Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

fantry, and these are hemmed in and encompassed by another of cavalry. If the first falter or shrink, they must be thrust forward to the assault by the sabres and lances of their comrades. Suddenly the batteries are in a blaze, and from their concentric positions, pour forth radii of fire from the circle of Santa Anna's vengeance, verging to a single centre. Amid the thunders thus created, their own shouts hardly less terrible, and the martial blasts of a hundred bugles, the Mexicans advance to the Alamo. A sheet of flame, from rifles that never failed, is the answer to the charge. The infantry recoil, and fall back upon the cavalry; their ranks broken and disordered by the deadly fire of the besieged. The shouts from the fort are mingled with the groans of the wounded and dying on the plain, while the officers are endeavoring to reform their scattered masses. They return to the attack, but the leaden shower which they again encounter, fells them to the earth by platoons. Travis shows himself on the walls, cheering his undaunted followers. Around him are Crockett, Evans, and Borham, roused to a last struggle, for they know their doom is scaled. In quick succession rifle after rifle is discharged, sending hundreds to their long account. The Mexicans are again repulsed; they fall back, dismayed and disheartened by the dead and dying around them. The battalion of Toluca-the flower of Santa Anna's army-is reduced from four hundred to twenty-three. Men have become for a moment regardless of their officers, and are almost delirious from the cries of anguish of their fallen and expiring comrades, yielding to influences which no discipline can restrain, and no efforts repress. But the breach now appears practicable; the disjointed forces, by the aid of threats and entreaties, are rallied, and once more return to the assault. The fire from the Alamo has for some time been growing slower and slower. Rifles have dropped from many a vigorous hand, now cold in death, while others cling to their weapons even in the agonies of dissolution. Ammunition, too, has been failing; one by one the muzzles drop; and ere the last rifle is loaded and discharged, the Mexicans have gained the wall. Fearfully conspicuous in that awful moment, Travis receives a shot, staggers and falls. dies not unavenged. A Mexican officer rushes upon him, and is about to plunge his sabre into the bosom of the fallen man; when gathering his remaining energies for a desperate effort, he bathes the sword to

He

which he still clings, in the blood of his enemy, and they die together.

In the mean time, the conflict has become hand to hand, and has been raging hot and thick. The Mexicans have poured into the citadel like famished wolves furious for their prey. Each man struggles with his adversary, with the energy of despair, dealing the death stroke with rifles, sabres, or whatever missiles may be within reach. The Texans are almost buried beneath the numbers of their opponents. The carnage has been so terrible that the slain are piled up in heaps. Death stares each survivor in the face, yet still he struggles on. Crockett has been conspicuous in the melée, wherever the blows fell hottest and fastest. He has force his way over piles of the dead bodies of his enemies, and has reached the door of the chapel. Here he determines to make his last stand. At one glance of his eye, he sees that the fate of the Alamo rests upon himself alone, and that that fate nothing can avert. Travis has fallen; Evans is no more; Bowie expires upon a bed of sickness, pierced to the heart by a Mexican bayonet; Borham falls directly before him, and he finds himself the only living warrior of the one hundred and sixty-three who had been his companions. Perhaps, at that moment, the life-blood creeps to his heart by a natural impulse; but it is only for a moment. The desperation of his position sends it back with the force of an avalanche. His foes glare on him with the fierceness of demons, and assault him with blows from muskets, lances, and sabres. The strength of a hundred men seems concentrated in his single arm, as he deals out death to his pitiless and unsparing assailants. Their bodies have grown into a rampart before him. Blackened with fire and smoke, besmeared with blood, and roused into frenzy, he stands like some fabled god of antiquity, laughing to scorn the malice, and the power, and the fury of his enemies. New fire flashes from his eye, and new vigor nerves his arm. On his assailants rush, but it is upon death, certain and immediate. They fall, but their places are still supplied; and so quickly, the dead seem to rise up before him, like armed men from the teeth of Cadmus. At length a ball from an unseen rifle pierces him in the forehead; he falls backward to the earth, in the streams of gore which curdle around him. No groan escapes his lips: no cry of agony gratifies the implacable rancor of his enemies: he dies,—and the Alamo has fallen.

