An Old Sailor's Yarns Part 5

The duties of his station were but trifling; for, although St. Blas was a royal naval depot, the commanders of his majesty's s.h.i.+ps almost invariably preferred Callao, on account of its vicinity to the viceregal court at Lima. Any other person would have pined to death in such a remote and solitary corner of the earth, without society and without employment; but Don Gaspar was one of those peculiarly const.i.tuted individuals, who, having neither the faculty to communicate or receive new ideas, are as happy and contented in one place as another. He had come down to the water side at full gallop, and at the imminent risk of his neck, in consequence of a report, that a large, armed English s.h.i.+p, that was known to be on the coast trading, was approaching the Bay of St. Blas.

The nautical commander, Don Diego Pinto, was a man of upwards of sixty years of age, who had grown grey in the navy of Spain, without seeing any service of consequence. He had followed one of the viceroys, to whom he was recommended, to Peru, and the viceroy thought he had sufficiently done his duty to his _protege_ by appointing him to the command of a guarda-costa of eighteen guns, stationed at St. Blas, and including in her cruising ground St. Josef, Mazattan, and the entrance to the Gulf of California. His prey was good, and his duty was light; but all his hopes of promotion were cut off by being stationed at what was generally considered the "ultima Thule," the very extremity of the navigable world.

The Yankees, to be sure, scorned any such fanciful restrictions, and had long since penetrated to Nootka Sound and Behring's Straits, "the hunters of the mighty whale;" but then the Yankees were a very singular and peculiar race, and n.o.body in their senses cared to imitate them in their wild, and sometimes lawless, rambles over the face of the ocean--lawless, I wish to be understood, no farther than in sometimes forgetting to inquire, in a strange port, whether there was any custom-house there or not, and in most ports conceiving it to be the duty of the collectors of the customs to come on board and secure the duties, and if said collectors did not bear a hand and attend to their business, why then Jonathan, who is always in a hurry, was apt to land his cargo without the knowledge and without the leave of the custom-house officers.

Don Diego's hatred to heretics and foreigners, unlike that of the ill.u.s.trious governor, was cordial and sincere, and by no means a general or abstract principle--he hated every individual as heartily as he did the whole species. He would never accept or even reply to an invitation from an English or American commander; and in the case of the American schooner already mentioned, he had treated the crew with such savage barbarity, that, but for the interference of Don Gaspar, they would have perished from starvation and ill treatment. He was by no means a favorite guest at the governor's house; the ladies of the family detested him, not so much for his cruelty, for they heard but little of that, but for his morose and churlish disposition, and, perhaps more than either, on account of the general belief that his wife, a lovely woman, and much younger than himself, had fallen a victim to his unkindness and cruelty.

Women, the dear creatures, have an infinitely larger share of _esprit du corps_, if I may so call it, or rather a community of feeling, than men.

Nothing will ruin a man's character and good name among the females of his acquaintance so soon or so effectually as the reputation of ill treatment or unkindness to his wife, while the men would think but little or nothing of it. Women think, and feel, and act most correctly and justly, and in a manner that does them infinite honor, upon this subject; indeed, I am fully convinced, that on most questions of social morality, the feelings of women are more pure and right than those of men. But they have a thousand ingenious methods of making known their contempt and detestation of the cowardly scoundrel that would raise his hand against one of their s.e.x, and every method cuts like a two-edged sword. I have known, and do at this moment know, many men who have endured the contempt and hatred of their fellow-_men_ with the most stoical indifference--they went on hated and despised to the grave, but they made money at every step, and they cared for nothing else; but I never, in all my life, and in all my wanderings--and I have not travelled about this watery ball, nor so far through life, with my eyes and ears shut--I never knew a man who did not wince and writhe under the hatred and contempt of the other s.e.x. I am not a profound believer in innate ideas, if they are such ridiculous ones as metaphysicians talk of--namely, that two and two make four, and such sort of nonsense--but I do believe in certain innate principles and feelings, that govern our thoughts and actions as powerfully and irresistibly as instinct impels the brute creation; and that one of those principles is an innate desire to please and secure the good opinion of the opposite s.e.x, born with every man and woman, or at least developed, more or less strongly, in very early childhood, and that too without any instruction or hint from others.

