CHAPTER XIII. Social Life

SOCIAL LIFE

Interesting visits—Explorers of those days—Other notabilities and friends

Entries in old diaries recall many pleasant social meetings at home, whether dinners, breakfasts, or simple gatherings of friends, where there was generally some traveller or other lion of the day whom people were glad to meet. I made occasional excursions to visit Charles Darwin at Down, usually at luncheon-time, always with a sense of the utmost veneration as well as of the warmest affection, which his invariably hearty greeting greatly encouraged. I think his intellectual characteristic that struck me most forcibly was the aptness of his questionings; he got thereby very quickly to the bottom of what was in the mind of the person he conversed with, and to the value of it.

I enjoyed two interesting visits to Lord Ashburton at the Grange, under the presidency of the first and second Lady Ashburton respectively. Carlyle was a guest on both occasions. On my first meeting him he surprised me by his unexpectedly courteous and even polished manner, but he became more like his ordinary self later on. On the second occasion he seemed to me the greatest bore that a house could tolerate. He had a well-known story then to the fore, which W. H. Brookfield (1809-1874), who was a very constant guest, told me he had indulged in five times that day already, and undertook that he should repeat it for my benefit a sixth time, which he did. Then Carlyle raved about the degeneracy of the modern English without any facts in justification, and contributed nothing that I could find to the information or pleasure of the society. He, however, executed a performance with great seriousness which was decidedly funny, by hopping gravely on one leg up and down within the pillars of the portico, which he had discovered to be a prompt way of warming himself in the then chilly weather.

It is difficult to select events out of the very many that were then interesting to me. One was a visit to Mr. Webb at Newstead Abbey, the old home of the poet Lord Byron, which he had recently purchased. Mr. Webb had been a first-class African sportsman, of whom mention will be made in the next chapter in connection with the identification of Dr. Livingstone’s remains. The mementoes of Lord Byron at Newstead Abbey were well cared for, and most touching to me, for I had in my youth an unlimited admiration of his works; so I drank greedily with my eyes all that I saw connected with him. I will here anticipate very many years, and mention a tragedy that occurred only two autumns ago to Lord Byron’s grandson and representative, Lord Lovelace. My niece, who has managed my home since the death of my wife, spent a few summer weeks with me in the pretty village of Ockham. The night before leaving it to return home to London we were invited to Ockham Park after tea-time, for a quiet farewell call. Lord Lovelace was exceptionally agreeable, the conversation was general, and the evening passed by most pleasantly. It had been arranged that his carriage should take us back; he accompanied us to it, and wished us good-bye in the most friendly and courteous manner. No one outside his household, and very few of these, saw him again alive. It appeared that he dressed himself for dinner, and after coming downstairs fell dead on the floor.

I saw much of Richard, afterwards Sir Richard, Burton and of Lawrence Oliphant in those days. There were exceedingly pleasant social gatherings held after each meeting of the Geographical Society of geographers and others, who were invited by Admiral Murray to his rooms in the Albany. He was an excellent host, and justly popular among a great variety of men whom he had the tact to bring harmoniously together in his chambers. Bishop Wilberforce, who prided himself on worldly savoir faire, was occasionally a guest; Burton was habitually there, but his usual conversation in those days was not exactly of a stamp suitable to episcopal society. I was present at the first introduction of these two men, whose behaviour was most comic, each trying to act the part appropriate to the other, and, I must add, doing it most successfully, and to all appearance quite naturally. Burton was a great reader, generally to be seen at the Athenæum with a folio volume before him, and he was a prodigious note-taker during his travels. He lent me his notebook on Zanzibar, of which I shall shortly speak again, and I was astonished at the variety and amount of information he had written in it, in his small, clear handwriting.

Lawrence Oliphant had a most winning manner and a marvellous facility of expression. I have served on more Council meetings than could easily be reckoned, and am only too familiar with the often recurring difficulty of finding a phrase that shall cover just as much of the question under discussion as is generally accepted, without touching any part on which there is disagreement. Oliphant had the art of hitting upon the appropriate phrase on these occasions more deftly and aptly than any one else whom I can remember. We worked together most pleasantly as joint secretaries under the presidency of John Crawfurd, the Ethnologist, who nicknamed us his two sons.

I had the great pleasure of again falling in with Mansfield Parkyns of Abyssinian fame, at Admiral Murray’s hospitable gatherings.

