XXXI. Letters, 1891, To Howells, Mrs. Clemens And Others. Return To Literature. American Claimant. Leaving Hartford. Europe. Down The Rhine
Clemens was still not without hope in the machine, at the beginning of the new year (1891) but it was a hope no longer active, and it presently became a moribund. Jones, on about the middle of February, backed out altogether, laying the blame chiefly on Mackay and the others, who, he said, had decided not to invest. Jones “let his victim down easy” with friendly words, but it was the end, for the present, at least, of machine financiering.
It was also the end of Mark Twain’s capital. His publishing business was not good. It was already in debt and needing more money. There was just one thing for him to do and he did it at once, not stopping to cry over spilt milk, but with good courage and the old enthusiasm that never failed him, he returned to the trade of authorship. He dug out half-finished articles and stories, finished them and sold them, and within a week after the Jones collapse he was at work on a novel based an the old Sellers idea, which eight years before he and Howells had worked into a play. The brief letter in which he reported this news to Howells bears no mark of depression, though the writer of it was in his fifty-sixth year; he was by no means well, and his financial prospects were anything but golden.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Hartford, Feb. 24, ’91
Dear Howells, – Mrs. Clemens has been sick abed for near two weeks, but is up and around the room now, and gaining. I don’t know whether she has written Mrs. Howells or not – I only know she was going to – and will yet, if she hasn’t. We are promising ourselves a whole world of pleasure in the visit, and you mustn’t dream of disappointing us.
Does this item stir an interest in you? Began a novel four days ago, and this moment finished chapter four. Title of the book:
“Colonel Mulberry Sellers. American Claimant Of the Great Earldom of Rossmore’ in the Peerage of Great Britain.”
Ys Ever,
Mark.
Probably Mark Twain did not return to literary work reluctantly. He had always enjoyed writing and felt now that he was equipped better than ever for authorship, at least so far as material was concerned. There exists a fragmentary copy of a letter to some unknown correspondent, in which he recites his qualifications. It bears evidence of having been written just at this time and is of unusual interest at this point.
*****
Fragment of Letter to —, 1891:
…. I confine myself to life with which I am familiar when pretending to portray life. But I confined myself to the boy-life out on the Mississippi because that had a peculiar charm for me, and not because I was not familiar with other phases of life. I was a soldier two weeks once in the beginning of the war, and was hunted like a rat the whole time. Familiar? My splendid Kipling himself hasn’t a more burnt-in, hard-baked, and unforgetable familiarity with that death-on-the-pale-horse-with-hell-following-after, which is a raw soldier’s first fortnight in the field – and which, without any doubt, is the most tremendous fortnight and the vividest he is ever going to see.
Yes, and I have shoveled silver tailings in a quartz-mill a couple of weeks, and acquired the last possibilities of culture in that direction. And I’ve done “pocket-mining” during three months in the one little patch of ground in the whole globe where Nature conceals gold in pockets – or did before we robbed all of those pockets and exhausted, obliterated, annihilated the most curious freak Nature ever indulged in. There are not thirty men left alive who, being told there was a pocket hidden on the broad slope of a mountain, would know how to go and find it, or have even the faintest idea of how to set about it; but I am one of the possible 20 or 30 who possess the secret, and I could go and put my hand on that hidden treasure with a most deadly precision.
And I’ve been a prospector, and know pay rock from poor when I find it – just with a touch of the tongue. And I’ve been a silver miner and know how to dig and shovel and drill and put in a blast. And so I know the mines and the miners interiorly as well as Bret Harte knows them exteriorly.
And I was a newspaper reporter four years in cities, and so saw the inside of many things; and was reporter in a legislature two sessions and the same in Congress one session, and thus learned to know personally three sample bodies of the smallest minds and the selfishest souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes.
And I was some years a Mississippi pilot, and familiarly knew all the different kinds of steam-boatmen – a race apart, and not like other folk.
And I was for some years a traveling “jour” printer, and wandered from city to city – and so I know that sect familiarly.
And I was a lecturer on the public platform a number of seasons and was a responder to toasts at all the different kinds of banquets – and so I know a great many secrets about audiences – secrets not to be got out of books, but only acquirable by experience.
