The Crusade of the Excelsior | Page 8

to barbarism, while the aborigines of the
New World now existing have never known it--or, like the Aztecs, have
perished with it. The modern North American aborigine has not yet got
beyond the tribal condition; mingled with Caucasian blood as he is in

Mexico and Central America, he is perfectly capable of
self-government."
"Then why has he never obtained it?" asked Mrs. Markham.
"He has always been oppressed and kept down by colonists of the Latin
races; he has been little better than a slave to his oppressor for the last
two centuries," said Senor Perkins, with a slight darkening of his soft
eyes.
"Injins is pizen," whispered Mr. Winslow to Miss Keene.
"Who would be free, you know, the poet says, ought themselves to
light out from the shoulder, and all that sort of thing," suggested Crosby,
with cheerful vagueness.
"True; but a little assistance and encouragement from mankind
generally would help them," continued the Senor. "Ah! my dear Mrs.
Markham, if they could even count on the intelligent sympathy of
women like yourself, their independence would be assured. And think
what a proud privilege to have contributed to such a result, to have
assisted at the birth of the ideal American Republic, for such it would
be--a Republic of one blood, one faith, one history."
"What on earth, or sea, ever set the old man off again?" inquired
Crosby, in an aggrieved whisper. "It's two weeks since he's given us
any Central American independent flapdoodle--long enough for those
nigger injins to have had half a dozen revolutions. You know that the
vessels that put into San Juan have saluted one flag in the morning, and
have been fired at under another in the afternoon."
"Hush!" said Miss Keene. "He's so kind! Look at him now, taking off
the pinafores of those children and tidying them. He is kinder to them
than their nurse, and more judicious than their mother. And half his talk
with Mrs. Markham now is only to please her, because she thinks she
knows politics. He's always trying to do good to somebody."
"That's so," exclaimed Brace, eager to share Miss Keene's sentiments;

"and he's so good to those outlandish niggers in the crew. I don't see
how the captain could get on with the crew without him; he's the only
one who can talk their gibberish and keep them quiet. I've seen him
myself quietly drop down among them when they were wrangling. In
my opinion," continued the young fellow, lowering his voice somewhat
ostentatiously, "you'll find out when we get to port that he's stopped the
beginning of many a mutiny among them."
"I reckon they'd make short work of a man like him," said Winslow,
whose superciliousness was by no means lessened by the community of
sentiment between Miss Keene and Brace. "I reckon, his political
reforms, and his poetical high-falutin' wouldn't go as far in the
forecastle among live men as it does in the cabin with a lot of women.
You'll more likely find that he's been some sort of steward on a steamer,
and he's working his passage with us. That's where he gets that smooth,
equally-attentive-to-anybody sort of style. The way he skirmished
around Mrs. Brimmer and Mrs. Markham with a basin the other day
when it was so rough convinced ME. It was a little too professional to
suit my style."
"I suppose that was the reason why you went below so suddenly,"
rejoined Brace, whose too sensitive blood was beginning to burn in his
cheeks and eyes.
"It's a shame to stay below this morning," said Miss Keene,
instinctively recognizing the cause of the discord and its remedy. "I'm
going on deck again--if I can manage to get there."
The three gentlemen sprang to accompany her; and, in their efforts to
keep their physical balance and hers equally, the social equilibrium was
restored.
By noon, however, the heavy cross-sea had abated, and the Excelsior
bore west. When she once more rose and fell regularly on the long
rhythmical swell of the Pacific, most of the passengers regained the
deck. Even Mrs. Brimmer and Miss Chubb ventured from their
staterooms, and were conveyed to and installed in some state on a
temporary divan of cushions and shawls on the lee side. For even in

this small republic of equal cabin passengers the undemocratic and
distinction-loving sex had managed to create a sham exclusiveness.
Mrs. Brimmer, as the daughter of a rich Bostonian, the sister of a
prominent lawyer, and the wife of a successful San Francisco merchant,
who was popularly supposed to be part-owner of the Excelsior, was
recognized, and alternately caressed and hated as their superior. A
majority of the male passengers, owning no actual or prospective
matrimonial subjection to those charming toad-eaters, I am afraid
continued to enjoy