passed in front of his face, one of her claws carried away entirely his nose, leaving it fallen down and hanging over his mouth, suspended merely by a small piece of skin or gristle, by which alone he could claim it.
Here was a sudden check to the familiarity with the bears; the results of which were, a renewal of the orders of non-intercourse from Captain Collins, and a marked coolness between the sailors and steerage passengers and the grizlies during the remainder of the voyage.
The sailor was committed to the care of Dr. Madden, in the cabin, the distinguished traveller in Africa and the West Indies, and now one of our esteemed fellow-passengers, who skilfully replaced and arranged his nose with stitches and splints, and attended to it during the voyage. The poor fellow continued to swear vengeance on the bears when they should reach the land; but I believe that when they were landed in Liverpool, his nose was not sufficiently secure to favour his design. This unlucky affair had happened some days previous to the gale which I have begun to describe; and with the unsociable and cold reserve with which they were subsequently treated by all on board (visited only at stated periods by their old, but not yet confiding friend Daniel, who brought them their daily allowance), they had, as I have mentioned, become partakers and sufferers with us in the pangs and fears of the hurricane that was sweeping over the vessel and the sea about us.
The third day of the gale became the most alarming, and the night of that day closing in upon us, seemed like the gloomy shroud amidst the hurrying winds and the cracking spars, that was to cover us in death. Until this day, though swinging (and now and then jumping) from mountains to mountains of waves, the ship and the elements mingled our fears with amusement. When, however, this day’s light was gone, curiosity’s feast was finished, and fear was no longer chained under our feet—we had reached the climax of danger, and terror seemed to have seized and reigned through every part of the ship. The bears, in contemplative or other vein, had been mute; but at this gloomy hour, seeming to have lost all patience, added, at first their piteous howlings, and then their horrid growls, to the whistling of the winds; and next, the gnashing of their teeth, and their furious lurches, and bolts, and blows against the sides of their cage, to the cracking of spars and roaring of the tempest! Curiosity again, in desperate minds, was resuscitated, and taking in its insatiable draughts even in the midst of this jarring and discordant medley of darkness—of dashing foam, of cracking masts, and of howlings and growlings and raging of grizly bears; for when the lightnings flashed, men (and even women) were seen crawling and hanging about the deck, as if to see if they could discover the death that was ready with his weapons drawn to destroy them.
The captain had twenty times ordered all below, but to no purpose, until in the indiscriminate confusion of his crew and the passengers, in the jet blackness of the gale, when his ship was in danger, and our lives, his trumpet announced that “the bears were on deck!”
“Good God!” was exclaimed and echoed from one end of the ship’s deck to the other; “the grizly bears are out! down with the hatches—down the hatches!” The scrambling that here took place to reach the cabins below can only be justly known to each actor who performed his part in his own way; and of these there were many. Some descended headlong, some sidewise, and others rolled down; and every one with a ghastly glance back upon the one behind him, as a grizly bear, of course, that was to begin his “chawing” the next moment.
When the scrambling was all over, and the hatches all safe, all in the cabin were obliged to smile for a moment, even in the midst of the alarm, at the queer position and manœuvres of a plump little Irish woman who had slipped down the wrong hatchway by accident, and left her “other half” to spend a night of celibacy, and of awful forebodings, in the steerage, where she would have gone, but to which her own discretion as well as the united voices of the cabin passengers decided her not to attempt to make her way over the deck during the night.
The passengers, both fore and aft, were now all snugly housed for the rest of the night, and the captain’s smothered voice through his trumpet, to his hands aloft, and the stamping of the men on deck, while handling the ropes and shifting the sails, were all caught by our open ears, and at once construed into assaults and dreadful conflicts with the grizly bears on deck.
