No. 114.—Vol. III.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 1886.
{145}
COCAINE.
IN ALL SHADES.
SHOT-FIRING IN COAL-MINES: AN IMPROVED METHOD.
THE HAUNTED JUNGLE.
AN EVERY-DAY OCCURRENCE.
A NIGHT IN A WELL.
PERSEPHONÉ.
No. 114.—Vol. III.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 1886.
A new discovery in medicine, which has established its claim to general utility, is as much a matter for congratulation on the part of the general public as on the part of the members of that profession whose duty it is to use it. The stir in the world which Simpson’s grand discovery of chloroform excited is still well remembered, and upon reflection, persons even now could not fail to be impressed with the incalculable amount of relief from suffering of which the drug is the source, if they were to pay a visit to one of our large hospitals and judge for themselves. It is true that chloroform has some drawbacks; it is even true that indirectly, if not directly fatal results have followed its use; but what good thing is free from all blemish, and how, ‘in this best of all possible worlds,’ can we expect everything to be as we should wish?
The discovery of ether, it should be remembered, afforded surgeons the opportunity in after-years of making a choice between the two drugs. Fortunately, in this connection the effects of each are different in certain particulars, so that, in a given number of cases, the use of ether is advisable, and chloroform is to be avoided. The explanation of this can be readily understood. The effect of chloroform is to depress the action of the heart. In cases of an overdose of this drug, the heart is paralysed; and when death occurs during its administration, there need not necessarily have been more than a very small dose given; but owing to some undiscovered weakness of the heart, which the drug unfortunately becomes the means of rendering manifest, sudden stoppage of the organ takes place, with, of course, death as a consequence. On the other hand, ether has exactly the opposite effect. The heart’s action is stimulated during its administration, and the contractions of the organ are rendered more vigorous. Thus, whenever there is any suspected weakness of the heart in patients to whom an anæsthetic is about to be administered, there is no hesitation on the part of the surgeon in using ether, which under these circumstances is certainly the safest drug to employ.
But apart from these considerations, all drugs which possess the property of producing what is called general anæsthesia, are associated with certain discomforts, certain inconveniences which materially detract from their usefulness. It is not necessary here to specify the nature of these, for the knowledge of them has almost become common property, so that there are persons who would preferably endure the suffering of an operation than submit to the administration of an anæsthetic, the after-effects of which, perhaps, previous experience has taught them to be careful to avoid. Surely, then, under these circumstances, it must be a matter of extreme comfort for the public to know that a drug has been discovered whose property is such as to enable the surgeon in many cases to dispense with either ether or chloroform during the performance of an operation. This is the new discovery which agreeably startled the world of medicine towards the end of the year 1884. The drug in question is called Cocaine, from Coca—though sometimes also written cucaine and cuca—and it possesses the remarkable property of causing local anæsthesia when applied to a mucous membrane, of which more anon. The plant from which this alkaloid is derived is Erythroxylon coca, which is largely cultivated in the warm valleys of the eastern slopes of the Andes, between five and six thousand feet above the level of the sea, where almost the only variation of the climate is from wet to dry, where frost is unknown, and where it rains more or less every month in the year.
A few details with reference to this remarkable plant may not here be out of place. It is described as a ‘shrub from four to six feet high, branches straight and alternate, leaves in form and size like tea-leaves, flowers, with a small yellowish white corolla, ten stamens, and three pistils. In raising the plant from the seed, the sowing is commenced in December and January, when the rain begins, and continues until April.{146} The seeds are spread on the surface of the soil in a small nursery or raising-ground, over which there is generally a thatch-roof. At the end of about fourteen days, they come up, the young plants being continually watered and protected from the sun. At the end of eighteen months, the plants yield their first harvest, and continue to yield for upwards of forty years. The first harvest, the leaves are picked very carefully one by one, to avoid disturbing the roots of the young tender plants. Gathering takes place three times, and even four times in the year. The most abundant harvest takes place in March, immediately after the rains. With plenty of watering, forty days suffice to cover the plants with leaves afresh. It is necessary to weed the ground very carefully, especially while the plants are young. The harvest is gathered by women and children. The greatest care is required in the drying of the leaves; for too much sun causes them to dry up and lose their flavour; while, if packed up moist, they become fetid. They are generally exposed to the sun in thin layers.’ Such is, in brief, the account of the plant whose alkaloid, cocaine, has attained so marked a popularity within the short space of a few months.
Although the plant has only recently become known to us, its virtues have long been recognised by the natives of that part of the world in which it grows. It is stated that in 1583 the Indians consumed one hundred thousand ‘cestos’ of coca, worth 2½ dollars each in Guzco, and four dollars in Potosi. In 1591 an excise of five per cent. was imposed on coca; and in 1746 and 1750, this duty yielded eight hundred and fifteen hundred dollars respectively, from Caravaya alone. Between 1785 and 1795, the coca traffic was calculated at 1,207,436 dollars in the Peruvian vice-royalty, and including that of Buenos Ayres, 2,641,478 dollars. The coca trade is a government monopoly in Bolivia, the state reserving the right of purchasing from the growers and reselling to the consumer. This right is generally farmed out to the highest bidder. The proximate annual produce of coca in Peru is about fifteen million pounds, the average yield being about eight hundred pounds an acre. More than ten million pounds are produced annually in Bolivia; so that the annual yield of coca throughout South America, including Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Pasto, may be estimated at thirty million pounds.
It is scarcely pleasant news for us to learn that the natives who cultivate the coca-plant themselves absorb so much of the products of their own cultivation. We have here, doubtless, the explanation of the costliness of cocaine and the scarcity of the drug in England. This can hardly be otherwise, it is to be feared, for some time to come, when we remember that the reliance upon the extraordinary virtues of the coca-leaf amongst the Peruvian Indians is so strong, that in the Huanuco province they believe that if a dying man can taste a leaf placed upon his tongue, it is a sure sign of his future happiness! When Weston the pedestrian was performing his feats of endurance in England, it was noticed that from time to time he placed something in his mouth, which he afterwards chewed. For long he refused to divulge what the nature of this substance was, but at last he acknowledged that he always provided himself with some coca-leaves; and he added, that the chewing of these gave him strength, and enabled him more easily to accomplish his allotted task.
In the states above referred to, the natives are accustomed to use the leaves largely for the purpose of allaying hunger. Now, the sense of hunger takes origin in the nerves of the stomach, and it is evident that if these nerves are rendered incapable of exercising their functions, the sensations to which they give rise must decline and remain temporarily in abeyance. This is precisely what takes place when coca-leaves are eaten. Their effect is to paralyse for the time being the sensitive ends of the nerves of the stomach, and to establish practically a condition of local anæsthesia within the interior of that organ. The sensation of hunger, of course, under such circumstances becomes impossible; and the native, after eating a few leaves, goes on his way rejoicing, with the same sensations as if he had partaken of a hearty repast.
Although cocaine has been known for a good many years, and has from time to time formed the subject of inquiry amongst distinguished British and continental savants, including the veteran Sir R. Christison, it was reserved for Dr Carl Koller of Vienna to demonstrate the practical use to which its marvellous property could be put. It occurred to this gentleman that the drug might be of use in the department of diseases of the eye. With this object in view, he experimented upon the eyes of animals, applying the drug in solution of a certain strength, and carefully noting the results. He found that in the course of a few moments, after the drug had been instilled several times into the conjunctival sac of an animal, the organ became insensible; that he was able to touch the cornea—the front part of the eye, which is endowed with extreme sensibility—with a pin without the least flinching on the part of the animal. Experimenting further, he ascertained that the insensibility was not confined to the superficial parts of the eye, but that it extended throughout the corneal substance, even to the structures within the ocular globe, and thus the fact so far of the utility of the drug for operative purposes came to be established. Then he turned his attention to cases in which the eye was the seat of disease, and the cornea acutely inflamed and painful, and he found that much relief from the symptoms was obtained by the use of the drug. Soon after this, he commenced to employ cocaine in operations performed upon the eyes of patients. The results were highly satisfactory; and since then, cataracts have been operated on, squinting eyes put straight, foreign bodies upon the cornea removed painlessly and with ease, under the influence of the drug. In cataract especially, cocaine is of great value; this operation can be performed by its means without the slightest sensation of pain, and yet the patient is fully conscious, and is of course able to follow during its performance the precise instructions of the surgeon.
Now, to an outside observer, cocaine is apt to produce impressions somewhat akin to the marvellous. Here is a description which a writer gives in a recent number of the St James’s Gazette. A camel-hair brush is dipped into a{147} small bottle containing a fluid as transparent as water. With the brush so charged, the part—let us say a portion of the tongue—is painted several times. After an interval of about a dozen minutes, another brush is taken, but in this instance a glass one, and dipped into a bottle, the fumes, colour, and label of which establish its contents as fuming nitric acid. The tongue is freely brushed with the acid, great care being observed in so doing, and submits to the procedure without the slightest recoil indicative of pain.
Such is cocaine, and such is its effect upon every mucous membrane. We have referred to its utility in the practice of ophthalmic surgeons; but it is not only in this department of the healing art that cocaine has been found useful; it can be employed whenever an operation upon any mucous membrane has to be performed. The drug has been used in the extraction and stopping of teeth; and results, nothing less than startling in their completeness, have been obtained with cocaine in all branches of medicine and surgery, bringing relief to thousands of sufferers, and—it is true to remark—more than that, unqualified gratification to the physician or surgeon in charge. Even that immemorial bugbear, sea-sickness, has often fled before the influence of cocaine.
