The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 23, September, 1859

"Then let me have it; I am stronger than you," exclaimed Mysie, suddenly roused to enthusiasm at the idea of "picking" her way into the tertiary formation of the earth, and exhuming its fossilized remains.

Seizing the pickaxe, she aimed a mighty blow at the clay and gravel conglomerate before her; but the instrument, falling wide of its intended mark, struck upon a rock, and sent such a jarring thrill up both her arms and such a tingle to her fingers' ends as suddenly quenched her antiquarian zeal, and reminded her of a frightful account she once read of a convent of nuns captured by some brutal potentate, who forced them to mend his highways by breaking stones upon them with very heavy hammers; and the historian mentioned, as a common occurrence, that, when any sister dislocated her shoulder, one of her comrades would set it, and the sufferer would then resume her labors.

Mysie, having this warning before her eyes, and being doubtful of Clarissa's surgical abilities, concluded to postpone her researches, and proposed to her companion to fill the basket with shells and pebbles from the beach, to which cowardly proposition Clarissa yielded but a reluctant consent.

The next day, however, Mr. F. and Caleb, learning the result of the fossil-search, offered to apply their more efficient skill and strength to a new attempt in the same direction; and, with high hopes for the result, Mysie, still accompanied by Clarissa, proceeded to another portion of the cliffs, where a low, wedge-shaped promontory, shadowed by beetling crags, was, as Mr. F. confidently stated, "sure for teeth."

The pickaxe, in the sinewy arms of its owner, soon dislodged great cakes of the upper deposit and laid bare a stratum of olive-green clay, which was announced to be a fossil-bed. Lumps of this clay being broken off and crumbled up, proved indeed rich in deposit. They found sharks' teeth, the edges still sharply serrated, firmly set in pieces of the jawbone,—whales' teeth,—vertebrae of various species,—fragments of bone, great and small,—several species of shell-fish, among which chiefly abounded a kind called quahaug,—and many nondescript fragments, not easily classified. One of these was a little bone closely resembling the tibia of a child's leg, and may have belonged to some antediluvian infant lost at sea, (if Noah's ancestors were mariners,) or perhaps drowned in the Deluge,—for Mr. F. quoted an eminent geologist who has visited the Vineyard, and who supposed these remains to have been brought here by that mighty Flood-tide. Another savant, however, supposes the island to have been thrown up from the sea by volcanic action; and that the fossils, now imbedded in cliffs a hundred feet high, were once deposited upon the bed of the ocean. There is certainly a great amount of conglomerate, which has evidently been fused by intense heat; and masses of rock, sea-pebbles, sand, and iron-ore are now as firmly integrated as a piece of granite.

However, the fossils came; here they certainly are; many of them perfect in form, and light and porous to the eye, but all hard and heavy as stone to the touch. Teeth, which are considered the most valuable of all the remains, are sometimes found as wide as a man's hand, and weighing several pounds; but Mysie was quite content with the more insignificant weight of those which filled her basket, especially when an immense reticulated paving-stone was added, which Mr. F. pronounced to be a whale's vertebra. She then was induced to trust the precious collection to Caleb's care, the more willingly that the ascent of the cliffs was now to be attempted. This was easily and quickly accomplished by Mr. F. and his little son, by going to the right spot before beginning to climb; but Mysie declaring that the ascent was quite practicable where they were, Caleb and Clarissa felt bound in honor to accompany her. For some distance, all went very well,—the face of the cliff presuming slight inequalities of surface, which answered for foot-and hand-holds, and not being very steep; but suddenly Mysie, the leader of the group, arriving within about three feet of the top, found the rock above her so smooth as to give no possible foothold by which she might reach the strong, coarse grass which nodded tauntingly to her over the brink.

Clinging closely to the face of the cliff, she turned her head to announce to Caleb that she could not go on, and, in turning, looked down. Before this she had felt no fear, only perplexity; but the sight of those cruel rocks below,—the hollow booming of the waves, as they lashed the foot of the cliff,—the consciousness that a fall of a hundred feet awaited her, should she let go her hold,—all this struck terror to Mysie's heart; and while a heavy, confused noise came throbbing and ringing through her head, she shut her eyes, and fancied she had seen her last of earth.