In the midst of these conjectures some one of the passengers screamed and sprang from near the stairway entering the cabin, when it was discovered, to the thrilling amazement of all, that one of the bears had pawed open the hatchway, and was descending into the cabin! The ladies’ salon, beyond the cabin, was the refuge to which the instant rush was making, when the always good and musical sound of the captain’s voice was recognized. “Why! you don’t think I’m a grizly bear, do you?” The good fellow! he didn’t intend to frighten anybody. He had just raised the hatch and came down to get a little breath and a “drop to drink.” He is as unlike to a grizly bear as any one else in the world, both in looks and in disposition; but he happened to have on for the occasion a black oil-cloth hood or cap, which was tied under the chin; and a jacket covered with long fur on the outside, making his figure (which was of goodly size, and which just filled the gangway), with a little of the lively imagination belonging to such moments, look the counterpart of a grizly bear. “Where’s Catlin?” said he; “damn the bears!” “Are they out?” cried the passengers all together. “Out?—yes; they have eaten one man already, and another was knocked overboard with a handspike; he was mistaken for one of the bears. We are all in a mess on deck—it’s so dark we can’t see each other—the men are all aloft in the rigging. Steward! give me a glass of brandy-and-water—the ship must be managed, and I must go on deck. Keep close below here, and keep the hatches down, for the bruins are sick of the scene, and pawing about for a burrow in the ground, and will have the hatches up in a moment if you don’t look to them. Where’s Catlin?” “We don’t know,” was the reply from many mouths; “he is not in the cabin.”
“Will, here, Misther Captain, yer honour, I’ll till ye,” said a poor fellow, who in the general fright and flight had tumbled himself by accident into the cabin, and observed sullen silence until the present moment; “I’ll jist till ye—I saw Misther Cathlin (I sippose he’s the jintleman that owns the bastes) and his mon Dan (for I’ve known Dan for these many a long year in ould Amiriky, and I now he has chargin o’ the bears on board); I saw the two, God bliss them, when the bastes was about gettin their hinder parts out of the cage, stannin on the side jisth before ’em, Misther Cathlin with his double-barrel gun, and his mon Dan pointin at ’em in the face, with a pistol in each hand; and this was jist whin I heard they were outh, and I jimped down here jist in the wrong place, as I am after observin when it is too late, and I hope there is no offence to your honour.”
“Catlin’s gone then,” said the captain; “he is swallowed!”
The captain was at his post again, the hatches closed, and in the midst of dozing, and praying, and singing (and occasionally the hideous howlings of the grizlies whenever a wave made a breach over the deck of the vessel) was passed away that night of alarm and despair, until the rays of the morning’s sun having chased away the mist and assuaged the fury of the storm, had brought all hands together on the deck, and in the midst of them the cheerful face of our good captain; and in their huge cage, which had been driven from one side of the deck to the other, but now adjusted, sitting upon their haunches, with the most jaded and humiliating looks imaginable, as they gazed between their iron bars, their two grizly majesties, who had hurt nobody during the night, nor in all probability had meditated anything worse or more sinful than an escape, if possible, from the imprisonment and danger they considered themselves unfortunately in.
In the general alarm and scramble on deck in the forepart of the night, the total darkness having been such that it was impossible to tell whether the bears were out of their cage or not, and quite impossible to make one’s way to the quarter-deck, unaccustomed to the shapes of things to be passed over, “Misther Cathlin” had dropped himself into the steerage as the nearest refuge, just before the hatch was fastened down for the night. Any place, and anything under deck at that time, was acceptable; and even at so perilous a moment, and amidst such alarming apprehensions, I drew a fund of amusement from the scenes and conversations around me. The circumstance of sixty passengers, men, women, and children, being stowed into so small a compass, and to so familiar an acquaintance, would have been alone, and under different circumstances, a subject of curious interest for a stranger so suddenly to be introduced to; but to be dropped into the midst of such a group in the middle of the night, in the thickest of a raging tempest, and the hour of danger, when some were in bed—some upon their knees at their prayers—others making the most of the few remaining drops of brandy they had brought with them, and others were playing at cards and enjoying their jokes, and all together just rescued from the jaws and the claws of the bears over their heads, was one of no common occurrence, and worthy at least of a few passing remarks.
The wailings of the poor fellow whose wife had got into the cabin were incessant, and not much inferior to the howlings of the grizlies on deck. She had been put into my berth, and I had had the privilege of “turning in” with her disconsolate husband, if I had seen fit to have done so, or if his writhings and contortions had not taken up full twice the space allotted to him. It was known and told to him by some of his comrades, that they saw his wife go into the cabin, and that she was safe. “Yis,” said he, “but I’m unasy, I’m not asy about her, d’ye see; I don’t fale asy as she’s there, God knows where, along with those jintlemen.”
