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King of the Amazons. [Harper's new monthly magazine. / Volume 30, Issue 177, February, 1865]
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View page 294
294 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
THE KING OF THE AMAZONS.
CAPTAIN RICHARD F. BURTON, who is
determined to see as much of Africa as is
possible to an enterprising traveler, visited Abo-
mey, the famous capital of Gelele, King of iDa-
homey, during the spring of the present year,
1864. He saw the Amazons; he saw the blood
of the sacrifices, and stumbled over the skulls
of the slain; he talked with the King; he was
witness to the horrors and the meanness, .the
puerility and ferocity, the brutality and the po-
liteness, as he says, of this African Emperor.
He was honored with the commission of Em-
bassador from the British Government to this
mighty potentate, and carried with him, as pres
eats, one forty-feet circular crimson silk dam-
ask tent, with pole complete, which the mighty
Gelele turned up his snub nose at; one richly-
embossed silver pipe, with amber mouth-piece,
which the King could not smoke out of; two
richly-embossed silver belts, with lion and crane
raised in relief, in morocco cases; two silver
and partly-gilt waiters, in oak case, of which
the Abomeyans had but a poor opinion; one
coat of mail and gauntlets, of the wrong size
and too heavy.
Whydab, which is the sea-port of Ahomey, is
a notorious resort of slave-traders. Here lived,
some years ago, the ingenuous Captain Canots
friend, Mr. Martinez, who enjoyed the rank and
power of a Caboceer of Dabomey, and was enti
1
AN AMAzON.
View page 295
THE KING 01? THE AMAZONS. 295
tied to the marks of honor of an umbrella, a
chair, and perhaps also a knife and fork. Un-
fortunately for his descendants, of whom there
are a considerable number, the mighty Gelele
is heir to all property of his subjects who die;
and when Mr. Martinez died the Viceroy of
Whydah locked up his house, took possession
of his goods, and turned his children, into the
street. Here also lived another of Captain
Canots slave - trading friends, Mr. Francesco
Fells da Souza, who was more than a Caboceer,
for he was a Chacha, which is as much as to
say the Collector of Customs of Whydah, and
died, worthy man, leaving behind him a hun-
dred children.
This Da Souza family, says Captain Burton,
is charged with exercising a pernicious influence
over the minds of the King and people of IDaho-
mey. It is still numerous. Our traveler gives
the names of thirteen sons and four daughters
who are distinguished in different ways; and
besides the children, there are about a hundred
grandchildren. The patriarchal institution
appears to have flourished in this part of Africa.
The daughters are too high to marrythey do
worse.
Whydah appears to be an abominable, hot,
and uncomfortable hole; but it serves the pur-
pose of introducing the traveler gently to the
manners and customs of Dahomey. For in~
stance, Captain Burton got out of his hammock,
on the road to the town, in the hot sun, to pay
his respects to a Fetich man who sat under a
ragged white umbrella, and received the white
mans bow with dignity. Thereupon the two
snapped fingers, which is as much as though a
Yankee and an Englishman should shake hands;
and when this. was done, the Fetich mans two
wives handed around water in small wine-glasses.
Water is, we learn, the greatest luxury in
Dahomey. It is very scarce and, in general,
only worse than the rum which the people who
can afford it substitute in its place. To drink
water together is therefore a ceremony, and not
less than three toasts or sentiments are passed
while the dignitaries, standing up, consume the
glass which neither cheers nor inebriates, but
only disgusts. - You bow, you touch glasses, and
you exclaim, Sai diyye This is water
half of it being mud. Your compotator bows, and
responds, Sai ko May the water cool your
throatit is more likely to choke you. After
some more sentiments a bottle of rum is intro-
duced, to kill the animalcuhe, as our sol-
diers in the South would say. Fortunately the
chief of an embassy from a nation in good
standing at the court of Dahomey is not re-
quired to drink all the rum that is offered him;
he may without breach of manners pour it down
the throat of his favorite Kruman, who opens
his mouth readily for that purpose, and lets you
toss the glassful down at a single gulp. Some
of the waggish kings, Captain Burton tells us,
have made their servants lie flat on the ground,
and swallow, in that position, a bottle of rum at
a draught.
