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other," meaning that if camels were bad, carts were worse. We impressed a second vehicle. At 1 A.M. we were nearly at the end of our journey, and getting a little anxious about catching our train, when there was the sound of the rending of timber, and our cart reclined on its elbow, with one wheel in pieces. As there were no other wheels rolling about spare at that place and hour, we were saved all further anxiety about our train, and took another slow one that started several hours later, missed all connections, and left us at one of them stranded for twenty-four hours, and no food obtainable. After five days' travelling we reached our Hill station, appreciated sleeping under blankets at night, had our first view of the snows (a whole page of the journal goes to this), and enjoyed a good deal of ill-health, the fruits of our recent indiscretions. But we found time for another and final bêtise. Jones fell in love. I say nothing against that. A Queen's Birthday Ball was imminent, and we had no full dress, which we knew was necessary at such a function. The fairest of her sex was going to the ball. Jones, of course, wanted to go, and I, of course, wanted to go with Jones. We wrote to the A.D.C. of the giver of the ball as man to man, confiding to him our dilemma, and asking whether we might not come in plain clothes; we did not say anything about the girl. The

A.D.C. ought to have answered this appeal, but being a very great man, and not condescending to reply to such piffle as ours, we heard nothing further, took silence for consent, and went. I said to Jones, "Jones, we shall hear more of this anon." And Jones said to me, 'My dear fellow, she says it will really be quite all right.” We got back from that ball at 3 A.M., and started to rejoin our regiment at 6 A.M., our leave being up.

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Jones was very low. I said to him, "Believe me, old man, you'll get over it. Make an effort." To which he replied,

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Effort! what do you know about it? I don't want to make an effort, and if I did, it wouldn't be the slightest use." "Well," I said, "they mostly do in books and marry some one else quite happily in later life." To this he answered, with a dreadful, sneering, hollow laugh, "In books!" Rather a poignant silence fell after this. Then pulling himself together after a bit, he said, bit, he said, "Sorry, old chap. I'm afraid I was rather ratty just now. But I don't think you'll ever hear your old pal's boisterous laugh again. I doubt whether I shall ever smile even-except bitterly." He did not eat much of a breakfast at the station, but I could see he wanted to. And in the train, when he was not thinking, he gave a wan smile-not a bitter one-now and again. And next day he was brighter, and hummed a stave of "The girl he left

behind him," and then caught himself at it and looked guiltily at me, and launched out into torrents of drivel to cover his lapse. When we got back to the regiment, the rôle of the woeful countenance began to prove irksome. He would refer now to his episode as "my little affair," and said he supposed it was blood-pressure or something." And there were, of course, distractions. The Adjutant presented us with an official document, in which a military secretary set forth in ponderous terms the fact that we had attended a birthday ball in plain plain clothes.

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wanted our reasons in writing (as if we could have given them verbally, the ass). We had to go into the matter rather fully with the Colonel, who, on the whole, was decent about it, and the Adjutant helped us out with the reasons in writing. In these, of course, we ate mud, but we hoped we threw a little which stuck on the A.D.C. And then there was Jack and all those advances we had got out of him. In a cold-blooded, remorseless, and automatic way Jack cut them by instalments from our pay. He left us just enough to keep alive on for seven weary penurious months.

DRAKE: BY A CONTEMPORARY SPANISH HISTORIAN.

BY FREDERIC D. HARFORD, C.V.O.

THE remarkable discoveries by Mrs Zelia Nuttall in Spanish and Mexican archives of many contemporary reports of the doings of Sir Francis Drake showed that there was still probably a certain amount of material of that sort awaiting the skilled research worker. The results of Mrs Nuttall's researches are embodied in a volume of the Hakluyt Society published in 1914. Since then Mr Henry S. Wagner published in 1926 a most comprehensive work, Sir Francis Drake's Voyage around the World,' which, besides containing much new material, treats events connected with Drake in a thoroughly critical and judicial manner. A year later, Mr E. F. Benson followed with a popular life of our national hero.

A few years before either of the last-named works appeared a contemporary and hitherto unknown MS. poem on Drake came to light in somewhat romantic circumstances, and as no reference to it is made by these writers, it seems likely that its existence was unknown to them.

The facts are as follows. One Juan de Castellanos, born at Seville in 1522, went to the West Indies while still young and fought as a conquistador in many campaigns. Eventually he took orders, and from 1561 until his death in 1607 lived as

1 Seventy miles north of Bogotá.

parish priest at Tunja1 in the New Kingdom of Granada. He devoted his spare time at Tunja to writing a long poem in several Parts called "Elegias de Varones Illustres de Indias." The First Part was printed in Madrid in 1589, the Second and Third Parts had to wait till 1850 for publication.

It had long been known that there was a gap in the Elegies, and it was now noted that on the last page of the Elegy on Pedro Fernandez de Bustos, Governor of Cartagena in 1586, appeared the title of another Canto: "Il Discurso de el Capitan Francisco Draque," while on the opposite page were written the last three stanzas of this narrative. Further, a pen had been drawn through all the writing on these two pages, and it was apparent that the intervening pages had been removed by order of the Censor, who was none other than the famous navigator Don Pedro de Sarmiento, who was sent in pursuit of Drake when he was on the west coast of South America on his journey round the world. Sarmiento's signatures ordering the excision of these pages appear on the margin. There were no doubt good reasons of State for this act.