Among many other distinguished travellers who were in England during the fifties, I should mention Dr. Barth, who was a learned and simple-minded man. The five volumes of his travels in North Africa have the merits and demerits of many German books, being full of information but deterrent in form. I suspect that few Englishmen have read them through as conscientiously as I did. He was a great believer in the importance of the Hausa language to traders and settlers. It was then practically unknown even to professed linguists, so he brought over with him a bright Hausa boy to help him and others in learning it. I never knew exactly what happened, but it seems there was evidence that the boy had expressed a wish to go back to Africa, as he well may have done in moments of temporary depression, whereupon the zealous secretary of a philanthropic Society threatened poor Barth with an action for kidnapping if he did not send the boy back at once. Barth was amazed, and sought advice, which was that considering the sectarian bitterness with which the action would probably be carried on, the ease with which thoughtless expressions might be twisted into deliberate words, and the certain cost and tediousness of legal proceedings, it would be wiser for him to submit and to send back the boy. This he did with no little grief, and so all attempt to lexiconise and grammarise the Hausa language was thrown back for many years, during which a knowledge of it would have been of material use in various British operations on the West Coast of Africa.

A long subsequent attempt was, however, made with success by a small committee, of whom I was one and Major Leonard Darwin another, under the Presidency of Sir George Goldie, through whose efforts sufficient funds were collected to enable Mr. Robinson to study the Hausa language seriously and on the spot. Opportunities for learning it have now been afforded, and are used at Cambridge by prospective military and civil servants in West Africa.

Mr. Crawfurd (1783-1868) was then a vigorous old man of considerable moral weight and of great experience, with not a few amusing peculiarities (Sir Roderick Murchison called him laughingly, in public, the Objector General). He had been secretary to Sir Stamford Raffles, and, according to what he told to me, and I presume also to others, he was the sole originator of the idea of making Singapore a free port, and had trouble in convincing Sir Stamford that it would be wise to do this. He became its first Governor, and the descriptions he gave of his multifarious occupations in that new post, with a very small staff, were amusing. He established a newspaper and wrote much of it himself. The settlement quickly grew in size and wealth, and had attained much importance by the time he retired. He compiled the first Malay Dictionary and Grammar. Having failed in England to secure a seat in Parliament, he engaged heart and soul in Ethnology and Geography, spoke very frequently at meetings, always with reason, and he wrote many ethnological papers, all good, but perhaps few of first rank. He was a very kind and helpful friend to me. He caught his death illness through handing ladies to their carriage on the occasion of one of his Soirées, on a bitter night. He died believing in his delirium that he was speaking at the Ethnological Society (since merged into the Anthropological), to which he was devoted.

Mr. George Bentham (1800-1884), the botanist, was a great friend of Mr. Crawfurd, and he became a kind friend to myself and to my wife. He was son of General Bentham, who obtained one of the highest positions as constructor of ships in the Russian Navy, and he was nephew to Jeremy Bentham. Mr. George Bentham was the companion in youth of John Stuart Mill, of whom he had much to tell. In his early manhood he took to logic, and wrote an important paper, in which he pointed out that the distinctiveness of a certain logical operation in common use had been overlooked and never received a name. I myself am ignorant of logical subtleties, and repeat the following much as a parrot might. He called the operation in question the “Quantification of the Predicate.” Years passed by, during which he abandoned logic and gave all his time to systematic botany, for which his logical training was helpful. He had been President of the Linnæan Society for many years, and his name had become familiar to every botanist and dabbler in botany. At this time a letter in some newspaper (I think the Athenæum) was brought to his notice, in which the writer dwelt on the importance of this “Quantification of the Predicate.” He mentioned the name of its young author, adding that he had taken much pains, in vain, to learn what had become of him,—could any reader supply information?

Mr. Bentham called one morning in 1880, together with Sir Joseph (then Mr.) Hooker, to congratulate me on having just had a whole genus of flowers of singular beauty called after me by the French botanist, J. Decaisne (Prof. de Culture, Musée d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris). I was amazed, for I know next to nothing of botany. The story was this. A beautiful plant had been sent from Natal to Europe. It was described at Kew as Hyacinthus Candicans, but M. Decaisne would not consent to such a denomination. He pointed out particulars in the plant that hyacinths have not, and the absence of other particulars that hyacinths have, and he renamed it. Why he pitched upon my name for the purpose I do not know, but suppose that he may have consulted a list of the South African medallists of the French Geographical Society, and finding my name among them, selected it. I have not the slightest claim to the honour, but accepted its bestowal by him and its ratification by our then greatest botanists, Hooker and Bentham, with amusement. Seedsmen still class it among the hyacinths, saying that they are obliged to have as few separate headings in their catalogues as possible. I append a little picture of Galtonia Candicans to this book as a vignette at the bottom of its last page.

