Chapter VII · PARTICULAR ACCOUNTS

The second large division heading explains itself. In an atmosphere of facts all the true narrative types stand. Whether these types are used as retainers of truth only is another question. Manifestly they are not. Manifestly there is much fiction that succeeds merely because it is cast in the true story mold. But the concern of the writer who chooses any one of these forms is to pour truth into it, whether the truth be historical actualities or only artistic probabilities.

It is more helpful to consider the types on their simplest basis; hence in a study like this, one would assume for content always real happenings. The necessity that the story go unquestioned does not, however, excuse the recorder of actual events from using his imagination. Indeed, only by using it can he come to write true history or true biography. Without "the inward eye" one cannot see the past. Without sympathy—which is another word for imagination—one cannot know his fellowman. A biographer, an historian, above all else should be able to see the unseen, not the unseen of the unreal, but the unseen of the real, a vastly different thing! The two are exact opposites, the what-is and the what-was set over against the what-was-not and the what-could-not-be.

In this chapter five types of narratives of actual events are grouped as particular accounts, or adventitious history, in contrast with continuous personal history, and continuous impersonal, or community history.

Particular accounts have to do with those small happenings that seem to come by chance, those events that form, as it were, complete and detachable bits of life. That is to say, each relation is of something that has taken place or been witnessed in a comparatively short time—an incident of a trip downtown, a characteristic action of a great man, an important political event, an adventure, a brief series of pleasures.

I. The Incident

Definition

The word "incident" comes from the Latin and means "falling upon or into something, impinging from without;" hence something depending upon or contained in another thing, as its principal. In narrative, then, it is the record of a subordinate act or of an event happening at the same time as some other event and of less importance. Any little occurrence may be considered an incident. The report of it generally has excuse for being in the fact that knowledge of it throws light on the main event or intensifies interest therein. Accordingly every good narrative of this type possesses a horizon larger than itself. Somewhere within the story there is a clause connecting the event with other occurrences or with the prime occurrence.

How to tell an incident

An incident may or may not be an eye-witness account. Indeed, an incident may be told by a person removed the third, the hundredth degree from the happening. The essential thing is the evidence of reality. Of course there are fictitious incidents—like those in "Robinson Crusoe"—but the whole care of the writer in such cases is to simulate truth. Very often a work of fiction is but a skillful piecing together of actual small happenings. An incident is valued in itself for one of two reasons—either for the fact which it records or for the author's humanity revealed in the narration. Though slight, an incident should be well told. It need not be pointed, but it should proceed in an orderly and interesting fashion. The diction should be natural. As hinted before, an incident should have a setting. The reader ought to be able to feel something of where the characters have come from and whither they are going. The more nicely such a coherence is suggested, the more pleasing the little story will be.

One thinks of the quiet delightfulness of Wordsworth's Incidents which he calls "Poems on the Naming of Places." They are small stories out of his life and the lives of his friends—natural records out of natural living, but as charming and interesting as any tale of

Robert Browning's "Incident of the French Camp" is an example of the more stirring small happening. Books of travel are largely series of incidents, but because of the continued presence of the same personality fall into a class distinct from this. Good letter-writers are usually fascinating relators of incidents. Cowper, Jane Welsh Carlyle, Dorothy Osborne, Gray, Lowell, Edward Fitzgerald, charmed not only their correspondents but all their later readers. The earlier accounts of his life away from home that "R. L. S." sent back to his mother contain exquisite small bits of narration.

A Near Tragedy

A most tragical incident fell out this day at sea. While the ship was under sail, but making, as will appear, no great way, a kitten, one of four of the feline inhabitants of the cabin, fell from the window into the water: an alarm was immediately given to the captain, who was then upon deck, and received it with the utmost concern. He immediately gave orders to the steersman in favor of the poor thing, as he called it; the sails were instantly slackened, and all hands, as the phrase is, employed to recover the poor animal. I was, I own, extremely surprised at all this; less, indeed, at the captain's extreme tenderness, than at his conceiving any possibility of success; for, if puss had had nine thousand instead of nine lives, I concluded they had been all lost. The boatswain, however, had more sanguine hopes; for, having stript himself of his jacket, breeches, and shirt, he leapt boldly into the water, and, to my great astonishment, in a few minutes, returned to the ship, bearing the motionless animal in his mouth. Nor was this, I observed, a matter of such great difficulty as it appeared to my ignorance, and possibly may seem to that of my fresh-water readers: the kitten was now exposed to air and sun on the deck, where its life, of which it retained no symptoms, was despaired of by all.

The captain's humanity, if I may so call it, did not so totally destroy his philosophy as to make him yield himself up to affliction on this melancholy occasion. Having felt his loss like a man, he resolved to show he could bear it like one; and, having declared he had rather have lost a cask of rum or brandy, betook himself to thrashing at backgammon with the Portuguese friar, in which innocent amusement they passed nearly all their leisure hours.

But as I have, perhaps, a little too wantonly endeavored to raise the tender passions of my readers in this narrative, I should think myself unpardonable if I concluded it without giving them the satisfaction of hearing that the kitten at last recovered, to the great joy of the good captain; but to the great disappointment of some of the sailors, who asserted that the drowning a cat was the very surest way of raising a favorable wind: a supposition of which, though we have heard several plausible accounts, we will not presume to assign the true original reason.

—Henry Fielding.

"Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon."

Birds Divulge Army Secrets

During the night, before the battle of Sadowa, an Austrian division commanded by the archduke, retreating before the Prussian army, had bivouacked near a town in Bohemia, facing north, says Sir Evelyn Wood, in the London Gazette.

At midnight the archduke, when resting in a peasant's cottage, was awakened by the arrival of a gypsy, having come to report the advance of the enemy.

The archduke, who spoke Romany fluently, asked: "How do you know? Our outposts have not reported any movement."

"That, your highness, is because the enemy is some way off."

"Then how do you know?"

The gypsy, pointing to the dark sky, lighted by the moon, observed: "You see those birds flying over the woods from north to south?"

"Yes; what of them?"

"Those birds do not fly by night unless disturbed, and the direction of their flight indicates that the enemy is coming this way."

The archduke put his division under arms and reinforced the outposts, which in two hours' time were heavily attacked.

An Incident Related In a Letter

7:20 P. M.—I must tell you a thing I saw to-day. I was going down to Portobello in the train, when there came into the next compartment (third-class) an artisan, strongly marked with smallpox, and with sunken, heavy eyes—a face hard and unkind, and without anything lovely. There was a woman on the platform seeing him off. At first sight, with her one eye blind and the whole cast of her features strongly plebeian, and even vicious, she seemed as unpleasant as the man; but there was something beautifully soft, a sort of light of tenderness, as on some Dutch Madonna, that came over her face when she looked at the man. They talked for a while together through the window; the man seemed to have been asking for money. "Ye ken the last time," she said, "I gave ye two shillings for your lodgin', and ye said—"it died off in a whisper. Plainly Falstaff and Dame Quickly over again. The man laughed unpleasantly, even cruelly, and said something; and the woman turned her back on the carriage and stood a long while so, and, do what I might, I could catch no glimpse of her expression, although I thought I saw the heave of a sob in her shoulders. At last, after the train was already in motion, she turned and put two shillings into his hand. I saw her stand and look after us with a perfect heaven of love on her face—this poor one-eyed Madonna—until the train was out of sight; but the man, sordidly happy with his gains, did not put himself to the inconvenience of one glance to thank her for her ill-deserved kindness.

—Robert Louis Stevenson.

In letter to Mrs. Stillwell, Sept. 16, 1873.

A Hero Dead

It was very dark in the east corridor of the Armory, and, save for the quiet footfall of the ever-watchful orderly, there was no sound in the silent room where the nation's dead lay wrapped in the great silk flag. In the shadow of the stairway, a group of secret-service men were nervously whispering among themselves, with occasional glances that strove to penetrate the black void that lay beyond the crape-hung doorway.

Their sergeant stood a little apart from the others, an alert figure, with a hand that lingered suggestively about his hip-pocket. For three days he had kept unwearied watch while thousands had paid their last homage to the dead servant of the people, and the strain was telling upon him. The nation had lost a hero, but John MacDonald had lost his idol—and his best friend. Through his mind was sweeping a strong revulsion at conditions which could have fostered so wanton a murder; and a sudden and passionate hatred of the dark race to whose salvation this man had been a martyr threatened almost to unman this stern son of the service. That very day he had sent away with a curse a paralytic old negro who had brought his handful of field-lilies to the bier of the savior of his race. MacDonald had felt no qualm at his action, and when, later, he had found the poor flowers lying withered outside the closed door, he kicked them aside with an oath. In a measure, the stern old Scotchman had not been responsible for his actions at that time, for it was just then that he had heard the dread rumor which was spreading its dark wake through the crapehung corridors. That very night while the whole nation was yet bowed in its sorrow, an attempt was to be made to steal the body of the dead hero. The crime seemed scarcely to be believed, but the men of the secret-service, scattered throughout the dark corridor, were awake and ready.