And I watched over one dear project of mine for years, spent a fortune on it, and failed to make it go – and the history of that would make a large book in which a million men would see themselves as in a mirror; and they would testify and say, Verily, this is not imagination; this fellow has been there – and after would cast dust upon their heads, cursing and blaspheming.
And I am a publisher, and did pay to one author’s widow (General Grant’s) the largest copyright checks this world has seen – aggregating more than £80,000 in the first year.
And I have been an author for 20 years and an ass for 55.
Now then; as the most valuable capital or culture or education usable in the building of novels is personal experience I ought to be well equipped for that trade.
I surely have the equipment, a wide culture, and all of it real, none of it artificial, for I don’t know anything about books.
(No signature.)
Clemens for several years had been bothered by rheumatism in his shoulder. The return now to the steady use of the pen aggravated his trouble, and at times he was nearly disabled. The phonograph for commercial dictation had been tried experimentally, and Mark Twain was always ready for any innovation.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Hartford, Feb. 28, ’91.
Dear Howells, – Won’t you drop-in at the Boylston Building (New England Phonograph Co) and talk into a phonograph in an ordinary conversation-voice and see if another person (who didn’t hear you do it) can take the words from the thing without difficulty and repeat them to you. If the experiment is satisfactory (also make somebody put in a message which you don’t hear, and see if afterward you can get it out without difficulty) won’t you then ask them on what terms they will rent me a phonograph for 3 months and furnish me cylinders enough to carry 75,000 words. 175 cylinders, ain’t it?
I don’t want to erase any of them. My right arm is nearly disabled by rheumatism, but I am bound to write this book (and sell 100,000 copies of it – no, I mean a million – next fall) I feel sure I can dictate the book into a phonograph if I don’t have to yell. I write 2,000 words a day; I think I can dictate twice as many.
But mind, if this is going to be too much trouble to you – go ahead and do it, all the same.
Ys ever,
Mark.
Howells, always willing to help, visited the phonograph place, and a few days later reported results. He wrote: “I talked your letter into a fonograf in my usual tone at my usual gait of speech. Then the fonograf man talked his answer in at his wonted swing and swell. Then we took the cylinder to a type-writer in the next room, and she put the hooks into her ears and wrote the whole out. I send you the result. There is a mistake of one word. I think that if you have the cheek to dictate the story into the fonograf, all the rest is perfectly easy. It wouldn’t fatigue me to talk for an hour as I did.”
Clemens did not find the phonograph entirely satisfactory, at least not for a time, and he appears never to have used it steadily. His early experience with it, however, seems interesting.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Hartford, Apl. 4, ’91.
Dear Howells, – I’m ashamed. It happened in this way. I was proposing to acknowledge the receipt of the play and the little book per phonograph, so that you could see that the instrument is good enough for mere letter-writing; then I meant to add the fact that you can’t write literature with it, because it hasn’t any ideas and it hasn’t any gift for elaboration, or smartness of talk, or vigor of action, or felicity of expression, but is just matter-of-fact, compressive, unornamental, and as grave and unsmiling as the devil.
I filled four dozen cylinders in two sittings, then found I could have said about as much with the pen and said it a deal better. Then I resigned.
I believe it could teach one to dictate literature to a phonographer – and some time I will experiment in that line.
The little book is charmingly written, and it interested me. But it flies too high for me. Its concretest things are filmy abstractions to me, and when I lay my grip on one of them and open my hand, I feel as embarrassed as I use to feel when I thought I had caught a fly. I’m going to try to mail it back to you to-day – I mean I am going to charge my memory. Charging my memory is one of my chief industries….
With our loves and our kindest regards distributed among you according to the proprieties.
Yrs ever,
Mark.
P. S. – I’m sending that ancient “Mental Telegraphy” article to Harper’s – with a modest postscript. Probably read it to you years ago.
S. L. C.
The “little book” mentioned in this letter was by Swedenborg, an author in whom the Boston literary set was always deeply interested. “Mental Telegraphy” appeared in Harper’s Magazine, and is now included in the Uniform Edition of Mark Twain’s books. It was written in 1878.
Joe Goodman had long since returned to California, it being clear that nothing could be gained by remaining in Washington. On receipt of the news of the type-setter’s collapse he sent a consoling word. Perhaps he thought Clemens would rage over the unhappy circumstance, and possibly hold him in some measure to blame. But it was generally the smaller annoyances of life that made Mark Twain rage; the larger catastrophes were likely to stir only his philosophy.
