Following the Equator, Complete

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> Following the Equator, Complete


At the end of five-and-twenty years of hard fighting, the surviving 300
naked patriots were still defiant, still persistent, still efficacious
with their rude weapons, and the Governor and the 40,000 knew not which
way to turn, nor what to do.

Then the Bricklayer--that wonderful man--proposed to go out into the
wilderness, with no weapon but his tongue, and no protection but his
honest eye and his humane heart; and track those embittered savages to
their lairs in the gloomy forests and among the mountain snows.
Naturally, he was considered a crank. But he was not quite that. In
fact, he was a good way short of that. He was building upon his long and
intimate knowledge of the native character. The deriders of his project
were right--from their standpoint--for they believed the natives to be
mere wild beasts; and Robinson was right, from his standpoint--for he
believed the natives to be human beings. The truth did really lie
between the two. The event proved that Robinson's judgment was soundest;
but about once a month for four years the event came near to giving the
verdict to the deriders, for about that frequently Robinson barely
escaped falling under the native spears.

But history shows that he had a thinking head, and was not a mere wild
sentimentalist. For instance, he wanted the war parties (called) in
before he started unarmed upon his mission of peace. He wanted the best
chance of success--not a half-chance. And he was very willing to have
help; and so, high rewards were advertised, for any who would go unarmed
with him. This opportunity was declined. Robinson persuaded some tamed
natives of both sexes to go with him--a strong evidence of his persuasive
powers, for those natives well knew that their destruction would be
almost certain. As it turned out, they had to face death over and over
again.

Robinson and his little party had a difficult undertaking upon their
hands. They could not ride off, horseback, comfortably into the woods
and call Leonidas and his 300 together for a talk and a treaty the
following day; for the wild men were not in a body; they were scattered,
immense distances apart, over regions so desolate that even the birds
could not make a living with the chances offered--scattered in groups of
twenty, a dozen, half a dozen, even in groups of three. And the mission
must go on foot. Mr. Bonwick furnishes a description of those horrible
regions, whereby it will be seen that even fugitive gangs of the hardiest
and choicest human devils the world has seen--the convicts set apart to
people the "Hell of Macquarrie Harbor Station"--were never able, but
once, to survive the horrors of a march through them, but starving and
struggling, and fainting and failing, ate each other, and died:

"Onward, still onward, was the order of the indomitable Robinson. No one
ignorant of the western country of Tasmania can form a correct idea of
the traveling difficulties. While I was resident in Hobart Town, the
Governor, Sir John Franklin, and his lady, undertook the western journey
to Macquarrie Harbor, and suffered terribly. One man who assisted to
carry her ladyship through the swamps, gave me his bitter experience of
its miseries. Several were disabled for life. No wonder that but one
party, escaping from Macquarrie Harbor convict settlement, arrived at the
civilized region in safety. Men perished in the scrub, were lost in
snow, or were devoured by their companions. This was the territory
traversed by Mr. Robinson and his Black guides. All honor to his
intrepidity, and their wonderful fidelity! When they had, in the depth
of winter, to cross deep and rapid rivers, pass among mountains six
thousand feet high, pierce dangerous thickets, and find food in a country
forsaken even by birds, we can realize their hardships.

"After a frightful journey by Cradle Mountain, and over the lofty plateau
of Middlesex Plains, the travelers experienced unwonted misery, and the
circumstances called forth the best qualities of the noble little band.
Mr. Robinson wrote afterwards to Mr. Secretary Burnett some details of
this passage of horrors. In that letter, of Oct 2, 1834, he states that
his Natives were very reluctant to go over the dreadful mountain passes;
that 'for seven successive days we continued traveling over one solid
body of snow;' that 'the snows were of incredible depth;' that 'the
Natives were frequently up to their middle in snow.' But still the
ill-clad, ill-fed, diseased, and way-worn men and women were sustained by
the cheerful voice of their unconquerable friend, and responded most
nobly to his call."