In Dahomey the mark of a colonel is a white
umbrella, a somewhat inconvenient appendage
in battle one would think. The higher civil
and military dignitaries are permitted to wear
or carry several umbrellas. When you are in-
troduced to a stranger he snaps his fingers at
you, which is not a mark of contempt, but a
friendly salutation, equivalent to shaking hands,
and much better in a hot climate, says Burton.
When a company of soldiers present arms in
honor of some passing dignitary, such as an
English embassador, they rush frantically at
the object of their salute, bending low, and
simulating attack; then the corporals advance
and snap their fingers at the great man; and,
finally, forming in close column, the company
marched and counter-marches three times past
him; halts in front of him; and finishes the
ceremony with a hideous outcry, captain
and men, with outstretched right arms, raising
their sticks, bill-hooks, or muskets, to an an-
gle of forty-five degrees, the muzzles in the
air, like a band of conspirators on the English
stage.
As for the dances, of which these people are
extravagantly fond, in them they go through a
whole military campaign, and describe, in a
somewhat lively pantomime, the decapitation
of an enemy, and many other scenes pleasant
to the warriors memory. The dance, says our
traveler, is a tremendous display of agility.
He thinks, indeed, that the pantomime is more
troublesome than the actual fight. One month
of such performance would make a European
look forward to a campaign as to a time of rest.
It is a little odd that the dancers blacicen their
black faces with gunpowder, like an American
Ethiopian minstrel. The dance is enlivened
by the firing of muskets, and concludes with a
general drinking match. Indeed, most ceremo-
nies and events, of whatever description, in IDa-
homey, are finished with a bottle of rum.
In IDahomey there are no proper names, hut
an infinity of titles, and every rise in rank con-
fers a Thew name. The name of the present
King, Emperor, Sultan, Tycoon, or whatever
the quality of the ruler of the Amazons may
be, is somewhat long. It is a mere string of
titles, beginning with Gelele md 1V~yonzi, which
signifies Bigness with no way of lifting ; then
follow the strong names, among which are: a
Rock, the finger-nail can not scratch it; Lion
of Lions ; Shadow which is never lost in Wa-
ter; and, finally, An Animal which has cut
its Teeth.
The spy system for which the Japanese are
n9torious exists also in Dahomey. Every offi-
cer has his double; and this is carried so far that
if a captain is sent to prison he must be accom-
panied by his l~g6d~, who is answerable that the
sentence is strictly carried out, and withholds
from the unfortunate prisoner the food surrepti-
tiously sent by his wives. But besides this there
is a singular custom which prevents the imme-
diate displacement of an officer by the King,
who sends, however, a new man, his intended
View page 296
296 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
successor, to help the old officer, and to step
gradually into his shoes.
They have policemen and custom-house offi-
cers in Dahomey. The latter appropriate to
themselves a good share of the duties; the for-
mer discourage crimes against the person, mur-
der being a royal prerogative; hut they are not
able to prevent theft, which is the common vice
of all Geleles subjects.
Christianity is a recognized religion. The
King not unfrequently sends down to Whydah
to ask the prayers of the white men; and on St.
Johns iDay he transmits by his Viceroy a pot of
oil and a bottle of rum as his acknowledgment
of the faith. This, however, does not prevent
him from murdering a Christian if the humor
takes him; nor does it confer any privileges
upon the missionaries. The native religion is
chiefly fetich-worship. There is an idol called
Legba, who is adored, as are also, in a less de-
gree, turkey-buzzards, the boa constrictor, and
some other creatures. They also pray to the
dead; at least they appear to have the belief
that when a man is sick and dying it is because
his friends in the spirit land want him; and
they sometimes remonstrate with these unrea-
sonable spirits, and offer them, by .way of ran-
som for the sick mans life, certain articles of
food,, which are placed upon the graves of those
addressed. The iDanbgbwe, a small python, is
sacred; it has its temples, where dozens of these
disgusting animals are fed and nursed into harm-
lessness. To kill one is sure to get the killer
into trouble. A native who accidentally slays
such a snake is placed under a hut of dry thatch,
greased with palm-oil, which is then set on fire,
when he must run to the nearest water, and is
all the way mercilessly belabored with sticks.