While the party stood on the quay, puffing their segars with all the gravity and silence that was becoming their rank and birth as officers of his Catholic Majesty and natives of old Spain, a subaltern officer approached, and, with abundance of parade and obsequiousness, informed the governor that there was a s.h.i.+p in the offing, becalmed at that time, but apparently bound in. The officer proceeded to inform him farther, that there were two American s.h.i.+ps at St. Josef, one at Monteny, and that a fourth had been seen the day before at sea, standing to the southward. His excellency, though not particularly indignant at the idea of his princ.i.p.ality being visited by a foreign vessel, thought proper to appear "brimful of wrath" at the intelligence.

"Ah! those accursed and heretical wretches! they swarm upon this coast as thick as sand-flies."

"And should be destroyed by the same means, by fire," growled his naval a.s.sociate; "they should be burnt at their anchors wherever they are found; for if they have not already been guilty of any violation of the laws, they very soon will."

"Signor Pinto," said the more humane and considerate governor, "you are to recollect that our gracious sovereign is on terms of peace and amity with this new people, who have lately come into existence, and who seem to be driven by the devils to wander abroad, instead of pa.s.sing their lives peaceably at home. We cannot therefore treat them as enemies; and even when taken in violation of the laws, they must be heard in their own defence."

This grave rebuke rather mortified him of the marine department, and he was for a few minutes sulky, which the governor perceiving, and not wis.h.i.+ng to offend him, again addressed him.

"But come, signor, cheer up. I know the sight of that schooner always makes you feel unpleasantly; you cannot forget how she misled you one dark night, and well nigh decoyed your s.h.i.+p ash.o.r.e, by setting adrift a light in a tub."

This was but cold comfort to the redoubtable sea-officer, who was by no means fond of hearing the anecdote of the lantern in a tub repeated or alluded to; and he was about making an angry answer, when the sight of the schooner brought to his recollection that he had finally captured her, and had enjoyed the fiendish pleasure of abusing and maltreating her crew, and that, to crown his triumph, he had seen them set out for the mines. Poor man! he did not know, what indeed was a kind of state secret, that the viceroy, not wis.h.i.+ng to embroil his sovereign in an unpleasant quarrel, or, as he was about returning to old Spain, wis.h.i.+ng to leave behind him a character for clemency and humanity, had ordered them to be set at liberty, and they had actually embarked at Acapulco on board an English South Sea whaler. This had taken place a full year previous; and while the vindictive Spaniard was chuckling over their fancied sufferings "many a fathom deep" in the damp and unhealthy galleries of a silver mine, the objects of his hatred were jogging along comfortably towards London, with a full s.h.i.+p and light hearts.

In reply to the governor's "quip modest," he merely growled out something about zeal in discharging his duty, and anxiety to prevent smuggling, to which the governor replied,

"There is no danger of these foreigners smuggling, while they are so strictly watched by his majesty's s.h.i.+ps and faithful soldiers. I wish, signor, you would go out with your s.h.i.+p, and bring this stranger in; I do not like to see him hovering about in this suspicious manner."

"It is impossible to go out, now that the sea-breeze is just setting in," said the naval officer, who had no more idea of working out with a head wind, than he had of flying, though the bay is open enough for the channel fleet to beat out in order of battle.

While this question was in agitation, an officer crossed in a skiff from the battery, and informed Don Gaspar that the sea-breeze had set in the offing, and that the stranger had hauled by the wind, and was standing off sh.o.r.e; further, that she was an American whaleman, that had probably pursued her huge prey close in sh.o.r.e. Don Gaspar was somewhat disappointed at this intelligence.

"I almost wish she had come in," said he, in a low tone, "for, heretics as they are, and d.a.m.ned to all eternity as they certainly will be, (for which blessed be the saints,) it cannot be denied that the puncho, or pontio, which they make, is most refres.h.i.+ng and delicious in this warm weather."

But as the Yankee manifested no symptoms of coming in to anchor, and thereby give him a chance for his gla.s.s of punch, he yielded to the suggestion of Don Gregorio, his aid-de-camp; and having lighted fresh segars, they mounted their horses, and rode back to San Blas.

CHAPTER III.

A lady So fair, and fastened to an empery, Would make the great'st king double.

CYMBELINE.

The family of Don Gaspar de Luna consisted of his wife, whom we have already noticed as a native of Mexico, and two daughters, Antonia and Carlota, who were rather pretty for Creole girls, and, like the generality of Creoles, especially when one half is Spanish, extremely ignorant and vulgar in their language and manners; the last trait being somewhat characteristic of the Spanish-American women, if we may believe travellers, to which I may add my own somewhat limited observation. They are, however, by way of amends, more civilized and sociable in their behaviour to strangers, and much more intelligent, than the men.

