Nats

“ The rewards destined to the faithful after their death are exactly proportionate to their merits and the real worth of their deeds. The seats of Nats, placed immediately above the seat of men, but under the sixteen seats reserved to the perfect, are opened to the pious Upasaka who migrates from the seat of probation and trial. The nature of the pleasures enjoyed in the Nats’ seats are all referable to the senses. ”

“ The wildest, most fertile, and inventive imagination seems to have exhausted its descriptive powers, on the one hand, in multiplying the pleasures enjoyed in the seats of Nats, and beautifying and adorning those delightful regions ”

“ Believing in the three precious things, Buddha, the Law, and the Assembly of the perfect, I make this offering, that I may be delivered from all present and future miseries. May all beings existing in the four states of punishment reach the fortunate seats of Nats. I wish all my relatives and all men inhabiting this and other worlds to have a share in this meritorious work. ”

“ The six abodes of Nats are places of sensual pleasure and enjoyments. In the sixteen seats of Rupa are to be met those beings whose delights are of a more refined and almost purely spiritual nature, though retaining as yet some slight affections for matter. In the four seats of Arupa are located those beings who are wholly disentangled from material affections, who delight only in the sublimest contemplation, soaring, as it were, in the boundless regions of pure spiritualism. ”

“ Flowers will be offered sometimes, and a little water or rice maybe, to the Nat, never supposing that he is in need of such things, but as a courteous and graceful thing to do; for it is not safe to offend these Nats, and many of them are very powerful. There is a Nat of whom I know, whose home is in a great tree at the crossing of two roads, and he has a house there built for him, and he is much feared. He is such a great Nat that it is necessary when you pass his house to dismount from your pony and walk to a respectful distance. If you haughtily ride past, trouble will befall you. ”

“ You must make your way by different routes to Nantes. There are many villages on the bank where you can find a boat that will take you across. Never travel more than two together. You must all take the green ribbons off your hats, leave your belts behind, and hide your pistols. If questions are asked you, reply that you are going to get work at Nantes, where you have friends, and that you are afraid to stay in your own villages.
"I will give each of you assignats for five francs. It would not do to give you silver. With this you can pay for your ferry across the water, and buy food on the way. ”

“ Here she hesitated, and paused.
"What is it?" questioned Natsatt.
"I have been wondering how you, a white man, can love Owindia. There must be so many maidens of your own race beyond the mountains of the rising sun. I know so little, while they must be so wise and beautiful."
"Oh, that's what's troubling you," Natsatt laughed, pressing her hands more firmly in his. "But I am as much an Indian, nay more so, than you are. I speak several Indian languages better than the English; I was born in the wilderness, and have spent most of my life there. ”

“ When the Loire glistens under the caressing rays of the setting sun, and the roof-tops of the town are all of a reddened gold, Nantes might indeed be even now the mediæval capital that it was before the age of steam and electricity, which sound the only modern notes to be heard here. At night the spectacle is far more dramatic, with the streets and quays lit by countless lamps; the subdued murmur of the workaday world, now all but gone to rest; for an occasional shriek from a locomotive or a wail from the siren of some great steamer dropping down-river with the tide is all that one hears. ”

“ Nantes itself now is akin to a desert—a desert wherein the air is filled with weird sounds of cries and of moans, of furtive footsteps scurrying away into dark and secluded byways, of musketry and confused noises, of sorrow and of lamentations.
Nantes is a city of the dead—a city of sleepers. Only Carrier is awake—thinking and devising and planning shorter ways and swifter, for the extermination of traitors. ”

“ The citizens of Nantes were never tired of gaping at the carriage—a huge C-springed barouche—at the coachman's fine caped coat of bottle-green cloth and at the horses with their handsome harness set off with heavy brass bosses: they never tired of bandying words with the successive coachmen as they mounted their box and gathered up the reins, or with the postilions who loved to crack their whips and to appear smart and well-groomed, in the midst of the squalor which reigned in the terror-stricken city. ”

