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Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 by Various

V >> Various >> Lippincott\'s Magazine, October 1885




BRANDER MATTHEWS.

* * * * *




GENERAL GRANT AT FRANKFORT.


The extraordinary honors paid to General Grant in England created a
profound impression all over Europe. No other American, and, indeed, few
Europeans, had ever received such honors abroad; and what made the case
still more impressive and exceptional was the fact that this great
distinction was paid to no potentate or prince of the blood, but to a
simple private citizen, holding no rank or official position.

As soon as it was known that General Grant intended to travel on the
Continent, he was invited to visit Frankfort-on-the-Main. The invitation
was extended by the American residents of that city, and was accepted.
A joint meeting of Americans and Frankfort burghers was then held, and a
committee was appointed, half Germans and half Americans, to make
arrangements for the proposed reception and entertainment of General
Grant and his party. Mr. Henry Seligman, an American banker of
Frankfort, and the writer of this, were appointed by this committee to
intercept the distinguished tourist on his journey up the Rhine and
conduct him to the city.

It was on a charming summer morning that we quitted Frankfort on this
mission. General Grant was at Bingen, where he had arrived the evening
before from Cologne. He was accompanied by Mrs. Grant, his son Jesse
Grant, and General Adam Badeau, then Consul-General at London. Their
arrival at Bingen had been so unostentatious that their presence in the
town was scarcely known outside of the hotel in which they had taken
rooms. Their departure was alike unnoticed.

Our train drew up at Bingen just as a special _Schnellzug_ with the
Emperor of Germany on board swept by. Proceeding at once to the hotel,
we learned that General Grant had already left for Ruedesheim, but had
possibly not yet crossed the river. We hastened to the landing, and
there found him and his party seated under some linden-trees, waiting
for the ferry. I had a package of letters for the general which had come
to my care, and which, after mutual introductions, I delivered to him at
once. Tearing open and throwing away the envelopes, General Grant
hastily inspected the letters and passed them to General Badeau. By this
time the Ruedesheim steamer had arrived, and we all went on board. In a
moment more the boat pushed off and turned its course up the stately
river. The rippling waters sparkled in the sunshine, and all the
vine-clad hills were dressed in summer beauty. On the right, dropping
behind us, was Bingen, famous in legend and in song, and on the left, in
the foreground, appeared the curious spires and roofs of Ruedesheim. The
scene was an ideal tableau, such as Byron describes, of the

Wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine,
And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,
And fields which promise corn and wine,
And scattered cities crowning these,
Whose far white walls along them shine.

From Ruedesheim to Wiesbaden the railway follows the Rhine as far as
Castel, at the mouth of the Main, opposite Mayence. A short distance
above Ruedesheim the Taunus bluffs sweep back from the river, and the
garden of the Rhine valley opens out right and left. This is the heart
of the wine-growing region, and within it lie many of the most
celebrated vineyards in the world. The valley is dotted with villages
whose names are famous in the Rhine-wine nomenclature, and upon a bold
promontory, commanding all, the queen of the German vintage rules from
the Johannisberg Schloss.

While our train bowled along, and we were discussing these various
objects of interest, General Badeau discovered by accident among the
letters which General Grant had given him one which had not been opened.

"The address is in the handwriting of General Sherman," said Badeau.

"Yes," said General Grant, glancing at the superscription, "that is from
Sherman. Read it."

Accordingly, General Badeau read the letter aloud, and the whole company
was deeply impressed with the cordiality of its friendly expressions. In
heartiest terms the letter felicitated General Grant upon the splendid
receptions which had been given him, and the merited appreciation
awarded him in the Old World. The letter was that of an admiring and
devoted friend rather than that of a military colleague.

"General Sherman seems to have a strong personal regard for you,
general," remarked one of the party.

"Yes," responded General Grant, "there has always been the best of
feeling between Sherman and myself, although attempts have not been
wanting to make it appear otherwise."

"I have noticed such attempts," replied the person addressed, "but for
my part I have never needed any proof that they were wholly uncalled-for
and impertinent.

"Possibly you have never heard, general," continued the speaker, "how
heartily General Sherman rejoiced over your conquest and capture of
Lee's army. He was particularly gratified that he had not been obliged
to make any movement that would have given a pretext for saying that
your success was due in part to him. To those about him he exclaimed, in
his energetic way,--

"'I knew Grant would do it, for I knew the man. And I'm glad that he
accomplished it without my help. Nobody can say now that I have divided
with him the credit of this success. He has deserved it all, he has
gained it all, and I'm glad that he will have it all.'"