Drake was still alive and active, and the narrative showed him, on the whole, in a rather favourable light.

It was not, however, till Many conquistadores settled here.

1887 that Don M. A. Caro, a well-known critic of Juan de Castellanos, and a former resident of Colombia, called the attention of a Spanish historian, Señor Paez, to the fact that the missing MS. had been sold as Lot 667, for £4, 78., in January 1836 at an auction at Messrs Sotheby's of the famous Heber Library, to the no less famous bibliophile, Sir Thomas Phillipps of Middle Hill. On the latter's death the Library passed to his nephew in 1872, and it was not until 1916 that Señor Paez learnt, through the good offices of Dr Hagberg Wright, librarian of the London Library, that the MS. was still in the collection, but that the trustees had no power to sell it by private treaty.

Finally, news reached Madrid in June 1919 that the elusive MS. was included in a sale at Sotheby's of this collection, as Lot 146, but there was no time to bid for it, and this lot was sold to Mr Quaritch. Inquiries made elicited the welcome news that the MS. was still in the market, as he had exceeded the limit of a wouldbe purchaser, so that it was acquired in September 1919 for the Library of the Institute de Valencia de Don Juan,' a Madrid museum.

The MS. was published in 1921 by the Institute under the title of "Discurso de el Capitan Draque," by Juan de Castellanos, with an Introduction and copious notes: other contemporary documents from the Library of the Institute are included in it. Only 350 copies were printed, so that the book

is scarce, but copies are in the British Museum, Royal Geographical and London Libraries. The words "Bibliotheca Palmeriana, Londini 1745 " appear on the MS. It is the fact that this poem is apparently unknown to English readers that has induced the writer to call attention to its existence, in view of its historical value. The "Discurso " is the first Spanish poem on Drake, followed by Lope de Vega's poem in the year of Drake's death, and by several other Spanish poems subsequently. It was written between April 1586 and April 1587, that is to say within twelve months of Drake's departure from Cartagena. Unfortunately Castellanos wrote his poem in very poor doggerel, mostly in ottava rima, and the rest in terza rima, probably in imitation of Erzilla's fine Epic written in Chile.

The first canto begins with the expedition of Drake to the Spanish Main in 1572-73, describing him as the nephew (instead of cousin) of Sir John Hawkins, adding that he was said to have been page to the Duchess of Feria, born Jane Dormer. There is no proof of this assertion, except that Drake seems to have spoken Spanish well. He joined forces off Santa Marta with the searobber' James Ranse (though his name is not given), and captured a vessel commanded by Juan Nieto who had distinguished himself in the conquest of Peru. His crew pleads that he is a brilliant soldier, so Drake does not burn his ship, and sets him and his ship free.

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Drake seizes the caravel of Drake intercepted the CacaJuan de Chaves with six slaves fuego, commanded by San Juan on board, which the latter de Antón, with a million in refuses to sell; the ship is set on gold and silver. Drake said, fire, and all are set at liberty. Give me what is mine," and Soon afterwards Chaves, in com- treated the captured crew with mand of a Spanish frigate with courtesy and urbanity, giving another vessel, is despatched them stuffs and other articles from Cartagena to bring Drake seized on board, and offered to to book. It is stated by Lope give a receipt, as Philip owed de Vega that Drake spent some him much for what he did to time in disguise at Nombre de Sir John Hawkins (called Juan Dios while preparing a raid de Acle) and Drake himself at on the mule-teams with bul- St Juan de Ulua.1 lion; while Castellanos asserts that Drake spent forty days in an inn at Panama, studying the place and going about openly, and that he witnessed several documents there under assumed name.

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In December 1577 Drake sailed on his journey round the world, and Castellanos says Drake, after passing through the Straits of Magellan, called at Arica, where he found too much opposition and sailed away:

The Governor of Arica sent a messenger by land to warn the Viceroy at Lima of the corsair's arrival. But the Mayor of Pachacama thought the news false and put the messenger in prison. Drake was thus able to seize the vessels lying at Callao, on arrival at that port. The alarm was great and all fled to Lima, taking what they could carry with them. One woman only called the fugitives cowards, and when the youths pointed out that they had no arms nor even fuses, she tore her bonnet into strips and twisted them into fuses.

In bidding farewell to Antón,
Castellanos makes Drake say-
"Y di que digo yo que no ay estrecho
Sino mar ancho y el camino hecho.
Es viaje que ya se yo de coro
Con todas sus derrotas y sus vias.”

This statement means that Drake knew there was open sea south of the Archipelago south of the Magellan Straits, and not a continent as had been generally supposed. When Drake passed through the Straits into the Pacific he met with a terrible gale which lasted for many days, and he was forced to drive before it southwards, and may have reached, almost if not quite, the latitude of Cape Horn. (See Wagner on this very interesting subject.)

Drake also captured a vessel from China with chinaware, silks, and other stuffs. Later on, at Cartagena, he lamented the fondness of the Spaniards for china tableware, as it was of no value as loot. However, he took some cases of china for use on board on this occasion. Another vessel he took was going from Panama to Soon after leaving El Callao Nicaragua, la len with wines; he 1 An islet near Vera Cruz, Mexico, where the Spaniards in 1567 treacherously des troyed Hawkins' and Drake's squadron.

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