You travel in Dahomey in a hammock, a
not unpleasant conveyance, if the pole dpes not
break and let the traveler suddenly down upon
his head. A large company of attendants
cooks, bearers, officers, and officers slaves, fol-
low and precede the chief personage; and among
these a kings messenger, bearing the kings
stick as his warrant, and a cowhide-whip as his
weapon, sedulously maintains order. At every
village Mr. Burton was received with a proces-
sion, and in great form. This caused delay, for
which the Dahomneyans do not care, there being
neither railroad nor telegraph in their country.
Also it caused bottles of rum to be produced by
the traveler, for which they do care. On en-
tering the village the caravan begins to shout,
dance, and fire guns; the caboceer, drawn up
at the road-side, sits upon a high stool, with his
feet upon one lower, under a ragged white um-
brella. He is commonly dressed in a waist
clout, a few beads, and a human tooth or two.
The British embassador and his companion
were obliged to halt before this dignitary, and
pass the proper diplomatic compliments of the
day. Water is thereupon produced by the cab-
oceers wife, and fruit and food in very moderate
quantities given, for which the British embassy
returned rum.
To the rum succeeded a grand dance, with a
full band of cymbals, horns, rattles, and drums,
to make music. Then there is singing, speech-
making, long professions of devotion to the
mighty Gelele, and to all his friendsa hint for
more rumthen more dancing.
Every village possesses a custom-house, and
Dahomeyans pay duties on every thing theybring
to market. The market-master, or receiver of
duties, has one singular perquisite; every cock
which crows in the open street he confiscates.
The result is that the bird of morn appears
in public in Dahomey invariably gagged, by
means of a thong passed between the mandi-
bles and tied behind the head. Every road is a
turnpike, on which all travelers must pay toll
in cowries.
The road from Whydah to Abomey showed
Captain Burton a country thinly settled, falling
into ruin, with more men than women or chil-
dren, and with a population wretchedly poor.
The reason for this is the singular tyranny of
the King, who absolutely forbids his subjects to
own any thing. They must .not raise c~ffee,or
sugar-cane, or rice, or tobacco; they can only
raise ground-nuts enough for home consump-
tion, none for exportation. A laborer must not
alter his house, or wear European shoes, or em-
ploy a spittoon-holder, or carry an umbrella
without special royal permission; he must not
spread a counterpane over his bed, a privilege
which is reserved for the princes; he must not
use a chair at home; and if he chances to sit at
table with a white man he dares not use a knife
and fork. Only men of high influence at Ag-
home are permitted to whitewash their houses,
and wooden doors are prohibited to all but the
upper ten. Near the capital, and wherever
the King happens to sojourn, an absurd custom
rigorously enforced actually puts a stop to all
industry during half the hours of the day. Wa-
ter is scarce, as we have already said. The
Kings wives and Amazon guards require a good
deal of it, and their slaves have to carry it, gen-
erally from a distance and over public and much
frequented roads. Now wherever these wo-
men appear, all the people at work or passing
on the road must nimbly skip into the woods
at one side so far as to be out of sight. To be
seen by or to look at these women of the pal-
ace would provoke punishment. When Captain
Burton contented himself with getting out of the
way an old crone cried out, He is a white man,
and knows no betterthere being, it would
seem, a prejudice of color in Dahomey as well
as in other countries; and another asked, Has
he, then, no laws in his own land ?
After some days travel Burton and his party
reached Kana, a country, residence of Gelele,
and here, after sundry delays, and with much
ceremony, they were presented to him whose
smile is life and whose frown is death. He
proved to be a stout, tall, middle-aged, sombre-
looking, copper-colored savage. Marshaled by
Silver~Bells-and-Giraffe-HOrn, the royal ush-
er, the British Embassador entered the palace
View page 297
THE KING OF THE AMAZONS. 297
gate, having first closed his umbrella and taken
off his sword.