Mr. Atkinson (1799-1861) had returned with huge oil paintings from Siberia, which he carried in rolls on camel back, sometimes tandem-fashion. His career was strange. He was originally little more than a quick-witted stone-mason’s boy, who afterwards rose, and then hearing that a design was to be competed for at St. Petersburg for some memorial, he drew a design, sent it there, and it was selected. He thereupon moved to Russia, and in some mysterious way obtained the confidence of the Czar Nicholas so completely that Atkinson received what was most unusual, if not unprecedented, a free ukase to travel and paint where he would. Possibly the Czar wished for unbiased and independent evidence as to certain matters in South Siberia, and Atkinson may have acted as a secret agent. He was made much of by persons of the highest rank in Russia, and he was married in the Chapel of the British Embassy to an English lady who had resided in one of the great Russian families as their companion. She accompanied him in his great journey. On their arrival in England they were widely received and welcomed. They took a picturesque but ramshackle small house and garden, called Hawk Cottage, that stood on the old Brompton Road, nearly opposite to where Bina Gardens now are, on a spot that had not then passed into the hands of the builders of streets. They were much visited by members of the highest Russian nobility and by many English friends.

In 1861 Mr. Atkinson died, and his wife applying to the Treasury for some money due to him, was met by the astounding assertion, backed by abundant proof, that she was not legally his wife, inasmuch as he had been married before he went to Russia to a lady who was still living in England. To the natural inquiry why the claim should be now put forward for the first time, considering the publicity under which Mr. Atkinson had lived, the reply was that no news of him had reached the claimant, who occupied a different grade of society, until intelligence had been sent to her by a friend of her husband’s death. This tragic termination affected many of us greatly. We recollected that Atkinson had avoided bringing his wife (as we thought she was) to the forefront, and it had been remarked at the time of the publication of his book of travels that he made the scantiest references to her, and never used the word “wife.” It was a wonder, and it is so still, how he dared to settle in London and risk a serious criminal charge. Friends gathered round Mrs. Atkinson, as I must still call her, and helped her in many substantial ways. She afterwards returned to Russia.

It was during this time that I made the acquaintance of the then Mr., afterwards Sir John Lubbock, and now Lord Avebury, who was engaged on his Prehistoric Times, and had attracted the friendship of most of the men of the day who were destined to become famous in science. His week-end invitations were always most instructive and grateful. It is difficult justly to express the value of such opportunities of friendly and unhurried converse. I received great kindness and much warm welcome at his house, and was captivated by the ingenuity of his experiments on ants and bees.

Amongst many friends whose acquaintance I first made at Sir John Lubbock’s was Herbert Spencer, then struggling with difficulties connected with his serial publications. They were removed by the unexpected visit of an American gentleman, with a gold watch, who made a brief oration to the effect that Spencer’s admirers in America feared the cessation of his publications in pamphlet form owing to financial reasons. That they had consequently subscribed and invested a (handsome) sum in his name in Consols, and had further deputed him—the speaker—to present the gold watch as a token of their esteem. It was a touching and cheering event to Spencer, who always wore the watch. It, moreover, went well, which was not invariably the case with costly presentation watches in those days.

I met Herbert Spencer frequently at the Athenæum, and had many conversations with him there. He was always ready to listen sympathetically to new views and to express his opinion on them, but he disliked to argue. I persuaded him once to go with me to see the Derby, in company with a near relative of mine who was an Oxford clerical don. These two were perhaps as incongruous a pair in some respects as could easily be devised, but they enjoyed each other’s company. All went off quite well, except that Spencer would not be roused to enthusiasm by the races. He said that the crowd of men on the grass looked disagreeable, like flies on a plate; also that the whole event was just like what he had imagined the Derby to be. Still, he evidently liked the excursion, and notwithstanding his asseverations at the time to the contrary, he repeated his experience on at least one subsequent occasion.

For my own part, I especially enjoy the start of the horses, for their coats shine so brightly in the sunshine, the jockeys are so sharp and ready, and the delays due to false starts give opportunities of seeing them well. I don’t care much for its conclusion, but I used often after seeing the start to run to the top of the rising ground between the starting point and the stand, and sometimes got a good opera-glass view of much of the finish.

A curious sight caught my attention on one of these occasions. I was on the side of the course that faced the distant stand, and amused myself while waiting in studying the prevalent tint of the sea of faces upon it. At length the horses were off, but it was hot, and I was contented to remain in quiet where I was. When the horses approached the winning-post, the prevalent tint of the faces in the great stand changed notably, and became distinctly more pink under the flush of excitement. I wrote a short notice of the experience in Nature, under my initials, but have kept no copy and quite forget the year.