In an instant Caleb was beside her,—his arm about her, holding her safely where she was; but to continue was impossible for either.

"Ho! Mr. F.!" shouted Caleb; "come this way, will you, and give my wife your hand? She is a little frightened, and can't go on."

Presently a stout arm and hand appeared from among that nodding, mocking grass, and a cheery voice exclaimed,—

"Here, my dear lady, take right hold, strong;—you can't pull me over,—not if you try to."

Unclasping, with some difficulty, her fingers from the rock, into which they seemed to have grown, Mysie grasped the proffered hand, and the next moment was safe upon the turf.

"Oh, my good gracious!" muttered the kind old man; but whether the exclamation was caused by Mysie's face, pale, no doubt, by the effort necessary to raise her half-fainting figure, or by the idea of the peril in which she had been, did not appear.

Clarissa, calm and equable, was next passed up by Caleb, who, declining the proffered hand, drew himself up, by a firm grasp upon the rocky scarp of the cliff.

"Guess you was scart some then, wa'n't you?" inquired Clarissa, as the party walked homeward.

"Oh, no!" replied Mysie, quickly. "But I could not get over the top of the cliff alone,—it was so steep."

"Oh, that was the matter?" drawled the child, with a sidelong glance of her sharp black eyes.

The northeast wind which went fossilizing with Mysie and Clara on their first excursion was the precursor of a furious storm of rain and wind, ranking, according to the dictum of experienced weatherseers, as little inferior to that famous one in which fell the Minot's Ledge Light-house.

As the gale reached its height, it was a sight at once terrible and beautiful, to watch, standing in the lantern, the goaded sea, whose foam-capped waves could plainly be seen at the horizon line, breaking here and there upon sunken rocks, over which in their playful moods they scarcely rippled, but on which they now dashed with such white fury as to make them discernible, even through the darkness of night. One long, low ridge of submarine rocks, around which seethed a perpetual caldron, was called the Devil's Bridge; but when erected, or for what purpose, tradition failed to state.

Never, surely, did the wind rave about a peaceful inland dwelling as it did about that lonely light-house for two long nights. It roared, it howled, it shrieked, it whistled; it drew back to gather strength, and then rushed to the attack with such mad fury, that the strong, young light-house, whose frame was all of iron and stone, shrunk trembling before it, and the children in their beds screamed aloud for fear. But through all and beyond all, the calm, strong light sent out its piercing, warning rays into the black night; and who can tell what sinner it may that night have prevented from crossing the Devil's Bridge to the world which lies beyond?

There was but one wreck during the storm, so far as our travellers heard; and in this the lives were saved. Two men, caught out in a fishing-smack, finding that their little vessel was foundering, betook themselves to their small boat; but this filled more rapidly than they could bale it; and they had just given themselves up for lost, when their signals of distress were observed on board the light-ship stationed near Newport, which sent a life-boat to their assistance, and rescued them just as their little boat went to pieces.

When Mysie heard this occurrence mentioned, as they were journeying homeward, it recalled to her mind a little incident of the day succeeding the storm.

Walking with Clara upon the beach, they saw borne toward them, on the crest of a mighty wave, a square beam of wood, bent at an obtuse angle, which Clara at once pronounced to be the knee from some large boat, and, rushing dauntlessly into the water, the energetic little maid battled with the wave for its unwieldy toy, and finally dragged it triumphantly out upon the beach, and beyond the reach of the wave, only wishing that she had "a piece of chalk to make father's mark upon it." Failing the chalk, she rushed off home for "father and one of the boys," who soon bestowed the prize in a place of safety.

Mysie at first wondered considerably that persons should take so much trouble for a piece of wood, but ceased to do so when she remembered that on the whole island could not probably be found a tree of a foot in diameter, and that everything like board or joist at the light-house must be brought by sea to Holmes's Hole, Edgartown, or Menemshee, and thence carted over that road to Gay Head, becoming, by the time it reached "the Light," not a common necessary, but an expensive luxury. She was not, therefore, surprised at being accompanied in her next walk along the beach by quite a little party of wreckers, who, joyfully seizing every chip which the waves tossed within their reach, accumulated at last a very respectable pile of drift-wood.