Amongst the passengers in this part of the vessel I at once found myself alongside of at least two very eccentric characters. The one, I afterwards learned, was familiarly called by the passengers “the little Irishman in black,” and the other “the half-Englishman, or broken-down swell.”
The first of these two eccentrics was a squatty little gentleman of about four feet nine inches elevation, and between two and three feet breadth of beam, with a wrinkled face and excessively sharp features. To be all in black he showed no signs of a shirt, though he was decently clad, but in black from head to foot, being in mourning, as he said, for “his son who had emigratin to Amiriky fifteen years sin, and livin there jist long enough to become a native, had died and leaven of a fortin, which he had been over to sittle up and receivin, with which he was recrossin the ocean to his native country.” He said he wished to be rispectable and dacent, havin received 12,000 dollars; and as he thought the dacent thing was in “payin,” now-a-days, he had paid for a berth in the cabin, but preferred to ride in the steerage. He made and found much amusement in that part of the vessel with his congenial spirits, and seemed peculiarly happy in the close communication with the other oddity of the steerage, whom I have said the passengers called the half-Englishman, or broken-down swell, who, I learned from my man Daniel, had laid in three barrels of old English porter, in bottles, when leaving the city of New York, and the last of which they were now opening and making the whole company merry with, as a sort of thanksgiving on their lucky escape from the grizly bears, who they firmly believed held possession of everything on the vessel outside of the hatchway.
This eccentric and droll, but good-natured gentleman, with the aid of porter made much amusement in the steerage, even in the hour of alarm; and though I did not at that time know his calibre, or exactly what to make of him, I afterwards learned that he was an English cockney who had been on a tour through the States, and was now on his way back to his fatherland. He had many amusing notions and anecdotes to relate of the Yankees, and in his good-natured mellowness told a very good one of himself, much to the amusement of the Yankees on board, and the little Irishman in black, and my man Daniel. He said that “the greatest luxury he found in New York were the hoisters, and much as he liked them he had eaten them for two years before he had learned whether they were spelled with a haitch or a ho.” Much valuable time would be lost to the reader if I were to chain him down to the rest of the incidents that happened between the middle of the ocean and Liverpool; and I meet him there at the beginning of my next chapter.
CHAPTER II.
Howling of the grizly Bears—Alarm and excitement about the docks—Scuffle for luggage—Scene at the Grecian Hotel—Landing the grizly Bears—Author’s journey to London—Ibbotson’s Hotel—First sally into the streets—First impressions of London—Adventure in the fog and mud—Amusing occurrence in the street—Beggars at the crossings of the streets—Ingenious mode of begging—Rich shops—No pigs in the streets—Soot and smoke of London—Author returns to Liverpool—Daniel’s trouble with the Bears—Passing the Indian Collection and grizly Bears through the Customs—Arrival in London with Collection and Bears—Daniel in difficulty—Howling of Bears passing through the Tunnel—The “King of New York,” and “King Jefferson.”
On nearing the docks at Liverpool, not only all the passengers of the ship, but all the inhabitants of the hills and dales about, and the shores, were apprised of our approach to the harbour by the bellowing and howling of the grizlies, who were undoubtedly excited[1q] to this sort of Te Deum for their safe deliverance and approach to terra firma, which they had got a sight (and probably a smell) of.
The arrival of the Roscius on that occasion was of course a conspicuous one, and well announced; and we entered the dock amidst an unusual uproar and crowd of spectators. After the usual manner, the passengers were soon ashore, and our luggage examined, leaving freight and grizly bears on board, to be removed the next morning. From the moment of landing on the wharf to the Custom-house, and from that to the hotel where I took lodgings, I was obliged to “fend off,” almost with foot and with fist, the ragamuffins who beset me on every side; and in front, in the rear, and on the right and the left, assailed me with importunities to be allowed to carry my luggage. In the medley of voices and confusion I could scarcely tell myself to which of these poor fellows I had committed my boxes; and no doubt this (to them) delightful confusion and uncertainty encouraged a number of them to keep close company with my luggage until it arrived at the Grecian Hotel. When it was all safely landed in the hall, I asked the lad who stood foremost and had brought my luggage in his cart, how much was to pay for bringing it up? “Ho, Sir, hi leaves it to your generosity, Sir, has you are a gentleman, Sir; hit’s been a werry eavy load, Sir.”