John MacDonald, striving vainly in his grief-saddened heart to frame a reason for it all, wondered how he had been able to resist the old negro with his tear-wet face and pleading voice. That black creature was a man like himself, and he, also, had loved the great man who was lying so quietly in the folds of his country's flag. "O Lincoln," he spoke, raising a clenched hand toward the black doorway, "they have murdered you, they have taken you from us, but still—" Suddenly his muscles stiffened, and something very akin to a chill crept about the roots of his hair. There had come the quiet but unmistakable sound of a footfall from the room where the dead lay. The Scotchman stood a man of stone, and while his very hair stiffened with horror, a mighty wrath swept over his whole being. They were at it, then, those fiends who dared to desecrate the body of his lord with their filthy touch. With a movement like a cat, MacDonald drew his ready weapon, and, with a call to his startled subordinates, stepped boldly over the threshold.

In a moment, the room was filled with the glare of torches, and the secret-service men, crowding in the doorway, saw the leveled weapon of their chief sink inertly to his side.

On the black catafalque the hero lay, beneath the outstretched wings of the eagle of the republic, and at his feet, sobbing out his grief-stricken heart, knelt an old negro.

—Ida Treat.

My First Day at School

The room was not large enough for a schoolroom. The floor, the wall, and the roof were all made of bamboo. In the center of the room was a long, narrow, roughly-made table, at which sat closely twenty or thirty pupils. There were also two or three benches here and there, on which sat new boys and girls. At the end of the long table sat a rather old but fierce-looking man, the schoolmaster. In his left hand he held a book, and in his right, a whip; for at that time the principle governing schools was that knowledge could not be gained without severe bodily punishment.

When I entered the schoolroom, my "cartilla" in hand, this was the first scene that met my eyes. It happened that Titay, a cousin of mine, had been sent to school on that day also; so we had the same lesson. In harsh tones the teacher ordered us to study the vowels of the Spanish alphabet. And with a loud voice we repeated again and again, a, e, i, o, u, until we knew them—at least we thought so—by heart.

At last our turn came; and we were called to go to our teacher. My cousin (a girl) was at his left side, while I was at his right.

"What is this?" the teacher asked my cousin.

"A," she answered, correctly.

However, at his second, third, and fourth questions, she was confused and could not answer. But I really knew "a, e, i, o, u," by heart, for my kind mother had taught them to me; so I proudly corrected every mistake she had made. After every correction, the teacher would say to me, "Tira la oreja" (meaning, "Pull her ears"). And with what boyish pleasure did I pull her ears! She cried and resolved never to go to school again.

When I returned home, I was very boastful, and told everybody in the household of my triumph. Thus I received encouragement in my first school day, and after that I continued to study with interest till I myself received some bodily punishment.

—Máximo M. Kalaw.

The Guinatan Prize

One day I came to the schoolhouse tardy. When I entered the door, I saw the pupils standing side by side in a row and facing the teacher. There was one column of numbers on the blackboard, near which the teacher stood with a long wooden pointer in his hand. As soon as I saw the numbers on the board, I knew at once that there would be a contest. So I laid down my books on the floor, took off my hat, and stood next to the last boy.

"Teacher, Leopoldo does not belong here. He is the captain-general. Therefore, he should stand next to Federico," said the last boy as soon as he saw me.

"No," said the teacher, "he came in tardy. Boys, you must learn to come to school on time," he continued.

The teacher then gave us names: he named the first boy general, the second major-general, the third captain-general, and so on. I, being the last boy, was named ranchero, or the cook of the army.

"He who is the general at the end of the contest will be given a cup of guinatan as a prize," said the teacher.

"Now begin, Martin," he continued. Martin began to add the numbers on the board with accuracy, and finished within forty seconds. The major-general did the same, but he finished within forty-five seconds. The captain-general added the numbers within forty-two seconds. So he pulled the ear of the major-general, and they exchanged places. Before, my turn came, there had been many changes already, a soldier had beaten a colonel, a sergeant had passed a lieutenant.

"All right, Leopoldo," said the teacher.

"One—six—fourteen—twenty-two—thirty—thirty-six—forty-five. Carry four. Eight—ten—fifteen—twenty-one—twenty-nine—thirty-five—forty!" I said without stopping to take a breath.

"Forty seconds!" announced the teacher.

The teacher wanted to try me again, but the boys said they should like to hear the general first.

"All right. Go on, Martin," said the teacher.

This time Martin failed. He finished within thirty-seven seconds, but he made a mistake. The boys shouted.

Fortunately, the time was up. So I was pronounced the victor. The teacher bought a cup of guinatan, the sweet fruit mixture that Filipino children so much love, and gave it to me. I was very proud then. When I reached home, I told my mother all that had happened. She was very happy.

—Leopoldo Faustino.

II. The Anecdote

Meaning of the term

In the sense in which a proverb is a condensed parable, an anecdote is a condensed character-sketch or biography. Like many of our other terms the word "anecdote" itself reveals to an extent its present meaning. It is derived from the Greek and signifies "something not published." This is the sense in which Cicero uses it when he speaks of a book of anecdotes on which he was engaged, but which he talks of confiding to a single friend only, as if it were not intended ever to be published. In literature the word has been used to denote either secret histories or portions of ancient writers which have remained long in manuscript and are edited for the first time. The anecdotes of Procopius, which were published in London in 1674 under the title "The Secret History of the Court of Justinian," are evidence of the first significance; and Dr. Johnson's reference to the English-French fashion of using the word for a "biographical minute passage of private life" establishes the second meaning.

In our day, collections of anecdotes—criticisms and observations, smart sayings and ludicrous tales, delivered by eminent men in conversation and recorded by their friends or discovered among their papers after their death, and put together with historical incidents concerning them—are published under the term ana.

Ana

The ancients were in the habit of indulging in this species of literature. From earliest periods Oriental nations have preserved the intimate talk of their wise men. From them the Greeks and Romans took up the practice. Plato and Xenophon recorded the colloquially expressed ideas of their master Socrates. It appears that Julius Cæsar compiled a book of apophthegms in which he related the bon mots of Cicero; and a freedman of that orator, taken with his master's liveliness and wit, composed three books of a work entitled "De Jocis Ciceronis."

Eighteenth century collections

But the term ana seems to have been applied to such collections only so far back as the fifteenth century. The information and anecdotes picked up by Poggio and his friend Barthelemi Montepolitiano during a literary trip in Germany "are to be called," says another friend in a letter, "Poggiana and Montepolitiana." Perhaps the most typical, and surely a very famous and interesting, production of this species of narrative in English is the "Walpoliana," a transcript of the literary conversation of Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford. Selden's "Table Talk" was considered by Dr. Johnson good ana, better than the French. But incomparably superior to all, a collection the most remarkable in the English language-and indeed, in any language (as a writer in the "Britannica" asserts)—is James Boswell's "Life of Samuel Johnson." Though not conforming to the type of collection either in name or in form of presentation, this, according to Carlyle, "the greatest production of the eighteenth century," depends for its value mainly upon its ana. "Its interest," the same writer goes on to say, "arises, not from the details it furnishes of the events of Dr Johnson's career, still less from any attempt at a discriminating estimate of his work and character, but the graphic representation it gives of his habitual manner of life and speech. The animate greatness of Johnson appears, more than in all his writings, in his portrait delineated with the exactness of sharply-defined photograph, as he appeared, to the eyes of his admiring biographer, in his daily deshabille."

That is the secret of anecdote—it must get at the real man in however small a part.

While a book of ana is a collection of short, pointed, true colloquial relations of more or less detached interesting particulars concerning a person of consequence, a single anecdote is one of those interesting particulars entirely detached, short, pointed, true, and colloquial. A book of anecdotes is a group of stories, miscellaneous so far as subject matter is concerned. Spence's "Anecdotes" is a very famous eighteenth century literary set; and Percy's is an early nineteenth, with the stories selected—as the preface ostensibly gives notice—for their moral effect, and arranged according to the virtue illustrated or the subject treated—humanity, generosity, kindness; science, art, and so on.

How to write an anecdote

As we have seen, to be most interesting an anecdote must be singularly expressive of the peculiarities of the person represented; or if the event recorded is not in the form of a character episode, but rather in the form of an unusual happening, it must be consonant with the accepted popular notion of the man's personality. To write an original anecdote you will need to pick out of your past experience or the experience of some one of your acquaintances a story of a more or less important personage in your neighborhood, a happening that has never hitherto been written down. If the person concerned is not very well known or if the trait of character revealed would not be immediately recognized by his friends, you might prefix a slight statement that will help point your narrative. Remember, however, that an anecdote must be very brief; also that it must have a single and complete climax; and that you must under no circumstance be induced to add another word after the climax is reached.

