Vendidad

“ No single existing manuscript contains all these complete; but the Yasna, Visperad, and Vendidad are usually found grouped together as a sort of prayer book, and are called Vendidad Sadah or 'Vendidad pure,' i. e. text without commentary; because when they are thus grouped for liturgical purposes the Avesta text is not accompanied by the rendering and comments in the Pahlavi language. Tradition claims that the original Zoroastrian Avesta was in itself a literature of vast dimensions. The Latin writer, Pliny, in his Natural History, speaks of 2,000,000 verses of Zoroaster. ”

“ Though tolerant, it could be austere. Meanness, thanklessness, loquaciousness, jealousy, an unbecoming attire, evil thoughts, whatever is sensual, whatever is coarse, any promenade in mud actual or metaphorical, severely it condemned. Particularly was avarice censured. "There are many who do not like to give," Ormuzd, in the Vendidad, confided to Zarathrustra. The high god added: "Ahriman awaits them."
Ahriman awaited also the harlot who, elsewhere, at that period, was holy. ”

“ Darab, the first disciple of Djamasp, and a Dastoor Mobed perfect in the knowledge of Zend and Pehlvi, wished to correct the Pehlvi translation of the Vendidad and rectify some portions of the Zend Text, which appeared to him either to have been transposed or to present useless repetitions. He began explaining to young Parsi theologians the works of Zoroaster, which the Mobeds read every day without understanding them. An enslaved people who for a long time practised a thousand ceremonies, the sense and reason of which they were ignorant of, would naturally fall into innumerable abuses. ”

“ Ignorance was the predominating vice of the Parsis of India. In order to remedy it, the Dastoor of Kirman formed some disciples, Darab at Surat, Djamasp at Naosari, and a third at Bharooch, to whom he taught Zend and Pehlvi. Some time after, tired of the contradictions which he had to endure, he returned to Kirman. The books which this Dastoor has left in India are an exact copy of the Zend and Pehlvi Vendidad, the Feroueschi, the translation of the Vadjerguerd, and the Nerenguestan. ”

“ It was impossible for la Vendée to pass the Loire. She could accomplish anything except this stride. Civil war does not conquer. Crossing the Rhine is the crowning work of Cæsar and the additional glory of Napoleon; crossing the Loire kills la Rochejaquelein.
The true sphere of la Vendée is within her own boundaries, there she is more than invulnerable, she is intangible. The Vendéan at home is a smuggler, a farmer, soldier, shepherd, poacher, sharpshooter, goatherd, bellringer, peasant, spy, assassin, sacristan, wild beast of the woods. ”

“ Their aristocracy, for the most part of only moderate possessions, lived amongst them rather like a race of kindly country squires than great lords, and the people were accordingly cordially attached to them. In March of the year 1793 the Convention called for a conscription of three hundred thousand, and the Vendéans, to a man, refused to serve under a Government that had persecuted both their priests and their seigneurs. This was the certain signal of civil war. Troops were ordered to march into La Vendée, and compel obedience. ”

“ Many men were talking of the state of the times, and of the wars to come; some were foretelling misery and desolation, and others were speaking of the happy days about to return, when their King and their priests should have their own, and La Vendée should be the most honoured province in France. ”

“ In his descriptions of the Vendée there is a chapter on “the spirit of the place” which shows his way of thinking; he demonstrates in fine flights of comprehensive statement that “the configuration of the soil decides many of man’s actions and the earth is more his accomplice than people believe...,” and he describes the difference that exists between the mountain insurgent like the Swiss, and the forest insurgent like the Vendean: “The one almost always fights for an ideal, the other for a prejudice. The one soars, the other crawls. The one combats for humanity, the other for solitude. ”

“ The Province of La Vendée contained a population of about three hundred thousand. It was a rural district where there was no middle class. The priests and the nobles had the unlettered peasantry entirely under their influence. Three armies were raised here against the Republic, of about twelve thousand each. Royalists from various parts of the empire flocked to this region, and emigrants were landed upon the coast to join the insurgents. For three years a most cruel and bloody war was here waged between the Royalists and the Republicans. ”

