Hannibal Journal And Western Union

ORIGINAL STORY
A Glimpse of the Elephant.
WRITTEN FOR THE JOURNAL AND UNION.
BY ONE OF THE INITIATED.
Slowly and gloomily as the mother of the giant brood to the incantations of Odin did the parson arise from his recumbent position; doubly heavy were the maledictions leveled at the offending Bony; triply louder were the jeerings of the Hidalgo's around. But Boney little cared for Mr. Waller's wrath, nor did he trouble his poll concerning the perdition of Tophet to which his irate denouncer so summarily doomed him.
For he trotted off at a turtle's funeral pace, (his best gait,) snorting as if vaunting some ever-glorious exploit. And well might he boast, for never before, either in the eloquence of the pulpit or the mysteries of the game, where jack takes the ace, horse-racing, psalm-singing, cock-fighting, or electioneering, had Sykes been overthrown.
Great Caesar fell, and O, what a fall was there!
The reverend was bedraggled in the mud, with none so poor to do him reverence. Reuben indeed, by way of consolation, said,
"Ye durned fool; can't ye manage an old plough horse yit? When ye want to stop, jest pull them strings! You've turned up jack this time, any how, with a hook to it."
But the driver intimated, as his private opinion, that it was old Boney that had 'turned jack down.' But they were none of them in a very pleasant humor, and their wit was greatly tinctured with acerbity. Mr. Waller finally, however, contrived to entrap his Boney, and remounting, the procession jogged on in dismal array, passing the little village of Westport,
In a short time the beautiful rolling prairie which is the eastern verge of the Great Plains, extended before them. "The Rhine, the Rhine, our own imperial river!" exclaimed Chaloner; one of the knights-errant; but there was no broad stream rolling its blue current along in majesty, but the wide-stretching prairie was spread as a verdant velvet carpet, and the blooming petals of numberless wild flowers lifted their tiny buds and commingled their modest beauty with the vivid lustre of the prairie grass.
Low swelling hillocks, clad in all the genial vestments of the early May, diversified the surface of the pampa, and here and there the rude cabins of the Shawnee crowned the rising mounds the blue smoke curling from their ample hearths.
To the right of the road, amid a leafy grove arose the white spire of a little church, and instead of the mighty rivers of the old Fatherland, or our own magnificent Father of Waters, a little purling brook with the green willow bending over its tide and the lordly cottonwood towering upon its banks sported downward with musical murmur among violet covered meads and bowers, where the rose entwined its blushing blossoms with the paly gems of the bramble.
Here in its vale were dispersed camps of Californians, awaiting for a little duration in peaceful quietude e'er they should renew, or rather begin, their toilsome and perilous pilgrimage to the promised land of their desires.
Our hero and his company turned off from the road, and going some two miles down the stream they found a pleasant retired spot, where a mossy fountain welled forth its liquid crystal, and prepared to pitch camp. The gearing was thrown off the mules, the animals picketed, a blazing fire was kindled, and they prepared to enjoy a comfortable evening. Harry Chaloner fried the bacon, and as it was unanimously voted not to task the skillful Reuben's power again in the bread line, and the virtuous Sykesey's flapjacks not having proven decidedly palatable, a young man named Tyndall was pressed into the service, and succeeding to a miracle in producing an admirably soggy compound, was proclaimed Baker General to the expedition.
Slowly set the sun behind the western mound. his last glorious beamings lighting up the surrounding heaven as a vast enkindling dome, and all Nature's fair dominion exulted in his parting smiles. Meantime our hero, not to be outdone in felicity by inanimate Nature, spread a blanket near the fire, seated himself thereupon a la Turk, and drew from his pocket a short pipe of peculiarly dirty appearance.
"Hallo! my honest and true loved friend, is that the pipe of peace?" inquired Tyndall.
"No, sir," quoth Reuben, "this is the piece of a pipe."
He charged his fascinating engine with a handful of tobacco, and placing a coal upon the bowl, he immediately seemed to enjoy unalloyed bliss from its odorous fragrance. But the heart of man is ever doomed to remain the mockery of Fortune—ever liable to be overborne by the cruelest disappointment. An explosion, startling Tyndall and overwhelming the parson to such a pass that he emptied his bowl of bean soup down his boot leg and stumbled backward into the fire, shattered the blest receptacle of the herb of Nicot to the four winds, and left the long lantern jaws of Mr. Appleface sticking out in the air at a tangent, his eyes peering above in the wildest manner, whilst his tightly compressed teeth yet grasped the stem in undaunted guise. But there was no great harm done save the ruin of the companion of our respectable hero's solitudes and the damage to Sykesey aforesaid. Reuben, like many other greenhorns, carried his percussion caps loose in his pocket with his tobacco, and from one of these sprung the disaster.