The Library of American Literature, mentioned in the following letter, was a work in many volumes, edited by Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson.
*****
To Joe T. Goodman:
April (?) 1891.
Dear Joe, Well, it’s all right, anyway. Diplomacy couldn’t have saved it – diplomacy of mine – at that late day. I hadn’t any diplomacy in stock, anyway. In order to meet Jones’s requirements I had to surrender the old contract (a contract which made me boss of the situation and gave me the whip-hand of Paige) and allow the new one to be drafted and put in its place. I was running an immense risk, but it was justified by Jones’s promises – promises made to me not merely once but every time I tallied with him. When February arrived, I saw signs which were mighty plain reading. Signs which meant that Paige was hoping and praying that Jones would go back on me – which would leave Paige boss, and me robbed and out in the cold. His prayers were answered, and I am out in the cold. If I ever get back my nine-twentieths interest, it will be by law-suit – which will be instituted in the indefinite future, when the time comes.
I am at work again – on a book. Not with a great deal of spirit, but with enough – yes, plenty. And I am pushing my publishing house. It has turned the corner after cleaning $50,000 a year for three consecutive years, and piling every cent of it into one book – Library of American Literature – and from next January onward it will resume dividends. But I’ve got to earn $50,000 for it between now and then – which I will do if I keep my health. This additional capital is needed for that same book, because its prosperity is growing so great and exacting.
It is dreadful to think of you in ill health – I can’t realize it; you are always to me the same that you were in those days when matchless health, and glowing spirits and delight in life were commonplaces with us. Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope-tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
With love to you both from us all.
Mark.
Mark Twain’s residence in Hartford was drawing rapidly to a close. Mrs. Clemens was poorly, and his own health was uncertain. They believed that some of the European baths would help them. Furthermore, Mark Twain could no longer afford the luxury of his Hartford home. In Europe life could be simpler and vastly cheaper. He was offered a thousand dollars apiece for six European letters, by the McClure syndicate and W. M. Laffan, of the Sun. This would at least give him a start on the other side. The family began immediately their sad arrangements for departure.
*****
To Fred J. Hall (manager Chas. L. Webster & Co.), N. Y.:
Hartford, Apl. 14, ’91.
Dear Mr. Hall, – Privately – keep it to yourself – as you, are already aware, we are going to Europe in June, for an indefinite stay. We shall sell the horses and shut up the house. We wish to provide a place for our coachman, who has been with us a 21 years, and is sober, active, diligent, and unusually bright and capable. You spoke of hiring a colored man as engineer and helper in the packing room. Patrick would soon learn that trade and be very valuable. We will cease to need him by the middle or end of June. Have you made irrevocable arrangements with the colored man, or would you prefer to have Patrick, if he thinks he would like to try?
I have not said anything to him about it yet.
Yours,
S. L. C.
It was to be a complete breaking up of their beautiful establishment. Patrick McAleer, George the butler, and others of their household help had been like members of the family. We may guess at the heartbreak of it all, even though the letters remain cheerful.
Howells, strangely enough, seems to have been about the last one to be told of their European plans; in fact, he first got wind of it from the papers, and wrote for information. Likely enough Clemens had not until then had the courage to confess.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Hartford, May 20, ’91.
Dear Howells, – For her health’s sake Mrs. Clemens must try baths somewhere, and this it is that has determined us to go to Europe. The water required seems to be provided at a little obscure and little-visited nook up in the hills back of the Rhine somewhere and you get to it by Rhine traffic-boat and country stage-coach. Come, get “sick or sorry enough” and join us. We shall be a little while at that bath, and the rest of the summer at Annecy (this confidential to you) in Haute Savoie, 22 miles from Geneva. Spend the winters in Berlin. I don’t know how long we shall be in Europe – I have a vote, but I don’t cast it. I’m going to do whatever the others desire, with leave to change their mind, without prejudice, whenever they want to. Travel has no longer, any charm for me. I have seen all the foreign countries I want to see except heaven and hell, and I have only a vague curiosity as concerns one of those.