“ Under the old divisions of France Le Bocage formed part of the province of Poitou, and Le Loroux part of the provinces of Anjou and Bretagne: but when, at the revolution, France was divided into departments, these two districts were denominated La Vendée, Les deux Sèvres, La Loire Inférieure, and Mayenne and Loire.
La Vendée is an extremely interesting district, not merely on account of the singular and heroic warfare that was carried on there so long, but also from the appearance of the country, and the manners, opinions, and general character of its inhabitants ”

“ With regard to the department of La Vendée, whatever serves, trivial as it may be, to recall or illustrate the history of its wars and the character of its inhabitants, must ever possess a charm for those who delight to sympathize with the noble struggles of a gallant people, conscientiously devoting themselves to the cause of a fallen and persecuted monarchy, and resisting the cruel and destructive ferocity of a licentious enemy, who had broken down the most sacred fences of society, and trampled upon the dearest ties of human nature. ”

“ I had an opportunity to see a good deal of the country and many of the first people in the province and I must say they far excel in good sense, affability, and ease any set of men I have yet fallen in with, either in the West Indies or on the Continent, this, in some degree, may be owing to their being most of them educated at home (England) but cannot be altogether the cause, since there are amongst them many gentlemen, and almost all the ladies, who have never been out of their own province, and yet are as sensible, conversible, and accomplished as one would wish to meet with. ”

“ Viceroy lives in winter, and the dull streets of English shops where they sell things that are not quite good enough for England or quite bad enough for the Colonies; enter the squalid chaos of the Indian city, so ordinary and colourless compared to Bombay or Madras; pass through mile after mile of crowded bazaars, and teeming slums, and factories jumbled up with temples;—till at last the buildings begin, as it were, to shake themselves loose, green reappears, and when you come upon the river on your left, it looks almost clean and holy ”

“ Catholic La Vendée is striking. On both sides oppressed conscience, and religion trodden underfoot, placed arms in the hands of the people. Cathelineau, the driver, was the chief of the Vendéans, as the baker’s boy, Cavalier, was of the Cévenoles. Marshal de Villars and General Hoche could succeed in pacifying either revolt by moderation alone. But the camp of the Vendéans reckoned amongst its numbers the nobility and clergy; the Camisards had with them neither gentlemen nor pastors. ”

“ VENDÉE, WARS OF THE, a counter-revolutionary insurrection which took place during the French Revolution (q.v.) , not only in Vendée proper but also in Lower Poitou, Anjou, Lower Maine and Brittany. The district was mainly inhabited by peasants; it contained few important towns, and the bourgeois were but a feeble minority. The ideas of the Revolution were slow in penetrating to this ignorant peasant population, which had always been less civilized than the majority of Frenchmen, and in 1789 the events which roused enthusiasm throughout the rest of France left the Vendeans indifferent. ”

“ La Vendée, that land of devotion and sacrifice, is controlled by a numerous army supported by the population of the cities, which are almost wholly anti-legitimist; a rising of the peasantry could only end in devastating the country and in consolidating the present government by an easy victory.
"It is thought that if the mother of Henri V. be really in France she should hasten her departure as much as possible, after exhorting all the Vendéan leaders to keep absolutely quiet. ”

“ TO go from Nantes to La Rochelle you travel straight southward across the historic bocage of La Vendée, the home of royalist bush-fighting. The country, which is exceedingly pretty, bristles with copses, orchards, hedges, and with trees more spreading and sturdy than the traveller is apt to find the feathery foliage of France. ”

“ For our settlement had prospered and increased, the broad savannahs grew year by year into highly-cultivated cotton land; the sugar-cane nourished; coffee was grown; and as the plantations spread, the little settlement gradually developed into a town and fort, to which big ships came with merchandise from the old country, and took back the produce of our fields. Then as the town increased, and the forest disappeared in the course of years, we found ourselves in a position to laugh at the pretensions of the Spaniards. ”

