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MORE PRAISE FOR HADITH 'It is impossible to understand the Islamic tradition without getting some knowledge of the sciences of hadith. In this fascinating introduction, Jonathan A. C. Brown provides the reader with the necessary means to navigate between the traditional framework and contemporary issues. A brilliant essay written by a widely-acknowledged scholar in the field.' Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies, University of Oxford 'A must read and a great read. The combination of impeccable, critical scholarship with a storyteller's style has produced an introductory volume that is both substantive and remarkably engaging.' John L. Esposito, Founding Director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University 'A comprehensive study of the scholarship throughout Islamic history dealing with the traditions of the Prophet. A combination of critical analysis and informed understanding that presents a significant new perspective on a much-debated subject.' John O. Voll, Professor Emeritus of Islamic History, Georgetown University FOUNDATIONS of ISLAM Series Editor: Omid Safi Other Titles in this Series Pilgrimage in Islam: Traditional and Modern Practices by Sophia Rose Arjana The Qur'an: An Introduction by Anna M. Gade Shar'iah Law: An Introduction by Mohammad Hashim Kamali ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jonathan A. C. Brown is Associate Professor and Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization at Georgetown University. He is the author of Misquoting Muhammad, which is also published by Oneworld. He lives in Washington, DC. Hadith Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World Jonathan A. C. Brown 'Whoever has preserved one life, it is as if he has saved all of humanity.' Quran 5:32 To Julia Taft My godmother and the noblest woman I have known... CONTENTS Preface to the Revised Edition Preface Conventions, Abbreviations, and Transliteration 1. The Prophet's Words Then and Now: Hadith and Its Terminology 2. The Transmission and Collection of Prophetic Traditions 3. The Methods and History of Hadith Criticism 4. Prophetic Traditions in Shiite Islam 5. The Function of Prophetic Traditions in Islamic Law and Legal Theory 6. The Function of Prophetic Traditions in Theology 7. The Function of Prophetic Traditions in Sufism 8. The Function of Prophetic Traditions in Politics 9. The Authenticity Question: Western Debates over the Historical Reliability of Prophetic Traditions 10. Debates over Prophetic Traditions in the Modern Muslim World 11. Conclusion Glossary Bibliography Illustrations Acknowledgments PREFACE The science of hadith is a noble one, and generations of scholars far, far more capable and devoted than I have dedicated their lives to transmitting, analyzing, and sorting through the legacy attributed to Muhammad. One could spend a lifetime reading the works of scholars like al-Bukhārī, al-Dhahabī, and Ibn Hajar, and two lifetimes trying to keep up with them. Matching their accomplishments is inconceivable to me. I can only hope that this book provides an adequate introduction to their work and the influence it has had on Islamic civilization. Students and colleagues always ask me whether the Sunni hadith tradition provides an accurate representation of Muhammad's teachings. In truth, I can only say that projects such as this book are part of my search for the answer to that question. As the Chinese art collector Lu Shih-hua (d. 1779 CE) once wrote, such matters 'came to us from the ancients. The ancients are gone, and we cannot raise them from the Nether World to question them. So how can we arrive at the truth without being vain and false in our wrangling noisily about it?'1 Jonathan A. C. Brown Khādim al-hadīth al-sharīf Sana, Yemen, 2007 ENDNOTE 1 Wen Fong, 'The Problem of Forgery in Chinese Painting: Part One,' p. 99. CONVENTIONS, ABBREVIATIONS, AND TRANSLITERATION Dates in this book will follow the Hijrī/Common Era format, where the first date (the Hijrī date) is that of the Islamic lunar calendar, which begins with Muhammad's emigration to Medina in 1/622. Obviously, pre-Islamic dates will follow the standard Before Common Era (BCE) and Common Era (CE) dating system. After the 1700s CE we no longer include Hijrī dates as they serve little use after that point. Abbreviations used in this book include 'b.' for the Arabic 'ibn,' or 'son of...', and (s) for the honorific Arabic phrase 'May the peace and blessings of God be upon him (sallā Allāh 'alayhi wa sallam),' which is commonly said and written after Muhammad's name. The transliteration characters in this book represent the long vowels in Arabic and Persian: ā, ī, and ū. The ' character represents a simple glottal stop, like the initial sounds of both syllables in 'uh oh.' The ' symbol indicates the Arabic letter 'ayn, a sound that resembles the 'Aaah' noise a person makes when getting their throat checked by the doctor. In Arabic and Persian words, 'q' represents a voiceless uvular sound produced at the back of the throat and is non-existent in English. One could most closely approximate this sound with the 'c' sound at the beginning of the crow noise 'caw! caw!' 'Gh' indicates a sound similar to the French 'r', and 'kh' represents a velar fricative like the sound of clearing one's throat. 'Dh' indicates the 'th' sound in words like 'that' or 'bother.' 'Th' represents the 'th' sound in words like 'bath.' PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION It has been almost ten years since I wrote the preface to the first edition of this book, sitting in an upper-floor room in a house in Sana, the red and orange light bathing the battered furniture through colored glass. How much the world has changed, how much people have suffered, and how many of the pillars of my own world have fallen. Sana is bombed and besieged. Its already impoverished people starve. Syria lies in ruins beyond tragedy. Egypt, the place I felt most at home, has mutated from the warm and open world of deep knowledge that drew me in, to a kitschy-dark caricature of mid-twentieth-century fascism. Those Egyptian scholars from whom I had benefited and learned so much have either died or become loyal servants of a dictatorship that only fools and the myopically vicious could embrace. So then either my teachers were fools, in which case, does the knowledge they imparted to so many have any value? Or they were vicious, in which case, can such a vessel truly carry 'this knowledge, which is religion,' without sullying it? How does one make sense of things when one's exemplars make choices that seem so profoundly wrong? I've long pondered this, and the answer I'm led to again and again is both comforting and supremely disturbing. The political sphere appears of supreme import. Men triumph or are humiliated or killed; innocent women and children suffer unspeakable abuse; war is fought, peace is made, prosperity nurtured or squandered. But in the vaulted chamber of ideas, of knowledge, this sphere occupies just a portion of one of many shelves. Some who have brought great misery in human history have aimed only at satisfying themselves, but far more have been pursuing the same abstract goods as their righteous, often martyred, opponents. Bond villains are often very well intentioned. Political trauma, as total as it is, is created less by ideas than by their interpretation and implementation. Like all those who have reflected on human polity, my teachers valued both justice and order. But order had priority for them. Others would put justice first. This is a question of priority, and it has consequences. But, phrased like this in the abstract, reasonable people can disagree. And in that small space of disagreement the dimensions of our world are warped in inversion, and endless wrongs and suffering are inflicted. All on part of one shelf in the great library of our human heritage and its divine inspiration. As impossible as it seems, as impossible as it is for me, we must keep our political disagreements in perspective. A report in Sahih al-Bukhārī describes how, as Islam's first, bloody civil war erupted, there was a diplomatic meeting. On one side was 'Ammār bin Yāsir, who would soon die in the war, and on the other Abū Mūsā and Abū Mas'ūd. The two men say to 'Ammār, 'In all the time since you've been Muslim, we haven't seen you undertake anything more distasteful to us than your haste in this matter.' 'Ammār replies, 'And I haven't seen from you two, since the time you became Muslims, anything more distasteful to me than your hesitation on this matter.' Then Abū Mas'ūd dresses each of the other two in robes, and they all head off to the mosque for prayer.1 Enough serious talk! What does this new edition have that the old one doesn't? First, I've fixed as many of the errors or oversights as possible. Second, it includes an entirely new chapter on the role of hadith in politics. Third, I've significantly expanded the section on the development of the Western Historical Critical Method in Chapter 9. I've also added a new case study on hadith authentication at the end of Chapter 3. Finally, I've replaced some of the examples and case studies throughout the book with new ones that are either more varied or more interesting. Jonathan A. C. Brown Khādim al-hadīth al-sharīf Istanbul, 2017 ENDNOTE 1 Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-fitan, bāb 19. THE PROPHET'S WORDS THEN AND NOW: HADITH AND ITS TERMINOLOGY 'We have a question,' the man said, his rural accent betraying the long trip he must have made from his provincial hamlet to the metropolis of Cairo. 'We have built a school for boys and girls,' the man continued, sitting cross-legged on the carpet with his eyes angled reverently upward at the scholar seated in the sturdy wooden chair before him. 'But some members of our community say that we cannot allow the girls to attend because they will mix with the boys in the hallways. Are we allowed to open the school?' The man waited anxiously, as did the students seated deferentially around the scholar, I among them. The fall of 2003 was unusually hot, and the hesitant breezes that penetrated the wooden lattice walls were welcomed by all. The scholar, a middle-aged man who would soon be elevated to one of the most influential religious positions in the Sunni Muslim world, the chief jurisconsult (muftī) of Egypt, leaned down towards the tape recorder that the man had dragged with him on his long journey. 'Do you have the Nile down where you are?' the scholar asked. 'Yes,' the man replied. 'Listen, then, whoever you are who objects to opening this school to girls,' the scholar said into the recorder, 'go throw yourself in the Nile! For did the Messenger of God, may the peace and blessings of God be upon him, not say "Do not prevent the female servants of God from the mosques of God"?'1 For over a thousand years Muslim peasants, merchants, and princes have flocked to the vaulted rooms that line the great courtyard of Cairo's al-Azhar Mosque to seek the counsel of the ulema, those scholars who define Islamic faith and religious law. Seated in this courtyard on a fall day in 2003, the future 'Grand Mufti of the Egyptian Lands' could look back on over fourteen hundred years of the Islamic religious tradition, that corpus of scholarship that elucidated the message brought by Muhammad and is one of the world's most elaborate and rich intellectual edifices. In responding to the question of this simple man, the mufti could draw from the capacious tradition of Islamic legal discourse: the bodies of law of the four major Sunni legal schools, the obscure opinions of medieval scholars long eclipsed by time, or the general principles that governed Islamic law and its derivation. Although his mind was no doubt scanning this abundant legal heritage as he pondered the man's question, the scholar did not reply with any high legal language or dry legal ruling. Instead, he answered the man with the words of a figure whom Muslims are taught from childhood to love and venerate as a moral exemplar and object of devotion, a person 'dearer to them than their own child or parents.'i The scholar reached back through the centuries to the words of the Prophet Muhammad, words that he knew would resonate in this simple man's heart as clearly as the day they were first spoken and would lay all the concerns of his rural community to rest. Even amid the confusion of the modern world, today as before, 'the Prophet of God is most worthy of being followed.'2 Muhammad's precedent has been invoked in places and times far distant from the Nile Valley. His words speak with compelling power throughout the Muslim world, among Sunnis and Shiites alike. A year after I had heard the future 'Grand Mufti of the Egyptian Lands' issue his opinion, I sat in the lush courtyard of the Khan Madrasa in the ancient Persian city of Shiraz, discussing issues of Islamic thought with an Imami Shiite cleric. As the morning sun shone on the intricate floral tiles of the mosque's vaulted enclosure, we were debating whether or not 'Alī, the Prophet's son-in-law and well-spring of the Shiite tradition, possessed revealed knowledge of future events. 'The Commander of the Faithful, 'Alī, may God's blessings be upon him, knew that oil would be found in these lands and that "steel birds would fly",' the Shiite cleric expounded energetically. 'This knowledge he got from the Messenger of God, his teacher, for did the Messenger not say, "I am the city of knowledge and 'Alī is its gate. So whoever seeks knowledge let him approach it by its gate"?'3 Among Western readership, the question 'What does Islam say about' some issue is usually followed by reference to the Quran. A Western journalist writing about the dress habits of Egyptian women informs us that wearing the headscarf is not an injunction from the Quran,4 while pundits discussing jihad note that the Quran says 'slay the unbelievers wherever you find them' (Quran 9:5). Certainly, to Muslims the Quran is the literal word of God. It is a text revered to such an extent that many Muslims memorize it in its entirety as children, and many Muslims believe that a state of ritual purity is required to touch its pages. Yet the Quran is not the source to which a curious reader should refer in order to answer the question 'What does Islam say about' a particular issue. The Quran is not a book of law, and many tenets of Islamic theology are never mentioned in the holy book. To consult the Quran is only to get part of the picture. Large portions of the Islamic legal, theological, and popular religious traditions come not from the book that Muslims hold to be God's revelation, but rather from the legacy of Muhammad, whom they believe God chose to explain and elucidate His message through word and deed. It is in his teachings that we find Muslim dress codes as well as the rules and restrictions for holy war. The normative legacy of the Prophet is known as the Sunna, and, although it stands second to the Quran in terms of reverence, it is the lens through which the holy book is interpreted and understood. In this sense, in Islamic civilization the Sunna has ruled over the Quran, shaping, specifying, and adding to the revealed book. Understanding how the message of Islam spread outward from Arabia in the seventh century and how it nurtured the various legal, theological, mystical, and cultural dimensions of Islamic civilization must begin with the study of the heritage left by Muhammad. For much of Islamic history, the unit through which the Sunna was preserved, transmitted, and understood has been the hadīth (Arabic plural, ahādīth), or a report describing the words, actions, or habits of the Prophet. Unlike the Quran, the hadiths were not quickly and concisely compiled during and immediately after Muhammad's life. Because hadiths were recorded and transmitted over a period of decades and even centuries, they are not in and of themselves contemporary historical documentation of what Muhammad said and did. In the century after the Prophet's mission, the Muslim community passed through no less than three civil wars and numerous sectarian schisms. As a result, hadiths were forged by different parties trying to manipulate the authority of the Sunna. The question of the authenticity of hadiths and how one can distinguish true ones from forgeries has been a perennial concern to both the Muslim scholars who turned to the Sunna to elaborate the Islamic tradition and Western scholars who have studied it. The tool that Muslim scholars developed to help ensure the authenticity of hadiths was the isnād (Arabic, 'support'), or the chain of transmitters through which a scholar traced the matn, or text, of a hadith back to the Prophet. The isnād was an effort to document that a hadith had actually come from Muhammad, and Muslim scholars from the eighth century until today have never ceased repeating the mantra 'The isnād is part of the religion – if not for the isnād, whoever wanted could say whatever they wanted.' The Prophet's words, however, have always been more than just a type of proof used in discussions of Islamic law and dogma. The isnād and the hadith it transmits have been more than fodder for debates over authenticity and means of establishing it. For the Muslim scholarly class, the ulema, tracing the isnād of a hadith back to Muhammad is to follow one's genealogy of sacred knowledge back to its source. It is a medium of connection to the Prophet, 'the beloved of God,' and a link to the scholarly titans of the past. Even today, reciting one's isnād is to walk back in memory through the pantheon corridor of great scholars whose labors had built up Islamic tradition. The students who sat gathered around the future Mufti of Egypt on that hot fall day in Cairo had each folded gingerly a piece of paper listing the scholar's isnād back to the earliest hadith collection, the Muwatta' of Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/796), and from that eighth-century author through his isnāds back to the Prophet. Each paper stated that the Mufti had given these students permission to transmit the hadiths in the collection via his isnād. By hearing this book of hadiths through the Mufti's chain of transmission, these students had become part of the timeless tradition of passing knowledge from one generation to the next. For over a thousand years, Muslim students, 'the seekers of knowledge,' have traveled from city to city in the Muslim world to hear hadiths recited by master scholars, receive their permission to transmit them, and be incorporated into the living isnād tradition. In the summer of 2007 I traveled from Egypt across the Red Sea to the sweltering, sandy coastal plain of Tihama in Yemen. There I made my way inland to the ancient trading city of Zabid, its whitewashed brick walls and dust-blown winding alleys seemingly immune to the passage of time. Over the centuries, this city had more than any other place in the Muslim world preserved the tradition of narrating hadiths by full isnāds back to Muhammad. In an old madrasa I found the mufti of the city seated on one of the high wicker beds so common to the region, surrounded by his students. The mufti set down the book he was explaining, and the students stared inquisitively as he asked who I was and why I had come. 'To hear a hadith through your isnād, the isnād of the people of Zabid, O virtuous teacher,' I replied. After hearing my request, the mufti agreed to recite the hadith that a scholar must always give his students first. 'Write this down,' the mufti instructed, 'and do not forget us in your most sincere prayers': I, Muhammad 'Alī al-Battāh of the Ahdal clan, heard from my teacher Ahmad son of Dāwūd al-Battāh, who heard from his teacher the Mufti Sulaymān son of Muhammad al-Ahdal, from Muhammad son of 'Abd al-Bāqī al-Ahdal, from Muhammad son of 'Abd al-Rahmān al-Ahdal, from the Mufti 'Abd al-Rahmān son of Sulaymān al-Ahdal, from his father Sulaymān son of Yahyā al-Ahdal, from Abū Bakr al-Ahdal, from Ahmad al-Ahdal, from the Pillar of Islam, Yahyā son of Umar al-Ahdal, from Abū Bakr al-Battāh, from Yūsuf son of Muhammad al-Battāh, from Tāhir son of Husayn al-Ahdal, from the hadith master Ibn Dayba', from the sheik Zayn al-Dīn al-Sharijī of Zabid, from Nafīs al-Dīn Sulaymān al-'Alawī, from 'Alī son of Shaddād, from the imam Ahmad the Candlemaker, from his father Sharaf al-Dīn the Candlemaker, from Zāhir son of Rustum of Esfahan, from 'Abd al-Malik of Karūkh, from Abū Nasr son of Muhammad of Herat, from Abū Muhammad 'Abd al-Jabbār al-Jarrāh of Merv, from Abū al-'Abbās Muhammad son of Ahmad of Merv, from the definitive hadith master Muhammad son of 'Īsā of Tirmiz, from Ibn Abī 'Umar, from Ibn 'Uyayna, from 'Amr son of Dīnār, from Abū Qābūs, from 'Abdallāh son of 'Amr, from the Messenger of God, who said, 'The merciful, indeed the Most Merciful God has mercy upon them. Have mercy in this earthly world, and He that is in the heavens will have mercy on you.'5 THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK This book is an introduction to the hadith tradition, its collection, its criticism, its functions in Islamic civilization and the controversies surrounding it to this day. This present chapter will introduce you to some crucial terminology for the study of hadiths. In chapter 2, we will discuss the collection and transmission of hadiths in Sunni Islam, as well as the various genres of hadith literature that developed from the early Islamic period until modern times. Chapter 3 will explain the science of hadith criticism developed by Sunni scholars and the various debates and developments that affected it throughout Islamic history. Chapter 4 looks at the hadith traditions of Imami and Zaydi Shiism as well as their interaction with that of Sunni Islam. Chapter 5 explores the functions of hadiths in Islamic law and legal theory, and Chapter 6 investigates the role of hadiths in elaborating Islamic theology. Chapter 7 tackles the important functions of hadiths in the Islamic mystical tradition, commonly known as Sufism. Chapter 8 looks at the role of hadiths in Islamic political thought and contemporary controversies. Chapter 9 turns away from Muslim discourse on hadiths to trace the Western academic study of hadiths and Western debates over their historical reliability. Finally, Chapter 10 explores debates among modern Muslims over the reliability of hadiths and their proper role in understanding Islam today. WHAT IS A HADITH? CRUCIAL TERMINOLOGY AND EXAMPLES OF HADITHS The Prophet Muhammad's mission lasted twenty-three years, from 610 CE when he announced to his wife that he had received a reve-lation from God through the Angel Gabriel in a cave outside Mecca, to his death in 632 CE as the head of the powerful Islamic state in Medina. During his career as a prophet and leader, there was no courtroom stenographer assiduously recording his every word and furnishing an official transcript of his orders, religious edicts, or everyday speech. Instead, the generation of Muslims who lived with the Prophet, known as the Companions (Arabic: Sahāba), sought to preserve Muhammad's words and deeds either in their memories or through some means of writing, passing these recollections on to others. These reports were passed on from generation to generation, in oral and/or written form, until scholars compiled them in permanent collections. Each hadith, or report about the Prophet, consists of a text (matn) describing his words or actions, and a chain of transmission (isnād) by which this report was communicated. Clearly, more than one Companion could report the Prophet saying or doing something, or a Companion could recount this report to more than one person. This would result in more than one chain of transmission for the report. We must thus distinguish between an instance of the Prophet speaking or acting, which we will refer to either by its Arabic term 'hadith' or by the term 'tradition,' and the various chains of transmission of this tradition. As in a game of 'Telephone,' a report could mutate as it was passed from person to person. As we know from our own daily lives, reports could also be repeated in expanded or contracted form depending on context. Each of these varying transmissions of the tradition we will call a narration of the hadith. For example, it is transmitted from the Companion 'Abdallāh b. al-Zubayr that the Prophet said, 'Whoever misrepresents me, let him prepare for himself a seat in Hellfire.'6 But the mainstream narrations of this tradition, from many Companions such as Anas b. Mālik, Ibn Mas'ūd and Abū Hurayra, quote the Prophet as saying 'Whoever misrepresents me intentionally, let him prepare for himself a seat in Hellfire.' Here we see how two narrations of one Prophetic tradition differ in an important way. The following are some examples of hadiths addressing a range of legal, ritual, theological, and ethical topics from the major sects of Islam. From the most revered Sunni hadith collection, the Sahīh of al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870), we find a hadith that served as evidence in Islamic theological debates over whether believers will meet God on the Day of Judgment: Al-Bukhārī writes: it was narrated to us by Yūsuf b. Mūsā: it was narrated to us by Abū Usāma: it was narrated to me by al-A'mash, from Khaythama, from the Companion 'Adī b. Hātim, who said that: The Messenger of God, may God's peace and blessings be upon him, said, 'There is not one among you except that he will be spoken to directly by his Lord with no translator or any barrier separating them.'7 From the Sunan of the Sunni scholar Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī (d. 275/889), this hadith was used to help derive Islamic laws on taxation: Abū Dāwūd writes: it was narrated to us by Muhammad b. Dāwūd b. Sufyān: it was narrated to us by Yahyā b. Hassān: it was narrated to us by Sulaymān b. Mūsā: it was narrated to us by Ja'far b. Sa'd: it was narrated to me by Khubayb b. Sulaymān, from his father, from the Companion Samura b. Jundub, who said [in a speech]: Indeed the Messenger of God, may the peace and blessings of God be upon him, would order us to pay the charity tax on things that we were preparing for sale.8 From the Mu'jam al-saghīr of the Sunni scholar al-Tabarānī (d. 360/971) we find a hadith that indicates both Muhammad's character and the permissibility of lending items: Al-Tabarānī writes: it was narrated to us by Ahmad b. Mansūr al-Jundīsābūrī: it was narrated to us by 'Alī b. Harb: it was reported to us by Ash'ath b. 'Attāf, from 'Abdallāh b. Habīb, from al-Sha'bī, from the Companion Jābir b. 'Abdallāh, that: The Messenger of God bought a camel from me and then let me ride it back to the city.9 From the Amālī of the famous Imami Shiite scholar Ibn Bābawayh (d. 381/991) we find a hadith that emphasizes two important themes in Islamic legal and theological discourse: first, religion is not the purview of personal opinion, and, second, God is not to be compared to created beings: Ibn Bābawayh writes: it was narrated to us by Muhammad b. Mūsā b. al-Mutawakkil: it was narrated to us by 'Alī b. Ibrāhīm b. Hāshim: it was narrated by his father, from al-Rayyān b. al-Salt, from the Imam 'Alī b. Mūsā al-Ridā, from his father, from his forefathers, from the Commander of the Faithful 'Alī b. Abī Tālib, that: The Messenger of God, may God's peace and blessings be upon him, said, 'God said, "He does not believe in Me who interprets My speech [in the Quran] with merely his own opinion. He has not known Me who compares Me with My creation, and he is not in My religion who uses analogical reasoning [in questions of law] in My religion." '10 Finally, in the Amālī al-sughrā of the Zaydi Shiite scholar Ahmad b. al-Husayn al-Hārūnī (d. 421/1030) we find a hadith describing the way in which a pious Muslim should view death: Al-Hārūnī writes: It was reported to us by Abū al-Husayn al- Burūjirdī: it was narrated to us by Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī: it was narrated to us by Hudba: it was narrated to us by Hammām, from Qatāda, from the Companion Anas, from the Companion 'Ubāda b. al-Sāmit, that: The Messenger of God, may the peace and blessings of God be upon him, said: 'He who would love to encounter God, God loves encountering him. And he who would dislike encountering God, God dislikes encountering him.' So Aisha, or another one of the Prophet's wives, asked, 'O Messenger of God, but indeed we dislike death.' The Prophet replied, 'It is not like that, but rather the believer, when death comes to him, he receives the glad tidings of God's pleasure and His munificence. So that there is nothing dearer to the believer than what lies ahead of him. Thus he wants to encounter God, and God wants to encounter him. But the unbeliever, when death comes to him, he receives tidings of God's displeasure and His impending punishment. So there is nothing more hated to him than what lies ahead. Thus he despises meeting God, and God despises meeting him.' 11 THE NATURE OF MUHAMMAD'S AUTHORITY IN ISLAM The role of the Prophet Muhammad as a teacher, role model, and living example of the revelation he delivered is discussed in the Quran.ii The holy book repeatedly instructs Muslims to 'Obey God and His prophet' (Quran 8:1), adding that he was for the Muslims 'a most goodly example' (Quran 33:21). Although the Quran reiterates that Muhammad is nothing but a mortal who has merely been favored with direct communication from God, Muslims consider him above any ethical shortcomings. There has been disagreement among Shiite and Sunni Muslims as well as within the two sects as to the degree to which prophets in general are immune from sin, but Muslims agree that after the beginning of his prophetic mission Muhammad was incapable of any serious sin or moral failing. In fact, reports of rare errors or instances of forgetfulness on his part are treated as part of the Prophet's teachings. The Quran, for example, reprimands Muhammad for turning away in frustration from a blind Muslim who distracted him with a question when he was busy negotiating with his Meccan opponents. The Quran uses this as an opportunity to remind the Muslims that one should not prefer influential infidels over sincere, if tactless, believers (Quran 80:1–7). There is even a hadith in which the Prophet states, 'Indeed I forget or am made to forget so that I may furnish the Sunna.'12 Hadiths about mistakes that Muhammad made in prayers, for example, Muslims treat as instructions on how to act when they themselves make those errors.iii No traditional Muslim scholar would ever consider it possible that the Prophet had made a statement or acted out of anger or weakness. When opponents of the Muslims mocked the Companion 'Abdallāh b. 'Amr for recording everything the Prophet said, Muhammad comforted him by saying 'Write it down, for by Him whose hand holds my soul, nothing comes out of my mouth but the truth.'13 As the Quran states, Muhammad 'does not speak out of his own desires, it is but revelation revealed' (Quran 53:3–4). As a mere mortal, Muslims believe that Muhammad had no independent ability to prophesy. He was simply a medium for God's reve-lation. Hence, he is made to say in the Quran, 'I do not know what will be done with me or with you. I do but follow what is revealed to me' (Quran 46:9). But Muslims believe that Muhammad did have access to direct knowledge of the future from God in both the formal revelation of the Quran, which predicts events like Muslim victories over their Meccan opponents, and in private inspirations made known to him alone. Many hadiths therefore describe future events such as the moral decline of humanity or the events that will precede the Day of Judgment. In one famous hadith, the Prophet states that 'there will not come upon you a time except that the eras coming after it will be worse than it.'14 Hadiths could describe the Prophet's authoritative legacy in three possible ways: they could communicate Muhammad's words, or his actions, or describe things done in his presence to which he did not object. The above hadith examples describe Muhammad's edicts and normative behavior. But Muslim scholars also assumed that anything done during the Prophet's time that he did not forbid must have been acceptable. The Companion Jābir b. 