The Sun.
London, England, 1851-07-28 00:00:00

LITERATURE

THE SCALP-HU ,V TERS. 3 Vols. By Cap-
tain Mayne Reid., C. J. Skeet.
Captain Mayne Reid has genius. He is not a mere
book-maker for the circulating libraries. Whatever he
may call his literary productions, they are entitled to
more commendation than is usually awarded to the
three•volume novelist. His "Rifle Rangers" have
already gained him popularity. His " Scalp-Hunters"
may confirm that popularity by establishing for its
author a certain reputation. In a very modest but
manly " Preface," Captain Reid fore warns his reader
that he is "a coarse, crude, and careless writer," la •
menting at the same time that he lacks " those classic
sympathies" which enable many of his brethren of
the pen to give such " elegant expression to their
thoughts"—all of which deprecatory and apologetic
remarks, graceful though they be when contra.ted
with the self-sufficient arrogance of irredeemable
mediocrity, cannot but be regarded on the present oc-
casion as altogether inapplicable, and consequently al-
together superfluous. if our author is devoid in several
instances of the customary adroitness of the craft,
he possesses that which compensates for
every such deficiency, the divine ajlatus
which we have in our opening sentence ex-
plicitly mentioned as his most noticeable character-
istic. Reviewers, unfortunately, have to wade through
a vast deal of rubbish i❑ their researches after the
true and the beautiful. Considering the grievous
amount of twaddle we have to encounter, it really
-appears to us at times that there is some excuse for
us poor critics, if we occasionally evince a little petu-
lance of temperament. Hours sometimes wasted in
poring over a work of the most tedious and unmeri-
torious description constitute assuredly not the most
exhilarating preparative for the inditing of commen-
taries. Precisely, however, in proportion to the an-
noyance experienced in turning over volumes thus
blameworthy, is the delight felt at others whose
excellences enthral our attention and wake up our
blunted sympathies to a certain enthusiasm of ad-
miration. An effusion of this nature is the one here
under consideration. Having perused, or rather de-
voured, as the phrase is, these romantic adven-
tures from their commencement to their
conclusion, with a curiosity which became only
enhanced with the opening of each successive
chapter, having found our regard rivetted to the nar
rative with more and more eagerness at the disclo-
sure of its numerous and extraordinary incidents, we
must, if only in gratitude to the writer who has thus
powerfully appealed to our imagination, commend
his work as a production of remarkable and enthral-
ling attractions. Captain Mayne Reid insists at the
outset, as he did, if we remember rightly, in reference
to the " Rifle Rangers," that many of the events
recounted are realities, and that the book possesses
therefore the merit of being something more than
altogether fictitious. Now, according to our opinion
the beauties of Ossian are in no degree dependent
upon the amount of credit yielded to the assertions
of Macpherson, and those of Homer are as illustrious
whether they be traceable to one bard or a thousand.
We accept the traveller's record, coming to us
it does most acceptably, with a benison
and a gramercie. It helps to amuse us, to
wile away an hour that might other wise hang
heavily, and, while affecting us thus agreeably, it
brings to our minds very vividly the landscapes,
the manners, and the population of Northern Mexico,
the country in which these occurrences, imaginary
or not, are said to have transpired. Therefore we
receive the work with thankfulness, and with a
credence in our author which adds very wonderfully
to the force of his descriptions. The " Scalp-
Hunters" may be viewed as strictly autobiographical
in their character, M. Henry Haller speaking to us
in the first person throughout. At St. Louis he joins
a M. St. Vrain with other Prairie merchants
trading to Santa Fe and Chihuahua, being himself
an idle young blade in search of the picturesque.
Having proceeded as far as the capital of Northern
Mexico, the hero is wounded in a fracas arising out
of the Fandango, and is detained in the city, while
his comrades proceed on their expedition. Recovered
soon afterwards from his wound, Haller endeavours
to overtake the merchants, but in so doing
is prostrated by the accumulated horrors of the
Jornada. Here it is that in the midst of his
calamities he is saved from destruction by Seguin, the
scalp-hunter. The last-mentioned character is finely
delineated, and is the central figure round which all
the others may be said to revolve, and upon which all
their interest may be said to be dependent. Saved
by Seguin, and falling afterwards in love with his
daughter Zoe, Haller is induced to join the former in
one of his great scalp-hunting expeditions. It must
be premised, however, that the leader of this blood-
thirsty enterprise proves, on inquiry, to be by no
means the monster he is generally reputed, but,
on the contrary, his ferocity is resolved into an evi-
dence of paternal tenderness. Adele, his other
daughter, has been stolen in her infancy by the Na-
vajoes, and all his efforts against them are made with
a view to her recovery. This, immediately before
the close of the narrative, is effected, and the heart of
the scalp-hunter gladdened by the prospective nup-
tials of Adele with St. Vrain, as well as of Zoe with
Haller. It is in the fluctuating fortunes of the scalp-
hunters, however, in the course of this expedition that
the chief and engrossing attraction of the work
is discoverable. The narrative of their vicissi-
tudes is one of resistless fascination. Several
of the personages introduced into the princi-
pal group are characters which might have reflected
honour upon some of our most successful novelists.
El Sol, for example, might have been painted by Fen-
nimore Cooper, and have added yet another brilliant
figure to his memorable gallery of Redskins. ;Old
Rube, again, would have reflected credit on the author
of " Saw Slick," and the paternity would not,
we are satisfied, have been disdained by Judge Han.
burton. Ttie vividness with which our author con-
trives to describe to the comprehension of readers un-
acquainted with those localities the aspect of Mexican
scenery may be mentioned as among not the least ad-
mirable of his peculiarities. Accordingly, as he wishes
it, we are with him in the winter forests at midnight,
listening—not to the tree-frog or the cicada—but to
the crackling knots in the bivouac fire, to the coo-
whoo-a of the white ow), to the bark of the racoon, or
to the howling of the wolves; we are there again in
autumn, watching among the withered foliage the
plumage of the western birds, "the golden green of the
paroquet, the blue of the jay, and the orange wing of the
oriole," observing " the red bird flutter lower down in
the coppice of green pawpaws, or amidst the amber
leaflets of the beechen thicket;" we hearken to the
rattle-snake "gliding under the scanty shade," and
watch with furtive eyes the coyote as it " skulks
through the silent glades" of an impassable under-
wood. With a single epithet sometimes the writer
impresses- the appearances of that astonishing land
upon our imaginations, as where he calls the Rocky
Mountains, the American Andes, " the colossal ver-
tebrie of the continent." Equally graphic are his de-
scriptions of the frivolity and effeminacy of Mexican
society, ex. gr. where we are made to listen in the
ball-room at Santa Fe to this significant little dia-
logue—" Have you heard of the electric telegraph ?"
" No, Senor." " Can you tell us what a railroad
is ?" " Quiets Sabe ?" "La Polka?" " Ah! Senor,
la polka, la polka, cosa buenita, tan graciosa! vaya !"
Humorous as some of the passages in the " Scalp-
Hunters" are, as may be perceived by reference to
Rube's account of the turkey -buzzard, or again
the same old trapper's dodge to secret him-
self in the cave when hunted by the Navajoes, other
passages are marked by a grace and
a tenderness equally conspicuous. Witness this, that
first portraiture of Zoe, where it is said so beautifully
—" it was not a woman that held my gaze captive,
but a child, a girl, a maid, standing upon the threshold
of womanhood, ready to cross it at the first summons
of Love !" Witness it again, that lovely portion of
the episode in which, by a novel device, eminently
bewitching, Haller reveals his love to Zoe, and—is
answered. Occasionally, it must be remarked, that
a certain habit of ungrammatical expression in the
potential mood (instanced in Vol. 1., pp. 46, 237, in
Vol. 11., pp. 21, 158, and in Vol. 111., p. 170, in
short, passim) blurs the charm of the style, and in-
duces one for the moment almost to mistake the work
for the effusion either of an Irishman or a foreigner.
This, nevertheless, is but a minute blemish, indeed,
when balanced against the numerous and brilliant
merits with which the production otherwise abounds
throughout. Better immeasurably, however, than
the most earnest eulogium, will be a few illustrative
quotations. Take, therefore, the subjoined passage,
descriptive of