The lovely niece of the governor, the orphan daughter of his brother, made up the list of his family. As we have no great concern with the old lady and her two daughters, we have mentioned them first, in order to get them out of our way; but as the fair Isabella will make some figure in our pages, we can do no less than devote a chapter, or part of a chapter, to giving some account and description of her, more particularly as she differs, _toto coelo_, from her cousins, morally, and, in many respects, physically.

Isabella de Luna was the daughter of Signor Anastasio de Luna, the only brother of Don Gaspar. He was an eminent merchant of Cadiz, who, having found it necessary to go to London on business, had afterwards found it equally necessary to remain there for some time, to attend to his mercantile affairs. Here he became acquainted with a Miss Campbell, a Scotch lady of about thirty years of age, very beautiful, but poor. Her father had been taken prisoner at the defeat of the Pretender's army at Culloden, in which army he was an officer, and immediately executed without a trial, by the blood-thirsty and infamous Duke of c.u.mberland.

Her mother died of grief a few months afterwards, leaving her an infant, and the sole surviving member of a proscribed and ruined family. She was taken, from mere compa.s.sion, by a distant relation of her father, and carefully brought up in the Protestant faith, her parents having been Catholics.

When about twenty years old, she accompanied her relation to London, and had resided there some years, when she was introduced to and captivated Signor Anastasio, and after a long courts.h.i.+p, and considerable reluctance on the part of the lady, because the lover was at least nominally a Catholic, she became his wife. They lived long and happily together, for whether Anastasio's religious opinions had undergone any change or not, by a.s.sociating so many years with Protestants, he never interfered with his wife's religious creed or devotions, and permitted her to educate, in the Protestant faith, their only child Isabella.

I would advise all husbands to do likewise, in some measure; that is, if the wife thinks proper to perform her devotions in a Pagan temple, a Mahometan mosque, a Jewish synagogue, or a Christian church, why, let her, and welcome, unless the husband is particularly anxious to get into hot water, and commit suicide upon his domestic happiness; for nothing so effectually disturbs the tranquillity of a family, as open opposition of religious creeds. Women become religious, in the every-day acceptation of the word, from any motive rather than a conviction of the truth or reasonableness of any particular creed. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to define the motive that carries women into the pale of any particular church. I have heard of an old lady, who was very anxious to be permitted to carry her knitting-work to meeting, "because it was such a _steadiment_ to the mind." Perhaps joining the church has the same effect upon women in general. I have seen so much discomfort in families from conflicting religious opinions, that I cannot help hoping that the destinies will so contrive it, that my wife, if they ever mean to send me one at all, shall be a member of the Episcopal church. There is about that church, what attaches to no other sect, a sort of dignified reserve, that never breaks out in four-day meetings, revivals, or any other similar ebullition of fanaticism and absurdity.

When Isabella was in her fourteenth year, her father returned to his native country, taking his family with him, having given up his mercantile business, and retiring from it very wealthy. The priests, as might have been expected, were soon around him, like sharks around a slave-s.h.i.+p, all eager to discover, in his conversation and manners, the contamination of heresy, with which they took it for granted he was infected, from having dwelt so long among those obstinate and perverse heretics, the English; but Anastasio was too well acquainted with human nature, and with the ways of the world, to be thrown off his guard. He gave most munificently to the church; and, in spite of all their attempts to place Isabella in a convent, as a boarder, succeeded in retaining her under the immediate care of her excellent mother.

In making this arrangement, he was much a.s.sisted by a priest, whom he had formerly been acquainted with, and whom he now took into his family, as father confessor. In short, by the judicious management of pretty large sums of money, that he was able to spare, in less than a year after his return to Spain, Anastasio de Luna obtained the character of a good Catholic, who had kept fast the integrity of his faith, during a long residence among heretics. As for Madame de Luna, after having delivered her over in trust to the devil, the clergy gave themselves little or no concern about her; though her liberal charity, and the mildness and sweetness of her disposition, made her friends of all who knew her. Many a saint, of the present day, holds his character for sanct.i.ty by as slight a tenure, as Anastasio did his as an orthodox Catholic; and many a modest, unpretending female, has been, like Madame de Luna, regarded as an infidel, and a vessel of wrath, for not sounding a trumpet before her, in the exercise of una.s.suming virtues.