I enjoyed the friendship during more than fifty years of the Hon. George Brodrick, in his later years Warden of Merton, whose memoirs are probably known to most of my readers. When I first knew him he was reputed one of the foremost of those rising men at Oxford who were contemporaries with my brother-in-law, Arthur Butler, and among whom was Goschen. Brodrick became a distinguished journalist, for many years on the staff of the Times. He had a strong taste for geography, partly through being sent in his youth on a long voyage to India and back, for the sake of his health. Becoming a member of the Council of the Royal Geographical Society, he gave important help to the introduction of Geography into the curriculum of his University. He was always a warm friend to me, and I enjoyed not a few brief visits to Merton College when he was established there as its Warden. His eccentricities were all amiable, and gave harmless amusement to his friends; especially his reluctance in accepting the proferred Wardenship of Merton, for which his friends thought he was exactly suited. He, however, considered it to have a serious drawback in depriving him of the possibility of a Parliamentary career, to which most of them considered him unsuited. Moreover, he had twice been an unsuccessful candidate for a seat in Parliament. I do not attempt more in these few lines than to express my grateful remembrance of him, and my appreciation of his many great qualities, including a large capacity for steadfast friendships and a highly religious mind very tolerant of the differing opinions of others.

A grateful intimacy grew up between my wife and myself and Mr. Frederick North of Rougham, in Norfolk, at that time residing as a widower in his house at Hastings, for which town he was Member of Parliament during many years. His two daughters were then with him, the eldest, Miss Marianne North (1830-1890), widely known for her travels after his death, in order to paint flowers in far distant lands with scientific accuracy. The building in Kew Gardens was devised by her friend J. Fergusson (1808-1886), the writer on architecture, and built to hold her collection; she presented it to the Gardens. The younger daughter became wife of John Addington Symonds (1840-1893), the well-known critic and writer. My wife and I spent very many happy visits to Hastings Lodge, where the heartiness of reception and the amplitude of real comfort without any attempt at display were remarkable. That valued friendship towards me still continues in the third generation of descent from Mr. North.

I owed to my wife a highly valued intimacy with Mr. and Mrs. Russell Gurney. The clock of the latter, which she left me in her Will, is within two yards of where I am writing this, and I look back to the lifelong friendships of her and her husband with no ordinary affection. The portrait of Mr. Russell Gurney (1804-1878) by Watts, which is in the National Gallery, is extremely like; it strikes me, if I may venture on any opinion connected with Art, as one of the very best in any of our three great national collections. The portrait of Mrs. Russell Gurney, also by Watts, which is now in the possession of her relatives, is rather forced in pose. It is much to be regretted that no adequate biography has been written of her. The one which is published dwells too exclusively on the devotional side of her character, and fails sadly to bring out her originality, charm, and humour. Like many other persons who are profoundly religious, she too was perfectly tolerant of other beliefs than her own if they were genuine and decorously expressed.

Her endowment of a Chapel of Rest in the Bayswater Road has by no means fulfilled her wishes. Her object was to establish a quiet artistic shelter, where persons desiring a few minutes’ withdrawal from the turmoil of life, might enter and commune in quiet with themselves. She obtained a disused chapel, and arranged for its maintenance. Then she took great pains over the designs that were to be painted on the walls in fresco. When these were sufficiently advanced, she, long since a widow and in rapidly declining health, invited many friends to its opening. My wife and I were rather late, and I can see now the sweet welcoming gesture with which she beckoned us up to her on the platform. We never saw her again. She lingered on, unwilling, or unable, to see any even of her oldest friends, and at length died. The Chapel of Rest remained unfinished for some years. It is little used, and can, or could, be entered only at specified hours.

As to Mr. Russell Gurney, who served on many important commissions, he twice refused a judgeship, preferring to retain his post of “Recorder” of the City of London, which is of nearly equal dignity to a judgeship, and did not at that time preclude its holder from sitting in Parliament. He was member for Southampton. I have known no one who struck me as a more just, searching, and yet kindly judge, or whom I would more willingly be tried by if I fell into trouble.

It was to my wife, also, that I owed the friendship of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hollond of Stanmore. She was exceptionally gifted by nature with grace, sympathy, artistic taste, and many other high qualities. Her portrait, by Scheffer, is in the Tate Gallery. Her face closely corresponded to his imaginary ideal when painting St. Augustine and Monica, so he enjoyed the opportunity of painting Mrs. Hollond’s own portrait. She was even more at home in France than in England, and intimate with many distinguished statesmen of the Orleanist party. Her husband’s wealth gave her great facilities for cultivating her æsthetic tastes to the full. He was chiefly known to the public at one time as subsidiser of the “Nassau” balloon, which carried him, Green the famous aeronaut, and, I think, Mr., afterwards Lord Justice, James (who was an old friend of his), and two others. They sailed from London to a town in Nassau; which was at that time by far and away a record distance for a balloon to drift. Numerous memorial pictures of that adventure were in his house.