Coleridge's Retort

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was so bad a horseman that when he mounted he generally attracted unfavorable notice. On a certain occasion he was riding along a turnpike road in the country of Durham, when he was met by a wag, who, mistaking his man, thought the rider a good subject for sport. "I say, young man," cried the rustic, "did you see a tailor on the road?" "Yes, I did; and he told me that if I went a little farther, I should meet a goose."

An Inevitable Misfortune

When Boswell was first introduced to Dr. Johnson, he apologized to him for being a Scotchman. "I find," said he, "that I am come to London at a bad time when great popular prejudice has gone forth against us North Britons; but when I am talking to you, I am talking to a large and liberal mind, and you know that I cannot help coming from Scotland." "Sir, replied the doctor, archly, "no more can the rest of your countrymen."

A Point Needing to Be Settled

A Scottish clergyman, being one day engaged in visiting some member of his flock, came to the door of a house where his gentle tapping could not be heard for the noise of contention inside. After waiting a little, he opened the door and walked in, saying with an authoritative voice, "I should like to know who is the head of this house?"

"Weel, sir," said the husband and father, "if ye sit doon a wee, we'll may be able to tell ye, for we're just trying to settle that point."

Patience

When Lord Chesterfield was one day at Newcastle House, the Duke happened to be particularly busy, so the Earl was requested to sit down in an anteroom. "Garnet upon Job," a book dedicated to the Duke, happened to lie in the window; and his Grace, upon entering found the Earl so busily engaged in reading, that he asked how he liked the commentary. "In any other place," replied Chesterfield, "I should not think much of it; but there is such great propriety in putting a volume upon patience in the room where every visitor has to wait for your Grace, that here it must be considered as one of the best books in the world."

Preaching and Practice

Dr. Channing had a brother, a physician, and at one time they both lived in Boston. One day, a countryman in search of a divine, knocked at the doctor's door, when the following dialogue ensued:

"Does Mr. Channing live here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Can I see him?"

"I am he."

"Who—you?"

"Yes, sir."

"You must have altered considerably since I heard you preach!"

"Oh, I see your mistake now. It's my brother who preaches. I practice."

Johnson's Dictionary

When Dr. Johnson had completed his dictionary, which had quite exhausted the patience of Mr. Andrew Millar, his bookseller, the latter acknowledged the receipt of the last sheet, in the following note:

"Andrew Millar sends his compliments to Mr. Samuel Johnson with the money for the last sheet of the copy of the dictionary, and thanks God he has done with him."

To this rude note the doctor returned the following smart answer:

"Samuel Johnson returns his compliments to Mr. Andrew Millar, and is very glad to find (as he does by his note), that Andrew Millar has the grace to thank God for anything."

—Percy's "Anecdotes."

The Boy Kipling

Rudyard Kipling's keen and sympathetic understanding of all the diversified and picturesque varieties of human nature found in British India, is too well recognized as part of his power to need assertion; but a little anecdote which his mother remembers of his boyhood is not without a pretty allegorical significance. It was at Nasik, on the Dekhan plain, not far from Bombay, when the little fellow, trudging over the ploughed field, with his hand in that of the native husbandman, called back to her in the Hindustani, which was as familiar to him as English, "Good-by, this is my brother!"

—Professor Norton, in a biographical sketch.

Sir Godfrey Kneller

Pope tells the following story about the great portrait painter:

"As I was sitting by Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, whilst he was drawing a picture, he stopped and said: 'I can't do so well as I should do, unless you flatter me a little; pray flatter me, Mr. Pope! you know I love to be flattered.' I was at once willing to try how far his vanity would carry him, and, after considering a picture, which he had just finished, for a good while very attentively, I said to him in French (for he had been talking for some time before in that language): "On lit dans les Écritures Saintes, que le bon Dieu faisoit l'homme aprés son image: mais, je crois, que s'il voudroit faire un autre a présent, qu'il le feroit apres l'image que voilá.' Sir Godfrey turned round and said very gravely, 'Vous avez raison, Mons Pope; par Dieu, je le crois aussi.'"

—Pope.

Here is another: Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, when his nephew, a Guinea trader, came in. "Nephew," said Sir Godfrey, "you have the honor of seeing the two greatest men in the world." "I don't know how great you may be," said the Guinea man, "but I don't like your looks; I have often bought a man much better than both of you together, all muscles and bones, for ten guineas."

—Dr. Warburton.

The Capitan Municipal and the Jokers

Once there lived in the town of Balanga an old Capitan Municipal who was nicknamed carabao; for he was a very big man and also a very great eater.

One day as a land parade was going on in honor of Dr. Rizal, three well-known jokers of the town were following the procession, when they suddenly came to a small pond in the street. And one of them said, "What a nice time our public carabao had taking his mid-day bath in here." "Oh! yes, he must have had a very good time indeed," replied the two. But unexpectedly the Capitan was at their back, hearing all they said about him.

Therefore as soon as the procession was over, they were arrested in the Municipal building. And on the next day they were tried and sentenced by the Capitan to fill in all the ponds of the streets around the town, and also to drain them properly.

—José Feliciano.

An Instance of Bamboo Spanish

In the Ateneo de Manila all the pupils are forbidden to speak any language except Spanish.

One day the pupils of the college went out to the yard to play baseball. It happened that one of the boys who was watching the game was hurt at the kneejoint, and fell down on the ground. The boy cried so loud that the rector at once went hurriedly to see what was happening in the yard. He saw the boy sitting on the ground with one of his legs bent. He approached him, and said, "What has happened to you, my boy?" And the boy feeling yet the pain that the ball had caused him, answered, "Father, while I was watching my companions who were playing baseball my—, my—," "What?" said the rector, impatiently. "Father, my—, my—," answered the boy, showing his kneejoint as he was pronouncing the word "my." "Do you mean your leg?" said the rector. "No, father I mean my—," replied the boy. "But your what" cried the rector, "say what you mean to say." The boy, who was trying hard to find the word in Spanish for kneejoint, answered at last, "my vino-vinohan, father, was hurt." The rector, though very angry at the boy's dullness, laughed heartily at his dictionary-making powers.

Note—The word in Tagalog for knee-joint is "alak-alakan," which is similar to the Tagalog word "alak," meaning wine in English and vino in Spanish. The boy, not knowing the proper word in Spanish for knee-joint, derived the word "vino-vinohan" from the Spanish word vino, which means alak (wine) in Tagalog.

Mr. Taft's Mistake

It was a bright day when a crowd of people stood before a platform decorated with palm leaves and roofed with a banner of stars and stripes. The eyes of the spectators, who were all eager to hear the speech of the well-known eloquent orator and skillful politician, Mr. William H. Taft, were fixed on the personages on the platform.

At last, after an ovation by the multitude, Mr. Taft rose up and addressed the audience thus: "Señoras y caballos."[8]

—Amando Clemente.

III. The Eye-Witness Account

Eye-witness account is to true story what realism is to fiction. Exactness is the aim of the narrator. He endeavors to tell precisely what he saw and heard. A great deal of our newspaper "copy" is supposed to be of this type, and likewise much court testimony. The attorneys try to separate distinctly fact from fancy. What a man really must have seen and what he thought he saw are often very different. It appears at first that an unembellished account would be the easiest thing in the world to give, but it takes only a little observation to convince one that few persons can tell what they see or hear; few indeed know what they see or hear. With the bare actuality, they are constantly confounding what they thought or inferred. As a rule, only the man educated to the work can report truthfully.

A unique and curious ancient document of this type is found in a little book that was published by the Spanish Academy of History in 1783, called "El Passo Honroso" or the Passage of Honor. It is a formal eyewitness account prepared on the spot by Delena, one of the authorized scribes of John II, and gives minutely the events of a passage of arms held against all comers in 1434 at the bridge of Orbigo, near the city of Leon, during thirty days, at a moment when the road was thronged with knights going over for a solemn festival to the neighboring shrine of Santiago.[9] Suero de Quiñones, the challenger, was a true gentleman of chivalry, it seems, and had been wearing in sentimental bondage to a noble lady a chain of iron around his neck one day in each week. From his bondage he could be freed only by bringing to her as ransom a minimum number of real spears broken by him and his friends in fair fight. So they stood—ten of them—for thirty days challenging all comers. Delena records sixty-eight opponents; six hundred and twenty-seven encounters; sixty-six broken lances; one dead knight; and many wounded, among whom were Quiñones himself and eight of his fellow-champions. Along with the general narrative is a full account of the religious and chivalric ceremonies as they were actually indulged in from day to day. Such a minute and elaborate and fully authenticated eye-witness record of not fictitious but real "knightly guists and fierce encounters" is manifestly invaluable to a student of chivalry.

It is interesting to think of this dapper young scribe sitting on the side-lines watching the combatants and taking down his notes as the telling rushes were made by either party; and then sending his copy hot from the pen to his royal reader. I suppose we might well call Señor Delena the historical prototype of our modern athletics reporter.