Dahome-Dadathe grandfather of Dahomey,
as Gelele is calledCaptain Burton shall de-
scribe in his own language. He is in the full
vigor of life, from forty to forty-five, before the
days of increasing belly and decreasing leg. He
looks like a king of negro men, without tender-
ness of heart or weakness of head. His person
is athletic, upward of six feet high, lithe, agile,
thin-flanked and broad-shouldered, with muscu-
jar limbs, well-tdrned wrists, and neat ankles,
but a distinctly cucumber-shaped shin. His
skull is rounded and well set on; the organs of
locality stand prominently out; a slight bald-
ness appears upon the poll, and the regions of
cautiousness are covered by two cockade-like
tufts of hair, mostly worn in Dahomey to sus-
pend coral, popo-beads, and brass or silver orna-
ments from. His hair, generally close-shaven, is
of the pepper-corn variety; his beard thin, eye-
brows scant, and mustaches few. The smile
is pleasant, though a heavy jaw makes the face
jowly. His finger-nails are as long as a Chi-
nese mandarins. His eyes are red, bleared,
and inflamed; his teeth white and sound; the
lips sub-tumid; and the nose, that most telling
organ of character, is distinctly retrouss~f, look-
ing as if all the lines had been turned the wrong
way. He is marked with the small-pox, and
also bears certain tattooed lines in the face. In
complexion he is reddish-brown, several shades
lighter than the lightest to be seen at his court.
Gelele wore on this occasion a short cylin-
drical straw-hat, with a purple ribbon. A hu-
man tooth also ornamented the hat, and a single
bead was hung about his neck. On his arms
were six iron bracelets, intended to enable the
arm to fend off a sabre-cut at the head. He
wore short drawers of purple flowered silk, and
a body-cloth of fine white stuff. He was smok-
ing a pipe, and the throne was surrounded by a
crowd of unarmed women. These were the
Kings wives; the Amazons kept guard beyond.
The women were engaged in waiting assiduous-
ly upon their lord and master. If he wished to
spit, they held out a plated spittoon; if he per-
spired, they cooled, and fanned, and wiped the
royal brow; if he sneezed, they all devoutly
blessed themselves and him.
Gelele came down from his throne and shook
hands with Burton in the English way. Rum
and wines were next produced. Conversation
was begun in the most roundabout way, for red-
tape is honored also in Dahomey. No one, not
even an embassador, must speak directly with
the King. He communicates with the Cham-
berlain, who speaks to the interpreter, who trans-
lates to the person having audience; and the
reply passes to the monarch through the same
channels. The health of the King and of Cap-
tain Burton was drunk in three different kinds
of liquor; the King turning his face from the
company, and having his head concealed by a
muslin curtain while he imbibed. While this
was done the women cowered on the ground
with averted faces, bawling out Po-o-o 1
Take it easy and a salute was fired. They
do not burn powder, however, every time the
King opens a new bottle of rum.
And then the audience was over, and the
Embassador retired, with leave to inspect every
thing in the palace inclosure. He found the
women soldiers ranged in an inner circle, the
armed men without; and a battalion of young
girls, lately formed, were the Kings especial
body-guard. These girls wc~e armless vests, a
kind of petticoat of bright colors, a cartridge-box
and belt of black leather containing powder re-
ceptacles like match-boxes, a bullet-bag, and a
musket of English make, in very tolerable order
and effective.
Among the ornaments, or trophies, of the
palace displayed in the inner court were three
prepared skulls neatly mounted, and one so ar-
ranged as to serve for a drinking-cup. One of
these heads had been the property of one Akiaon,
an unlucky braggart of a chief~ who, when Gezo,
Geleles father, died, was so imprudent as to
send a message to Abomey that all men were
now truly joyful, for that the sea had dried up,
and the world had now seen the bottom of Da-
homey. To which Geleles reply was an attack
in which the boaster was killed. His head,
when properly cleaned and silver-mounted, was,
with grim humor, placed in a miniature ship, to
signify that there is still water enough to float
it in Dahomey.