It was in the middle fifties that my friendship commenced with William Spottiswoode (1825-1883), one of the most capable and true-hearted of men, who became President of the Royal Society, and now lies buried in Westminster Abbey, “at the request alike of the foremost of his countrymen in Church and State, in Science, Art and Literature, and of his own workmen, to whose best interests his life had been devoted.” This is the singularly apt inscription on his tombstone. I asked Dean Bradley, then Dean of Westminster, if he knew who was its author. He replied, “Myself.” It is to be regretted that no good biography exists of W. Spottiswoode. Many notices were published at his death, and it gratified me to learn that one which I wrote for the Royal Geographical Society on one aspect of his many-sided character greatly pleased his family and some of his intimate friends.

The main features of his life were that he was the son of the then Queen’s Printer, of good Scottish family, and the presumed heir to a considerable fortune. He went to Oxford, where he obtained the University Scholarship in mathematics, and where also intelligence reached him of the entire collapse of his father’s fortune through unwise speculation. He braced himself to the occasion, and, after many years of hard work, himself succeeding his father as Queen’s Printer, he created a model business on the largest scale, and rehabilitated the lost fortune. In the meantime he had sufficient spare energy to occupy himself day by day with congenial pursuits in literature and science. Among other diversions he loved to travel considerable distances during the few weeks he annually allowed himself for vacation, and to acquire much knowledge of other countries in that way. Enormously worked as he was, he always seemed to have leisure, and he did with thoroughness whatever he undertook.

At this time there was still much ignorance concerning the northern part of the peninsula of Sinai, especially of the plain of El Tih, and he suggested to me that by making judicious preparations its survey might be accomplished within the short space of time that he could afford. I agreed to join him. We worked hard to prepare ourselves, and made a large sketch map, on which notes of every important traveller bearing on the part in which we were interested were entered at the locality they referred to. It was desirable for him to have some experience in surveying, and as I was going to the Isle of Wight, we agreed to practise there. The first and only attempt had an absurd ending. We found a strongly railed field suitable for a commencement, into which we got by climbing the fence, and prepared to unpack, not particularly noticing the cattle in it; but one of them was a bull, who, after the manner of such animals, advanced in so threatening and determined a manner that we had to retreat from the brute as best we could.

This proved to be the end of our joint experiments, for I was taken ill with what seemed at first to be only a very bad sore throat, but which developed into a singular form of quinsy of a dangerous character. My old friends, Mr. Hodgson and Dr. Todd, were unremitting in their attentions, and told me afterwards that they were on the point of having my windpipe opened, as I was nearly suffocating. At last, an abscess which was situated in a gland on the upper surface of the tongue, but far back near its root, broke, and I breathed freely. I was soon able to swallow, and gradually became convalescent, but Mr. Hodgson peremptorily forbade further thoughts of Sinai. I shall have to refer again to W. Spottiswoode.

It has happened to me more than once to be nearly suffocated, and to have been surprised at the absence of that gasping desire for air that one feels when the breath is suddenly checked. A very little seems sufficient to divert attention from that desire, and to leave the sense only of being ill and on the point of swooning. My chief experiences may seem hardly credible; they were due to a fancy of mine to obtain distinct vision when diving. The convex eyeball stamps a concave lens in the water, whose effect has to be neutralised by a convex lens. This has to be very “strong,” because the refractive power of a lens is greatly diminished by immersion in water. My first experiment was in a bath, using the two objectives of my opera-glass in combination, and with some success. I then had spectacles made for me, which I described at the British Association in 1865. With these I could read the print of a newspaper perfectly under water, when it was held at the exact distance of clear vision, but the range of clear vision was small. I amused myself very frequently with this new hobby, and being most interested in the act of reading, constantly forgot that I was nearly suffocating myself, and was recalled to the fact not by any gasping desire for breath, but purely by a sense of illness, that alarmed me. It disappeared immediately after raising the head out of water and inhaling two or three good whiffs of air.

Mr. Alexander Macmillan asked me in the later fifties to undertake the editorship of a volume to be called Vacation Tourists, which would be repeated annually if the venture succeeded. His view was that many able young men travelled every summer, each of whom would have enough to say to make a good article, and that a collection of their contributions would suffice for an interesting annual volume. I consented, and found the occupation very agreeable, for it put me into pleasant communication with many whom it was a privilege to know, but excision was often an unwelcome duty. Thus among the many contributions offered for one of the volumes, I had thirteen separate descriptions of sea-sickness. The venture paid its way, but no more, and was discontinued after the third volume.