'Abdallāh thus reported, 'We used to practice coitus interruptus during the time of the Prophet when the Quran was being revealed.'15 Muslim scholars thus interpreted this as a major proof for the permissibility of birth control in Islam. Although a hadith could refer to any aspect of the Prophet's life and legacy, not everything the Prophet did was authoritative. The Prophet was forty years old when he received his first revelation. Although Muhammad was admired for his upstanding character and integrity even before his mission, Muslims do not consider his teachings authoritative before he received God's sanction. In addition, revelation had not made the Prophet a master of all trades. In one famous hadith, the Prophet came across some farmers trying to graft small date palms. When he suggested that the farmers take a different course of action and that advice proved wrong, he replied, 'I am but a man, if I give you a command regarding religion then take it. But if I make a statement out of my own judgment, then I am but a man ... you are more knowledgeable about the matters of your world.'16 The scope of what concerns 'religion' in the Islamic tradition, however, is much wider than in the modern Western world. Although the Prophet consulted his Companions on affairs of state, governance, and military tactics (in fact, on several occasions the Quran validated his Companions' opinions rather than his own), his decisions as a statesman and military leader have been considered authoritative by Muslim jurists. Were his decisions, after all, not ultimately guided by God? Certainly, not all aspects of the Prophet's behavior required imitation or obedience. Since the Prophet did not state, for example, that wearing the long robes of an Arab was required dress for a Muslim, this has been viewed as a matter of choice. Injunctions by the Prophet encouraging Muslim men to grow beards, however, have led Muslim jurists to view this as either a requirement or laudable behavior. And while such factors limited the extent to which the Prophet's personal tastes and habits were legally compelling, there has been no limit to optional imitation of the Prophet done out of supererogatory piety. Some Muslims thus replicate even the mundane aspects of the Prophet's behavior, such as the position in which he slept and the food he ate. The famous jurist and hadith scholar of Baghdad, Ibn Hanbal (d. 241/855), once claimed that he had acted on every hadith he had heard about the Prophet at least once.17 THE NATURE OF PROPHETIC SPEECH: PREACHER VS. LAWYER In a 2012 study, a computer-run stylistic analysis of the Quran and a selection of hadiths demonstrated that the Quran and the hadiths come from two different speakers.18 That is not surprising. What is interesting is that the study shows a stylistic consistency in the language of the hadith corpus. There has always been disagreement over whether the orthodox collections of hadiths in Islam represent an intact record of the Prophet Muhammad's words. But whether they actually came from the Prophet's mouth or not, there is certainly a Prophetic style of Arabic expression, one that anyone who reads even a small selection of hadiths quickly notices. One of the most striking features of the Prophetic style in hadiths is the frequency of hyperbole. In one hadith the Prophet states, 'Cursing a Muslim is iniquity and fighting one is unbelief (kufr).' In another he says, 'No one will enter Heaven who has even a grain's weight of pride in his heart,' and in another hadith he declares, 'One who cheats is not from among us.' These are all dramatic statements, but the way in which Muslim scholars have understood them has differed dramatically from their evident meaning. By the time hadiths were being collected systematically in the eighth century, Muslim scholars had already developed filters for translating such hyperbole into legal or theological statements. These filters were needed because the Quran, other reliable hadiths, and overall Muslim practice made it clear that interpreting such hadiths literally was a grave error. 'Fighting a Muslim' was not unbelief (kufr) in the same way that renouncing Islam or atheism were. Rather, as early Muslims explained, it was a 'lesser form of unbelief (kufr dūn kufr)' or the type of act that an unbeliever would do. This was clear from explanations of the hadith by Companions and also from other hadiths in which the Prophet implied that a murderer remained Muslim. The ban on those 'with a grain's weight of pride in their hearts' from entering Heaven was only temporary, since sound hadiths explained that anyone 'with even a grain's weight of faith in their heart' will eventually be allowed to exit Hellfire and enter Paradise. Early Muslim scholars realized that the Prophet's phrase 'not from among us' did not mean that someone was not Muslim. Rather, it meant that a certain action or characteristic was 'not part of our Sunna' or not the conduct of a good Muslim.19 The sheer range and detail of material included in the hadith corpus makes it clear that it was meant to provide guidance for the details of daily life. But it also seems clear from how widespread hyperbole was in the corpus of Prophetic speech that its original function was also exhortation, preaching, and delivering unambiguous moral messages. As much as Muslim scholars have had to apply filters to the hadith corpus in order to mine it for clear rules of law or dogma, they also appreciated its exhortative dimension. Hadiths were and remain teaching tools. So, while many early Muslim scholars were careful to filter out the hyperbole when explaining hadiths to people, others, like the Meccan scholar Ibn 'Uyayna (d. 196/811), delivered them unfiltered to audiences so that the morals embedded in them would sink in. THE SCOPE OF THE BOOK: WHAT DEFINES HADITH LITERATURE? Stories and reports about the Prophet Muhammad permeate all genres of scholarship and expression in Islamic civilization. Hadiths appear in books of law, theology, Quranic commentary, mysticism, politics, Arabic grammar, history, and etiquette. If we are to be introduced to the hadith tradition, how do we define its scope? Early Islamic writing combined both pre-Islamic Arab sensitivities and new Islamic concerns. Muslim authors of the eighth and ninth centuries expressed the tribal nature of Arab and early Islamic society by writing books of genealogy (ansāb), such as the Kitāb al-ansāb of Ibn al-Kalbī (d. 204/819). Other early Muslims gathered and recorded religious folklore from Arab, Jewish, Persian, and Christian sources. The Yemeni Wahb b. Munabbih (d. 114/732) was one of the most famous authors in this genre, which became known as 'stories of the prophets (qasas al-anbiyā').' Other early authors collected information about the military campaigns of the early Muslim community and traced its historical course. This genre was known as 'campaigns (maghāzī)' and 'historical reports (tārīkh or akhbār),' including such works as the Maghāzī of Mūsā b. 'Uqba (d. 141/758). Another import-ant genre combined these fields: the study of the Prophet's biography, or sīra. The most famous biography of Muhammad is the Sīra of Ibn Ishāq (d. 150/767). Some early Muslim scholars concentrated on collecting reports about the meaning and contexts of Quranic verses, compiling exegetical books called 'tafsīr.' Finally, some scholars turned their attention to reports of the Prophet's legal, ritual, and theological statements. These were known as 'rulings (ahkām)' and formed the core of the hadith tradition. The defining characteristic of hadith literature as it emerged in the mid eighth century was that it consisted of reports attributed to Muhammad and transmitted by full isnāds from him. Books of Quranic exegesis, history, genealogy, and folklore often included reports from Muhammad or describing his actions. But these represented the minority of their contents. Quranic exegesis most often relied on the opinions of Companions or later Muslims for the meaning of Quranic words. History works frequently described events that occurred decades after Muhammad's death, such as the Muslim conquests of Syria and Iran. Stories of the prophets involved subjects as distant as Adam and Eve. These genres were distinct from ahkām and the nascent hadith tradition because they were not focused on the persona of Muhammad. But what about sīra, the biography of the Prophet? By definition, this was focused on Muhammad. Here, the second defining characteristic of hadith literature proves key: the isnād. The Sīra of Ibn Ishāq rarely includes full isnāds for the stories it tells about the Prophet or its quotations of his words. The isnāds that it does include are often incomplete, meaning that the sources that transmitted the report are often omitted or left unnamed. It was the presence of full isnāds leading back to the Prophet and transmitting his legacy that defined the core of hadith literature, what early hadith scholars called the genre of 'supported reports (al-musnadāt).' Of course, if we open up famous hadith collections such as the Sahīh of al-Bukhārī, we find chapters on Quranic exegesis (tafsīr) and the Prophet's campaigns (maghāzī). What distinguishes these chapters from separate books of tafsīr or maghāzī, however, is that the chapters of hadith books focus on reports with full isnāds that quote the Prophet instead of later Muslims. Regardless of their precise subject, any books in Islamic civil-ization that include hadiths with full isnāds back to the Prophet are subsumed under the genre of hadith literature. Of course, later books of hadiths written after the use of isnāds became obsolete or books specifically discussing or analyzing aspects of hadiths may not provide full isnāds, but their subject matter clearly places them in this genre as well. ENDNOTES 1 \| J. Brown, field notes, Sept. 2003. ---\|--- 2 \| This quote is attributed to the famous ninth-century scholar al-Shāfi'ī. 3 \| J. Brown, field notes, July 2004. 4 \| See Max Rodenbeck's excellent book, Cairo: the City Victorious, p. 111. 5 \| J. Brown, field notes July 2007. This hadith can be found in Muhammad b. 'Īsā al-Tirmidhī, Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-birr wa al-sila, bāb mā jā'a fī rahmat al-muslimīn. 6 \| Muhammad b. Ismā'īl al-Bukhārī, Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-'ilm, bāb man kadhaba 'alā al-Nabī. 7 \| Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-tawhīd, bāb qawl Allāh 'wujūhuhum yawma'idhin nādira.' 8 \| Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī, Sunan Abī Dāwūd: kitāb al-zakāt, bāb al-'urūd idhā kānat li'l-tijāra hal fīhā min zakāt. 9 \| Abū al-Qāsim al-Tabarānī, al-Mu'jam al-saghīr, vol. 1, p. 76. 10 \| Ibn Bābawayh, Amālī al-Sadūq, p. 6. 11 \| Ahmad b. al-Husayn al-Hārūnī, al-Amālī al-sughrā, p. 8; Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-riqāq, bāb man ahabba liqā' Allāh.... 12 \| Muwatta': kitāb al-sahw. 13 \| 'Abdallāh b. Abd al-Rahmān al-Dārimī, Sunan al-Dārimī: introductory chapters, bāb man rakhkhasa fī kitābat al-'ilm. 14 \| Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-fitan, bāb lā ya'tī zamān illā alladhī ba'dahu sharr minhu. 15 \| Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-nikāh, bāb al-'azl. 16 \| Muslim b. al-Hajjāj, Sahīh Muslim: kitāb al-fadā'il, bāb wujūb imtithāl mā qālahu shar'an. See also Sunan Abī Dāwūd: kitāb al-qadā', bāb fī qadā' al-qādī idhā akhta'a. 17 \| For the issue of beards, see Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-libās, bāb taqlīm al-azfār. Al-Khatīb, al-Jāmi', vol. 1, p. 225. 18 \| Halim Sayoud, 'Author discrimination between the Holy Quran and the Prophet's statements,' pp. 427–444. 19 \| Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-īmān, bāb mā jā'a fī sibāb al-muslim; kitāb al-birr wa'l-sila, bāb mā jā'a fī al-kibr, bāb mā jā'a fī rahmat al-sibyān; Sunan of Abū Dāwūd: kitāb al-ijāra, bāb al-nahy 'an al-ghishsh; Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bārī, vol. 13, pp. 30, 33. i See the hadith 'None of you truly believes until I am dearer to him than his child, his parent and the people altogether': Ahmad b. Shu'ayb al-Nasā'ī, Sunan al-Nasā'ī: kitāb al-īmān, bāb 'alāmat al-īmān. ii We shall see that in both the classical Islamic and modern periods, this role has been debated; see Chapter 10. iii Some Muslim scholars even hold that the Prophet intentionally made these 'mistakes' to teach his followers; Qādī 'Iyād, Kitāb al-shifā, p. 342. THE TRANSMISSION AND COLLECTION OF PROPHETIC TRADITIONS INTRODUCTION Despite its seemingly arcane nature, the hadith tradition emerged in the early days of Islam as a practical solution to the needs of the Muslim community. In the wake of the Prophet's death, his teachings served as an obvious source of guidance for the nascent Islamic community as it struggled to determine how to live according to God's will now that he was gone. The study of hadiths began as a practical attempt to gather, organize, and sift through the authoritative statements and behavior attributed to the Prophet. In the subsequent centuries, the hadith tradition developed to meet new needs as they evolved. By the close of the tenth century, the transmission and collection of hadiths had acquired a new dimension – quite apart from the contents of any hadith, the report and its isnād became a medium of connection to the Prophet that created authority and precedence within the Muslim community. The development of hadith literature is thus best understood in light of the two general functions that hadiths fulfilled, that of an authoritative maxim used to elaborate Islamic law and dogma, and that of a form of connection to the Prophet's charismatic legacy. This chapter traces the origins and development of Sunni hadith transmission and collection from the beginning of Islam until the modern period. Any mention of the notion of 'authenticity' or 'authentic (sahīh)' hadiths in this chapter refers to the Sunni Muslim criteria for reliability and its system of hadith criticism, the mechanics of which will be discussed fully in the next chapter. 'Authentic' or 'forged' here thus has no necessary correlation to whether or not the Prophet Muhammad really said that statement or not. Debates over 'what really happened' in the history of hadith will occupy us in chapter 9. INHERITING THE PROPHET'S AUTHORITY In Islam, religious authority emanates from God through His Prophet. Whether by referring to the Prophet's teachings directly or through the methods of religious problem-solving inherited from him, only through a connection to God and His Prophet does a Muslim acquire the right to speak authoritatively about Islamic law and belief. In the formative period of Islam, Muslims thus turned back again and again to the authoritative legacy of the Prophet's teachings as it radiated outwards through the transmission and interpretation of pious members of the community. It was the form through which this authoritative legacy was transmitted – whether via Prophetic reports or methods of legal reasoning – that created different schools of thought in the early Islamic period and led to the emergence of the hadith tradition. In the Prophet's adopted home, the city of Medina, al-Qāsim b. Muhammad b. Abī Bakr (d. 108/726–7), the grandson of the first caliph of Islam, and Sa'īd b. al-Musayyab (d. 94/713), the son-in-law of the most prolific student of the Prophet's hadiths, Abū Hurayra, became two of the leading interpreters of the new faith after the death of the formative first generation of Muslims. Their interpretations of the Quran and the Prophet's legacy, as well as those of founding fathers such as the second caliph 'Umar b. al-Khattāb, were collected and synthesized by the famous Medinan jurist Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/796). In Kufa, the Prophet's friend and pillar of the early Muslim community, 'Abdallāh b. Mas'ūd (d. 32/652–3), instructed his newly established community on the tenets and practice of Islam as it adapted to the surroundings of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian Iraq. His disciple 'Alqama b. Qays (d. 62/681) transmitted these teachings to a promising junior, Ibrāhīm al-Nakha'ī (d. 95/714), who in turn passed on his approaches and methods of legal reasoning to Hammād b. Abī Sulaymān (d. 120/738). His student of eighteen years, Abū Hanīfa (d. 150/767), would become a cornerstone of legal study in Iraq and the eponym of the Hanafī school of law. Unlike Medina, the cradle of the Muslim community where Muhammad's legacy thrived as living communal practice, the diverse environment of Kufa teemed with ancient doctrines and practices foreign to the early Muslim community. Many such ideas found legitimation in the form of spurious hadiths falsely attributed to the Prophet. Abū Hanīfa thus preferred relying cautiously on the Quran, well-established hadiths and the methods of legal reasoning learned from his teachers rather than risk acting on these fraudulent hadiths. By the mid eighth century, two general trends in interpreting and applying Islam had emerged in its newly conquered lands. For both these trends, the Quran and the Prophet's implementation of that message were the only constitutive sources of authority for Muslims. The practice and rulings of the early community, which participated in establishing the faith and inherited the Prophet's authority, were the lenses through which scholars like Abū Hanīfa and Mālik understood these two sources. Another early scholar, 'Abd al-Rahmān al-Awzā'ī of Beirut (d. 157/773–4), thus stated that 'religious knowledge ('ilm) is what has come to us from the Companions of the Prophet; what has not is not knowledge.'1 In Sunni Islam, a Companion is anyone who saw the Prophet while a Muslim and died as a Muslim. When presented with a situation for which the Quran and the well-known teachings of the Prophet and his Companions provided no clear answer, scholars like Abū Hanīfa relied on their own interpretations of these sources to respond. Such scholars were known as the ahl al-ra'y, or the Partisans of Legal Reasoning. Other pious members of the community preferred to limit themselves to the opinions of the earliest generations of Muslims and more dubious reports from the Prophet rather than speculate in a realm they felt was the exclusive purview of God and His Prophet. The great scholar of Baghdad, Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 241/855), epitomized this transmission-based approach to understanding law and faith in his famous statement: 'You hardly see anyone applying reason (ra'y) [to some issue of religion or law] except that there lies, in his heart, some deep-seated resentment. An unreliable narration [from the Prophet] is thus dearer to me than the use of reason.'2 Such transmission-based scholars, referred to as 'the Partisans of Hadith (ahl al-hadīth),' preferred the interpretations of members of the early Islamic community to their own. For them the Muslim confrontation with the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Near East threatened the unadulterated purity of Islam. A narcissistic indulgence of human reason would encourage heresy and the temptation to stray from God's revealed path. Only by clinging stubbornly to the ways of the Prophet and his righteous successors could they preserve the authenticity of their religion. For the ahl al-hadīth, reports traced back to the Prophet, bearing his name and conveying his authority, were prima facie compelling. Even if a scholar were not sure that a hadith was reliable, the powerful phrase 'the Messenger of God said...' possessed great authority. Many unreliable hadiths were used in efforts to understand the meaning of Quranic words, to reconstruct the campaigns of the Prophet, to document the virtues of the Companions or simply in preaching that exhorted Muslims towards piety. Even in legal issues, where as we shall see scholars like Ibn Hanbal were more rigorous about authenticating hadiths, ahl al-hadīth scholars sometimes depended on unreliable hadiths. It was amid this vying between the ahl al-hadīth and ahl al-ra'y schools that the Sunni hadith tradition emerged. EARLY HADITH COLLECTION AND WRITING From the beginning of Islam, Muhammad's words and deeds were of the utmost interest to his followers. He was the unquestioned exemplar of faith and piety in Islam and the bridge between God and the temporal world. Although, as we shall see, there was controversy over setting down the Prophet's daily teachings in writing, it is not surprising that those Companions who knew how to write tried to record the memorable statements or actions of their Prophet. As paper was unknown in the Middle East at the time (it was introduced from China in the late 700s), the small notebooks they compiled, called sahīfas, would have consisted of papyrus, parchment (scraped, limed and stretched animal skins), both very expensive, or cruder substances such as palm fronds. Although there is some evidence that the Prophet ordered the collection of his rulings on taxation, these sahīfas were not public documents; they were the private notes of individual Companions.3 Some of the Companions recorded as having sahīfas were Jābir b. 'Abdallāh, 'Alī b. Abī Tālib, Abū Hurayra and 'Abdallāh b. 'Amr b. al-'Ās. Figure 2.0 Leading Hadith Transmitters from the Companions Certain Companions were more active in amassing, memorizing, and writing down hadiths than others. Like grandchildren eager to collect stories and recollections about a grandparent they barely knew, we find that it is often the most junior Companions of the Prophet who became the most prolific collectors and transmitters of hadiths. Abū Hurayra (d. 58/678), who knew the Prophet for only three years, is the largest single source for hadiths, with approximately 5,300 narrations in later hadith collections.4 Although he did not write hadiths down in his early career, by his death Abū Hurayra had boxes full of the sahīfas he had compiled.5 'Abdallāh b. 'Umar, the son of 'Umar b. al-Khattāb, was twenty-three years old when the Prophet died and is the second largest source for hadiths, with approximately 2,600 narrations recorded in later collections. Ibn 'Abbās (d. 68/686–8), who was only fourteen years old (or nine according to some sources) when the Prophet died, is the fifth largest source, with around 1,700 hadiths.6 Since Companions like Ibn 'Abbās and Abū Hurayra only knew the Prophet for a short time, they apparently amassed their vast numbers of hadiths by seeking them out from more senior Companions. Abū Hurayra is thus rarely recorded as saying 'I heard the Prophet of God say...' – more often he simply states indirectly that 'the Prophet said...' Just as today we regularly quote people whom we did not hear directly, this would have been normal for the Companions. The obsession with specifying direct oral transmission with no intermediary, which characterized later hadith scholarship (see chapter 3), did not exist during the first generations of Islam. Ibn 'Abbās probably heard only forty hadiths directly from the Prophet. The rest he frequently narrates by saying 'the Prophet of God said...' or through a chain of transmission of one, two, or even three older Companions.7 Not surprisingly, those who spent a great deal of intimate time with the Prophet were also major sources of hadiths. Anas b. Mālik, who entered the Prophet's house as a servant at the age of ten, and the Prophet's favorite wife, Aisha, count as the third and fourth most prolific hadith sources, with approximately 2,300 and 2,200 narrations in later books respectively.8 Interestingly, those Companions who spent the most time with the Prophet during his public life rank among the least prolific hadith transmitters. The Prophet's close friend and successor, Abū Bakr, his cousin/son-in-law 'Alī b. Abī Tālib, and close advisor 'Umar are the sources for only 142, 536 and 537 hadiths respectively. These prominent early Muslims, who were looked to as leaders responsible for decisions and religious rulings after the Prophet's death, seem to have preserved the spirit of Muhammad's teachings in their actions and methods of reasoning rather than by citing his hadiths directly. When reading books of hadiths, at first it appears arbitrary which Companion narrates a hadith from the Prophet. Certain Companions, however, demonstrated particular interests and expertise in certain subjects. The Prophet's wives, especially Aisha, not surprisingly serve as the sources for hadiths about the Prophet's personal hygiene, domestic habits, and sexual life. Most of the hadiths in which the Prophet instructs his followers about the protocol for using dogs – animals whose saliva is considered ritually impure by most Muslims – for hunting come from the Companion 'Adī b. Hātim, who clearly was very curious about this topic. So dominant is the presence of Muhammad in the formative period of Islam that we forget that after his death it was his Companions who assumed both complete religious and political leadership in the community. It was Companions like Ibn 'Abbās in Mecca, Ibn Mas'ūd in Kufa and Salmān al-Fārisī in Isfahan who had the responsibility of teaching new generations of Muslims and new converts about the religion of a prophet they had never known. The generation who learned Islam from the Companions and in turn inherited from them the mantle of the Prophet's authority became known as the Successors (al-tābi'ūn). Like the Companions, they too recorded those recollections that their teachers recounted to them about the Prophet's words, deeds, and rulings. In addition to compiling their own sahīfas from the lessons of the Companions, these Successors also passed on the Companions' own sahīfas. Some of the early isnāds that appear most regularly in hadith collections seem to be a record of sahīfas being handed down from teacher to student or from father to son. We thus often find the sahīfa-isnād of Abū Hurayra to 'Abd al-Rahmān, to his son al-'Alā'. The Successor Abū al-Zubayr al-Makkī received the sahīfa of the Companion Jābir b. 'Abdallāh, and one of the most famous Successors, al-Hasan al-Basrī (d. 110/728), received the sahīfa of the Companion Samura b. Jundub. The sahīfa of 'Amr b. al-'Ās, passed down to his grandson, to his son Shu'ayb, became an essential resource for the Prophet's rulings on liability for injuries and compensation for homicide. An example of a sahīfa that has survived intact today, the sahīfa of the Successor Hammām b. Munabbih (d. circa 130/747), contains 138 hadiths from the Prophet via Abū Hurayra.9 The vast preponderance of the hadiths that the Successors heard from the Companions, however, were not in written form. Arabian society of the seventh and eighth centuries had a highly developed tradition of oral poetry, and the Companions more often recounted their memories of the Prophet in oral form only. Even to modern readers accustomed to writing everything down, this is understandable to an extent; to them the Prophet was a contemporary figure whose words and deeds lived on in their memories as freshly as we remember our own teachers or parents. Only rarely do we put down these memories on paper. Of course, the Prophet was no average person, and many of his Companions did seek to record his legacy even during his own lifetime. There are several hadiths, however, in which the Prophet warns his followers not to record his words out of fear that they might be confused with God's words as revealed in the Quran. As the Quran was still being set down in writing during the Prophet's lifetime by numerous scribes and in many private notebooks, collections of the Prophet's teachings might easily be conflated with the holy book. We thus find a famous hadith in which the Companion Abū Sa'īd al-Khudrī states, 'We used not to write down anything but the testimony of faith said in prayer (al-tashahhud) and the Quran.' In another hadith, the Companion Zayd b. Thābit states that the Prophet had forbidden his followers to write down any of his words.10 It was unrealistic, however, that a lawmaker and political leader like the Prophet could allow no written record keeping. It would simply have been impossible for Muslims to preserve accurately the teachings they heard from the Prophet without some recourse to writing. Alongside hadiths banning writing, we thus also find reports encouraging it. The Companion Anas b. Mālik is even quoted as saying, 'We did not consider the knowledge of those who did not write it down to be [real] knowledge.'11 We thus also find hadiths in which the Prophet allows new Muslims visiting from outside Medina to record lessons he gave in a sermon.12 This contradictory evidence concerning the writing down of hadiths has proven very problematic for both Muslim and Western scholars. Some Muslim scholars, such as the Damascene prodigy al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277), have reconciled the material by assuming that the reports condemning the writing of hadiths came from the earlier years of the Prophet's career, when he was concerned about his words being mistaken for the Quran. Permission to write down his teachings would have come later, when the Quran had become more established in the minds of Muslims, and the Prophet's role as the leader of a functioning state required some written records.13 Western scholars, on the other hand, have often understood the tension between the writing of hadiths and its prohibition to reflect competing values within the Islamic hadith tradition itself. In Islam, religious knowledge is primarily oral in nature – a written book only serves as a guide for the oral recitation of its contents. On a conceptual level, it is almost as if written pages are dead matter that only comes alive when read aloud. It is interesting that the importance of oral knowledge kept the debate over whether or not one should write down hadiths alive into the 1000s CE, over two hundred years after it had been rendered moot by the popularization of written hadith collections! In the early Islamic period, however, this focus on orality was very practical. The Arabic alphabet was still primitive, and many letters were written identically and could only be distinguished from one another by context. Even today, the Arabic script does not indicate short vowels. We can imagine an English sentence written with only consonants and a few vowels, such as 'I wnt t ht the bll.' Is it 'I want to hit the ball,' 'I want to hit the bell, ' 'I went to hit the ball,' et cetera? We could only know the correct reading of the sentence if we knew its context. With the Arabic script, then, knowing the context and even the intended meaning of a written text is essential for properly understanding it. The sahīfas of the Companions and Successors thus only served as memory-aids, written skeletons of hadiths that would jog the author's memory when he or she read them. These sahīfas could not thus simply be picked up and read. One had to hear the book read by its transmitter in order to avoid grave misunderstandings of the Prophet's words. If hadith transmitters had reason to believe that a certain narrator had transmitted hadiths without hearing them read by a teacher, in fact, they considered this a serious flaw in the authenticity of that material. Abū al-Zubayr al-Makkī had heard only part of the Companion Jābir b. 