“ Not so in La Vendée. When you have been here some time you will appreciate the truth of what I say. La Vendée is grave, cold, silent. All projects are discussed slowly, deliberately; the chances of success and defeat are each considered. Then, if La Vendée sees a prospect of success she holds out her hand, says yes, and dies, if need be, to fulfil her promise. But as she knows that yes and no are words of life and death to her, she is slow in uttering them."
"You forget enthusiasm, monsieur," said Petit-Pierre. ”

“ Vineta [1] was, so the story goes, an old fortified place by the sea, and the capital of an ancient nation. Her dominion extended over all the neighbouring coasts and over the waves, where she ruled supreme. Unparalleled in splendour and greatness, countless treasures flowed in to her from other lands; but pride, presumption, and the sins of her inhabitants brought down the chastisement of Heaven upon her, and she sank, swallowed up by the waves. Our sailors still affirm and vow that yonder, where the coast shelves back so far, the fortress of Vineta lies uninjured at the bottom of the sea. ”

“ VALENCIA & MURCIA THE OLD KINGDOM OF VALENCIA Shut in between the barren range of the Sierra Molina on the north, and the arid plains of Murcia to the south, the ancient Kingdom of Valencia is one of the regions of Spain least visited by the tourist. And yet, a flowering and fruitful Eden, it lies beneath a burning sun, its waters trained in obedience to the hand of man. It puts forth a vegetation of tropical luxuriance. ”

“ Consequently, in Trinidad there are many political agitators.
Visitors will land from their mail steamer at Port of Spain and find themselves in a foreign-looking British West Indian capital, in an atmosphere of tramways, telephones, suffocating heat, negroes, and spasmodic bustle and noise. It is a town containing buildings reminiscent of its Spanish, French, and British periods of Government. Houses in all the styles of each nationality will be found on every side. ”

“ Valenciana, where so many Spaniards, long since gone to whatever reward awaited them, waxed rich and built a church now golden brown with age, sat on its slope across the valley, down in which no one would have guessed huddled a city of some 60,000 inhabitants. Much nearer and a bit below drowsed the old town of Calderón, home of many of our peons, a bright red blanket hung over a stone wall giving a splash of brilliancy to the vast stretch of grayish, dull-brown, and thirsty green. ”

“ The gentry of La Vendee, instead of idling their time at Paris, lived on their own estates in kindly intercourse with their neighbours, and constantly helping and befriending their tenants, visiting them at their farms, talking over their crops and cattle, giving them advice, and inviting them on holidays to dance in the courts of their castles, and themselves joining in their sports. The peasants were a hardworking, sober, and pious people, devoutly attending their churches, reverencing their clergy, and, as well they might, loving and honoring their good landlords. ”

“ The prosperity of Valencia suffered its first severe{15} blow with the barbarous expulsion of the Moors at the command of Philip III. Another fell some time later when, on account of its strenuous opposition to the French claim to the Crown, Philip V. confiscated the liberties of the province and imposed an enormous fine.
But Valencia, though fallen from its old estate, is nevertheless to-day a thriving prosperous province; its capital is handsome and progressive. Busy life pulsates through the streets; the cafés are alive with the hum of voices. ”

“ Acres of the most fertile country in the world lie fallow within the confines of this island, whose name is written large in Britain’s naval history. Virgin forests of wild fruit trees still cover vast tracts of a country which one day will be claimed by English husbandmen. Like Jamaica, Dominica cries out for men—new men, new energy, new enterprise. In England we associate our West Indian islands with only a dead prosperity. In the West Indies one encounters ample evidence of present wealth and great promise of future riches. ”

“ In fact, the approach to Valencia, the Sultana of Spanish cities, is in Europe, perhaps, well-nigh unrivalled. The curtain rises, as we have seen, upon stony wastes and desert plains, and falls upon all that tropical vegetation which is peculiar to the beauteous climate and rich soil of Eastern Spain. This is the busiest part of the country; and besides the orange, lemon, palm, cactus, and pomegranate, we find rice, flax, corn, pepper, and tobacco growing in wild luxuriance, until the white gates of Valencia open to receive us. ”