One word more. In the present prosaic condition of the world, when the surfeit of new discoveries seems to have bred in this connection the familiarity which produces the conventional contempt, it is refreshing to draw attention to a discovery which has surpassed the ordinary standard of greatness sufficiently to enable it to figure as a wonder of the age. Cocaine flashed like a meteor before the eyes of the medical world, but, unlike a meteor, its impressions have proved to be enduring; while it is destined in the future to occupy a high position in the estimation of those whom duty requires to combat the ravages of disease.
BY GRANT ALLEN,
Author of ‘Babylon,’ ‘Strange Stories,’ etc. etc.
On the morning when the Severn was to reach Trinidad, everybody was up betimes and eagerly looking for the expected land. Nora and Marian went up on deck before breakfast, and there found Dr Whitaker, opera-glass in hand, scanning the horizon for the first sight of his native island. ‘I haven’t seen it or my dear father,’ he said to Marian, ‘for nearly ten years, and I can’t tell you how anxious I am once more to see him. I wonder whether he’ll have altered much! But there—ten years is a long time. After ten years, one’s pictures of home and friends begin to get terribly indefinite. Still, I shall know him—I’m sure I shall know him. He’ll be on the wharf to welcome us in, and I’m sure I shall recognise his dear old face again.’
‘Your father’s very well known in the island, the captain tells me,’ Marian said, anxious to show some interest in what interested him so much. ‘I believe he was very influential in helping to get slavery abolished.’
‘He was,’ the young doctor answered, kindling up afresh with his ever-ready enthusiasm—‘he was; very influential. Mr Wilberforce considered that my father, Robert Whitaker, was one of his most powerful coloured supporters in any of the colonies. I’m proud of my father, Mrs Hawthorn—proud of the part he bore in the great revolution which freed my race. I’m proud to think that I’m the son of such a man as Robert Whitaker.’
‘Now, then, ladies,’ the captain put in drily, coming upon them suddenly from behind; ‘breakfast’s ready, and you won’t sight Trinidad, I take it, for at least another fifty minutes. Plenty of time to get your breakfast quietly and comfortably, and pack your traps up, before you come in sight of the Port-o’-Spain lighthouse.’
After breakfast, they all hurried up on deck once more, and soon the gray peaks and rocky sierras of Trinidad began to heave in sight straight in front of them. Slowly the land drew closer and closer, till at last the port and town lay full in sight before them. Dr Whitaker was overflowing with excitement as they reached the wharf. ‘In ten minutes,’ he cried to Marian—‘in ten minutes, I shall see my dear father.’
It was a strange and motley scene, ever fresh and interesting to the new-comer from Europe, that first glimpse of tropical life from the crowded deck of an ocean steamer. The Severn stood off, waiting for the gangways to be lowered on board, but close up to the high wooden pier of the lively, bustling, little harbour. In front lay the busy wharf, all alive with a teeming swarm of black faces—men in light and ragged jackets, women in thin white muslins and scarlet turbans, children barefooted and half naked, lying sprawling idly in the very eye of the sun. Behind, white houses with green venetian blinds; waving palm-trees; tall hills; a blazing pale blue sky; a great haze of light and shimmer and glare and fervour. All round, boats full of noisy negroes, gesticulating, shouting, swearing, laughing, and showing their big teeth every second anew in boisterous merriment. A general pervading sense of bustle and life, all meaningless and all ineffectual; much noise and little labour; a ceaseless chattering, as of monkeys in a menagerie; a purposeless running up and down on the pier and ’longshore with wonderful gesticulations; a babel of inarticulate sounds and cries and shouting and giggling. Nothing of it all clearly visible as an individual fact at first; only a confused mass of heads and faces and bandanas and dresses, out of which, as the early hubbub of arrival subsided a little, there stood forth prominently a single foremost figure—the figure of a big, heavy, oily, fat, dark mulatto, gray-haired and smooth-faced, dressed in a dirty white linen suit, and waving his soiled silk pocket-handkerchief ostentatiously before the eyes of the assembled passengers. A supple, vulgar, oleaginous man altogether, with an astonishing air of conceited self-importance, and a profound consciousness of the admiring eyes of the whole surrounding negro populace.
‘How d’ye do, captain?’ he shouted aloud in a clear but thick and slightly negro voice, mouthing his words with much volubility in the true semi-articulate African fashion. ‘Glad to see de Severn has come in puncshual to her{148} time as usual. Good ship, de Severn; neber minds storms or nuffin.—Well, sah, who have you got on board? I’ve come down to meet de doctor and Mr Hawtorn. Trinidad is proud to welcome back her children to her shores agin. Got ’em on board, captain?—got ’em on board, sah?’
‘All right, Bobby,’ the captain answered, with easy familiarity. ‘Been having a pull at the mainsheet this morning?—Ah, I thought so. I thought you’d taken a cargo of rum aboard. Ah, you sly dog! You’ve got the look of it.’
‘Massa Bobby, him doan’t let de rum spile in him cellar,’ a ragged fat negress standing by shouted out in a stentorian voice. ‘Him know de way to keep him from spilin’, so pour him down him own troat in time—eh, Massa Bobby?’
‘Rum,’ the oily mulatto responded cheerfully, but with great dignity, raising his fat brown hand impressively before him—‘rum is de staple produck an’ chief commercial commodity of de great an’ flourishin’ island of Trinidad. To drink a moderate quantity of rum every mornin’ before brekfuss is de best way of encouragin’ de principal manufacture of dis island. I do my duty in dat respeck, I flatter myself, as faithfully as any pusson in de whole of Trinidad, not exceptin’ His Excellency de governor, who ought to set de best example to de entire community. As de recognised representative of de coloured people of dis colony, I feel bound to teach dem to encourage de manufacture of rum by my own pussonal example an’ earnest endeavour.’ And he threw back his greasy neck playfully in a pantomimic representation of the art of drinking off a good glassful of rum-and-water.
The negroes behind laughed immoderately at this sally of the man addressed as Bobby, and cheered him on with loud vociferations. ‘Evidently,’ Edward said to Nora, with a face of some disgust, ‘this creature is the chartered buffoon and chief jester to the whole of Trinidad. They all seem to recognise him and laugh at him, and I see even the captain himself knows him well of old, evidently.’
‘Bless your soul, yes,’ the captain said, overhearing the remark. ‘Everybody in the island knows Bobby. Good-natured old man, but conceited as a peacock, and foolish too.—Everybody knows you here,’ raising his voice; ‘don’t they, Bobby?’
The gray-haired mulatto took off his broad-brimmed Panama hat and bowed profoundly. ‘I flatter myself,’ he said, looking round about him complacently on the crowd of negroes, ‘dere isn’t a better known man in de whole great an’ flourishin’ island of Trinidad dan Bobby Whitaker.’
Edward and Marian started suddenly, and even Nora gave a little shiver of surprise and disappointment. ‘Whitaker,’ Edward repeated slowly—‘Whitaker—Bobby Whitaker!—You don’t mean to tell us, surely, captain, that that man’s our Dr Whitaker’s father!’
‘Yes, I do,’ the captain answered, smiling grimly. ‘That’s his father.—Dr Whitaker! hi, you, sir; where have you got to? Don’t you see?—there’s your father.’
Edward turned at once to seek for him, full of a sudden unspoken compassion. He had not far to seek. A little way off, standing irresolutely by the gunwale, with a strange terrified look in his handsome large eyes, and a painful twitching nervously evident at the trembling corners of his full mouth, Dr Whitaker gazed intently and speechlessly at the fat mulatto in the white linen suit. It was clear that the old man did not yet recognise his son; but the son had recognised his father instantaneously and unhesitatingly, as he stood there playing the buffoon in broad daylight before the whole assembled ship’s company. Edward looked at the poor young fellow with profound commiseration. Never in his life before had he seen shame and humiliation more legibly written on a man’s very limbs and features. The unhappy young mulatto, thunderstruck by the blow, had collapsed entirely. It was too terrible for him. Coming in, fresh from his English education, full of youthful hopes and vivid enthusiasms, proud of the father he had more than half forgotten, and anxious to meet once more that ideal picture he had carried away with him of the liberator of Trinidad—here he was met, on the very threshold of his native island, by this horrible living contradiction of all his fervent fancies and imaginings. The Robert Whitaker he had once known faded away as if by magic into absolute nonentity, and that voluble, greasy, self-satisfied, buffoonish old brown man was the only thing left that he could now possibly call ‘my father.’
Edward pitied him far too earnestly to obtrude just then upon his shame and sorrow. But the poor mulatto, meeting his eyes accidentally for a single second, turned upon him such a mutely appealing look of profound anguish, that Edward moved over slowly toward the grim captain and whispered to him in a low undertone: ‘Don’t speak to that man Whitaker again, I beg of you. Don’t you see his poor son there’s dying of shame for him?’
The captain stared back at him with the same curious half-sardonic look that Marian had more than once noticed upon his impassive features. ‘Dying of shame!’ he answered, smiling carelessly. ‘Ho, ho, ho! that’s a good one! Dying of shame is he, for poor old Bobby! Why, sooner or later, you know, he’ll have to get used to him. Besides, I tell you, whether you talk to him or whether you don’t, old Bobby’ll go on talking about himself as long as there’s anybody left anywhere about who’ll stand and listen to him.—You just hark there to what he’s saying now. What’s he up to next, I wonder?’
