On this day in 1865

Eclipse of the Moon by Lars Ploughman License (cc-by-sa-2.0)

On the Eclipse of the Moon of October 1865
Charles Turner

One little noise of life remained--I heard
The train pause in the distance, then rush by,
Brawling and hushing, like some busy fly
That murmurs and then settles; nothing stirred
Beside. The shadow of our traveling earth
Hung on the silver moon, which mutely went
Through that grand process, without token sent,
Or any sign to call a gazer forth,
Had I not chanced to see; dumb was the vault
Of heaven, and dumb the fields--no zephyr swept
The forest walks, or through the coppice crept;
Nor other sound the stillness did assault,
Save that faint-brawling railway's move and halt;
So perfect was the silence Nature kept.

He Fell Among Thieves

I am a fan of Henry Newbolt's poetry and this poem is among my favorites. I had not ever known the background to the tale though I suspected it might be based on a true event. In this quarter's Slightly Foxed, Peter Gill, in his article Heading for the Hills, confirms that Newbolt wrote this poem in response to the murder in 1869 in Dardistan of one of those intrepid British explorers of Central Asia, George Hayward.




He Fell Among Thieves
Henry Newbolt

'YE have robb'd,' said he, 'ye have slaughter'd and made an end,
Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead:
What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?'
'Blood for our blood,' they said.

He laugh'd: 'If one may settle the score for five,
I am ready; but let the reckoning stand till day:
I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any alive.'
'You shall die at dawn,' said they.

He flung his empty revolver down the slope,
He climb'd alone to the Eastward edge of the trees;
All night long in a dream untroubled of hope
He brooded, clasping his knees.

He did not hear the monotonous roar that fills
The ravine where the Yassîn river sullenly flows;
He did not see the starlight on the Laspur hills,
Or the far Afghan snows.

He saw the April noon on his books aglow,
The wistaria trailing in at the window wide;
He heard his father's voice from the terrace below
Calling him down to ride.

He saw the gray little church across the park,
The mounds that hid the loved and honour'd dead;
The Norman arch, the chancel softly dark,
The brasses black and red.

He saw the School Close, sunny and green,
The runner beside him, the stand by the parapet wall,
The distant tape, and the crowd roaring between,
His own name over all.

He saw the dark wainscot and timber'd roof,
The long tables, and the faces merry and keen;
The College Eight and their trainer dining aloof,
The Dons on the daïs serene.

He watch'd the liner's stem ploughing the foam,
He felt her trembling speed and the thrash of her screw;
He heard the passengers' voices talking of home,
He saw the flag she flew.

And now it was dawn. He rose strong on his feet,
And strode to his ruin'd camp below the wood;
He drank the breath of the morning cool and sweet:
His murderers round him stood.

Light on the Laspur hills was broadening fast,
The blood-red snow-peaks chill'd to a dazzling white;
He turn'd, and saw the golden circle at last,
Cut by the Eastern height.

'O glorious Life, Who dwellest in earth and sun,
I have lived, I praise and adore Thee.'
A sword swept.
Over the pass the voices one by one
Faded, and the hill slept.

Before the Dawn

Before the Dawn Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by Nicholas Wade

One of the many pleasures of reading is when you come across a book that is not only well crafted but also informs you and causes you to think about some subject in a way you have not done before. It is even nicer when it sometimes confirms things you had suspected but could not prove.

I have just recently finished Nicholas Wade's Before the Dawn which was published in 2006 and basically brings you up to date on what the cascading DNA research tells us about the development of human beings.

I have always been fascinated by human history and pre-history. I can recall even in early grades being intrigued by, but not quite understanding, the well illustrated Time-Life type books laying out the evolution of man through his various shapes and capabilities. I found the plethora of forms (australopithecines, homo erectus, cro-magnon man, Neanderthals, etc.) fascinating and confusing. Who was first, who followed whom, how were they related, how did they interact, etc.

It wasn't till much later that I began to understand that part of my confusion was not from my short-comings of comprehension as I had imagined, but simply the sparsity and contradictoriness of the archaeological record. Archaeologists, historians and paleontologists were telling the best story they could but spinning that story from a thin factual basis.