Many of our best literary men have had longer or shorter apprenticeships at getting "copy." Dickens served for a number of years. Facts for a reporter do not come at call; he can not turn them on, so to speak, nor is he permitted to make them up. He must find them. Consequently to be successful he needs to have an ear for news, and an eye for the graphic, a simple but full vocabulary, and a pen made supple by much practice. He must seem to be at home in any department of human action. All his words must carry with them a large tone of veracity. He can hardly afford to make slips even on his minor details, since his brother reporters visit the same scene at the same time.

Literary eye-witness account, however, need not be devoid of all expression of personal feeling. It is only necessary that the writer make clear to his reader which are thoughts and feelings and which are facts. Indeed, the best effect of such a narration will often come from the contrast. The artist lets us into his own state of mind, describes perhaps more or less minutely the stage-setting of his little occurrence—especially if any part is necessary to complete understanding later—portrays in general the types of people who were or might have been concerned, and then drops from his pen one by one the facts cold, clear-cut, unembellished, orderly in sequence, with their participants graphically and cleanly outlined, and thus gains his effect. He is as precise as a lawyer, but he has been also as crafty, in the good sense of the word. He has prepared us to appreciate his facts. If he interprets to us afterwards, he does so in a reflective and an apparently hesitating way that seems to leave us in full possession of our own opinions, which will prove to be in reality only corroborative of his.

It will be good practice for you to attempt to give an eye-witness account of some occurrence. If two or three of your friends were present at the same happening, you may enjoy comparing reports. There will probably be more than one incident to relate; if there is, you must be careful to have sequence and coherence in all that you say. You should anticipate and answer any questions one would naturally ask of an oral reporter. Stop when you have finished. Doubtless you have noticed the unpleasant habit many narrators have of starting over again and repeating all or part of the tale. The temptation does not so readily come to a writer, of course, as to a speaker—unless the writer is paid by the word.

Your readers will not resent interpretation even if it be philosophical, if it be not mixed with the narration and be only honest and of the pragmatic school—interrogative and not dogmatic. Indeed, mankind likes philosophy when it seems to come as an inevitable though tentative summing-up of our almost bewilderingly multiple phenomena.

Story of the Revolution in the Portuguese Capital

Cherbourg, October 8.—On board the Royal Mail Steam Packet liner Asturias, which arrived from Lisbon this morning, were a number of passengers who witnessed the fighting in the Portuguese capital on Wednesday, among them M. Octave Castaigne, a lawyer, of Tournai, who was among the passengers by the Asturias who ventured to land at Lisbon on Wednesday.

"On Tuesday evening," said M. Castaigne, "we were informed by a wireless message that the revolution had broken out in Portugal. From far out at sea was heard the thunder of the cannon and as we entered the Tagus the crackle of rifle fire. On our arrival before Lisbon we noticed that the cruisers Sao Rafael and Adamastor, which were flying the Republican flag, were still firing on the town.

"About ten o'clock the fusillade ceased and a party of five passengers, including two Americans and myself, went ashore. The lower part of the town had the appearance of a city of the dead. The houses were shut and marks of rifle-shots and shells were to be seen everywhere. The centre of the city, on the contrary, was alive with people. The crowd was vociferously acclaiming the Republican flag, which was flying, not only from the public buildings, but from nearly every house. It struck me very clearly that anyone who had had the courage to shout "Long live the King!" would have been shot dead on the spot. The crowd was largely composed of soldiers and sailors under arms, and patrols were also moving about in automobiles to any part of the town that appeared to be greatly menaced by the Royalist troops.

"We reached the City Hall, which was surrounded by a huge crowd, just at the moment when the Republic was being proclaimed. The Republican leaders from the balcony of the building were haranguing the people, whose enthusiasm was indescribable. From time to time the cheers of the crowd were broken by rifle volleys and the reports of cannon.

"When the official ceremony was ended, we succeeded in entering the City Hall. The new Ministers were receiving visitors and were conversing with anyone who presented himself. One of the passengers by the Asturias approached President Braga, and in a short speech congratulated him on the proclamation of the Republic. Dr. Braga replied that he was happy to receive our visit, and added that the Portuguese Republic was definitely established.

"After leaving the City Hall, we proceeded to the most dangerous part of the city, that is to say, the Avenida do Liberdade and the Dom Pedro square. The houses showed signs off cannon shots and the roofs of the majority of them had collapsed. The Avenida do Liberdade was still occupied by the opposing forces. The Republican troops occupied one end of the street, while the Royalists were in possession of the other extremity, being separated by a distance of about five hundred yards. The battle was still in progress. I admit that I was somewhat afraid, and as the shots whistled by I hid myself behind the shelter of a house.

"At the risk of being killed any minute our party succeeded in reaching the Avenida restaurant. That part of the restaurant facing the Avenida do Liberdade was in ruins, and the walls were full of bullet holes. (M. Castaigne has saved some of the bullets as souvenirs.) The Recio railway station had been destroyed by artillery fire and the railway lines had been torn up. The Necessidades Palace shows traces of numerous shells, but it is stated that the interior of the royal residence has suffered even more, shells having simply rained on the roof.

"The Red Cross Society showed admirable devotion during the fighting. I saw its members go into the thick of the fight to pick up the wounded, who on Wednesday were estimated to number over a thousand. The number of killed is considerable, but at the time it was impossible to obtain correct figures."

London, October 9.—The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company's steamer Asturias, which left Lisbon on Thursday, arrived at Southampton yesterday morning, having among her passengers several Englishmen and South Americans who witnessed many of the episodes of the revolution. Among these was General Garcia, who has had experience enough of revolution in South America.

The general told an "Evening News" correspondent that he and six others went into Lisbon on Wednesday. "We found the streets littered with wounded," he said. "A body of troops was being moved from one side of the city to the other, and in the districts through which they passed people were flying panic-stricken, but otherwise everybody was orderly and the city was quiet.

"The Republican flags were on the buildings and all trace of resistance was over. Soldiers were going into shops and houses pulling down pictures of the king, tearing them up and trampling them underfoot. As we passed along, a picture of the King came flying out of a doorway and dropped at our feet. My secretary picked it up. He was immediately surrounded by soldiers, who ordered him to destroy it at once.

"I went to the municipal buildings and there saw members of the provisional government, who allowed me to cable to my own government in Cuba. I should say the estimate of fifty killed and three hundred wounded is not high enough, but the list is remarkably small, all considered. I have seen many revolutions, but none so beautifully carried out as this."

Paris, October 9.—"The abounding joying joy of the people—tempered by admirable self-control—and repeated evidences of careful organization—these were the things which impressed me most."

In these words Mr. Charles H. Sherrill, American Minister to Argentina, told a Herald correspondent at the Hotel Majestic last night, of a visit he paid to Lisbon on Wednesday, a few hours after the overthrow of the Portuguese monarchy. With Mrs. Sherrill and their young son he was a passenger on the Asturia, which touched at Lisbon.

"The shooting began about two o'clock on Tuesday morning," he continued. "It was at six o'clock on Wednesday morning that we came into the harbor. The bombardment of the palace had ceased, but with our glasses we could see the dents which the shells had made in the walls.

"I disembarked at about one o'clock in the afternoon and went to the American Legation to see if it had suffered damage. I found the streets swarming with inhabitants, who were singing and shouting in their joy. Save for this celebration there were few evidences of the conflict in the lower part of the town.

"But it was different in the Avenida, the broad thoroughfare leading to the elevation back of the city. The insurgents had permitted the Royalists to form in Rocio square, in the down town district. The insurgents then took their position on the hills above, holding the Royalists in a trap, hedged in on the other side by the attacking ships in the bay.

"From the elevation at the upper end of the field, guns had been aimed down the Avenida. The avenue had been stripped of trees, windows had been shattered and the fronts of buildings which projected farther than others had been partly demolished. The American Legation escaped even the slightest damage.

"Occasionally I encountered a wall which bore striking evidence of the battle. Blood was matted upon it and blood had coagulated in the gutters, indicating only too plainly that several lives had been lost there. Whole groups in the sidewalk had been mowed down by shell from the field-guns.

"Nearly every man I saw and many boys carried guns. They were not rifles of the 'homespun' variety—these arms—but Mausers and equally effective weapons. These were evidences of preparation. Fully a thousand people were waving flags—the red and green flag of the new Republic—a further proof that the revolution had not come just when it did by accident.

"For the new Portuguese flag is a rather complicated affair. Across a blue circle in the centre is a curved line in white bearing the inscription, 'Patria e Liberdade.' Half the space of the background is red—revolution—and green, symbolizing hope.