‘Yes, ladies and gentlemen,’ the old mulatto was proceeding aloud, addressing now in a set speech the laughing passengers on board the Severn, ‘I’m de Honourable Robert Whitaker, commonly called Bobby Whitaker, de leadin’ member of de coloured party in dis island. Along wit my lamented friend Mr Wilberforce, an’ de British parliament, I was de chief instrument in procurin’ de abolition of slavery an’ de freedom of de slaves troughout de whole English possessions. Millions of my fellow-men were moanin’ an’ groanin’ in a painful bondage. I have a heart dat cannot witstand de appeal of misery. I laboured for dem; I toiled for dem; I bore de brunt of de battle; an’ in de end I conquered—I conquered. Wit de aid of my friend Mr Wilberforce, by superhuman exertions, I succeeded in passin’ de grand act of slavery{149} emancipation. You behold in me de leadin’ actor in dat famous great an’ impressive drama. I’m an ole man now; but I have prospered in dis world, as de just always do, says de Psalmist, an’ I shall be glad to see any of you whenever you choose at my own residence, an’ to offer you in confidence a glass of de excellent staple produck of dis island—I allude to de wine of de country, de admirable beverage known as rum!’
There was another peal of foolish laughter from the crowd of negroes at this one ancient threadbare joke, and a faint titter from the sillier passengers on board the Severn. Edward looked over appealingly at the old buffoon; but the mulatto misunderstood his look of deprecation, and bowed once more profoundly, with immense importance, straight at him, like a sovereign acknowledging the plaudits of his subjects.
‘Yes,’ he continued, ‘I shall be happy to see any of you—you, sah, or you—at my own estate, Whitaker Hall, in dis island, whenever you find it convenient to visit me. You have on board my son, Dr Whitaker, de future leader of de coloured party in de Council of Trinidad; an’ you have no doubt succeeded in makin’ his acquaintance in de course of your voyage from de shores of England. Dr Whitaker, of de University of Edinburgh, after pursuin’ his studies’——
The poor young man gave an audible groan, and turned away, in his poignant disgrace, to the very furthest end of the vessel. It was terrible enough to have all his hopes dashed and falsified in this awful fashion; but to be humiliated and shamed by name before the staring eyes of all his fellow-passengers, that last straw was more than his poor bursting heart could possibly endure. He walked away, broken and tottering, and leaned over the opposite side of the vessel, letting the hot tears trickle unreproved down his dusky cheeks into the ocean below.
At that very moment, before the man they called Bobby Whitaker could finish his sentence, a tall white man, of handsome and imposing presence, walked out quietly from among the knot of people behind the negroes, and laid his hand with a commanding air on the fat old mulatto’s broad shoulder. Bobby Whitaker turned round suddenly and listened with attention to something that the white man whispered gently but firmly at his astonished ear. Then his lower jaw dropped in surprise, and he fell behind, abashed for a second, into the confused background of laughing negroes. Partly from his childish recollections, but partly, too, by the aid of the photographs, Edward immediately recognised the tall white man. ‘Marian, Marian!’ he cried, waving his hand in welcome towards the new-comer, ‘it’s my father, my father!’
And even as he spoke, a pang of pain ran through him as he thought of the difference between the two first greetings. He couldn’t help feeling proud in his heart of hearts of the very look and bearing of his own father—tall, erect, with his handsome, clear-cut face and full white beard, the exact type of a self-respecting and respected English gentleman; and yet, the mere reflex of his own pride and satisfaction revealed to him at once the bitter poignancy of Dr Whitaker’s unspeakable disappointment. As the two men stood there on the wharf side by side, in quiet conversation, James Hawthorn with his grave, severe, earnest expression, and Bobby Whitaker with his greasy, vulgar, negro joviality speaking out from every crease in his fat chin and every sparkle of his small pig’s eyes, the contrast between them was so vast and so apparent, that it seemed to make the old mulatto’s natural vulgarity and coarseness of fibre more obvious and more unmistakable than ever to all beholders.
In a minute more, a gangway was hastily lowered from the wharf on to the deck; and the first man that came down it, pushed in front of a great crowd of eager, grinning, and elbowing negroes—mostly in search of small jobs among the passengers—was Bobby Whitaker. The moment he reached the deck, he seemed to take possession of it and of all the passengers by pure instinct, as if he were father to the whole shipload of them. The captain, the crew, and the other authorities were effaced instantly. Bobby Whitaker, with easy, greasy geniality, stood bowing and waving his hand on every side, in an access of universal graciousness towards the entire company. ‘My son!’ he said, looking round him inquiringly—‘my son, Dr Whitaker, of de Edinburgh University—where is he?—where is he? My dear boy! Let him come forward and embrace his fader!’
Dr Whitaker, in spite of his humiliation, had all a mulatto’s impulsive affectionateness. Ashamed and abashed as he was, he yet rushed forward with unaffected emotion to take his father’s outstretched hand. But old Bobby had no idea of getting over this important meeting in such a simple and undemonstrative manner; for him, it was a magnificent opportunity for theatrical display, on no account to be thrown away before the faces of so many distinguished European strangers. Holding his son for a second at arm’s length, in the centre of a little circle that quickly gathered around the oddly matched pair, he surveyed the young doctor with a piercing glance from head to foot, sticking his neck a little on one side with critical severity, and then, bursting into a broad grin of oily delight, he exclaimed, in a loud, stagey soliloquy: ‘My son, my son, my own dear son, Wilberforce Clarkson Whitaker! De inheritor of de tree names most intimately bound up wit de great revolution I have had de pride and de honour of effectin’ for unborn millions of my African bredderin’. My son, my son! We receive you wit transport! Welcome to Trinidad—welcome to Trinidad!’
Shot-firing or blasting in coal-mines is a subject which has for many years engaged the attention of mining experts and scientists, in consequence of the disastrous explosions which have so frequently resulted therefrom; but the discovering of an agent or the devising of a method by which the operation would be attended with perfect safety, has hitherto remained a{150} problem too difficult to solve. At a very remote date in mining history, the use of explosives for blasting purposes was altogether unknown, and the various minerals, &c., were obtained from the bowels of the earth by means of hammer and wedge. Large quantities of these products were not then required, and the laborious and primitive method adopted for procuring them was fully equal to supplying the demand. But as time rolled on, mining produce became in much greater request, and means had to be devised which would enable mine-owners to meet the growing requirements of commerce and civilisation. Gunpowder was consequently utilised for this purpose, being first employed on the continent in 1620; and in the same year it was introduced into England as a blasting agent by some German miners brought over by Prince Rupert, and who employed it at the copper mine at Ecton in Staffordshire. Gradually it came into general use as a means of rapidly developing the mineral resources of the earth; and by its use, the output of our coal-mines has been increased by more than fifty per cent.
To its employment for obtaining coal, however, there were some great objections, both from a pecuniary and hygienic point of view. Large quantities of coal were converted into ‘slack,’ or a semi-pulverised state, in some cases to the extent of twenty-five per cent., and therefore great loss was sustained by the colliery proprietor, the marketable value of slack being very small. Again, the explosion of gunpowder is always attended with the formation of immense volumes of sulphuretted hydrogen, carbonic anhydride, and other gases, which are so deleterious to health, that, for a considerable space of time after a charge has been fired, the miners cannot work in that vicinity. Where large quantities of this substance are daily used, these noxious gases contaminate the air passing through the mine to such an extent that in the course of time they exercise an injurious effect on the health of the workmen.
Under these circumstances it was very desirable that other agents should be employed; but it is only within the last thirty years that other explosive substances have been submitted to mine-owners. The first of these was gun-cotton, which was invented by Professor Schönbein in 1846. It was not, however, until some years after its discovery that it came into use as a mining agent, such serious explosions attending its manufacture and storing, immediately after its introduction to the world, that no one would have more to do with so deadly an explosive. Eventually, however, it was ascertained how to render it safer, and it came into extensive use as a mining agent. Though it burns harmlessly away when simply ignited, yet, when fired by means of a detonator, as is done for mining purposes, it possesses some six times the explosive power of gunpowder; and its combustion in this way is so complete that no noxious gases are given off. It can be used either in the form of yarn or in a compressed block. When used in the former state, it is the opinion of many that its combustion is too rapid, and that it is thereby prevented doing its full amount of effective work. It bursts the minerals asunder with great force; but it lacks the cutting property which is essential to the performance of good work. The compressed cotton is free from these defects. It possesses all the force of yarn cotton; and in consequence of its slower combustion, it cuts in such a way as to make the block of mineral ready for the next charge. This latter is a great advantage to the workman, and hence the gun-cotton used for mining purposes is generally in a compressed state. By the use of this agent, mining of all descriptions was immensely facilitated, and the dangerous operation of ‘tamping,’ or filling the shot-hole with brick or coal dust rammed hard, was rendered unnecessary.
At a somewhat later period, nitro-glycerine attracted much attention, the first to attempt its use as an explosive agent being Alfred Nobel, a Swedish engineer, in 1864. So far as explosive power was concerned, it was all that could be desired, possessing ten times the force of gunpowder, and therefore being of nearly double the strength of gun-cotton. On the other hand, it was open to most serious objections. The danger of its exploding from concussion was very great, and many dreadful accidents have thus been caused by it. The liquid also, when poured into a shot-hole, has frequently run into some unknown crevice, and when fired, has produced an explosion under the very feet of the miners. To obviate this in some degree, cartridges have been employed; but in whatever light it is viewed, nitro-glycerine is a most perilous explosive.