Mr. Bonwick says that Robinson's friendly capture of the Big River tribe
remember, it was a whole tribe--"was by far the grandest feature of the
war, and the crowning glory of his efforts." The word "war" was not well
chosen, and is misleading. There was war still, but only the Blacks were
conducting it--the Whites were holding off until Robinson could give his
scheme a fair trial. I think that we are to understand that the friendly
capture of that tribe was by far the most important thing, the highest in
value, that happened during the whole thirty years of truceless
hostilities; that it was a decisive thing, a peaceful Waterloo, the
surrender of the native Napoleon and his dreaded forces, the happy ending
of the long strife. For "that tribe was the terror of the colony," its
chief "the Black Douglas of Bush households."

Robinson knew that these formidable people were lurking somewhere, in
some remote corner of the hideous regions just described, and he and his
unarmed little party started on a tedious and perilous hunt for them. At
last, "there, under the shadows of the Frenchman's Cap, whose grim cone
rose five thousand feet in the uninhabited westward interior," they were
found. It was a serious moment. Robinson himself believed, for once,
that his mission, successful until now, was to end here in failure, and
that his own death-hour had struck.

The redoubtable chief stood in menacing attitude, with his eighteen-foot
spear poised; his warriors stood massed at his back, armed for battle,
their faces eloquent with their long-cherished loathing for white men.
"They rattled their spears and shouted their war-cry." Their women were
back of them, laden with supplies of weapons, and keeping their 150 eager
dogs quiet until the chief should give the signal to fall on.

"I think we shall soon be in the resurrection," whispered a member of
Robinson's little party.

"I think we shall," answered Robinson; then plucked up heart and began
his persuasions--in the tribe's own dialect, which surprised and pleased
the chief. Presently there was an interruption by the chief:

"Who are you?"

"We are gentlemen."

"Where are your guns?"

"We have none."

The warrior was astonished.

"Where your little guns?" (pistols).

"We have none."

A few minutes passed--in by-play--suspense--discussion among the
tribesmen--Robinson's tamed squaws ventured to cross the line and begin
persuasions upon the wild squaws. Then the chief stepped back "to confer
with the old women--the real arbiters of savage war." Mr. Bonwick
continues:

"As the fallen gladiator in the arena looks for the signal of life
or death from the president of the amphitheatre, so waited our
friends in anxious suspense while the conference continued. In a
few minutes, before a word was uttered, the women of the tribe threw
up their arms three times. This was the inviolable sign of peace!
Down fell the spears. Forward, with a heavy sigh of relief, and
upward glance of gratitude, came the friends of peace. The
impulsive natives rushed forth with tears and cries, as each saw in
the other's rank a loved one of the past.

"It was a jubilee of joy. A festival followed. And, while tears
flowed at the recital of woe, a corrobory of pleasant laughter
closed the eventful day."

In four years, without the spilling of a drop of blood, Robinson brought
them all in, willing captives, and delivered them to the white governor,
and ended the war which powder and bullets, and thousands of men to use
them, had prosecuted without result since 1804.

Marsyas charming the wild beasts with his music--that is fable; but the
miracle wrought by Robinson is fact. It is history--and authentic; and
surely, there is nothing greater, nothing more reverence-compelling in
the history of any country, ancient or modern.

And in memory of the greatest man Australasia ever developed or ever will
develop, there is a stately monument to George Augustus Robinson, the
Conciliator in--no, it is to another man, I forget his name.

However, Robertson's own generation honored him, and in manifesting it
honored themselves. The Government gave him a money-reward and a
thousand acres of land; and the people held mass-meetings and praised him
and emphasized their praise with a large subscription of money.

A good dramatic situation; but the curtain fell on another:

"When this desperate tribe was thus captured, there was much
surprise to find that the L30,000 of a little earlier day had been
spent, and the whole population of the colony placed under arms, in
contention with an opposing force of sixteen men with wooden spears!
Yet such was the fact. The celebrated Big River tribe, that had
been raised by European fears to a host, consisted of sixteen men,
nine women, and one child. With a knowledge of the mischief done by
these few, their wonderful marches and their widespread aggressions,
their enemies cannot deny to them the attributes of courage and
military tact. A Wallace might harass a large army with a small and
determined band; but the contending parties were at least equal in
arms and civilization. The Zulus who fought us in Africa, the
Maories in New Zealand, the Arabs in the Soudan, were far better
provided with weapons, more advanced in the science of war, and
considerably more numerous, than the naked Tasmanians. Governor
Arthur rightly termed them a noble race."