'Abdallāh's sahīfa read aloud by Jābir, and this undermined his reliability in transmission for some Muslim hadith critics. Some early hadith transmitters, like 'Atā' b. Muslim al-Khaffāf, were so concerned about their books of hadiths being read and misunderstood after their deaths that they burned or buried them.14 Of course, this practical and cultural emphasis on direct oral transmission did not mean that Muslims ignored the reliability of written records. Even when transmitting a hadith orally, it was best for a scholar to be reading it from his book. The famous hadith scholar Ibn Ma'īn (d. 233/848) thus announced that he preferred a transmitter with an accurate book to one with an accurate memory.15 By the early 700s CE, setting down hadiths in writing had become regular practice. The seminal hadith transmitter and Successor Muhammad b. Shihāb al-Zuhrī (d. 124/742) considered writing down hadiths to be absolutely necessary for accurate transmission. Collectors like al-Zuhrī were encouraged to collect and record hadiths by the Umayyad dynasty, which assumed control of the Islamic empire in 661 CE. The Umayyad governor 'Abd al-'Azīz b. Marwān requested that the Successor Kathīr b. Murra send him records of all the hadiths he had heard from the Companions.16 'Abd al-'Azīz's son, the Umayyad caliph 'Umar b. 'Abd al-'Azīz, ordered the governor of Medina to record all the hadiths concerning administrative and taxation matters.17 Another important question that arose during the early transmission and collection of hadiths was whether or not one had to repeat a hadith word for word or if one could just communicate its general meaning. Most early Muslim scholars understood that keeping track of the exact wording of hadiths was not feasible and that 'narration by the general meaning (al-riwāya bi'l-ma'nā)' was an inescapable reality. The Companion Wāthila b. Asqa' had admitted that sometimes the early Muslims even confused the exact wording of the Quran, which was universally well-known and well-preserved. So how, he asked, could one expect any less in the case of a report that the Prophet had said just once? Al-Hasan al-Basrī is reported to have said, 'If we only narrated to you what we could repeat word for word, we would only narrate two hadiths. But if what we narrate generally communicates what the hadith prohibits or allows then there is no problem.' Some early Muslim scholars insisted on repeating hadiths exactly as they had heard them. Ibn Sīrīn (d. 110/728) even repeated grammatical errors in hadiths that he had heard.18 Eventually, Muslim scholars arrived at the compromise that one could paraphrase a hadith provided that one was learned enough to understand its meaning properly.19 Figure 2.1 Transmission and Criticism of Hadiths from the Companions of the Prophet and Successors TRANSCRIPTS OF LEGAL DEBATES: THE EMERGENCE OF MUSANNAF COLLECTIONS If we imagine the world of Islam in the early and mid eighth century CE, the next stage of hadith literature appears as a direct reflection of Muslim scholarly discourse of the time. We can picture the prominent Successor al-Hasan al-Basrī, who had studied with Companions like Anas b. Mālik and who had been brought up in the house of one of the Prophet's wives, as a pillar of piety in Basra and recourse for the questions of the city's inhabitants. Seated under a reed awning, al-Hasan would answer questions concerning how to pray, how to divide inheritance and how to understand God's attributes by drawing on all the religious knowledge he had gained. He might reply by quoting the Quran or something that his mother had heard from the Prophet. On other occasions he might tell his audience how 'Alī b. Abī Tālib, whom he had met as a young man, had ruled on a particular case. Sometimes al-Hasan might use his own understanding of the principles put forth in the Quran or the Prophet's teachings to provide a new answer to a question. A few decades later in Medina, we can picture Mālik b. Anas seated against one of the pillars of the Prophet's mosque and answering questions in a similar way. The first organized works of Islamic scholarship, called musannafs, or 'books organized topically,' were basically transcripts of this discourse as it had developed during the first two centuries of Islam. Arranged into chapters dealing with different legal or ritual questions, they were topical records of pious Muslims' efforts to respond to questions about faith and practice. The earliest surviving musannaf, Mālik's Muwatta', is thus a mixture of Prophetic hadiths, the rulings of his Companions, the practice of the scholars of Medina, and the opinions of Mālik himself. The version of the Muwatta' that became famous in North Africa and Andalusia contains 1,720 reports. Of these, however, only 527 are Prophetic hadiths; 613 are statements of the Companions, 285 are from Successors, and the rest are Mālik's own opinions.20 Likewise, the earliest known musannaf, that of Ibn Jurayj (d. 150/767), was a collection of reports from the Prophet, Companions, and Successors such as 'Atā' b. Abī Rabāh (d. 114/732). Another famous scholar from this period who compiled a musannaf was the revered scholar of Kufa, Sufyān al-Thawrī (d. 161/778). A very large musannaf surviving from this earlier period was written by a student of Mālik and Ibn Jurayj, 'Abd al-Razzāq al-San'ānī (d. 211/827), but is much larger than the one-volume Muwatta'. The Musannaf of 'Abd al-Razzāq, an inhabitant of Yemen, is eleven printed volumes. As Figure 2.2 demonstrates, 'Abd al-Razzāq drew mostly from his teachers Ma'mar b. Rāshid and Ibn Jurayj.21 Another famous musannaf, written by a scholar from the generation of 'Abd al-Razzāq's students, comes from the hadith scholar of Baghdad, Abū Bakr b. Abī Shayba (d. 235/849). Figure 2.2 provides an example of the type of material and sources that a musannaf would draw upon. Figure 2.2 Subchapter from 'Abd al-Razzāq's Musannaf Concerning Ablutions In many ways, the musannaf genre predates the emergence of classical hadith literature rather than being part of it. If hadith collections are characterized by a predominant focus on reports from the Prophet that include isnāds as a means for critics to verify their authenticity, then books like the Muwatta' and the Musannaf of 'Abd al-Razzāq are not technically hadith collections. Both Mālik and 'Abd al-Razzāq cite rulings of Companions and Successors more frequently than they cite Prophetic hadiths. But even when quoting the Prophet directly, the obsession with complete, unbroken chains of transmission that would characterize the classical period of hadith collection is absent. Even when Mālik does cite Prophetic hadiths, on sixty-one occasions he completely omits the isnād and simply states, 'The Prophet said...' Rather, we should think of musannafs as early works of Islamic law that represent the diversity of sources from which legal and doctrinal answers could be sought during the first two centuries of Islam. In a musannaf, a scholar like Mālik was trying to answer questions with the resources he felt were reliable and was not concerned with proving their authenticity according to a rigid system of isnād authentication. Of course, musannafs would serve a very important function in law, hadith literature, and hadith criticism. Later scholars would turn to musannafs to know the legal opinions of Companions and Successors, and hadith critics would use them as evidence when investigating whether a hadith was really something said by the Prophet or a statement actually made by a Companion or Successor. But if Muhammad was the ultimate interpreter of God's will, why would a scholar like Mālik so infrequently rely on his words in a musannaf collection? This question has cast a shadow of doubt over the authenticity of the hadith corpus, a question addressed in chapter 9. Here, however, we can provide a few possible explanations. As Figure 2.1 demonstrates, during the time of Mālik and Ibn Jurayj hadith transmission was localized. When Mālik was asked by a student whether or not one should wash in between one's toes when performing ritual ablutions, he said that it was not required. Another student, 'Abdallāh b. Wahb, objected, saying that in his native Egypt they had a hadith through the Companion Mustawrid b. Shaddād telling how the Prophet did wash between his toes. Hearing the isnād, Mālik said, 'That hadith is good, and I had not heard it until this moment.' He acted on it from that point on.22 It is not surprising that Mālik had not heard the hadith, since he only left his home in Medina to perform pilgrimage to the nearby city Mecca. Many of the hadiths that were widespread in Syria, Egypt, or among the students of Abū Hanīfa in Iraq were unknown to him. It is thus very likely that Mālik did not cite a Prophetic hadith on an issue because he knew of none. As Figure 2.1 indicates, it was only among the generation of Mālik's students, and even more so among their students, that hadith scholars traveled widely in order to unify the corpus of hadiths. In addition, musannafs drew on such a wide variety of authoritative figures because they were all legitimate inheritors of the Prophet's authority. The Companions, who had lived with the Prophet for years and understood the principles upon which he acted, and the Successors, who learned from them, were seen as the carriers of the Prophet's message and were heeded accordingly. Even a scholar like Mālik, living in the generation after the Successors, was so esteemed as a pious interpreter of the Prophet's message that he could give his opinion without citing any sources at all. THE MUSNAD ERA AND THE EMERGENCE OF HADITH LITERATURE PROPER The shift from the variety of the musannaf to the focus on Prophetic hadiths that characterizes hadith literature occurred with the emergence of the musnad collections in the late eighth and early ninth centuries CE. While sahīfas had been mere ad hoc collections, and musannafs were arranged as topical references, musnad collections were organized according to isnād. All the hadiths narrated from a certain Companion would fall into one chapter, then all those transmitted from another into the next, et cetera. The appearance of musnad collections occurred due to impetuses from both the broader study of Islamic law and within the more narrow community of Muslim hadith critics. During the late eighth and early ninth centuries, the regional schools of Islamic law, each based on the teachings and interpretation of learned figures like Mālik and Abū Hanīfa, faced a new challenge. A young scholar named Muhammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfi'ī (d. 204/820), who had studied with Mālik in Medina and the students of Abū Hanīfa in Iraq, and had traveled widely in Egypt and Yemen, asserted that it should be the direct hadiths of the Prophet, and not his precedent as understood by local scholars, that supplemented the Quran as the second major source of law. In the face of a contrasting hadith that they had not previously known, al-Shāfi'ī argued, the followers of Mālik and Abū Hanīfa should take the Prophet's words over the stances of their local schools. Through his students and especially the study of his major legal work, the Umm (The Motherbook), al-Shāfi'ī had an immediate and powerful influence on ahl al-hadīth jurists. From this point on in the hadith tradition, the testimony of Muhammad would trump all other figures of authority and become the predominant focus of hadith collections. Musnads reflected this interest, as they focused almost entirely on Prophetic hadiths and included Companion or Successor opinions only as occasional commentaries. Figure 2.3 Musnad Organization Quite apart from broader questions of legal theory, the burgeoning class of Muslim hadith critics that emerged in the mid and late eighth century had good reason to start organizing their personal hadith collections along isnād lines. First, the growing number of reports erroneously attributed to the Prophet had made the isnād an indispensable tool. Limiting hadith collections to material that had an isnād was a solid first line of defense against hadith forgery – if you claimed that the Prophet had said something but could provide no isnād, your hadith had no place in a musnad. Second, as we will see in the next chapter, the single most important factor in judging the reliability of a hadith transmitter was determining if he or she was corroborated in the material he or she reported. In order to know if a hadith transmitter is corroborated in his transmissions, critics compared the hadiths he reported to those of others who studied with his teachers. Thus we find that many musnads, such as that of al-Rūyānī (d. 307/919–20), are organized into chapters as shown in Figure 2.3 above. In order to determine whether or not Transmitter A is generally corroborated in the material he or she transmits, we need only flip through the chapters of the musnad comparing the hadiths that Transmitter A related from each Successor with those of Transmitters B and C. The earliest known musnad, which has also survived intact, is that of Abū Dāwūd al-Tayālisī (d. 204/818). The most famous musnad is that of Ibn Hanbal, which consists of about 27,700 hadiths (anywhere from one fourth to one third of which are repetitions of hadiths via different narrations) and was actually assembled into final form by the scholar's son. Ibn Hanbal claimed he had sifted the contents of his Musnad from over 750,000 hadiths and intended it to be a reference for students of Islamic law. Although he acknowledged that the book contained unreliable hadiths, he supposedly claimed that all its hadiths were admissible in discussions about the Prophet's Sunna – if it was not in his Musnad, he claimed, it could not be a proof in law.23 Other well-known and widely read musnads from the ninth century include those of al-Humaydī (d. 219/834), of al-Hārith b. Abī Usāma (d. 282/896), of al-Musaddad (d. 228/843), of Abū Bakr al-Bazzār (d. 292/904–5), and of the Hanafī scholar Abū Ya'lā al-Mawsilī (d. 307/919). The largest musnad ever produced, which has tragically not survived, was that of Baqī b. Makhlad (d. 276/889). Instead of compiling large musnads that included the hadiths of numerous Companions, some scholars devoted books to only one Companion: Abū Bakr al-Marwazī (d. 292/904–5), for example, compiled a small musnad with all the hadiths he had come across transmitted from the Companion Abū Bakr. Although some musnads, like that of al-Bazzār, contained some discussion of the flaws ('ilal) found in the isnāds of a hadith, in general musnads were not limited to hadiths their compilers believed were authentic. Instead, they functioned as storehouses for all the reports that a certain hadith scholar had heard. As Figure 2.1 shows, by the time of Ibn Hanbal, hadith collectors were no longer constrained by regional boundaries. Hadith collectors like Muhammad b. Yahyā al-Dhuhlī or Qutayba b. Sa'īd were originally from Nishapur in Iran and Balkh in Afghanistan, but they traveled throughout the Muslim world on what was known as 'the voyage in the quest for know-ledge (al-rihla fī talab al-'ilm)' to collect hadiths from transmitters like 'Abd al-Razzāq in Yemen or Layth b. Sa'd in Egypt. Throughout their travels they recorded the hadiths they heard in their musnads regardless of their authenticity or their legal and doctrinal implications. The staunch Sunni Ibn Hanbal's Musnad thus contains a hadith – shocking to the sensibility of Sunni Muslims – that describes how an early copy of the Quran had been stored under Aisha's bed only to be found and partially eaten by a small animal leaving the record of God's revelation permanently truncated!24 THE SAHĪH AND SUNAN MOVEMENT Musannafs and musnads both had their advantages: musannafs were conveniently arranged by subject, and musnads focused on Prophetic hadiths with full isnāds. From the early ninth to the early tenth century, a large number of respected ahl al-hadīth jurists combined the two genres in the form of sunan / sahīh books. A sunan was organized topically, and thus easily used as a legal reference, but also focused on Prophetic reports with full isnāds. More importantly, the ahl al-hadīth jurists who compiled these sunans devoted great efforts to assuring or discussing the authenticity of the books' contents. In general, the authors of sunan books sought only to include hadiths that had been relied upon by Muslim scholars and were known to be authentic either because they had strong isnāds or because the community of scholars had agreed that they truly reflected the Prophet's teachings. This new focus on producing collections of hadiths with an emphasis on authenticity led many of the collections produced in the sunan movement to be dubbed sahīh (authentic) books by either their authors or later Muslim readers. Two of the earliest known sunans are those of Sa'īd b. Mansūr al-Khurāsānī (d. 227/842) and 'Abdallāh al-Dārimī (d. 255/869). Two participants in the sunan movement in particular, Muhammad b. Ismā'īl al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870) and his student Muslim b. al-Hajjāj al-Naysābūrī (d. 261/875), broke with the ahl al-hadīth's traditional willingness to use weak hadiths in law. Unlike their teacher Ibn Hanbal, al-Bukhārī and Muslim felt that there were enough authentic hadiths in circulation that the ahl al-hadīth jurists could dispense with less worthy narrations. Al-Bukhārī and Muslim were thus the first to produce hadith collections devoted only to hadiths whose isnāds they felt met the requirements of authenticity. Their books were the first wave of what some have termed 'the sahīh movement.'25 Known as the Sahīhayn (literally 'the two Sahīhs'), the collections of al-Bukhārī and Muslim would become the most famous books of hadith in Sunni Islam. It is therefore worth examining their contents and structure. It is reported that al-Bukhārī devoted sixteen years to sifting the hadiths he included in his Sahīh from a pool of six hundred thousand narrations.26 The finished work was not a mere hadith collection – it was a massive expression of al-Bukhārī's vision of Islamic law and dogma backed up with hadiths the author felt met the most rigorous standards of authenticity. The book covers the full range of legal and ritual topics, but also includes treatments of many other issues such as the implication of technical terms in hadith transmission. The book consists of ninety-eight chapters, each divided into subchapters (according to the standard printings; see endnote 27). The subchapter titles indicate the legal implication or ruling the reader should derive from the subsequent hadiths, and often include a short comment from the author or a report from a Companion or Successor elucidating the hadith. Al-Bukhārī often repeats a Prophetic tradition, but through different narrations and in separate chapters. Opinions have varied about the exact number of hadiths in the Sahīh, depending on whether one defines a 'hadith' as a Prophetic tradition or a narration of that tradition. Generally, experts have placed the number of full-isnād narrations at 7,397. Of these many are repetitions or different versions of the same report, with the number of Prophetic traditions at approximately 2,602.27 Muslim's Sahīh is much more a raw hadith collection than al-Bukhārī's work. It contains far fewer chapters (only fifty-four in the accepted Amīriyya edition) and lacks al-Bukhārī's legal commentary, but it contains a similar number of narrations (7,748). Unlike al-Bukhārī, Muslim keeps all the narrations of a certain hadith in the same section. Muslim also diverges significantly from al-Bukhārī in his near exclusion of commentary reports from Companions and later figures. There is considerable overlap between the Sahīhayn. Muslim scholars generally put the number of traditions found in both books at 2,326. Al-Bukhārī and Muslim drew on essentially the same pool of transmitters, sharing approximately 2,400 narrators. Al-Bukhārī narrated from only about 430 that Muslim did not, while Muslim used about 620 transmitters al-Bukhārī excluded. Al-Bukhārī's and Muslim's works had a great deal of influence on their students and contemporaries. Ibn Khuzayma (d. 311/923), a central figure in the Shāfi'ī school who studied with al-Bukhārī and Muslim, compiled a sahīh work that came to be known as Sahīh Ibn Khuzayma. Abū Hafs 'Umar al-Bujayrī of Samarqand (d. 311/924) produced a collection called al-Jāmi' al-sahīh, and even the famous historian and exegete Muhammad b. Jarīr al-Tabarī (d. 310/923) attempted a gigantic sahīh work but died before he finished it. Sa'īd b. al-Sakan (d. 353/964) of Egypt also collected a small sahīh book consisting of hadiths necessary for legal rulings and whose authenticity he claimed was agreed on by all. Ibn Khuzayma's student Ibn al-Jārūd (d. 307/919–20) compiled a similar work called al-Muntaqā (The Select). Ibn Hibbān al-Bustī's (d. 354/965) massive Sahīh is usually considered the last installment in the sahīh movement. Other participants in the sahīh movement also focused on hadiths with strong and reliable isnāds, but they nonetheless featured some reports that they acknowledged as being unreliable but included either because they were widely used among jurists or because the authors, like Ibn Hanbal, could find no reliable hadith addressing that topic. Four of these books in particular attained great renown. The Sunan of Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī (d. 275/889), a close student of Ibn Hanbal, contains about 5,276 hadiths and focuses on reports used in deriving law. The author alerts the reader to any narrations which have serious flaws in their isnāds. The Jāmi' of Muhammad b. 'Īsā al-Tirmidhī (d. 279/892), one of al-Bukhārī's disciples, contains about 4,330 narrations and also focuses on hadiths that different schools of law had used as legal proofs. It also includes detailed discussions of their authenticity. Although al-Tirmidhī's sunan does include numerous unreliable hadiths, the author notes their status. As such, later scholars often called the work Sahīh al-Tirmidhī. Ahmad b. Shu'ayb al-Nasā'ī (d. 303/916), another student of al-Bukhārī, compiled two sunans: the larger one contained many hadiths that the author acknowledged as unreliable. The smaller one, known as the Mujtabā (The Chosen), contains 5,770 narrations and focused on reliable hadiths. It has thus been known as Sahīh al-Nasā'ī. Finally, Muhammad b. Yazīd b. Mājah's (d. 273/887) Sunan is an interesting case. Although the author seems to have tried to include only reliable hadiths, some later Muslim scholars noted that as much as one fourth of the book's 4,485 narrations are actually unreliable.28 With the sahīh/sunan movement, the hadith tradition had reached a watershed. The works of scholars like al-Bukhārī, Muslim and al-Tirmidhī were possessed of a definitiveness that seemed both to reject many aspects of the culture of hadith transmission and to offer themselves as the ultimate hadith references for legal scholars. Muslim wrote his Sahīh as a response to what he saw as the laxity and misplaced priorities of hadith scholars and transmitters. He believed that those scholars who strove to collect as many hadiths as possible regardless of their quality were doing so only to impress others.29 Muslim expressed serious concern over would-be hadith scholars who transmitted material of dubious nature to the exclusion of well-known and well-authenticated hadiths. They provided this material to the common people when in fact it is hadith scholars' duty to leave the common folk with trustworthy reports only. Muslim composed his Sahīh to fulfill this function. Abū Dāwūd expressed a similar purpose for his Sunan. He states confidently that he knows of 'nothing after the Quran more essential for people to learn than this book [his Sunan], and a person would suffer no loss if he did not take in any more knowledge after it.'30 TOPICAL HADITH WORKS During the ninth and tenth centuries, Sunni hadith scholars were not merely writing comprehensive sunan works. They also compiled collections of hadiths dealing with individual topics. In fact, these specific treatises were often bound together to form a sunan or added on to the standard legal chapters of a sunan to add a new component to the work. The earliest genre of topical works was that of zuhd, or asceticism and pious excellence. These books included hadiths describing the Prophet's supreme piety and abstention from any religiously ambiguous behavior, as well as the superlative practice of early Muslim saints and even pre-Islamic prophets. The earliest known book of zuhd is that of Ibn al-Mubārak (d. 181/797). The great hadith transmitters and collectors Wakī' b. al-Jarrāh (d. 197/812) and Ibn Hanbal also compiled books of zuhd. Even as late as the eleventh century the Shāfi'ī scholar Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī (d. 458/1066) wrote a hadith collection devoted to the zuhd theme. Other scholars wrote books similarly addressing the question of perfecting Muslim manners. Al-Bukhārī wrote his 'Book Devoted to Manners (al-Adab al-mufrad)', and a scholar named Ibn Abī al-Dunyā (d. 281/894) of Baghdad wrote dozens of such hadith works on topics such as the importance of giving thanks, understanding dreams, and coping with sadness and grief. The hadith scholar Humayd b. Zanjawayh (d. 251/855–6) composed a book of hadiths that warned Muslims about the punishments that awaited them in Hellfire for certain deeds as well as the heavenly rewards they could expect in Paradise for goodly acts. Known as the Kitāb al-targhīb wa al-tarhīb (The Book of Enjoining and Warning), Ibn Zanjawayh's book was very popular and was transmitted widely. In the 1200s CE, 'Abd al-'Azīm al-Mundhirī (d. 656/1258) wrote another famous book in this genre with the same title. Al-Nasā'ī and his student Ibn al-Sunnī (d. 364/975) both wrote hadith books entitled 'Deeds of the Day and Night ('Amal al-yawm wa al-layla)' on the pious invocations that the Prophet would say in various daily situations. The famous young scholar of Damascus, al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277), also wrote two very popular hadith books on manners and perfecting Muslim practice. His small Adhkār (Prayers) contains hadiths on the prayers one says before activities such as eating, drinking, and traveling with no isnāds but with the author's comments on their reliability. Al-Nawawī's Riyād al-sālihīn min kalām sayyid al-mursalīn (The Gardens of the Righteous from the Speech of the Master of Prophets) is a larger book of ethical, piety, and etiquette-related hadiths which has become extremely popular, serving as a main hadith text for the Tablīgh-i Jamā'at, one of the largest missionary institutions in the modern Muslim world. Similarly designed to frighten readers about the impending apocalypse and coming of 'the Days of God' was an early topical hadith book written by al-Bukhārī's teacher Nu'aym b. Hammād (d. 228/842) entitled Kitāb al-fitan (The Book of Tribulations). Sunan and sahīh books regularly contained chapters on these apocalyptical 'tribulations' as well. The most popular subject for topical hadith collections among Sunni scholars in the ninth and tenth centuries was the importance of adhering to the Sunna of the Prophet and the ways of the early Muslim community on issues of belief and practice. These books of 'sunna' contained Prophetic hadiths and reports from respected early Muslims that exhorted readers to derive their understanding of religion solely from the revealed texts of the Quran and Sunna while avoiding the heretical pitfalls of speculative reasoning about God, His attributes and the nature of the afterlife. Sunna books emphasized all the components of the Sunni Muslim identity as it was emerging in the eighth and ninth centuries: a reliance on transmitted knowledge instead of speculative reasoning, a rejection of the ahl al-ra'y legal school, an affirmation that all the Companions of the Prophet were upright (but that the best were Abū Bakr, 'Umar, 'Uthmān then 'Alī), and political quietism. The most famous books of sunna are those of Ibn Hanbal's son 'Abdallāh (d. 290/903), Ibn Abī 'Āsim (d. 287/900), Muhammad b. Nasr al-Marwazī (d. 294/906), and al-Barbahārī (d. 329/941). Some later sunna hadith collections went into more detail on issues of proper Sunni belief. The staunch Hanbali Sufi Khwāje 'Abdallāh al-Ansārī of Herat (d. 481/1089) wrote a multi-volume hadith work condemning speculative theology and theologians (Dhamm al-kalām wa ahlihi). Ibn al-Waddāh (d. 286/899) wrote a small book on heretical innovation (Kitāb al-bida'), while al-Dāraqutnī (d. 385/995) wrote one treatise collecting all the hadiths affirming that Muslims would actually see God on the Day of Judgment (Kitāb al-ru'ya) and another one bringing together all the hadiths telling that God descends during the night to answer the prayers of the believers. The collective affirmation that all the Companions of the Prophet were righteous and reliable transmitters of the Prophet's teachings, as opposed to the Shiite denigration of all the Companions who did not support 'Alī's claim to leadership, prompted another important topical genre in the ninth century. Books on the 'Virtues of the Companions (fadā'il al-sahāba)' became an important statement of Sunni belief. Ibn Hanbal thus collected all the hadiths he could find in which the Prophet described the excellence or special characteristics of each Companion in his Fadā'il al-sahāba. Al-Nasā'ī also wrote a shorter Fadā'il al-sahāba work as well as a hadith collection specifically devoted to 'Alī's virtues (Khasā'is 'Alī). Although only a few books were written in the genre, books of shamā'il, or the virtues and characteristics of the Prophet, were extremely popular in Islamic civilization. Such books discussed all aspects of the Prophet's personality, appearance, conduct, and miracles, and were often the only books through which the less educated segments of Muslim society from Mali to India would have had contact with high religious tradition. Al-Tirmidhī's Shamā'il was extremely widely read, as was al-Qādī 'Iyād's (d. 544/1149) Kitāb al-shifā. The Egyptian Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūtī (d. 911/1505) also wrote a later shamā'il work entitled al-Khasā'is al-kubrā. As al-Qādī 'Iyād explained, these books were not designed to convince non-Muslims of Muhammad's prophethood, but rather to reinforce Muslims' faith in the unique and unparalleled virtues of 'the last of God's messengers.'31 Another genre of topical collections focused on stories about Muhammad that proved or illustrated his standing as a prophet. The most famous works of Dalā'il al-nubuwwa (proofs of prophethood) come from the eleventh-century scholars al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī (d. 405/1014) and his students Abū Nu'aym al-Isbahānī (d. 430/1038) and Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī. Like musnads, these various monographs were unconcerned with assuring the authenticity of the hadiths they contained. In fact, books on the virtues of Companions and sunna often contained