of eternity. And herein lies the use of biography: to tell us what we are, and what we are not. All progress commences with self-knowledge. Any other startingpoint is false and rotten, and will disappoint us miserably. Biography should reveal the nobility and reality of life, the dignity of labor, and the necessity of laboring in love. It should kindle an undying emulation and a lofty ambition, and never fail to teach us the inner meaning of those majestic ideas comprehended in the short utterances, Duty and Hope. To those who regard biography in this light, the history of the life of Elisha Kent Kane will prove welcome and exalting ; for it is the record of a high life, and yet a simple one, which any one may follow; the story of an earnest man who preferred deeds to words, and never shrunk from duty, or fell from hope in any weakness or distress. What Napoleon said to Goethe when he met him, may be emphatically said of Kane, Monsieur, vous êtes un homme. To stand confessed a man, to fill up all the complex power and beauty of the term, to be what a man should be, act as a man should act, live and die as a man should live and die, is no easy task, but a life-long struggle. either higher in moral, or social, or civil for repose on some strong arm, while passworth, or he occupies a lower platforming through this trial of time, this winter from which, if he knows himself, he will reach upward with a lofty energy. Now this relative superiority and inferiority, which, in the moral world, corresponds to inequality in the physical, constitutes the very grounds by which we love or hate, fear or respect. But more, it is in the very heart of the separation of man from man; in the very depths of individuality, that we find that feeling whose exercise we call hero-worship, which makes us admire and love the qualities that we know we have not in ourselves; for who has what he most loves? Is not what every one most affects and desires, that glittering speck which "fades forever and forever as we move?" The sentiment of hero-worship is no modern theory. It has no existence in these democratic times, comparable to its influence when kingdoms, tyrannies, and even clans flourished. It was hero-worship which so deeply entered into the Greek mythology, which made gods of heroes; which clothed beauty and strength with immortality and life. Let us call it superstition, if we please; but it is this classic feeling, once religion to the old and simple dead, which still renders biography interesting, and life an eternal curiosity. For all interest is centered in difference; and we are most attracted by that which most leads us out of ourselves, while preserving our sympathies. And so a great human-hearted man enchains and delights us, because we see in him thoughts and deeds which we cannot claim as our own, for they are too high and strong for us; because he reveals to us something nobler than ourselves, to guide our hearts and purify our lives. We love to read of a life which does honor to our human family, or throws a light around a dark period; for a deep and health-giving feeling, too often deadened by habitual infamy, is the sense of our own uselessness and weakness, never so acutely felt as when we are confronted with the character and influences of some heroic man. For then we aspire to his proportions; we revere and wish for some one to take us by the hand and lead us to a purer land and company, such a society as, in fancy, we suppose him to have moved amongst. That vague unrest is awakened for which there is but one remedy; that longing to be dauntless and free, mingled with the desire Such was Kane, a man indeed, no loiterer in the field, but a worker who reaped many glorious harvests. Few were his days on earth; but his fruit was soon full ripe, and early was he garnered. Chivalrous, patient, and noble, he sank in his prime. Elisha Kane, the eldest of seven children, four of whom survived, was born in Philadelphia, on the 3d of February, 1820. His father, who died early in the present year, was judge of the eastern district of Pennsylvania. Of his infancy we are told no stories such as are narrated of men of genius, but sufficient is related to show that, in early years he exhibited decided tastes, which seem as if he foreknew what kind of life awaited him in the future, and systematically made preparation for it. He had the reputation of being a bad boy at school. He was independent, adventurous, high-spirited, and used his fists well when occasion required. He never bore with insult, and felt keenly, and acted vigorously, on behalf of the oppressed. Kane's life is all of a piece. There is no real childhood, youth, or manhood, no transition period. He is the same Dr. Kane from first to last, displaying at his death and throughout his course, the qualities which presided over his early years. He was, in a peculiar sense, self-educated. Some things he would not learn, and others he applied himself to with eagerness; for it is always found that a strong distaste for some branches of education indicates a strong natural faculty and inclination for others. He refused to run in the harness of school routine, but yet he was furthering his own education by his out-of-door pastimes and enterprises. He collected a cabinet of minerals, and furnished a small laboratory, and amused himself with experimental chemistry. All difficulties gave way before his perseverance. Yet Elisha's father, when he was thirteen years old, despaired of his success in life! His despair most probably continued till the boy was sixteen, for then it was that, feeling his deficiency in knowledge, he applied himself vigorously to pull up for loss of time. He