"I followed a crowd and a band into the City Hall. There in a large room I saw the President and his cabinet in session, probably drawing up one of the new government's addresses to the people. It was plain to me that these were not men who had been 'pitchforked' into office over night. Their appearance was that of sober, responsible officials. I was simply a curiosity-seeker, of course, and kept my identity concealed.

"As I walked along I heard two shots fired in a side street. A moment later a cart drove by in which lay two bodies. A crowd formed at the scene of the shooting, but there was no suspicion of a riot. Among the thousands of people I saw that day there was not a single person who appeared to be under the influence of liquor. There seemed to be no looting; no outrages were committed. It was a most impressive object-lesson of the self-control which a Latin people is able to maintain when it is imbued with a serious purpose.

"Country folk were pouring into town by the thousands, and these reflected the joy and satisfaction felt by the residents of the city. They afforded a rebuke to the suspicion that the revolutionary feeling was confined to Lisbon itself. The spirit of the people was best expressed by two words, composing a headline which stretched across the front page of an afternoon newspaper. Translated, it read simply: 'At Last!'

"And it was apparent also that the revolution was accomplished with as little bloodshed as possible. The insurgents were merciful—if that term is permissible in this connection. Shells fired from the ships in the bay were directed in such a way that they should explode over the town, carrying the desired warning, but causing the minimum amount of damage.

"I was told that the dead and wounded numbered three thousand. I am certain this was a great exaggeration. My estimate is about 600 or 700, basing these figures on information obtained at the headquarters of the Red Cross Society.

"Most of the residents of Lisbon give the greatest share of credit for the result to the seamen. A hero was made of every sailor who appeared in the streets. The crowds cheered him heartily, but the army officers aroused much less enthusiasm.

"Save for these evidences of jubilation Lisbon was quiet and orderly—think of it, only a few hours after such an uprising as this! The bodies of the dead had been removed, the wounded were being nursed and business was proceeding almost normally. In front of every bank was a guard of sailors to protect the financial interests of the people. It seems strange that I, who have lived in South America two years, was forced to come to Europe in order to see a revolution."

A Contrast

On the night of February 4, 1910, the eve of the carnival, I went to take a walk in the Luneta. Already from the distance I could see the hippodrome in the carnival grounds well illuminated. "What is going on in there?" I asked myself, and not being able to explain the matter, and urged by my curiosity to know everything, I walked in that direction.

Many people, foreigners as well as natives, were crowding up and down the sidewalk near the fence enclosing the carnival grounds. There were also constabulary guards at almost every thirty spaces to prevent the people from peeping through the fence. But in spite of the presence of these guards some people, nevertheless, seized the opportunity that offered now and then while the guard was not looking, and peeped through the fence.

I then saw that I was not the only one who was anxious to know what was going on in the hippodrome, and, what is more, my anxiety grew stronger. Then a moment came when I lost a little self-control, and I, too, shared some of those opportunities that offered. But suddenly there came the guard who warned us to stop the business. At that very moment, an American came along and he, too, could not help wanting to see what was going on inside. But the guard went to him at once and said: "No se permite eso, si tu quieres ver lo que hay adentro, puede Vd. pasar por la puerta central." "Vd. sabi muy bein que eso no verdad, sabi," replied the American angrily. Then the guard told him that he had received orders to see that people did not peep through the fence. "To h—— with your orders!" said the American. "Well, este habla el commanding officer," replied the guard. "Oh, nom porta!" At this moment an American policeman came along and asked the American what was the matter. "This fellow wants to prevent me from peeping through this fence when I am on neutral ground," "Well, that is just what I am going to do," replied the policeman, and he again explained him the order. "I don't care for that order!" "Well, if you don't shut up, I shall take you to the police station!" "You may!" Then the policeman told him to walk on; for he did not know what he was talking about. "All right," said the gentleman, and he walked away; but he came back and asked the policeman what his number was. "It makes no difference what my number is," said the officer of the law. "Well, I want to know it." "My number is——, and my name is——; and what's your name?" "My name is——, and I am the secretary in the public——"(!). "All right," said the policeman, and both men took opposite directions.

Two bystanders who witnessed this incident began to argue as to what would have happened had the American gentleman been a Filipino. One of them said that if the man were a Filipino and had argued with the officer of the law in that way, he would have received a good knock on his head. The other said that he was satisfied with the way the American policeman behaved himself.

I then returned and walked toward the central gate of the carnival grounds, and there, to my surprise, I saw the very same American gentleman come and walk straight inside without saying a word to the guard. Then a Filipino came along and asked the guard to be allowed to go in, but, unfortunately, according to the guard, only the stockholders were allowed to enter.

Was the American gentleman a stockholder? He alone knows.

—Adolfo Scheerer.

IV. The Tale of Actual Adventure

Tales of actual adventure differ from the other true narratives in the fact of the necessary presence of an exciting occurrence. Danger at hand and overcome is the keynote of the action. The happening may be slight or tremendous, or serious or humorous; but in every case it acquires a certain amount of dignity from the possible disaster.

The narration is usually in the first person, though not necessarily. In the "Library of Universal Adventure," compiled by William Dean Howells and Thomas Sergeant Perry eighteen years ago, the larger number of the stories are autobiographic in form. This book is a quaint comment on Howells's non-sensationalistic attitude of today. Though purporting to be true, these stories are almost lurid in their romanticism. They present man in the familiar struggle with untimely death, led thither by various motives and accidents. We see Pliny the Elder with insatiable curiosity sailing calmly toward the destructive volcano; we see the lonely scientist Audubon on his Western trip in early America weighing his chance of life against his watch, that is coveted by a murderous hag and her two drunken sons; we see the runaway slave Frederick Douglass, attempting to slip along the very precarious underground railroad to safety; of course, there is mutiny at sea, and shipwreck on unknown shores. Indeed, here we find all the despised paraphernalia of blood-curdling romance, true, with Mr. Howells's name signed on the package.[10]

Obviously such stories are written to climaxes, though any manifest straining for emphasis in a true narrative is resented by the reader. All the skill you have got from your former attempts to write realistically ought to help you here. You should put in enough minutiæ to convince, but omit enough to be interesting. The general effect of your style should be that of directness and swiftness. Whatever power of psychological analysis you have, should come to your aid, but it should appear only in keen and brief flashes as you hurry along with the events. Descriptive touches of objective nature may be used for emphasis in harmony or contrast, especially at the end or the beginning of the adventure, though these are a somewhat trite device. Whatever else you do, try to write simply and naturally. Do not exaggerate. You will be judged chiefly on your tone of veracity.

There is a large and interesting field here for the amateur writer. This type of story allies itself with the probable adventure, and in fact is generally lost therein. The successful authors of boys' books for the most part make use of the coalescence. Boys at a certain age are extremely exacting, and when their entertainers have to relate their stories orally as well as pen them, they are often as solicitous to find authority for their fictions as were Macpherson and Chatterton.

The Bear-Hunt

(The adventure here narrated is one that happened to Tolstoy himself in 1858. More than twenty years later he gave up hunting on humanitarian grounds.)

We were out on a bear-hunting expedition. My comrade had shot at a bear, but only gave him a flesh wound. There were traces of blood on the snow, but the bear had got away.

We all collected in a group in the forest to decide whether we ought to go after the bear at once or wait two or three days till he should settle down again. We asked the peasant bear-drivers whether it would be possible to get round the bear that day.

"No. It's impossible," said an old bear-driver. "You must let the bear quiet down. In five days' time it will be possible to surround him; but if you followed him now, you would only frighten him away and he would not settle down."

But a young bear-driver began disputing with the old man, saying that it was quite possible to get round the bear now.

"On such snow as this," said he, "he won't go far, for he is a fat bear. He will settle down before evening; or, if not, I can overtake him on snow-shoes."

The comrade I was with was against following up the bear, and advised waiting. But I said:

"We need not argue. You do as you like, but I will follow up the track with Damian. If we get round the bear, all right. If not, we lose nothing. It is still early, and there is nothing else for us to do to-day."

The others went back to the sledges and returned to the village. Damian and I took some bread and remained behind in the forest.

When they had all left us, Damian and I examined our guns, and after tucking the skirts of our warm coats into our belts, we started off, following the bear's tracks.

The weather was fine, frosty and calm; but it was hard work snow-shoeing. The snow was deep and soft; it had not caked together at all in the forest, and fresh snow had fallen the day before, so that our snow-shoes sank six inches deep in the snow, and sometimes more.

The bear's tracks were visible from a distance, and we could see how he had been going; sometimes sinking in up to his belly and ploughing up the snow as he went. At first, while under large trees, we kept in sight of his track; but when it turned into a thicket of small firs, Damian stopped.

"We must leave the trail now," said he. "He has probably settled somewhere here. You can see by the snow that he has been squatting down. Let us leave the track and go round; but we must go quietly. Don't shout or cough, or we shall frighten him away."