About noon the party arrived at Wiesbaden, where nobody seemed to expect
them except the people at the hotel where General Grant's courier had
engaged rooms. After dinner Mr. Seligman desired to tender a drive to
the general and Mrs. Grant, but they had disappeared. After a short
search, they were found sitting together alone in one of the arboreal
retreats of the Kurgarten. The general remarked that it was his custom
when he visited a city to explore it on foot, and that in this way he
had already made himself tolerably familiar, he thought, with the
general plan and situation of Wiesbaden. Mr. Seligman's invitation was
readily accepted, however, and half an hour later the party set out, in
a carriage, for the Russian Chapel.

Wiesbaden is one of the most ancient watering-places on the Continent.
It was a Roman military station, and upon the Heidenberg--a neighboring
eminence--are seen the traces of a Roman fortress. The remains of Roman
baths and a temple have also been found there, and its waters are
mentioned by Pliny. At a later period the Carlovingian monarchs
established at Wiesbaden an imperial residence. The city lies under the
southern slope of the Taunus Mountains, the rocky recesses of which
conceal the mysteries of its thermal springs. The hilly country for
miles around abounds in charming pleasure-grounds, drives, and
promenades. The gilded palaces which were formerly used as fashionable
gambling-houses are now devoted to the social and musical recreation of
visitors who come to take the waters.

The drive to the Russian Chapel ascends the Taunus Mountain by a winding
road, amidst stately, well-kept forests of beech and chestnut. The
chapel, whose gilded domes can be seen from afar, stands upon one of the
most salient mountain-spurs, and overlooks the country as far as Mayence
and the Odenwald. It was erected by the Duke of Nassau as a memorial to
his deceased first wife, who was a beautiful young Russian princess.
Upon her tomb, which adorns the interior, her life-size effigy reclines,
in pure white marble.

General Grant lingered for some time at this place, and from the
promontory on which the chapel stands gazed with deep interest over the
far-reaching historic scenes of the Rhine valley.

Next morning the general and his party arrived at Frankfort, where they
were met by the reception-committee. Accompanied by this committee, the
party visited the ancient Roemer, within whose venerable walls for many
centuries the German emperors were chosen; then the quaint and venerated
mansion in which Goethe was born; then the old cathedral, wherein a
score or more of German potentates were crowned; and then, in
succession, the poet Boerne's birthplace, the Judengasse, the original
home of the Rothschilds, the Ariadneum (named from Daennecker's marble
group of Ariadne and the lioness), the Art Museum, the Goethe and
Schiller monuments, and the beautiful sylvan resort for popular
recreation, known as "The Wald." General Grant visited also, by
invitation, some of the great wine-cellars of Frankfort, and was
conducted through the immense crypts of Henninger's brewery, which is
one of the largest establishments of the kind on the Continent. As he
was about to leave Henninger's, he was requested to write his name in
the visitors' register. The record was divided into spaces entitled,
respectively, "name," "residence," and "occupation." General Grant
promptly put down his name and place of residence, but when he came to
the "occupation" column he hesitated. "What shall I write here?" he
inquired: "loafer?"

This remark was made in jest, and yet not without a certain sadness of
tone and manner. Undoubtedly, General Grant felt keenly the irksomeness
of having nothing particular to do. After the immense strain which had
been put upon him for twelve successive years, it was not easy for him
to reconcile himself, in the prime of his manhood and the full maturity
of his powers, to being a mere spectator of the affairs of men. Activity
had become a second nature to him, and idleness was simply intolerable.
With much leisure on his hands, he first sought rest and recreation, and
then occupation. However unfortunately his business undertakings
resulted, they were, after all, but the outcome of a natural and
laudable desire to be usefully employed.

The banquet given to General Grant by the citizens and resident
Americans of Frankfort was a superb affair. It took place in the
Palmengarten, which is, above any other object, the pride of the
charming old "City of the Main." When the Duke of Nassau, an active
sympathizer with the beaten party in the Austro-Prussian war, lost his
dominions and quitted his chateau at Biebrich, the Frankforters availed
themselves of the opportunity to buy the famous collection of plants in
his winter-garden, comprising about thirty thousand rare and costly
specimens. The joint-stock company by which this purchase was made
received from the city a donation of twenty acres of land, and added
thereto, from its own funds, ten acres more.