“ She died many, many years ago; but her niece, when I asked about Nat Bowditch, told me how her aunt used to love him for his earnestness in pursuing his studies, and for his gentleness, while under her care. He was “a nice boy,” she used to say. While in Danvers, his father was most of the time at [14] sea, he having been obliged to give up his trade and become a sailor when the Revolutionary War broke out. [1] Nat lived, during his father’s absence, very happily with his mother and his brothers and sisters. ”

“ His old suit did not at all impair his sense of hearing, nor obscure the language of the orator. He never heard better in his life, and, in but few instances, never felt himself better paid for his effort to hear an oration.
It was known in the shop, before work began in the afternoon, that Nat had gone just as he was [Pg 264] to hear the eulogy, and it created some merriment.
"He is a real book-worm," said one; "he always carries a book in his pocket to read when he is not at work." ”

“ Nat said scornfully. "They wouldn't surprise men that knew their business; but those chaps would just jump out of their boats, as if they was landed on a quay at New York, and would scatter about among the bushes. Why, Lord bless you, the Indians might ambush and tomahawk the lot, before they had time to think of opening their lips to give a shout." ”

“ Nantes was turned into a city of wailing; peasant-women—mothers, sisters, daughters, wives of the condemned, trooped from their villages into the city, loudly calling on M. le duc for mercy, besieging the improvised court-house, the prison gates, the town residence of M. le duc, the palace of the bishop: they pushed their way into the courtyards and the very corridors of those buildings—flunkeys could not cope with them—they fought with fists and elbows for the right to make a direct appeal to the liege-lord who had power of life and death over their men. ”

“ Houses were then built outside the old city walls, docks and quays sprang up along the river, and at last a cathedral appeared high on the hill which dominates the city.
The location of Nantes, only fifty-five kilometers from the sea, and at the junction of the railroad lines from Bordeaux, Brest, St. Nazaire and Paris, with direct communication with Brest by canal, made it an advantageous freight port, and great quantities of food and ammunition passed through it before and after the armistice. ”

“ An hour later, in intensest midnight blackness, through which the lights in the streets shone at intervals, Nat found his way through the night-time, with faltering footsteps, as one scarce waked from a dream. He must find his sister, his mother, and give them what help he could; in time he might be able to think how to help himself. ”

“ He arrived at Port Natal, all youth and joy and buoyancy. Seen from the deck of the vessel, when she anchored in the beautiful harbour, calm as a lake, Natal looked a very paradise. Ranges of hills on the west of the fair town were dotted with charming houses and pleasure grounds; and Roland landed fresh and full of hope as a summer's morning: just as too many an emigrant from the dear old mother-country does land, at other parts besides Natal. ”

“ The Nāt hung his head, and the judge proceeded, saying—
"Why have you come from your own world, taking upon yourself this form and shape, thereby causing so much pain and unhappiness to two innocent people?"
The Nāt, seeing that he could no longer carry on his course of deception, answered—
"In the season of the sun, and in that of the rain, for a greater time than I can count, I have lived in a tree in the forest, where this woodman comes every day. ”

“ There are a hundred possibilities of poverty and wealth, and they make the most unexpected combinations.
The great treasure of Nantes is the two noble se- pulchral monuments which occupy either transept, and one of which has (in its nobleness) the rare distinction of being a production of our own time. On the south side stands the tomb of Francis II., the last of the Dukes of Brittany, and of his second wife, Margaret of Foix, erected in 1507 by their daughter Anne, whom we have encountered already at the Chateau de Nantes, where she was born; at Langeais, where she married her first husband ”