entered the University of Virginia, and studied classics, mathematics, and the natural sciences, in all of which he displayed ability and proficiency. During the first year and a-half he had joined Professor Rogers, who was engaged on the geology of the Blue Mountains. Here he was enabled to practise his favorite studies, chemistry, mineralogy, and physical geography. Civil engineering was the profession he had chosen; but he was prevented from carrying his wishes into execution by a dangerous attack of endocarditis, or inflammation of the lining membrane of the heart, which shook him to his centre. With the advice of his friends he abandoned the idea of becoming an engineer, and applied himself to medicine. In his twentieth year he was appointed resident physician in the Pennsylvania hospital, where his zeal and cleverness soon gained him the respect and confidence of his superiors. A few months before he obtained his majority he had risen to be one of the senior resident surgeons, a responsible position for so young a man. The second chapter of the biography brings us down to his twenty-first year. A terrible heart disease clung to him through life with the tenacity of a viper. It first attacked him at Virginia College, and ever afterward his life was uncertain. His physician told him, "Elisha, you may fall as suddenly as from a musket-shot." He suffered acutely while at the Pennsylvania hospital. Any over exertion brought on a very loud bruit de soufflet, accompanied by a tumultuous action of the heart. He was unable to recline in a horizontal position, and slept with his head and shoulders elevated, so that his head was at right angles with his body; and he was never sure, when retiring to rest, that it was not for the last time that he closed his eyes. But this reflection caused him little or no uneasiness. He was determined to live, and "leave his mark on the world," and he worked down the disease through life by the sheer force of his character. Life had too much of interest for him; there was so much for him to do and to see, that he had no time to think of pain and infirmity. His was not the nature which would hasten departure from the world by surrendering to despondency. Kane's heart was early written upon by the heavenly finger. Sorrow and suffering bore blessed fruits, and gave him greater strength to fight the battle of existence even to the end. Religion had no weakening effect upon him. He sought it in no cloister or cell. He did not fight with demons in the desert, or submit his naked person to the fury of the elements. It was more than a name with him, it was a power. Kane never married, and the only allusion to such an idea is the following, which we extract in the words of Dr. M'Sheeters : On one occasion, when going the rounds of the out-wards or alms-house department, with Dr. Kane, we encountered a miserable, squalid, diminutive, and deformed pauper, who had married quite a good-looking woman in the house. As we passed this interesting couple, I jocosely asked the doctor what he supposed must be the contemplations of that woman as she beheld that miserable object, and reflected that he was her lord and master? He paused for a moment, and then replied in a serious tone, "It is to save some lady just such reflections as these, that I have made up my mind never to marry." After gaining great credit for his phy. siological research, Dr. Kane entered the United States Navy in 1843. His father, who knew his constitution, was persuaded that exposure and unrest would be sound hygienics for Elisha's delicacy, and had than two hundred feet from the platform he The very next thing was to get back with the trophies of his achievement. The smoking ashes gave way under him at every step of his return; a change in the air-currents stifled him with sulphurous vapors; he fell repeatedly; and before he got back to the spot where his rope was dangling, his boots were so charred that one of them went to pieces on his foot. He, however, succeeded in tying the bamboo round his waist, and was hauled up insensible. applied, without consulting his son, to the secretary of the navy, for a warrant of examination for the post of surgeon in the service. The board passed him, although he informed them that he labored under chronic rheumatism and cardiac disturbance. His first service was in the Brandywine," commissioned to carry Mr. Webster, as American minister, to China. The frigate put to sea in May, and touching at Madeira, made sail for Rio Janeiro. Here the doctor witnessed the coronation of the Emperor of Brazil, and journeyed to the eastern Andes, whose geological features he examined. His journal of this tour has unfortunately been lost. During a delay of some months at Bombay, Dr. Kane was up country exploring. He journeyed to Ellorah and Dowlatabad, crossed the Ghauts, and penetrated to the cave temples of Kaili, which lie on the coast opposite to the island of Salsette. He visited the island and caves of Elephanta; and crossing into Ceylon, where he waited for the frigate to pick him up, he shared in the elephant hunt, and the other amusements of the chase, in which he took a keen and sportsman-like relish. While the frigate lay at anchor at Macao, the doctor, providing a substitute to fill his post as physician to the legation, and furnished with letters of introduction to the prelates and foreign consuls at Manilla, crossed over to Luzon, the largest of the Phillipine islands, and was presently knee deep in explorations and enterprise. Dr. Kane traversed the island from Manilla to its Pacific coast, and, with his usual audacity, explored its fastnesses, bathed in the forbidden waters of its asphaltic