reports that later Sunni scholars and sometimes the authors themselves found baseless or reprehensible. The Kitāb al-sunna of Ibn Abī 'Āsim, that of Ibn Hanbal's son 'Abdallāh and the Kitāb al-tawhīd (Book of God's Unity) of Ibn Khuzayma all included a hadith describing how when God sits on His throne it squeaks like a saddle mounted by its rider. But even Ibn Hanbal's son notes the hadith's isnād is weak, and later Sunni scholars were so shocked by this blatant anthropomorphism that some of them called Ibn Khuzayma's book 'The Book of Heresy.'32 In his Fadā'il al-sahāba, Ibn Hanbal includes a report stating that 'Alī's name is written on the doorway to Paradise, a hadith rejected by Sunni scholars as forged.33 The question of why hadith scholars would knowingly include unreliable or obviously forged reports in any of their books is a perpetual quandary in the study of the hadith tradition and will be discussed in depth in the next chapter. In the context of books exhorting Sunnis to the proper beliefs and worldview, however, it makes sense from the authors' standpoint. These books were often polemics aimed at other sects, such as Muslim rationalists (known as Mu'tazilites) or Shiites. Sunni compilers of these books were not trying to prove anything to other Sunnis, who shared their system of hadith evaluation. They 'knew' they were upholding the correct set of beliefs, so they packed their books with whatever evidence they could find to support them regardless of its reliability. Authors of books of sunna were arguing that, instead of relying on reason, Muslims should believe in material transmitted from the Prophet no matter what it said. A hadith about God's throne squeaking was as useful in this cause as more reliable hadiths. THE HADITH CANON It would be some time before the landmark contribution of the sahīh and sunan books was recognized. By the dawn of the eleventh century, however, a selection of these books had been recognized as authoritative. This canon of books would fulfill two important functions in Islamic civilization: providing a common language for discussing the Prophet's Sunna and providing a manageable representation of the vast hadith corpus. Surprisingly, al-Bukhārī's and Muslim's decision to compile books limited only to hadiths they deemed authentic was initially rejected by many ahl al-hadīth scholars. This seems counterintuitive from a modern standpoint; why would a tradition that prided itself on following the authentic legacy of the Prophet object to books of only authentic hadiths? In order to understand this we must remember that, for the ahl al-hadīth, authentic hadiths only represented the most reliable end of the hadith spectrum. Hadiths with less stellar isnāds were also used in law, and weak hadiths were used very commonly in preaching, Quranic exegesis, and books of zuhd and good manners. Many ahl al-hadīth scholars during al-Bukhārī's and Muslim's time therefore criticized the compilation of the Sahīhayn. A famous hadith scholar from Rayy in Iran, Abū Zur'a al-Rāzī (d. 264/878), said of the two authors, 'These are people who wanted prominence before their time, so they did something of which they could boast; they wrote books the likes of which none had written before to gain for themselves precedence.' The ahl al-hadīth also worried that if hadith scholars wrote books limited to authentic hadiths, their opponents from the ahl al-ra'y would use that as a weapon against them. Abū Zur'a described Muslim as 'making a path for the people of heresy against us, for they see that they can respond to a hadith that we use as proof against them by saying "That is not in the Sahīh!" ' Under fire from such critics, al-Bukhārī and Muslim defended themselves by saying that their books did not include all the sahīh hadiths in circulation. Al-Bukhārī had only selected sahīh hadiths useful for his legal discussions, and Muslim had limited his book to hadiths whose authenticity he believed was agreed on by all.34 By the mid tenth century, however, the contribution of the sahīh/sunan movement was beginning to be realized. Previously, it was the collectors of the great musnads, al-Bukhārī's and Muslim's teachers like Ibn Hanbal and al-Humaydī, who had been viewed as the pillars of hadith scholarship. In the late 900s, however, Ibn Manda of Isfahan (d. 395/1004–5) announced that the four masters of hadith were those who had produced the sahīh books: al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, and al-Nasā'ī. Ibn Manda described these four as well as others of their generation as the group of hadith masters 'accepted by all by consensus, and their knowledge trumps all others.'35 The need for a selection of hadith collections acknowledged as superior by all the ahl al-hadīth was essential at that point in time. In light of all the musannafs, musnads, and sunans in circulation between the various cities that hadith scholars visited on their 'travels in search of knowledge,' which books should students focus on as the foundation for understanding the Prophet's legacy? When a group of intimidated hadith students asked the Egyptian scholar Ibn al-Sakan (d. 353/964) this question, he entered his house and reemerged with four books in his hands. 'These are the foundations of Islam,' he said, 'the books of Muslim, al-Bukhārī, Abū Dāwūd, and al-Nasā'ī.'36 Different scholars had different visions of which books best represented the Prophet's Sunna. These shifting canons are usually referred to as 'The Five Books,' 'The Six Books,' or 'the Authentic Books (al-Sihāh).' The foundation of the canon, however, is unchanging: the four works of al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, and al-Nasā'ī. The Shāfi'ī scholar Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī (d. 458/1066) adds that, together with these four, al-Tirmidhī's and Ibn Khuzayma's books had identified a substantial amount of the authentic hadiths in circulation. Muhammad b. Tāhir al-Maqdisī (d. 507/1113) described the Six Books as those of al-Bukhārī, Muslim, al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasā'ī, Abū Dāwūd, and Ibn Mājah. 'Abd al-Karīm al-Rāfi'ī of Qazvīn (d. 623/1226) also enumerates this six-book series, as does the Indian Hanafī scholar al-Saghānī (d. 650/1252), adding the Sunan of al-Dāraqutnī as well. The Andalusian hadith scholar, al-Saraqustī (d. 524/1129), on the other hand, counts the Six Books as those of al-Bukhārī, Muslim, al-Tirmidhī, Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasā'ī, and Mālik. Al-Silafī of Alexandria (d. 576/1180), Abū Bakr al-Hāzimī (d. 584/1188-9), and al-Nawawī mention only Five Books: the works of al-Bukhārī, Muslim, al-Tirmidhī, Abū Dāwūd, and al-Nasā'ī.37 Together, the Six Books contain approximately 19,600 hadiths (around 35,000 with repetitions). The flexible boundaries of the hadith canon make sense when we consider one of its two primary functions. Even as early as 800 CE, al-Shāfi'ī had said that it was impossible for one person to know all the hadiths in circulation.38 If the Prophet's Sunna was essentially boundless, the Muslim community needed a tangible and manageable selection of hadith books to represent its core. Whether the canon was five or six books, or exactly which books these were, did not affect this function. In the 1200s and 1300s the hadith canon's ability to represent the Prophet's blessings endowed the Sahīhayn in particular with a special ritual relevance. In cities from Damascus to Timbuktu the Sahīhayn would be read in mosques as part of celebrations culminating in the month of Ramadan. Al-Bukhārī's Sahīh in particular was read as a cure for illness from Egypt to India, and the great Moroccan conqueror Mawlā Ismā'īl (d. 1727) had a copy of the Sahīh carried in front of his army 'like the Ark of the Children of Israel.'39 The second, more important function of the hadith canon was limited to the Sahīhayn – the only two books of the canon which included exclusively authentic hadiths. These two books served as a common reference for determining hadith authenticity. In the early 1000s the two schools of law that had emerged from the ahl al-hadīth, the Hanbalī and the Shāfi'ī, agreed that the contents of the Sahīhayn were totally authentic and had been agreed upon as such by the whole Muslim community. Scholars of the Mālikī school soon agreed, and by the 1300s even the hadith-wary Hanafī school had found acknow-ledging this convention unavoidable. For all the Sunni schools of law and theology, the Sahīhayn would be the common language for evaluating the authenticity of hadith in interschool debates. The Sahīhayn canon was an ideal polemical weapon to use against one's opponents. But that did not mean that scholars felt they had to obey all the hadiths found in the two collections in their own work. If a scholar of the Shāfi'ī or Hanafī school of law found a hadith in al-Bukhārī's or Muslim's collections that he disagreed with, he had no compunction about criticizing its authenticity.40 The Sahīhayn were thus not immune to criticism. Only in the early modern and modern periods has it become controversial to criticize the Sahīhayn, but this is primarily due to Muslim scholars' eagerness to protect the status of two books that they see as symbols of an Islamic tradition under attack from modernity. It is import-ant to note here, as will be discussed further below, that Muslim scholars recognized that other sahīh hadiths existed outside the hadith canon. THE PINNACLE OF HADITH COLLECTION AND THE END OF HADITH TRANSMISSION As al-Bukhārī's and Muslim's critics had insisted, the sahīh movement did not mean the end of hadith transmission and collection. Nor did it mean that Muslims believed that all the sahīh hadiths in circulation had been recorded. In fact, from the standpoint of volume, the peak of hadith collection occurred in the tenth century – over one hundred years after the Six Books had been written. Indeed, the compilation of titanic personal musnads continued after and even despite the sahīh movement, with scholars in Iran continuing the tradition of collecting musnads with many weak and even forged hadiths. Abū al-Qāsim al-Tabarānī (d. 360/971) of Isfahan compiled a huge collection, his Mu'jam al-kabīr, which is today printed in twenty-eight volumes. 'Alī b. Hamshādh of Nishapur (d. 338/950) produced a personal musnad twice as large as al-Tabarānī's, and al-Hasan al-Māsarjisī of Nishapur (d. 365/976) compiled a musnad that if published today would occupy an astounding 182 volumes.41 Even as late as the mid 1100s Shahrudār b. Shīrawayh al-Daylamī (d. 558/1163) compiled a famous hadith collection entitled Musnad al-Firdaws (The Musnad of Paradise). Into the 1000s scholars with strong affiliations to certain schools of law produced massive sunans and musnads to bolster their schools' bodies of substantive law. The vast Sunan al-kubrā of the Shāfi'ī Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī (d. 458/1066) is a landmark in the Shāfi'ī legal school, supporting every detail of its law code with a myriad of reports from the Prophet and his Companions. Abū al-'Abbās al-Asamm of Nishapur (d. 346/957) collected all the hadiths that al-Shāfi'ī had transmitted with full isnāds in his magnum opus, the Umm, and organized them into the Musnad al-Shāfi'ī.42 Even a non-Hanafī like Abū Nu'aym al-Isbahānī (d. 430/1038) participated in efforts to find chains going back to the Prophet for Abū Hanīfa's reports and composed a musnad collection of them.43 A much larger musnad of the famous jurist's narrations was compiled by al-Khwārazmī (d. 655/1257). The Mālikī scholar Ibn al-Jabbāb (d. 322/934) created a musnad of Mālik's hadiths.44 All these scholars continued to transmit hadiths in the great mosques of Iraq and Iran before audiences of hundreds and even thousands of students. These 'dictation sessions' were recorded by students in collections called amālī (dictations). The chief judge of Kufa, al-Husayn b. Ismā'īl al-Mahāmilī (d. 330/942), was described as the most knowledgeable person in hadith of his time and was famous for his amālī.45 Abū al-'Abbās al-Asamm was equally well known for his dictation sessions. Not only did hadith transmission and collection continue unabated after the sahīh movement, scholars continued to identify hadiths that they felt merited the title of sahīh and that al-Bukhārī and Muslim should have included in their works. The great hadith scholar of Baghdad, Abū al-Hasan al-Dāraqutnī (d. 385/995) and the Mālikī hadith master of the Hejaz, Abū Dharr al-Harawī (d. 430/1038), both wrote one-volume collections called ilzāmāt (addendums) of hadiths that they considered up to the standards of the Sahīhayn. Al-Dāraqutnī's student, al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī (d. 405/1014), compiled a voluminous ilzāmāt work entitled al-Mustadrak (with approximately 8,800 hadiths) in which he sought, once and for all, to demonstrate to those opponents of the ahl al-hadīth the multitude of authentic hadiths that remained outside the Sahīhayn.46 By the mid 1000s, however, it was clear that the process of recording the hadiths in circulation – regardless of whether they were authentic or forgeries – was coming to an end. In the mid eleventh century, al-Hākim's student al-Bayhaqī declared that all the hadiths that could reliably be attributed to the Prophet had been documented, and thus any previously unrecorded attributions to Muhammad should be considered de facto forgeries.47 In practice, in the 1100s we see that fewer and fewer hadith scholars were able to record hadiths with full isnāds (even highly unreliable hadiths) back to the Prophet that had not already been written down in some earlier collection. Ibn al-Jawzī of Baghdad (d. 597/1201), for example, is the only person to have transmitted the admittedly unreliable hadith 'Sweeping the mosque is the dowry for heavenly beauties (kans al-masājid muhūr al-hūr al-'īn).' The last hadiths that I have seen recorded with full isnāds are found in the Tadwīn fī akhbār Qazwīn (Recording the History of the City of Qazvin) of 'Abd al-Karīm al-Rāfi'ī (d. 623/1226): 'Civil strife (fitna) is sleeping, and God curses whomever wakes it,' and 'Sanjar will be the last of the Persian kings; he will live eighty years and then die of hunger.' (Sanjar was the Seljuq sultan of Persia; he died in 1157 CE at around seventy-five).48 Even this second report is undoubtedly forged. By the 1300s, not even the greatest hadith scholars of their day such as Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1348) or Jamāl al-Dīn al-Mizzī (d. 742/1341) would dare to claim that they were in possession of a hadith reliably said by the Prophet that had gone unnoticed until their time. THE PRACTICE OF HADITH TRANSMISSION AND CONNECTION TO THE PROPHET AFTER THE HADITH CANON In the early period of the hadith tradition the importance of oral transmission, or 'audition (samā')', where the student either read the hadith to his teacher or vice versa, had been very practical. One had to hear hadiths through a chain of teachers (isnād) because the Arabic script was too ambiguous to assure the correct understanding of any written document. The practical emphasis on oral transmission – only accepting material if it came through a living isnād of transmitters – was equally applicable to whole books of hadiths. The transmission of a book required the same care and concern as the transmission of an individual hadith, and collections like Sahīh al-Bukhārī or Mālik's Muwatta' were transmitted from teacher to student in the same manner as hadiths. For hadith scholars, any referral to a hadith collection was contingent on hearing it from a chain of transmitters back to the author. A book could not simply be taken off the shelf and used. Like a single report, only a student copying a text in the presence of his teacher could protect against the vagaries and errors of transmission. Abū Bakr al-Qatī'ī (d. 368/979), who was the principal transmitter of Ibn Hanbal's Musnad, was severely criticized for transmitting one of Ibn Hanbal's books from a copy which he had not heard directly from his teacher, Ibn Hanbal's son. Although al-Qatī'ī had in fact heard this book from his teacher previously, the copy he had used was destroyed in a flood, leaving him with only the other non-samā' copy. This case demonstrates the sensitivity of hadith scholars to the question of oral transmission. Even a respected scholar who had actually heard a book from his teacher could be criticized for relying on another copy if he had not read that copy in the presence of his teacher (since he would not have been able to make any corrections to it). The scholar who transmitted the Musnad from al-Qatī'ī, Ibn al-Mudhhib (d. 444/1052–3), was also accused of lax transmission practices. Specifically, he did not have samā' for certain sections of the Musnad. Later scholars thus explained that, because of this, 'material with unreliable texts (matn) and isnāds entered into the Musnad.'49 In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries the isnād to the book was thus as important as the isnāds contained within the book for authenticating its hadiths. Oral transmission was the key to maintaining these isnāds. In the 1000s, however, the fact that hadith collections such as the Six Books had become so well known and widely transmitted meant that scholars could relax the practical strictures of oral transmission. Sahīh al-Bukhārī was sufficiently widespread that if alterations were made to any one copy of the book there existed enough other transmissions of the book to identify this error. Although devout hadith scholars would maintain into the thirteenth century that one could not simply pick up a book of hadith and read it without having heard it from a transmitter via an isnād, Sunni scholars not specializing in hadith found this unnecessarily cumbersome. By the mid 1000s revered Sunni theologians and jurists like Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) and his teacher al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085) had declared that if one found a well-copied text of al-Bukhārī's Sahīh one could read and use it without an isnād to the book.50 Even among scholars focused narrowly on the study of hadith, in the 1000s the practice of ijāza (permission for transmission) began to supersede samā' as the medium of the isnād. Ijāza for transmission meant that instead of reading an entire hadith collection in the presence of an authorized transmitter, a student might only read part of it and receive 'permission' from the teacher to transmit the rest. Although it was a less rigorous form of authentication, ijāza still provided scholars with isnāds for books. Although this practice had existed in some forms even in the ninth century, by the mid 1000s it had become very common. Al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī, author of the massive Mustadrak, thus gave a group of students an ijāza to transmit his works provided they could secure well-written copies of them.51 Of course, if you could get an ijāza for a book you had not actually read in the presence of a teacher, you could get ijāzas for any number of books that the teacher was able to transmit. This led to the practice of acquiring a 'general ijāza (ijāza 'āmma)' for all the books a teacher had. In the 1000s many scholars also accepted the practice of getting ijāzas from teachers one had not actually met at all through writing letters. This 'ijāza for the non-present person (ijāzat al-ma'dūm)' meant that scholars could acquire ijāzas for their infant children or even for children not yet born! This ijāza for transmission (ijāzat al-riwāya) should not be mistaken for another, much less easily attained form of ijāza in Islamic civilization, 'the ijāza of knowledge (ijāzat al-dirāya).' The ijāza of transmission served only to preserve the tradition of the isnād, while the ijāza of knowledge showed that a teacher acknowledged that a student had mastered a text and was able to teach its contents to others. It is evident from these developments that by the late eleventh century the transmission of hadiths and books via a living isnād possessed little practical value. Why then did it continue? Simply put, the foundational principle of the Islamic tradition, that authority comes through a connection to God and His Prophet, still dominated Muslim scholarly culture. The isnād was that chain that connected a scholar to the Prophet and allowed him to act as an authoritative interpreter of Islam. Hearing a hadith or a book of hadiths by an isnād, even if by ijāza, breathed a soul into otherwise lifeless pages and rendered the book legally compelling. One Arabic poem describes someone reading a book without receiving it from a teacher as 'someone trying to light a lamp with no oil.'52 The Andalusian scholar Ibn Khayr al-Ishbīlī (d. 575/1179) thus stated that no one could introduce a statement with the formula 'the Prophet said...' without possessing some personal chain of transmission, even if by ijāza, back to the Prophet for that report.53 The isnād conveyed authority in Muslim scholarly culture, and it is no coincidence that acquiring and possessing isnāds was one of the means by which the Muslim scholarly elite could distinguish themselves from the laity. One of the reasons that Ibn Khayr al-Ishbīlī gave for requiring some form of isnād for quoting the Prophet was the phenomenon of uneducated simpletons preaching in mosques instead of qualified scholars. Receiving isnāds for books and hadiths was the equivalent of being ordained into the priesthood, and it is no surprise that even today at the Islamic Institute in Kerala, India, the graduation ceremony for Muslim scholars involves the rector of the school reading them his isnād for a hadith that involves the transmitters, all the way back to the Prophet, investing the student to whom they recited the hadith with the turban of a scholar. Perhaps the last large hadith book to include full isnāds for every hadith it included was the Ahādīth al-mukhtāra (Selected Hadiths) of Diyā' al-Dīn al-Maqdisī (d. 643/1245). But even this book did not include previously unrecorded hadiths. The author's isnāds for his hadiths consist of his isnāds to earlier hadith collections, which then continue from the author of those collections back to the Prophet. After the 1200s, hadith scholars would cultivate their own full- length isnāds back to the Prophet in small booklets produced only for the pietistic purpose of linking themselves to his blessings and imitating the great hadith scholars of yore. As Muhyī al-Dīn al-Nawawī described it, collecting isnāds back to the Prophet is an act of 'preserving the isnād, which is one of the unique features of the Muslim community.'54 The famous hadith scholar of Cairo, Zayn al-Dīn al-'Irāqī (d. 806/1404), thus conducted occasional amālī sessions in an effort to imitate the practice of earlier hadith scholars. In the twentieth century, the Moroccan hadith scholar Ahmad al-Ghumārī (d. 1960) recited hadiths with full isnāds back to the Prophet in dictation sessions in Cairo's al-Husayn Mosque. Today, the practice of transmitting hadiths is carried out by hearing hadiths known as musalsalāt, or hadiths always transmitted in a certain context. The first hadith a student hears from his teacher is known as the hadīth al-musalsal bi'l-awwaliyya, 'the hadith always transmitted first': 'God the Most Merciful is merciful towards those who act with mercy – be merciful on the earth and He that is in the heavens will be merciful with you' (see chapter 1). Historically, transmitting hadiths via full isnāds back to the Prophet carried another advantage as well. Not only did the chain connect one to Muhammad himself, it also linked one to all the great scholars of the past through whom the isnād passed. The staunchly orthodox thirteenth-century Sufi 'Umar al-Suhrawardī (d. 632/1234) began most of the chapters of his popular manual on Sufism, 'Awārif al-ma'ārif, with hadiths that reached all the way back to the Prophet through major figures in the Sufi tradition, such as Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072) and Abū Nu'aym al-Isbahānī.55 These scholars had recorded their hadiths in book-form, but the religious capital gained by providing living isnāds for hadiths transmitted through them proved more compelling to al-Suhrawardī than simply citing their books. Isnāds thus linked scholars to the great figures who had preceded them in Islamic civilization and allowed one to speak with their voices as well as that of the Prophet. As the great Sufi of the sixteenth century, al-Sha'rānī (d. 1565 CE) said, someone with an isnād 'is like a link in the chain, whenever he moves on any matter the whole chain, up to our master the Messenger of God, moves with him.'56 ELEVATION IN ISNĀDS, AUTHORITY, AND PRECEDENCE IN POST-CANONICAL HADITH TRANSMISSION After the late tenth and eleventh centuries CE the primary purpose of the isnād was to provide a connection to the Prophet's authority and establish a person as part of the Muslim scholarly class. As a result, one's proximity to the Prophet in the isnād and access to hadiths that other scholars lacked served as marks of precedence in the scholarly community. Like the importance of oral transmission (samā'), the notion of a short or 'elevated ('ālī)' isnād began as a very practical concern for hadith authenticity: the fewer the links in the isnād to the Prophet, the fewer opportunities for error in transmission to occur. Hence we find even an early collector like Ibn Abī Shayba (d. 235/849) exhorting scholars that 'seeking elevated isnāds is part of religion.'57 By the mid 900s CE, however, seeking elevated isnāds had become a goal in its own right. In a society where connection to the Prophet was the source of both authority and blessing, the proximity of that connection was very valuable. As one early hadith scholar phrased it, 'A close isnād is closeness to God.'58 As in any society, Muslim religious scholars and pious individuals established a system of honors and valuable items that individuals could earn or attain; like educational degrees, Muslim scholars sought out shorter and shorter isnāds, rarer and rarer hadiths, as a way to gain precedence, fame, and respect in their religious culture. Like coin collectors fretting over acquiring rarities, Muslims flocked to those scholars lucky enough to hear old hadith transmitters as young children, or who had heard a rare hadith from a certain transmitter from a faraway land. Such people could offer young Muslim scholars, eager to earn their place among the scholarly elite or merely to feel especially connected to their Prophet, a chance at excellence. Of course, in none of these cases did the authenticity of the hadith in question actually matter – hadith scholars could distinguish themselves by their short isnāds and their rare hadiths regardless of whether or not these isnāds were reliable or the rare hadiths were baseless. To return to the analogy of coin collecting, it is the rarity of the coin and its condition (analogous to the elevation of an isnād) not the original value of the coin (or the authenticity of the hadith) which matter to the collector. Perhaps the most prominent example of a hadith scholar who prioritized elevated isnāds and rare hadiths far above authenticity was al-Tabarānī (d. 360/971), who began hearing hadiths from teachers at the age of thirteen and died at the age of one hundred. Of his many hadith collections, his three mu'jams (see below), one large, one medium, and one small, are testimonies to his priorities in hadith study. In the small and medium collections, al-Tabarānī follows most narrations with a brief discussion of how rare that narration is. Al-Tabarānī's isnāds border on the impossibly short. While ninth-century scholars like al-Bukhārī generally narrated by isnāds of four, five, six, or seven transmitters to the Prophet (and in al-Bukhārī's case, twenty-eight instances where he narrated by only three), one hundred years later al-Tabarānī still regularly narrated hadiths with four-person isnāds. In one case we find him narrating a hadith via only three people: Ja'far b. Hamīd al-Ansārī his grandfather 'Umar b. Abān the Companion Anas b. Mālik, who showed him how to perform ablutions like the Prophet. Of course, later Muslim critics cast aside this isnād as inauthentic since Ja'far b. Hamīd was unknown to anyone but al-Tabarānī.59 But in a scholarly culture where proximity to the Prophet granted precedence regardless of authenticity, al-Tabarānī was the most sought after hadith transmitter of his time. The last of his students to die was one Ibn Rīdha (d. 440/1049), and the most long-lived person to hear al-Tabarānī's collections from him was a woman named Fātima al-Jūzdāniyya (d. 514/1120). If you were lucky enough to receive ijāza from Fātima as a child for al-Tabarānī's hadiths, you could be living in the late 1100s, some 550 years after the Prophet had died, with only six degrees of separation between you and him! Two other famous hadith collections that embody the desire for connection to the Prophet, whatever the authenticity, in this period are the Musnad al-Shihāb (The Meteor Musnad) of the Egyptian al-Qudā'ī (d. 454/1062) and the Musnad al-Firdaws of al-Daylamī (d. 558/1163). These books represent some of the last large hadith collections to feature full-length isnāds, but their contents are on the whole so unreliable that later scholars devoted whole books to the forged hadiths they contained and assumed any hadith cited from the books to be weak.60 Today, the shortest realistic isnāds include twenty intermediaries to the Prophet. As al-Tabarānī's impossibly short isnād suggests, however, a chain of transmission can be as short as one is willing to believe. A great cultivator of isnāds in the early modern period, Murtadā al-Zabīdī (d. 1791), claimed to have heard a hadith via an isnād of two jinn (supernatural beings living alongside humans, the origin of our word 'genie') from the Prophet.61 A modern hadith scholar from Morocco, 'Abdallāh al-Ghumārī (d. 1993), noted that while teaching in Fez he had met a man who claimed to have heard hadiths from his grandfather, who had heard hadiths from al-Zabīdī.62 If we combine this with the jinn's isnād, this would mean that in the 1990s al-Ghumārī had a hadith from the Prophet narrated by only five intermediaries! Of course, neither al-Zabīdī nor al-Ghumārī believed that such transmissions were reliable enough to be the basis for law or dogma (as we'll see, jinn could not be pinned down to be evaluated as transmitters). They believed that jinn existed, however, so these isnāds were worth collecting for the blessing (baraka) of having a close, albeit tenuous, connection to the Prophet. Women and hadith transmission The transmission of hadith collections and even the compilation of new ones with very elevated isnāds in the post-canonical era was an area in which women could excel. Because they often lived longer than men, women could become the most sought after transmitters of books. Major hadith scholars like al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī traveled to Mecca to read Sahīh al-Bukhārī in the presence of Karīma al-Marwaziyya (d. 463/1071), who had an especially elevated isnād to the book, and Fātima al-Jūzdāniyya was the main transmitter of al-Tabarānī's works. Until her death in 2008, Muslim students flocked to a small village in Yemen's Hadramawt Valley to receive a hadith ijāza from the 105-year-old woman Safiyya al-'Amdiyya. Independent collections of hadiths by women were very rare; in the early period of hadith they were