Many stories are related of the daring exploits of these freebooters, both on the water and on the land; but there was generally a shade of difference in favor of the former, on the score of both courage and humanity; the "water rats" being almost exclusively English and Americans, and possessing both qualities by nature so strongly impressed, that they could never be entirely eradicated or smothered. The land robbers, on the other hand, were as exclusively native Chilenos, a mixture generally of Indian and Spaniard--a more detestable amalgamation the earth does not produce--if the devil was to cross the breed, it would rather improve it than otherwise. One of the most formidable, most blood-thirsty, and most successful of these pirates wound up his affairs not a great while before I arrived in the Pacific, Jack Ketch being his administrator.
Virtue? a fig! 'tis in ourselves that we are thus and thus.
James Longford was the eldest son of a merchant in the neighborhood of New York, who furnished in his own conduct one of those very rare instances of a mercantile man contented with what he has amassed, and willing to retire to private life to enjoy it. 'Tis true that merchants pretend to say, after having heaped up something like a million, that they continue in business for the sake of the employment of time and excitement of mind that it affords, and not for the lucre of gain; "sed non ego credulus illis," or, in plain English, "they may tell that to the marines, the sailors won't believe them." The thirst for gain increases with its gratification, as I could quote more Latin to prove; and not only does gratification increase the appetite, but it seems to _pucker up_ the heart, and contract the muscles of the hand, for your very rich man is almost invariably a very close and avaricious one, except when making public donations to institutions already bursting with wealth, when they know that their names and sums given will go the rounds of the public prints under the head of "munificent donations." How delicious is flattery, even when thrown down one's throat with a shovel!
But they are stingy in another way, that brings with it its own punishment--they starve themselves. I know of several of your half million folks, not a thousand miles from where I now sit, whose table does not cost them fifty cents a day, and that too with tolerably numerous families. I was once ill-advised enough to dine with a gentleman of this description, in a sister city, in consequence of his repeated and pressing invitations. We had part of a fore-quarter of very small mutton boiled, with a small modicum of potatoes; one man could have eaten the whole. To be sure, I had a glass of "London particular" Madeira after dinner, if it deserves the name, but as soon as I had done I made my excuses--"indispensable business--obliged to go out of town, &c." and fled to an eating-house, where I satisfied what Dan Homer emphatically calls the "thumos edodes," the madness of appetite, with something more to the purpose than lean mutton.