The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1863-12-24
| MAN WITHOUT A CVNTRY..
. Thrilling Tale Of Poor Nolan
BY EDWARD r HALE
From the Atlantic Monthly.
Concluded from last Week.)

From the Atlantic Honthly.
Concluded from last Week.)
| have heard it said that he was with Por-
ter when he took possession of the Nukahiwa
Islands. Not this Porter, you know, but old
Porter, his father. Essex Porter-that is the
old Essex Porter, not this Essex. AS an artiI-
Iery officer, who had seen service in the West,
Nolan knew more about Notifications, embras-
ures, r~avelins, stockades, and all that, than
any of them did and he worked with a right
good will III fixing that battery all right. |
have always thought it was a pity,Porter did
not leave him in command there with Gamble.
That would have settled all the question about
his punishment. We should have kept the
islands, and at this moment we should nave
had one station in the Pacific Ocean. Our
French friends, too, when they wanted this
little watering place would have found it
was pre-occupied. But Madison and the Vir-
ginians, of course, flung all that away.
All that was near fifty years ago. If Nolan
was thirty then, he must nave been near
eighty when he died. He looked near sixty
when he was forty. But he never seemed to
change a hair afterwards. AS | imagine his
life, from what | have seen and heard of it,
he must have been in every sea, and yet al
most never on land. He must have known,
in a formal more officers In our service
than any man living knows. He told me once,
with a grave smile, that no man in the world
lived so methodical a life as he. 'FYou know
the boys say [ am the Iron Mask, and you
know how busy he was" lie said it did not
do for any one to try to read all the time,
more than to do anything else all the time ;
but that he read just five hours a day. ''Then,
he said, Il keep up my notebooks. writing
in at such and such hours from what have
been reading, and | include in these my
scrap-books." These were very curious in
deed. He had six or eight, of different sub
l~jects. There was one Of history, one Of nat
ural science, one which he called 'Odds and
Ends" But they were not merely books of
extracts from newspapers. They had bits
of plants and ribbons, shells tied on, and car
we'd scraps of bone and wood, which he had
taught the men to carve him, and they were
beautifully illustrated. He drew admirably.
He had some of he funniest drawings there,
and some of the most pathetic that | nave ev-
er seen in my life, | wonder who will have
Nolan's scrap-books?
Well he said his reading and his notes
were his profession, and that they took
FIVE hours respectively of each day.
Then" said he ''every man should have a
diversion as well as a profession. My Natu-
raj History is my DIVERSION That took two
hours a day more. The men used to bring
him birds and fish, but on a long cruise he
had to satisfy himself with centipedes and
cockroaches and such small game. He was
the only naturalist l ever met who knew
anything about the habits of the house fly
and the mosquito. All those people can tel
you whether they are Lepjdoptera or Septo-
p0tera but as for telling how you can get
rid Of them or how they get away from you
when you strike them,-why Lim@us knew
as little of that as John Foy the idiot did
These nine hours made Nolan's regular daily
, occupation. The rest of the time lie talked
or walked. Till he grew very old, he wenr
aloft a great deal. He always kept up hi
exercise and | never heard that he was i'll
If any other man was i'll, he was the kindes-
nurse in the world and he knew more thar
half the surgeons do. Then if anybody wa:
sick or dead, or if the Captain wanted him Oh
any other occasion, he was always ready t.
read prayers. l have remarked that he reaC
beautifully.
My W acquaintance with Phillip Nolal
began six or eight years after the War, Oh
my FIRST voyage after | was appointed a mid
shipman. 1t was in the first days after GU
Slave-Trade treaty, while the ResigninI
House, which was still the House of Virgin
ia, had a sort of sentimentalism abou
the suppression Of the horrors of the Mid
! die Passage, and something was some
i times done that way. We were in the Sout
Atlantic on that business. From the time
Ijoined believe | thought Nolan was a sol
+. of lay chaplain-s chaplain with a blue coal
h | never asked about him. EVERYTHING in til
ship was strange to me. | knew it was gree
e to ask questions, and l suppose l though
d there was a plain Buttons" on every ship
We had him to dine in our mess once a weeL
70 and the caution was given that on that da