CAPTAIN CLAPPERTON.

[What follows is taken from an article in "The Court Magazine, No. 9," for March. The article is not very well written; but there is something pleasing in the extracts here selected, which contain all that directly relates to Captain Clapperton. They may serve to give a more distinct impression of the character of an uncommon and, we believe, estimable man, whose adventures and death in Africa have excited general sympathy.- EDD.]

THE name of Clapperton requires no further eulogium, as a public character; but there were many leaves in the volume which nature bound up in his manly form, besides those which record the enterprise which has associated his name with the greatest and boldest discoverers who have ever lived, which are worthy of perusal, and of finding a place amongst the floating recollections, which tend to nurse the sensibilities of the

age.

Clapperton, it is well known, owed little to the accident of birth, not that he could not trace his blood through an ancient line to its parent source, but because the "res augusta domi " threw its chilling influence over all the buoyant period of his youth. Nature, however, had liberally given to him the arm of strength and spirit of endurance, together with the kindliest and gentlest feelings; and he fought his way, scrambling forwards. through the shoals of fortune, careless of the strokes which his youth suffered, and with a breast nerved to toil and difficulties. Yet, that he was not insensible to the rubs which he met with, is manifest from the following beautiful verses, which embody his sentiments long after he had been accustomed, like the elder Byron, to be "lashed by the waves, and cradled on the rock;" and which are so creditable both to his head and heart, that we cannot resist the wish, that the new aspect in which they exhibit his character, should no longer be publicly unknown.

VERSES ADDRESSED TO ANNAN WATER," BY CAPTAIN HUGH CLAPPERTON, R. N.

66 THOU SWEET STREAM OF ANNAN."

I.

"Thou sweet stream of Annan, how oft have I strayed

On thy banks, when my fancy was young;

How dear were the notes that were heard through thy glade,

And the strains which my Isabel sung!

But never again shall to me be displayed,
Thy sweet scenes of pleasure and glee,
For my sorrowful heart, like a spectre afraid
Would start thy loved woodlands to see!

II.

"To hide the hot tear which all silently feH,
When forced from thy valleys to go,

I have rode on the billows, and whispered farewell
To the winds that re-echoed my woe.

With dangers I've coped where the savage's yell
Rings fearful on midnight's still breath;

'Gainst the cannon I 've stood when the lightnings foretell
The dark-rolling whirlwind of death!

III.

"Yet, though spurned from my hopes, from my love, and my home, My heart's dearest stream turns to thee,

As the far-travelled exile, whose thoughts ever roam

O'er delights which he never must see!

As a sun-beam that brightens the waves' briny foam,
One thought shall a moment dispel

Each burst of keen grief, and my spirit shall come
O'er the surge to the fair Isabel!"

It was some time after the great breaking up of our military and naval establishments upon the close of the war, that Clapperton retired to the banks of his native Annan, whose visions had thus shed an attendrissement over his wanderings in distant climes. And if never again were restored to him the gay scenes of glee which were associated with the remembrance of an early attachment, which had ended, as the course of true love is poetically ever alleged to do; nevertheless the bright hopes of youth had not so far passed him by upon life's stream, but that he contrived to throw off his griefs like a mourning suit, and spent in rural amusements the most peaceful certainly, if not also the happiest years of his existence. The place which he chose to pitch his camp in had nothing to boast for its commercial wealth, or its political importance, but it was rich in the beauties of a liberal nature, and dear to the patriot bosom, as associated with many a tale in our national story. It was besides the scene of his grandfather's life, and of his father's birth, and was surrounded with the possessions of his maternal ancestors. Nor was its least recommendation that it was amply furnished with those amusements, whether of flood or field, which accorded well with the juvenile pursuits of him whose path had long been o'er the mountain wave, - whose home had been the deep.

Into the bosom of this little community Clapperton carried a tinge of that romance which was a feature of his character. The

[* We know not why the name is withheld. It appears from the locality described, that it was in the parish of Lochmaben.]

frank urbanity of the sailor soon made him cordially intimate with, and a favorite of, the good burghers, most of whom had been the friends of his father and grandfather. It was here that we first became acquainted with him, and the verses came into our possession, which are given above. Here also the intercourse of years produced a friendship which, that it was so early broken asunder, we have not yet ceased to regret.

The amusement which perhaps had last engaged him upon the Canadian Lakes, the magnificent scenery of which, we have often heard him expatiate upon with all the enthusiasm of a child of nature, was the first to claim his attention upon his return home; it was that of angling. Possessed of so many sympathies in common with those of this gentle art, it will easily be understood how fishing should have become to him a constant source of recreation and of pleasure. The localities of "Old Margery o' the mony Lochs," if but a point compared with the boundless beat which he had left behind, present a field both for lake and stream, which is seldom to be met with in the South of Scotland; and often, therefore, "by early peep of day," he would be seen brushing the dew, as

awakening the echoes of those romantic streams with the same bugle-horn, the inseparable companion of all his wanderings, which was listened to with breathless attention upon the banks of the Quorra by the Arab and Falatah, whilst the simple natives thought the white-faced stranger was sending a blessing to his country and friends. They were indeed the strains of his native land, which helped to soothe many an anxious passing hour; whilst, like the apples of the Dead Sea coast, hope gilded to the sight those to succeed, which were to prove ashes and death to the taste.