(To be continued.)

AUSTRIAN SALT MINES.

AVING enjoyed an excellent oppor

HAV

tunity for exploring the curious mineral treasure-house near Salzburg, it is natural to desire that others should be interested in the same scenes, and if possible drawn into a region which Sir Humphrey Davy pronounced unequalled by Switzerland itself for romantic views, sublime mountain-heights, and lakes that Italy might envy. Intelligent travellers, who have tired of the hackneyed route by railroad, and crossed from the Danube by way of Lintz and Gonünden to Salzburg, have wanted words to express their admiration of scenery continually changing from sublimity to loveliness-the greenest and best tilled fields, the most picturesque little lakes, the marble crests of snow-clad Alps, the frowning gloom of vast forests, uniting the beauty of various lands in one. That our enjoyment of these less-visited German beauties is not exaggerated, may be considered proved by the preference shown among the cultivated Viennese to Tschl upon this route, the regular summer resort, not only of nobles, but of sovereignty itself. At the time at which we write, the salt-baths are filled, or the trout-streams thronged, or the summer theatre crowded by the nobles of Germany, and princes from the south or the east, flocking together for their annual holiday.

A

Salzburg, the nearest city to the principal salt-mines, is really unequalled for beauty of position by any inland town in the world. A romantic castle, once belonging to the archbishops, and built eight hundred years ago, towers over the city in one of the dungeons of which an archbishop suffered a long confinement for having taken to himself a wife in other apartments many of the instruments of torture remain by which Protestants were worried out of life not very long ago. better memorial of their pious lordships is a tunnel cut through the native rock more than four hundred feet long, bearing the bust of its builder, Archbishop Sigsmund, with the inscription, "The rocks tell of thee!" I was still more interested by an ordinary, comfortable-looking house, the birthplace of Mozart, whose bronze statue by Schwanthaler, struck me as one of the noblest in Europe. Nor is this the only master of song whose memorials Salzburg rejoices to treasure: a meanlooking tomb was shown in one of the city churches as that of the great Haydn, but I suspect it is some other personage of his name, as the composer of "The

Creation" died at Vienna, and would hardly have remained to this time with so poor a monument.

All the walks and gardens of the town are arranged so as to display the magnificence of surrounding nature, showing how busy the hand of taste has been; while ruder art has carved half a street of dwellings out of the lime rock, erected two imposing castles and a famous old riding-school of solid stone.

Nor is it a mere fancy, that even the humblest citizens through this section of country are remarkable for kindness and courtesy: they have not been "ridden to death" by cockney travellers-have not come, like the Parisian, to depend upon the stranger for their principal supportare not, like the Oriental peasant, driven to beggary in order to meet the extortions of an insatiable despotism. Much as the republican has cause to detest Austria, she does not seem so hateful at home: the people are remarkably light-hearted and joyous; upon the surface you detect none of that detestation of oppression, that sense of degradation under a grinding yoke, felt by so many in their secret hearts. More pleasure-gardens, more crowded dances, more love of innocent relaxation, more earnestness of devotion, more throughgoing honesty are hardly to be found any where, in proportion of course to the population, than through the district bearing the inodorous name Salzkammergut.

