The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 127

"In the State of Pennsylvania, there is a settlement of them, on the J---- river, a little way above H----, where they have sawmills.

About the Alleghany mountains, there are many of the tribe, following somewhat the original ways of the race. In the United States generally there are many gipsy peddlers, British as well as continental. There are a good many gipsies in New York, English, Irish, and continental, some of whom keep tin, crockery, and basket stores; but these are all mixed gipsies, and many of them of fair complexion. The tin-ware which they make is generally of a plain, coa.r.s.e kind; so much so, that a gipsy tin store is easily known.

They frequently exhibit their tin-ware and baskets on the streets, and carry them about the city. Almost all, if not all, of those itinerant cutlers and tinklers, to be met with in New-York, and other American cities are gipsies, princ.i.p.ally German, Hungarian, and French. There are a good many gipsy musicians in America.

'What!' said I to an English gipsy, 'those organ-grinders!' 'Nothing so low as that Gipsies don't _grind_ their music, sir; they _make_ it.' But I found in his house, when occupied by other gipsies, a _hurdy-gurdy_ and tambourine; so that gipsies sometimes _grind_ music, as well as _make_ it. I know of a Hungarian gipsy who is a leader of a negro musical band, in the city of New-York; his brother drives one of the avenue cars. There are a number of gipsy musicians in Baltimore, who play at parties, and on other occasions. Some of the fortune-telling gipsy women about New-York will make as much as forty dollars a week in that line of business. They generally live a little way out of the city, into which they ride in the morning to their places of business. I know of one, who resides in New-Jersey, opposite New-York, and who has a place in the city, to which ladies, that is, females of the highest cla.s.ses, address their cards, for her to call upon them."

We forbear quoting more about the American gipsies: the information becomes fearfully suggestive, and it is all the more terrifying because these people never acknowledge their descent, and however sharply we may suspect them, we have no way of bringing the offence home to them. The friend who shakes our hand today may be the grandson of a vagabond who camped on our grandfather's farm, stole our grandmother's eggs and poultry, and picked our great-uncle's pocket.

The ancestor of that beautiful girl we danced with at the last ball may have had his ears nailed to the tree and then cut off, and the gentleman who asks us to dinner to-morrow, may purpose entertaining us with "sharps"-flavored mutton and a savory stew of beef juice and old rags.

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NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THIRTY YEARS OF ARMY LIFE ON THE BORDER.

Comprising descriptions of the Indian Nomads of the Plains; explorations of new territory; a trip across the Rocky Mountains in the winter; descriptions of the habits of different animals found in the West, and the methods of hunting them; with incidents in the life of different frontier men, etc., etc. By Colonel R. B. Marcy, U.S.A., author of "The Prairie Traveller." With numerous ill.u.s.trations.

New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1866.

Colonel Marcy, as appears from the t.i.tle of his book, has pa.s.sed the greater portion of his life among the trappers and Indians of the frontier. His descriptions are consequently authentic, and his lively, picturesque style makes them also extremely interesting and agreeable.

When we add to this the pleasant accompaniment of fine typographical execution and numerous spirited ill.u.s.trations, we have said enough to recommend the book to the lovers of information combined with entertainment, and will leave the following specimen to speak for the whole work.

THE COLORADO CAnON.

I refer to that portion of the Colorado, extending from near the confluence of Grand and Green rivers, which is known as the "Big Canon of the Colorado." This canon is without doubt one of the most stupendous freaks of nature that can be found upon the face of the earth. It appears that by some great paroxysmal, convulsive throe in the mysterious economy of the wise laws of nature, an elevated chain of mountains has been reft asunder, as if to admit a pa.s.sage for the river along the level of the grade at the base. The walls of this majestic defile, so far as they have been seen, are nearly perpendicular; and although we have no exact data upon which to base a positive calculation of their alt.i.tude, yet our information is amply sufficient to warrant the a.s.sertion that it far exceeds anything of the kind elsewhere known.

The first published account of this remarkable defile was contained in the works of Castenada, giving a description of the expedition of Don Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in search of the "seven cities of Cibola"--in 1540-1.

He went from the city of Mexico to Sonora, and from thence penetrated to Cibola; and while there despatched an auxiliary expedition, under the command of Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, to explore a river which emptied into the Gulf of California, called "_Rio del Tison,_" and which, of course, was the _Rio Colorado_.