And here it is time to say something farther
of the manners and customs of this black king-
dom. The King is supreme lord over the lives
and property of all his subjects. There is abso-
lutely no rank between the monarch and the
slave; ~dl are his; and it is even a crime to
wound one of the Kings subjectsnot against
the laws, or against the person injured, but
against the Kings majesty, which is hurt in its
property. In the royal presence all alike lie
prostrate, or, to rest themselves, stand up on
all-fours. The King is spoken of as The
Spirit. When he calls, the messenger cries,
The Spirit wants you ; when he has spoken,
all present exclaim., The Spirit speaks true.
Nevertheless obedience is not the rule. The
servants say, Yes, yes, but do as they please;
and the nobles, humble as they are in the Kings
presence, are a formidable power, whom he must
conciliate.
The Amazons take precedence of the male
soldiers. Yet Burton remarks, despite this un-
wonted honor to their sex, these warriors insist
upon calling themselves men; and here, as else-
where in lands where Amazons are unknown, it
is an insult to call a soldier a woman. In IDa-
homey the whole people are soldiers. Here alone
the sovereign has succeeded in drawing to his
army nearly every person strong enough to carry
a musket. The Amazons are, or are supposed
to be, vestals; by a fiction they are called the
Kings wives; and it is a capital crime to court
them, as well as for one of them to suffer her-
self to be courted. The army, both male and
View page 298
298 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
female, is divided into the right and left wings,
so called from their position about the throne.
The women have officers of the same grade as
their male fellow-soldiers. In battle they are
known to be the most valorous and desperate,
especially in~attacking a fortified position. The
commander-in-chief of the male soldiers is also
the royal executioner, whose duty it is not only
to lead in battle, but to cut off heads in Abomey
on sacrificial and other occasions. But all Da-
homeyan officials are in pairs; and the mingan
or captain-general has a double, as has also the
she-mingan.
At the Dahomeyan court every man must have
at least one mother. It need not be his own.
Here men adopt a mother as in other countries
women may adopt a son; and it is not even
necessary that this red-tape mother should be
older than her son by adoption. She may be a
score of years younger. The Kings actual, real,
true mother is yet alive; when she dies Gelele
will select one in her place. Many high officers
of aristocratic tastes have two such mothers, one
for the last reign and another for the present.
Visitors to the capital communicate with the
mothers of their several nations, and Captain
Burton makes frequent mention of the English
mother. In order to obtain a regular supply
of water he was forced to engage four water-
motherswomen who peddle water about the
streets.
Burton reduces some of the exaggerated trav-
elers tales regarding the number and power of
the Dahomeyan army. The Amazons do not
number more than 2500, of whom but 1700 are
fully armed. These creatures are ugly, many
of them old and ill-tempered. They are cer-
tainly brave, and in battle fiercely strive to do
more valorously than the men. The corps is
reinforced from the daughters of the land. Be-
fore a girl can marry she is shown to the King;
if he likes her looks she is enlisted as a soldiei,
and that is an end of the proposed match. They
are in size larger than the men, more able to
endure fatigue, Burton thinks, more muscular,
and in every way fit food for powder. They are
called the Kings wives; but they are, we are
told, often unfaithful to their compelled vows.
When our traveler left Kana the King remained
to adjudicate upon 150 cases of pregnancy in his
corps of Amazons. It would seem that disci-
pline had been somewhat lax of late.
He arrived, at last, at Agbome, the capital.
It is, like other towns in this savage land, a rude
and filthy collection ~f huts, shanties, and
houses. Life is not more comfortable there than
at other points in Geleles dominions; the water
is not more abundant, nor the rum better, the
people cleaner, or life more secure. In truth
Dahomey is altogether a dirty, petty, murderous,
half-starved, and benighted kingdom, neither
useful nor ornamental, with an assassin for ruler,
and a few thousands of slavish and blood-thirsty
wretches for a nation.
On arriving at Agbome Burton witnessed, in
part, the celebrated Customs, the annual rites
of murder; and he tells us that even these are
both less horrible in manner and less grand in
detail than we had been led to suppose by pre-
vious travelers. They are of two kindsthe
Grand Customs which take place only after
the death of a king, on which occasions per-
haps one thousand people are killed; and the
Yearly Customs, when not above five hun-
dred men suffer death. The yearly customs are
of two kindsthe So-Sin, which Burton wit-
nessed, and which are held at the capital; and
the 0-Sin Customs, which tire celebrated in
the forest. But all are much alike, and the
principal features of all three are drinking, dan-
cing, the distribution of cowries, and murder.