These were indeed wonderful people, the natives. They ought not to have
been wasted. They should have been crossed with the Whites. It would
have improved the Whites and done the Natives no harm.

But the Natives were wasted, poor heroic wild creatures. They were
gathered together in little settlements on neighboring islands, and
paternally cared for by the Government, and instructed in religion, and
deprived of tobacco, because the superintendent of the Sunday-school was
not a smoker, and so considered smoking immoral.

The Natives were not used to clothes, and houses, and regular hours, and
church, and school, and Sunday-school, and work, and the other misplaced
persecutions of civilization, and they pined for their lost home and
their wild free life. Too late they repented that they had traded that
heaven for this hell. They sat homesick on their alien crags, and day by
day gazed out through their tears over the sea with unappeasable longing
toward the hazy bulk which was the specter of what had been their
paradise; one by one their hearts broke and they died.

In a very few years nothing but a scant remnant remained alive. A
handful lingered along into age. In 1864 the last man died, in 1876 the
last woman died, and the Spartans of Australasia were extinct.

The Whites always mean well when they take human fish out of the ocean
and try to make them dry and warm and happy and comfortable in a chicken
coop; but the kindest-hearted white man can always be depended on to
prove himself inadequate when he deals with savages. He cannot turn the
situation around and imagine how he would like it to have a well-meaning
savage transfer him from his house and his church and his clothes and his
books and his choice food to a hideous wilderness of sand and rocks and
snow, and ice and sleet and storm and blistering sun, with no shelter, no
bed, no covering for his and his family's naked bodies, and nothing to
eat but snakes and grubs and 'offal. This would be a hell to him; and if
he had any wisdom he would know that his own civilization is a hell to
the savage--but he hasn't any, and has never had any; and for lack of it
he shut up those poor natives in the unimaginable perdition of his
civilization, committing his crime with the very best intentions, and saw
those poor creatures waste away under his tortures; and gazed at it,
vaguely troubled and sorrowful, and wondered what could be the matter
with them. One is almost betrayed into respecting those criminals, they
were so sincerely kind, and tender, and humane; and well-meaning.

They didn't know why those exiled savages faded away, and they did their
honest best to reason it out. And one man, in a like case in New South
Wales, did reason it out and arrive at a solution:

"It is from the wrath of God, which is revealed from heaven against
cold ungodliness and unrighteousness of men."

That settles it.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not
succeed.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

The aphorism does really seem true: "Given the Circumstances, the Man
will appear." But the man musn't appear ahead of time, or it will spoil
everything. In Robinson's case the Moment had been approaching for a
quarter of a century--and meantime the future Conciliator was tranquilly
laying bricks in Hobart. When all other means had failed, the Moment had
arrived, and the Bricklayer put down his trowel and came forward.
Earlier he would have been jeered back to his trowel again. It reminds
me of a tale that was told me by a Kentuckian on the train when we were
crossing Montana. He said the tale was current in Louisville years ago.
He thought it had been in print, but could not remember. At any rate, in
substance it was this, as nearly as I can call it back to mind.

A few years before the outbreak of the Civil War it began to appear that
Memphis, Tennessee, was going to be a great tobacco entrepot--the wise
could see the signs of it. At that time Memphis had a wharf boat, of
course. There was a paved sloping wharf, for the accommodation of
freight, but the steamers landed on the outside of the wharfboat, and all
loading and unloading was done across it, between steamer and shore. A
number of wharfboat clerks were needed, and part of the time, every day,
they were very busy, and part of the time tediously idle. They were
boiling over with youth and spirits, and they had to make the intervals
of idleness endurable in some way; and as a rule, they did it by
contriving practical jokes and playing them upon each other.

The favorite butt for the jokes was Ed Jackson, because he played none
himself, and was easy game for other people's--for he always believed
whatever was told him.

One day he told the others his scheme for his holiday. He was not going
fishing or hunting this time--no, he had thought out a better plan. Out
of his $40 a month he had saved enough for his purpose, in an economical
way, and he was going to have a look at New York.

It was a great and surprising idea. It meant travel immense travel--in
those days it meant seeing the world; it was the equivalent of a voyage
around it in ours. At first the other youths thought his mind was
affected, but when they found that he was in earnest, the next thing to
be thought of was, what sort of opportunity this venture might afford for
a practical joke.