non-existent. But we know of at least two selections of hadiths from the post-canonical period compiled by women. A twelfth-century woman named Shuhda al-Kātiba (d. 574/1178–9) put together a list of 115 hadiths that she picked from books she had been authorized to transmit, often with shorter isnāds than the hadiths in the actual books themselves.63 The Musnad of Amat Allāh Miryam al-Hanbaliyya of Nablus (d. 758/1357) has also survived until today. MU'JAMS, THABATS, AND THE CVS OF HADITH SCHOLARS With the transformation of hadith transmission and collection into a means of connection to the Prophet and status in the scholarly community, hadith collections emerged that were structured to display the breadth of a hadith scholar's learning. Mu'jams were books of hadiths in which the author chose a certain theme and then provided as many hadiths as possible to demonstrate the breadth of his hadith corpus within that theme. In a sense, the mu'jam functioned as curriculum vitae of the hadith scholar, displaying the range of teachers with whom he had studied, the rarity of his hadiths, and the elevation of his isnāds. Mu'jams had emerged in the ninth century, with Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī's (d. 317/929–30) Mu'jam al-sahāba, where the author provided one hadith from him all the way back to each Companion. The mu'jam came into its own as a genre, however, in the tenth to the twelfth centuries. A common theme for a mu'jam was a mu'jam al-shuyūkh (mu'jam of teachers), or a collection where the author provided one hadith with a full isnād through each of his teachers. An early example of this is the Mu'jam al-shuyūkh of Abū Bakr al-Ismā'īlī (d. 371/981–2) and the Mu'jam al-saghīr (small mu'jam) of al-Tabarānī. A mu'jam al-shuyūkh could be massive and contain far more than merely hadiths: the mu'jam composed by Abū Sa'd al-Sam'ānī (d. 562/1166) is published in four volumes and contains hadiths, information about his teachers' lives, and the books they studied and wrote, as well as about his own studies. Other mu'jams were designed to display the breadth of a scholar's travels in the search of hadiths. One scholar of the 1100s who was particularly well known for his elevated isnāds and wide travel (born in Iran, he eventually settled in Alexandria), Abū Tāhir al-Silafī (d. 576/1180) wrote three mu'jams, one for his teachers in his native Isfahan, one for those in Baghdad, and one for the teachers he had heard from on his travels (the Mu'jam al-safar). With the end of the general practice of writing hadith collections with full isnāds in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the hadith scholar's CV shifted away from using the isnāds of hadiths to demonstrate wide learning to using the isnāds of books. In the mid 1100s we thus see the emergence of thabats, or collections in which a scholar listed all his isnāds to the books he had received permission to transmit from his teachers, in the place of mu'jams. Early thabats include that of the famous Andalusian hadith scholars al-Qādī 'Iyād b. Mūsā (d. 544/1149) and Ibn Khayr al-Ishbīlī (d. 575/1179). Thabats would remain until modern times the premier medium through which scholars could demonstrate their connection to the great scholars of yesteryear, and through those books to the Prophet himself. In the twentieth century the Moroccan hadith scholar Muhammad 'Abd al-Hayy al-Kattānī (d. 1963) compiled the Fahris al-fahāris, a thabat collection with isnāds to over one thousand earlier thabat collections. CHANNELING THE CONNECTION TO THE PROPHET: MUSTAKHRAJS, COMMENTARIES, LOCAL HISTORIES, AND FORTY HADITH BOOKS The capacity of hadith to function as a connection to the Prophet has allowed Muslim scholars to channel and mold this charismatic medium to serve a variety of scholarly and non-scholarly purposes. Hadiths have provided the material through which other discourses are constructed. From the 900s to the present day, scholars have therefore used hadiths as a medium for discussing any number of legal, doctrinal, or spiritual issues. Mustakhrajs The genre of mustakhraj books flourished from the late 800s until the early 1000s, during the period in which the focus on elevated isnāds became pronounced. A mustakhraj involved a hadith scholar taking an existing hadith collection and using it as a template for his own hadith book; so for every hadith found in the template collection, the author of the mustakhraj would provide his own narration of that hadith. This seems counterintuitive – why would a scholar who had collected a large body of hadiths not write his own collection in order to express his own legal or doctrinal worldview? The reason for composing a mustakhraj becomes obvious when we consider the nature and objectives of the genre. First, mustakhrajs appeared during the period when the hadith canon was forming. As a result, collections such as the Sahīhayn and the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd were greatly sought after, and scholars would travel far and wide to hear the books from their authorized transmitters. If a scholar was unable to hear the books from a transmitter with an elevated isnād to its author, however, he would have to suffice with an unattractively long isnād to the book. Mustakhrajs provided a solution. By reconstituting the template collection with his own, often elevated isnāds, a scholar could effectively possess the book without compromising the quality of his isnād to it. Abū Nu'aym al-Isbahānī states that he composed his mustakhraj of Muslim's Sahīh for the benefit of those who had 'missed' hearing that book from authorized transmitters. A twelfth-century scholar who had heard al-Isbahānī's mustakhraj bragged to friends that some of the isnāds for hadiths in the book were so short that he was just as close to the Prophet as Muslim had been.64 Second, authors of mustakhrajs used the template collection to display the authenticity and elevation of their own isnāds. We thus find that the books used as template collections for mustakhrajs were all products of the sahīh movement; dozens of mustakhrajs were produced based on the Sahīhayn of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, with three on the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd, one on al-Tirmidhī's Jāmi' and one on the Sahīh of Ibn Khuzayma. The majority of mustakhrajs based on the Sahīhayn thus attempted to replicate the criteria used for authenticity by al-Bukhārī and Muslim. Finally, by selecting narrations of hadiths that varied slightly from the template collections or adjusting the chapter titles, the authors of mustakhrajs could introduce their own legal or doctrinal ideas into the text. In this sense, mustakhrajs were the first generation of commentaries on hadith collections. In the mustakhraj genre, the template collection served as a forum for the author to display the quality and elevation of his isnāds as well as to express his own doctrinal and legal vision. Commentaries A commentary on a hadith collection, or sharh, served two general functions. First, scholars composed such a work to assist students in the basic task of reading and understanding the difficult phrases, names, and obscure meanings embedded in the isnāds and matns of a hadith work. Second, commentaries provided scholars with an opportunity to elaborate in detail on any legal, dogmatic, ritual, or historical issue that they found relevant to the hadiths in the book they were discussing. The book commented on thus acted as a medium for a much more expanded discussion in which the author could express his own vision of the Islamic worldview. The majority of hadith commentaries were devoted to books in the hadith canon. The earliest known commentary was devoted to Mālik's Muwatta' by the Mālikī Abū Tāhir al-Umawī (d. 250/864). Two other very early examples are the Shāfi'ī scholar Hamd al-Khattābī's (d. 388/998) commentaries on the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd and on Sahīh al-Bukhārī. The first known commentary on Muslim's Sahīh was written by the North African scholar Muhammad b. 'Alī al-Māzarī (d. 536/1141), with one devoted to the Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī by another North African, Abū Bakr b. al-'Arabī (d. 543/1148). The first known commentary on Sunan Ibn Mājah came from the Cairene Hanafī scholar Mughaltāy (d. 762/1361). Sunan al-Nasā'ī would have to wait until al-Suyūtī (d. 911/1505) devoted a commentary to it. The most famous hadith commentaries overall are undoubtedly Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalānī's (d. 852/1449) Fath al-bārī, a huge commentary on Sahīh al-Bukhārī, and al-Nawawī's commentary on Sahīh Muslim. Both are so encyclopedic in their discussion of the hadith-science issues and broader questions raised in the Sahīhayn that Muslim scholars regularly cite them instead of specialized books of law or theology. Because commentaries provided such an excellent forum for legal discussion, the hadith collections tied to specific schools of law also attracted them. Early commentaries on Mālik's Muwatta' came from the Mālikī scholars Ibn 'Abd al-Barr (d. 463/1060) of Lisbon and Abū al-Walīd al-Bājī (d. 474/1081), both of whom wrote several commentaries of various sizes on the work. Ibn 'Abd al-Barr's Kitāb al-tamhīd and the later work of al-Zurqānī (d. 1122/1710) are the two best known commentaries on the Muwatta'. There have been occasional commentaries on the Musnad of Abū Hanīfa, such as that of the Meccan Mullā 'Alī Qārī (d. 1014/1606). Al-Suyūtī wrote a small commentary on the Musnad of al-Shāfi'ī, and even the massive Musnad of Ibn Hanbal has attracted occasional commentaries, such as that of the Medinan scholar Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Hādī (d. 1726) or the Yemeni Abū al-Hasan al-Sindī (d. 1728). Commentaries attained an important station in the late 1300s, when writing one on al-Bukhārī's or Muslim's Sahīh became the principal means for scholars throughout the Sunni Muslim world to interact with the hadith tradition. At the peak of intellectual activity in Mamluk Cairo in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, almost every hadith scholar of note wrote a commentary on Sahīh al-Bukhārī, and in India from the 1600s onward writing a commentary on one of the Sahīhayn was de rigueur for accomplished Muslim scholars.65 Hadith commentaries have continued to be written until modern times. The most famous commentary on al-Tirmidhī's Jāmi', the Tuhfat al-ahwadhī (The Gem of the Competant) of the Indian Muhammad 'Abd al-Rahmān al-Mubārakpūrī (d. 1935), is a regularly cited encyclopedic source for Sunni Muslim scholars worldwide. The twenty-nine-volume Awjaz al-masālik ilā Muwatta' Mālik (ironically titled, The Shortest of Paths to Mālik's Muwatta'), written by the Indian Muhammad Zakariyyā Kāndahlawī (d. 1982) is the largest commentary devoted to the one volume Muwatta' of Mālik. Sometimes scholars devoted commentaries to selections of hadiths they made themselves and not to any existing books. The leading Hanafī hadith scholar of his time, the Egyptian Abū Ja'far al-Tahāwī (d. 321/933), wrote one commentary on hadiths of legal consequence to the Hanafī school, the Sharh ma'ānī al-āthār, and one on hadiths he found legally or doctrinally problematic, the Sharh mushkil al-āthār. The Sufi Abū Bakr al-Kalābādhī (d. 384/994) wrote a commentary on a selection of hadiths he found morally and spiritually important, the Bahr al-fawā'id (Ocean of Benefits). Local histories From the late ninth century, scholars also began using hadiths as a medium for a less scholastic topic: narrating the history of their native city, its virtues, and the accomplishments of its inhabitants. These local histories formed part of the larger genre of biographical dictionaries that featured so prominently in Islamic civilization. In such works history is told through collective biography. Local histories generally set forth the history of a city, the people associated with it and its role in the Islamic world. The introductory chapters on the virtues of the city usually included outrageously patriotic forged hadiths. In the eleventh century, al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī and Abū Nu'aym al-Isbahānī wrote local histories on their respective cities of Nishapur and Isfahan, both in Iran and both featuring this hadith: 'The people with the greatest destiny in Islam are the people of Persia (a'zam al-nās nasīban fī al-islām ahl fāris).'66 Local histories then generally list the famous inhabitants or visitors to the city in either chronological or alphabetical order, providing biog-raphies for each entry. Many local histories fit squarely within the genre of hadith literature because they focused on the lives and accomplishments of hadith scholars, describing the teachers from whom they heard hadiths and the students to whom they transmitted, and rating their reliability. Local histories also included vast arrays of hadiths. The earliest known local history is the history of Wāsit in southern Iraq (Tārīkh Wāsit) written by Aslam b. Sahl Bahshal (d. 292/905). The work includes many hadiths, including the only known narration of the hadith through Ibn Abbas in which the Prophet condemns speaking during the Friday prayer sermon.67 The most famous local histories rank among the largest books written in Islamic civilization. The History of Baghdad (literally, The History of the City of Peace, Tārīkh madīnat al-salām) of al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī (d. 463/1071) is fourteen printed volumes, while the mammoth History of Damascus (Tārīkh madīnat Dimashq) of Ibn 'Asākir (d. 571/1176) fills eighty! Since the authors of these two books include at least one hadith for each entry, with a full isnād from the author through the subject in question back to the Prophet, the History of Baghdad and the History of Damascus are actually two of the largest and most important hadith collections. As with musnads and mu'jams, their authors were unconcerned with the authenticity of hadiths in the books, and the works are thus indispensable sources for some of the rarest and most bizarre hadiths in circulation. Forty hadith collections One the most common and enduring forms of using hadiths as a medium for scholarly or pious expression has been books of Arba'ūn hadīth, or 'Forty Hadith' books. Supposedly the first Forty Hadith book was composed by the early scholar Ibn al-Mubārak (d. 181/797) on the basis of a hadith that, although attributed to the Prophet through many narrations and permutations, Muslims have agreed is unreliable: 'Whoever memorizes for my community forty hadiths from my Sunna, I will be his intercessor on the Day of Judgment (man hafiza 'alā ummatī arba'īn hadīthan min al-sunna kuntu lahu shafī'an yawm al-qiyāma).' Despite its unreliability, this hadith has served consistently as a catalyst in Islamic scholarly culture, and even Muslim scholars not known for any special interest in hadith have composed forty hadith collections on its basis. Among the non-hadith specialists who did so are the famous Shāfi'ī legal theorist al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085) and the seminal Sufi theosopher Ibn Arabi (d. 638/ 1240). Some of the earliest known forty books are those of Ahmad b. Harb al-Naysābūrī (d. 234/848) and Ibrāhīm b. 'Alī al-Dhuhlī (d. 294/905).68 Like mu'jams, forty hadith collections could be tailored to display the elevation or rarity of a scholar's hadiths or be devoted to specific topics. Ibn 'Asākir and al-Silafī had forty hadith collections with one hadith for each of the forty lands they had visited. Abū Nu'aym al-Isbahānī composed one with forty hadiths import-ant to Sufis and one with forty hadiths about the Messiah (Mahdī). Muhammad b. Abd al-Rahman al-Tujīnī of Morocco (d. 610/1213) wrote several forty hadith collections, including one on the topic of praying for the Prophet. The most exorbitant displays of the breadth of a scholar's hadith corpus are certainly the forty hadith collections of Ibn al-Abbār (d. 658/1259) and Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Wāhid al-Ghāfiqī (d. 619/1222), which were entitled 'Forty hadiths from forty different teachers from forty different books by forty different scholars via forty different isnāds to forty different Successors, from forty different Companions with forty different names from forty different tribes on forty different issues.'69 Convinced that all possible forty-hadith-book themes had been exhausted, al-Hasan b. Muhammad al-Naysābūrī (d. 656/1258) replicated this same topic but also drew his forty hadiths from forty different forty-hadith collections!70 One forty hadith book in particular, al-Nawawī's 'Forty Hadiths about the Principles of the Religion (Arba'ūn hadīth fī usūl al-dīn)' is one of the most widely read books after the Quran among Sunni Muslims. It has served as an important tool for scholars to instruct the masses and has been the subject of numerous commentaries, such as the frequently studied Jāmi' al-'ulūm wa al-hikam (Compendium of the Sciences and Wisdoms) of Ibn Rajab (d. 795/1392) and Ibn Hajar al-Haytamī's (d. 974/1566) Fath al-mubin bi-sharh al-arba'īn. CONSOLIDATION AND ANALYSIS IN THE LATE SUNNI TRADITION In the wake of the emergence of the hadith canon at the dawn of the eleventh century, a process of consolidation and analysis began in parallel with the continued transmission of hadith as a medium of connection to the Prophet. This consolidation and analysis entered a period of exceptional activity with the solidification of what we can refer to as the Late Sunni Tradition, or the version of Sunni orthodoxy that emerged in the 1300s and has characterized Islamic civilization in the Middle East and South Asia until the modern period. It consists of an institutional combination of the four Sunni schools of law, the Ash'arī or Māturīdī schools of speculative theology, and Sufi brotherhoods. A Muslim scholar in the Late Sunni Tradition would loyally follow one of the established schools of law, one of the established schools of speculative theology, and participate in one or more Sufi brotherhoods. Digest collections The emergence of the hadith canon resulted naturally in the composition of digest collections that combined and consolidated the canon's contents into a more manageable form. The first digests addressed the core of the hadith canon: the two Sahīhs of al-Bukhārī and Muslim. An Andalusian who moved to Baghdad, Muhammad b. Futūh al-Humaydī (d. 488/1095) combined the Sahīhayn into one book, noting any material that one of the two books featured apart from the other. Zayn al-Dīn al-Zabīdī (d. 893/1488) later wrote a small one-volume digest of all the hadiths of Sahīh al-Bukhārī, called Tajrīd al-Sahīh (Stripping Down the Sahīh), that removed isnāds and any repetitions. Ibn Razīn al-Saraqustī (d. 524/1129) of Saragossa produced a more thorough digest of what he perceived as the hadith canon: the Sahīhayn and the books of Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasā'ī, al-Tirmidhī and Mālik. The Syrian Ibn al-Athīr (d. 606/1210) replicated this work in his large and very popular Jāmi' al-usūl min ahādīth al-rasūl, a copy of which the great Mongol grand vizier Rashīd al-Dīn (d. 718/1318) ordered to be placed in the mosque he endowed as a counterpart to the Quran. The famous scholar of Baghdad, Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1201), compiled a digest collection reflecting his loyalty to the Hanbali school; his Jāmi' al-masānīd combined the hadiths of the Sahīhayn, the sunan of al-Tirmidhī, and the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal.71 Ibn Athīr's Jāmi' al-usūl was a huge, multivolume work. Other digests were meant to be portable, easily thumbed-through personal handbooks. Al-Husayn al-Baghawī (d. 516/1122), known as 'the Reviver of the Sunna,' wrote his one-volume Masābīh al-sunna (Lamps of the Sunna) for this purpose. He digested the canon into 4,434 hadiths, half of them from the Sahīhayn.72 Organized topically, each chapter is divided into sahīh and the hasan (see next chapter for discussion of these terms) hadiths. The work is so small because the author omitted the isnāds, relying on the reputation of the books he drew on to vouch for the reliability of the hadiths.73 Muhammad al-Khatīb al-Tabrīzī (d. c. 737/1337) added 1,511 hadiths to al-Baghawī's work in his expanded digest, the Mishkāt al-masābīh (Niche of the Lamps). The Mishkāt became a standard hadith textbook for Muslim religious students, especially in India, and was the subject of several commentaries, including the famous Mirqāt al-mafātīh sharh Mishkāt al-masābīh of Mullā 'Alī Qārī. Supplemental collections The Six Books contained approximately 19,600 traditions altogether (around 35,000 with repetitions), but vast numbers remained in other works. While digest works sought to consolidate the material within the canon, supplemental collections (kutub al-zawā'id) brought material outside the canon within easy reach of scholars. In his Majma' al-zawā'id, the Cairene scholar Nūr al-Dīn al-Haythamī (d. 807/1405) listed all hadiths from the Musnads of Ibn Hanbal, Abū Ya'lā al-Mawsilī, and al-Bazzār as well as the Mu'jams of al-Tabarānī that are not found in the Six Books, organized topically and without isnāds. Al-Haythamī also evaluated the transmitters in the isnād of each supplemental hadith (but, note, not necessarily the authenticity of the hadith itself!).74 In his Ithāf al- khayyira al-mahara bi-zawā'id al-masānīd al-'ashara, Ahmad al-Būsīrī (d. 840/1436) performed the same service for the hadiths in the Muwatta', the Musnad of al-Shāfi'ī, Sunan al-Dārimī, Sunan al-Dāraqutnī, Sahīh Ibn Khuzayma, Sahīh Ibn Hibbān, the Muntaqā of Ibn al-Jārūd, Abū 'Awāna's Mustakhraj of Sahīh Muslim, the Mustadrak of al-Hākim, and the Sharh ma'ānī al-āthār of al-Tahāwī. In his Matālib al-'āliya bi-zawā'id al-masānīd al-thamāniya, the great Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalānī (d. 852/1449) added the hadiths from a wide selection of less well-known early musnads: those of al-Tayālisī, al-Humaydī, Ibn Abī 'Umar, al-Musaddad, Ahmad b. Manī', Ibn Abī Shayba, 'Abd b. Humayd, al-Hārith b. Abī Usāma, Ishāq b. Rāhawayh, and al-Rūyānī.75 With these supplemental collections at their disposal, Muslim scholars could easily reference hadiths outside the canonical collections as well as the rulings of major late hadith masters on their isnāds. Ibn Hajar attempted a comparable feat for sahīh hadiths. He compiled a work called Zawā'id al-sunan al-arba'a mimmā huwa sahīh (Supplements [to the Sahīhayn] from what is Sahīh from the Four Sunan), but it seems not to have survived (sadly).76 The modern Yemeni scholar Muqbil b. Hādī al-Wādi'ī (d. 2001) performed a similar service in the modern period; in his al-Jāmi' al-sahīh mimmā laysa fī al-Sahīhayn he collected all the hadiths he deemed authentic but that are not found in al-Bukhārī's and Muslim's collections. Mega-collections Rather than collecting extra-canonical hadiths in manageable form, several late Sunni scholars attempted the more ambitious task of encompassing the whole hadith corpus in one book. The encyclopedic Shāfi'ī scholar of Egypt, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūtī (d. 911/1505), sought to accomplish this after he had a dream in which the Prophet appeared to him and ordered him to 'Bring forth the Sunna! Bring forth the hadiths!'77 Al-Suyūtī attempted this in his Jam' al-jawāmi' (Consolidation of Compendia), also known as his Jāmi' al-kabīr. Tragically, al-Suyūtī died before he completed this work, having collected some 100,000 hadiths in his draft. What survived has been published in thirty volumes. In this work, the author synthesized the contents of all the hadith collections available to him alphabetically according to the beginning of the hadith (taraf) along with its isnād. The book stops about nine tenths of the way through the alphabet, never reaching hadiths describing the Prophet's actions. While still working on this massive compendium, al-Suyūtī took all the hadiths (10,031 in total) documenting Prophetic sayings (as opposed to actions), rated their authenticity (or most of them), and combined them in a one-volume work called al-Jāmi' al-saghīr. This work has become one of the most relied upon references for Muslim scholars not specializing in hadiths. Realizing he had omitted some mater-ial, al-Suyūtī penned an addendum entitled al-Ziyāda 'alā al-Jāmi' al-saghīr. The Indian scholar 'Alī b. 'Abd al-Malik Muttaqī (d. 975/1567) took the Jāmi' al-saghīr, added hadiths that al-Suyūtī had missed as well as hadiths describing the Prophet's actions and rearranged them all topically in his massive Kanz al-'ummāl fī sunan al-aqwāl wa al-af'āl (The Laborers' Treasure from the Spoken and Acted Sunna). The Egyptian 'Abd al-Ra'ūf al-Munāwī (d. 1031/1622) estimated that al-Suyūtī had only succeeded in exhausting two thirds of the extant Prophetic sayings and objected to the widespread belief that if a hadith was not in the Jāmi' al-kabīr it did not exist. In his al-Jāmi' al-azhar min hadīth al-nabī al-anwar, al-Munāwī therefore added in Prophetic sayings that al-Suyūtī had missed and also completed the work from where al-Suyūtī had left off (at man taraka ...).78 Other late scholars also complained about al-Suyūtī's omissions; the Moroccan Abū 'Alā' al-Fāsī (d. 1770–1) wrote in the margins of his copy of the Jāmi' al-kabīr over five thousand hadiths that al-Suyūtī had missed. Indices/Atrāf collections One of the most practical genres of books produced in the consolidation movement was that of atrāf. The taraf (pl. atrāf) of a hadith was the first section of the matn or its most prominent section. If a scholar knew the text of the hadith and had no other information about it, an index of hadiths arranged according to atrāf would be the easiest way to find it. An atrāf work listed the matn of the hadith and then provided all its various chains of transmission and the books in which they appear. As with other genres, atrāf collections took the Sahīhayn as the first subject. Abū Mas'ūd al-Dimashqī (d. 401/1010–11) and Khalaf al-Wāsitī (d. 400/1010) of Baghdad each wrote an atrāf work for the hadiths included in al-Bukhārī's and Muslim's collections, although their books were clearly not meant for people to use as accessible indices, since the works are organized along musnad lines and not alphabetically. The Mālikī scholar of Andalusia, 'Uthmān b. Sa'īd al-Dānī (d. 444/1053) also wrote an early atrāf of the hadiths in the Muwatta'.79 Ibn 'Asākir composed a more useful and ultimately widely copied atrāf work of the Five Book canon. Abū al-Fadl al-Maqdisī (d. 507/1113) wrote an atrāf book of the Six Books, but it was not widely used. Jamāl al-Dīn al-Mizzī (d. 742/1341) wrote a much more comprehensive atrāf of the Six Books (and several smaller, minor works) entitled Tuhfat al-ashrāf bi-ma'rifat al-atrāf (The Gem of the Noble for Knowing the Atrāf), which quickly became a mainstay for scholars. It contains 19,626 hadiths. Al-Mizzī's son-in-law, the famous Ibn Kathīr (d. 774/1373) (no doubt attempting to impress his in-laws), compiled his Jāmi' al-masānīd wa al-sunan al-hādī li-aqwam al-sunan, which added the atrāf of hadiths from the musnads of Ibn Hanbal, al-Mawsilī, al-Bazzār, the Mu'jam al-kabīr of al-Tabarānī, and the Ma'rifat al-sahāba of Abū Nu'aym al-Isbahānī. Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalānī's Ithāf al-mahara bi-atrāf al-'ashara listed all the atrāf of the hadiths that al-Būsīrī had included in his Ithāf al-khayyira (see above section on Supplemental Collections). Ahkām al-hadīth works This genre included many fewer and less voluminous works than those composed in other genres discussed here but has exercised a significant influence on Islamic scholarship. Ahkām al-hadīth, or 'the laws derived from hadith' collections, were books that listed hadiths regularly used in deriving Islamic law along with their ratings and the collections in which they are found. Ahkām al-hadīth works also often included discussions of the hadiths' legal implications. This genre seems to have arisen in imitation of ahkām al-Qur'ān works, which addressed the legal implications of Quranic verses. The first ahkām al-hadīth books are Ahkām of the Andalusian scholar Ibn al-Tallā' (d. 497/1104) and the Ahkām al-sughrā (Small Ahkām), al-Ahkām al-wustā (Medium Ahkām) and al-Ahkām al-kubrā (Large Ahkām) of the Andalusian jurist and hadith scholar Ibn al-Kharrāt al-Ishbīlī (d. 581/1185). The famously conservative Hanbali scholar of Jerusalem, 'Abd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī (d. 600/1203), wrote the very influential 'Umdat al-ahkām (The Foundation of Rulings), which was expanded and commented on by the Egyptian Ibn Daqīq al-'Īd (d. 702/1302) in his Ihkām al-ahkām (Bolstering the Rulings), which consisted of five hundred legal hadiths taken from the Sahīhayn. The leading Hanbali scholar Majd al-Dīn b. Taymiyya (d. 653/1255, the grandfather of the controversial reformer Taqī al-Dīn b. Taymiyya) wrote the three- volume Muntaqā al-akhbār (Choice Reports), but the most influential ahkām al-hadīth book has been the Bulūgh al-marām min adillat al-ahkām (Reaching the Aspiration for the Proofs of Legal Rulings) of Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalānī. Ahkām al-hadīth books were written as references and teaching tools for Muslim scholars of religious law, but they became highly influential with the rise of the Salafī movements of revival and reform in the eighteenth century until today (see chapter 10). These movements encourage a return to the original sources of Islam and highlight the importance of hadiths in Islamic law and dogma. As a result, in many cities of the Muslim world cheap pocket-copies of Bulūgh al-marām can be found in book stores as popular references for Muslims' daily lives. Two influential Yemeni scholars of the early modern period, Muhammad b. al-Amīr al-San'ānī (d. 1768) and Muhammad b. 'Alī al-Shawkānī (d. 1834) devoted their commentaries, Subul al-salām sharh Bulūgh al-marām and Nayl al-awtār sharh Muntaqā al-akhbār, to the Bulūgh al-marām and al-Muntaqā respectively. These commentaries have become frequently used references and textbooks for the study of Islamic law today. QUOTING GOD: HADĪTH QUDSĪ Hadiths in which the Prophet quotes God's speech constitute a species of hadiths known as 'holy hadiths (hadīth qudsī).' Famous ones include God saying 'Spend [in charity], O son of Adam, and I will spend on you... (anfiq yā ibn Ādam unfiq 'alayk....).' Qudsī hadiths are distinguished from the Quran in that they are not considered to be the literal word of God. Only their meaning issues from God, while their wording comes from Muhammad. Muslims believe that they were not revealed via the intermediacy of the angel Gabriel, as the Quran was. Instead, the Prophet may have heard them during his Ascension to heaven (Mi'rāj), in a dream or through inspiration (ilhām). Several scholars authored collections of hadīth qudsī: Ibn 'Arabī's (d. 638/1240) expanded Forty Hadith collection, the Mishkāt al-anwār, consisted of 101 hadīth qudsī, and the Yemeni Ibn al-Dayba' (d. 944/1537) also devoted a book to this type of report.80 'Abd al-Ra'ūf al-Munāwī wrote a collection entitled al-Ithāfāt al-saniyya bi'l-ahādīth al-qudsiyya with 272 qudsī hadiths in it. Muhammad al-Madanī (d. 1786) added to that book, compiling a work with the same title that included some 863 hadiths. