Reprinted Pieces

by Dickens, Charles

  brutal hand, and his cry of 'Qu-u-u-u-aaa!' (Bosjesman for

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  Dickens, Charles - Reprinted Pieces

  something desperately insulting I have no doubt) - conscious of an

  affectionate yearning towards that noble savage, or is it

  idiosyncratic in me to abhor, detest, abominate, and abjure him? I

  have no reserve on this subject, and will frankly state that,

  setting aside that stage of the entertainment when he counterfeited

  the death of some creature he had shot, by laying his head on his

  hand and shaking his left leg - at which time I think it would have

  been justifiable homicide to slay him - I have never seen that

  group sleeping, smoking, and expectorating round their brazier, but

  I have sincerely desired that something might happen to the

  charcoal smouldering therein, which would cause the immediate

  suffocation of the whole of the noble strangers.

  There is at present a party of Zulu Kaffirs exhibiting at the St.

  George's Gallery, Hyde Park Corner, London. These noble savages

  are represented in a most agreeable manner; they are seen in an

  elegant theatre, fitted with appropriate scenery of great beauty,

  and they are described in a very sensible and unpretending lecture,

  delivered with a modesty which is quite a pattern to all similar

  exponents. Though extremely ugly, they are much better shaped than

  such of their predecessors as I have referred to; and they are

  rather picturesque to the eye, though far from odoriferous to the

  nose. What a visitor left to his own interpretings and imaginings

  might suppose these noblemen to be about, when they give vent to

  that pantomimic expression which is quite settled to be the natural

  gift of the noble savage, I cannot possibly conceive; for it is so

  much too luminous for my personal civilisation that it conveys no

  idea to my mind beyond a general stamping, ramping, and raving,

  remarkable (as everything in savage life is) for its dire

  uniformity. But let us - with the interpreter's assistance, of

  which I for one stand so much in need - see what the noble savage

  does in Zulu Kaffirland.

  The noble savage sets a king to reign over him, to whom he submits

  his life and limbs without a murmur or question, and whose whole

  life is passed chin deep in a lake of blood; but who, after killing

  incessantly, is in his turn killed by his relations and friends,

  the moment a grey hair appears on his head. All the noble savage's

  wars with his fellow-savages (and he takes no pleasure in anything

  else) are wars of extermination - which is the best thing I know of

  him, and the most comfortable to my mind when I look at him. He

  has no moral feelings of any kind, sort, or description; and his

  'mission' may be summed up as simply diabolical.

  The ceremonies with which he faintly diversifies his life are, of

  course, of a kindred nature. If he wants a wife he appears before

  the kennel of the gentleman whom he has selected for his father-inlaw,

  attended by a party of male friends of a very strong flavour,

  who screech and whistle and stamp an offer of so many cows for the

  young lady's hand. The chosen father-in-law - also supported by a

  high-flavoured party of male friends - screeches, whistles, and

  yells (being seated on the ground, he can't stamp) that there never

  was such a daughter in the market as his daughter, and that he must

  have six more cows. The son-in-law and his select circle of

  backers screech, whistle, stamp, and yell in reply, that they will

  give three more cows. The father-in-law (an old deluder, overpaid

  at the beginning) accepts four, and rises to bind the bargain. The

  whole party, the young lady included, then falling into epileptic

  convulsions, and screeching, whistling, stamping, and yelling

  together - and nobody taking any notice of the young lady (whose

  charms are not to be thought of without a shudder) - the noble

  savage is considered married, and his friends make demoniacal leaps

  at him by way of congratulation.

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  When the noble savage finds himself a little unwell, and mentions

  the circumstance to his friends, it is immediately perceived that

  he is under the influence of witchcraft. A learned personage,

  called an Imyanger or Witch Doctor, is immediately sent for to

  Nooker the Umtargartie, or smell out the witch. The male

  inhabitants of the kraal being seated on the ground, the learned

  doctor, got up like a grizzly bear, appears, and administers a

  dance of a most terrific nature, during the exhibition of which

  remedy he incessantly gnashes his teeth, and howls:- 'I am the

  original physician to Nooker the Umtargartie. Yow yow yow! No

  connexion with any other establishment. Till till till! All other

  Umtargarties are feigned Umtargarties, Boroo Boroo! but I perceive

  here a genuine and real Umtargartie, Hoosh Hoosh Hoosh! in whose

  blood I, the original Imyanger and Nookerer, Blizzerum Boo! will

  wash these bear's claws of mine. O yow yow yow!' All this time

  the learned physician is looking out among the attentive faces for

  some unfortunate man who owes him a cow, or who has given him any

  small offence, or against whom, without offence, he has conceived a

  spite. Him he never fails to Nooker as the Umtargartie, and he is

  instantly killed. In the absence of such an individual, the usual

  practice is to Nooker the quietest and most gentlemanly person in

  company. But the nookering is invariably followed on the spot by

  the butchering.