To remove many of the dangers associated with the use of nitro-glycerine, particularly those of concussion, Mr Nobel invented dynamite, which was tried and approved as a mining agent at Merstham in 1868. When properly prepared, it constitutes one of the safest, most convenient, and most powerful explosives applicable to industrial purposes. It burns without explosion when placed in a fire or brought into contact with a lighted match. If struck with a hammer on an anvil, the portion struck takes fire without igniting the dynamite around it; and if packed with moderate care, it may be transported by road, railway, or canal with little danger of an explosion either from heat, sparks, friction, concussion, or collision. Such conditions of safety, however, entirely depend upon dynamite being properly made. If the Kieselguhr or porous infusorial earth, of which it contains about twenty-five per cent., be not properly dried and prepared, so as not only to absorb but to permanently hold in absorption the nitro-glycerine mixed with it, exudation is apt to take place; and if this only occurs to the extent of a thin greasy layer over the surface, there are present all the dangers of nitro-glycerine pure and simple. It is of a pasty consistence, and thus possesses the advantage that, whilst being very little less powerful as an explosive than nitro-glycerine, bore-holes can be filled with it without the dangers attending that liquid, and no cartridge case is required.
Since the introduction of dynamite, several other nitro-compounds have been brought forward as blasting agents, such, for instance, as{151} dualine, lithofracteur, blasting gelatine, and gelatine-dynamite. With the exception of the two last named, however, they have not found much favour as mining agents in this country, and their use is mainly confined to the continent.
Whilst all the explosives mentioned in this article are more or less suited to blasting in mines, so far as their propulsive force is concerned, yet the use of each and all is attended with great danger in a coal-mine, and for the following reason: coal, being of vegetable or organic origin, is constantly giving off numerous gases, the most dangerous of which, under ordinary circumstances, is methylic hydride or marsh-gas, known in mining districts as fire-damp. It is of an inflammable nature; and when it becomes mixed with from seven to ten times its volume of air, it is highly explosive. It was the presence of this gas in coal-mines that gave rise to the researches of Humphry Davy and George Stephenson, and which resulted in the production of two kinds of safety-lamp, differing but little from each other in construction. As a mark of distinction for his invention, the first-named gentleman received the honour of knighthood. Explosive as is methylic hydride when mixed with air in the proportions stated, it becomes infinitely more so when the air contains a proportion of coal-dust. A very small percentage of fire-damp when mixed with air and coal-dust is sufficient to cause a disastrous explosion. In all dry coal-mines there is a considerable quantity of coal-dust (coal in a state of impalpable powder) lying about, and a certain proportion of it is always floating in the air through the workings of the mine. Now, when explosives are used, no matter how they are ignited, their combustion is always attended with the formation of a mass of flame, and consequently there is always great danger of an explosion of fire-damp taking place. Especially is this the case with gunpowder, which, requiring to be used in large quantities to produce the desired effect, is accompanied with much flame at the moment of its ignition. Gun-cotton being a much more powerful explosive than powder, can be used in far smaller proportions, and therefore to a certain extent possesses an advantage over it, inasmuch as its combustion is not attended with so great a mass of flame; thus to some extent, though only very slightly, reducing the danger of an explosion of fire-damp. In addition to showing flame at the moment of its ignition, dynamite possesses the drawback, that the Kieselguhr is liable to become incandescent, and whilst in this state, to be blown about by the force of the explosion of the blasting charge, and so fire any gas or mixture of gas and coal-dust which may be in the vicinity.
But great as is the danger always attending blasting in coal-mines, it becomes immeasurably greater in the case of a blown-out shot—that is, a shot which blows out the tamping, and does not bring down the coal—for the flame then issues unobstructed from the bore-hole, and extending for some distance, is free to ignite any inflammable mixture with which it may come in contact. To blown-out shots or charges is due the majority of colliery explosions. Before a shot is fired in a seam of coal, a portion of the latter is hewn away at the top to a depth of four or five feet, and is continued down one side, near the bore-hole, so as to decrease the resistance to be overcome by the explosive. If the shot-hole has been properly drilled, the blasting agent does its work; but if the hole has been drilled into the ‘fast’—that is, if it has been bored farther into the seam than the cavity produced by hewing out a portion of the coal extends—a blown-out shot is the result; for the charge of explosive is in such a case placed in the solid bed of coal, and the resistance, consequently, being too great to be overcome, the ramming with which the shot has been fixed in its place is forced out, an outlet being thus formed, through which the propulsive power of the explosive issues without bringing down any of the coal.
From what has been said, it will be seen that the great desideratum of mine-owners has been the discovery of an agent whose propulsive power could be utilised without any attendant flame, or the devising of a method by which the ordinary explosives could be rendered harmless in this respect—that is, that their flame could be extinguished at the moment of its formation. Mining experts, scientists, and others have for years been endeavouring to solve this problem, but without success. At last, however, an invention has been brought forward which leaves but little doubt that all difficulties have now been overcome, and that so soon as the appliance is in general use, colliery explosions resulting from shot-firing will be at an end, and the dreadful loss of life and limb with which they are too frequently attended will be a thing of the past.
The invention, which has been patented, is introduced by Mr Miles Settle, managing director of the Madeley Coal and Iron Company, Staffordshire. The explosive used is gelatine-dynamite (a chemical combination of gun-wood and nitro-glycerine), three ounces of which are equal in explosive power to a pound of gunpowder. It is of a straw colour, and about the consistence of soap. The design of the patent is to inclose the charge of gelatine-dynamite in a tin case or any other material, not necessarily waterproof, and to insert this in a larger case of oiled paper, india-rubber, tin, or anything that is waterproof. Projections from the sides and ends of the inner case keep it in such a position that when the outer vessel is filled with water, the cartridge case is completely surrounded with fluid. A detonator is fixed to the explosive, and this is in turn connected with a magneto-electric machine. When the outer case has been so secured as to prevent the escape of the water, the whole is inserted in the shot-hole, and is fixed there by ramming, as for an ordinary powder shot. The operator then retires to a safe distance and fires the charge by electricity. No flame accompanies its explosion, as at the moment of its formation it is extinguished by the water surrounding the cartridge. In addition to this, the water causes the gelatine-dynamite to exert its power equally in all directions, and it also absorbs the gases formed by the combustion of the explosive, so rendering it possible for men to commence working at the coal immediately after the discharging of the shot. Moreover, the coal dislodged by this method contains a minimum of slack, and there is therefore a{152} great saving to the colliery proprietor in this respect.
The cartridge has recently been put to some very severe tests in some of the most fiery coal-mines in North Staffordshire; in fact, shots have been fired with this explosive in mines which are so gaseous that blasting is strictly prohibited in them, and the coal has to be obtained by the expensive and ancient method of hammer and wedge. In some of these fiery mines, blown-out shots have actually occurred; and all the experts who were present at the time expressed a unanimous opinion that had such a circumstance happened in the ordinary method of blasting, a disastrous explosion would inevitably have been the result. To prove the safety with which one of these cartridges can be fired, they have been exploded in bags of coal-dust, and not the slightest vestige of flame has attended their combustion. Gunpowder has been exploded under similar circumstances, with the result that the coal-dust instantly became ignited, and shot into the air for several yards like one sheet of flame.
All the experts who have witnessed the experiments, both on the surface and down in the mine, have expressed their perfect satisfaction with the invention in every way, and have stated their belief that it can be used with entire safety in the most fiery mines. The government Inspector of Mines for North Staffordshire, who has been present at some of the experiments, has announced that he is prepared to report to the Home Office that the appliance possesses the element of safety which is claimed for it.
A magneto-electric machine is used to fire the shot in preference to an electric battery, as the former is considered much the safer of the two. With a magneto-electric machine, the current, as is well known, is generated by friction, and it can therefore be broken simultaneously with the firing of the shot; whilst in an electric battery it is generated for the most part by means of strong acids, and cannot be broken without disconnecting one of the wires from the battery. It is just possible, therefore, that as the current is continuous in the last-named machine, the two wires might still remain so close together after the discharging of a shot as to allow a spark to pass between them, which in a very fiery mine would certainly cause an explosion.
Looking at the construction of Mr Settle’s patent and at the very severe tests to which it has been subjected, there seems every reason to believe that at last has been solved the difficult problem of shot-firing with safety in coal-mines, and that henceforth explosions arising from this cause will be unknown. Such disasters are among the most dreadful calamities which can overtake a community; and only those who have been eye-witnesses of the widespread sorrow and suffering they entail—whole villages and districts being in a moment plunged into mourning, and dozens of children rendered fatherless or orphans—can form an adequate idea of the boon which the ‘water-cartridge’ promises to be to the mining population. That the highest expectations concerning it may be fully realised, is the devout wish of all who are connected with the management or working of our collieries, and who are so frequently called upon to witness some of the saddest and most heartrending spectacles that it is possible for humanity to gaze upon.
A LEGEND OF NORTH CEYLON.
IN THREE CHAPTERS.
Buried in the depths of the great Thorokádú jungle lay the little village of Pandiyán. Half-a-dozen low, round, mud-huts with conical roofs, thatched with rice-straw, each with its pandál or workshed, granary, and cooking-pot stand, composed the village. A strong stake-fence surrounded each hut, intended as much to keep off the village cattle as a protection from the wild beasts which infested the surrounding jungle. On two sides of the village the jungle rose like a wall; on the third side lay the village tank. Along the bund or dam grew a number of giant marúthú trees, with their spreading, twisted roots in the water, and their long branches hanging gracefully over it. The placid surface of the tank, with its dark background of jungle, looked like a plate of burnished silver, and lay clear and unruffled save by the splash of some water-bird fishing, or the movements of a slowly swimming crocodile. On the top of the dam, under a gigantic tree, and overlooking the village, stood a little temple. It was a small mud-hut, painted in vertical stripes of red and white. A rudely hewn stone idol, smeared with oil and coarse paint, and representing Púliya the jungle-god, stood on a niche at the farther end. A rough slab of stone, on which lay withered offerings of flowers; an iron trident stuck in the ground before the door; a dirty brass lamp, and a bell, comprised the rest of the sacred furniture and utensils. Through a gap in the wall of jungle, on the other side of the village, could be seen the rice-fields irrigated by the tank, an expanse of emerald green. Picturesque watch-huts and stacks of last season’s straw stood here and there in the fields.