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING The best Arabic editions of major Sunni hadith collections come from Tradigital's Encyclopaedia of Hadith, which includes the Six Books, the Muwatta', and the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal (in particular, Tradigital has produced critical editions of the Musnad and the Sunan of Ibn Mājah), and from the Dār al-Ta'sīl publisher in Cairo. For Sahīh Muslim, however, the most critical edition has been published by Muhammad Zuhayr al-Nāsir through Dār al-Minhāj. There are several translations of major Sunni hadith collections. These include Mālik b. Anas's Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik ibn Anas, trans. Aisha Bewley (London: Kegan Paul Intl., 1989); an excellent translation of the first chapters of Sahīh al-Bukhārī entitled Sahih al-Bukhari, trans. Muhammad Asad (Lahore: Arafat Publications, 1938); a full translation can be found in The Translation of the Meanings of Sahīh Bukhārī, trans. Muhammad Muhsin Khan (Riyadh: Darussalam, 1997); an abridgement of Muslim's Sahīh entitled Sahih Muslim, trans. Aftab Shahryar (New Delhi: Islamic Book Service, 2004); Abū Dāwūd's Sunan, trans. Ahmad Hasan (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1984); and the Sunan of al-Nasā'ī, Sunan Nasā'ī, trans. Muhammad Iqbal Siddiqi (Lahore: Kazi Publications, 1994); a selection of hadiths from al-Bukhārī's al-Adab al-mufrad entitled Moral Teachings of Islam: Prophetic Traditions from al-Adab al-Mufrad (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 2003); al-Nawawī's famous Forty Hadiths, trans. Ezzeddin Ibrahim and Denys Johnson-Davies (Cambridge, UK: Islamic Texts Society, 1997); al-Tabrīzī's Mishkāt al-masābīh in five volumes, trans. James Robson (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1963). A selection of shamā'il have been translated into English by Muhammad Zaynū as al-Shamā'il al-muhammadiyya (Fairfax, VA: Institute of Islamic and Arabic Studies, 1995). The Riyadh publisher Dar al-Salam has published passable translations of the entire Six Book Sunni hadith canon. Dar al-Salam has also translated Ibn Hajar's famous ahkām al-hadīth collection, Bulūgh al-marām (Riyadh, 1996). Al-Nawawī's Riyād al-sālihīn is translated as The Gardens of the Righteous, trans. Muhammad Zafrulla Khan (London: Curzon Press, 1975). An Indian hadith scholar, Shāh 'Abd al-'Azīz (d. 1824), wrote a history of hadith literature from a Muslim perspective; it is published as The Gardens of Hadith Scholars, trans. Aisha Bewley (Santa Barbara, CA: Turath Publishing, 2007). Although it is part of the sīra genre and not hadith proper, the famous biography of the Prophet edited by Ibn Hishām has been translated: The Life of Mohammad, trans. A. Guillaume (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978). For discussions of the debates over writing hadiths and the import-ance of orality in early Islamic history, see Michael Cook's, 'The Opponents of the Writing of Tradition in Early Islam,' Arabica 44 (1997): 437–530; and Gregor Schoeler's The Oral and the Written in Early Islam, trans. Uwe Vagelpohl (New York: Routledge, 2006). For an excellent discussion about the importance of the isnād in Islam as a paradigm of connection, see William Graham's 'Traditionalism in Islam: An Essay in Interpretation,' Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23, 3 (1993): 495–522 and Garrett Davidson's Carrying on the Tradition: An Intellectual and Social History of Post-Canonical Hadith Transmission (Brill, 2018). For a study of hadith qudsī, see William Graham, Divine Word and Prophetic Word in Early Islam (The Hague: Mouton, 1977). For a study of the early transmission of hadiths, see Scott Lucas, Constructive Critics: H.adīth Literature and the Articulation of Sunnī Islam (Leiden: Brill, 2004). For a new study on hadith commentary, see Joel Blecher's Said the Prophet of God (University of California Press, 2018). ENDNOTES 1 Ibn 'Abd al-Barr, Jāmi' bayān al-'ilm wa fadlihi, vol. 2, p.36. 2 Muhammad Abū Zahra, Ibn Hanbal, p. 239. For the original quote, see 'Abdallāh b. Ahmad, Masā'il al-imām Ahmad Ibn Hanbal riwāyat ibnihi, p. 438; al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, vol. 1, p. 177. 3 'Abdallāh al-Ghumārī, Tawjīh al-'ināya li-ta'rīf 'ilm al-hadīth riwāya wa dirāya, p. 7. 4 Shams al-Dīn al-Sakhāwī, Fath al-mughīth, vol. 4, p. 103. 5 Yahyā Ibn Ma'īn, Kitāb al-'ilal wa ma'rifat al-rijāl, p. 19. 6 Al-Sakhāwī, Fath al-mughīth, vol. 4, p. 103. 7 Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalānī, Fath al-bārī sharh Sahīh al-Bukhārī, vol. 11, p. 466. The Egyptian scholar 'Abd al-Ghanī b. Sa'īd (d. 409/1019) found four hadiths with four Companions narrating from one another in the isnād; ibid., vol. 13, p. 15. 8 Al-Sakhāwī, Fath al-mughīth, vol. 4, p. 103. 9 Hammām b. Munabbih, Sahīfat Hammām b. Munabbih. Scholars like Juynboll have questioned the historicity of Hammām b. Munabbih, since he would have had to have lived eighty or ninety years to play his supposed part in transmitting this sahīfa. But that is not an outrageously long lifespan, considering that St. Antony of Egypt (d. 365) lived to ninety-four. 10 Sunan Abī Dāwūd: kitāb al-'ilm, bāb fī kitāb al-'ilm. 11 Al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī, Taqyīd al-'ilm, p. 96. 12 Sunan Abī Dāwūd: kitāb al-'ilm, bāb fī kitāb al-'ilm. 13 Muhyī al-Dīn al-Nawawī, Sharh Sahīh Muslim, vol. 1, p. 357, al-Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. 3, p. 81. 14 Ibn Abī Hātim al-Rāzī, al-Jarh wa al-ta'dīl, vol. 6, p. 336. 15 Al-Khatīb, al-Jāmi', vol. 2, p. 85. 16 Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqāt al-kubrā, vol. 7, p. 448. 17 Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-'ilm, bāb kayfa yuqbad al-'ilm; Nabia Abbott, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri II: Qur'ānic Commentary and Tradition, vol. 2, p. 26. 18 Abū Khaythama Zuhayr b. Harb, Kitāb al-'ilm, p. 32; al-Khatīb, al-Jāmi', vol. 2, pp. 71, 78–79. 19 Ibid., vol. 2. p. 81. 20 Muhammad Abd al-Rauf, 'H.adīth Literature – I: The Development of the Science of H.adīth,' p. 273; Abū al-Hasan 'Alī al-Qābisī, Muwatta' al-imām Mālik. 21 Harald Motzki, 'The Mus.annaf of 'Abd al-Razzāq al-S.an'ānī as a Source of Authentic Ah.ādīth of the First Century A.H,' pp. 3–4. 22 Ibn Abī Hātim al-Rāzī, al-Taqdima, pp. 31–32. 23 Ibn Nuqta, Kitab al-Taqyīd li-ma'rifat ruwāt al-sunan wa al-masānīd, p. 161. For details on the numbers of hadiths in the Musnad, see Christopher Melchert, 'The Musnad of Ah.mad Ibn H.anbal,' pp. 32–51. 24 Musnad Ibn Hanbal, vol. 6, p. 269. 25 See Muhammad Abd al-Rauf, 'H.adīth Literature – I: The Development of the Science of H.adīth.' 26 Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī, Tabaqāt al-shāfi'iyya al-kubrā, vol. 2, p. 221. 27 Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalānī, Huda al-sārī, p. 661. The number of chapters (kitāb) in al-Bukhārī's Sahīh varies depending on recension (riwāyāt) of the book, though the content remains the same. The recension of Abū Dharr al-Harawī, for example, has numerous chapters that only appear as subchapters (bāb) in others. The valuable copy made by al-Buqā'ī in the fifteenth century has seventy-three chapters, while the authoritative Sultāniyya-Amīriyya edition, printed by the Ottoman sultan in 1895, has only forty three. Editions today are based on the Dutch scholar AJ Wensinck's formatting of ninety-eight chapters. 28 Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī, Siyar a'lām al-nubalā', vol. 13, p. 279. 29 Sahīh Muslim: muqaddima, introduction. 30 Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī, 'Risālat al-imām Abī Dāwūd al-Sijistānī ilā ahl Makka fī wasf Sunanihi,' p. 46. 31 Qādī 'Iyād, Kitāb al-shifā, p. 153. 32 'Abdallāh b. Ahmad b. Hanbal, Kitāb al-sunna, p. 301; Muhammad Zāhid al-Kawtharī, Maqālāt al-Kawtharī, p. 404. 33 Ibn Hanbal, Kitāb fadā'il al-sahāba, vol. 2, p. 665. 34 Abū Zur'a al-Rāzī, Abū Zur'a al-Rāzī wa juhūduhu fī al-sunna al-nabawiyya, p. 2:674–676; Jonathan A. C. Brown, The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, pp. 92–94. 35 Ibn Manda, Shurūt al-a'imma, pp. 67–68. 36 Ibn 'Asākir, Tārīkh madīnat Dimashq, vol. 58, p. 93. 37 Brown, The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, p. 9. See also Brown, 'The Canonization of Ibn Majah: Authenticity vs. Utility in the Formation of the Sunni Hadith Canon,' Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 129, July (2011): 169–81. 38 Muhammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfi'ī, al-Risāla, pp. 42–43. 39 Brown, The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, pp. 340–345. 40 Ibid., pp. 255–260. 41 Al-Dhahabī, Tadhkirat al-huffāz, vol. 3, pp. 50, 111. 42 Ibn Nuqta, al-Taqyīd li-ma'rifat ruwāt al-sunan wa al-masānīd, p. 123. 43 See Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, vol. 1, pp. 414–416. 44 Al-Dhahabī, Tadhkirat al-huffāz, vol. 3, p. 25. 45 Ibn al-Nadīm, The Fihrist, p. 560. 46 I thank my colleague Scott Lucas for this number. 47 Ibn al-Salāh, Muqaddimat Ibn al-Salāh, p. 307. 48 Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Karīm al-Rāfi'ī, al-Tadwīn fī akhbār Qazwīn, vol. 1, pp. 291, 452. 49 Al-Khatīb, Tārīkh Baghdād, vol. 4, pp. 293–294; al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-i'tidāl fī naqd al-rijāl, vol. 1, pp. 511–512. 50 Brown, The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, pp. 63–64. 51 Al-Rāfi'ī, al-Tadwīn fī akhbār Qazwīn, vol. 3, p. 131. 52 'Abd al-Rahmān b. Sulaymān al-Ahdal, al-Nafas al-yamānī, p. 63. 53 Muhammad b. Khayr al-Ishbīlī, Fahrasat mā rawāhu 'an shuyūkhihi, pp. 17 ff. See also Zayn al-Dīn al-'Irāqī, Al-Bā'ith 'alā al-khalās min hawādith al-qussās, p. 97. 54 Al-Nawawī, Sharh Sahīh Muslim, vol. 1, p. 119. Abū Tālib al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, vol. 1, p. 137. 55 Al-Suhrawardī, 'Awārif al-ma'ārif, vol. 1, pp. 49, 60. 56 Ahmad al-Ghumārī, Al-Burhān al-jalī fī tahqīq intisāb al-sūfiyya ilā 'Alī, p. 3. 57 Al-Khalīlī, Al-Irshād fī ma'rifat 'ulamā' al-hadīth, p. 6. 58 Al-Khatīb, Jāmi' akhlāq al-rāwī wa ādāb al-sāmi', vol. 1, p. 205. 59 Al-Tabaranī, Al-Mu'jam al-saghīr, p. 116. 60 Al-Suyūtī, Jam' al-jawāmi', vol. 1, pp. 3–4. 61 Stefan Reichmuth, 'Murtad.ā al-Zabīdī (d. 1791) in Biographical and Autobiographical Accounts,' p. 75. The famous Sufi of Cairo, Shams al-Dīn al-Hanafī (d. 847/1443–4), also claimed to have had an isnād of two beings, one person and one jinn, to the Prophet; al-Sha'rānī, al-Tabaqāt al-kubrā, p. 438. 62 'Abdallāh al-Ghumārī, Tawjīh al-'ināya, p. 42. 63 Asma Sayeed, 'Shifting Fortunes: Women and H.adīth Transmission in Islamic History,' p. 277. 64 Brown, The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, pp. 107–108. 65 See Ishaq, India's Contribution to Hadith Literature. 66 Abū Nu'aym al-Isbahānī, Dhikr akhbār Isbahān, vol. 1, p. 23. 67 Al-Wāsitī, Tārīkh Wāsit, p. 125. 68 Al-'Awd, Al-Mu'īn 'alā ma'rifat kutub al-arba'īn, p. 29. 69 Ibid., pp. 63, 153. 70 Ibid., p. 151. 71 Ibn al-Jawzī, Kitāb al-qussās wa al-mudhakkirīn, p. 146. 72 J. Robson, trans., Miskhat al-Masabih, vol. 1, p. xiii. 73 Al-Baghawī, Masābīh al-sunna, vol. 1, p. 2. 74 Ahmad al-Ghumārī, Al-Mudāwī li-'ilal al-Jāmi' al-saghīr, vol. 1, p.95. 75 Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalānī, Al-Matālib al-'āliya fī zawā'id al-masānīd al-thamāniya, vol. 1, p. 4. 76 Al-Suyūtī, Nazm al-'iqyān, p. 50. 77 Muhammad Nāsir al-Dīn al-Albānī, Sahīh al-Jāmi' al-saghīr, vol. 1, pp. 42–43; Najm al-Dīn al-Ghazzī, al-Kawākib al-sā'ira, vol. 1, pp. 228–9. 78 Al-Munāwī, Al-Jāmi' al-azhar min hadīth al-nabī al-anwar, vol. 1, p. 3. 79 Al-Kawtharī, Maqālāt, p. 173. 80 'Abd al-Rahmān b. Sulaymān al-Ahdal, Al-Nafas al-yamānī, p. 43. THE METHODS AND HISTORY OF HADITH CRITICISM INTRODUCTION: REPORTERS THEN AND NOW Arabic and English textbooks introducing Islamic methods of hadith criticism begin with presenting the complex technical vocabulary (mustalahāt) of hadith critics as it was formalized after the thirteenth century. These books assume that by learning this set of terms students will understand how hadith criticism operated in the early Islamic period when scholars like al-Bukhārī and Muslim were compiling their Sahīhs. In reality, however, the critical methods of early Muslim hadith scholars were diametrically opposed to this later, rigid description. Theirs was an intuitive and commonsense way of trying to determine whether a report could be reliably attributed to a source or not – a method not unlike those employed by modern investigative reporters. To set the stage for our study of how Muslims tried to sift reliable from unreliable 'reports' from the Prophet, let us imagine a journalist working for a newspaper today. If our reporter tells her editor that she has a major story about a senior political figure, the editor will ask her two questions: who is your source, and is your source corroborated? How could our reporter reply? She knows that certain sources are reliable for certain information. If the president's spokesperson announces that the president will make a visit to England, there is no need to double-check this information. Imagine, however, that the reporter has found a source who gives her rare and valuable information about an important issue but whom she as yet has no reason to trust. Our reporter is not going to stake her journalistic reputation on this one tip, but how does she determine the accuracy of her source's information? Imagine that this source tells her that there has just been an earthquake in China. Our reporter would call her contacts in China to confirm. If these contacts tell her that indeed a quake had occurred, the source has been proven correct. If no one she spoke to had noticed anything, the source's story would be uncorroborated and our reporter would conclude that the source was unreliable. Suppose that next the source tells our reporter valuable information about the condition of the country's economy. Again, our reporter proceeds cautiously, so she conducts thorough research and finds that the source's information was correct. The source provides tips on a few more stories, and after checking out the information, our reporter finds that these stories are true as well. Eventually our reporter concludes that this source is reliable, and if the source provides a tip on a hot story in the future, the reporter will feel comfortable writing her story based on the source's testimony alone. Reporters understand that the reliability of a source is based upon the accuracy of the information they provide. The best way to confirm the accuracy of a source is to check with other sources that have access to the same information and see if they agree. Corroboration 'is what turns a tip into a story.'1 These two pillars of modern journalism, the reliability of a source and determining the reliability of a source or story through corrobor-ation, are familiar to us all in our daily lives. We all know people who pass on information reliably and others who tend to forget, lie, or exaggerate. We all instinctively seek out corroboration and know when it matters and when it does not. If a student is absent for a day of class in university and hears from a classmate that the professor has changed the date of the final exam, he or she will not be content to take the word of just one classmate; the student will ask other students who were also in that class. If no other students heard the professor make that announcement, he or she will have serious doubts about the information. Another fact is equally evident to us in our daily lives: the contents of reports we hear have a strong influence on our view of their reliability and our confidence in their transmitters. If our reporter met a source who swore that he had seen a herd of flying elephants downtown, she would probably both disbelieve him and consider him unreliable from that point on. There are generally accepted standards of what is possible and impossible. Furthermore, we all have a sense of what is important information and what is not, and we treat this information accordingly. If our reporter hears a rumor that the president is about to announce a major change in the government's economic policy, she will want to verify this information before writing her story. If she hears that the president has changed his favorite dessert from ice cream to angel-food cake, she will probably be content to cite this information as is. We must remember, however, that such notions of what is possible or impossible, important or unimportant, are culturally determined, and as such they may differ with time and place. If, in 1990, a student had come to class holding a small device they claimed contained any piece of music, information or published material one could think of, the professor would have called them delusional. Today professors compete daily for attention with such devices. If a professor in the US claimed to have eaten a great dog meat dinner at a specialized dog meat restaurant, students would think this was a disgusting joke. But if the professor had just flown in from China, where dog meat has long been 'a minor but regular part of the diet' and where an annual dog meat festival is held, he might be telling the truth.2 While modern reporters are charged with determining the veracity of stories about what is happening in the world today on the basis of contemporary sources, the architects of the Islamic hadith tradition were faced with a more daunting task: they had to establish a system of distinguishing between true and false stories about a man who had lived over a century earlier and whose revered status cast a commanding shadow over the entire Islamic tradition. In this chapter we will discuss the origins, mechanics, and development of Sunni hadith criticism. We will divide its history into two periods: early hadith criticism, roughly 720–1000 CE, and later hadith criticism, from roughly 1000 CE to today. As in the previous chapter, notions of 'authenticity' and 'forgery' mentioned here refer to the judgment of Muslim scholars of hadith and not necessarily to that of modern Western historians. THE PROBLEM OF HADITH FORGERY The Prophet Muhammad is the single most dominant figure in the Islamic religious and legal tradition. From the time of his emigration to Medina to debates over Islam today, to disobey directly his established teachings has been to place oneself outside the Muslim community. Because the Prophet possessed such eminent authority, early Muslims looked to his legacy to support or legitimize their different schools of thought, beliefs, or political agendas. It seems that even during the Prophet's own lifetime he understood that people could misrepresent him. In one report, a man claiming to be the Prophet's representative established himself as the mayor of a small town in Arabia until the Prophet uncovered his hoax and punished him.3 The first crisis to afflict the Muslim community after the Prophet's death – the question of who would succeed him as religious and political leader – revolved around competing claims about the Prophet's words. The supporters of 'Alī b. Abī Tālib argued that the Prophet had announced him as his successor, while those who affirmed the successive caliphates of Abū Bakr, 'Umar, and 'Uthmān did not. In this and many other Islamic sectarian and political disagreements, all sides agreed on what the Prophet had said but disagreed on its implications. Both Sunnis and Shiites, for example, agreed that the Prophet had said that 'Alī was to him what Aaron was to Moses, but they disagreed on whether that meant that 'Alī should succeed the Prophet politically. Actually forging reports about the Prophet also quickly became a problem. When civil war broke out openly between 'Alī, then the fourth caliph to succeed the Prophet, and the then governor of Syria and future founder of the Umayyad dynasty, Mu'āwiya b. Abī Sufyān, both sides waged a propaganda war using the Prophet's words as ammunition. 'Alī's supporters falsely claimed that Muhammad had said, 'If you see Mu'āwiya ascend my pulpit, then kill him,' while Mu'āwiya's side countered by forging hadiths such as 'It is as if Mu'āwiya were sent as a prophet because of his forbearance and his having been entrusted with God's word' (Mu'āwiya had served as one of the Prophet's scribes).4 There are even reports from the early historian al-Madā'inī (d. 228/843) that Mu'āwiya encouraged the systematic forging and circulation of hadiths affirming the virtues of the other caliphs and Companions at 'Alī's expense.5 In light of how quickly the Prophet's legacy became a tool to be manipulated by vying parties among Muslims, we should not be surprised at the veritable slogan of Muslim hadith criticism. It is the most widely transmitted hadith in all of Islam, with Muslim scholars counting between sixty and a hundred Companions transmitting it from the Prophet: 'Whoever mispresents me intentionally, let him prepare for himself a seat in Hellfire.' During the lifetime of leading Companions like 'Umar b. al-Khattāb, 'Abdallāh b. Mas'ūd, or Anas b. Mālik, many of whom had been with the Prophet since his early days in Mecca, it was difficult to attribute something untrue to the Prophet without a senior Companion noticing. In fact, there are many reports documenting the Companions' vigilance against misrepresentations of the Prophet's legacy. 'Alī is quoted as requiring an oath from any Companion who told him a hadith from the Prophet that he himself had not heard.6 When the Companion Abū Mūsā al-Ash'arī told 'Umar that the Prophet had said that if you knocked on someone's door three times and they did not answer you should depart, 'Umar demanded that he find another Companion to corroborate the report.7 On a number of occasions after the Prophet's death, his wife Aisha objected to hadiths that other Companions related. She rejected 'Abdallāh b. 'Umar's statement that the Prophet warned mourners that a dead relative would be punished for his family's excessive mourning over him because she believed that it violated the Quranic principle that 'No bearer of burdens bears the burdens of another' (Quran 53:38).8 Sometimes she corrected Companions who had misunderstood what the Prophet had said. Abū Hurayra quoted the Prophet as saying that women, beasts and houses could be bad omens. When Aisha heard this she 'split in half in anger,' exclaiming that the Prophet had mentioned this, but only to explain that it was a pre-Islamic superstition condemned by the Quran.9 Abū Hurayra's extensive efforts at hadith collection in particular drew the ire and concern of some leading Companions. There is one report that 'Umar b. al-Khattāb told him, 'Indeed, I say let the Prophet's words alone or indeed I'll send you back to the lands of [your tribe] Daws!'10* Hadith forgery emerged as a blatant problem when the generation of Muslims who had known the Prophet well died off. With the death of the last major Companion, Anas b. Mālik, in Basra in 93/711 (the last Companion to die was Abū al-Tufayl 'Āmir b. Wāthila, who died between 100/718 and 110/728) lies about the Prophet quickly multiplied. It is especially in the generation of the Successors that we begin seeing notebooks (sahīfas) of hadiths, many supposedly narrated from Anas b. Mālik, filled with forged hadiths of a highly partisan or controversial nature.11 From that point onward the forgery of hadiths would be a consistent problem in Islamic civilization. The heyday of hadith forgery was the first four hundred years of Islamic history, when major hadith collections were still being compiled. As we discussed in the last chapter, by the late 1100s any hadith that entered circulation that had not already been recorded in some existing book was automatically deemed a forgery. In the great urban centers of Mamluk Cairo or Ottoman Istanbul in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the masses might mistakenly think that a popular saying such as 'The Muslim community is sinful but its Lord is most forgiving (umma mudhniba wa rabb ghafūr)' was said by the Prophet, but in general hadith forgery had run its course.12 Political and sectarian conflicts were a major engine for hadith forgery. All the major political conflicts in classical Islamic history were accompanied by hadiths forged for propagandistic purposes. The Prophet's access to knowledge of the future provided endless possibilities in this realm. In one hadith, the Prophet supposedly tells his uncle 'Abbās, progenitor of the Abbasid dynasty, to look at the stars. The Prophet foretells, 'From your descendents a number like the number of the Pleiades will rule the Muslim community.'13 In one forged pro-Shiite hadith, the Prophet predicts that 'al-Husayn will be killed sixty years after my emigration to Medina,' referring to the Umayyad caliph's massacre of the Prophet's grandson at Karbala in 61/680.14 We have seen already that even in the twelfth century, an opponent of the Seljuq Turkish sultan Sanjar forged a hadith in which the Prophet predicted that, 'Sanjar will be the last of the non-Arab kings; he will live eighty years and then die of hunger.'15 In fact, in the early 1990s one Arab scholar claimed that he had found an old manuscript with a hadith predicting that 'A leader whose name is derived from the word "tree" (Bush, perhaps?) will invade and liberate a small hill fort (in Arabic, 'Kuwait').'16 Many hadiths were also forged in legal and theological debates. Here the Sunni/Shiite schism once again has certainly produced the largest numbers of propagandistic hadiths. Less well-known conflicts have also yielded countless forgeries. In the first half of the ninth century, when the Abbasid caliphate was trying to impose its rationalist beliefs on Sunni scholars like Ibn Hanbal by torturing or imprisoning anyone who would not uphold the belief that the Quran was God's created word and not an eternal part of His essence, pro-Sunni hadiths conveniently appeared in which the Prophet said, 'Whoever dies believing the Quran is created will meet God on Judgment Day with his head up his ass.' In eighth-century debates over whether Muslims could wear pants as opposed to robes, a hadith appeared in which the Prophet said, 'O people, take pants as clothing, for indeed they are the most modest of clothes, especially for your women when they leave the house.'17 As legal schools solidified and competed with one another, forged hadiths appeared with statements such as 'There will be in my community a man named Abū Hanīfa, and he will be its lamp ... and there will be in my community a man named Muhammad b. Idrīs [al-Shāfi'ī] whose strife is more harmful than that of Satan.' 18 Hadiths were forged to give voice to all sorts of chauvinisms. Some were virulently racist, such as a forged hadith saying 'The black African, when he eats his fill he fornicates, and when he gets hungry he steals (al-zanjī idha shabi'a zanā wa idhā jā'a saraqa).'19 Others voiced civic pride, such as the hadith '[The city of] Askalon [near modern-day Gaza] is one of the two Brides, from there God will resurrect people on the Day of Judgment ('Asqalān ihdā al-'arūsayn ...)' or a whole Forty Hadith collection that one Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Marwazī (d. 323/934–5) forged about the virtues of the Iranian city of Qazvin.20 Another major source of forged hadiths was the popular storytellers (qāss, pl. qussās) who entertained crowds on the streets of metropolises like Baghdad. These storytellers would attribute Jewish, Christian, or ancient Persian lore to the Prophet. In one fantastic story, someone named Ishāq b. Bishr al-Kāhilī from Kufa told of the Prophet meeting an old man in the desert. The man claimed to be named Hāma, the great-grandson of Satan, and to have been alive since the days of Cain and Abel. In an account resembling a Rolling Stones song, he proceeds to tell Muhammad how he had met all the great prophets, from Noah to Jacob and Joseph. Moses had taught him the Torah, and Jesus had told him to convey his greetings to Muhammad, the messenger to come.21 A surprisingly large number of hadiths were forged and circulated by pious Muslims in an effort to motivate those around them both religiously and morally. One Abū 'Isma was asked by his contemporaries to explain how the hadiths he narrated from 'Ikrima, the disciple of the Companion Ibn 'Abbās, about the virtues of reading different chapters of the Quran, were not narrated by any of 'Ikrima's other students. He replied that he had seen the people becoming obsessed with the legal scholarship of Abū Hanīfa and the Sīra of Ibn Ishāq. He had forged these hadiths to try and steer people once again towards the Quran.22 Many of those who forged hadiths for these pious purposes were themselves revered saintly figures. The famous hadith critic Yahyā b. Sa'īd al-Qattān (d. 198/813) once said, 'I have not witnessed lying [about the Prophet] in anyone more than I have seen it in those known for asceticism and piety.'23 A venerated saint of Baghdad, Ghulām Khalīl, was so beloved that on the day he died in 275/888–9 the markets of the city shut down. Yet when he was questioned about some dubious hadiths he narrated concerning righteous behavior, Ghulām Khalīl replied, 'We forged these so that we could soften and improve the hearts of the populace.'24 Certainly pious figures such as Ghulām Khalīl or the scholars of religious law understood the enormity of the sin of lying about their Prophet. How could they have contradicted their own mission of preserving his authentic teachings by doing so? Pious figures sometimes replied that the Prophet had forbidden the Muslims to lie about him, whereas they were lying for him. In the case of those early jurists who forged legal hadiths to support their school of law, it seems that they saw no contradiction between their actions and their commitment to preserving the Prophet's teachings. After all, as one famous hadith put it, 'The scholars are the inheritors of the prophets (al-'ulamā' warathat al-anbiyā').' It was the scholars who interpreted the message of Islam as it faced new challenges and circumstances. Phrasing their conclusions about proper acts or beliefs in the formula of 'the Prophet said ...' was simply neatly packaging their authority as Muhammad's representatives. As one early jurist explained, 'When we arrived at an opinion through reasoning we made it into a hadith.'25 Hadith critics, of course, found such excuses reprehensible.26 Not all forgery of hadiths was a malicious act. Early transmitters sometimes confused the opinions or statements of Companions with Prophetic hadiths, such as a rule expounded by numerous Companions: 'Ward off capital punishment from the Muslims as much as possible, and if there is some way out of it then let the person go, for it is better for the judge to err in mercy than in severity,' which some casual transmitters attributed to the Prophet. Sometimes the comments of one of the hadith's transmitters could be accidentally written as part of the hadith, a phenomenon that Muslim critics called idrāj (interpolation). Often the words of scholars or saintly figures or simply popular sayings could be accidentally elevated to the status of Prophetic hadiths. The saying 'The love of the earthly life is the start of every sin (hubb al-dunyā ra's kull khatī'a)' was generally attributed to Jesus until it became confused with a Prophetic hadith.27 A legal principle used by Muslim jurists, 'Necessities render the forbidden permissible (al-darūriyyāt tubīhu al-mahzūrāt)' was also accidentally attributed to Muhammad.28 In the ninth century a hadith appeared saying 'Beware of flowers growing in manure, namely a beautiful woman from a bad family (iyyākum wa khadrā' al-diman ...).' In this period another supposed hadith surfaced that 'Whoever says something then sneezes, what he says is true (man haddatha hadīthan fa-'atasa 'indahu fa-huwa haqq).' Neither report had any basis in Prophetic hadiths.29 Forgery of Isnāds Hadith forgery was not limited to inventing Prophetic sayings or attributing existing maxims to Muhammad. In light of the importance of the isnād to accessing authority in the Islamic tradition, isnād for-gery was arguably more common than matn forgery. Equipping existing hadiths with one's own isnāds or constructing entirely new chains of transmission was known as 'stealing hadiths (sariqat al-hadīth)' or 'rigging isnāds (tarkīb al-asānīd).' Figure 3.0 Types of Errors and Forgery in Hadiths Today no one would look askance at someone who cited a hadith without mentioning its isnād. In the early Islamic period, however, ahl al-hadīth scholars or those who debated them could not cite a hadith without providing their own isnād for the report. A scholar who had heard about a hadith without a firm isnād or from a transmitter considered unreliable by the ahl al-hadīth critics could thus not credibly present his hadith in any discussion. Forging a new isnād offered a solution. 