The troops are paraded and addressed; the King
administers justice after his fashion; there are
speeches in, which the nation is urged to march.
against its hereditary enemy, the Abbeokutans;
the ceremony lasts five days and nights; and the
executions even do not suffice to rescue it from
the last degree of dullnessfor the victims, so
far from being, distressed, actually appear to en-
joy the prospect of having their heads cut off
being perhaps glad to be relieved, on any terms,
of the miseries of life at Agbome. Burton, who
was instructed not to witness the executions,
nevertheless saw the wretches set apart for death.
Forty of them were ranged on large stools, bound
to posts, th~ legs, ankles, and wrists being se-
curely fastened. They wore t~ peculiar dress,
and amused themselves by remarks upon the
British Embassador, the music, and the people
passing. Indeed they seemed to regard them-
selves rather as spectators than as actors or suf-
ferers.
Burton saw also some of these men after they
had been killed; and in the engraving on the
next page he has depicted these royal victims,
alive and dead. Heads lying in the road as he
walked out in the morning were not infrequent.
So-Sin means literally horse-tie; and the name
comes from a peculiar license during the five
days the Custom lasts, when all, horses may
be taken from their owners and tied up, to be
redeemed only with bags of cowriesthe cir-
culating medium of the country.
Why all this slaughter, does the read6r ask?
,It is after all only a matter of convenience to
the King and the royal family. In the first
place, it would not be fit for a ruler of Dahomey
to.appear in the other world unattended; there-
f6re a thousand or two of his subjects and cap-
tives must be slain when he dies, to accompany
him to Hades. But when he gets to his last
destination it is shrewdly believed in Dahomey
that his interest in the affairs of the kingdom
does not cease. He is anxious for news, and as
there are no spiritual gazettes in Africa, this in-
telligence can only reach him by couriers, who
are dispatchedin a double senseonce a year,
and oftener if important occasions arise, such as
the visit of a British embassador, or an attack
on Abbeokuta. This, according to Burton, is
the true theory of the Dahomeyan Customs
it is a kind of spiritual post-office system; the
View page 299
THE KING OF THE AMAZONS. 299
difficulty appears to be that there is no return
mail.
Altogether, Dahomey is a preposterous hum-
bug. The nation is growing weaker every year
by reason of the tyranny of the ruler, who claims
all the young women, and suffers neither trade
nor agriculture to go on uninterrupted. The
King is a mere useless and brutal savage, pre-
tentious, dirty, poor, and blood-thirsty. The
famous Amazons are neither good-looking, vir-
tuous, well-disciplined, nor nearly so numerous
as had been reported; and the kingdom appears
to be a most uninviting region, which neither
nature nor art has made fit for human residence.
Finally, if, after this account of Dahomey,
any reader has a fancyto visit Gelele, he can enjoy
tbe pleasure of a journey from Whydah to Ag-
home and back, with two months sojourn at the
capital, for the moderate cost of about eleven
hundred dollars; and that the Reverend Peter
Bernasko, missionary at Whydah, will be hap-
py to accompany him, hire his servants, and
provide for his other necessaries, rendering a
correct account of his expenses.
View page 300
300 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
~~TIIE DAY-DREAMS OF EARLIER YOUTh COME RACK
COME BACK TO ME!
View page 301
THE SPARCOTES. 301
IN THE AUTUMN TWILIGHT.
N EATH the blue billows sinks
The grand red orb of day.
A white sail showeth clear in the haze,
Far, far away. -
A magnificent sunset sheds
Its beauty upon the sea;
The day-dreams of earlier youth come back
Come back to me!
Set hath the glorious sphere,
And the silver horns slow rise
Of the moon, while softening into blue
The sun-glow dies.
But the spirit of Dawn shall streak
A golden thread in the gray,
Through the hanging masses of rose-colored cloud
Veiling her way.
And the heavy curtains of lAack
Fall off from the temple of Heaven,
In its majesty mocking the finite sight,
To Earths sons given.
Is it thus that the unchained soul
The conqueror in the fight
With its weaklier casket of passionless clay,
Soareth to light?