Leaving the track, therefore, we turned off to the left. But when he had gone about five hundred yards, there were the bear's traces again right before us. We followed them and they brought us out onto the road. There we stopped, examining the road to see which way the bear had gone. Here and there in the snow were prints of the bear's paw, claws and all, and here and there the marks of a peasant's bark shoes. The bear had evidently gone towards the village.

As we followed the road, Damian said:

"It's no use watching the road now. We shall see where he has turned off, to right or left, by the marks in the soft snow at the side. He must have turned off somewhere, for he won't have gone on to the village."

We went along the road for nearly a mile, and then saw, ahead of us, the bear's track turning off the road. We examined it. How strange! It was a bear's track right enough, only not going from the road into the forest, but from the forest onto the road! The toes were pointing towards the road.

"This must be another bear," I said.

Damian looked at it and considered a while.

"No," said he. "It's the same one. He's been playing tricks, and walked backwards when he left the road."

We followed the track and found it really was so! The bear had gone some ten steps backwards, and then, behind a fir tree, had turned round and gone straight ahead. Damian stopped and said:

"Now, we are sure to get round him. There is a marsh ahead of us and he must have settled down there. Let us go round it."

We began to make our way round through a fir thicket. I was tired out by this time, and it had become still more difficult to get along. Now I glided onto juniper bushes and caught my snow-shoes in them, now a tiny fir tree appeared between my feet, or, from want of practice, my snow-shoes slipped off; and now I came upon a stump or a log hidden by the snow. I was getting very tired, and was drenched with perspiration, and I took off my fur cloak. And there was Damian all the time, gliding along as if in a boat, his snow-shoes moving as if of their own accord, never catching against anything, nor slipping off. He even took my fur and slung it over his shoulders, and still kept urging me on.

We went on for two more miles, and came out on the other side of the marsh. I was lagging behind. My snow-shoes kept slipping off, and my feet stumbled. Suddenly Damian, who was ahead of me, stopped and waved his arm. When I came up to him, he bent down, pointing with his hand and whispered:

"Do you see the magpie chattering above that undergrowth? It scents the bear from afar. That is where he must be."

We turned off and went on for more than another half-mile, and presently we came onto the old track again. We had, therefore, been right round the bear, who was now within the track we had left. We stopped, and I took off my cap and loosened all my clothes. I was as hot as in a steam bath, and as wet as a drowned rat. Damian, too, was flushed, and wiped his face with his sleeve.

"Well, sir", he said, "we have done our job, and now we must have a rest."

The evening glow already showed red through the forest. We took off our snow-shoes and sat down on them, and get some bread and salt out of our bags. First I ate some snow, and then some bread; and the bread tasted so good that I thought I had never in my life had any like it before. We sat there resting until it began to grow dusk, and then I asked Damian if it was far to the village.

"Yes," he said, "it must be above eight miles. We will go on there tonight, but now we must rest. Put on your fur coat, sir, or you'll be catching cold."

Damian flattened down the snow, and breaking off some fir branches made a bed of them. We lay down side by side, resting our heads on our arms. I do not remember how I fell asleep. Two hours later I woke up, hearing something crack.

I had slept so soundly that I did not know where I was. I looked around me. How wonderful! I was in some sort of a hall, all glittering and white with gleaming pillars, and when I looked up I saw, through delicate white tracery, a vault, raven black and studded with coloured lights. After a good look I remembered that we were in the forest and that what I took for a hall and pillars were trees covered with snow and hoar-frost, and the coloured lights were stars twinkling between the branches.

Hoar-frost had settled in the night; all the twigs were thick with it, Damian was covered with it, it was on my fur coat, and it dropped down from the trees. I woke Damian, and we put on our snow-shoes and started. It was very quiet in the forest. No sound was heard but that of our snow-shoes pushing through the soft snow, except when now and then a tree, cracked by the frost, made the forest resound. Only once we heard the sound of a living creature. Something rustled close to us and then rushed away. I felt sure it was the bear, but when we went to the spot whence the sound had come we found the footmarks of hares, and saw several young aspen trees with their bark gnawed. We had startled some hares while they were feeding.

We came out on the road and followed it, dragging our snow-shoes behind us. It was easy walking now. Our snow-shoes clattered as they slid behind us from side to side of the hard-trodden road: The snow creaked under our boots, and the cold hoar-frost settled on our faces like down. Seen through the branches, the stars seemed to be running to meet us, now twinkling, now vanishing, as if the whole sky were on the move.

I found my comrade sleeping, but woke him up and related how we had got round the bear. After telling our peasant host to collect beaters for the morning, we had supper and lay down to sleep.

I was so tired that I could have slept on till midday if my comrade had not roused me. I jumped up and saw that he was already dressed and busy doing something to his gun.

"Where is Damian?" said I.

"In the forest long ago. He has already been over the tracks you made, and been back here, and now he has gone to look after the beaters."

I washed and dressed and loaded my guns, and then we got into a sledge and started.

The sharp frost still continued. It was quiet and the sun could not be seen. There was a thick mist above us and hoar-frost still covered everything.

After driving about two miles along the road, as we came near the forest, we saw a cloud of smoke raising from a hollow, and presently reached a group of peasants, both men and women, armed with cudgels.

We got out and went up to them. The men sat roasting potatoes and laughing and talking with the women.

Damian was there, too, and when we arrived the people got up and Damian led them to place them in the circle we had made the day before. They went along in single file, men and women, thirty in all. The snow was so deep that we could only see them from their waists upwards. They turned into the forest and my friend and I followed in their track.

Though they had trodden a path, walking was difficult; but, on the other hand, it was impossible to fall; it was like walking between two walls of snow.

We went on in this way for nearly half a mile, when all at once we saw Damian coming from another direction—running towards us on his snow-shoes and beckoning us to join him. We went towards him and he showed us where to stand. I took my place and looked round me.

To my left were tall fir trees, between the trunks of which I could see a good way, and, like a black patch just visible behind the trees, I could see a beater. In front of me was a thicket of young firs about as high as a man, their branches weighed down and stuck together with snow. Through this copse ran a path thickly covered with snow, and leading straight up to where I stood. The thicket stretched away to the right of me and ended in a small glade where I could see Damian placing my comrade.

I examined both my guns and considered where I had better stand. Three steps behind me was a tall fir.

"That's where I'll stand," thought I, "and then I can lean my second gun against the tree;" and I moved towards the tree, sinking up to my knees in the snow at each step. I trod the snow down, and made a clearance about a yard square to stand on. One gun I kept in my hand; the other, ready cocked, I placed leaning up against the tree. Then I unsheathed and replaced my dagger, to make sure that I could draw it easily in case of need.

Just as I had finished these preparations, I heard Damian shouting in the forest:

"He's up! He's up!"

And as soon as Damian shouted, the peasants round the circle all replied in their different voices.

"Up, up, up! Ou! Ou! Ou!" shouted the men.

"Ay! Ay! Ay!" screamed the women in high pitched tones.

The bear was inside the circle, and as Damian drove him on, the people all round kept shouting. Only my friend and I stood silent and motionless, waiting for the bear to come towards us. As I stood gazing and listening, my heart beat violently. I trembled, holding my gun fast.

"Now, now," I thought. "He will come suddenly. I shall aim, fire, and he will drop—"

Suddenly, to my left, but at a distance, I heard something falling on the snow. I looked between the tall fir trees, and, some fifty paces off, behind the trunks, saw something big and black. I took aim and waited, thinking:

"Won't he come any nearer?"

As I waited I saw him move his ears, turn and go back, and then I caught a glimpse of the whole of him in profile. He was an immense brute. In my excitement I fired and heard my bullet go "flop" against a tree. Peering through the smoke I saw my bear scampering back into the circle and disappearing among the trees.

"Well," thought I, "My chance is lost. He won't come back to me. Either my comrade will shoot him or he will escape through the line of beaters. In any case he won't give me another chance."

I reloaded my gun, however, and again stood listening. The peasants were shouting all round, but to the right, not far from where my comrade stood, I heard a woman screaming in a frenzied voice:

"Here he is! Here he is! Come here, come here! Oh! Oh! Ay! Ay!"

Evidently she could see the bear. I had given up expecting him and was looking to the right at my comrade. All at once I saw Damian with a stick in his hand, and without his snow-shoes, running along a footpath towards my friend. He crouched down beside him, pointing his stick as if aiming at something, and then I saw my friend raise his gun and aim in the same direction. Crack! He fired.

"There," thought I, "he has killed him."

But I saw that my comrade did not run towards the bear. Evidently he had missed him, or the shot had not taken full effect.

"The bear will get away," I thought. "He will go back, but he won't come a second time towards me. But what is that?"