The low, mournful, but incessant wailings of the prairie wolves now smote upon the tympanums of our voyageurs, making night hideous with their yelping melody. In sooth, illustrious performers were they; now their wild war whoops chorussed a strain of growls and snaps, as one of the performers favored another with a facsimile of his rows of polished ivory; and anon their dulcet peals waxed fainter as though piping a requiem over the wounded.
Unfortunately, a little imp of a mule, with about half his pack yet on him, came rushing and kicking into camp with sundry pans industriously thumping against his side. Sykesey bounced into the tent and hid himself under a roll of blankets, and the war-horse of the pots went flunting and leaping in his frantic career.
The entire cavalcade of our fellow sojourners were stricken with a panic—picket pins drew up and lariats snapped in a moment truly disastrous—faint glimpses of heels twinkling in the twilight were visions not consolatory to the astounded owners, and a rushing sound as of mighty waters marked the exit of the bovine brood without applause. The mischievous satan of a donkey which had originated all this rumpus in the wigwam, now apparently sated, with the trouble he had caused, stopped to munch a few tender morsels of grass. The valorous Sykesey sallied forth with inimitable ardor to apprehend the delinquent. He approached him near enough to grasp the broken riata which trailed in the dust, and seized it with the avidity of a miss in her teens culling a heart's ease. But woe is me! He effected the manucaption too violently: a corollary evinced by a jerk of the mule's head which brought the worthy parson to his knees—a result before attained for twenty-six full moons. The mule, rendering his fore-feet an axis, thereon revolved with incredible facility, handling his heels in an exceedingly formidable manner, and kicking as if for a wager. Fain would Mr. Waller have sounded a retreat, shorn of all the victor's laurels, but those terrible hoofs interposed a circle invisible, but by no means imaginary, beyond which prudence dictated it would not be advisable to venture.
"Wo! wo! ye little divil, ye, won't you stand still?"
But the little divil capered like a sky rocket—or forty horse engine in full blast.
"Wo, sir! wo, sir! be quiet, sir—!" said Sykes.
But Sir Charger, in no respect mollified by his altered deportment, would not hearken to his reasonable request. Sykesey was occasionally on his feet, but oftener prostrate and testing the softness of a rural ottoman, "until, concentrating all his efforts for a coup de main, a gigantic plus ultra of intrepidity, he broke the lariat and went backward, spinning like a top, full twenty feet, and in the midst of his vagaries he shouted,
"Well, go now, you diabolical old sea sarpint!"
And Donkey pocketed his advice, for he scudded away under a full press of canvas, like a quarter horse, or, to use Sykesey's own apt and expressive illustration, like a streak of greased lightnin in a stumpy field.
The waxing crescent of Cynthia was now bright no more in the heavens and the pale little stars flickered coldly in the darkened vault of night, twinkling cheerily in the profound arch of the firmament, as sentinels guarding the slumber of Earth's inhabitants. Weary wanderers were seeking repose after the toils of the day just forever gone, not a zephyr sighed over the lea, disturbing the quiet midnight; and only the uncouth symphony of the tuneful coyotes clashed upon the silence of the scene, a silence truly far more affecting than all the eloquence of Tully or Hortensius—than all the inspiration of Dante or Byron. And our travelers, abandoning all hopes of recovering their errant mules until morning, suffered themselves to be lulled to rest in the oblivious embraces of poppy-wreathed Somnus.
CHAPTER III.
Detailing a search for strays, and the finale thereof and moreover showing the progress of the expedition
The earliest daublings of Aurora's pencil were yet scarcely enlightening the gloomy horizon, the faint struggling rays of the advancing luminary were yet scarcely invading the dark dominions of substantial night, when Chaloner and Tyndall took upon themselves the task of awakening their companions. And verily I say unto you, this was no light matter. Go, subdue the Nemean lion; cleanse the Augean stables; defraud Cerberus, and carry off bodily the chaste spouse of the dread sovereign of Hades, then wilt thou be qualified to awaken the sleepy Reuben. Perseverance, philosophers say—and who dare impugn these onn. cients gentlemen?—eventually overcomes all difficulties, and by dint of perseverance in the shape of divers kicks and cuffs in no wise lightly applied, Mr. Appleface was aroused to a striking appreciation of his situation. Our worthy friend was persuaded to arise, and as no dressing was requisite, he started off at a very slow rate indeed, to search for the mules departed.