It was late in the afternoon and very hot. To the shade of a group of huge dense-foliaged tamarind trees that stood in the centre of the village all the animal population of Pandiyán appeared to have come. Black mud-covered buffaloes all standing and staring stupidly; dwarf village cattle wandering restlessly about, pestered by swarms of flies; mangy, gaunt, pariah dogs snarling viciously at each other; and long-legged, skinny fowls—all had sought protection from the burning rays of the sun under the shady trees.
At one end of the village, nearest to the little temple, stood a hut, round the door of which was congregated nearly the whole population of the village. More than a score of persons, men, women, and children, stood round an object in their midst, all talking excitedly to each other and everybody at once. It was a buffalo they were looking at, and the interest and excitement they showed arose from its having sustained a severe injury. There was a gaping wound on{153} its hind-leg, its hock sinew having been cut through. The great ungainly brute, though so seriously hurt, stood patient and quiet, looking about with a heavy stupid air.
Among the crowd surrounding the buffalo was a young girl, whose light colour, clean bright clothes, and profusion of jewellery, showed her to be of superior caste and position to the others. She was Vallee, the daughter of Ráman Ummiyan, the púsári or village priest of Pandiyán. She was a handsome girl, about fifteen years old; tall, slender, and graceful, with regular features; large dark eyes, finely arched eyebrows, and small sensitive mouth. She was engaged in washing the blood and dirt from the buffalo’s wound. It was evident, from the remarks addressed to her by the bystanders, condoling with her or offering advice, that her father was the owner of the wounded animal.
‘It is no use, child,’ said an old man who had been examining the wound. ‘He will never plough again. The sinew is cut through, and he will be lame for life.’
‘Ap-pah! What will my father say when he comes home?’ exclaimed Vallee.
‘Ah, there will be a breaking of pots then, no doubt,’ replied the old man.—‘Where was the beast found?’ he added.
‘Suriyan found him standing in the river helpless this afternoon, and drove him home on three legs,’ replied Vallee.
‘Perhaps he cut himself on the sharp rocks in the river,’ suggested a bystander.
‘No, no!’ said the old man. ‘The cut was made by a knife; and we would not have to go far to find the owner of the knife,’ he added, muttering.
‘You are right enough, father,’ whispered the other, who had overheard the old man’s remark. ‘We know very well who did this, and the púsári will know too! There will be trouble when he comes home.—Ah, here he comes!’
As he spoke, a man emerged from the jungle and entered the village, and seeing the crowd, walked hastily towards it. It was Ráman Ummiyan, the village priest. He was a tall, spare man, clad in a single yellow garment. Several strings of sacred beads encircled his neck; and his forehead, breast, and shoulders were smeared with consecrated ashes. His face indicated a man of strong passions. His keen, close-set eyes; deeply lined forehead; thin, sensitive nostrils; hard, straight mouth, and other strongly marked features, showed him to be of an irritable, quarrelsome disposition. As he advanced, the little crowd round the wounded buffalo opened and made way for him.
‘What is this? What is the matter with it?’ he exclaimed as he glanced at the animal.
‘See! father,’ replied Vallee, pointing to the wound. ‘Suriyan found it at the river, and has just driven it here.’
For a moment the púsári bent and looked at the wound; then he burst into a furious rage. Striking the end of his stick heavily on the ground, he exclaimed passionately: ‘It is Iyan Elúvan who has done this!’
The púsári and the man he spoke of were fellow-villagers and deadly enemies. The feud between them had arisen from a quarrel about a field which both men claimed. On going to law, the púsári had won the case, and the other consequently hated him with a deep and deadly hatred. Iyan Elúvan was a man of a cruel, malignant, cunning nature, and never lost an opportunity of injuring or harassing his enemy. The quarrel was now some years old, but his hatred was just as bitter as ever. Many a time had the púsári had cause to regret having incurred his neighbour’s ill-will. He was not equal to him in audacity and cunning, and was also a much poorer man. He had brought many actions against his enemy; but the latter’s keener brain and longer purse had almost always enabled him to get the better of his adversary. The object of each man was to drive the other out of the village; but the interests of both of them in the village were too great to permit either to leave, so they lived on within a stone’s-throw of one another, deadly enemies, always on the watch to injure each other in every possible way.
‘Ah, ah!’ shouted the púsári, gesticulating furiously with his stick. ‘I will have vengeance for it! I swear by Púliya I will not rest till I have repaid him with interest, though it cost me my last rupee!—How long,’ he continued, turning fiercely to the villagers, who stood round silent but sympathising—‘how long are we to bear with this man? He is a wild beast, as cruel and dangerous as the fiercest brute in these jungles. He will stand at nothing to gratify his hate. He has robbed me and slandered me, and brought false cases against me; and now, see the brutal way he has injured this poor brute of mine! He will try to murder me next. But I will have vengeance; I will complain to the headman!’
‘Not much use in that, iya’ [a term of respect], remarked the old man who had before spoken.
‘Ah!’ exclaimed the púsári passionately, ‘he will bribe the headman as usual, no doubt. But I will outbid him! The múdliya shall have my last ricepot ere I be balked of my vengeance!’ So saying, he strode into his house, muttering curses and threats.
Vallee, after a short time, followed him in. ‘The rice is ready, father,’ she said. ‘Shall I serve it?’
‘No!’ replied her father sternly. ‘I will neither eat nor drink till I have seen to this matter. I shall go at once to Mánkúlam and see the múdliya.’
‘Father!’ said Vallee hesitatingly, ‘perhaps Iyan did not do this; perhaps’——
‘You’re a fool, child!’ returned the púsári sharply. ‘Who but he could have done it?’
‘Valan told me’—— began Vallee timidly.
Her father interrupted her with an angry exclamation. ‘Did I not order you never to speak to him? Have you dared to listen to the brother of my bitterest enemy?’ and he raised his hand threateningly. ‘Now listen, daughter! If you ever speak to Valan or listen to him or have aught to do with him again, I will beat you as I would a dog; I swear to you I will.—Now, hearken to my words and obey!’ And with a threatening look and a suggestive shake of his stick, the púsári stalked out. After another look in silence at the wounded buffalo, he left the village and strode off in the direction of Mánkúlam, leaving Vallee crouching in a corner of the hut with her hands over her face and sobbing aloud.
{154}
Valan Elúvan, of whom they had been speaking, was the younger brother of the púsári’s enemy, and was Vallee’s lover. He was a man of a very different nature from his brother, being open-hearted, generous, and good-natured. Nevertheless, the púsári hated him almost as much as he did his brother. The understanding between Valan and Vallee had only recently been come to. For a long time, Valan had watched and admired the graceful maiden; but owing to the bad feeling between the two families, had not ventured to speak to her. One day, however, seeing her in difficulties with a troublesome cow she was trying to milk, he went to her assistance. She thanked him shyly, but with such evident pleasure at his attention, that he was emboldened to speak to her again, when he met her one day going to a neighbouring village. After that, they frequently found occasion to meet alone, and gradually their acquaintance grew to intimacy, and finally ripened to love. Unfortunately, her father discovered accidentally what was going on, and sternly forbade Vallee ever to speak to her lover again. Since then, she had only had one opportunity of seeing Valan. This fresh outrage on the part of Iyan Elúvan, she knew but too well, finally extinguished all chance of her father ever accepting Valan as her lover; so, crouching in the dark hut, she gave vent to her grief.
Meanwhile, the púsári was striding along the jungle-path leading to Mánkúlam, his mouth full of curses, and his heart full of hatred and thoughts of vengeance. The path was narrow and winding, leading now along sandy torrent-beds, then through lofty forest or thorny jungle. The village was three miles distant, and it was now evening, so he walked as fast as he could, finding some vent for his feelings in the violent exercise. When he had walked two-thirds of the way, he arrived at a broad river. It was now nearly dry, it being the hot season, and was merely a wide reach of deep sand, with shallow pools here and there under the high banks. The púsári had crossed the river and had just entered the jungle on the other side, when he suddenly uttered a curse and stopped short. Coming along the path towards him, and alone, was a man. It was his enemy, Iyan Elúvan! He was a broad-shouldered, big-headed man, with a round face, out of which looked two little pig-like, cunning eyes. A slight contraction of one side of his face causing him to show his teeth, gave him a peculiar, sinister, sneering expression. He had been at work cutting fence-sticks, for he was carrying his katti or jungle-knife over his shoulder.
On catching sight of each other, the two men stopped and looked at one another. The púsári’s face worked with passion, his eyes glittered, and the veins stood out on his forehead. The other had a mocking, evil smile on his face, which seemed to irritate his enemy beyond endurance. Suddenly the púsári grasped his heavy iron-shod stick and made two steps forward. In an instant Iyan swung round his jungle-knife and stood on the defensive, while his sneering smile gave place to a look of concentrated hate. For a few moments they stood glaring at each other, and then the púsári slowly stepped to one side and motioned to the other to pass on, which he did, keeping an eye on his foe, however, and passing out of reach of him. As soon as he had gone by, the púsári resumed his journey, his rencontre with his enemy having added fresh fuel to the fire of evil passions blazing in his heart. Iyan watched him till he had gone some distance, and then, after a few moments’ hesitation, turned and followed, keeping him in sight, but remaining a long way behind.