Light! The light of unlimited worlds;
True light of an endless day;
Of that day which never knoweth a night
Far, far away.!
THE SPARCOTES.
I.
1j~~HEN I was pursuing my studies at Cam-
TV bridge, Massachusetts, many years ago,
I used sometimes to be invited to dine in ]3os-
ton with the Sparcote family.
The Sparcote family inhabited an old brick
house, which at present (for I have not known
Boston for twenty years) must be pretty far
down town, though then rather central. It was
a tolerably large, old..fashioned mansion, but very
slenderly furnished, and the general style of
things indicated a strict and methodical econo-
my in the menage. The truth is, however, that
the family was by no medus in straitened cir-
cumstances, for it was said that old Deacon
Sparcote, the head of the household, drove a
very thriving business during the week, assisted
by his onty son, a young man of about twenty-
five. The family being distantly related to me
on Mrs. Sparcotes side, my father, who resided
in New York, had strictly enjoined upon me the
propriety of visiting these good folks, as he con-
sidered it his sons duty to know and cultivate
all his New England relations, who were by no
means few. The Deacon and his wife were
thorough Bostonians, of the old-fashioned sort.
Their fathers and grandfathers before them had
been Bostonians, and the Deacon himself had
a hereditary veneration for the New England
VOL. XXX.No. 177.X
Athens and its traditions, amounting almost to
idolatry. And his way of proving this venera-
tion was by making himself one of the most me-
chanical of fixtures in it. He never went out.-
side the city even for a day. A journey would
havebeen a sort of dislocation of his entire status,
and his methodical habits would have received
such a jar from any such abnormal proceeding
that he would not have recovered from it for a
week.
Well, I used sometimes, obeying the code of
social ethics, to accept the friendly ~vitations of
the Sparcotes to dinner. I remember I was in-
vited one cold day in the winter of 1838. The
dinner took place at two precisely by the old
South clock. The family consisted of the Dea-
con, Mrs. Sparcote, Mr. Junius Sparcote, and
the three Misses Sparcote. The family kept up
the queer old Puritan custom of eating the des-
sert first, and the meat audvegetables last. Grace
was said, and we sat down to roast beef, pota-
toes, and Indian pudding. After the pudding,
it was a solemn sight to see the Deacon carve
and serve the meat. He was a small, old, bald-
headed gentleman, with a tolerably large nose,
dull bluish eyes, and features somewhat out of
drawing; which latter peculiarity was mildly re-
peated in the physiognomy of his son Junius.
Junius, however, had his mothers bright black
eyes, and a certain cheerful birdy expression,
which made you less sensible to the & rbsence of
artistic arrangement in the rest of his featqres.
The three daughters were vague feminine re-
semblances to their sire.
I can see the old gentleman now, as he rose,
dressed in a baggy, black dress-coat, of not the
newest make, and a loose, white neckcloth,
above which protruded a large shirt-collar, and
proceeded to sharpen the carving-knife and cut
up the smoking beef. First he carefully turned
back his long coat-cuffs, and then slowly carved
the whole of the meat, before helping any body.
This occupied about twenty minutes, amidst pro-
found silence and expectation. The carving
being ended, he proceeded to help himself, and
then passed the dish round to his wife, whose
duty it was to help the others. While the guest
and family were being served, the Deacon, still
standing, usually took from his coat-pocket a
huge blue cotton handkerchief~, and solemnly
blew his large nose. And sometimes he turned
round to the fire-place, into which, after indulg-
ing a while in the princely and old-fashioned
sport of hawking, he solemnly expectorated.
By the time he had finished these operations,
the beef and potatoes had been dispensed by
Mrs. Sparcote, and conversation had coxnmeuced.
There was no wine nor ale, nor any drink but
pure cold water. The conversation was in drib-
lets, its tone neither gay nor sad, but serious and
dull. The topics were the weather, the east
winds, the Thursday Lecture, the distinguished
preachers of the day, genealogies, relationships,
engagements, marriages, and deaths. Mr. Ju-
nius occasionally attempted a bird-like chirp
in the way of jocose remark, with a timorous
