Ghetto Tragedies Part 15

"You use a difficult Hebrew. But the general drift seemed to show you had caught the greatness of my conception."

"Ah, yes! I have lived in _Judenga.s.se_, oppressed and derided."

"But there is worse than oppression--there is inward stagnation of the spiritual life. My idea came to me in Tunis, where the Jews are little oppressed. You know President Madison appointed me consul of the United States for the city and kingdom of Tunis, one of the most respectable and interesting stations in the regencies of Barbary. I had long desired to visit the country of Dido and Hannibal, to trace the field of Zama, and seek out the ruins of Utica,--whose sites I believe I have now successfully established,--but it was my main design to investigate the condition of the Barbary Jews, of whom, you will remember, we have no account later than Benjamin of Tudela's in the thirteenth century. But do not stand--take a chair. Well, I found our brethren--to the number of seven hundred thousand--controlling everything in Barbary, farming the revenue, regulating the coinage, keeping the Dey's jewels and almost his person,--in short, anything but persecuted, though, of course, the majority were miserably poor.

They did not know I was a Jew--though Secretary Monroe recalled me because I was, and it was Monroe's doctrine that Judaism would be an obstacle to the discharge of my functions. Absurd! The Catholic priest was allowed to sprinkle the Consulate with holy water: the barefooted Franciscan received an alms, nor did I fail to acknowledge by a donation the decorated branch sent on Palm Sunday by the Greek Bishop.

And as for the slaves, I a.s.sure you they were not backward in coming to ask favours. The only people who never came to me were precisely the Jews. I went about among them incognito, so to speak, like Haroun Alraschid among his subjects; hence I was able to see all the evils that will never be eliminated till Israel is again a nation."

"Ah! your words are the words of wisdom. You touch the root of the evil. It is what I have always told them."

Noah rose to his feet, displaying a royal stature in harmony with his broad shoulders. "Yes, I resolved it should be mine to elevate my people, to make them hold up their heads worthily in this century of freedom and enlightenment."

"It is the Ark of the Convenant, as well as of the Deluge, which will rest on Ararat!"

"True--and like the first Noah, I may become the progenitor of a new world. I have communications from the four corners of the earth. You are the type of thousands who will flee from the rotting tyrannies of Europe into the great free republic which I shall direct."

He began to pace the room. Peloni had visions of great black lines of pilgrims converging from every quarter of the compa.s.s.

"But this Grand Island--is it yours?" he inquired timidly.

"I have bought thousands of acres of it--I and a few others who believe in the great future of our people."

"Jews?"

"No, not Jews--capitalists who know that we shall become the commercial centre of the new world,--that is, of the world of the future."

Peloni groaned. "And Jews will not believe? We must go to the Gentiles. Jews will only put their money into Gentile schemes; will build always for others, never for themselves. It is the same everywhere. Alas for Israel!"

"It is what I preach. Why administer Barbary for a savage Dey when you can administer Grand Island for yourself? Seven hundred thousand Jews in savage Barbary, and throughout these vast free States not seven thousand. Ah, but they will come; they will come. Ararat will gather its millions."

"But will there be room?"

"The State of New York," replied Noah, impressively, "is the largest in the Union, containing forty-three thousand two hundred and fourteen square miles divided into fifty-five counties and having six thousand and eighty-seven post-towns and cities together with six million acres of cultivated land. The const.i.tution is founded on equality of rights.

We recognize no religious differences. In our seven thousand free schools and gymnasia, four hundred thousand children of every religion are being educated. Here in this great and progressive State the long wandering of my beloved people shall end."

"But Grand Island itself?" murmured Peloni feebly.

"Come here," and Noah unrolled a great map. "See, how n.o.bly it is situated in the Niagara River, near the world-famed Falls, which will supply water-power for our machinery. It is twelve miles long and from three to seven broad, and contains seventeen thousand acres. Lake Erie is two hundred and seventy miles long and borders New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, as well as Canada. And see! by navigable streams this great lake is connected with all that wonderful chain of lakes. By short ca.n.a.ls we shall connect with the Illinois and Mississippi, and trade with New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico.

Through the Ontario--see here!--we traffic with Quebec, Montreal, and touch the great Atlantic. The Niagara Falls, as I said, turn our machinery. The fur trade, the lumber trade, all is ours. Our cattle multiply, our lands wave with harvests. We are the centre of the world, the capital of the future. And look! See what the _Albany Gazette_ says: 'Here the Hebrews can have their Jerusalem without fearing the legions of t.i.tus. Here they can erect their Temple without dreading the torches of frenzied soldiers. Here they can lay their heads on their pillows at night without fear of mobs, of bigotry and persecution.'"