I was somewhat amused with the simple fellow’s careless and easy manner, and handed him eighteen pence, thinking it a reasonable compensation for bringing two small trunks and a carpet-bag; but he instantly assumed a different aspect, and refused to take the money, saying that no gentleman would think of giving him less than half-a-crown for such a load as he had brought. I soon settled with and dismissed him by giving him two shillings; and as he departed, and I was about entering the coffee-room, another of his ragged fraternity touched my elbow, when I asked him what he wanted. “Wo, Sir, your luggage there—” “But I have paid for my luggage—I paid the man you see going out there.” “Yes, Sir; but then you sees, hi elped im put it hon; hand I elped im along with it, hand it’s werry ard, Sir, hif Ise not to be paid has well as im.” I paid the poor fellow a sixpence for his ingenuity; and as he left, a third one stepped up, of whom I inquired, “What do you want?” “Why, Sir, your luggage, you know, there—I am very sorry, Sir, to see you pay that worthless rascal what’s just going out there—I am indeed sorry, Sir—he did nothing, but was hol the time hin our way—hit urts me, Sir, to see a gentleman throw is money away upon sich vagabonds, for it’s hundoubtedly ard earned, like the few shillings we poor fellows get.” “Well, my good fellow, what do you want of me?” “Ho, Sir, hit’s honly for the cart, Sir—you will settle with me for the cart, Sir, hif you please—that first chap you paid ad my cart, hand I’ll be bound you ave paid im twice has much has you hought.” “Well, to make short,” said I, “here, take this sixpence for your cart, and be off.” I was thus brief, for I saw two or three others edging and siding up in the passage towards me, whom I recollected to have seen escorting my luggage, and I retreated into the coffee-room as suddenly as possible, and stated the case to one of the waiters, who promised to manage the rest of the affair.
I was thus very comfortable for the night, having no further annoyance or real excitement until the next morning after breakfast, when it became necessary to disembark the grizly bears. My other heavy freight had gone to Her Majesty’s Custom-house, and all the passengers from the cabin and steerage had gone to comfortable quarters, leaving the two deck passengers, the grizlies, in great impatience, and as yet undisposed of. My man Daniel had been on the move at an early hour, and had fortunately made an arrangement with a simple and unsuspecting old lady in the absence of her “good man,” to allow the cage to be placed in a small yard adjoining her house, and within the same inclosure, which had a substantial pavement of round stones.
This arrangement for a few days promised to be an advantageous one for each party. Daniel was to have free access and egress for the purpose of giving them their food, and the price proposed to the good woman was met as a liberal reward for the reception of any living beings that she could imagine, however large, that could come within her idea of the dimensions of a cage. Daniel had told her that they were two huge bears; and in his reply to inquiries, assured her that they were not harmless by any means, but that the enormous strength of their cage prevented them from doing any mischief.
The kind old lady agreed, for so much per day, to allow the cage to stand in her yard, by the side of her house, at least until her husband returned. With much excitement and some growling about the docks and the wharf, they were swung off from the vessel, and, being placed on a “float,” were conveyed to, and quietly lodged and fed in, the retired yard of the good woman, when the gate was shut, and they fell into a long and profound sleep.
The grizly bears being thus comfortably and safely quartered in the immediate charge of my man Daniel, who had taken an apartment near them, and my collection being lodged in the Custom-house, I started by the railway for London to effect the necessary arrangements for their next move. I had rested in and left Liverpool in the midst of rain, and fog, and mud, and seen little else of it; and on my way to London I saw little or nothing of the beautiful country I was passing through, travelling the whole distance in the night. The luxurious carriage in which I was seated, however, braced up and embraced on all sides by deep cushions; the grandeur of the immense stations I was occasionally passing under; the elegance and comfort of the cafés and restaurants I was stumbling into with half-sealed eyes, with hundreds of others in the middle of the night, with the fat, and rotund, and ruddy appearance of the night-capped fellow-travellers around me, impressed me at once with the conviction that I was in the midst of a world of comforts and luxuries that had been long studied and refined upon.