But he had not proceeded far, when he espied a wolf on a hilltop. Not especially admiring the companionship, he deemed it prudent to beat a hasty retreat, and therefore the valiant knight of our animals stampeded with quite as much velocity as the mules had exercised. But if the daring Appleface retreated, the wolf retreated with much greater expedition.
Fortunately our hero discovered the crimson fruit of the strawberry strewn thickly around, and piously resolving to let the mules go to hell, or some other sea-port, he devoted his undivided attention to the useful and commendable task of devouring said fruit. Beyond dispute there is no quality of the intellect so highly valuable to its possessor as energy, an admirable attribute, with which Mr. Appleface demonstrated himself to be endowed to the degree of surplusage. He wagged his long extended Philistine slayers in a fashion fearful in the extreme, and yet bearing upon his Adonis-like features an expression of the most intense gratulation. His long, bony fingers extending among the luxuriant herbage of the gentle knoll, ever grasping the luscious berries that blushed like rubies in the verdure, made a horrible inroad upon their innumerable hosts. For two long hours did the incomparable Reuben labor with unimpaired activity, and sooth to say, unabated appetite, when, rising to renew the attack under more favorable auspices, his keen grey eye discovered two wild looking horsemen upon a distant ridge, driving a caballado of loose animals before them, and galloping as fleetly as rushes the breed of the untamed courser beside the Puerco. But an instant elapsed, and our hero was prepared for any emergency: a second glance convinced him that they were Indians, and away sped our gallant voyager, as rapidly as his long spindle shanks could carry him.
Away o'er hill and valley, as sweeps the wind of Sahara amid the barren regions of Numidia, darted the indomitable Reuben. His pursuers raised a demon-like shout of triumph, and pressed on with nearly superhuman celerity. Their steeds snorted as the charger e'er the opening of the fray—their unshod hoofs clattered down the descents of the mounds, now they dashed through the tiny waterbrooks at the base of the hill side, now they trampled in the dust the wild flowers of the prairie, whilst the prairie owls tumbled into their holes with prodigious alacrity, wondering what the devil was to pay, among the lords of creation. The chase seemed for life or death, and as the errant champion of Appleface could not say with Chatterton's heroine, "lyfe and all ytts goodes I scorn," he did ample justice to the importance of the demonstration.
His eyes were straining and bloodshot, big drops of perspiration started from his heated forehead. his tongue cleaved to his mouth, his breast struggling for a gasp of breath, heaved as in throbbing convulsions, and the white foam gathered about his lips. "Oh God, help me," he exclaimed in an agony of terror, and then he raved as a maniac. At length the distant camp became visible to his longing eyes, but it appeared to him a farewell glimpse. Still he strained every nerve until the sharp crack of a rifle and a bullet seemingly whistling about his ears, plunged him into new horrors. He pitched headlong, full two rods down the slope of a mound, religiously believing his descent to be an unceremonious departure for the unknown land of shades where
Tum demum horrisone stridentes cardine sacrae
Panduntur portae.
Dark were the clouds which overshadowed the sun of Appleface, heavy were the fogs obscuring its rays, but the blind and calumniated lady who turns the ever revolving circle, that rolls as uncertainly as a great roulette wheel, was pleased again to admit the star of his destiny to emerge from its darkness. That very bullet which so frightened him, and to a certain extent overturned his centre of gravity, was a Godsend to Reuben, for at the crack of the rifle, the herd of loose animals which his pursuers were driving, eloped in double quick time in every direction, and the incontinent pursued, taking an air line, made off for camp, at a greatly accelerated rate; forgetful of the maxim of returning good for evil, as he did not so much as offer to condole with his chasseurs under their accumulated misfortunes, of which he evidently was the cause.
Meantime Mr. Waller was taking a most curious and accurate observation of surrounding objects, and beholding in amazement, as well he might, our hero's demonstration from afar off. he bawled out to Flint, the remaining member of the little troop, in this classical phrase.
(To be continued.)
HONORS TO KOSSUTH.
Recall of Owen, Consul at Havana.
Orders for the Arrest of the Syracuse Rioters.
DEATH OF A DISTINGUISHED MAN.
The following important dispatches we clip from the Louisville papers of the 11th. We are extremely gratified at the course the President has adopted in reference to the Syracuse rioters, and also to the recall of Owen our Consul at Havana:—St. Louis Intelligencer.