The company also obtained, partly by donation, five large palm-trees,
and from these the Palmengarten takes its name. For the conservation of
the botanical collection a mammoth structure was erected of glass and
iron, and for the entertainment of visitors a commodious and elegant
music- and dining-hall was added. The grounds were adorned with
fountains, lakes, parterres, and promenades, and were equipped with
every facility for family and popular recreation, not overlooking, by
any means, the amusement of the children. In all Europe there is not a
lovelier spot than this. To keep it in order, educated gardeners are
employed, regularly salaried; and in the arrangement of the plants such
combinations of color and form are produced as an artist might envy.
Twice daily a concert is given by a large, well-trained orchestra in the
music-hall, or, when the weather is propitious, in a pavilion in the
garden. The concert-hall looks through a glass partition directly into
the great conservatory, which, thus viewed, presents a scene of tropical
enchantment. The palm-trees occupy conspicuous positions amidst
skilfully-grouped dracaenas, ferns, azaleas, rhododendrons, passifloras,
and a myriad of other curious vegetable productions of the equatorial
world. The ground is carpeted with light-green moss, smooth and soft as
velvet, and, as an appropriate centre-piece to the whole, is seen the
silvery flash of a falling cataract.

The banquet was held in the music-hall, where General Grant was given a
seat immediately fronting the scene just described. The conservatory and
hall were brilliantly illuminated, the tables were resplendent with
silver and floral decorations, and upon the walls of the banquet-chamber
the emblems of the great Republic and the great Empire were suggestively
displayed side by side. Ladies were admitted to the galleries, but
gentlemen only were seated at the tables, and among the guests were many
of the most prominent bankers and merchants of Germany, including
capitalists who had been the first in Europe to invest in the war-loans
offered by our government.

The dinner lasted three hours. Between the courses various toasts were
drunk, a venerable burgher of Frankfort proposing the health of General
Grant, to which the general responded in a brief, sensible, and somewhat
humorous speech, which was exceedingly well received. Nothing could have
been more appropriate, modest, and fitting.

Outside the building the scene was scarcely less animated or interesting
than within. By the aid of colored lights and other pyrotechnic
contrivances the garden was made brilliant and gay as an Arabian Nights
dream. The air was perfumed with the aroma of flowers and moistened by
the delirious play of fountains. Thousands of people, elegantly dressed,
were seated on the out-door terraces, enjoying the fireworks and music,
and in the promenades other thousands were moving, producing a
kaleidoscopic combination of motion and color. For some time after the
banquet General Grant sat upon the veranda of the music-hall, conversing
with friends and observing this novel scene. His presence excited no
rude curiosity or boisterous enthusiasm, but was none the less honored
by more subdued and decorous demonstrations of respect.

The next day General Grant drove to Homburg, fifteen miles, and thence
four miles farther to Saalburg, the site of an ancient Roman
fortification on the Taunus Mountains. It was one of a series of
defensive stations covering the frontier of the Roman empire and
extending from the Rhine to the Danube. The exhumations at this
fortified camp, first attempted within a recent period, have disclosed
the most completely preserved Roman castramentation yet found in
Germany. The castellum is a rectangle, four hundred and sixty-five by
seven hundred and four feet, and is surrounded by two deep ditches and
by high parapets. Within this enclosure the praetorium, or residence of
the commandant, one hundred and thirty-two by one hundred and
fifty-three feet, has been distinctly traced by its stone foundations.
Stones marked with Roman characters yet remain in their places,
designating the camps of the different legions. This fort is mentioned
by Tacitus, and was one of the principal bulwarks of the Roman conquest
in Germany against the tribes which hovered along its northern frontier.

The excavations were still in progress at the time of General Grant's
visit, and on that very occasion some interesting relics were unearthed.
Mrs. Grant was presented with a ring and some pieces of ancient pottery
which were removed in her presence from the places where they had lain
embedded in the earth for the last eighteen hundred years.

Near the fort was discovered, a few years ago, the cemetery where the
ashes of the deceased Romans of the garrison were interred. Some of the
graves which had never before been disturbed were opened in General
Grant's presence, in order that he might see with his own eyes what they
contained and in what manner their contents were deposited. From each
grave a small urn was taken, containing the ashes of one cremated human
body, and upon the mouth of the urn was found, in each instance, a Roman
obolus, which had been deposited there to pay the ferriage of the soul
of the departed over the Stygian river. General Grant was presented with
some of these coins as mementos of his visit.