A total eclipse visible in Spain occurred on July 18, 1860, and the Government lent their magnificent transport the Himalaya to those who were selected to observe it, by and under the leadership of the then Astronomer-Royal, Mr., afterwards Sir George, Airy (1801-1892). I applied, and was granted permission to join. We went with great comfort and speed, first to Bilbao, where small parties, of whom mine of four persons was one, were landed. The rest went on to Santander.

Careful preparations had been made in Spain for our comfort, as few of us knew a word of the language, and serious obstructions due to intolerance might otherwise have occurred for want of timely explanation. These excellent arrangements were entirely due to the forethought of Mr. Vignolles, a famous contractor for railways, who was then occupied with those of Spain. One of his many subordinates was allotted as interpreter to each small party; ours proved to be a most agreeable guide and informant. The position allotted to our party was in the neighbourhood of Logroño, whither we proceeded at once in order to study the neighbourhood and to select a suitable spot. This was quickly found on a picturesque hill called La Guardia, crowned with a convent and village, which lay in the central line of totality, and commanded a grand view of the plain over which the shadow of the coming eclipse would sweep.

Thanks to the diplomacy of our interpreter, we obtained permission to use the flat roof of one of the highest houses, where we established ourselves on the morning of the eventful day. I had nursed with great care an instrument to observe the delicate variations of temperature. It was the invention of Sir John Herschel (1792-1871), who instructed me in its use, but its construction was so fragile that hardly any traveller had as yet been able to take one of them uninjured to its destination. I was no more fortunate than my predecessors, for the long stem of the heavy mercurial bulb broke. It was impossible to feel as unhappy as I ought to have been, because it left me free to gaze at will at the coming great sight.

And a wonderful sight it was, when the pure luminous corona first displayed itself at the moment of totality. It has been one of the great sights of my life. I made rude sketches in the dim light, and afterwards found that the closest representation of the eclipse was to be obtained by blackening paper over a candle and scratching out the lights, on the principle of mezzotints. I published a description of the eclipse in Vacation Tourists, with a sketch that has been reproduced more than once, but the curl given to one of the rays of the corona was not credited by most of my fellow-observers. Thus Sir George Airy, when lecturing on the eclipse at the Royal Institution and exhibiting my sketch on the screen, expressed in the most courteous way some reservation as to its acceptance as a true rendering. Photographs of subsequent eclipses have, however, shown that curved rays are a reality.

From Spain I went by diligence to Bordeaux, meeting my wife at the station on her arrival from Paris, and we started for a tour in the Pyrenees and for a stay of some weeks at Luchon. Here I became for the first time bitten with the mania for mountain climbing. As during a few years previously the primary purpose of fences had seemed to be to afford objects for leaping over, so now that of mountains seemed to be for clambering. Mr. Charles Packe, who was an authority on the mountains and botany of the locality, often accompanied me, and the outings were enjoyed excessively. Among other things, I was immensely taken by the sleeping-bag that each French soldier carries who watches the mountain passes through which Spanish smugglers try to steal. It is worn on the back like a heavy knapsack. These bags are made of sheep-skin with the wool inside. On cold days the soldiers sit inside them, pulling the bag up to their waists. They are thus able to keep their posts in trying weather, which smugglers would otherwise have been ready to utilise for their own purposes. I tried the efficiency of one on an interesting night. A heavy storm was gathering, but before the evening closed and before the storm broke, I had time to find a good place on a hill some 1000 feet or more above Luchon, and there to await it inside my bag. Nothing could have been more theatrically grand. The thunder-clouds and the vivid lightning were just above me, accompanied by deluges of rain. Then they descended to my level, and the lightning crackled and crashed about, then all the turmoil sank below, leaving a starlit sky above.

Sleeping-bags were customary in the Pyrenees. Mr. George Bentham told me that when he botanised in the little Republic of Andorre some years previously, there was not a bed in the place, and he was lent a sleeping-bag. They were familiar to Arctic travellers, but had not been thought of by Alpine climbers, so I published my experiences. In consequence, at an amusing dinner of the Alpine Club, of which I was a member for a few years, I was toasted by Mr. Wm. Longman as the greatest “bagman” in Europe. It is very difficult to arrange any sleeping gear that shall satisfy those who rough it rarely. Luxury is out of place. I read in some well-known book that one of the Camerons of Lochiel, when bivouacking with his son in the snow, noticed that the lad had rolled up a snowball to make a pillow. He thereupon rose and kicked it away, saying sternly, “No effeminacy, boy.”