A walk of a mile further brought the púsári to the village of Mánkúlam, with Iyan following in the distance. It was rather a large village, consisting of about a score of huts, scattered about a wide open spot in the jungle, with a tank on one side, and rice-fields stretching beyond it. On the outskirts of the village was a house larger and more pretentious than any of the others, and boasting a dense plantain grove, growing close to the hut, and a few cocoa-nut palms. This was the residence of the múdliya, or headman of the district. On entering the inclosure through the rude stile or gap in the fence, the púsári paused for a moment, for the place seemed deserted, no one being in sight. He heard, however, the sound of voices inside the hut, so, stepping forward, with a loud unceremonious ‘Salaam, múdliya!’ he entered the hut. Seeing his enemy enter the headman’s house, Iyan came cautiously forward, but paused irresolutely at the gate. A glance round showed him that the people of the house were all indoors, so, sneaking into the inclosure, he crept stealthily through the grove of plantain trees till he got close to the door of the hut, when he crouched down under the eaves. From his hiding-place he could hear all that was said in the hut.
‘What do you want?’ he heard a wheezy, unpleasant voice say, and he knew it was the headman who spoke. The tone in which the question was asked was harsh and unfriendly, and an ugly smile passed over the listener’s face as he noted it.
‘I am come to lodge a complaint against Iyan Elúvan,’ replied the púsári shortly.
‘I thought so,’ wheezed the headman. ‘You are as quarrelsome as a wanderoo he-monkey. Do you think I have nothing to do but to listen to your fools’ quarrels?’
‘You will listen readily enough,’ retorted the púsári angrily, ‘when Iyan Elúvan comes with his hands full of rupees!’
‘What!’ exclaimed the headman, wheezing and choking with wrath, ‘do you charge me, the múdliya of Mánkúlam, with receiving bribes?’
‘Ay, I do,’ replied the púsári sternly. ‘All the villages know it. Many a time have I brought just complaints to you, and you would not hear them. When Iyan threw a dead dog into my well; when he set fire to my straw stack; and when, by manthiram’ [magical arts], ‘he caused my cattle to fall ill, why did you not inquire into the complaints I made—why? but because your granary was bursting with the rice that Iyan gave you as hush-money!’
‘Get out of my house!’ screamed the headman huskily—‘get out, I say!’
‘I’ll have justice,’ shouted the púsári fiercely. ‘I am a poor man, and cannot bribe you; but I swear by Púliya-deva that I will have justice. I will make you both suffer for this. You shall pay{155} for that buffalo that Iyan has lamed to the last hair on his tail. It shall be an evil day for you that you refused me justice. Look to yourself, múdliya; look to yourself, I say!’
‘Leave my house, you madman!’ exclaimed the headman in a voice scarcely articulate with rage.
A moment later, Iyan, from his hiding-place, saw his enemy burst out of the house almost beside himself with rage, his eyes ablaze, his lips drawn back in a grin of fury, and his whole frame trembling with excitement. He watched him stride across the inclosure and make for the path leading to Pandiyán, swinging his arms and gesticulating like one demented. Just as the púsári disappeared, a little boy came out of the hut, and Iyan heard him uttering exclamations of excitement and astonishment. He could also hear the voice of the headman inside wheezing out threats and curses. Presently, the little boy went out at the gate and disappeared in the village, and Iyan rose to leave his hiding-place. As he did so, he saw lying in the path a knife, which he at once knew must have been dropped by the púsári as he rushed out of the hut. Picking it up, Iyan crept back into his hiding-place, and crouching down, examined it long and earnestly, feeling its edge, and making motions with it in the air. Suddenly, an idea seemed to strike him. He looked up hastily and around with a scared, startled air, and then felt the edge of the knife again with his thumb slowly while he gazed earnestly in the direction of the door of the hut. Presently, an evil, cruel smile curled his lips and sent a baleful gleam into his little eyes. Muttering to himself, ‘Yes; I’ll do it; the suspicion is sure to fall on him!’ he rose slowly, glanced round again, to assure himself that no one was watching him, and then, with a rapid, silent step, entered the hut.
Meanwhile, the púsári was hurrying along in the direction of his village, cursing and raving. The injury done him by his enemy, and the refusal of the headman to give him justice, had angered him to the verge of madness. As he strode furiously along swinging his heavy stick, and grasping at the air with his other hand, as if he was in imagination tearing his enemy to pieces, he was quite oblivious of all surroundings, and only conscious of his wrongs and desire for vengeance. Blind with rage, he hurried on, heedless of where he was going.
By this time, the sun had sunk and night was rapidly coming on. Gradually the path grew less and less distinct, and the surrounding forest more gloomy and fearful. Suddenly, the púsári stopped and looked about him. Being unable to see his way, he had at last come to his senses. All that was visible of the path now was a dim white streak before him. For a few moments he stood looking round. Even in that faint light the path seemed strange to him, and he peered about in vain for some familiar object by which he could ascertain his position. He soon satisfied himself he was not in the well-known path between the two villages, but was following some game-track; however, he felt sure he was going in the right direction, so went on, instead of turning back to look for the lost path. Every now and then he stopped to listen, hoping to hear the distant barking of dogs or lowing of cattle at Pandiyán; but he only heard the sharp barking cry of deer in the jungle and the dismal hooting of a pair of owls. It grew darker and darker, and the path worse and worse. Soon it was so dark that he could not see his hand before his face. He tried to feel his way with his stick, but nevertheless stumbled against the trees and over roots and stones. More than once he stopped and shouted long and loudly; but no answer came but the mocking hooting of the owls. The púsári was a brave man; but the dense darkness, the loneliness and silence of the jungle, were beginning to shake his nerves.
Suddenly, just as he was about to give up in despair the attempt to find his way, a brilliant light appeared in the jungle ahead of him. Uttering an ejaculation of surprise, pleasure, and relief, the púsári pressed towards it. A few moments later he was standing, with open eyes and startled expression, gazing at a scene such as he had never before looked on. Before him stretched a long narrow bazaar of houses, shops, and sheds, huddled irregularly together. Close behind them, and overhanging them, rose the jungle like a wall of ebony, densely dark. Above, stretched a sky of inky blackness, starless and cloudless. The whole bazaar was ablaze with light from numerous fires, torches, and lamps. It was crowded with people, men, women, and children, all apparently busily engaged in buying and selling and other occupations. But they were people such as the púsári had never before seen—black, lean, ungainly, with thin evil faces, and long black hair flowing wildly over their necks and shoulders. He noticed, too, that their feet and hands resembled more the claws of wild beasts than human appendages. But the strangest thing of all was that, though the bazaar appeared to his eyes to be full of bustle and noise, and all the people to be talking, wrangling, singing, and laughing, he could not hear a sound! Could he have shut his eyes, he might have fancied himself alone in the jungle again.
For some moments the púsári stood staring before him, bewildered at the sight. To come suddenly upon a large village that he had never heard of, close to his own, filled him with speechless amazement He rubbed his eyes and felt his ears, thinking his senses must be playing him false. Suddenly his heart stood still, and he gasped with horror. He had realised where he was—it was an enchanted or magic village of pisásis or demons that he had intruded on! As the full horror of his situation, alone among demons in the depths of the jungle at midnight, burst upon him, the púsári turned to flee. To his intense surprise and terror, on turning, he found behind him, not the jungle, as he expected, but another part of the bazaar! Rows of huts and shops, crowded so closely together that there was no way through them into the forest beyond, barred his way. After a moment’s hesitation, he plucked up courage, and muttering prayers and charms, started off to walk through the bazaar. Grasping his stick firmly, he walked boldly on, showing no outward sign of fear, but with deadly terror at his heart.
The bazaar seemed to lengthen before him as he went. He walked on and on, but it seemed to have no end. He turned aside into several by-lanes, but they only led into others. He looked in vain for any gap between the huts by which{156} he could escape into the jungle. As he went, he passed through crowds of demon-folk. They took no notice of him, but he felt they were all watching him with their gleaming red eyes. To the púsári, everything around him seemed to be alive. The boughs of the trees waved above him threateningly like weird skinny hands and arms; hideous faces peered out at him from all sorts of strange, unlikely places. Even the rice mortars and pots lying about, and the articles being hawked about or lying exposed on the stalls, seemed to assume grotesquely human faces and figures and to watch him stealthily. Numbers of strange, vicious-looking cattle, and gaunt, evil-faced dogs wandered about, and the púsári noticed them leering at him and each other with a human sort of expression which showed him what they were. Rows of fowls of queer shape were perched on the roofs of the huts, and watched him as he passed with heads knowingly on one side.
Many a strange sight did the púsári see as he walked along. The shops were full of curious and extraordinary things such as he had never seen exposed for sale. He passed at one place a party of pisásis engaged in beating drums of strange shape with drumsticks of bones. Soon after, he came to a part of the bazaar where a furious quarrel appeared to be raging. In a dark corner he caught sight of a large party of she-pisásis, who appeared to be engaged in some horrible rite. More than once he thought he saw the mock-animals wandering about the bazaar talking to the keepers of the shops and to each other. It seemed to the púsári that he had been walking for hours, yet the bazaar appeared to be as interminable as ever. He walked on as in a dream, for, in spite of the apparent bustle and excitement around him, he could hear nothing. Stupefied by his fearful position, he walked on mechanically, having now lost the sense of fear, and feeling only a sort of vague wonder.