In about three years after his return to his native country, Anastasio died, bequeathing a large sum to the church, not from any violent partiality to the Catholic faith, but in order to secure peace to his wife and daughter. His widow intended to return to England; but her health was failing rapidly, and in a little more than a year after her husband's death, she followed him to the grave, with her last breath enjoining upon her daughter never to part with the faith in which she had been educated, and never to marry a Catholic, unless she was sure of the purity and goodness of his morals. This might seem illiberal in her; but there is no accounting for the prejudices of people, especially upon religious subjects.

After her mother's death, Isabella had no alternative left, but to take refuge in the family of her uncle, Don Gaspar, who had already shown great fondness for her, and who received her with great cordiality and affection. In this family she was permitted to do much as she pleased; her gentle and amiable disposition soon won the warmest affections of her aunt and cousins, and her time pa.s.sed agreeably, except that she was sometimes teased by the reverend clergy to enter a convent, and to "dedicate herself to G.o.d;" but as the young lady thought she could serve G.o.d to better purpose out of a convent than in one, she civilly declined their polite invitations to shut herself in a dungeon.

The same priest who befriended her father, extended his kindness to the daughter. He was a very influential clergyman, secretly of very liberal and enlightened views, on the subject of religion; but, not perceiving any pressing necessity for giving his body to be burnt, he had thought best to keep his religious notions to himself. He might very easily have "gained a martyr's glorious name," if he had only been one of those

"Stubborn saints, whom all men grant To be the true church militant;"

but he was not; and, besides, martyrdom is not near so fas.h.i.+onable as it was during the time of the Roman emperors, when one saint insisted upon being crucified heels uppermost; and another, who was very comfortably broiling on a gridiron, sung out to be turned, when he thought he was cooked enough on one side. _Our_ clergy are a grave, serious, set of men, who scorn such mad pranks; they have no idea of suffering martyrdom, or any thing else, if they can help it. I believe there have been no martyrs since the commencement of the nineteenth century, except Mr. Wolff, who was bastinadoed by the Pacha of Egypt, for interfering with what did not concern him, and some ten or a dozen missionaries, that would not do something the Cochin-Chinese bid them, and were, in consequence, made shorter by the head.

The good priest interposed his good offices, and influence, in Isabella's behalf, and gave her instructions in such branches of education as he thought were suited to her s.e.x. But, in about a year after her mother's death, Don Gaspar received his appointment, as military commander of St. Blas, which, as I have already observed, was then a royal depot and a.r.s.enal; and, though but seldom visited by Spanish men-of-war, because there were but very few, besides guarda-costas, in the Pacific, was a place of considerable importance.

Isabella cheerfully accompanied him to America; for, though neither giddy, nor thoughtless, all places were alike to her, provided she could be always surrounded with her uncle's family, with whom she enjoyed quiet happiness.

In the priests of Mexico, she saw nothing but ignorance, sensuality, bigotry, and indolence, nothing calculated to shake her faith as a Protestant, or cause her to forget her mother's first injunction; while the foppishness, frivolity, insolence, ignorance, and pride, of the men, by whom she was surrounded, most effectually protected her from the remotest thought of disobeying the second. The men, on the other hand, regarded her with the coolest indifference; accustomed to admire the black eyes, and hair, and colorless complexions of the Spanish and native, or Creole, women, varying from a sort of dirty cream color, to a deep and beautiful copper, Isabella's rather lightish brown hair, blue eyes, fair complexion, and cheeks rosy with health and cheerfulness, had no charms for them; and, while her cousins had lovers, or danglers, by the dozen, Isabella found herself, to her infinite satisfaction, completely deserted and neglected, by all the starched and pompous fools that visited her uncle, during a stay of some months in the city of Mexico.

She had, on the arrival of the family at St. Blas, contrived to employ her time in cultivating such female accomplishments as her mother had instructed her in, and was, at the time we introduce her to the reader's notice, in her twentieth year. In person, she was about the medium height of women, or, perhaps, a little below it; and would be called, in New England, rather a small woman. Her form was exceedingly well-proportioned and beautiful, although, what may seem incredible, it had never been cramped, crushed, and distorted, by tight lacing, of which her mother had a very reasonable horror; and, in consequence, her movements were free, graceful, and unconfined.