I found I couldn’t use the play – I had departed too far from its lines when I came to look at it. I thought I might get a great deal of dialogue out of it, but I got only 15 loosely written pages – they saved me half a days work. It was the cursing phonograph. There was abundance of good dialogue, but it couldn’t befitted into the new conditions of the story.
Oh, look here – I did to-day what I have several times in past years thought of doing: answered an interviewing proposition from a rich newspaper with the reminder that they had not stated the terms; that my time was all occupied with writing, at good pay, and that as talking was harder work I should not care to venture it unless I knew the pay was going to be proportionately higher. I wish I had thought of this the other day when Charley Stoddard turned a pleasant Englishman loose on me and I couldn’t think of any rational excuse.
Ys Ever,
Mark.
Clemens had finished his Sellers book and had disposed of the serial rights to the McClure syndicate. The house in Hartford was closed early in June, and on the 6th the family, with one maid, Katie Leary, sailed on the Gascogne. Two weeks later they had begun a residence abroad which was to last for more than nine years.
It was not easy to get to work in Europe. Clemens’s arm remained lame, and any effort at writing brought suffering. The Century Magazine proposed another set of letters, but by the end of July he had barely begun on those promised to McClure and Laffan. In August, however, he was able to send three: one from Aix about the baths there, another from Bayreuth concerning the Wagner festival, and a third from Marienbad, in Bohemia, where they rested for a time. He decided that he would arrange for no more European letters when the six were finished, but would gather material for a book. He would take a courier and a kodak and go tramping again in some fashion that would be interesting to do and to write.
The idea finally matured when he reached Switzerland and settled the family at the Hotel Beau Rivage, Ouchy, Lausanne, facing Lake Leman. He decided to make a floating trip down the Rhone, and he engaged Joseph Very, a courier that had served him on a former European trip, to accompany him. The courier went over to Bourget and bought for five dollars a flat-bottomed boat and engaged its owner as their pilot. It was the morning of September 20, when they began their floating-trip down the beautiful historic river that flows through the loveliest and most romantic region of France. He wrote daily to Mrs. Clemens, and his letters tell the story of that drowsy, happy experience better than the notes made with a view to publication. Clemens had arrived at Lake Bourget on the evening before the morning of their start and slept on the Island of Chatillon, in an old castle of the same name. Lake Bourget connects with the Rhone by a small canal.
*****
Letters and Memoranda to Mrs. Clemens, in Ouchy, Switzerland:
Sept. 20, 1891.
Sunday, 11 a.m.
On the lake Bourget – just started. The castle of Chatillon high overhead showing above the trees. It was a wonderfully still place to sleep in. Beside us there was nobody in it but a woman, a boy and a dog. A Pope was born in the room I slept in. No, he became a Pope later.
The lake is smooth as glass – a brilliant sun is shining.
Our boat is comfortable and shady with its awning.
11.20 We have crossed the lake and are entering the canal. Shall presently be in the Rhone.
Noon. Nearly down to the Rhone. Passing the village of Chanaz.
3.15 p. m. Sunday. We have been in the Rhone 3 hours. It is unimaginably still and reposeful and cool and soft and breezy. No rowing or work of any kind to do – we merely float with the current – we glide noiseless and swift – as fast as a London cab-horse rips along—8 miles an hour – the swiftest current I’ve ever boated in. We have the entire river to ourselves – nowhere a boat of any kind.
Good bye Sweetheart,
S. L. C.
Port de GROLEE, Monday, 4.15 p.m.
Sept. 21, 1891
Name of the village which we left five minutes ago.
We went ashore at 5 p. m. yesterday, dear heart, and walked a short mile to St. Geuix, a big village, and took quarters at the principal inn; had a good dinner and afterwards along walk out of town on the banks of the Guiers till 7.30.
Went to bed at 8.30 and continued to make notes and read books and newspapers till midnight. Slept until 8, breakfasted in bed, and lay till noon, because there had been a very heavy rain in the night and the day was still dark and lowering. But at noon the sun broke through and in 15 minutes we were tramping toward the river. Got afloat at 1 p. m. but at 2.40 we had to rush suddenly ashore and take refuge in the above village. Just as we got ourselves and traps safely housed in the inn, the rain let go and came down in great style. We lost an hour and a half there, but we are off again, now, with bright sunshine.