And now a raging thirst seized on the púsári. He had been on foot all day in the sun, and all the afternoon his mouth had been hot and bitter with curses. He had drunk nothing for many hours. As he walked along, the craving for water grew stronger and stronger, till he could bear it no longer. He realised vaguely the peril he ran in accepting anything from the hand of a pisási, nevertheless he stopped and looked about, in the hope of finding something to drink. Near at hand was a small shop presided over by a hideous old she-pisási. Undeterred by the horrible aspect of the red-eyed, wrinkled, old hag, the púsári approached her with the intention of asking for a drink of water. As he did so, he felt conscious that all the pisásis had suddenly stood still and were watching him. The she-pisási’s shop contained some strange things. On one side lay a huge rock python cut into lengths, each of which was wriggling about as if full of life. On the other side lay a young crocodile apparently dead; but as the púsári approached, it turned its head and looked slily at him with its cold yellow eye. Over the old hag’s head hung a crate full of live snakes, that writhed about and thrust their heads through the withes. Strings of dead bats, and baskets full of loathsome reptiles and creeping creatures, filled the shop. In front of her stood a hollow gourd full of water.
‘Mother! I am thirsty,’ said the púsári as he pointed to the water. But though he said the words, he did not hear his own voice. The old hag looked fixedly at him for a moment, and then raising the gourd, gave it to him. He raised it to his lips, and drank long and eagerly. As he put the empty vessel down, he felt everything reel and swim about him. Gazing wildly round, he grasped at the air two or three times for some support, and then fell to the ground motionless and senseless.
There are in all our lives episodes which we should be glad to forget; of which we are so much ashamed, that we scarcely dare to think of them, and when we do, find ourselves hurriedly muttering the words we imagine we ought to have said, or making audible apologies for our conduct to the air; and yet these are not always episodes which necessarily involve a tangible sense of wrong done either to ourselves or to others. Some such episode in a commonplace life, such as must have fallen to the lot of many men, we would here reveal.
Once upon a time—to commence in an orthodox fashion—a man and a maid lived and loved. On the woman’s part the affection was as pure and generous as ever filled the breast of a maiden; on the man’s, as warm as his nature permitted. His love did not absorb his whole soul, it rather permeated his mind and coloured his being. Like most men of his not uncommon stamp, his affection once given, was given for ever. His was not a jubilant nature, nor did his feelings lie near the surface, and his manner was undemonstrative. The girl was clear-sighted enough to see that what love there was, was pure and true, and she made up for its scarcity with the overflowings of her sympathetic nature. She idealised rather than condoned. She gave in such measure that she could not perceive how little she was receiving in return; or if she noticed it, her consciousness of its worth seemed to her a full equivalent. He was an artist; and circumstances forced the lovers to wait, and at the same time kept them apart. A couple of days once a month, and a week now and again, was the limit of the time they could spend together. This, of course, prevented them getting that intimate knowledge of each other’s personality which both recognised as an essential adjunct to the happiness of married life, though they did their best to obviate it by long letters, giving full details of daily events and of the society in which they moved. The remedy was an imperfect one. Strive as they might, the sketches were crude, and the letters had a tendency to become stereotyped. We only mention these details to show that they tried to be perfectly honest with each other.
While the girl’s life, in her quiet country home, was one that held little variety in it, it was a part of the man’s stock-in-trade to mix with society and to observe closely. Whether he liked it or not, he was compelled to make friends to such an extent as to afford him an opportunity of gauging character. Unfortunately for the purposes of my study, he had no sympathy with{157} pessimism or pessimists. He loved the good and the beautiful for their own sakes, and in his art loved to dwell on the bright side of human nature, a side which the writer has found so much easier to meet with than the more sombre colouring we are constantly told is the predominating one in life. Like most artists, he was somewhat susceptible, but his susceptibility was on the surface; the inward depths of his soul had never been stirred save by the gentle girl who held his heart, and she was such as to inspire a constant and growing affection rather than a demonstrative passion.
At one of the many houses at which he was a welcome guest, the lover found a young girl bright, sensuous, beautiful. Unwittingly, he compared her with the one whose heart he held, and the comparison was unsatisfactory to him; do what he would, the honesty of his nature compelled him to allow that this beautiful girl was the superior in a number of ways to her to whom he had pledged his life. He was caught in the Circe’s chains of golden hair, and fancied—almost hoped—yet feared lest, like bonds of cobwebs in the fairy tale, the toils were too strong for him to break. He could see, too, that the girl regarded him with a feeling so warm, that a chance spark would rouse it into a flame of love; and this gave her an interest as dangerous as it was fascinating. His fancy swerved. Day after day he strove with himself, and by efforts, too violent to be wise, he kept away from the siren till his inflamed fancy forced him back to her side.
To the maiden in the country he was partially honest. In his letters he faithfully told her of his visits, and as far as he could, recorded his opinions of the girl who had captivated his fancy. Too keen an artist to be blind to her faults, he dwelt on them in his frequent letters at unnecessary length. When the lovers met, the girl questioned him closely about her rival, but only from the interest she felt in all his friends known and unknown, for her love for him was too pure and strong to admit of jealousy, and he, with what honesty he could, answered her questions unreservedly.
Little by little he began to examine himself. Which girl did he really love? Should he not be doing a wrong to both by not deciding? The examination was dangerous, because it was not thorough. The premises were true, but incomplete. Yet we should wrong him if we implied that he for a moment thought seriously about breaking off his engagement. Even had he wished, his almost mistaken feelings of honour would have forbidden it. This constant surface introspection—a kind of examination which, had not the subject been himself, he would have despised and avoided—could have but one result—an obliquity of mental vision. He had a horror of being untrue—untrue to himself as untrue to his lass, and yet he dreaded causing pain to a bosom so tender and innocent. When he sat down to write the periodical letters to the girl to whom he was engaged, he found his phrases becoming more and more general and guarded. He took pains not to let her know what he felt must wound her, and the letters grew as unnatural as they had been the reverse; they were descriptive of the man rather than the reflex of his personality.
The country girl was quick of perception. The letters were more full of endearing terms than ever; they were longer and told more of his life; yet between the lines she could see that they were by one whose heart was not at rest, and that a sense of duty and not of pleasure prompted the ample details. Their very regularity was painful: it seemed as if the writer was anxious to act up to the letter of his understanding. She knew that the letters were often written when he was tired out. Why did he not put off writing, and taking advantage of her love, let her exercise her trust in him? Eagerly she scanned the pages to find the name of her rival, and having found it, would thoughtfully weigh every word of description, of blame or praise.
When the lovers met, she questioned him more closely than she had ever done before. He was seemingly as fond as ever; no endearing name, no accustomed caress, was forgotten. He spoke of himself and his friends as freely as usual, and all her questions were answered without a shadow of reserve. Yet the answers were slower, and his manner absent and thoughtful. For a time she put it down to the absorbing nature of his pursuits; but little by little, a belief that she was no longer dearest crept into her heart, and would not be dislodged, try as she might. She thought she was jealous, and struggled night and day against a fault she dreaded above all others; then, in a paroxysm of despair, she allowed herself to be convinced of what she feared, and, loving him deeply, prepared to make the greatest sacrifice an unselfish woman can offer. He no longer loved her; it was best he should be free.
When he had been with her last, he had told her that his ensuing absence must perforce be longer than usual, and this she thought would be the best time for her purpose.
‘Dear Frank,’ she wrote at the end of a pitiful little letter, ‘I am going to ask you not to come here next week. This will surprise you, for in all my other letters I have told you that what I most look forward to in life is your visits. But I have been thinking, dear, that it will be best for us to part for ever. I often ask myself if we love one another as much as we did, and I am afraid we do not. A loveless married life would be too dreadful to live through, and I dare not risk it. It is better that the parting should come through me. Do not fancy that I am reproaching you; I cannot, for to me you are above reproach, above blame. All I feel is that our affection is colder, so we had better part. God bless you, Frank; I can never tell you how deeply I have loved you.—Elsie.’
Frank was almost stunned by the receipt of this letter. He read it and re-read it till every word seemed burnt into his brain. That the girl’s love for him was less, he did not believe; he could read undiminished affection in the vague phraseology, in the studied carefulness to take equal blame on herself. That she should be jealous, was out of the question; long years of experience had taught him that this was totally foreign to her trustful nature. There was but one conclusion to come to. She had given him up because she thought his happiness involved. Yet she wished him to be free; might it not be ungracious to refuse to accept her gift?
{158}
Free! There was a terrible fascination in the sound. Be the bondage ever so pleasant, be it even preferable to liberty itself, the idea of freedom is irresistibly alluring. If the same bondage will be chosen again, there is a delight in the consciousness that it will be your own untrammelled choice. Frank was aware of a wild exultation when he realised the fact that he was once more a free agent. In the first flush of liberty, poor Elsie’s image faded out of sight, and that of the siren took its place. Now, without wrong, he might follow his inclinations. He determined to write to Elsie, but knew not what to say, and put it off till the morrow.
There could be no harm in going to the house of his fascinator; it was pleasant to think that he might now speak, think, look, without any mental reservations; there would be no longer any need to watch his actions, or to force back the words which would tell her that she exercised a deadly power over him. The girl received him with a winning smile, yet, when he touched her hand, he did not feel his brain throb or his blood rush madly through his veins as he had expected. He bore his part through the evening quietly, and owned that it was a pleasant one; still, the flavour was not what he had expected. He called to mind that when he was abroad for the first time, he had been served with a peculiar dish, which he remembered, and often longed for when unattainable. After several years, he had visited the same café and ordered the same dish. The same cook prepared it, and the same waiter served it, but the taste was not the same; expectation had heightened the flavour, and the real was inferior to the ideal.