There are few more delightful feelings than those experienced by a keen sportsman in returning home after a successful day's angling with his basket loaded with fish. Though a tale now which has long been told, we well remember the delight, scarcely short of extasy, which we and a school-boy party experienced upon our first occasion of killing a salmon. The nervous agitation, which shook us like electricity when the first plunge threw the foaming water off his silvery shoulders, followed by the lightning submersion of the tail! The breathless shut of " Boys! boys!

The eager

we have him!"-The race to be first at the spot. directions," Hold up the top of the rod, play him against the stream! give him line! give him line!" whilst all the while, to the music of the reel, he was playing a thousand vagaries, throwing himself here and there fairly out of the water; and coursing alike through the current and the calm. Then, after a long struggle when we had him at length fairly flapping upon the sand, never was scene of American "Jumpers" better personified; a regular dancing-match of joy, for several minutes, ensued; after which, followed a general strike: we, especially, too overjoyed to delay for a moment the honors of our ovation, the others to lose, by remaining behind, their due share of merit for assisting in the capture by their presence and advice. The wheels were then wound up, the rods unscrewed, and the "spolia opima" stuffed into a basket in such a partial way that the tail, like that of the ram of Derby, was allowed to protrude as far as possible behind, that all who passed us on our way might have ocular demonstration of our mighty feat! We were, as Byron says, “a boy in those days," but few of the weightier uphill achievements of later years have surpassed in gratification that happy moment. It was with some such feelings of complacency, doubtless, that we well remember Clapperton sounding a reveillée at our father's door, as a summons to the family, one and all, to turn out and behold the contents of his basket, upon a day when he had been more than ordinarily successful. He had no such monster of the vasty deep to exhibit as the one we have alluded to,— but the tails of above a dozen of the finest yellow trout had been so arranged as to display themselves with striking effect from his jacket pockets, and the loop-holes of his basket. Whether the latter was really choke-full, or the terra incognita made up with less edible material, we pretend not to say. The secrets of the angling art, like that of the poulterer's, but too often require stuffing. But this is a matter which it would be quite unhandsome to sift into too narrowly.

And whilst upon the topic of "Truta-ná," we must not overlook an incident which raised a good laugh at the time against the hero of our narrative, though, in reality, it was any thing but a matter of joke to himself. In the immediate neighbourhood of the old Burgh which was his residence, a beautiful sheet of water surrounds a peninsula, upon which, embowered amid stately trees, stand the ruins of the ancient castle of King Robert Bruce, formerly the strongest fortress of the West Border, though now but the monument of a thousand spirit-stirring recollections of an iron age. The adjoining districts had been parcelled out among the king's retainers, and the descendants of these "kindly tenants "

still inhabit the soil, intermarrying with each other, and preserving characteristics not less distinctive than peculiarly their own. But the immediate territory called the Mains of the Castle, together with some adjoining estates, had long formed the possessions of a family from whom Clapperton, and an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer were maternally sprung.* In this lake there is a little fish peculiar to itself; and, indeed, with only one other exception, in Switzerland, it is not elsewhere found in Europe. It is called the vendance.† How it got located there, no one can distinctly tell. Report says, that it was transplanted from some sunnier clime by the orders of the beautiful Mary; over the tender recollections of which favorite spot, Scott feigns her to weep whilst pent up in her dreary confinement in the towers of Lochleven. Whilst, on the other hand, tradition, which makes this delicate little fish bear upon its head the bleeding heart of the Bruce, seems to point to its having had existence in the lake from a much remoter period. This, however, may be pure fancy, the pretended heart being nothing more than the transparent brain, — arising from that national veneration which has stamped the "clarum et venerabile nomen" of the Bruce upon so many tablets living and inanimate on his native shore. The vendance further is chamelion-like, fabled to live upon air, from this circumstance, that it has never been taken by any kind of bait, nor indeed has it ever been found with any food in its stomach, upon which it could be ascertained to subsist. The only mode by which, therefore, it is ever taken, is by drag-nets; and, in the warm days of July and August, it is a very pleasant pastime to superintend a fishing party, and witness the draught make its little sweep, and haul out, besides the species referred to, pike, perch, roach, bream, eels, &c., often to the extent of many hundreds at a time. Clapperton, to whom the treat was new, upon witnessing quietly a haul or too, could no longer repress his aquatic propensities, but, doffing his jacket, sallied in with the rope, wading and dragging the net after him as far as the depth would permit. And so delighted was he with the amusement, that he continued it for some hours, until the sun so strongly scorched his back, that it peeled him almost as effectually as if the cat-o'-nine-tails had got acquainted with his shoulders.

The scene of Clapperton's amusement in summer was no less the field of his sport in winter. When the warlock frost has laid

* The ancient family of Henderson of Broadholm.

[ We find the name otherwise spelt Vendise, with the observation, that "it is esteemed remarkably delicate, and found no where else." Several attempts, it is said, "have been made to transplant them to other lakes without success."]