Upon his return to Homburg the ensuing evening, the general was
banqueted by a party of Americans, and a splendid illumination of the
Kurgarten was given in his honor. The next day he returned to Frankfort,
and the next departed by rail for Heidelberg and Switzerland.

ALFRED E. LEE.

* * * * *




TURTLING ON THE OUTER REEF.


"What's that astern, Sandy?" The old darky, who had been gently soothed
into slumber by the friction of the main sheet that served as a pillow,
raised his grizzly head, gave one look in the direction indicated, and
sprang to his feet, shouting wildly, "On deck der! man yo' wedder fo'
an' main, lee clew garnets an' buntlines, topsail halyards an'
down-hauls, jib down-haul, let go an' haul!" his voice fairly rising in
a shriek that, with the rattling of the jib as it came down, might have
been heard a mile away.

The occasion of all this turmoil was a pillar of inky blackness, which,
when observed by the writer, who had the tiller, seemed fifty feet high
and about ten feet wide. Now it was a hundred feet wide, and growing
with ominous speed. The easy quarter breeze that had been fanning us
along mysteriously crept away, as if awed by the strange apparition. The
laughing gulls that had hovered above the water rose high in air,
uttering piercing cries while standing out in vivid silvery brightness
against the wall of night. The sea assumed a bright metallic tint and
rose and fell in uneasy measure, while the booming of the breakers on
the distant reef, and the swash of the waves as our craft rolled to and
fro, were painfully distinct.

"Cotch suthin'!" shouted Sandy, taking a round turn about the tiller
with the slack end of the dingy's painter. Delicate furrows for a moment
cut their way here and there over the glassy surface, and then with a
roar the black squall was upon us, keeling our craft almost upon her
beam-ends. The water seemed torn from its bed, flung by some unseen
power high into the air, and borne hissing and roaring away. It cut and
lashed our faces as we crouched flat upon the deck, clinging where we
could. The sea rose as if by magic, and, with the wind astern, was
driving us upon the reef which we had been encircling in search of a
harbor. After ten minutes of the wild race with the squall, which now
was as quickly lighting up, we heard the roar of the breakers near at
hand.

"Put her up in de win', or we'se gone, sho'!" shrieked young Rastus, who
had crawled aft.

"Gone where?" cried Sandy, his grim visage, dripping with water, now
visible braced against the tiller.

Rastus's white eyeballs, standing out in terror, rolled ominously up and
then down in answer, leaving a doubt to be inferred.

"How old is yo', son?" asked the old man fiercely, bracing hard as the
craft yawed heavily.

"I ain't gwine to git any older, dat's sho'," replied the boy.

"W'y, yo' poor coon," retorted Sandy. "ef yu'se ole as Jehos'phat, I'se
wu'ked disher reef fo' yu'se bo'n."

So quickly had the squall passed that its power was now well over, and
the lighting up showed us to be only a few hundred yards from the mass
of breakers pounding upon the outer reef.

"Yo' 'spec' to jump dat reef?" asked Rastus, fairly shaking with fear.

"Start dat jib," thundered the old man. "Give her de bonnet an' de
ma'nsail up to dat fastest patch."

The boys jumped to the halyards, and the boat sprang forward with
renewed speed, careening over until she was half under, and slightly
hauling on the wind.

"Ef I kin keep her offen de reef twill hit lightens up, we'se all
right," whispered Sandy; and suddenly, looking after the retreating
cloud, out of which in the gloom now appeared the tops of the
mangrove-trees, he shouted exultantly, "Give her de jib," and, with a
lunge at the tiller, the vessel fell away and dashed onward at the wall
of rock and foam.

"For de Lawd's sake, yo' ain't gwine to jump dat reef, is yo'?" cried
Rastus, in an agony of terror.

But it was too late to question the old man's intentions: we were
already in the back swash of the breakers. "Cotch suthin!" he shouted
again, as our craft on the crest of a mighty roller shot onward to
seeming destruction.

On either side the bare coral rock was visible, as the waves gathered
for another onward rush; yet we did not strike. A second roller raised
us high in air, and, hurled forward with the speed of the wind, we were
buried in the seething foam; but the next moment our craft shook off the
sea, and we glided away on the smooth waters of the inner reef. A few
minutes later the sun was out again, and one of the strangest phases of
life on the reef had come and gone.

"I 'spec' dat was a narrer 'scape," said old Sandy, "but I tuk de only
chance. We was boun' to strike somewhere, an' de squall jes' got off in
time for me to take bearin's of disher five-foot channel; an', it's a
fac', I'se been fru a heap o' times, but dat was de wustest, sho'
'nuff."