I wrote you yesterday my darling, and shall expect to write you every day.
Good-day, and love to all of you.
Saml.
On the Rhone below VILLEBOIS,
Tuesday noon.
Good morning, sweetheart. Night caught us yesterday where we had to take quarters in a peasant’s house which was occupied by the family and a lot of cows and calves – also several rabbits[37]. The latter had a ball, and I was the ball-room; but they were very friendly and didn’t bite.
The peasants were mighty kind and hearty, and flew around and did their best to make us comfortable. This morning I breakfasted on the shore in the open air with two sociable dogs and a cat. Clean cloth, napkin and table furniture, white sugar, a vast hunk of excellent butter, good bread, first class coffee with pure milk, fried fish just caught. Wonderful that so much cleanliness should come out of such a phenomenally dirty house.
An hour ago we saw the Falls of the Rhone, a prodigiously rough and dangerous looking place; shipped a little water but came to no harm. It was one of the most beautiful pieces of piloting and boat-management I ever saw. Our admiral knew his business.
We have had to run ashore for shelter every time it has rained heretofore, but Joseph has been putting in his odd time making a water-proof sun-bonnet for the boat, and now we sail along dry although we had many heavy showers this morning.
With a word of love to you all and particularly you,
Saml.
On the Rhone, below Vienna.
I salute you, my darling. Your telegram reached me in Lyons last night and was very pleasant news indeed.
I was up and shaved before 8 this morning, but we got delayed and didn’t sail from Lyons till 10.30—an hour and a half lost. And we’ve lost another hour – two of them, I guess – since, by an error. We came in sight of Vienne at 2 o’clock, several miles ahead, on a hill, and I proposed to walk down there and let the boat go ahead of us. So Joseph and I got out and struck through a willow swamp along a dim path, and by and by came out on the steep bank of a slough or inlet or something, and we followed that bank forever and ever trying to get around the head of that slough. Finally I noticed a twig standing up in the water, and by George it had a distinct and even vigorous quiver to it! I don’t know when I have felt so much like a donkey. On an island! I wanted to drown somebody, but I hadn’t anybody I could spare. However, after another long tramp we found a lonely native, and he had a scow and soon we were on the mainland – yes, and a blamed sight further from Vienne than we were when we started.
Notes – I make millions of them; and so I get no time to write to you. If you’ve got a pad there, please send it poste-restante to Avignon. I may not need it but I fear I shall.
I’m straining to reach St. Pierre de Boef, but it’s going to be a close fit, I reckon.
Afloat, Friday, 3 p.m., ’91.
Livy darling, we sailed from St. Pierre de Boef six hours ago, and are now approaching Tournon, where we shall not stop, but go on and make Valence, a City Of 25,000 people. It’s too delicious, floating with the swift current under the awning these superb sunshiny days in deep peace and quietness. Some of these curious old historical towns strangely persuade me, but it is so lovely afloat that I don’t stop, but view them from the outside and sail on. We get abundance of grapes and peaches for next to nothing.
Joseph is perfect. He is at his very best – and never was better in his life. I guess he gets discouraged and feels disliked and in the way when he is lying around – but here he is perfection, and brim full of useful alacrities and helps and ingenuities.
When I woke up an hour ago and heard the clock strike 4, I said “I seem to have been asleep an immensely long time; I must have gone to bed mighty early; I wonder what time I did go to bed.” And I got up and lit a candle and looked at my watch to see.
Afloat
2 Hours below Bourg st. Andeol.
Monday, 11 a.m., Sept. 28.
Livy darling, I didn’t write yesterday. We left La Voulte in a driving storm of cold rain – couldn’t write in it – and at 1 p. m. when we were not thinking of stopping, we saw a picturesque and mighty ruin on a high hill back of a village, and I was seized with a desire to explore it; so we landed at once and set out with rubbers and umbrella, sending the boat ahead to St. Andeol, and we spent 3 hours clambering about those cloudy heights among those worn and vast and idiotic ruins of a castle built by two crusaders 650 years ago. The work of these asses was full of interest, and we had a good time inspecting, examining and scrutinizing it. All the hills on both sides of the Rhone have peaks and precipices, and each has its gray and wasted pile of mouldy walls and broken towers. The Romans displaced the Gauls, the Visigoths displaced the Romans, the Saracens displaced the Visigoths, the Christians displaced the Saracens, and it was these pious animals who built these strange lairs and cut each other’s throats in the name and for the glory of God, and robbed and burned and slew in peace and war; and the pauper and the slave built churches, and the credit of it went to the Bishop who racked the money out of them. These are pathetic shores, and they make one despise the human race.