The young men studied over the matter, then held a secret consultation
and made a plan. The idea was, that one of the conspirators should offer
Ed a letter of introduction to Commodore Vanderbilt, and trick him into
delivering it. It would be easy to do this. But what would Ed do when
he got back to Memphis? That was a serious matter. He was good-hearted,
and had always taken the jokes patiently; but they had been jokes which
did not humiliate him, did not bring him to shame; whereas, this would be
a cruel one in that way, and to play it was to meddle with fire; for with
all his good nature, Ed was a Southerner--and the English of that was,
that when he came back he would kill as many of the conspirators as he
could before falling himself. However, the chances must be taken--it
wouldn't do to waste such a joke as that.

So the letter was prepared with great care and elaboration. It was
signed Alfred Fairchild, and was written in an easy and friendly spirit.
It stated that the bearer was the bosom friend of the writer's son, and
was of good parts and sterling character, and it begged the Commodore to
be kind to the young stranger for the writer's sake. It went on to say,
"You may have forgotten me, in this long stretch of time, but you will
easily call me back out of your boyhood memories when I remind you of how
we robbed old Stevenson's orchard that night; and how, while he was
chasing down the road after us, we cut across the field and doubled back
and sold his own apples to his own cook for a hat-full of doughnuts; and
the time that we----" and so forth and so on, bringing in names of
imaginary comrades, and detailing all sorts of wild and absurd and, of
course, wholly imaginary schoolboy pranks and adventures, but putting
them into lively and telling shape.

With all gravity Ed was asked if he would like to have a letter to
Commodore Vanderbilt, the great millionaire. It was expected that the
question would astonish Ed, and it did.

"What? Do you know that extraordinary man?"

"No; but my father does. They were schoolboys together. And if you
like, I'll write and ask father. I know he'll be glad to give it to you
for my sake."

Ed could not find words capable of expressing his gratitude and delight.
The three days passed, and the letter was put into his bands. He started
on his trip, still pouring out his thanks while he shook good-bye all
around. And when he was out of sight his comrades let fly their laughter
in a storm of happy satisfaction--and then quieted down, and were less
happy, less satisfied. For the old doubts as to the wisdom of this
deception began to intrude again.

Arrived in New York, Ed found his way to Commodore Vanderbilt's business
quarters, and was ushered into a large anteroom, where a score of people
were patiently awaiting their turn for a two-minute interview with the
millionaire in his private office. A servant asked for Ed's card, and
got the letter instead. Ed was sent for a moment later, and found Mr.
Vanderbilt alone, with the letter--open--in his hand.

"Pray sit down, Mr. --er--"

"Jackson."

"Ah--sit down, Mr. Jackson. By the opening sentences it seems to be a
letter from an old friend. Allow me--I will run my eye through it. He
says he says--why, who is it?" He turned the sheet and found the
signature. "Alfred Fairchild--hm--Fairchild--I don't recall the name.
But that is nothing--a thousand names have gone from me. He says--he
says-hm-hmoh, dear, but it's good! Oh, it's rare! I don't quite
remember it, but I seem to it'll all come back to me presently. He says
--he says--hm--hm-oh, but that was a game! Oh, spl-endid! How it
carries me back! It's all dim, of course it's a long time ago--and the
names--some of the names are wavery and indistinct--but sho', I know it
happened--I can feel it! and lord, how it warms my heart, and brings
back my lost youth! Well, well, well, I've got to come back into this
work-a-day world now--business presses and people are waiting--I'll keep
the rest for bed to-night, and live my youth over again. And you'll
thank Fairchild for me when you see him--I used to call him Alf, I think
--and you'll give him my gratitude for--what this letter has done for the
tired spirit of a hard-worked man; and tell him there isn't anything that
I can do for him or any friend of his that I won't do. And as for you,
my lad, you are my guest; you can't stop at any hotel in New York. Sit.
where you are a little while, till I get through with these people, then
we'll go home. I'll take care of you, my boy--make yourself easy as to
that."

Ed stayed a week, and had an immense time--and never suspected that the
Commodore's shrewd eye was on him, and that he was daily being weighed
and measured and analyzed and tried and tested.