Peloni drew a long breath, enraptured by this holy El Dorado, sparkling on the map, amid its tributary lakes and rivers.

"You will see the eighteenth chapter of Isaiah fulfilled," Noah went on. "For what is the 'land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,' which shall send messengers to a nation scattered and peeled? What but America, shadowing us with the wings of its eagle? As it is written elsewhere, 'I will bear thee on eagle's wings.' It is true the English Bible translates 'Woe to the land,' but this is a mistranslation. It should be 'Hail to the land!' Also the word '_goumey_' they translate 'bulrushes'--'that sendeth messengers in vessels of bulrushes!' But does not '_goumey_' also mean 'rush, impetus?' And is it not therefore a prophecy of those new steam-vessels that are beginning to creep up, one of which has just crossed from England to India? Erelong they will be running between America and all the world. It is the Lord making ready for the easy ingathering of His people. Ay, and along these lakes"--the Prophet's finger swept the map--"will be heard the panting of mighty steam-monsters, all making for Ararat. By the way, Ararat lies here,"

and he indicated a spot of the island opposite Tonawanda on the mainland.

Peloni bent down and poetically pressed his lips to the spot, like Jehuda Halevi kissing the holy soil.

"There is no one in possession there?" he inquired anxiously.

"Maybe a few Iroquois Indians," said Noah. "But they will not have to be turned out like the Hitt.i.tes and Amorites and Jebusites by our ancestors."

"No?" murmured Peloni.

"Of course not. They are our own brothers, carried away by the King of a.s.syria. There can be not the slightest doubt that the Red Indians are the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel."

"What?" cried Peloni, vastly excited.

"I shall publish a book on the subject. Yes, in wors.h.i.+p, dialect, language, sacrifices, marriages, divorces, burials, fastings, purifications, punishments, cities of refuge, divisions of tribes, High-Priests, wars, triumphs--'tis our very tradition."

"Then I suppose one could lodge with them. I am anxious to settle in Ararat at once."

"You can scarcely settle there till the forest is cleared," said the great man, arching his eyebrows.

"The forest!" repeated Peloni, taken aback.

"Ah, you are dismayed. You are a European, accustomed to ready-made cities. We Americans, we change continents while you wait, build up Aladdin's palaces over-night. As soon as I can manage to go over the ground I will plan out the city."

"You haven't been there yet?" gasped Peloni.

"Ah, my dear Peloni. When should I find time to travel all the way to Buffalo,--a busy editor, lawyer, playwright, what not? True, the time that other men give to domestic happiness the President of the Old Bachelors' Club is able to give to his fellow-men. But the slow ca.n.a.l voyage--"

At this moment there was a knock at the door, and a servant inquired if Major Noah could see his tailor.

"Ah, a good augury!" cried the major. "Here is the tailor come to try on my Robe of Governor and Judge of Israel."

The man bore an elaborate robe of crimson silk trimmed with ermine, which he arranged about Noah's portly person, making marks with pins and chalk where it could be made to fit better.

"Do you like it?" said Noah, puffing himself out regally.

Peloni's uneasiness vanished. Doubt was impossible before these magnificent realities. Ah! the Americans were wonderful.

"I had to go through our annals," Noah explained, "to find which period of our government we could revive. Kings.h.i.+p was opposed to the sentiment of these States: in the epoch of the Judges I found my ideal. Indeed, what is the President of the United States but a _Shophet_, a Judge of Israel? Ah, you are looking at that painting of me--I shall have to be done again in my new robes. That elegant creature who hangs beside me is Miss Leesugg, the Hebe of English actresses, as she appeared in my 'She would be a Soldier, or the Plains of Chippewa.' There is a caricature of my uncle, Aaron J.

Phillips, as the Turkish Commander in my 'Grecian Captive.' Dear me, shall I ever forget how he tumbled off that elephant! Ha! ha! ha!

That is Miss Johnson, in my 'Yusef Carmatti, or the Siege of Tripoli.'

The black and white is a fancy sketch of 'Marion, or the Hero of Lake George,' a play I wrote for the reopening of the Park Theatre and to celebrate the evacuation of New York by the British in 1783."

"Ah, I was there, Major," said the tailor. "It was bully. But the house was so full of generals and colonels you could hardly hear a word."

"Fortunately for me," laughed Noah. "Yes, I asked them to come in full uniform for the _eclat_ of the occasion. Which reminds me--here is a ticket for you."

"For the play?" murmured Peloni, as he took it.

Noah started and looked at him keenly. But his flush of anger faded before Peloni's innocent eyes. "No, no," he explained; "for the opening ceremony of the foundation of Ararat."

Peloni's black eyes shone.

"There will be a great crush and only ticket-holders can be admitted into the church."

"Into the church!" echoed Peloni, paling.