But, we must hasten to Hallein, the salt-village, over which towers the salt mountain Durnberg, which we have first to walk up on the outside, and then descend through its hollow heart. Fortunately again for a lonely traveller, the church had availed herself of the constant necessity of ascending this lofty hill, and erected what she calls "a Calvary" along the way, and, being at the right season when the Catholic heart of Germany pours itself out with a peculiar and refreshing enthusiasm, fair village-maidens, and sometimes tottering village sires were my companions up the steep road; and, every little while, a rude shrine stood at my side, with a crucifixion rudely carved, and some scene from the "Last Suffering" painted beneath. And here, this unsophisticated devotion gave free vent to itself in groans, and prayers, and sighs, and tears, then passed on refreshed and lightened to the next lowly altar, where another picture carried the Saviour still

nearer to his crucifixion-agony. 'And so I had company enough, and of those who, though differing from me entirely in opinion, I could have fellowship with at the heart-not questioning their sincerity, and rejoicing, as I did, at the joy which their religion evidently gave their childsouls. And so the four miles were soon finished, and I was in the office, asking permission to inspect subterranean works which were six centuries old; and though I was en solitaire, and my visit would require just as many attendants and nearly as much artificial light as the usual quota of twelve, I was at once robed in a miner's dress of white duck, my right hand guarded by a thick mitten, and my head protected by a well wadded cap of coarsest frabric.

The first process was to walk through a long, narrow, dark, cool passage way, gently descending for three thousand feet, into the mountain's heart. As the workmen passed me on their way to dinner, we had to make the best of our poor candle light to get by one another in the confined path, and cach said "laub," a hasty contraction for the German "with your leave, sir." And now came the curiosity of this underground journey. The gently sloping path, sustained by boards and beams, and just wide and high enough for one beef-eating Englishman at a time, made a sudden dip, and the guide threw himself down and made me do the same; slipped his right leg over a smooth wooden rail, and grasped with his right hand a cable supported on rollers; and thus we slid down as fast or slow as we pleased, a depth of a hundred and forty feet at an angle of forty-one degrees. It was not very funny to see your only dependence in human shape sinking out of your sight into the bowels of the earth; but, I found the exercise delicious, and would recommend it to all good people who have mines to exhibit or sunken caves to explore. as certain to bestow upon them an unprecedented popularity.

This was succeeded by another gallerywalk, then a second descending shaftagain a nearly horizontal footpath, followed by a third "coast" downwards-and so on, the longest walk being the first of about three thousand feet, and the greatest descent at one time falling short of two hundred feet. In no part was the air unpleasant; the greater coolness was compensated by the constant exercise and the thick miner's dress. Several times we came upon large chambers, which showed with no brilliancy as our poor candles made their darkness visible, because the saltspar is mixed up with large masses of

earth, though some fine crystals are shown at a little museum, in the centre of the mountain. After this succession of similar passages had begun to be monotonous, a number of little lights began to spring up all around me, as if in fairy land; and the guide to a flat boat, which an invisible Charon set in motion at once across this lake of salt, over three hundred feet in length. Here was the secret of secrets. A chamber is excavated, wooden pipes are led to it and from it-the first of which bring the fresh water from mountain springs which gradually impregnates itself with strong brine; then after a period of months the lower pipes are opened, and the manufactured little ocean runs off to some place where wood is plenty-where I had already seen it a distance of thirty miles, boiling down into a beautiful, pearly white article for commerce. I was not a little perplexed at first, and I find other travellers have come away without ascertaining how the salt was procured, by not seeing the whole process going on at once, and from supposing that this pond was made by nature, and had no special concern with the government manufacture. But, as fast as this lake is formed and the fresh water dissolving the salt and separating it from the clay, another is prepared where the mineral is thought to be more abundant; and, only the worthless earth is seen in process of removal in little carts, while the precious salt carries itself out, silently and away from observation, in hollowed trunks of trees. The great care is to prevent the earth from falling in upon the workmen and crushing them, as has been the case repeatedly; but the most surprising puzzle to an uninitiated observer is, why, in the process of six months or a year, this water does not run off through some natural outlet, by dissolving the salt in its way. These ponds must sometimes lie very near together, and directly above one another: besides, as their roofs are entirely flat, frequently destitute of artificial support; and what rock there is crumbles to the touch, we might expect these wide sheets of water would sometimes break through. Accidents, however, are rare, though there are sometimes forty excavations in a single mountain.