Yes, he had an immense time; and never wrote home, but saved it all up to
tell when he should get back. Twice, with proper modesty and decency, he
proposed to end his visit, but the Commodore said, "No--wait; leave it to
me; I'll tell you when to go."

In those days the Commodore was making some of those vast combinations of
his--consolidations of warring odds and ends of railroads into harmonious
systems, and concentrations of floating and rudderless commerce in
effective centers--and among other things his farseeing eye had detected
the convergence of that huge tobacco-commerce, already spoken of, toward
Memphis, and he had resolved to set his grasp upon it and make it his
own.

The week came to an end. Then the Commodore said:

"Now you can start home. But first we will have some more talk about
that tobacco matter. I know you now. I know your abilities as well as
you know them yourself--perhaps better. You understand that tobacco
matter; you understand that I am going to take possession of it, and you
also understand the plans which I have matured for doing it. What I want
is a man who knows my mind, and is qualified to represent me in Memphis,
and be in supreme command of that important business--and I appoint you."

"Me!"

"Yes. Your salary will be high--of course-for you are representing me.
Later you will earn increases of it, and will get them. You will need a
small army of assistants; choose them yourself--and carefully. Take no
man for friendship's sake; but, all things being equal, take the man you
know, take your friend, in preference to the stranger." After some
further talk under this head, the Commodore said:

"Good-bye, my boy, and thank Alf for me, for sending you to me."

When Ed reached Memphis he rushed down to the wharf in a fever to tell
his great news and thank the boys over and over again for thinking to
give him the letter to Mr. Vanderbilt. It happened to be one of those
idle times. Blazing hot noonday, and no sign of life on the wharf. But
as Ed threaded his way among the freight piles, he saw a white linen
figure stretched in slumber upon a pile of grain-sacks under an awning,
and said to himself, "That's one of them," and hastened his step; next,
he said, "It's Charley--it's Fairchild good"; and the next moment laid an
affectionate hand on the sleeper's shoulder. The eyes opened lazily,
took one glance, the face blanched, the form whirled itself from the
sack-pile, and in an instant Ed was alone and Fairchild was flying for
the wharf-boat like the wind!

Ed was dazed, stupefied. Was Fairchild crazy? What could be the meaning
of this? He started slow and dreamily down toward the wharf-boat; turned
the corner of a freight-pile and came suddenly upon two of the boys.
They were lightly laughing over some pleasant matter; they heard his
step, and glanced up just as he discovered them; the laugh died abruptly;
and before Ed could speak they were off, and sailing over barrels and
bales like hunted deer. Again Ed was paralyzed. Had the boys all gone
mad? What could be the explanation of this extraordinary conduct? And
so, dreaming along, he reached the wharf-boat, and stepped aboard nothing
but silence there, and vacancy. He crossed the deck, turned the corner
to go down the outer guard, heard a fervent--

"O lord!" and saw a white linen form plunge overboard.

The youth came up coughing and strangling, and cried out--

"Go 'way from here! You let me alone. I didn't do it, I swear I
didn't!"

"Didn't do what?"

"Give you the----"

"Never mind what you didn't do--come out of that! What makes you all act
so? What have I done?"

"You? Why you haven't done anything. But----"

"Well, then, what have you got against me? What do you all treat me so
for?"

"I--er--but haven't you got anything against us?"

"Of course not. What put such a thing into your head?"

"Honor bright--you haven't?

"Honor bright."

"Swear it!"

"I don't know what in the world you mean, but I swear it, anyway."

"And you'll shake hands with me?"

"Goodness knows I'll be glad to! Why, I'm just starving to shake hands
with somebody!"

The swimmer muttered, "Hang him, he smelt a rat and never delivered the
letter!--but it's all right, I'm not going to fetch up the subject." And
he crawled out and came dripping and draining to shake hands. First one
and then another of the conspirators showed up cautiously--armed to the
teeth--took in the amicable situation, then ventured warily forward and
joined the love-feast.

And to Ed's eager inquiry as to what made them act as they had been
acting, they answered evasively, and pretended that they had put it up as
a joke, to see what he would do. It was the best explanation they could
invent at such short notice. And each said to himself, "He never
delivered that letter, and the joke is on us, if he only knew it or we
were dull enough to come out and tell."