  Some of the noble savages in whom Mr. Catlin was so strongly

  interested, and the diminution of whose numbers, by rum and

  smallpox, greatly affected him, had a custom not unlike this,

  though much more appalling and disgusting in its odious details.

  The women being at work in the fields, hoeing the Indian corn, and

  the noble savage being asleep in the shade, the chief has sometimes

  the condescension to come forth, and lighten the labour by looking

  at it. On these occasions, he seats himself in his own savage

  chair, and is attended by his shield-bearer: who holds over his

  head a shield of cowhide - in shape like an immense mussel shell -

  fearfully and wonderfully, after the manner of a theatrical

  supernumerary. But lest the great man should forget his greatness

  in the contemplation of the humble works of agriculture, there

  suddenly rushes in a poet, retained for the purpose, called a

  Praiser. This literary gentleman wears a leopard's head over his

  own, and a dress of tigers' tails; he has the appearance of having

  come express on his hind legs from the Zoological Gardens; and he

  incontinently strikes up the chief's praises, plunging and tearing

  all the while. There is a frantic wickedness in this brute's

  manner of worrying the air, and gnashing out, 'O what a delightful

  chief he is! O what a delicious quantity of blood he sheds! O how

  majestically he laps it up! O how charmingly cruel he is! O how

  he tears the flesh of his enemies and crunches the bones! O how

>   like the tiger and the leopard and the wolf and the bear he is! O,

  row row row row, how fond I am of him!' which might tempt the

  Society of Friends to charge at a hand-gallop into the Swartz-Kop

  location and exterminate the whole kraal.

  When war is afoot among the noble savages - which is always - the

  chief holds a council to ascertain whether it is the opinion of his

  brothers and friends in general that the enemy shall be

  exterminated. On this occasion, after the performance of an

  Umsebeuza, or war song, - which is exactly like all the other

  songs, - the chief makes a speech to his brothers and friends,

  arranged in single file. No particular order is observed during

  the delivery of this address, but every gentleman who finds himself

  excited by the subject, instead of crying 'Hear, hear!' as is the

  custom with us, darts from the rank and tramples out the life, or

  crushes the skull, or mashes the face, or scoops out the eyes, or

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  breaks the limbs, or performs a whirlwind of atrocities on the

  body, of an imaginary enemy. Several gentlemen becoming thus

  excited at once, and pounding away without the least regard to the

  orator, that illustrious person is rather in the position of an

  orator in an Irish House of Commons. But, several of these scenes

  of savage life bear a strong generic resemblance to an Irish

  election, and I think would be extremely well received and

  understood at Cork.

  In all these ceremonies the noble savage holds forth to the utmost

  possible extent about himself; from which (to turn him to some

  civilised account) we may learn, I think, that as egotism is one of

  the most offensive and contemptible littlenesses a civilised man

  can exhibit, so it is really incompatible with the interchange of

  ideas; inasmuch as if we all talked about ourselves we should soon

  have no listeners, and must be all yelling and screeching at once

  on our own separate accounts: making society hideous. It is my

  opinion that if we retained in us anything of the noble savage, we

  could not get rid of it too soon. But the fact is clearly

  otherwise. Upon the wife and dowry question, substituting coin for

  cows, we have assuredly nothing of the Zulu Kaffir left. The

  endurance of despotism is one great distinguishing mark of a savage

  always. The improving world has quite got the better of that too.

  In like manner, Paris is a civilised city, and the Theatre Francais

  a highly civilised theatre; and we shall never hear, and never have

  heard in these later days (of course) of the Praiser THERE. No,

  no, civilised poets have better work to do. As to Nookering

  Umtargarties, there are no pretended Umtargarties in Europe, and no

  European powers to Nooker them; that would be mere spydom,

  subordination, small malice, superstition, and false pretence. And

  as to private Umtargarties, are we not in the year eighteen hundred

  and fifty-three, with spirits rapping at our doors?

  To conclude as I began. My position is, that if we have anything

  to learn from the Noble Savage, it is what to avoid. His virtues

  are a fable; his happiness is a delusion; his nobility, nonsense.

  We have no greater justification for being cruel to the miserable

  object, than for being cruel to a WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE or an ISAAC

  NEWTON; but he passes away before an immeasurably better and higher

  power than ever ran wild in any earthly woods, and the world will

  be all the better when his place knows him no more.

  A FLIGHT

  WHEN Don Diego de - I forget his name - the inventor of the last

  new Flying Machines, price so many francs for ladies, so many more

  for gentlemen - when Don Diego, by permission of Deputy Chaff-wax

  and his noble band, shall have taken out a Patent for the Queen's

  dominions, and shall have opened a commodious Warehouse in an airy

  situation; and when all persons of any gentility will keep at least

  a pair of wings, and be seen skimming about in every direction; I

  shall take a flight to Paris (as I soar round the world) in a cheap

  and independent manner. At present, my reliance is on the South-

  Eastern Railway Company, in whose Express Train here I sit, at

  eight of the clock on a very hot morning, under the very hot roof

  of the Terminus at London Bridge, in danger of being 'forced' like

  a cucumber or a melon, or a pine-apple. And talking of pineapples,

  I suppose there never were so many pine-apples in a Train

  as there appear to be in this Train.