Something was coming towards me like a whirlwind, snorting as it came, and I saw the snow flying up quite near me. I glanced straight before me, and there was the bear, rushing along the path through the thicket right at me, evidently beside himself with fear. He was hardly half a dozen paces off; and I could see the whole of him—his black chest and enormous head with a reddish patch. There he was, blundering straight at me and scattering the snow about as he came. I could see by his eyes that he did not see me, but, mad with fear, was rushing blindly along, and his path led him straight at the tree under which I was standing. I raised my gun and fired. He was almost upon me now, and I saw that I had missed. My bullet had gone past him, and he did not even hear me fire, but still came headlong towards me. I lowered my gun and fired again, almost touching his head. Crack! I had hit but not killed him.

He raised his head and, laying his ears back, came at me, showing his teeth.

I snatched at my other gun, but almost before I had touched it he had flown at me and, knocking me over into the snow, had passed right over me.

"Thank goodness, he has left me," thought I.

I tried to rise, but something pressed me down and prevented my getting up. The bear's rush had carried him past me, but he had turned back and had fallen on me with the whole weight of his body. I felt something heavy weighing me down and something warm above my face, and I realized that he was drawing my whole face into his mouth. My nose was already in it, and I felt the heat of it and smelt his blood. He was pressing my shoulders down with his paws so that I could not move; all I could do was to draw my head down towards my chest, away from his mouth, trying to free my nose and eyes, while he tried to get his teeth into them. Then I felt that he had seized my forehead just under the hair with the teeth of his lower jaw and the flesh below my eyes with his upper jaw, and was closing his teeth. It was as if my face were being cut with knives. I struggled to get away, while he made haste to close his jaws, like a dog gnawing. I managed to twist my face away, but he began drawing it again into his mouth.

"Now," thought I, "my end has come!"

Then I felt the weight lifted and, looking up, I saw that he was no longer there. He had jumped off me and run away.

When my comrade and Damian had seen the bear knock me down and begin worrying me, they rushed to the rescue. My comrade, in his haste, blundered and, instead of following the trodden path, ran into the deep snow and fell down. While he was struggling out of the snow the bear was gnawing at me. But Damian, just as he was, without a gun and with only a stick in his hand, rushed along the path shouting:

"He's eating the master! He's eating the master!"

And, as he ran, he called to the bear:

"Oh, you idiot! What are you doing? Leave off! Leave off!"

The bear obeyed him and, leaving me, ran away. When I rose there was as much blood on the snow as if a sheep had been killed, and the flesh hung in rags above my eyes, though in my excitement I felt no pain.

My comrade had come up by this time, and the other people collected round; they looked at my wound and put snow on it. But I, forgetting about my wounds, only asked:

"Where's the bear? Which way has he gone?"

Suddenly I heard:

"Here he is! Here he is!"

And we saw the bear again running at us. We seized our guns, but before any one had time to fire he had run past He had grown ferocious and wanted to gnaw me again, but, seeing so many people, he took fright. We saw by his track that his head was bleeding, and we wanted to follow him up, but, as my wounds had become very painful, we went, instead, to the town to find a doctor.

The doctor stitched up my wounds with silk and they soon began to heal.

A month later we went to hunt that bear again, but I did not get a chance of finishing him. He would not come out of the circle, but went round and round, growling in a terrible voice.

Damian killed him. The bear's lower jaw had been broken and one of his teeth knocked out by my bullet. He was a huge creature and had splendid black fur.

I had him stuffed and he now lies in my room. The wounds on my forehead healed up so that the scars can scarcely be seen.

—Leo M. Tolstoy.

"Twenty-three Tales from Tolstoy." (Oxford.) Written about 1872.

Saladin and I Fight an Alupong

As I remember, it was a windy afternoon in April, 1906, that I was nearly bitten by an alupong, a very poisonous snake, when I was out on our farm during harvest. The day was beginning to cool. The men and women were busy cleaning the rice that had been threshed the night before.

I went out with my dog, Saladin, to play with the other boy on the farm. While we were running and jumping on the great, long pile of hay I heard my dog barking. I quickly ran to see what was the matter. Saladin was leaping and running as he barked. He was after a big snake, which from time to time stopped and raised its crested head to bite.

I was very much excited. I shouted to encourage my dog. I took a good-sized lump of dried earth and threw it with all my might at the snake. Then I cried to the boys, "A snake, a snake! Come, here is a big snake! Look!"

All the boys came, but when they reached the place the poisonous animal was gone. Saladin was standing on his hind legs and was barking as he scratched the side of an ant hill. I went near the dog. I saw what was the matter. Then I turned to the boys and said, "It is gone into this hole. Let us make it come out."

I pulled up one of the poles of the fence surrounding the place where the rice was being cleaned, and with it I hastened back to the ant hill. Then I pushed this pointed pole, about one and one-half inches in diameter and four feet in length, into the hole. The other boys were far from me, but my dog was alert near the place. I heard the snake spit and hiss inside. Then I suddenly pulled away the pole. When I saw the animal coming out quickly, I speedily turned to run, but I missed my first step and fell to the ground.

You may fancy how greatly I was frightened. During that short, critical moment I expected the deadly bite, but to my great relief I had time to stand up without being bitten. I looked back and saw how my dog had saved my life. He was fighting with the snake. In that very place the two killed each other, after a short time.

—Cecilio R. Esquivel.

I Get Two Beatings

One afternoon my mother beat me for some cause which I have forgotten. After I had wiped my tears I went into our orchard just across the road. It was very nice to stay under the orange and cocoa trees because of the sweet breeze which was coming from the river at the end of the orchard.

As I was rambling about I came to the river bank, which is about thirty feet high. When I looked down I saw two wild tomato plants full of red fruit. "Ah!" I exclaimed, "what good tomato plants. I will take the fruit home to appease mother's anger." Accordingly I began to look for a path down to the water. The path which I found was very steep, and so it was hard for me to go down. When I reached the edge of the water I saw a man catching insects to use for bait.

"Where are you going, my lad?" he said.

"I am going to get the fruit of those two tomato plants. Can't you see them?" I asked, pointing to the plants.

"I tried to get those this morning, but I could not."

"Anyhow, I will try," I continued.

So I began to climb the steep slope with both hands and feet. While I was climbing the man said, "Look out. If you fall, you will surely roll into the water." My desire to appease my mother's anger was so great that I paid no heed to what he said. After struggling for a few minutes I caught hold of a long root of the madre cacao tree, which was growing on the bank. With the help of this and several others I reached the place where the tomatoes were. When I had filled one of my pockets with the red fruits the root to which I was holding broke in two and down I rolled, with my head foremost, into the water. I should have drowned had not the man saved me. When I was carried on land I found out that my back was badly hurt. I had received two wounds, one over the left eyebrow and one in the forehead, from some thorns. The scars can be seen to this day. When I went home my mother asked me why I had my clothes wet. I told her the whole story, but when she saw my wounds she became so angry that she beat me again.

—Facundo Esquivel.

The Fall of Juan

One day while Juan, Pedro and I were in the church tower looking at a procession, we saw a nest hanging from the cogon roof. For a while no one of us seemed to want it, but soon Juan said, "That is mine." Then Pedro approached him, saying, "I will have it," and he pushed Juan away. As I was very much interested in the beautiful nest, I went near them and said, "The first one that can get it shall have it." So I jumped and grabbed it. Then Pedro said, "Let us divide the eggs so that each of us will have a share."

"No, no," I cried, "I must have it all."

For a long time the quarrel grew worse and worse until it finally became a fight. Then a sad thing occurred. Pedro rushed toward me and snatched at the nest, but I pushed him away. Then Juan came with the same intention. Seeing that I was in danger, I laid the nest on the floor and grasped Juan by the neck. As he tried to throw me, I pushed him out of the door. Down, down he went as fast as an arrow. Now all of us thought that he would be dashed to pieces, but when, by scrambling and sliding, we at last reached the bottom of the long, dark, winding stairs, we found him swelling with pride and boasting of himself as a brave boy.

—Gregorio Farrales.

A Narrow Escape from a Wild Carabao

In 1903 I narrowly escaped being killed by a wild carabao. There were many of us pursuing this animal, but, after seeing that the buffalo was very fierce, all of my companions got so afraid that they withdrew. Since I had the best horse, I continued following the wild beast. My ambition to distinguish myself both in horseback riding and in catching wild cattle was great. So, at the time when we were pursuing the animal, I had in mind that if I alone could succeed in catching the wild carabao, it would surely be an honor to me. So I followed the animal closely. When I was just a few feet behind it it suddenly turned back and fell upon my pony. I also tried to turn back, but in vain; the carabao overcame us. At this time I was entirely hopeless of my life. The sharp horn of the cruel beast stuck deeply into the thighs of my poor pony. I did not know what to do then, for the cruel beast would surely pursue me if I should dismount. So I grasped my saddle with all my might. But after a while my poor pet languished and fell. Then I did my best to get away from danger. The carabao would have pursued me at once, but its horns stuck tight into the muscles of my horse, and consequently it was delayed a little. Meanwhile I got into a cell of a big rock, and exactly at the very moment I squeezed in the mad buffalo struck the opening with its horns. Fortunately, the aperture was too small for the head of the animal to enter. But still the sharp points of its horns could reach me and I received a wound at the back of my neck. Luckily, I had a bolo with me, and reaching out bravely, I stabbed the nose of the cruel beast. It surely received a severe wound. But, instead of running away, the animal became angrier than before and butted again and again at the opening. My eyes were nearly struck by the sharp pointed horns. In order to save myself from further injury I stabbed this time one of the glowing eyes of the buffalo. Blood gushed out at me. When the wild beast felt the pains of the wounds it began to move away with regret. After the carabao had gone I bemoaned the death of my favorite pony. I decided to take revenge upon the beast. In order to accomplish this I first went home. When I told my parents about the accident they at once consented to my taking their gun. So the next morning I set out with many companions. We easily found the same wild carabao roaming in the broad forest. It was still very mad, for it began to chase us immediately, coming swiftly towards us, looking sidewise with its one eye. Without hesitation I let my bullet go and the beast fell dead.