On reaching the vicinity of the river, he found a race of natives, of very great stature, who lived in subterranean tenements covered with straw or gra.s.s. He says, when these Indians travelled in very cold weather, they carried in their hands a firebrand, with which they kept themselves warm.

Captain Sitgreaves, who in 1862 met the Mohave Indians on the Colorado river, says "they are over six feet tall;" and Mr. R. H. Kern, a very intelligent and reliable gentleman, who was attached to the same expedition, and visited the lower part of the great canon of the Colorado, says: "The same manners and customs (as those described by Castenada) are peculiar to all the different tribes inhabiting the valley of the Colorado, even to the use of the brand for warming the body. These Indians, as a ma.s.s, are the largest and best-formed men I ever saw, their average height being an inch over six feet."

The Spanish explorer says he travelled for several days along the crest of the lofty bluff bordering the canon, which he estimated to be three leagues high, and he found no place where he could pa.s.s down to the water from the summits. He once made the attempt at a place where but few obstacles seemed to interfere with the descent, and started three of his most active men. They were gone the greater part of the day, and on their return informed him that they had only succeeded in reaching a rock about one third the distance down. This rock, he says, appeared from the top of the canon about six feet high, but they informed him that it was as high as the spire of the cathedral at Seville in Spain.

The river itself looked from the summit of the canon, to be something like a fathom in width, but the Indians a.s.sured him it was half a league wide.

Antoine Lereux, one of the most reliable and best informed guides in New Mexico, told me in 1858, that he had once been at a point of this canon where he estimated the walls to be _three miles high_.

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Mr. Kern says, in speaking of the Colorado: "No other river in North America pa.s.ses through a canon equal in depth to the one alluded to.

The description (Castenada's) is made out with rare truth and force.

We had a view of it from the San Francisco mountain, N. M., and judging from our own elevation, and the character of the intervening country, I have no doubt the walls are at least fire thousand feet in height."

The mountaineers in Utah told me that a party of trappers many years since built a large row-boat, and made the attempt to descend the river through the defile of the canon, but were never heard from afterward. They probably dashed their boat in pieces, and were lost by being precipitated over sunken rocks or elevated falls.

In 185- Lieutenant Ives of the United States Engineers, was ordered to penetrate the canon with a steamer of light draught. He ascended the river from the gulf as high as a little above the mouth of the gorge, but there encountered rapids and other obstacles of so serious a character that he was forced to turn back and abandon the enterprise, and no other efforts have since been made under government auspices to explore it.

A thorough examination of this canon might, in my opinion, be made by taking small row-boats and ascending the river from the debouche of the gorge at a low stage of water. In this way there would be no danger of being carried over dangerous rapids or falls, and the boats could be carried round difficult pa.s.sages. Such an exploration could not, in my judgment, prove otherwise than intensely interesting, as the scenery here must surpa.s.s in grandeur any other in the universe.

Wherever we find rivers flowing through similar formations elsewhere, as at the "_dalles_" of the Columbia and Wisconsin rivers, and in the great canons of Red and Canadian rivers, although the escarpments at those places have nothing like the alt.i.tude of those upon the Colorado, yet the long continued erosive action of the water upon the rock, has produced the most novel and interesting combinations of beautiful pictures. Imagine, then, what must be the effect of a large stream like the Colorado, traversing for two hundred miles a defile with the perpendicular walls towering five thousand feet above the bed of the river. It is impossible that it should not contribute largely toward the formation of scenery surpa.s.sing in sublimity and picturesque character any other in the world. Our landscape painters would here find rare subjects for their study, and I venture to hope that the day is not far distant when some of the most enterprising of them may be induced to penetrate this new field of art in our only remaining unexplored territory. I am confident they would be abundantly rewarded for their trouble and exposure, and would find subjects for the exercise of genius, the sublimity of which the most vivid imaginations of the old masters never dreamed of.

A consideration, however, of vastly greater financial and national importance than those alluded to above, which might and probably would result from a thorough exploration of this part of the river, is the development of its mineral wealth.

