Western liberal. (Lordsburg, N.M.) 1887-1919, 1917-06-01
THIRD

m the legends agree; that the commo-
fore said;
II zee you DO. and I thank you. SIR;
md / shall never forget this day, sir,
md you never shall, SIR"
And after the whole thing was over,
nd ho had the E~nglishman's sword.
n the midst Of the state and ceremony
e the quarterback. he said:
"where IL Mr.. NOlan7 Ask Mr.. No
IN to come here"
And when Nolan came, the captain
Said:
MI. Nolan, we are ali very grateful
o you today; you are one Of us today;
on viii be named in the dispatches"
And then the old man took on his
ywn sword Of ceremony, and gave It to
EOlan, and made him put It on. The
a told me this who saw It. Nolan
Tied like q baby, and well he might.
lie had not worn q sword since that
nfernal day at Fort Adams. But al.
Rays afterward, on occasions Of cere-
lony, he wore that quaint old French
word Of the commodore's.
The captain did mention him In the
dispatches. II was always said he
Lsked that he might be pardoned. He
Vrote a special letter to the secretary
" war. But nothing ever came Of It.
As I said, that was about the time
when they began to ignore the whole
transaction at Washington, and when
Nolan's Imprisonment began to carry
itself on because there was nobody to
Jtop II without any new orders from
Tome.
Ihave heard II said that he was with
Porter 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 artll-
lery oflcer, who had seen service In
the West, Nolan knew more about for
t~ihcadons, ~embrasures, r~avellnes,
stockades, and all that, than any Of
them did; and he worked with a right
good will in fixing that battery all
right. / have always thought 1t 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 mo-
ment we should have one station in
the Pacific ocean. Our French friends,
too, when they wanted this little wa
tering place, would have found It was
pre-Occupied. But Madison and the
Vlrginians, Of course. flung all that
away.
All that was near fifty years ago.
If Nolan was thirty then. he must
have been near eighty when he died.
He looked sixty when he was forty.
But be never seemed to me to change
a hair afterward. AS / imagine his
life, from what / have seen and heard
Of 1t. he must have been in every sea,
and yet almost never on land. He
must have known In a formal way,
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,
"YOu know the boys say / am the
Iron Mask, and you know how busy
he was" He said 1t did not do fol
anyone 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, II keep up my note
books, writing in them at such ant
such hours from what l have beer
reading; and / include In them my
s~crapbOOks." These were very curious
indeed. He had six or eight, Of differ
ent subjects. There was One OF his
tory, one Of natural science, one whicl
he called "odds and Ends But the!
were not merely books Of extract
from newspapers. They had bits o
plants and ribbons, shells tied on, an'
carved scraps Of bone and wood, whicl
he had taught the men TO cut for him
aud they were beautifully illustrated
He drew admirably. He had some o
the funniest drawings there, and som
Of the most pathetic, that I have eve
seen In my life. l wonder who vii
have HOlan's acrapbOOks.
Well, he said his reading and hi
notes were his profession, and tina
they took Ave hours and two hour
respectively of each day. "Then,
said he. "every man should have a d
version as well Is a profession. n
natural history is my diversion" Tha
took two hours a day more. The me
used TO bring him birds and fish, bu
on a long cruise he had to satisfy hin
self with c~entipedes and cOckroache
and such small game. he vas the onl
naturalist ! ever met who knew any
thing about the habits Of the house 4
and the mosquito. All those peOpl
can tell you whether they are Lep
dOptera or steptopotera; but as 70
telling how you ean get rid Of then
or how they get away from you whe
you strike them, why, Linnaeus knee
as little Of that as John Foy. the lido
did. These nine hours made Nolan
regular daily Occupation" The res
OF the time he talked or walked. ii
he grew very old, he went alOft a grel
deal. He always kept up his exercii