For all that DNA was discovered fifty or so years ago and despite the impression that what we are beginning to understand now seems like light years of progress, it only seems so because we knew so little. We are still at the beginning of understanding the information wrapped up in DNA and its biological, evolutionary and historical implications. Twenty years from now we will see our current knowledge as only the first stair-step up a very long stairway.

That said, it is easy to lose track, in the midst of all the new reports of discoveries, the set-backs of assumptions, and the bold extrapolations of knowledge, just where we are in our knowing. What has been settled, what has been indicated but is yet to be proven, what old assumptions have been rendered inoperative, and what are the likely scenarios for the future given the research underway now.

Wade does a great job of winnowing out some of the chaff from the wheat. He is suitably cautious about what is known, what is speculated, and what is still unknowable. In the first few chapters he basically brings you up to speed on current knowledge and thinking and then begins to take you further and further afield where knowledge is less and less certain. He is clear that we journeying in un-chartered seas and that the final chapters are substantially speculation based on a few meager indicators. It is fascinating speculation none-the-less.

One of the other things Wade does well is integrate what we have discovered from DNA with that which is known from the archaeological record, from the study of languages, and socio-biology. In some instances the records are mutually supportive, in others there are contradictions that are not yet resolved.

A few of the nuggets which Before the Dawn either confirmed for me or revealed for the first time.

• Modern man's departure from Africa can be dated now with reasonable certainty to 50,000 - 100,000 years ago across the southern straights of the Red Sea. Wade goes for the nearer date of departure of 50,000 years.
• The initial departure from Africa consisted of an amazingly small group of people, probably less than a thousand people and possibly only 150. The most ancient lineages and most diverse DNA remains in Africa.
• In what seems like a generational forced march, people then proceeded along the shorelines of South Asia, splitting in southeast-asia, one group heading north and back into the interior of Asia but also then outwards into the Pacific and ultimately and belatedly into North America across the Bering Straights twelve to fifteen thousand years ago, while the second group headed southwards into Australia 40,000 years ago.
• Europe was most likely populated by people moving up from South and Central Asia into continental Europe 45,000 years ago.
• Modern man coexisted with Neanderthals in Europe for some fifteen thousand years before the Neanderthals disappeared. Whether there was any population mixing in those fifteen thousand years remains to be determined though the evidence suggests not.
• The development of the differences in racial features among the diaspora of modern humans pretty much occurred as recently as only 10,000 years ago.
• The evolution of the human genome continues apace with some capabilities, such as lactose tolerance in northwestern Europe, arising only 7,000 years ago.
• The interface between physical/biological evolution and cultural/behavorial/intellectual development remains murky, confused, confusing, and subject to preposterous abuse by polemicists, but does indicate some possible linkages.
• And on and on.

Wade does a good job of presenting complex ideas well, hedging his arguments with caution, and yet laying out the surprising amount of knowledge that has been accumulated in five brief years. While archaeologists and biologists will always have to work hand in hand, we are no longer hostage to random and occasional discoveries of bones and settlements. We now have a much more detailed record to which to turn, albeit in a language we scarcely yet understand.

The Cutty Sark

Cutty Sark by Frederick Tudgay, 1872

I don't know if you saw it at the time but back at the beginning of the summer, May 21st, there was a fire aboard the last surviving clipper ship, the Cutty Sark, which is moored on the Thames in London. It broke my heart to see the initial pictures and early reports which seemed to indicate that the ship, built in 1869, might almost be a complete loss.

In this quarter's Sea History, however, there is encouraging news. Jessica Beverly reports that the Cutty Sark had been under restoration at the time of the fire, and that

"More than half her original hull planking, all three masts and rigging, coach houses, the master's saloon, deck furniture, and anchors had been safely transported to Chatham Historic Dockyard and other storage sites. Irreplaceable treasures, such as the Cutty Sark figurehead collection and the Trust's artifacts and archives, were also off-site at the time."

The damage is dreadful to look at in the pictures and there will be a lot of work to restore this treasure but it appears it can be done with much of the original infrastructure intact.