In 1849 I met in Santa Fe that enterprising pioneer, Mr. F. X. Aubrey, who had just returned from California, and en route had crossed the Colorado near the outlet of the _Big Canon_, where he met some Indians, with whom, as he informed me, he exchanged leaden for golden rifle-b.a.l.l.s, and these Indians did not appear to have the slightest appreciation of the relative value of the two metals.

That gold and silver abound in that region is fully established, as those metals have been found in many localities both east and west of the Colorado. Is it not therefore probable that the walls of this gigantic crevice will exhibit many rich deposits? Companies are formed almost daily, and large amounts of money and labor expended in sinking shafts of one, two, and three hundred feet with the confident expectation of finding mineral deposits; but here nature has opened and exposed to view a continuous shaft two hundred miles in length, and five thousand feet in depth. In the one case we have a small shaft blasted out at great expense by manual labor, showing a surface of about thirty-six hundred feet, while here nature gratuitously exhibits ten thousand millions of feet, extending into the very bowels of the earth.

Is it, then, at all without the scope of rational conjecture to predict that such an immense development of the interior strata of the earth--such a huge gulch, if I may be allowed the expression, extending so great a distance through the heart of a country as rich as this in the precious metals, may yet prove to be the _El Dorado_ which the early Spanish explorers so long and so fruitlessly sought for; and who knows but that the government might here find a source of revenue sufficient to liquidate our national debt?

Regarding the exploration of this river as highly important in a national aspect, I in 1858 submitted a paper upon the subject to the War Department, setting forth my views somewhat in detail, and offering my services to perform the work; but there was then no appropriation which could be applied to that object, and the Secretary of War for this reason declined ordering it.

CHRISTINE; A TROUBADOUR'S SONG, and other Poems. By George H. Miles. New York: Lawrence Kehoe. 1866.

Mr. Miles's poem, "Christine," has {718} been already before our readers, in the pages of the Catholic World, and we are sure that its appearance in book form will be welcomed by all who have perused its beautiful verses.

It is the work of an artist, and as such, one likes to have it, as it were, completely under view, and not scattered in fragments amidst other productions which intrude upon our vision, and interrupt its continuity.

Mr. Miles has given us a poem of no ordinary merit. Powerfully dramatic, it not only paints the scenes of the story in strong, vivid colors, but brings the actors into a living reality as they pa.s.s before us. Few writers of our day possess much dramatic power, and this accounts for their short-lived fame. He who would write for fame must give us pictures of real life, and not pure reflective sentiment.

Poetry and its more subtle-tongued sister, music, are as much n.o.bler and worthier of immortality than are painting or sculpture, as the reality is superior to the image. Poetry and music are the true clothed in the beautiful, whilst painting and sculpture can only give us beautiful yet lifeless images of the true. The Psalms of David remain, but the Temple of Solomon and all its glory is departed.

Poetry, the purest form of language, is also the best expression of divine, living and eternal truth, in so far as humanity can express it. Being the expression of absolute truth, poetry and music are the truly immortal arts which will live in heaven. No one ever yet imagined that the blessed, in presence of the Unveiled Truth, will express their beat.i.tude in painted or sculptured images; but the revealed vision of the inspired poet, who drew his inspiration at the Source of truth, upon whose bosom he leaned, telling us of the saints, "harping upon their harps of gold," and "singing the song of the Lamb," finds a responsive a.s.sent in all our minds. Caught up into the embrace of the infinitely true, and the infinitely beautiful, they must necessarily give expression to that upon which the soul lives, and with which it is wholly enlightened.

There, too, they must possess a _quasi_ creative power of expression of the true, (in so far as they are thus endowed by virtue of their union with G.o.d, who is pure act, through the Word made Flesh,) just as we possess it here in germ by the dramatic form, which actualizes to us the otherwise abstract truth expressed. Hence the superiority of the dramatic, in which of course we include the descriptive, over the sentimental. Mr. Miles possesses this genius in no mean degree, as he has already shown in his "Mahomet." The poem before us abounds in dramatic pa.s.sages of rare beauty. Let our readers turn to the third song, and read the flight of Christine. They will find it to be a description unsurpa.s.sed in the English language. The death of "faithful Kaliph," and the knight's tender plaint over his "gallant grey," forgetful of even his rescued spouse, introduced to us in the flush of victory over the demon foe, just when our stronger pa.s.sions are wrought up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, is one of those sudden and thrilling transitions from the sublime to the pathetic which may crown Mr. Miles as a master of the poet's pen.