"It would be a good thing for you, if the schooner "Mary Ann" should go to pieces off here," remarked Mysie to Clara, who had become her constant attendant.

"Why?" inquired she, expectantly.

"On account of her cargo. When hailed by another ship, and asked his name, the captain replied,—

' I'm Jonathan Homer, master and ownerOf the schooner Mary Ann;She comes from Pank-a-tank, laden with oak plank,And bound to Surinam.'"

"Did he really say so?" asked Clara, sharply.

"I don't know," said Mysie, laughing; "but that's what I heard about it when I was a little girl."

While the storm continued too violent for out-of-door exercise, Mysie cultivated an acquaintance with a remarkably pleasant and intelligent lady who fortunately was making a visit at the light-house. She had been for many years a resident of the Vineyard, and had taken great interest in its history, both past and present. From her Mysie derived much curious and interesting information.

It seems that the island was first discovered by a certain Thomas Mayhew, who, voyaging with others to settle in the Plymouth Colony during its early days, was driven by stress of weather into a safe and commodious bay, now Edgartown harbor, but then seen and used for the first time by white men. The storm over, his companions prepared to resume their voyage; but Mayhew, seeing the land fair and pleasant to look upon, decided to remain there, and landed with whoever in the ship belonged to him.

He, of course, found the land in the hands of its original possessors, a small and peaceful tribe of Indians, living quietly upon their own island, and having very little communication with their neighbors. With them Thomas Mayhew bargained for what land he wanted, selecting it in what is now the town of Chilmark, and paying for it, to the satisfaction of all parties, with an old soldier's coat which happened to be among his possessions.

In process of time, one of his sons, named Experience, having been educated for the purpose in England, returned to his father's home as a missionary to the kind and hospitable savages among whom he dwelt. So prosperous were the labors of himself, and afterward of his son Zachariah, that in a journal, kept by the latter, it is mentioned that there were then upon the island twelve thousand "praying Indians."

Experience Mayhew is still spoken of as "the great Indian missionary," and the house in which he lived was still standing a few years since upon the farm of Mr. Hancock in Chilmark.

The island is to this day full of Mayhews of every degree,—so far, at least, as distinctions of rank have obtained among this isolated and primitive people.

When Massachusetts erected herself into a State, and included the Vineyard within her bounds, it was divided into the townships of Edgartown, (or Oldtown,) Holmes's Hole, Tisbury, and Chilmark, and the district of Gay Head, which last, with the island of Chip-a-quid-dick, off Edgartown, and a small tract of land in Tisbury, named Christian-town, were made over in perpetuity to the Indians who chose to remain. They have not the power of alienating any portion of this territory, nor may any white man build or dwell there. If, however, one of the tribe marry out of the community, the alien husband or wife may come to live with the native spouse so long as the marriage continues; and the Indians have taken advantage of this permission to intermarry with the negroes, until there is not one pure-blooded descendant of the original stock remaining, and its physiognomy and complexion are in most cases undistinguishable in the combination of the two races.

Gay Head contains eleven hundred acres, seven of which are the birthright of every Indian child; but it is not generally divided by fences, the cattle of the whole tribe grazing together in amicable companionship. Much of the value of the property lies in the cranberry-meadows, which are large and productive, and in the beds of rich peat. A great deal of the soil, however, is valuable for cultivation, although but little used, as the majority of the men follow the example of their white co-islanders, and plough the sea instead of the land. They make excellent seamen, and sometimes rise to the rank of officers, although few white sailors are sufficiently liberal in their views to approve of being commanded by "a nigger," as they persist in calling these half-breeds.

The wigwams, which, no doubt, were at first erected here, have given place to neat and substantial frame buildings, as comfortable, apparently, as those in many New England villages. There is also a nice-looking Baptist church, of which denomination almost every adult is a member. Near this is a parsonage, occupied until lately by a white clergyman; but the spirit of Experience Mayhew is not common in these days; and his successor, finding the parish lonely and uncongenial, removed to a pleasanter one,—his pulpit being now filled by a preacher from among the Indians themselves.

Mysie took occasion to call at one of these quasi wigwams, soon after her arrival, but could discern only one aboriginal vestige in either inhabitants or customs. This existed in the shape of a dish of succotash, (corn and beans boiled together,) which the good woman was preparing for breakfast,—very possibly in ignorance that her ancestors had cooked and eaten and named the compound ages before the white intruders ever saw their shore.