'Amr b. 'Ubayd (d. 144/761), who belonged to the Muslim rationalist camp known as the Mu'tazilites, whom the ahl al-hadīth considered their mortal enemies, was thus attacked for lying in his narration of the hadith 'He who carries weapons against us [Muslims] is not one of us (man hamala 'alaynā al-silāh fa-laysa minnā)' from his teacher al-Hasan al-Basrī, from the Prophet. This hadith was well known as authentic among the ahl al-hadīth. The problem was that al-Hasan had not actually transmitted this from the Prophet. 'Amr b. 'Ubayd had heard of the report somewhere else and then tried to use it to support the Mu'tazilite position that committing grave sins assured Muslims a place in hell. But he did not have his own isnād for it. So he manufactured one from his teacher al-Hasan so that he could use it in debates.30 The second major motivation to forge an isnād for an existing hadith was to bolster its reliability by increasing evidence of its transmission. According to the great hadith critic of Baghdad, al-Dāraqutnī (d. 385/995), a whole notebook of hadiths praising human reason ('aql) was forged by Maysara b. 'Abd Rabbihi. This book was then taken by Dāwūd al-Muhabbir, who equipped the reports with his own new isnāds. One 'Abd al-'Azīz b. Abī Rajā' then stole these hadiths and provided them a new set of isnāds. Sulaymān b. 'Īsā al-Sinjarī then did the same. A person who came across the hadiths in this book therefore could find four different sets of isnāds leading to four different scholars for hadiths that were in fact total forgeries.31 Especially in the tenth century and afterwards, when rare and elevated isnāds assumed a particular value among hadith collectors, disingenuous scholars could forge isnāds with these characteristics. We already saw the hadith that al-Tabarānī (d. 360/971) narrated via the impossibly short isnād of three people to the Prophet: Ja'far b. Hamīd al-Ansārī 'Umar b. Abān Anas b. Mālik the Prophet. The fact that al-Tabarānī was the only hadith scholar to narrate from the transmitter Ja'far b. Hamīd strongly suggests that this Ja'far might have been a purveyor of forged elevated isnāds, which a collector like al-Tabarānī would have found irresistible. THE DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY SUNNI HADITH CRITICISM – THE THREE-TIERED METHOD As false attributions to the Prophet multiplied in the late seventh century, how were those Muslims who sought to preserve Muhammad's authentic legacy to distinguish between true and forged hadiths? While the ahl al-ra'y scholars in Iraqi cities like Kufa attempted to rise above the flood of forged hadiths by depending on the Quran, well-established hadiths, and their own legal reasoning, the school that would give birth to the Sunni tradition, the ahl al-hadīth, evolved the three-tiered approach to determining the authenticity of a hadith. The first tier was demanding a source (isnād) for the report, the second evaluating the reliability of that source, and the third seeking corroboration for the hadith. The processes of this three-tiered critical method did not emerge fully until the mid eighth century with critics like Mālik b. Anas and Shu'ba b. al-Hajjāj. Certainly, Successors like al-Zuhrī and even Companions had examined critically material they heard attributed to the Prophet. Moreover, the critical opinions of Successors would inform later hadith critics. A formalized system of requiring isnāds and investigating them according to agreed conventions and through a set of technical terms, however, did not appear until the time of Mālik. STEP ONE: THE ISNĀD The isnād, or 'support,' was the essential building-block of the hadith critical method. So essential would the isnād be to the Sunni science of hadith criticism that it became the veritable symbol of the 'cult of authenticity' that is Sunni Islam. One of the most oft-repeated slogans among hadith critics comes from the famous scholar Ibn al-Mubārak (d. 181/797), who said, 'The isnād is part of religion, if not for the isnād, whoever wanted could say whatever they wanted. But if you ask them, "Who told you this?" they cannot reply.' The great jurist al-Shāfi'ī provided a similarly famous declaration, 'The person who seeks knowledge without an isnād, not asking "where is this from?" indeed, he is like a person gathering wood at night. He carries on his back a bundle of wood when there may be a viper in it that could bite him.' Sunnis thus understood the isnād as the prime means of defending the true teachings of the Prophet against heretics as well as protection from subtle deviations that might slip into Muslims' beliefs and practice.32 Figure 3.1 Generations of Sunni Hadith Critics The origins of the isnād were as commonsense as its function, beginning with the rise of hadith forgery. As the Successor Muhammad b. Sīrīn (d. 110/729), a leading student of the Companion Anas b. Mālik, explained: In the early period no one would ask about the isnād. But when the Strife [most probably the Second Civil War, 680–692CE] began they would say 'Name for us your sources' so that the People of the Sunna (ahl al-sunna) could be looked at and their hadiths accepted, and the People of Heresy (ahl al-bid'a) could be looked at and their hadiths ignored.33 In the milieu of the early Islamic period, simply demanding an isnād for reports attributed to the Prophet was an excellent first line of defense against inauthentic material entering Muslim discourse. We can imagine the newly Muslim inhabitants of Kufa, still clinging to Christian or Zoroastrian lore, or even Bedouins eager to insinuate tribal Arab values into Islam, ascribing a saying to the Prophet as evidence for their ideas. If they provided no isnād at all, the reports would not enter the musnad collections of scholars like Abū Dāwūd al-Tayālisī. The formative critic Shu'ba b. al-Hajjāj (d. 160/776) is quoted as saying, 'All religious knowledge ('ilm) which does not feature "he narrated to me" or "he reported to me"[the components of the isnād] is vinegar and sprouts.'34 STEP TWO: RATING TRANSMITTERS AND ESTABLISHING CONTIGUOUS TRANSMISSION On their own, however, isnāds could not deter a determined forger. As we saw with the hadiths on human reason, an isnād could be made up or inauthentic material simply equipped with one and then circulated. Moreover, merely requiring someone to provide a source for a hadith they cited did not tell you if that source was reliable. The second tier of criticism thus involved identifying the individuals who constituted isnāds, evaluating their reliability, and then determining if there were any risks that someone unreliable might also have played some part in transmitting the report. 1) Transmitter Evaluation A hadith transmitter was evaluated according to two criteria. First, his or her character, correct belief, and level of piety were scrutinized in order to determine if he or she was 'upright ('adl).' Second, and much more importantly, the transmitter's corpus of reports and narration practices were evaluated to decide if he or she was 'accurate (dābit).' Hadith transmitter criticism (known as al-jarh wa al-ta'dīl, 'impugning and approving') and isnād evaluation began in full with the first generation of renowned hadith critics, that of Shu'ba b. al-Hajjāj, Mālik b. Anas, Sufyān al-Thawrī, al-Layth b. Sa'd, and Sufyān b. 'Uyayna, who flourished in the mid to late eighth century in the cities of Basra, Kufa, Fustat (modern-day Cairo), Mecca, and Medina (see Figure 3.1). These scholars began the process of collecting people's hadith narrations and examining both their bodies of material and their characters to determine if the material they purveyed could be trusted. Mālik is the first scholar known to have used technical terms such as 'thiqa (reliable)' to describe these narrators, while Shu'ba's evaluations did not utilize any specialized vocabulary.35 The evaluations of this first great generation were studied and added to by their students, especially the two great Basran critics 'Abd al-Rahmān b. Mahdī (d. 198/814) and Yahyā b. Sa'īd al-Qattān (d. 198/813). The later analyst Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī notes that 'whoever they both criticize, by God, rarely do you find that criticism refuted [by others], and whoever they both agree on as trustworthy, he is accepted as proof.'36 The critical methods and opinions of Ibn Mahdī and al-Qattān passed on to their three most respected students, who can be seen as the beginning of the heyday of Sunni hadith criticism: Ibn Hanbal (d. 241/855) and his friend Yahyā b. Ma'īn (d. 233/848) in Baghdad and 'Alī b. al-Madīnī in Basra (d. 234/849). Their students refined hadith criticism into its most exact and lasting form: the 'Two Shaykhs' al-Bukhārī and Muslim, the two senior critics of Rayy (modern Tehran), Abū Zur'a al-Rāzī (d. 264/878) and his friend Abū Hātim al-Rāzī (d. 277/890), as well as influential younger critics of that generation such as al-Nasā'ī (d. 303/916). The 900s saw several generations of critics who reviewed and reassessed the judgments of these earlier scholars and also continued to evaluate those involved in the ongoing transmission of hadiths: Ibn Abī Hātim al-Rāzī (d. 327/938), Ibn 'Adī (d. 365/975–6), Ibn Hibbān al-Bustī (d. 354/965), Abū al-Hasan al-Dāraqutnī (d. 385/995), and al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī (d. 405/1014). Although the apex and most active period of hadith transmitter criticism is usually considered to be the eighth to tenth centuries, subsequent generations of critics contributed to this science as well. Hadiths were still transmitted with full isnāds into the early 1200s, so it was possible until that time for previously unrated hadiths to be in circulation among transmitters. Master hadith scholars like al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī (d. 463/1071) and Ibn 'Asākir (d. 571/1176) therefore continued to rate transmitters living in their times. Furthermore, they synthesized, reconciled, and reexamined existing opinions on earlier transmitters. This reconsideration of earlier transmitters' standing has, in fact, never really ended. If we look at al-Dhahabī's list of the expert critics whose opinions should be heeded, we find that it continues until al-Dhahabī's own time in the 1300s. One of the most commanding critics in the Sunni hadith tradition, 'the Hadith Master (al-hāfiz)' Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalānī, died in 852/1449. Hadith transmitter criticism has continued until the modern day. This is possible because, as we shall see, determining if someone was reliable or not had little to do with any personal experience with their character, its flaws, or fine qualities. Ultimately, it was the analysis of the body of their transmissions for corroboration that determined their accuracy (dabt) and thus their station. How would a hadith critic such as Shu'ba, al-Bukhārī, or Ibn 'Adī actually evaluate a transmitter? First, it was essential to know who this transmitter was. If one was presented with a hadith transmitted from 'someone,' 'Ahmad,' or 'a group of people in Medina,' how could one evaluate the strength of its isnād? By the mid 800s it had become accepted convention among hadith critics that a person needed two well-known transmitters to identify him sufficiently, prove that he existed and narrate hadiths from him in order to qualify for rating. Otherwise, the transmitter would be dismissed as 'unknown (majhūl)' and the report automatically considered unreliable. Second, the critic would collect all the reports that the transmitter had narrated from various teachers and then analyze them for corroboration, a process known as 'consideration (i'tibār).' As mentioned last chapter, musnads would be very useful for this task, but ultimately a critic would have to rely on a robust memory in order to recall all the different isnāds in which the transmitter in question played some part. For every hadith that the transmitter narrated from a certain teacher, the critic asks 'Did this teacher's other students narrate this report too?' If the critic finds that, for all the teachers that the transmitter narrates from, his fellow students corroborated him for a very high percentage of his hadiths, then he is considered to be reliable in his transmissions. When asked what kind of transmitters should be abandoned as unreliable, Shu'ba explained: Someone who narrates excessively from well-known transmitters what these well-known transmitters do not recognize, his hadiths are cast aside. And if he makes a lot of mistakes, his hadiths are cast aside. And if he is accused of forgery (kadhib), his hadiths are cast aside. And if he narrates a hadith that is agreed upon as an error, and he does not hold himself accountable for that and reject the report, his hadiths are cast aside.37 Muslim b. al-Hajjāj describes the telltale signs of a weak hadith transmitter as someone who, 'when his narrations are compared with those of people known for preservation [of hadith] and uprightness of character, his narrations do not concur with their narrations, or do so only rarely. If the majority of his hadiths are like that then he is rejected and not used in hadith.'38 Early hadith critics understood very well that no one transmitter was immune from error. Below the level of master transmitters, Ibn Mahdī described a lesser type of narrator 'who makes errors but most of his hadiths are sahīh. This kind of person's hadiths should not be abandoned, for if they were, all the people's hadiths would disappear.'39 Finally, the critic would examine the transmitter's character, religious beliefs, and piety in order to determine his 'uprightness ('adāla).' Although later legal theorists would establish very formal requirements for someone to be declared 'upright,' such as the requirement widely accepted by Sunnis after the 1200s that the transmitter be 'Muslim, of age, of sound mind, free of sinful behavior and defects in honor,' early hadith critics were actually very flexible with determining uprightness. This is most evident in the issue of transmitters who espoused beliefs that Sunnis considered heretical, such as Shiism, belonging to the Kharijite sect, or a belief in free will (qadar). Although al-Shāfi'ī had declared that one could accept hadiths from transmitters regardless of their sectarian affiliations as long as they did not belong to certain Shiite sects that allowed lying, by the mid 900s scholars like Ibn Hibbān had declared a consensus among Sunni hadith critics that one could accept hadiths from any heretical transmitter provided he was not an extremist and did not actively try to convert others to his beliefs. In theory, this meant that one could accept hadiths from Shiite transmitters as long as they did not engage in virulently anti-Sunni practices such as cursing Abū Bakr or 'Umar or transmit hadiths that seemed to preach the Shiite message. In truth, however, early hadith critics did not follow these strictures. As the eighteenth-century Yemeni hadith analyst Ibn al-Amīr al-San'ānī (d. 1768) observed, later theorists had set up principles that did not apply to the realities of early hadith criticism. Al-Bukhārī, the most revered of all hadith critics, narrated two hadiths in his famous Sahīh through the Kharijite 'Imrān b. Hittān, who was so extreme in his beliefs that he wrote a poem praising the Kharijite who murdered the fourth caliph 'Alī. In his Sahīh, Muslim narrated the hadith that 'Only a believer loves 'Alī, and only a hypocrite hates him' through the known Shiite transmitter 'Adī b. Thābit. As we can see, the two uncontested masters of Sunni hadith criticism could narrate hadiths that they considered authentic through extremists and heretics who proselytized for their cause! The explanation for this lies in the priorities of the early hadith critics. Simply put, if a transmitter consistently and accurately passed on hadiths he had heard from the previous generation, hadith critics had little interest in his beliefs or practice. Ibn Ma'īn described the Shiite transmitter 'Abd al-Rahmān b. Sālih as 'trustworthy, sincere, and Shiite, but who would rather fall from the sky than misrepresent half a word.'40 One major early hadith transmitter, Ismā'īl b. 'Ulayya (d. 193/809), became so shamefully intoxicated on one occasion that he had to be carried home on a donkey. Yet he was a reliable transmitter, so his hadiths were accepted.41 Although later theorists of the hadith tradition would talk of the two pillars of reliability as 'uprightness ('adāla) and accuracy (dabt),' al-San'ānī rightly pointed out that one should reorder them 'accuracy and uprightness,' since the former greatly outweighed the latter.42 Ultimately, Sunnis could not escape their dependency on the role of 'non-Sunnis' in hadith transmission. The early critic Ibn Sa'd (d. 230/845) notes how one Khālid al-Qatwānī was a staunch Shiite but that hadith scholars 'wrote down his hadiths out of necessity.'43 Without such 'heretics,' critics knew that few hadiths would ever have been transmitted. Guaranteeing the transmitter's 'uprightness ('adāla),' however, did have an important function. Regardless of a transmitter's accur-acy, if they were known to have intentionally misrepresented the Prophet or forged a hadith then they could not be trusted. Sulaymān b. Dāwūd al-Shādhakūnī (d. 234/848–9), for example, was considered to have the most prodigious memory of hadiths in his time and one of the biggest hadith corpora. Yet he was known to have lied about hadiths and altered them to fit certain situations, so he was excluded from transmission. Al-Shādhakūnī was so untrustworthy that when he awed a gathering by claiming that he knew a hadith from Rayy that Abū Zur'a al-Rāzī did not know, people believed that he had just made it up on the spot to impress them.44 Although in the eighth and ninth centuries each hadith critic used slightly different and sometimes shifting terms to describe a transmitter's level of reliability, by the early tenth century a conventional jargon had emerged. Ibn Abī Hātim al-Rāzī (d. 327/938) lists the levels as: 1. 'Reliable' (Thiqa, mutqin, thabt) transmitter's hadiths can be used as proof in legal scholarship with no hesitation 2. 'Sincere' (sadūq, lā ba's bihi) transmitter's hadiths are recorded and can be taken as proof if bolstered or corroborated 3. 'Venerable' (shaykh) 4. \| 'Righteous' (sālih) \| transmitter's hadiths are ---\|---\|--- 5. \| 'Lenient on hadith' (layyin al-hadīth) \| used for identifying 6. \| 'Not strong' (laysa bi-qawī) \| corroboration depending 7. \| 'Weak' (da'īf) \| on strength 8. 'Liar, abandoned' (matrūk al-hadīth, dhāhib al-hadīth, kadhdhāb) the transmitter's hadiths are not used at all.45 Books of transmitter criticism Hadith transmitter criticism often took place in discussion sessions among critics or with their students, but its results were set down by master critics in dictionaries of transmitter evaluation (kutub al-rijāl). Early works include the Tabaqāt al-kubrā (The Great Book of Generations) of Ibn Sa'd (d. 230/845), the Ahwāl al-rijāl (Conditions of the Transmitters) of al-Jūzajānī (d. 259/873), the massive 'Great History (al-Tārīkh al-kabīr)' of al-Bukhārī, and the Jarh wa al-ta'dīl of Ibn Abī Hātim al-Rāzī. Some books focused specifically on discussing transmitters whom the author felt were reliable; these included al-'Ijlī's (d. 261/875) Tārīkh al-thiqāt and Ibn Hibbān's Kitāb al-thiqāt. Voluminous books were devoted to listing and discussing weak transmitters as well. The most important are the Kitāb al-du'afā' al-kabīr of al-Bukhārī (now lost), the Kāmil fī du'afā' al-rijāl of Ibn 'Adī and Ibn Hibbān's Kitāb al-majrūhīn. Such works presented critics' opinions of a transmitter along with a selection of the unacceptable narrations that they transmitted. Because they consistently evaluated the reliability of personalities they mention, local histories like al-Khatīb's History of Baghdad are also works of transmitter criticism. In the period of consolidation and analysis from the 1300s to the 1600s, later critics amalgamated and digested these earlier works of hadith criticism. 'Abd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī (d. 600/1203) wrote his al-Kamāl fī ma'rifat asmā' al-rijāl (The Perfection in Knowing the Names of Transmitters), presenting earlier descriptions and evaluations of all the transmitters in the Six Books. Jamāl al-Dīn al-Mizzī (d. 742/1341) added to this work and further analyzed the ratings of the transmitters within the Six Books in his Tahdhīb al-kamāl (The Refinement of Perfection), published today in thirty-five volumes. Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalānī produced an abridgement of this work with his own comments entitled Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb (The Refinement of the Refinement). Scholars like the Egyptian Ibn al-Mulaqqin (d. 804/1401) added the transmitters found in other hadith collections such as the Musnads of Ibn Hanbal and al-Shāfi'ī as well as the Sahīh of Ibn Khuzayma and the Mustadrak of al-Hākim to expanded versions of al-Mizzī's book. The Hanafī scholar of Cairo, Badr al-Dīn al-'Aynī (d. 855/1451), devoted a rijāl work to the transmitters in al-Tahāwī's collections. Other later analysts focused on the subject of weak transmitters. Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī wrote his masterful Mīzān al-i'tidāl fī naqd al-rijāl (The Fair Scale for Criticizing Transmitters), collecting all the information on any transmitter impugned by earlier figures. Ibn Hajar added his own comments in a revision of this work, Lisān al-mīzān (The Pointer of the Scale). As we saw in the last chapter, the isnāds to hadith books could affect the reliability of hadiths in them, especially during the ninth and tenth centuries. Scholars like Ibn Nuqta of Baghdad (d. 629/1231) therefore wrote books of transmitter criticism addressing the people who conveyed books from their authors. Ibn Nuqta's al-Taqyīd fī ma'rifat ruwāt al-sunan wa al-masānīd and Abū 'Alā' al-Fāsī's (d. 1770) addendum to that book are examples of this genre. Reconciling disagreements among critics With the plethora of transmitter critics from the eighth century on, how was a later critic or analyst supposed to know whose opinion to take on the reliability of a narrator or a hadith? Ibn Ishāq (d. 150/767), for example, the author of the famous biography of the Prophet, was a very controversial figure. Mālik, Ibn al-Qattān, Ibn Hanbal, and others considered him highly unreliable because he accepted hadiths from questionable narrators as well as Christians and Jews. But Shu'ba felt he was impeccably reliable, 'Alī b. al-Madīnī named him one of the pivots of hadith transmission in his age, and all the Six Books except Sahīh al-Bukhārī relied on him as a narrator. Certainly, this created a great potential for disagreement over the reliability of transmitters and, hence, of hadiths themselves. To a certain extent, such disagreement was the inevitable result of the complicated careers of transmitters and the contrasting critical thresholds of the many individual analysts examining them and their reports. One critic could change his mind about a transmitter, as al-Bukhārī did when he reduced Muhammad b. Humayd al-Rāzī's rating from 'good' to 'weak.' As the hadith scholar al-Ismā'īlī (d. 371/981) noted, critics often rated transmitters in relation to certain of their teachers. So a critic might describe a transmitter positively in one place and negatively in another.46 In general, however, later analysts erred on the side of caution and operated on the principle that 'criticism supersedes approval provided that the reason for the criticism is provided.' There were limits to this, however. Scholars who had personal vendettas against one another – Mālik's criticism of Ibn Ishāq was the result of a well-documented personal feud between them – were not accepted as fair critics of one another. Later analysts were often aware of such issues and took earlier critics' idiosyncrasies and personal leanings into consideration. Al-Jūzajānī was known to have a vehement dislike for Shiism, so any rejection by him of a transmitter as 'a heretical Shiite' was probably an overstatement. If he approved of a transmitter, however, it meant that he was certainly free of any Shiite tendencies. Abū Hātim al-Rāzī was well known as a very stringent critic – even the seminal legal and hadith scholar al-Shāfi'ī had only merited a 'sincere (sadūq)' rating with him. Ibn Ma'īn was very harsh – once calling a narrator who criticized a Companion a 'sucker of his mother's clitoris' – so his approval carried great weight.47 Ibn 'Adī was generally very objective. He would limit his evaluations to strict examinations of transmitters' hadiths for corroboration or its absence. As a result, he would often overturn the disapproval of an earlier critic with a comment such as 'I have not found uncorroborated reports among his hadiths.' The standing of the companions The Companions of the Prophet achieved a unique place in the worldview of Sunni hadith critics. Although some early historians and transmitters like al-Wāqidī (d. 207/822–3) only considered those who reached adulthood during the lifetime of the Prophet to be Companions, the definition that became accepted by Sunnis was much less strict.48 As al-Bukhārī notes in his Sahīh, a Companion is anyone who saw the Prophet, even for a moment, while a believer and who then died as a Muslim.49 This had tremendous consequences for hadith transmission, for by 900 CE Sunnis considered that all the Companions of the Prophet were automatically 'upright ('adl).' This belief was based on Quranic verses such as 'You are the best community brought out for humanity (kuntum khayr umma ukhrijat li'l-nās)' (Quran 3:110) and Prophetic hadiths such as 'The best of generations is the one in which I was sent, then that which follows, then that which follows.' In effect, then, the first generation of hadith transmitters was beyond criticism. In fact, the famous ninth-century hadith critic Abū Zur'a al-Rāzī stated that anyone who criticized a Companion was a heretic.50 Later analysts would refine this understanding of the Companions' uprightness. As Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) explained, the Companions were not perfect – Mughīra b. Shu'ba had lied, and Walīd b. 'Uqba was a known drunkard. But none had ever lied about the Prophet.51 Many Sunni scholars have thus understood uprightness as meaning that the Companions' exposure to the tremendous spirit-ual charisma of Muhammad prohibited them from lying about the Prophet but not other sins.52 It is no surprise, then, that Sunni hadith scholars strove to identify who was a Companion. 'Alī b. al-Madīnī (d. 234/838) wrote an early work (now lost) listing them, to be followed by Ibn Qāni' (d. 351/962), Abū Nu'aym al-Isbahānī, and others. Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalānī's Isāba fī ma'rifat al-sahāba is the most widely cited biographical dictionary of the Companions. There was great disagreement over the actual number of Companions: al-Shāfi'ī estimated their number at sixty thousand, Abū Zur'a al-Rāzī at over a hundred thousand. In his biographical dictionary of Companions, Ibn Hajar listed approximately twelve thousand three hundred. On a practical level, the Companions who actually played a noticeable role in hadith transmission were many fewer: the Six Books include hadiths from only 962 Companions.53 The Sunni critics' view of the Companions was both ideologically driven and practical. Sunni Islam was built on the idea that the Companions of the Prophet had inherited his authority and passed on his teachings reliably. In that sense, as a group they were above reproach. In terms of hadith criticism, however, the critics' reach did not extend far enough back to apply the rules of transmitter criticism to the Companions. The earliest critic, al-Zuhrī, had met only the youngest of the Companions, and his hadith criticism mostly addressed the reports he heard from other Successors. Al-Zuhrī, Mālik, and Shu'ba had direct experience with the Successors, but they had no real way to evaluate the uprightness or accuracy of Companions. In a sense, reports such as Aisha's aforementioned rejection of hadiths for content reasons represent vestiges of hadith criticism from the Companion generation. That the collective impunity of the Companions was a later construct of the Sunni worldview is evident when one finds occasional minor Companions listed in early books of weak hadith transmitters.54 The chicken and the egg – Who made the early experts experts? As you might have noticed, the names of the early generations of master hadith critics (Figure 3.1) overlap to a large extent with Figure 2.1 on major hadith transmitters. So did just transmitting a vast number of hadiths make a person a reliable hadith transmitter or an expert critic? The answer seems to be no – just because one was a major transmitter did not mean that one was reliable. Ibn Ishāq was an essential pivot of hadith transmission in Medina, but it became clear to many critics even in his own lifetime that he was not at all discriminating in what he transmitted. Mālik, on the other hand, only transmitted from two people ('Abd al-Karīm b. Abī al-Mukhāriq and 'Atā' al-Khurāsānī) that he (and later critics) did not feel were reliable (thiqa). Later critics also distinguished between an early critic/transmitter's own transmissions and his evaluations of others. Al-Zuhrī's opinions carried great influence, but later critics all agreed that his mursal hadiths (see below for a discussion of this term) were too unreliable to use. The great critic Sufyān al-Thawrī regularly narrated hadiths that others considered unreliable, whereas when Shu'ba transmitted a hadith it was understood that he believed it was authentic. In a similar vein, in the formative period of Sunni Islam in the ninth century, did hadith scholars such as Ibn Hanbal decide which early transmitters to accept based on their Sunni beliefs? Was Sunni hadith criticism just a tool for excluding non-Sunnis? The answers to these questions are certainly 'no,' since, as we have seen, Sunni critics regularly accepted the hadiths of people whose beliefs they considered anathema. Beyond merely accepting non-Sunnis as transmitters of hadiths, Sunnis even accepted one as a hadith critic. Despite his fervent Shiism, Ibn 'Uqda (d. 332/944) was listed by staunch Sunnis like al-Dhahabī as 'the oceanic hadith scholar,' whose criticisms of transmitters and narrations carried great weight.55 2) Contiguity of transmission (al-ittisāl) Evaluating the sources of a hadith was of little use, however, if a critic could not be sure who these sources were. If one transmitter had never actually met the person from whom they quoted the hadith or if it was known that he had not heard that hadith from his teacher, then who was the intermediary? With no way to guarantee that intermediary's reliability, there were endless possibilities for what sort of deviation or forgery could have occurred. Establishing that a hadith had been transmitted by a contiguous, unbroken isnād from the Prophet was thus as crucial as transmitter reliability for determining the authenticity of a hadith. If it could not be established that the people in the isnād had heard from one another, then hadith critics considered the chain of transmission broken (munqati') and thus unreliable. In order to determine if an isnād was 'contiguous (muttasil),' hadith critics attempted to identify all the people from whom a narrator had heard hadiths. If a transmitter was not a known liar, then one could infer this from his saying 'So-and-so narrated to me (haddathanī),' 'so-and-so reported to us (akhbaranā),' or 'I heard from so-and-so (sami'tu min ...).' Other phrases for transmission did not necessarily indicate direct transmission. 