I know very well that the idea of a lady's form being beautiful, unless moulded by corsets into the form of a s.h.i.+p's half-minute gla.s.s, will be scouted as absurd and impossible; but to the ridicule that such a proposition must necessarily excite, I can oppose my own observation, leaving antiquity, with its faultless statues and sculptures, to s.h.i.+ft for itself. The Hindoo women, of whom I have seen hundreds at once bathing in the Hoogly, of all ages, from childhood to decrepitude, have extremely fine forms, when young, that is from twelve to twenty-two or three, at which period they have all the marks of old age. As they bathe with only a single thin cotton garment, which, when wet, sticks close to their bodies, and developes their forms most completely, any body that visits Calcutta can satisfy himself of the correctness of this fact, and yet they tolerate no sort of confinement whatever about the person.

Isabella's face was of an oval form, with an exquisitely delicate and fair complexion; when her features were at rest, the expression was quiet and serious, rather bordering upon the pensive, a cast of countenance that she inherited from her mother; but her smile was exceedingly attractive, with an air of frankness and innocence attending it, that made it perfectly fascinating. Her eyes were of a deep blue, that, in conversation or when any emotion agitated the tranquillity of their owner, were extremely lively, animated, and sparkling. Her eyebrows were very delicately traced, slightly curved but not arched, as poets and others rave about--I never saw a pair that were, on forehead male or female, except among the Chinese, and _they_, in consequence, looked like--no matter who--nor can I imagine how arched brows can be beautiful.

It was not the fas.h.i.+on, forty years since, for girls to cut off their hair and sell it to a barber for fifty cents, and then give ten dollars for a set of artificial curls, nor was it fas.h.i.+onable in Mexico to wear false hair; if it had been, nature had been so bountiful to Isabella in that beautiful ornament and pride (it ought to be) of a woman, that she could save the expense by the arrangement of her own luxuriant tresses.

Her temper was mild, and by no means easily ruffled; her disposition was gentle, humane, amiable, and cheerful, though seldom or never breaking out into extravagant gaiety. Like all young ladies of her age, who have much unemployed time on their hands, and I believe the same remark will apply to young men similarly situated, she had experienced a void, a want of something in the heart, that she felt acutely enough, but could neither describe nor account for; that peculiar feeling that certainly is not love, but a symptom of the wish to love and be beloved; it is that state of the heart when the affections go forth, like Noah's dove, and finding no object on which to repose, return weary and dejected to their lonely prison.

It is an old adage, that "when the devil finds a man idle, he sets him to work;" when love finds a heart unoccupied, he soon finds it a tenant, for it always has been, is now, and always will be true, that

"Love is a fire that burns and sparkles, In men as nat'rally as in charcoals."

Isabella, almost without knowing it, and without the faintest suspicion of the real state of the case, gradually neglected and ceased to take pleasure in her usual occupations; her books, her music, her needle, and her flowers, all seemed to be equally tiresome and unpleasant. While in this unhappy state of ennui and loneliness of feeling, peculiar to the youthful days, or some portion of them, of both s.e.xes, when the mind, like Hudibras' sword,

"Eats into itself, for lack Of somebody to hew and hack,"

she was thrown into unspeakable grief and consternation, by her uncle one day proposing to her to receive and encourage the addresses of Don Gregorio, as her future husband.

To her pa.s.sionate tears and entreaties to be spared such a dreadful calamity, that she declared was infinitely worse than death, the old Don replied, that it was natural for a girl to be frightened at the idea of leaving a comfortable home, to become the mistress of a family; that he only wished to provide for her, and see her well settled in life, that the proposed husband was handsome, rich, and connected by blood with the viceroy; and also urged many other reasons "too numerous to mention." To all which, the weeping and agonized girl replied, as soon as her uncle was out of breath, and she had an opportunity of speaking, "But, my dear uncle, you know his character, and why, oh! why, will you sacrifice me, whom you have always treated with so much affection and kindness, to one whom every one knows to be a fool and a coward?"

The Don was somewhat startled by this appeal. He was certainly aware that Isabella was perfectly right in so calling her proposed lover, who he knew was both a silly c.o.xcomb and a despicable coward, but it was altogether past his comprehension how his modest, retiring, gentle niece, had found out two such very important points in the character of a man, whom he had noticed she seemed to avoid more than any one who visited his house. But after a few days, seeing that her dejection was extreme, that her appet.i.te and animation had failed, and she was sinking under the weight of her grief, and being likewise severely rated by the wife of his bosom, in a curtain lecture, he relented, and calling Isabella to him one morning, with many expressions of fondness, bade her cheer up, for though he wished to see her well married, he would by no means force her inclinations, and she should please herself in the article of matrimony.