From Sandy's orders given at the approach of the squall, the reader
might possibly infer that the sable mariner was commander of a
ninety-gun frigate, while in point of fact he was only skipper of a very
disreputable fishing-smack. But he had been nearly all his life a "boy"
on a government vessel, and now, having retired, from either habit or
fancy he still kept up the man-of-war discipline, and when under more
than ordinary excitement roared out a flood of orders that savored of
both navy and merchant marine, uttering them with all the enjoyment of a
ranking officer on his own quarter-deck. They were, however, well
understood by Sandy's sons, who constituted the port and starboard
watches of the smack, and who were in constant awe of the old
man-of-war's-man, who did not hesitate to enforce his orders with any
missile that came handy.

"Dis ship's on a war-footin', dat's sho'," he said, after one of these
characteristic scenes, and then, in a stage whisper, "so's de crew.
Dey's bofe cou'tin' de same gal in Key Wes'."

The Bull Pup, for such was her name, kept up her war-footing as long as
we knew her, and the dignity invested in her hulk, which had a strong
predisposition toward bilge, was, to say the least, extraordinary. Never
was better craft for the purpose; and during a long cruise among the
small keys that form the extreme end of the Florida peninsula, she
always showed a dogged determination, as indicated by her name, to
surmount all difficulties.

We had sailed down during the night from Marquesas across the Rebecca
shoals, and when caught by the squall were off Bush Key, one of the most
easterly of the group, which enjoys the distinction of possessing Dry
Tortugas,--why "dry" we know not. Our extraordinary entrance, almost
instantaneous, from rough to comparatively smooth water can only be
explained by a casual reference to the great reef. The group of
keys--Loggerhead, Bird, Long, Middle, East, North, Bush, Sand, and
Garden--are all within seven miles of each other, Garden, Bird, Bush,
and Long being in close proximity,--within swimming-distance, if the
swimmer be not nervous in regard to sharks. From these central keys a
great sandy shoal spreads away on all sides, cut up, however, by several
deep channels admitting vessels of the largest draught. To the east and
south the reef is two miles wide and rarely over four feet deep, covered
at intervals with great fields of branch corals, while here and there
clusters of enormous heads of astrea, porites, etc., have collected. The
edge of the reef is formed of dead coral rock, often beaten up by the
waves into a continuous wall several miles in extent, and a few steps
beyond this the water deepens quickly, until at the length of a vessel
from it no bottom is visible.

The one opening in this barrier on the side of our approach, so
formidable in a gale, is the passage through which the skill of Sandy
had safely brought us, being, as its name explains, five feet deep and
not many more in width, and used only at odd times by the few pilots and
fishermen of the reef who know the secret of its approach. But how old
Sandy found it when completely covered by the waves, with only the tops
of certain trees to steer by, is one of the mysteries.

Our object in visiting this desolate part of the country was to capture
turtles. Here is the ground of the green and loggerhead turtles, and,
according to Sandy, the hawksbill, from which the shell of commerce is
taken, is also occasionally found.

The squall was now a fast-disappearing pillar in the west. The
anchor-chain ran merrily out, and we rounded to in the narrow harbor of
Garden Key. The boys manned the pump, while Sandy and the writer pulled
for the shore, and the dingy soon crunched into the white, sandy beach
of the coral island which during the war was the Botany Bay of America.
Surely Dry Tortugas has been maligned: instead of dry we find it very
wet, a key of sand thirteen acres in extent, hardly one foot above the
tide, and entirely occupied by probably the largest brick fort in the
world.

Fort Jefferson was commenced long before the war, and is now a monument
of the ineffectual military methods of thirty years ago. The work is a
six-sided, two-tiered fort of majestic proportions, its faces pierced
with over five hundred guns. How many millions of dollars have been
expended in its erection it would be difficult to conjecture. The
question why so important a work was built here is often asked, and we
have heard the answer given that it was encouraged by the Key West
slave-owners, through their representatives, to give employment to their
slaves, who were engaged as laborers by the government. Garden Key,
however, is the key of the gulf, and, as a prospective coaling-station
in case of war, it was undoubtedly a spot to be held at all odds, and at
the outbreak of the war it formed a convenient spot for the confinement
of certain prisoners, as many as three thousand being kept there at one
time. Now the great fort figures as a picture of desolation and is
slowly falling to decay, deserted save by the memories of the great
conflict, a lighthouse-keeper, and a guard.

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