lake, descended to the very bottom of its great volcano, and periled his life in a contest with a band of savages, who were incensed by his profanation of their sacred.down by rice fever, which so enfeebled mysteries. Our readers will be mistaken if they imagine that Kane was foolhardy merely for the love he bore to danger or excitement. His daring arose from a different cause, his love and taste for science, and his earnestness to penetrate the arcana of nature, to storm the goddess Egeria in her innermost hiding-places. His engineering education fostered his interest in mineralogy, chemistry, and geology, studies which he never omitted to carry on and take pleasure in. Industry and versatility chiefly characterized his labors. He had a wondrous way of adapting himself to the local questions and interests, whether modern or antiquarian, of the many countries which he traversed; and yet his heart delighted to live more with, and in the present, than among the fallen columns and ruined shrines of the past. 66 The objects of the embassy having been accomplished, and the Brandywine being about to return home, Dr. Kane resigned his post of physician to the legation. His heart was set on making an extended tour in the East; and to procure funds to enable him to do so, he practised as a physician at Whampoa, till he was stricken him that he resolved to return home. He left China in January, 1845, and visiting Singapore, Borneo, and Sumatra, landed again in India, where he spent some months exploring the interior of the continent. Returning to Calcutta, he joined himself to Prince Tajore, who was starting on a visit to the British queen. With him the doctor traversed Persia and Syria, and arrived in Egypt, where he bade his conductor farewell, resolving to tarry there a while. Historical and scientific research led his active spirit toward the region of the Upper Nile. Mahammed Ali gave him a special firman for his protection, and he started at once for the pyramids, Thebes, and the second cataract. His Egyptian tour was deeply interesting. He visited Thebes, Memnon, and the pyramids, was wounded by Bedouins, and attacked by the plague at Alexandria. Writing from Thebes, he says: I have been for some days wandering about in a state of amazement, unable profitably to see anything. Perhaps it may to you seem an absurdity; but there is something so vast in the dimensions of these colossal ruins, that I cannot embrace details; and, indeed, I almost fear that I shall leave Thebes without a definite impression of anything but magnitude. My paper is resting upon the enormous foot of one of the Osiride columns in the Memnonium; my breakfast, yet awaiting me, is on the other. Forty-eight columns are behind me, grouped around my bed; and the roof which they support throws its shadow upon this respectable epistle. I have taken lodgings in the palace temple of Sesostris. Kane was very ill at Alexandria, but his grip of life was too firm, and, as often before, and often afterward, he fought well again, on purpose as if to perform a gymnastic feat on the respectable statue of Memnon, which legends prettily say, always played a tune when the sun began to rise, an office which the Grecian mythology, perhaps to spite the Egyptian, in a spirit of sublime bathos, has made over to the barn-door cock. The statue of Memnon, a colossal granite figure, is in a sitting posture, measuring forty-five and a half feet in height. It is covered with inscriptions, which minister food to the curious. Dr. Kane observed a tablet or lapstone, jutting out between the knees, not lying on them, and supposing that the under surface might have hieroglyphics traced upon it, he determined on an inspection. For this purpose he must climb up between the knees, a mode of traveling up the statue hitherto unattempted, the usual course being to mount to the lap, by irregular projections at the back of the figure. swarm up the leg was impossible, for the calf was thirteen feet in circumference. There was but one practicable way, to plant his back against one leg, and his feet against the other, and so wriggle himself up. Adopting this method he achieved his purpose, and got a view of the tablet which so excited his curiosity; but whether he saw anything which made the peril worth the trouble we are not informed. To get down was now the difficulty; the lapstone projected too far out to admit of his climbing to the thighs, and To it was too thick to be clutched, so as to swing himself up, and the least relaxation of tension would have sent him down with a run. He had to wait in his horizontal position till a boatman returned with the Arab guide, who mounted by the back, and gaining the over-surface of the tablet, flung his sash within the doctor's reach, which he grasped, and swinging heavily out, was hauled in by the Arab. From Egypt the doctor passed into Greece. He made the tour of Greece on foot. Here is the route: From Athens to Eleusis, thence to Platea, to Leuctra, to Thebes, to Cheronæa, to Livadia: then to the top of Mount Helicon, and there cut a walking-stick from the brink of Hippocrene. Thence he passed on to Thermopyle, and the Zietoun Gulf, returned by Parnassus to the Delphic Oracle at Castri, descended to the plain by Galiaidi and Salona, crossed the Gulf of Lepanto in an open boat, visited Myaspelion and Kostitza, traversed the Morea thoroughly, and then took a steamer from Patias for Trieste, by the Adriatic Sea. Thence through Germany and Switzerland, where he made himself acquainted with the ice-formation of the Alps, a knowledge which afterward did him good service in Arctic voyages, and then through Paris to England, and so home. The winter of 1845-46, he