:THE WEED PRAIRIE.
" I stand in an open plain. I turn my face to the
north, to the south, to the east, and to the west ; and,
on all sides, behold the blue circle of the heavens gird-
ling around me. Nor rock, nor tree breaks the ring of
the horizon. What covers the broad expanse between?
Wood ? water ? grass? No—flowers ! As far as my
eye can range, it rests only on flowers—on beautiful
flowers f. lam looking. as on a painted map—an ena-
melled picture brilliant with every hue of the prism.
" Yonder is golden yellow, where the helianthus
turns her dial-like face to the sun. Yonder scarlet, where
the malve erects its red banner. Here is a parterre of
the purple moranda—there the euphobia -.sheds its
silver leaf. Yonder the orange predominates in the
showy flowers of the asclepia ; end beyond, the eye
roams over the pink blossoms of the cleorL6.
,‘ The breeze stirs them. Millions of carollas are
waving their gaudy standards. The tall stalks of the
helianthus bend and rise in long undulations like
billows on a golden sea I ,

d, They are at rest again. The air is filled with
odours, sweet as the perfumes of Araby or Ind. My-
riads of insects flay their gay wings—flowers of them-
seiv,s. The bee-birds shirr around, glancing like stray
whirring
ee, wings, drink from
with laden limbs,
s theu n bnceacmt
asr
e;
fio re
upposi poised n
don the hwiriirdi
clings among the honeyed pistils, or leaves for his far
hive with a song of joy.
" Who planted these flowers? Who bath woven them
into these picture parterres? Nature. It is her richest
mantle—richer in its hues than Vas toads of Cashmere.