—José M. Cariño.

V. The Traveler's Sketch

A traveler's sketch is an orderly and extended account of the incidents of a journey—the sights, sounds, experiences, impressions and conclusions of the writer. Incidents and anecdotes may be given by the narrator in the first or third person; but a traveler's sketch is always first person. There may be the other forms included, together with descriptions and historical references; but what makes a traveler's sketch a traveler's sketch is the personal flavor. The question the reader always asks is, not what kind of city is Lisbon, but what impression did it make on Fielding.

Great travel books

There have been only a few great travel books written. Perhaps, because the people that are worth while are not gadabouts; perhaps, because only a few men are generous enough or idle enough to give themselves over completely to impressions; surely, because not every one who travels has the ability to see what ought to be seen or to express himself entertainingly after he has seen it. The narrator needs an eye made quiet, that looks into the heart of things. He needs also wit and a wide humanity. If he stalks his way through a place as an Englishman only, or if he buys it through lavishly as an American, he will have nothing to tell that we care to listen to. The public is not won by a string of foreign names merely. A little trip from New York to Boston would furnish a Smollet or a Sterne with more observations than a journey around the world would a dull-minded pedant. George Borrow could tell of distributing Bibles in Spain, and yet give us one of the best travel books in any language. Henry Fielding could be on his death journey, as he was on his voyage to Lisbon, and well know it, as he did, and yet he could write with such an 'indomitable gallantry of spirit, such an irrepressible joy of life, such an insatiably curious eye for humanity,' such a new relish for every fresh face, that the reader could easily imagine that the laughing, genial, ironic, but altogether compassionate and broad-minded, manly fellow had not a care in the world.

The "Voyage and Travaille of Sir John Mandeville" is a book very precious to the English language, if not to the history of facts. It was intended as a road-book to the Holy Land, and was produced as early as 1356. It is precious not only because of the marvelous tales skillfully woven in as reports of the belief of various cities—stories which have been inspirations to hundreds of romancers—but because of the fact that it was, so far as we know, the first piece of English prose of any considerable extent to depart from the beaten track of medieval theology and philosophy, and the first piece of original prose to reveal any personality, to have any style, any flavor of the author. Altho because of its stooping to the delight that men of that day took in marvels it places itself really in the class of imaginary voyages, it yet belongs with good travel books in this one essential—vivacity and personal charm.

Marco Polo, the Venetian traveler of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, because of his irresponsibility in padding his account with marvelous tales, placed himself with Mandeville and the wonder books; but the result of his "Travels" was scientific in the effect his evidence that he had really been to the far East had upon Columbus and the earlier navigators.

An interesting bit of Anglo-Saxon actual travel account is the story of Ohthere and Wulfstan inserted by King Alfred into his translation of the "History of Orosius," and told as the king took it down from the lips of these sea-rovers themselves sometime during the ninth century.

Sturdy old Sam Johnson by his "Journey to the Western Isles" added a substantial volume to the very short eight-or-ten-inch shelf of great travel book.

In many ways Bayard Taylor was the ideal traveler, putting himself into sympathy with the people whom he went among, wearing their dress, eating their food, speaking their language. But he failed to produce great literature, for some reason or other—perhaps because he wrote for the newspapers. His "Views Afoot, or Europe seen with Knapsack and Staff" and other "copy" of the sort are interesting reading, however. Darwin's record of the Voyage of the Beagle is invaluable to science.

Richard Henry Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast" is an excellent boys' book, and has a fine feeling of adventure about it. But we may not mention the work of any more travel writers, Stevenson, James, Curtis, Stanley, Roosevelt, or others in other languages.

Fielding's gentle warning

Many of our travel books were written as letters and journals; some, as notes or strict diaries. You might put your sketch into the form of a letter to a friend. The chief thing you need to remember in relating any journey, however long or short, is Fielding's gentle warning to know what to omit: "To make a traveler an agreeable companion to a man of sense, it is necessary, not only that he should have seen much, but that he should have overlooked much of what he hath seen.... A motto for the narrator[Some voyage-writers] waste their time and paper with recording things and facts of so common a kind that they challenge no other right of being remembered than as they had the honor of having happened to the author, to whom nothing seems trivial that in any manner happens to himself. Of such consequence do his own actions appear to one of his kind that he would probably think himself guilty of infidelity should he omit the minutest thing in the detail of his journal. That the fact is true, is sufficient to give it a place there without any consideration whether it is capable of pleasing or surprising, of diverting or informing the reader." By implication Fielding gives the travel book its motto: to please and surprise, divert and inform.

"On the Way to Talavera"

The next day's journey brought me to a considerable town, the name of which I have forgotten. It is the first in New Castile, in this direction. I passed the night as usual in the manger of the stable, close beside the Caballeria; for, as I traveled upon a donkey, I deemed it incumbent upon me to be satisfied with a couch in keeping with my manner of journeying, being averse, by any squeamish and over delicate airs, to generate a suspicion amongst the people with whom I mingled that I am aught higher than what my equipage and outward appearance might lead them to believe. Rising before daylight, I again proceeded on my way, hoping ere night to be able to reach Talavera, which I was informed was ten leagues distant. The way lay entirely over an unbroken level, for the most part covered with olive trees. On the left, however, at the distance of a few leagues, rose the mighty mountains which I have already mentioned. They run eastward in a seemingly interminable range, parallel with the route which I was pursuing; their tops and sides were covered with dazzling snow, and the blasts which came sweeping from them across the wide and melancholy plains were of bitter keenness.

"What mountains are those?" I inquired of a barber-surgeon, who, mounted like myself on a grey burra, joined me about noon, and proceeded in my company for several leagues. "They have many names, Caballero," replied the barber; "according to the names of the neighbouring places so they are called. Yon portion of them is styled the Serriania of Plasencia; and opposite to Madrid they are termed the Mountains of Guadarama, from a river of that name which descends from them; they run a vast way, Caballero, and separate the two kingdoms, for on the other side is Old Castile. They are mighty mountains, and though they generate much cold, I take pleasure in looking at them, which is not to be wondered at, seeing that I was born among them, though at present, for my sins, I live in a village of the plain. Caballero, there is not another such range in Spain; they have their secrets, too—their mysteries—strange tales are told of those hills, and of what they contain in their deep recesses, for they are a broad chain, and you may wander days and days amongst them without coming to any termino. Many have lost themselves on those hills, and have never again been heard of. Strange things are told of them; it is said that in a certain place there are deep pools and lakes in which dwell monsters, huge serpents as long as a pine tree, and horses of the flood, which sometimes come out and commit mighty damage. One thing is certain, that yonder, far away to the west, in the heart of those hills, there is a wonderful valley, so narrow that only at midday is the face of the sun to be descried from it. That valley lay undiscovered and unknown for thousands of years; no person dreamed of its existence, but at last, a long time ago, certain hunters entered it by chance, and then what do you think they found, Caballero? They found a small nation or tribe of unknown people, speaking an unknown language, who perhaps, had lived there since the creation of the world, without intercourse with the rest of their fellow creatures, and without knowing that other beings besides themselves existed! Caballero, did you never hear of the valley of the Batuecas? Many books have been written about that valley and those people, Caballero, I am proud of yonder hills; and were I independent, and without wife or children, I would purchase a burra like that of your own, which I see is an excellent one, and far superior to mine, and travel amongst them till I knew all their mysteries, and had seen all the wondrous things they contain."

Throughout the day I pressed the burra forward, only stopping once in order to feed the animal; but, notwithstanding that she played her part very well, night came on, and I was still about two leagues from Talavera. As the sun went down, the cold became intense; I drew the old Gypsy cloak, which I still wore, closer around me, but I found it quite inadequate to protect me from the inclemency of the atmosphere. The road, which lay over a plain, was not very distinctly traced, and became in the dusk rather difficult to find, more especially as cross roads leading to different places were of frequent occurrence.