I opened my eyes at daylight at the terminus in the City of London, but could see little of it, as I was driven to Ibbotson’s Hotel, in Vere-street, through one of the dense fogs peculiar to the metropolis and to the season of the year in which I had entered it. To a foreigner entering London at that season, the first striking impression is the blackness and gloom that everywhere shrouds all that is about him. It is in his hotel—in his bed-chamber—his dining-room, and if he sallies out into the street it is there even worse; and added to it dampness, and fog, and mud, all of which, together, are strong inducements for him to return to his lodgings, and adopt them as comfortable, and as a luxury.
I am speaking now of the elements which the Almighty alone can control, and which only we strangers first see, as the surface of things, when we enter a foreign land, and before our letters of introduction, or the kind invitations of strangers, have led us into the participation of the hospitable and refined comforts prepared and enjoyed by the ingenuity of enlightened man, within. These I soon found were all around me, in the midst of this gloom; and a deep sense of gratitude will often induce me to allude to them again in the future pages of this work.
My breakfast and a clean face were the first necessary things accomplished at my hotel, and next to them was my first sally into the streets of the great metropolis, to inhale the pleasure of first impressions, and in my rambles to get a glance at the outer walls and the position of the famous Egyptian Hall, which I have already said my kind friend the Hon. C. A. Murray had conditionally secured, as the locale of my future operations. It is quite unnecessary, and quite impossible also, for me to describe the route I pursued through the mud and the fog in search of the Hall. Its direction had been pointed out to me at my start, and something like the distance explained, which, to an accustomed woodsman like myself, seemed a better guarantee of success than the names of a dozen streets and turnings, &c.; and I had “leaned off” on the point of compass, as I thought, without any light of the sun to keep me to my bearings, until I thought myself near its vicinity, and at a proper position to make some inquiry for its whereabouts. I ran against a young man at the moment (or, rather, he ran against me, as he darted across the street to the pavement, with a black bag under his arm), whom I felt fully at liberty to accost; and to my inquiry for the Egyptian Hall, he very civilly and kindly directed me in the following manner, with his hand pointing down the street in the opposite direction to the one in which I was travelling:—“Go to the bottom, d’ye see, sir, and you are at the top, of Piccadilly; you then pass the third turning to the left, and you will see the hexibition of the uge hox; that hox is in the Hegyptian All, and ee his a wapper, sure enough!” By this kind fellow’s graphic direction I was soon in the Hall, got a glance of it and “the fat ox,” and then commenced my first peregrination, amidst the mazes of fog and mud, through the Strand, Fleet-street, and Cheapside; the names of which had rung in my ears from my early boyhood, and which the sort of charm they had wrought there had created an impatient desire to see.
I succeeded quite well in wending my way down the Haymarket, the Strand, and Fleet-street, slipping and sliding through the mud, until I was in front or in the rear (I could not tell which) of the noble St. Paul’s, whose black and gloomy walls, at the apparent risk of breaking my neck, I could follow up with my eye, until they were lost in the murky cloud of fog that floated around them. I walked quite round it, by which I became duly impressed with its magnitude below, necessarily leaving my conjectures as to its elevation, for future observations through a clearer atmosphere.
I then commenced to retrace my steps, when a slight tap upon my shoulder brought me around to look upon a droll and quizzical-looking fellow, who very obsequiously proceeded (as he pointed to the collar of my cloak, the lining of which, it seems, had got a little exposed), “The lining of your cloak, sir; hit don’t look very well for a gentleman, sir; hexcuse me, hif you please, sir.” “Certainly,” said I; “I am much obliged to you,” as I adjusted it and passed on. In my jogging along for some distance after this rencontre, and while my eyes were intent upon the mud, where I was selecting the places for my footsteps, I observed a figure that was keeping me close company by my side, and, on taking a fairer look at him, found the same droll character still at my elbow, when I turned around and inquired of him, “What now?” “Ho, sir, your cloak, you know, sir; hit didn’t look well, for a gentleman like you, sir. Your pardon, sir; ha sixpence, hif you please, sir.” I stopped and gave the poor fellow a sixpence for his ingenuity, and jogged on.