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  Whew! The hot-house air is faint with pine-apples. Every French

  citizen or citizeness is carrying pine-apples home. The compact

  little Enchantress in the corner of my carriage (French actress, to

  whom I yielded up my heart under the auspices of that brave child,

  'MEAT-CHELL,' at the St. James's Theatre the night before last) has

  a pine-apple in her lap. Compact Enchantress's friend, confidante,

  mother, mystery, Heaven knows what, has two pine-apples in her lap,

  and a bundle of them under the seat. Tobacco-smoky Frenchman in

  Algerine wrapper, with peaked hood behind, who might be Abd-el-

  Kader dyed rifle-green, and who seems to be dressed entirely in

  dirt and braid, carries pine-apples in a covered basket. Tall,

  grave, melancholy Frenchman, with black Vandyke beard, and hair

  close-cropped, with expansive chest to waistcoat, and compressive

  waist to coat: saturnine as to his pantaloons, calm as to his

  feminine boots, precious as to his jewellery, smooth and white as

  to his linen: dark-eyed, high-foreheaded, hawk-nosed - got up, one

  thinks, like Lucifer or Mephistopheles, or Zamiel, transformed into

  a highly genteel Parisian - has the green end of a pine-apple

  sticking out of his neat valise.

  Whew! If I were to be kept here long, under this forcing-frame, I

  wonder what would become of me - whether I should be forced into a

  giant, or should sprout or blow into some other phenomenon!

  Compact Enchantress is not ruffled by the heat - she is always

  composed, always compact. O look at her little ribbons, frills,

  and edges, at her shawl, at her gloves, at her hair, at her

  bracelets, at her bonnet, at everything about her! How is it

  accomplished? What does she do to be so neat? How is it that

  every trifle she wears belongs to her, and cannot choose but be a

  part of her? And even Mystery, look at HER! A model. Mystery is

  not young, not pretty, though still of an average candle-light

  passability; but she does such miracles in her own behalf, that,

  one of these days, when she dies, they'll be amazed to find an old

  woman in her bed, distantly like her. She was an actress once, I

  shouldn't wonder, and had a Mystery attendant on herself. Perhaps,

  Compact Enchantress will live to be a Mystery, and to wait with a

  shawl at the side-scenes, and to sit opposite to Mademoiselle in

  railway carriages, and smile and talk subserviently, as Mystery

  does now. That's hard to believe!

  Two Englis
hmen, and now our carriage is full. First Englishman, in

  the monied interest - flushed, highly respectable - Stock Exchange,

  perhaps - City, certainly. Faculties of second Englishman entirely

  absorbed in hurry. Plunges into the carriage, blind. Calls out of

  window concerning his luggage, deaf. Suffocates himself under

  pillows of great-coats, for no reason, and in a demented manner.

  Will receive no assurance from any porter whatsoever. Is stout and

  hot, and wipes his head, and makes himself hotter by breathing so

  hard. Is totally incredulous respecting assurance of Collected

  Guard, that 'there's no hurry.' No hurry! And a flight to Paris

  in eleven hours!

  It is all one to me in this drowsy corner, hurry or no hurry.

  Until Don Diego shall send home my wings, my flight is with the

  South-Eastern Company. I can fly with the South-Eastern, more

  lazily, at all events, than in the upper air. I have but to sit

  here thinking as idly as I please, and be whisked away. I am not

  accountable to anybody for the idleness of my thoughts in such an

  idle summer flight; my flight is provided for by the South-Eastern

  and is no business of mine.

  The bell! With all my heart. It does not require me to do so much

  as even to flap my wings. Something snorts for me, something

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  shrieks for me, something proclaims to everything else that it had

  better keep out of my way, - and away I go.

  Ah! The fresh air is pleasant after the forcing-frame, though it

  does blow over these interminable streets, and scatter the smoke of

  this vast wilderness of chimneys. Here we are - no, I mean there

  we were, for it has darted far into the rear - in Bermondsey where

  the tanners live. Flash! The distant shipping in the Thames is

  gone. Whirr! The little streets of new brick and red tile, with

  here and there a flagstaff growing like a tall weed out of the

  scarlet beans, and, everywhere, plenty of open sewer and ditch for

  the promotion of the public health, have been fired off in a

  volley. Whizz! Dust-heaps, market-gardens, and waste grounds.

  Rattle! New Cross Station. Shock! There we were at Croydon.

  Bur-r-r-r! The tunnel.

  I wonder why it is that when I shut my eyes in a tunnel I begin to

  feel as if I were going at an Express pace the other way. I am