“ Nat always felt strongly upon this point. He [Pg 21] very early learned that rich men, and those occupying posts of honor, were thought more of by many people, whether they were deserving or not, and it seemed to him wrong. He thought that one good boy ought to stand just as high as another, though his parents were poor and humble, and that every man should bear the guilt of his own deeds whether he be king or servant. Out of this feeling grew his interest in the aforesaid dialogue, and he was willing to take the place of the robber for the sake of the pleasure of "showing up" the king. ”

“ Both the young slave and his friends averred that a full knowledge of the alphabet came to him in a single night. Impressed with the belief that his mission was a religious one, and this impression strengthened by the advice of his grandmother, a pious but ignorant woman, Nat commenced preaching when about twenty-five years of age, but never went beyond his own master’s locality. In stature, he was under the middle size, long-armed, round-shouldered, and strongly marked with the African features. ”

“ To return: our residence near Nantes would have possessed an infinite charm for a less absorbed mind. This beautiful spot, this great liberty of work, this solitude, so sweet in such society, formed a rare harmony, such as one but seldom meets with in life. ”

“ As Wild Nat untied the halter of his steed from the horns of a buffalo, he suddenly straightened himself up, and bounding into the saddle, exclaimed:
“Look thar! We’re in for a race.”
Kent turned, and looked in the direction indicated, and saw, not forty rods distant, a large band of mounted Indians coming toward them at a furious gallop.
“Turn toes!” shouted Nat. “Don’t let the grass grow under yer feet nuther,” and in an instant the three were flying over the prairie, followed by the whooping savages. ”

“ In population (town, 118,244; commune, 133,247, in 1906) Nantes is the first city of Brittany. The Loire here divides into several branches forming islands over portions of which the city has spread. It receives on the left hand the Sèvre Nantaise, and on the right the Erdre, which forms the outlet of the canal between Nantes and Brest. The maritime port of Nantes is reached by way of the Loire and the ship canal between the island of Carnet and La Martinière (91/2 m.) ”

“ By night in Nantes the Rain-bow shall appear,
Sea Rain-bows shall cause Rain;
The Arabian Gulf shall drownd a great Fleet,
A Monster shall be in Saxony from a Bear and a Sow. ANNOT. Nantes is a City in France, Iris is the Rainbow, Saxony is a Province in Germany; the rest is plain.
XLV.
French. ”

“ Nat's trail was so mixed up with that of the company who had occupied the ground the previous day that the new-comers perceived nothing to arouse their suspicions.
It was extremely irksome to Golden Arrow to lie crouched under the bank all the time the new-comers were kindling their fires, broiling their venison and feeding their horses such forage as they had; he had rather have darted upon them like the weapon after which they had named him; but, brave as he was, he knew that one white man was a poor match for thirty Indians, and he restrained his hatred and impatience as best he could ”

“ And if he don't, I've spent many a night in worse places than this."
"P'raps part of us better go on," suggested one of the emigrants. "We can choose the camp, build the fire, and be getting [Pg 17] things comfortable for the rest. It's like we'll kill a buffalo, and have a j'int roasted by the time you come up."
"I'd advise you not to part your forces," said Nat, quietly. "There's Indians about, and they're not particularly friendly. But don't be frightened, child," he added, as he saw Elizabeth grow pale again. "I don't think they'll venture upon any thing worse than begging. ”

“ The first of my recollective powers placed me in the central portion of the city of Nantes, on the Loire River, in France, where I still recollect particularly that I was much cherished by my dear stepmother, who had no children of her own, and that I was constantly attended by one or two black servants, who had followed my father from Santo Domingo to New Orleans and afterward to Nantes. ”

“ Overhead windows were thrown open—the good burghers of Nantes, awakened from their sleep, forgetful for the nonce of all their anxieties, their squalor and their miseries, leaned out to see what this new kind of din might mean. From everywhere—it almost seemed as if some sprang out of the earth—men, either of the town-guard or Marats on patrol duty, or merely idlers and night hawks who happened to be about, yielded to that primeval instinct of brutality which causes men as well as beasts to join in a pursuit against a fellow creature. ”