Mysie pursued her morning walk in a somewhat melancholy mood. It is a sad and dreary sight to behold a nation in decay; saddest when the fall is from so slight an elevation as that on which the savage stood. Greece and Rome, falling into old age, proudly boast, "Men cannot say I did not have the crown"; each shows undying, unsurpassable achievements of her day of power and strength,—each, if she live no longer in the sight of the world, is sure of dwelling forever in its memory. But the aboriginal, when his simple routine of life is broken up by the intrusion of a people more powerful, more wicked, and more wise than himself, is incapable of exchanging his own purely physical ambitions and pursuits for the intellectual and cultivated life belonging to the better class of his conquerors, while his wild and sensuous nature grasps eagerly at the new forms of vice which follow in their train. Civilization to the savage destroys his own existence, and gives him no better one,—destroys it irremediably and forever. The life sufficient for himself and for the day is not that which stretches its hand into the future and sets its mark on ages not yet born; it dies and is forgotten,—forgotten even by the descendants of those who lived it.

Some of the Indian names still survive; and Mysie's indignation was roused, when a descendant of the Mayhews, pointing out the hamlets of Menemshee and Nashaquitsa, (commonly called Quitsy,) added, contemptuously,—

"But them's only nicknames given by the colored folks; it's all Chilmark by rights."

"I suppose they are the names used by the ancestors of these Indians, before a white man ever saw the island,—are they not?" inquired she, somewhat dryly.

"Like enough, like enough," replied the other, carelessly, and not in the least appreciating the rebuke.

From the lady before referred to Mysie received an answer to her oft-repeated question,—

"Is there any tradition how the island received its name?"

"Oh, yes," was the unexpected and welcome answer. "All the islands near here were granted by the King of England to a gentleman whose name is forgotten; but he had four daughters, among whom he divided his new possessions.

"This one, remarkable then, as now, in a degree, for its abundance of wild grapes, he gave to Martha as her Vineyard.

"The group to the north, consisting of Pennikeese, Cuttyhunk, Nashawena, Naushon, Pasqui, and Punkatasset, are called the Elizabeth Islands, from the daughter who inherited them.

"That little island to the southwest of us was Naomi's portion. It is now called Noman's Land, and is remarkable only for the fine quality of the codfish caught and cured there.

"The strangest of all, however, was the name given to the island selected by Ann, which was first called Nan-took-it, and is now known as Nantucket."

"Thank Heaven, that I at last know something about Martha!" ejaculated Mysie.

At length, every corner filled with specimens, every face deeply imbrowned by sun and wind, and the Baron with only the ghost of a pair of shoes to his feet, our travellers set their faces homeward,—Caleb resolving to renew his acquaintance with the birds at some future period, his imagination having been quite inflamed by the accounts of plover and grouse to be found here in their season. The latter, however, are very strictly protected by law during most of the season, on account of the rapidity with which they were disappearing. They are identical with the prairie-fowl, so common at the West, and are said to be delicious eating.

Desirous to improve their minds and manners by as much travel as possible, the trio resolved to leave the island by the way of Edgartown, the terminus of the steamboat route. Bidding adieu to their kind and obliging host and hostess, the twelve children, and the pleasant new friend, they set out, upon the most charming of all autumn days, for Edgartown, fully prepared to be dazzled by its beauty and confounded by its magnificence.

"Edgartown is a much finer place than Holmes's Hole, I understand," remarked Caleb to their driver.

"Well, I dunno; it's some bigger," was the reply.

"But it is a better sort of place, I am told; people from Edgartown don't seem to think much of Holmes's Hole."

"No, nor the Holmes's Hole folks don't think much of Oldtown; it's pretty much according to who you talk to, which place is called the handsomest, I reckon."

"Athens or Rome, London or Paris, Oldtown or Holmes's Hole, Mysie," murmured Caleb, as their driver stopped to reply to the driver of "a team," who was anxious to know when he was "a-goin' to butcher agin."