Bears were not infrequent. We reached, I think it was Cauteret, after passing a small plantation near the town. During the table d’hôte there was a rush to the windows to see the dead body of a big bear cub which had just been killed at that very plantation. Its mother, who was with it, escaped. I often saw their human-like tracks. They occasionally kill oxen. Once, when near a cattle station, while watching the cattle returning home in file, each in its turn executed a fantastic sort of war-dance as it passed a particular spot, such as I had frequently, but by no means invariably, witnessed in Africa, when a line of my cattle passed over the place where I had shot an ox for food. In this instance the performance was due to a cow having quite recently been killed by a bear. The effect of the smell of blood on oxen and horses is apparently capricious, being sometimes very marked indeed, at other times nil. Horses are frequently terrified by the smell of large wild beasts, but I have helped to skin a lion in full sight of my horse, and rolling the skin up, tied it in a bundle to the back of my saddle, without the horse showing the slightest objection.

My late but passionate love for mountaineering was one cause that subsequently brought me into frequent contact with Professor Tyndall (1820-1893), who was then at his very best physically and mentally. He, I, and Vaughan Hawkins (1833-1908), an eminent classic in his Harrow and Cambridge days and of first rank in mountaineering, made a tour together in Cornwall. We chose our way on Tyndall’s principle, that it is easy to find difficult places to climb elsewhere than in the high mountains. Certainly he was skilful at discovering them. One of his freaks sent my heart into my mouth. It was at a gully, strewn deeply with loose stones that led over a sea cliff. Down he dashed, the stones were all set in motion like an avalanche, but somehow he extricated himself in time and got clear to one side of them. At another place an isolated needle or cone of rock was separated from the shore by a narrow strait through which the sea swirled, but which could be leapt at low water. We leapt it, and clambered up, he declaring that it was as difficult a bit of rock-work as he had ever been on. We reached the top and got back successfully, jump and all, to the mainland, where I was glad to feel in safety. The Irish dash in Tyndall’s blood gave a charm to all he did. He was then fast rising, but had not yet reached the fulness of his subsequent height in popular reputation, which is perhaps the time in the mental development of a man at which his character shows at its brightest.

My wife and I found a frequent travelling-companion in Miss Brandram, afterwards the wife and subsequently the widow of A. MacLennan, the writer on various phases of prehistoric societies, Marriage by Capture, Totems, etc. She was a great friend to both of us; a companion and kind nurse to my wife when she was ill, an excellent walking companion to myself, and always ready to be of service. She helped me much in revising some of my earlier writings, especially the last edition of my Art of Travel.

During her widowhood Mrs. MacLennan travelled with us again, but at last a disaster occurred at a time when we were living at Cimiez, above Nice. There is a high-level railway from Nice to Grasse that passes the little station of the Saut de Loup, a waterfall about an hour’s walk (I think) from the station, which we wanted much to see. The foot-path runs along a hillside and is perfectly good, but too narrow for two persons to walk abreast. In more than one place a streamlet cascades over it. Near its destination the path is crossed by a more considerable streamlet running among stones, that make stepping-stones near enough to the surface to prevent the feet being much wetted while crossing it, and which any one accustomed to mountain walking would trip over without remark. The pathway was broader at this point, and the stream after crossing it fell into a precipice, at the bottom of which ran the river Loup. Mrs. MacLennan was walking first, and, owing to some strange accident, missed a stone or tripped, and fell heavily on her side, where she lay motionless in the water as though shot dead. I helped her to rise, but she was in great pain. It was difficult to set her on her feet, for the position was not one to stagger safely in, the precipice being much too near.

With great pluck, she went a few steps onward to see the fall, and then the long return walk had to be achieved. She was confined for a long time to bed, and far from fit to travel when she left us. The injury was followed by an internal complaint, of which, after much suffering at her own home, she died.

Few have been more thorough in their friendship to my wife and myself than Sir Rutherford and Lady Alcock and her daughter by a previous marriage, Miss Lowder, now Lady Pelly. I was well acquainted with much of Sir Rutherford’s work in China and Japan before I had the pleasure of knowing him personally, because the Foreign Office used to forward those of his dispatches that were of geographical interest to the Royal Geographical Society, where, for want of a better person, they were generally referred to myself. Sir Rutherford’s life was eventful; first as an army surgeon in Spain under Sir De Lacy Evans, then Consul in China, then our first Minister in Japan, then Ambassador to China. Lady Alcock seconded him in charge of the well-being of his large staff, with a kindliness that was proverbial. On their return to England they became social favourites from the highest in rank to the lowest, being singularly acceptable through their own attractive qualities, and widely known through reports of their largely unostentatious charitable acts. Sir Rutherford was President of the Royal Geographical Society for the usual term, and we saw much of him and his family at various times, eating our Christmas dinner with them on three or four occasions.