Thank goodness.

The Sidewalks of New York

The Sidewalks of New York
James W. Blake and Charles E. Lawlor 1894

Down in front of Casey's old brown wooden stoop
On a summer's evening we formed a merry group
Boys and girls together we would sing and waltz
While Tony played the organ on the sidewalks of New York

Chorus
East Side, West Side, all around the town
The tots sang "ring-a-rosie," "London Bridge is falling down"
Boys and girls together, me and Mamie O'Rourke
Tripped the light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York

That's where Johnny Casey, little Jimmy Crowe
Jakey Krause, the baker, who always had the dough
Pretty Nellie Shannon with a dude as light as cork
She first picked up the waltz step on the sidewalks of New York

Things have changed since those times, some are up in "G"
Others they are wand'rers but they all feel just like me
They'd part with all they've got, could they once more walk
With their best girl and have a twirl on the sidewalks of New York

What is a Boy?

Boys Playing in the Water by Albert Edelfelt, 1884

What is A Boy? - Attributed to Alan Marshall Beck in a Reader's Digest article in 1954.

Between the innocence of babyhood and the dignity of manhood we find a delightful creature called a boy. Boys come in assorted sizes, weights and colors, but all boys have the same creed: to enjoy every second of every minute of every hour of every day and to protest with noise (their only weapon) when their last minute is finished and the adult males pack them off to bed at night.

Boys are found everywhere--on top of, underneath, inside of, climbing on, swinging from, running around, or jumping to. Mothers love them, little girls hate them, older sisters and brothers tolerate them, adults ignore them, and Heaven protects them. A boy is Truth with dirt on its face, Beauty with a cut on its finger, Wisdom with bubble gum in its hair, and the Hope of the future with a frog in its pocket.

When you are busy, a boy is an inconsiderate, bothersome, intruding jangle of noise. When you want him to make a good impression, his brain turns to jelly, or else he becomes a savage, sadistic jungle creature bent on destroying the world and himself with it.

A boy is a composite--he has the appetite of a horse, the digestion of a sword swallower, the energy of a pocket-sized atomic bomb, the curiosity of a cat, the lungs of a dictator, the imagination of a Paul Bunyan, the shyness of a violet, the audacity of a steel trap, the enthusiasm of a firecracker, and when he makes something he has five thumbs on each hand.

He likes ice cream, knives, saws, Christmas, comic books, the boy across the street, woods, water (in its natural habitat), large animals, Dad, trains, Saturday mornings, and fire engines. He is not much for Sunday School, company, schools, books without pictures, music lessons, neckties, barbers, gifts, overcoats, adults, or bedtime.

Nobody else is so early to rise, or so late to supper. Nobody else gets so much fun out of trees, dogs, and breezes. Nobody else can cram into one pocket a rusty knife, a half-eaten apple, three feet of string, an empty Bull Durham sack, two gum drops, six cents, a slingshot, a chunk of unknown substance, and a genuine supersonic code ring with a secret compartment.

A boy is a magical creature--you can lock him out of your workshop, but you can't lock him out of your heart. You can get him out of your study, but you can't get him out of your mind. Might as well give up--he is your captor, your jailer, your boss, and your master--a freckle-faced, pint-sized, cat-chasing, bundle of noise. But when you come home at night with only the shattered pieces of your hopes and dreams, he can mend them like new with the two magic words, 'Hi Dad!'"

Sampler: The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter

The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter

Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were-- Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter.

They lived with their Mother in a sand-bank, underneath the root of a very big fir-tree.

"Now, my dears," said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, "you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor. Now run along, and don't get into mischief. I am going out."

Then old Mrs. Rabbit took a basket and her umbrella, and went through the wood to the baker's. She bought a loaf of brown bread and five currant buns.

Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail, who were good little bunnies, went down the lane to gather blackberries; but Peter, who was very naughty, ran straight away to Mr. McGregor's garden, and squeezed under the gate!

First he ate some lettuces and some French beans; and then he ate some radishes; and then, feeling rather sick, he went to look for some parsley.

But round the end of a cucumber frame, whom should he meet but Mr. McGregor!