How partics of pleasure feel in crossing over this deathlike lake at such a funereal pace, with not a sound to break the oppressive stillness, and rarely a single crystal reflecting the feeble twinkle of the illumination for which you have paid, I cannot say-but, to a lone voyager like myself, it was one of the most solemn mo

[ocr errors]

ments of life-darkness seemed to rest like a tombstone upon me-none but fearful images filled my visions--the repose of my body added to the gloom of my mind-and it was a blessed relief when I could use my own limbs on what seemed solid earth again.

Still other slides came, one at an angle of fifty degrees, and one, the longest in all the works, of four hundred and sixty-eight feet. This brought me as far down as the four miles of winding road had carried me up; but, as there was none of its sudden changes of view, no wild forest, merry mountain-stream, knot of cherryfaced peasant-girls, laughter of happy childhood to "cheer the toil and cheer the way," ." I may be pardoned for wishing myself out.

But, now came a new vehicle. I stood alone in the very heart of this mountain of limestone, gypsum and marl, when two wild boys mounted me between them upon a wooden horse, on a rude enough wooden railway, and, in a moment, my steeds began to show their mettle, and I was run through a passage of a mile tunnelled in the solid stone: once only the ragged colts paused to take breath, and to let me admire the light from the mouth, which seemed nothing else than a bright blue star. Very soon genuine daylight came to our relief; and, but slightly wearied, I bounded from the cavern mouth to take the Eilwagen on its return to Salzburg.

I learnt little more of the salt-trade in Austria. It is a government affair, and six thousand men are said to be employed, some in preparing the rock crystal for the market, some in boiling or evaporating the sea water, and more in connection with mines like the Durnberg. The men did not seem very healthy, and one part of the process must often cause the sacrifice of life. At Ebensee I found them boiling down the water brought from Hallein in thirty miles of pipes, and I learnt that whenever the iron vat leaks, a workman is obliged to wade through the boiling liquid to the injured place upon a kind of stilts-if his feet should slip, he would certainly boil to death, and if not of strong lungs he is likely to stifle-a horrible fate either way. For more than a week these fires are continued day and night, eating sadly into the forest, the salt being removed as fast as it is crystallized, and fresh brine poured in. Then the fire is extinguished, the pan, which is a foot deep and sixty round, thoroughly retinkered, the calcareous crust which adheres to the bottom and sides broken off, and poor plates replaced by new.

So much for the great Salt Mine of central Europe, a great source of wealth to its Government, and a main dependence for a prime necessary of life of Southern Germany, and the countries to the eastward upon the Mediterranean Sea.

ANNEXATION.

HOW many and loud, are the objurgations which that pattern father of a family, Mr. Bull, visits upon the marauding propensities of his disinherited son, Jonathan? "The graceless urchin," the old gentleman is constantly saying, "who has already grown so large that his feet stick out far beyond his trowsers, is as greedy as one of his own turkey-buzzards, and as sharp and unconscionable as one of his own peddlers. He has, during the very short time that he has lived, cheated the poor Indians out of twenty or thirty States, has flogged Mexico into the relinquishment of half a dozen more, is bullying Spain for the surrender of Cuba, has hoodwinked Kamehameha I., until he scarcely knows whether the Sandwich Islands

are his own or not, and has deliberately surveyed Japan with a view to some future landing! Was there ever a more unprincipled, insatiable, rapacious,_gormandizing Filibuster than that same Jonathan, who fancies that the whole world was made for use, and his use too, and has no more scruple about laying his hands upon any part of it, than a fox has in satisfying his hunger in a hen-roost!"