So it was with Frank. Before, when the siren had seemed unattainable, he had luxuriated in her beauty, admired her grace and genius, and revelled in her wit; now, when he felt he might call these his own, his eye began to detect deficiencies. The girl noted his critical attitude, and chafed at the calmness of his keen, watchful glance. Where was the open admiration she used to read in his eyes? Piqued at his indifference, she grew silent and irritable; and when he bade her farewell, both were conscious that an ideal had been shattered.
He buttoned his overcoat, and prepared for a long walk to the lonely chambers where he lived the usual careless, comfortless life of a bachelor whose purse is limited. All the way home he submitted himself to a deep and critical examination. He felt as if he was sitting by the ashes of a failing fire which he had no means of replenishing; the night was coming, and he must sit in the cold. If passion died out, where was he to look for the sympathy, the respect, the true friendliness which alone can supply its place in married life? Then he thought of Elsie. He had made a mistake, but a very common mistake. He had thought that the excitement of his interest, the enchaining of his fancy, and the enthralment of his senses, was love, and lo! it was only passion. He analysed his feelings more deeply yet, and getting below the surface-currents which are stirred by the winds, saw that the quiet waters beneath had kept unswervingly on their course.
When he reached his chambers, he sat down by his table and drew paper and ink towards him. ‘I shall not accept your dismissal, Elsie,’ he wrote hurriedly in answer to her piteous letter: ‘I should be very shallow if I could not read the motive which prompted your letter. I shall come down as usual, and we will talk over it till we understand each other fully. Till then, you must believe me when I tell you that I love you all the more for your act of sacrifice, and that I love you more now than I have ever done before.’
Frank and Elsie have been long married, and are content. There is no fear of his swerving again; but the event described left its mark on Frank. He knows now that he was on the verge of committing a grievous mistake, and one which might have darkened all his future life. For it is not great events, involving tragedies and tears, that impress themselves most deeply upon the body of our habits and thoughts; but the tendency of our life, as in the case before us, is often most deeply affected by what is no more than ‘an every-day occurrence.’
The station of Rawal Pindi, in which the following incident took place, is a large military cantonment in the Punjab, about a hundred miles from the Indus at Attock, where the magnificent bridge across the rapid river now completes the connection by rail between the presidency towns of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay with Peshawur our frontier outpost, which, like a watchful sentinel, stands looking straight into the gloomy portal of the far-famed Khyber Pass. It was at Rawal Pindi that the meeting took place between the Viceroy of India, Lord Dufferin, and the present Ameer of Afghanistan, before whom were then paraded not only the garrison of Rawal Pindi, or, as it is more generally known in those parts, by the familiar abbreviation of Pindi—a Punjabi word signifying a village—but a goodly array of the three arms, artillery, cavalry, and infantry, drawn from the garrisons of the Punjab and North-west Provinces of India. In ordinary times, the troops in garrison at Pindi consist of four or five batteries of royal artillery, both horse and field; a regiment of British, and one of Indian cavalry; and one regiment of British, and two of Bengal infantry, with a company of sappers and miners. The barracks—or, as they are called in India, the lines—occupied by these troops extend across the Grand Trunk Road leading to Peshawur, those of the royal artillery being almost, if not quite on the extreme right, and it is here that the occurrence which gives the heading to this article took place.
In front of the lines of each regiment is the quarter-guard belonging to it, at a distance of two or three hundred yards from the centre barrack. The men of this guard are turned out and inspected once by day and once by night by the officer on duty, technically known as the orderly officer. In rear of the quarter-guard, as has been already said, are the men’s barracks; and in rear of them the cook-houses and horse-lines, amongst and behind which are{159} large wells—‘pucka wells,’ as they are called, from being lined for a long way down and about the surface with brick-work and cement, in distinction from the ordinary ‘cutcha wells,’ which are merely circular holes dug until water is reached.
The pucka wells in the Pindi cantonments are from twelve to fourteen feet in diameter, and from thirty to forty feet from the surface to the water. They are surrounded by low parapets; and from each well extend long troughs of brick and cement, into which the water drawn from the well is conducted by channels, for the use of the horses and other cattle belonging to the artillery or cavalry. The low parapets round the wells are sufficient protection, at all events in the daytime; though instances are not unfrequent when accidents have occurred on a dark night to goats, sheep, and even bullocks straying from their tethers, especially when a dust-storm has been adding by its turmoil to the bewilderment of all so unfortunate as to be caught abroad in it, as the writer has on more than one occasion, when compelled to stand or sit for hours behind some protecting wall or tree; the darkness in noonday has been so great that his hand, though held close to his eyes, was with difficulty discernible. When to such a state of things are added the roar of the wind and the beating of broken branches of trees, wisps of straw, and other articles caught up and hurtled along, it may be easily imagined how dazed and perplexed is the condition of every creature so exposed. A dust-storm, however, had nothing to say to the accident with which we have to do.
In rear of the cook-houses, wells, &c., come the mess-house and the bungalows in which the officers reside, each in its own compound or inclosure, about eighty or a hundred yards square, and about a quarter of a mile from the men’s lines.
One night in the cold season of 1866-67, as well as I can remember, the subaltern on duty at Pindi was Lieutenant Black—as we will call him—of the Royal Horse Artillery. He was well known in the arm of the service to which he belonged as a bold and fearless horseman, who had distinguished himself on many occasions as a race-rider both at home and abroad. On the evening in question he remained playing billiards in the mess-house until it was time to visit the quarter-guard in front of the lines. A little before midnight he mounted his horse at the door of the mess, and started. It was very dark; but he knew the road well, and had perfect faith in his horse, a favourite charger; so, immediately on passing the gate of the mess compound, he set off, as was his custom, at a smart canter along the straight road leading to the barracks. He passed through these, and soon reached the guard, which he turned out, and finding all present and correct, proceeded to return to his own bungalow, having completed his duty for the day. He rode through the lines by the way he had come; but then, being in a hurry to get to bed, he left the main road and took a short-cut across an open space. Notwithstanding the darkness, the horse was cantering freely on, no doubt as anxious as his master to reach his comfortable stall, when all at once Black felt him jump over some obstacle, which he cleared, and the next moment horse and rider were falling through the air; and a great splash and crash were the last things of which Black had any consciousness. After an interval—how long he couldn’t tell—sensation slowly returned, and he became aware that he was still sitting in his saddle, but bestriding a dead horse. His legs were in water; and the hollow reverberation of his voice when he shouted for help, as he did until he could do so no longer, informed him that he had fallen into one of the huge wells somewhere in the lines. It was intensely dark; but he soon became aware that there were other living creatures in the well, for from its sides came occasional weird rustlings and hissings, which added considerably to the horror of his situation, by creating a vague feeling of dread of some unknown danger close at hand.
Slowly the long night passed, and he could plainly hear the gongs of the different regiments as the hours were struck on them, and the sentries, as if in mockery, crying the usual ‘All’s well.’ Gradually day began to dawn, and light to show up above at the mouth of the well. By degrees, his prison became less dim, and he could see his surroundings. He was bestriding his dead charger, which lay crumpled up with a broken neck at the bottom of the well, in which was not more than three feet of water. Black himself, except for the shock, was uninjured. His legs were pretty well numbed, from being so long in the water, but there were no bones broken; and barring the terrible jar to his system, he was sound in every respect. As the sun arose, he began to peer about, and again tried to make himself heard above ground. This caused a renewal of the peculiar rustlings and hissings we have referred to; and he was now enabled to verify what he had dreaded and suspected when he first heard them in the dark. All round the sides of the well were holes, tenanted by snakes, most of them of the deadly cobra tribe, and many, seemingly, of an extraordinary size. Presently, like muffled thunder, the morning gun roused the sleepers in the various barracks, and the loud reveille quickly following it, brought hope of speedy release to the worn-out watcher.
The bheesties coming to draw water were the first to discover him, and their loud cries soon surrounded the mouth of the well with stalwart artillerymen. Drag-ropes were brought from the nearest battery; and Black, barely able to attach them to his body, was at length drawn, to all appearance more dead than alive, to upper air, unable to reply to the eager questionings of those by whom he was surrounded. He was placed on a hospital litter, and hurried off to his own bungalow. Under careful treatment, and thanks to a splendid constitution, he was in a short time again fit for duty.
When recounting the events of the night, Black didn’t forget to mention his sensations at hearing the hissings all round him, and which the darkness at first made him think to be closer even than they were. This at once caused a proposal to be made for a raid upon the inhabitants of the holes; but he begged that they should not be disturbed, saying that they could do no harm where they were, and that{160} he couldn’t but feel deeply grateful for their forbearance in confining themselves to hissing his first and, he sincerely hoped, his last appearance in a well.
A LAY OF SPRING.[1]
[1] Persephoné, according to the Greek mythology, was the daughter of Zeus (the Heavens) and Demeter (the Earth). Various legends are related of her, one of the later and most beautiful being that, when young, she was carried off by Pluto (ruler of the spirits of the dead), and by him made Queen of Hadës (the nether world). Her mother, in agony at her loss, searched for her all over the earth with torches, until at last she discovered her abode. The gods, moved by the mother’s distress, sent a messenger to bring Persephoné back, and Pluto consented to let her go on condition that she returned and spent a portion of every year with him. From this, Persephoné became among the ancients the symbol of Spring, her disappearance to the lower world coinciding with winter, and her reappearance in the upper world bringing back vegetable life and beauty.
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