Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-11-30

Yet simple as a child at play"
A piercing eye, a princely air,
presence like chevalier,
Half angel and half Luciier;
Fair fingers, jewld manifold
With great gems set in hoops of gold
SombrerO black with plume of snow
That swept his long silk locks below;
A red serape with bars of gold
Needless falling, fold on fold;
A sash OF silk where flashing swung
A sword as swift as serpents tongue
In sheath of silver chased in gold;
face OF blended pride and pain,
Of mingled pleading and disdain,
With shades of glory and of grief;
And Spanish spurs with bells of steel
That dash'dand dang'd at the heel.
William Walker, he who led the fhbusters
into Central America, was five feet four inches
in height, slight figure, light, thin hair, cut
short, "A gray-bue eye, high check bones, wide
mouth with coarse lips, and a freckled face
lie was only redeemed from the extreme of the
commonplace by a thoughtful and earnest eX-
preston. He was very plain in dress, wore no
ornaments and no sword. He carried his pis-
tolls concealed. He was an awkward horseman,
and in action sent his men forward under the gal
liant lead of dashng lighters like HOrnsby, Amber
son, Gilman and others. He never wore n sash
of silk" and as for Il "serape with bars ofgold,"
such trash was never seen in Nicaragua, except
on woman's shoulders. Walker would have
been as likely to wear a hoop-skirt. Miller
pitches the tents (Which Walker never had) Of
this blue FIRE hero
'Mid tall brown trees
That top the fierce CCrdieras"
The CordIlleras Of Nicaragua have about the
same existence as the equator in Ecuador. They
are imaginary mountains. One may ride from
the Pacific to the lake, which is as faraS Walker
went, without seeing any mountains but the line
of tail, volcanic cones, each detached and rising
sheer out of the plain on the notth between
Leon and SegOvia, and on the south the distant
mountains of Costa Rica. In regard 10 Walkers
religion Joaquin is right. He called himself a
Roman Catholic for political purposes, but, as
he was reared Baptist in Tennessee, he prob
ably had but dim unders landing of the Roman
church. Every line of Millel's description of
tropical scenery is false, Take, 70: instance, the
verses which have been so much quoted as n
favorable specimen of his style:
Come to my sun land! come with me
To the land love; where the sun and sea
Are red forever; where palm and pine
are filled with singers; where tree and vine
Are voiced with prophets! o come, and you
Shall sing song with the seas that swirl
And kiss their hands TO the cold white girl,
To the maiden moon in her mantle of blue
This is mere aliteratye nonsense. "Where
palm and pine"l Go to; why not hucklebeery
and banana, for they are as likely to grow to-
gcther as the palm and pine. And rs for being
"yoiced with singers it is well known that the
silence OF the tropical forest is awful or broken
by harshvoiced birds that never sing. As for the
seas that swirl, why let them swirl; but | pro-
test Solemnly against any "cold, white girl" in
the central tropics, even for the sake of rhyme
Inc girls OF Nicaragua are not white nor arc
they cold Now "were at strappado or an fine
racks ~ the world" L would not believe that
Joaquin Miller ever saw William Walker. or
that be ever was i'll Nicaragua. No doubt when
the truth Is known about this wild hunter he
will prove to be California printer, masquerad-
ing in "SillS serape with bars ofgold" and sharD
enough 10 MAXI money al H. LEICESTER,