passed in Philadelphia, practising as a doctor and lecturing in the city, a short repose which we fancy was anything but pleasant to him. War being declared with Mexico, he hastened to place himself under orders, expecting to be sent thither; but his hopes of active service were not realized. He was appointed to the "United States" frigate, which set sail in the month of May for the west coast of Africa, an insipid tropical region, which Kane detested heartily. He never forgave the navy department their injustice in condemning him to such a service, where he foreknew his health would be broken in upon; and his passion for exertion cramped. Yet even here he found employment and interest, and so the doctor visited the slave factories from Cape Mount to Bonnycastle, and, lighting upon an embassy to the King of Dahomey, he joined the caravan, and proceeded up country to visit the court. The king took a violent liking to Kane, and presented him with a semi-diadem of feathers and bracelets, decorated with royal crimson dye. But, as is often the case with strong love, it was not re turned, for there were many things at the court which shocked the manly heart of the doctor. One regal custom was the annual muster of all the women of the nation, on which occasion several hundreds were seized by the monarch, while the rejected, by a special grace, became the property of his grandees. Another custom, which more peculiarly witnesses to the degradation of the people, was the biennial festivals of slaughter, in which the king was high priest and chief executioner. His slaughter-house stood hard by his palace, covered with skulls, the trophies of his butcher skill. His temples suffered decoration from the same articles, and his sleeping apartments were paved with them. It was only at the doctor's earnest entreaty that he was dissuaded from exhibiting himself engaged in his favorite pastime. A sight of such cruelty and barbarity strongly impressed the doctor. It set him thinking, and he came to the conclusion that the negroes who were shipped as slaves to America were infinitely better off than those who remained at home. The intestine wars, he was convinced, were undertaken to procure victims for the altar, and not prisoners to sell as slaves. Religious feeling was stronger in their minds than avarice, and hundreds of the captives whom Kane saw caged at Dahomey, were too weak to be merchantable. In the spring of 1847 Dr. Kane was at home. He had overtaxed his strength in Africa, and he suffered from an attack of coast fever. He regarded this stroke of sickness as the most serious inroad ever made on his constitution. His health broke down completely, but his spirit never quailed. In the midst of bodily prostration his mind was erect, clear, and unassailable by fear. Long before he was reported convalescent, he suddenly quitted his father's house, and hurried to Washington, where he succeeded in procuring the transfer of his commission to the staff of the army then in the field, and carrying on the war against Mexico. It was the time when the city of Mexico had surrendered to General Scott, but, owing to the large number of enemies which ranged the country, communication between the general and Colonel Childs, who was besieged at Puebla, was interrupted. To Kane was intrusted the honorable duty of reaching General Scott's camp, and bearing to him a government despatch. This errand had already failed three times. Dr. Kane set out on the 6th of November, 1847, and, narrowly escaping shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico, landed at Vera Cruz. Striking inward, he overtook a body of men under General Armstrong, marching for the interior, and with these he advanced as far as Perote, where the corps halted. From this post he must proceed alone, but finding a renegade spy party, headed by Colonel Dominguez, he joined it, resolving, with their conduct, to pierce the enemy and reach Mexico, or to perish in the effort. All went well as far as Nopaluca, but here the party encountered a body of Mexican guerillas, who were escorting Generals Gaona and Torrejon. The doctor turned soldier, counseled the charge, and led it. The two forces met at the summit of a rising ground, which the spy company succeeded in cresting as their foes were on the point of gaining it. Down went man and horse on the side of the Mexicans. The combat was sharp and decisive. Kane, on his spirited gray charger, was carried far forward into the enemy, and was attacked by a major and his orderly at the same time. Parrying the major's thrust, he ran him through the bowels, while he received a flesh wound from the orderly. Meanwhile Dominguez's party, who fought as men will fight who are sure to be hanged, or otherwise turned off the stage of life, if they do not conquer, had routed the Mexicans. The two generals, and some forty men, remained as prisoners in the hands of the victors. In this battle Kane did more than exhibit the bravery of a soldier. He taught the spies the true spirit of a Christian victor, and of all true victory, the conquest of human passion. He had advised the engagement not to kill, but because it was necessary. His object was not to slaughter, but to carry his despatches. He was resolved to reach Mexico, and to communicate with General Scott, and here was an escort which, if it were not dispersed, must return against him with reinforced numbers, and cut him off. So a fight was inevitable, but he entered upon it in another spirit than that of the Mexican skinners who accompanied him. They thirsted for blood. Kane only desired a clear road. Traitors as they were, they were cowards too; and Kane had scarcely turned from the fight, |