"Raphael Sanzio" dying, the first of the additional poems, possesses much of the merit we have signalized, but its versification and wording are too harsh for the subject. It is not the death of him whom we have known as Raphael. It reads as though told by one who was forced to admire, yet did not love, the great artist. There is a charming little poem, ent.i.tled, "Said the Rose," which is worth all the minor poems put together, if poetry can be valued against poetry.

We may say, at least, that it alone is worth many times the price of the whole volume; and our readers, who may have already enjoyed the perusal of "Christine" in our pages, will not fail to thank us for this hint to purchase the complete volume.

Mr. Kehoe, the publisher, is giving us some creditable books, as the "Life and Sermons of Father Baker," the "May Carols of Aubrey de Vere," and "The Works of Archbishop Hughes," bear testimony. The present one is got up in a superior manner, both in type, paper, and binding, and is a worthy dress for author's work.

HISTORY OF ENGLAND, FROM THE FALL OF WOLSEY TO THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH.

By James Anthony Froude, M.A., late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.

Vols. V. and VI. 8vo, pp. 474, 495. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.

Mr. Froude's thorough-going Protestantism is by this time too familiar to our {719} readers for them to expect a very lively satisfaction in reading the story of the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary which he has given in these volumes. We have neither the s.p.a.ce nor the inclination to follow him in his review of those melancholy times. We prefer to accord a hearty recognition to the undoubted merits of his work; his graphic and picturesque style; his artistic eye for effect; his excellent judgment in the examination of old-time witnesses; and the rare self-control which in the midst of his abundance of hitherto unused material has saved him from enc.u.mbering his pages and overloading his narrative with facts and ill.u.s.trations of only minor interest. He gives us sometimes little bits of truth where we had least reason to look for them. Cordially as he detests Mary the queen, he is tenderer than most historians of his ultra sort to Mary the woman. "From the pa.s.sions which in general tempt sovereigns into crime," he says, "she was entirely free; to the time of her accession she had lived a blameless, and in many respects a n.o.ble life; and few men or women have lived less capable of doing knowingly a wrong thing.

Philip's conduct, which could not extinguish her pa.s.sion for him, and the collapse of the inflated imaginations which had surrounded her supposed pregnancy, it can hardly be doubted, affected her sanity.

Those forlorn hours when she would sit on the ground with her knees drawn to her face; those restless days and nights when, like a ghost, she would wander about the palace galleries, rousing herself only to write tear-blotted letters to her husband; those bursts of fury over the libels dropped in her way; or the marchings in procession behind the Host in the London streets[!]--these are all symptoms of hysterical derangement, and leave little room, as we think of her, for other feeling than pity." The persecution, for which her reign is remembered was partly the result, Mr. Froude thinks, of "the too natural tendency of an oppressed party to abuse suddenly recovered power." Moreover, "the rebellions and ma.s.sacres, the political scandals, the universal suffering throughout the country during Edward's minority, had created a general bitterness in all cla.s.ses against the Reformers; the Catholics could appeal with justice to the apparent consequences of heretical opinions; and when the Reforming preachers themselves denounced so loudly the irreligion which had attended their success, there was little wonder that the world took them at their word, and was ready to permit the use of strong suppressive measures to keep down the unruly tendencies of uncontrolled fanatics."

Mr. Froude's history will be completed in two more volumes.

A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: from the Commencement of the Christian Era until the Present Time. By M. l'Abbe J. E. Darras. Vol. III. P. O'Shea, New-York.

The period comprised by the third volume of this admirable history extends from the pontificate of Sylvester II. A.D. 1000 to that of Julius II. a.d. 1513. To our mind the terrible struggle which the church sustained during those four eventful centuries is more wonderful than her deadly strife in the days of Roman persecution and martyrdom. The church is a divine-human inst.i.tution; and inasmuch as it is human, it must suffer from human infirmity, but the Spirit of G.o.d abideth for ever in it, preserving the truth amidst heresies, the purity of the Christian law amidst moral degradation, and at last crowning. His spouse with new glories for her patiently borne sufferings.