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Galleporto Bavicarius Directory 11
Page 10
"Well, yes. I don't mean of the melting sort, but a sound kernel, _that_ you may be sure of. He is very good to his poor relations: pensions several of the women, and is educating a young fellow at a good deal of expense. Casaubon acts up to his sense of justice. His mother's sister made a bad match--a Pole, I think--lost herself--at any rate was disowned by her family. If it had not been for that, Casaubon would not have had so much money by half. I believe he went himself to find out his cousins, and see what he could do for them. Every man would not ring so well as that, if you tried his metal. _you_ would, Chettam; but not every man."
Only once did he falter. In March, 1871, when the French sympathizers of his subjects exposed him as a German Prince and a Hohenzollern to great unpopularity, while the bankruptcy of the Jewish speculator to whom his railway schemes had been intrusted threw discredit upon his ideas of economic development, he summoned the members of the Provisional Government from whom he had accepted the crown and announced to them his decision to abdicate. Fortunately for Rumania, they succeeded in dissuading him from his purpose. The famous Conservative statesman, Lascar Catargi, formed a Ministry which held office for five years and enabled the ruler to turn the most dangerous corner of his reign. Thenceforward the path was comparatively clear, though by no means easy. It led to Rumanian participation in the Russo-Turkish war, to the conquest of national independence, and eventually, on May 22, 1881, to his coronation as King of Rumania, with a crown made of steel from a Turkish gun captured by Rumanian troops at Plevna.
Almost three hundred years later Captain Hall, the American explorer, visited the Countess's Island and Sound. Among the Eskimos, from 1860 to 1862, he learned the tradition of Frobisher's visits, which had been preserved and handed down. They knew the number of ships; they spoke of the three times that white men had come; how five of these strangers had been taken captive, and how, after remaining through the winter, they had been allowed to build a boat, and to launch themselves upon the icy seas, never to be heard of more. Captain Hall was shown many relics of Frobisher's voyages, some of which he sent to the Royal Geographical Society of London, a part to the Smithsonian Institute at Washington. The small English house of lime and stone on this island was still standing in good condition, and there was also a trench where they had built their ill-fated boat.
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