Of many pleasant meetings I will only mention one, when we, in company with Sir Lewis and Lady Pelly, made an interesting tour in the South of France from Royat, by that curious natural formation Montpelier le Vieux, round to Avignon. The valley of the Tarn had recently been made accessible to tourists, and I was particularly desirous of seeing its wonders, so our party stopped at Millau to give me an opportunity of going to the Tarn River for a long day by myself. First some distance had to be travelled by railroad, then some miles by a two-wheeled vehicle across the bare Causses, a high limestone upland, down to the beautifully clear Tarn. Every shower that falls on the Causses percolates through deep “swallows,” and finds its way for perhaps 2000 feet vertically through them, issuing from the cliffs as feeders of pure water to the little river.

I was put into a flat-bottomed boat with stalwart boatmen fore and aft, and so dropped down stream. The water was at first so shallow and transparent as to be scarcely visible. The boat seemed to be buoyed in the air above the clean, shingly bottom. So we glided down hour after hour, with vast cliffs on either side clothed sparsely with pre-Rafaelite-looking trees, and with an occasional eagle soaring in the blue sky overhead. Then the river by slow degrees grew broader, deeper, and swifter, and swirled formidably in places, requiring much caution in the boatmen; the evening closed in while we had still some way to go. It was not altogether pleasant, as the punt was not particularly “stiff,” the navigation was difficult, and it was becoming very dark. At length the welcome bridge which betokened our destination loomed high in front. The party from Millau had been there awaiting me till dark, and then left. I was fortunate in securing a trap, wherein to drive the few miles that then separated me from them.

We all went together the next day to Montpelier le Vieux, so called because its rocks look from a distance like the turrets of a weird city on a hilltop. Each rock stands by itself on a carpet of green verdure. Crowds of legends have, of course, clustered round this strange locality. Anyhow, it is an ideal place for a picnic in which to spend the long hours of a sunny day. The whole of the south-west corner of France is full of interest, and the part just mentioned seems quite unique.

I wish I could more adequately and yet appropriately have expressed my affectionate feelings towards the many friends to whom I have made too scanty reference in this chapter.

During the year that followed the death of my wife in 1897, I made a tour with one of her nephews, a Frank Butler, son of Spencer P. Butler. He became engaged to an English lady, a niece of Mrs. MacLennan, while we were touring in Corsica with her party, and married shortly after. Henceforward a niece, Miss Evelyne Biggs, or more strictly speaking a grandniece of my own, granddaughter of my sister Lucy, has lived with me as companion, and I have followed a somewhat similar routine of life, except in being no longer advised by the doctor to try cures, the best means of securing health now being to escape a winter in London.

Yearly Medallions.—My fancy had been taken long ago by a custom of certain North American Indians, of naming years, each after some characteristic event that had occurred in it. It appears that an annual consultation of Indian chiefs was held, at which the more striking occurrences of the past year were reviewed and one selected as its representative. Thereupon an Indian who was reputed for skill in drawing made a picture or symbol of the event on his buffalo-skin robe. They are as rude in conception and execution as an English child of five years old might draw. Thus the “small-pox year” is symbolically expressed by an elementary design of the head, body, and four limbs of a man dotted over with spots. A robe exists (see page 88-89 of the memoir) in which a sequence of seventy-one years is thus recorded in symbols spirally arranged upon it; it was made by a certain Dacota Indian, called Lone Dog.

I adopted this method to illustrate the events of my own life during part of the time while my wife was still living, but they are too rude for publication. I therefore give recent specimens of these medallions drawn by my niece, which refer to two of the years after she had become my companion.

The picture of 1900 is a view on the Nile, and that of 1903 contains the insignia of the late Pope, in memory of a function in Rome at which we were present; also a picture of the breeding-place of sea birds at the Farn Islands, Northumberland, which we visited. The legends round these medallions hardly require explanation, except that An. Photo, stands for Animal Photography. They are—1900, An. Photo., Venice, Greece, Boer War, Egypt. 1903, Rome, Ischia, Farn Isles, Peppard.

A main reason for giving so full a description of such trifling matters is that the Dacota method may be serviceable in more than one way. It suggests an excellent plan for competition in Art schools, where the choice of two or three characteristics of some particular year might be submitted to the students, and prizes given to those who designed the most appropriate medallions.