Edgartown proved to be a pretty little seaside town, with some handsome wooden houses, a little bank, and a very nice tavern, at which the travellers received very satisfactory entertainment. The next day, reembarking upon the "Eagle's Wing," they soon reached New Bedford.

OCTOBER TO MAY

The day that brightens half the earthIs night to half. Ah, sweet!One's mourning is another's mirth;—You wear your bright years like a crown,—While mine, dead garlands, tangle downIn chains about my feet.The breeze which wakes the folded flowerSweeps dead leaves from the tree;—So partial Time, as hour by hourHe tells the rapid years,—cheu!Brings bloom and beauty still to you,But leaves his blight with me.The rain which calls the violet upOut of the moistened mouldShatters the wind-flower's fragile cup;—For even Nature has her pets,And, favoring the new, forgetsTo love and spare the old.The shower which makes the bud a roseBeats off the lilac-bloom.I am a lilac,—so life goes,—A lilac that has outlived May;—You are a blush-rose. Welladay!I pass, and give you room!

The Eleusinia

What did the Eleusinia mean? Perhaps, reader, you think the question of little interest. "The Eleusinia! Why, Lobeck made that little matter clear long ago; and there was Porphyry, who told us that the whole thing was only an illustration of the Platonic philosophy. St. Croix, too,—he made the affair as clear as day!"

But the question is not so easily settled, my friend; and I insist upon it that you have an interest in it. Were I to ask you the meaning of Freemasonry, you would think that of importance; you could not utter the name without wonder; and it may be that there is even more wonder in it than you suspect,—though you be an arch-mason yourself. But in sight of Eleusis, freemasonry sinks into insignificance. For, of all races, the Grecian was the most mysterious; and, of all Grecian mysteries, the Eleusinia were the mysteries par excellence. They must certainly have meant something to Greece,—something more than can ever be adequately known to us. A farce is soon over; but the Eleusinia reached from the mythic Eumolpus to Theodosius the Great,—nearly two thousand years. Think you that all Athens, every fifth year, for more than sixty generations, went to Eleusis to witness and take part in a sham?

But, reader, let us go to Eleusis, and see, for ourselves, this great festival. Suppose it to be the 15th of September, B.C. 411, Anno Mundi 3593 (though we would not make oath to that). It is a fine morning at Athens, and every one is astir, for it is the day of assembling together at Eleusis. Then, for company, we shall have Plato, now eighteen years old, Sophocles, an old man of eighty-four, Euripides, at sixty-nine, and Aristophanes, at forty-five. Socrates, who has his peculiar notions about things, is not one of the initiated, but will go with us, if we ask him. These are the élite of Athens. Then there are the Sophists and their young disciples, and the vast crowd of the Athenian people. Some of the oldest among them may have seen and heard the "Prometheus Vinctus"; certainly very many of them have seen "Antigone," and "Oedipus," and "Electra"; and all of them have heard the Rhapsodists. Great wonders have they seen and heard, which, in their appeal to the heart, transcend all the wonders of this nineteenth century. Not more fatal to the poor Indian was modern civilization, bringing swift ruin to his wigwam and transforming his hunting-grounds into the sites of populous cities, than modern improvements would have been to the Greek. Modern strategy! What a subject for Homer would the siege of Troy have been, had it consisted of a series of pitched battles with rifles! Railways, steamboats, and telegraphs, annihilating space and time, would also have annihilated the Argonautic expedition and the wanderings of Ulysses. There would have been little fear, in a modern steamship, of the Sirens' song; one whistle would have broken the charm. A modern steamship might have borne Ulysses to Hades,—but it would never have brought him back, as his own ship did. And now do you think a ride to Eleusis by railway to-day would strike this Athenian populace, to say nothing of the philosophers and poets we have along with us?

But they are thinking of Eleusis, and not of the way to Eleusis; so that we may as well keep our suggestion to ourselves,—also those pious admonitions which we were just about to administer to our companions on heathenish superstitions. A strange fascination these Athenians have; and before we are aware, our thoughts, too, are centred in Eleusis, whither are tending, not Athens only, but vast multitudes from all Greece. Their movement is tumultuous; but it is a tumult of natural enthusiasm, and not of Bacchic frenzy. If Athens be, as Milton calls her, "the eye of Greece," surely Eleusis must be its heart!