Having said this, Bull rolls up his eyes in the most moral manner, heaves a lugubrious sigh, and sits down to read the Times, which contains several long columns of dispatches from India, and a general account of the troubles in the colonies from Australia and the Cape, to the most northern iceberg on which Capt. Maclure

has recently hoisted the "meteor-flag." He is, however, considerably consoled by the perusal, and especially by the comments of the editor on the inappeasable ambition of republics, and their eager spirit of self-aggrandizement. These encourage him into a sound appetite for his rolls and coffee, after which he smilingly turns to Punch, whose jokes upon Yankee-doodledom are exceedingly mirthful, causing John to split his fat sides almost, over its cunning exposures of American hypocrisy, boastfulness, negro-driving, and land-stealing. Meantime, the entertaining volumes of some traveller in "the States are laid

[ocr errors]

upon his table, hot from the press, and brilliant with the keenest sarcasms provoked by our vulgarity, which the facetious Cockney (who, if he were called upon to read aloud what he had written, could not pronounce his own mother tongue), shows up in a variety of the most amusing lights.

Well, touching a great deal of this, which gives John a good laugh, we shall have nothing to say; many of us enioy it quite as much as he can, and for better reasons; but on the subject of Annexation, or the imputed zeal of republics to grasp all they can get, we mean to put in an apology, using the word in its ancient sense of a denial and a justification. We mean to prove, firstly, that a willingness on the part of nations to take the property of their neighbors is no new thing under the sun, so that if the United States had been guilty of it, they would have been acting only in a line of decided precedents. But the truth is, as we shall prove secondly, that we have not been guilty of it at all, in any injurious sense, while our entire national action and diplomacy have been more liberal, just, candid, and forbearing than those of any other nation. Yes; you facetious and vituperative Bulls ! we have been the first among nations to set the example of an open, generous, equitable international policy, and whatever advances modern statesmen may have made towards the substitution of highminded negotiation for overreaching intrigue and secret diplomacy, they have learned from us much calumniated republicans! Of that, however, by and by.

Many of the foreign tourists and editors, who chatter of American annexation, really seem to suppose that annexation has never before been heard of in the history of the world. "Did you ever!" they exclaim in tones of offended virtue, like an old lady, who has just been told some precious piece of scandal, forgetting in the excess of her indignation and surprise, the small

Did you

indiscretions of her own youth. 66

ever? These republicans must be actually insane in their avidity for more land! Not satisfied-the cormorants!-with the immense slice of the western continent they now possess, they warn us Europeans off the rest of it, and are consumed with fiery desires for the islands of the sea. Like the republics of old-like the republics of Italy, this modern republic gives token of the characteristic weakness of its kind; it must live by conquest, and, like all its forerunners, swell until it bursts."

Oh! Crapaud and Bull, how can you utter such nonsense? Annexation is no new thing, nor is it peculiarly republican! Every page of history is full of it, from the time of the earliest vagabond and fugitive, Cain, who built a city in the land of Nod, which was not his, until the latest English war in Burmah! It is the one subject, indeed, the burden of human annals. The first command given to Noah, after the flood, was to be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth; or as it may be translated, take possession of the earth; and ever since, that divine injunction, if no other, has been faithfully and incessantly obeyed by his descendants. Do we not all remember, that the condition of the magnificent blessings which the Lord promised to Abram, was, that he should begin a long process of annexation, by "getting out of his own country, and his own kindred, and his father's house," and settling in another land? What was the Exodus of the Children of Israel, under Moses, but a preparatory step to the seizure of Canaan, which was no sooner taken, than it was divided by lot among the nine and a half tribes, the other two and a half having already pocketed their allowance on this side the Jordan? and what the whole subsequent career of the Hebrews under Joshua, but a series of skirmishes with their amiable neighbors, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, &c., whose country they had invaded, annexing "all the land, the hills, the south country, the valley and the plain, and the mountain of Israel and the valley of the same;" appropriating the cattle, despoiling the cities, smiting the kings, and utterly routing and rooting out the people, so that, as we are told, "not any one was left to breathe!" Nor was this wholesale and slaughterous policy much changed under the Judges and the Kings, in spite of the reverses experienced at the hands of the Moabites, the Midianites, and the Philistines; for, scarcely had they recovered their power under Saul and

« PoprzedniaDalej »