We came down in an hour by rail, but I couldn’t get your telegram till this morning, for it was Sunday and they had shut up the post office to go to the circus. I went, too. It was all one family – parents and 5 children – performing in the open air to 200 of these enchanted villagers, who contributed coppers when called on. It was a most gay and strange and pathetic show. I got up at 7 this morning to see the poor devils cook their poor breakfast and pack up their sordid fineries.
This is a 9 k-m. current and the wind is with us; we shall make Avignon before 4 o’clock. I saw watermelons and pomegranates for sale at St. Andeol.
With a power of love, Sweetheart,
Sam.
HotelD’EUROPE, Avignon,
Monday, 6 p.m., Sept. 28.
Well, Livy darling, I have been having a perfect feast of letters for an hour, and I thank you and dear Clam with all my heart. It’s like hearing from home after a long absence.
It is early to be in bed, but I’m always abed before 9, on this voyage; and up at 7 or a trifle later, every morning. If I ever take such a trip again, I will have myself called at the first tinge of dawn and get to sea as soon after as possible. The early dawn on the water-nothing can be finer, as I know by old Mississippi experience. I did so long for you and Sue yesterday morning – the most superb sunrise! – the most marvelous sunrise! and I saw it all from the very faintest suspicion of the coming dawn all the way through to the final explosion of glory. But it had interest private to itself and not to be found elsewhere in the world; for between me and it, in the far distant-eastward, was a silhouette mountain-range in which I had discovered, the previous afternoon, a most noble face upturned to the sky, and mighty form out stretched, which I had named Napoleon Dreaming of Universal Empire – and now, this prodigious face, soft, rich, blue, spirituelle, asleep, tranquil, reposeful, lay against that giant conflagration of ruddy and golden splendors all rayed like a wheel with the upstreaming and far-reaching lances of the sun. It made one want to cry for delight, it was so supreme in its unimaginable majesty and beauty.
We had a curious experience today. A little after I had sealed and directed my letter to you, in which I said we should make Avignon before 4, we got lost. We ceased to encounter any village or ruin mentioned in our “particularizes” and detailed Guide of the Rhone – went drifting along by the hour in a wholly unknown land and on an uncharted river! Confound it, we stopped talking and did nothing but stand up in the boat and search the horizons with the glass and wonder what in the devil had happened. And at last, away yonder at 5 o’clock when some east towers and fortresses hove in sight we couldn’t recognize them for Avignon – yet we knew by the broken bridge that it was Avignon.
Then we saw what the trouble was – at some time or other we had drifted down the wrong side of an island and followed a sluggish branch of the Rhone not frequented in modern times. We lost an hour and a half by it and missed one of the most picturesque and gigantic and history-sodden masses of castellated medieval ruin that Europe can show.
It was dark by the time we had wandered through the town and got the letters and found the hotel – so I went to bed.
We shall leave here at noon tomorrow and float down to Arles, arriving about dark, and there bid good bye to the boat, the river-trip finished. Between Arles and Nîmes (and Avignon again,) we shall be till Saturday morning – then rail it through on that day to Ouchy, reaching the hotel at 11 at night if the train isn’t late.
Next day (Sunday) if you like, go to Basel, and Monday to Berlin. But I shall be at your disposal, to do exactly as you desire and prefer.
With no end of love to all of you and twice as much to you, sweetheart,
Saml.
I believe my arm is a trifle better than it was when I started.
The mention in the foregoing letter of the Napoleon effigy is the beginning of what proved to be a rather interesting episode. Mark Twain thought a great deal of his discovery, as he called it – the giant figure of Napoleon outlined by the distant mountain range. In his note-book he entered memoranda telling just where it was to be seen, and added a pencil sketch of the huge profile. But then he characteristically forgot all about it, and when he recalled the incident ten years later, he could not remember the name of the village, Beauchastel, from which the great figure could be seen; also, that he had made a record of the place.