'According to ('an)' could mean that someone had heard a hadith directly from the person in question or not. In addition to looking at this terminology, a critic would compare the death date of the teacher with the age of the student and investigate the possibility that they were in the same place at the same time. Because establishing contiguous transmission was so important, by the mid 700s transmitters had become very serious about specifying exactly how hadith transmission occurred. The most accurate forms of direct transmission were either reading a teacher's hadiths back to him (often indicated by the phrase 'he reported to us, akhbaranā') or listening to the teacher read his hadiths (often indicated by 'he narrated to us, haddathanā'). If a teacher gave a student his books of hadiths to copy, this was termed 'handing over (munāwala).' We have already discussed 'permission to transmit (ijāza)' in the last chapter. Although there was debate over whether reading hadiths to a teacher or hearing them read was more accurate, all scholars acknowledged that 'handing over' and 'permission to transmit' were the most tenuous forms of transmission. Reading a book with no transmission from the teacher at all ('finding, wijāda') inspired no confidence at all. Transmitters fretted over these forms of narration and often debated the proper terminology. The Hanafī al-Tahāwī (d. 321/933) wrote a short treatise on how the technical terms 'akhbaranā' and 'haddathanā' actually meant the same thing (also the opinion of the majority of scholars). When al-Awzā'ī gave a book of hadiths to a student in an act of 'handing over,' the student asked, 'About this book, do I say "haddathanī"?' Al-Awzā'ī replied, 'If I narrated it directly to you, then say that.' The student inquired, 'So do I say "akhbaranī"?' Al-Awzā'ī replied that no, he should say 'al-Awzā'ī said' or 'according to al-Awzā'ī.'56 Not all critics agreed on the requirements for a contiguous isnād. There was disagreement over whether the phrase 'according to ('an)' should be interpreted as an indication of direct transmission or not. Muslim b. al-Hajjāj claimed that the great hadith critics had all accepted 'an as indicating direct transmission provided that the two people involved were contemporaries and that it was likely that they had met one another. Others, like Ibn 'Abd al-Barr (d. 463/1070) and al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī, claimed that hadith critics had agreed that one needed proof that the two transmitters had actually met at least once. Obfuscation in Transmission (Tadlīs) Critics of the eighth, ninth, and early tenth centuries often attempted to be more exact than just establishing if two transmitters had met. They sought to determine exactly which hadiths certain transmitters had heard from their teachers. Shu'ba thus studied the hadiths of his teacher Qatāda until he found that he had only heard three from his teacher Abū al-'Āliya.57 This was especially important in the case of tadlīs, or obfuscation in transmission. Tadlīs occurred when a transmitter cited an isnād in an ambiguous manner, such as saying 'so-and-so said,' implying that he had heard the hadith directly from the person when in fact he was omitting his immediate source for the hadith. Transmitters might hide their immediate source because he or she was considered unreliable or espoused beliefs unacceptable in Sunni Islam. Tadlīs did not always occur for insidious reasons. If a student had to leave a dictation session to answer nature's call, for example, he would hear the hadiths that he had missed from a classmate. When narrating those hadiths, however, he might leave out the classmate's name and simply say 'Teacher so-and-so said.' Because tadlīs was often innocuous, very few transmitters were totally innocent of it. Only Shu'ba b. al-Hajjāj was known to never lapse into it. Identifying tadlīs was a primary concern of critics in the eighth century and beyond. By interrogating a transmitter a critic could determine whom he omitted from isnāds in instances of tadlīs. Transmitters like Sufyān b. 'Uyayna, who only omitted the names of reliable figures, could be trusted even when doing tadlīs. Others who often omitted the names of weak narrators, like Ibn Ishāq, could not be relied upon unless they specified direct transmission.58 Al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī and Ibn Hajar both wrote books discussing tadlīs and those accused of it. Mursal Hadiths Similar to tadlīs was the phenomenon of mursal hadiths, or instances in which someone quoted the Prophet without ever having met him. If a Successor or an early scholar like Mālik said 'the Prophet said,' this was clearly an incomplete isnād since Mālik never met the Prophet. Mursal hadiths occurred because, especially in the first few generations of Muslims, scholars were not obsessive about providing detailed isnāds for every report all the time. Al-Zuhrī, Mālik, or Abū Hanīfa might quote the Prophet while discussing a legal issue informally without bothering to provide an isnād. When such mursal hadiths were recorded in musannaf works like the Muwatta' or the legal responses of Abū Hanīfa, however, they presented a problem for later hadith critics. How should they be treated? Because mursal hadiths had incomplete isnāds and one could not be sure from whom a Successor was narrating, mursals were almost always considered unreliable by hadith critics. After extensive research on the mursal reports of certain early transmitters, however, and attempts to find counterparts to them with full isnāds, critics approved of certain transmitters' mursal hadiths. Al-Shāfi'ī concluded that the mursals of the Successor Sa'īd b. al-Musayyab (d. 94/713) were reliable because the source he omitted, his father-in-law Abū Hurayra, was the most knowledgeable Companion about hadiths. Critics debated the reliability of al-Hasan al-Basrī's mursal hadiths – his contemporary Ibn Sīrīn said that al-Hasan was totally uncritical about his hadith sources, so his mursals were useless. Yahyā al-Qattān said that he had studied all of al-Hasan's mursals and found versions with full isnāds for all but two of them.59 Ibn Abī Hātim al-Rāzī composed a whole book entitled Kitāb al-marāsīl (The Book of Mursals) in an attempt to determine which Successors had heard hadiths from which Companions. STEP THREE: FINDING CORROBORATION FOR THE HADITH Corroboration had played a central role in determining the reliability of a transmitter – if he narrated hadiths that other students of his source did not, then his reliability was questioned. But a forger could still simply take an isnād of a respected transmitter and attach it to a freshly concocted hadith. The third and final step in hadith criticism thus involved looking for corroboration for the hadith itself. Corroboration took two general forms. Since a 'hadīth' was generally associated with the Companion who narrated it, another version of the same Prophetic tradition transmitted by a second Companion or an instance of the Prophet saying something similar on another occasion were both considered corroboration for a hadith. Such a report was termed a 'witness (shāhid).' When one transmitter corroborated the report related by another transmitter that they had both heard from a common source, this was termed a 'parallelism (mutāba'a).' Hadith scholars described these two forms of corroboration with the aphorism 'parallelism bolsters the narration, a witness bolsters the tradition.' A witness report need not be exactly the same tradition as the hadith it supports. Even a report with a different wording but the same meaning corroborated the fact that the Prophet had expressed a certain idea or sentiment. Parallelisms solidified the reliability of a particular narration of a hadith. Figure 3.2 Corroboration A famous tenth-century hadith critic, Ibn Hibbān, describes the process of searching for corroboration (called i'tibār, 'consideration') thus: Let us say we come across [the transmitter] Hammād b. Salama, and we see that he has narrated a report from Ayyūb [al-Sakhtiyānī] Ibn Sīrīn Abū Hurayra the Prophet (s), but we do not find that report from anyone else from the students of Ayyūb. What is required of us now is to refrain momentarily from criticizing Hammād, and to consider what his contemporaries narrated. So we must start by looking at this report: Did Hammād's students in general narrate it from him, or just one of them? If it is the case that his students narrated it from him, then it has been established that Hammād really did narrate that report, even if that comes through a weak narrator from him, because that narration is added to the first narration from Hammād. So if it has been established correctly that Hammād narrated a report from Ayyūb that is not corroborated by others, again we must pause. For it does not follow automatically that there is some weakness here, but rather we must ask: Did any of the reliable transmitters (thiqāt) narrate this report from Ibn Sīrīn other than Ayyūb? If we find one, then it has been established that the report has some basis (asl yarji'u ilayhi). If not, then we must ask: Did anyone from among the reliable transmitters narrate this report from Abū Hurayra other than Ibn Sīrīn? If such a narration is found, then it has been established that the report has a basis (asl). If not, we ask: Did anyone narrate this report from the Prophet (s) other than Abū Hurayra? If so, then it has been established correctly that the report has some basis. But when that is not the case, and the report contradicts the compilations of these three [people at three levels in the isnād], then it is established without a doubt that the report is forged, and that the lone person who narrated it forged it.60 As Ibn Hibbān describes, if a report is not corroborated at any one level of the isnād, then the reliability of that transmitter's narration from his source is dubious. If the report is uncorroborated at all levels of the isnād, then it is almost certainly totally baseless. If a report was not corroborated either at some level of the isnād or from the Prophet in general, early hadith critics deemed it 'unacceptable (munkar).' Here we see that Muslim critics worked backwards in time when authenticating hadiths. What probably first occurs to readers today (as is clear in the hadith charts in this book), is that an isnād 'starts' with the Prophet and 'ends' when the hadith is recorded in a book. But this assumes that the hadith actually existed in the time of the Prophet and that we are merely tracing how it came to us. For a Muslim hadith critic, a hadith was at first just an unverified claim; its isnād began with the person who told him the hadith. It only extended backward in time when the critic verified each link in the isnād, step by step, until it 'reached (wasl)' the Prophet. Of course, this process of demanding corroboration took context into consideration. As Muslim b. al-Hajjāj informs us, 'If it has been established that your hadith corpus agrees with those of the other reliable narrators, then narrating some uncorroborated material is acceptable.'61 If a transmitter studied with a certain teacher for ten years, then it is not surprising that he might narrate a selection of hadiths from his teacher that students who only studied with him for six months did not recount. The great critic Abū Hātim al-Rāzī was asked to criticize 'Abdallāh b. Sālih, the secretary of Layth b. Sa'd, for having narrated uncorroborated hadiths from Layth. Abū Hātim replied sarcastically, 'You ask me this about the closest person to Layth, who was with him on voyages and at home and spent much time alone with him?'62 But, Muslim continues, if some lesser known transmitter narrated a hadith from a prolific hadith scholar like al-Zuhrī whose numerous and respected students did not recognize that hadith, then that report would be automatically declared 'unacceptable (munkar).'63 Like our modern investigative reporter's source, however, a transmitter could earn such a level of confidence in the eyes of critics that he could narrate uncorroborated reports without arousing concern. Critics like al-Bukhārī and Ibn 'Adī had examined the hadiths of master transmitters like al-Zuhrī, Mālik, Ibn al-Mubārak or Qutayba b. Sa'īd and found that they were corroborated to such a great extent that they could be relied upon for a number of uncorroborated hadiths as well. These figures were so central to hadith transmission in general that if anyone were to have heard a rare hadith, it would be them. An uncorroborated hadith narrated by an isnād of such pillars was known as 'an authentic rare (sahīh gharīb)' hadith. The hadith of Mālik al-Zuhrī Anas that the Prophet entered Mecca upon its conquest with a mail helmet on his head and ordered the killing of Ibn Khatal, an infamous enemy of Islam, was known only by this isnād. Because this hadith was narrated by transmitters whose collections of hadiths were vaster than almost any other people of their time, this hadith was considered authentic even though it was uncorroborated.64 Conversely, less stellar figures inspired no such confidence. As al-Tirmidhī explained, 'Anyone from whom a hadith is narrated who is accused [of poor performance in hadith] or is criticized as weak in hadiths for his lack of carefulness and numerous mistakes, if that hadith is only known through that narration, it cannot be used as proof.' So the hadith narrated by the lone isnād of Nāsih al-'Ajamī Simāk b. Harb Jābir b. Samura the Prophet: 'For a man to teach his child proper manners is better than to give a whole bushel in charity (li'an yu'addiba al-rajul waladahu khayr min an yatasaddaqa bi-sa')' was considered unacceptable (munkar) because neither Nāsih nor Simāk were consistently reliable transmitters.65 Books of 'Ilal al-Hadīth Even when an isnād looked perfect, early hadith critics did not completely ignore the need for comparing it with other narrations of the report. As the eleventh-century critic al-Khalīlī (d. 446/1054) warned, 'Even if a hadith is provided to you with an isnād from al-Zuhrī or another one of the masters, do not declare it authentic merely because of that isnād, for even a reliable transmitter (thiqa) can err.'66 By comparing different versions of the same hadith, critics could uncover flaws, known as 'ilal, which might have evaded the best transmitter. Such flaws included one narration of a hadith adding additional words into the text of the report that are not found in more reliable versions. A very common flaw was that one narrator would confuse a Companion's or Successor's statement with a Prophetic hadith. The great 'ilal critic of Baghdad, al-Dāraqutnī, found such an error in Muslim's famous Sahīh. By examining all the narrations of a report describing how God will grant the believers a vision of Himself on the Day of Judgment, al-Dāraqutnī concluded that these were actually the words of the Successor 'Abd al-Rahmān Ibn Abī Laylā (d. 82/701–2) and not of the Prophet.67 To uncover these 'ilal, a critic would gather all the narrations of a hadith and attempt to determine which ones were the most reliable. If the majority of respected transmitters, for example, reported that a certain saying was the statement of a Companion, even one strong isnād tracing that report back to the Prophet would be considered a mistake. This advanced level of seeking out corroboration and comparing narrations was set down in books of 'ilal, a genre that flourished in the ninth and tenth centuries. The 'ilal works of 'Alī b. al-Madīnī, Ibn Hanbal, and Ibn Abī Hātim al-Rāzī were very famous, but the massive 'ilal book of al-Dāraqutnī, published in eleven volumes, dwarfs them all. After the 1000s, 'ilal books became rare, and only unusually competent later critics like the Moroccan Ibn al-Qattān al-Fāsī (d. 628/1231) or Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1201) produced them. 'Ilal criticism was only possible for critics in the early period when hadiths were still narrated by full isnāds and critics had access to versions of reports that may not have survived into later times.68 As al-Suyūtī admitted, by the 1400s hadith critics did not have the vast array of musannafs, hadith notebooks, and dictation sessions available to a scholar like al-Dāraqutnī. Such later scholars could only judge hadiths based on material they received from earlier critics.69 CONTENT CRITICISM: THE HIDDEN COMPONENT OF EARLY HADITH CRITICISM When we think of how one should evaluate the reliability of things we hear, we focus on their content as much as their source. Even the most trustworthy source would arouse suspicion if he announced that aliens had landed in his backyard. Yet when we thumb through books of transmitter criticism or 'ilal, one of the most obvious characteristics of early hadith criticism is that early scholars almost never discussed the contents of hadith, let alone explicitly rejected a hadith because its meaning was unacceptable. Why is this? Certainly, the esteem in which Muslims held Muhammad and their belief that God spoke to him of the distant past and events to come affected their approach to criticizing hadiths. Unlike a modern person skeptically dismissing the sayings of a television psychic, a Muslim critic would not declare a report attributed to Muhammad to be a forgery simply because it described something that average men could not know. Nonetheless, we know that early critics like al-Bukhārī and Muslim were willing and able to reject a hadith because they found its contents inherently flawed. In his entry on the transmitter 'Awn b. 'Umāra al-Qaysī in his 'Great Book of Weak Transmitters,' al-Bukhārī noted that one of the unacceptable hadiths he narrated was 'The signs of the Day of Judgment are after the year 200/815.' Al-Bukhārī rejects the hadith because 'these two hundred years have passed, and none of these signs have appeared.'70 In another work on transmitters, al-Bukhārī criticizes Muhammad b. Fadā' because he narrated the hadith 'The Prophet forbade breaking apart Muslim coins in circulation.' Al-Bukhārī notes that Muslims did not mint coins until early Umayyad times, 'they did not exist at the time of the Prophet.'71 Muslim b. al-Hajjāj rejects a hadith saying that there are five chapters of the Quran that are the equivalent of one-fourth of the holy book – a total of five-fourths. He calls this logical contradiction 'reprehensible, and it is not conceivable that its meaning is correct.'72 But why were such instances of content criticism so rare? To answer this question, we have to remember that Sunni hadith criticism emerged in the context of intense ideological struggle between the ahl al-hadīth and the school of early Muslim rationalists, known as the Mu'tazila. For the Mu'tazila, the only sources on which one could rely to interpret properly Islamic law and dogma were the Quran, reports from the Prophet that were so well-known they could not possibly be forged, and human reason ('aql). In order to know if any hadith was authentically from the Prophet, Mu'tazilite scholars like Abū al-Qāsim al-Balkhī (d. 319/931) believed that it had to agree with the Quran and reason. For Mu'tazilites, the idea that one could examine the isnād of the hadith to know if it was reliable or not was preposterous. The Mu'tazilite master Abū 'Alī al-Jubbā'ī (d. 303/915–16) was once asked to evaluate two hadiths narrated through the same isnād. He declared the first hadith authentic but rejected the second as false. When a surprised student asked al-Jubbā'ī, 'Two hadiths with the same isnād, you authenticate one and reject the other?', al-Jubbā'ī replied that the second one could not be the words of the Prophet because 'the Quran demonstrates its falsity, as does the consensus of the Muslims and the evidence of reason.'73 The ahl al-hadīth's understanding of man's relationship to religion was the converse. Only by submitting oneself completely to the uncorrupted ways of the Prophet and early Muslim community as transmitted through the isnād could one truly obey God and His Messenger. Unlike the Mu'tazila, whom they saw as arrogantly glorifying human reason, or the ahl al-ra'y, whom they viewed as rejecting or accepting hadiths arbitrarily when it suited their legal opinion, the ahl al-hadīth perceived themselves as 'cultivating the ways of the Messenger, fending off heretical innovation and lies from revealed knowledge.'74 It was not man's right to question the revealed religion that the Prophet brought and that was preserved from him through the isnād. We thus find the Companion 'Imrān b. Husayn (d. 52/672) instructing new Muslims that the Prophet had said, 'Whoever is grieved for [by his family] will be punished [for that mourning] (man yunāhu 'alayhi yu'adhdhab).' When a person questioned the reasonableness of this notion, 'Imrān replied, 'The Messenger of God has spoken the truth, and you have disbelieved!'75 A defender of the ahl al-hadīth against the Mu'tazila, Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889) states: We do not resort except to that to which the Messenger of God resorted. And we do not reject what has been transmitted authentically from him because it does not accord with our conjectures or seem correct to reason ... we hope that in this lies the path to salvation and escape from the baseless whims of heresy.76 But we know from the examples above that early Sunni hadith critics did note problems in the meanings of certain hadiths. In their context, however, it is clear why they could not do so openly. The whole purpose of the isnād was to guarantee that the Prophet said something without relying on man's flawed reason. If hadith critics admitted that a hadith could have an authentic isnād but still be a forgery because its meaning was unacceptable, then they would be admitting that their rationalist opponents were correct! If you could not have a strong isnād with a forged report, then any problem in the meaning of a hadith must mean that there was a problem in the isnād. When ahl al-hadīth critics like al-Bukhārī came across a hadith whose meaning they found unacceptable, they examined the isnād to find how the error occurred and listed the hadith in the biography of that transmitter as evidence of his weakness. Ibn 'Adī often states that the questionable hadiths that a certain transmitter narrates 'demonstrate that he is unreliable.' The Emergence of Mawdū'āt Books and Open Content Criticism after 1100 CE Because early hadith criticism was so openly focused on the isnād as the primary means of authentication, it was very often difficult to tell when a critic was rejecting a whole Prophetic tradition or just one narration of that hadith. The term 'unacceptable (munkar)' for a hadith could mean that this version of the hadith narrated through a certain isnād was unreliable but other authentic versions existed, or that the tradition was entirely forged. Another phrase used to reject a hadith, 'it has no basis (laysa lahu asl),' could mean that the hadith had no basis from that transmitter (but was well established from others) or that the Prophetic tradition was baseless in general. But even concluding that the terms munkar or lā asl lahu denoted 'forged' does not necessarily mean that the critic found the meaning of the hadith in question unacceptable. As Ibn 'Abd al-Barr (d. 463/1070) explained, 'How many hadiths are there with a weak isnād but a correct meaning?'77 Al-Tirmidhī notes that Yahyā al-Qattān had declared the following hadith narrated by Anas b. Mālik to be munkar: 'A man said, "O Messenger of God, should I tie up [the camel] and trust in God or leave it free and trust in God." The Prophet said, "Tie it up and trust in God." ' Al-Tirmidhī adds that this report was totally baseless from Anas, 'but its likes have been narrated from another Companion 'Amr b. Umayya al-Damrī, from the Prophet.'78 Starting in the late 1000s, however, as the Mu'tazilite rationalist threat faded from view and Sunni Islam emerged triumphant, hadith critics began writing books that rejected whole Prophetic traditions, often because their meanings were unacceptable. These books were known as works of mawdū'āt, which listed 'mawdū',' or 'forged' hadiths. The earliest known mawdū'āt book, unfortunately lost to us, was that of Abū Sa'īd al-Naqqāsh al-Isbahānī (d. 414/1023).79 The earliest surviving one is the Tadhkirat al-mawdū'āt of Muhammad b. Tāhir al-Maqdisī (d. 507/1113). Perhaps the most famous mawdū'āt work is the huge Kitāb al-mawdū'āt of Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1201). Mawdū'āt books flourished in later Islamic times, with well-known works including the Ahādīth al-da'īfa of Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), the al-La'ālī al-masnū'a of al-Suyūtī, the Asrār al-marfū'a of Mullā 'Alī Qārī, the Fawā'id al-majmū'a of the Yemeni Muhammad al-Shawkānī (d. 1834), and the Kitāb al-āthār al-marfū'a of the Indian 'Abd al-Hayy al-Laknawī (d. 1886-7). Some of these scholars wrote books on forged hadiths designed to be useful references for non-experts. 'Umar b. Badr al-Mawsilī (d. 622/1225), for example, wrote the book Sufficing One from Memorization and Books on Issues on which there are No Reliable Hadīths (al-Mughnī 'an al-hifz wa al-kitāb fīmā lam yasihha shay' fī al-bāb). Early mawdū'āt books listed hadiths along with the isnād flaws that showed they were forged, relying on the criticisms of specific narrations made by the likes of al-Bukhārī and Ibn 'Adī. This was highly problematic, since these books implied that any hadith with that wording was forged, while there might be other, sound narrations. In the mid twelfth century the genre began shifting to openly rejecting hadiths because of their meaning. The mawdū'āt book of al-Jawzaqānī (d. 543/1148–9), for example, states 'Every hadith that contradicts the Sunna is cast away and the person who says it is rejected as a transmitter.'80 This process reached a plateau with the al-Manār al-munīf fī al-sahīh wa al-da'īf (The Lofty Lighthouse for Authentic and Weak Hadiths), the mawdū'āt book of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350), who devoted a large section of the work to listing all the features of a hadith's contents that demonstrated it was forged. Of course, freely engaging in content criticism was opening a Pandora's box. A critic might fall into exactly that trap that the early ahl al-hadīth claimed they were avoiding: making man's flawed reason the arbiter of religious truth. Although later critics would maintain, as Ibn al-Jawzī states, 'any hadith that you see contradicting reason or fundamental principles [of Islam], know that it is forged,' they would also insist that one should not be too hasty in such judgments. After all, the critic might not have grasped the proper way of reconciling such contradictions.81 A few Sunni hadith critics in the later period, such as al-Dhahabī and 'Abdallāh al-Ghumārī, seemed at ease openly rejecting hadiths based on their contents, sometimes even when their isnāds seemed sound. But the mainstream Sunni tradition is much better exemplified by scholars like al-Suyūtī and Mullā 'Alī al-Qārī. The former warned that a hadith could be rejected due to its contents only after all efforts to reconcile its meaning with the Quran and established Sunna had failed. And 'the door of possible interpretation is definitely wide,' added al-Qārī. Prominent scholars declared a hadith in which the Prophet dreamt he saw God as a beardless youth to be a blatant forgery due to its anthropomorphism. Al-Qārī replied that dreams are merely symbolic, not reality. Thus, he argued, the hadith's meaning was sound.82 This tension between submitting one's reason to a transmitted text and using one's reason to evaluate the text's authenticity has furnished fertile ground for debate among Muslim scholars until today. LEVELS OF HADITH, THEIR USES AND THE PRIORITIES OF THE HADITH TRADITION From the time of Mālik (d. 179/796) to the late ninth century, hadith critics conceived of hadiths as falling between two poles in terms of the strength of their isnāds: sahīh ('sound,' 'authentic') and da'īf/saqīm ('weak' or 'unsound,' literally 'sick'). In terms of their level of corroboration, critics described hadiths as being 'well-known (mashhūr)' or 'unacceptable, unknown (munkar)' ones. A hadith that was declared sahīh or mashhūr represented the authenticated words of the Prophet, while weak or munkar hadiths were those not fully established as emanating from him. It is difficult to know exactly how early hadith critics defined sahīh hadiths, since they were very laconic in their works. Ibn Khuzayma defined the hadiths that he selected for his sahīh collection as those 'that an upright ('adl) transmitter narrates from another upstanding transmitter continuously to [the Prophet] without any break in the isnād or any impugning of the transmitters.'83 Later analysts such as Ibn al-Salāh (d. 643/1245) and Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalānī (d. 852/1449) examined the methodologies of the early masters and defined a sahīh hadith as one narrated by an unbroken isnād of reliable (thiqa) transmitters, namely those who combined upstandingness and accuracy, all the way back to Prophet without any concealed flaws ('ilal) or contradicting a more reliable source.84 For hadith scholars of the eighth and ninth centuries, any hadith that did not reach the standard of sahīh was declared 'weak.' The category of 'weak' hadiths was thus very broad, ranging from hadiths whose isnāds suggested they were forged to those with relatively minor flaws (see Figure 3.0). This helps explain why ahl al-hadīth jurists like Ibn Hanbal were willing to employ hadiths they themselves described as 'weak' for deriving laws when no other evidence was available. The later scholar of Ibn Hanbal's school of law, Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), explains that weak hadiths fell into two categories: 1) those that did not have a sahīh isnād but were still reliable enough that one could use them in law, 2) hadiths that were so unreliable that they had to be set aside.85 Beginning with the work of al-Bukhārī's student Abū 'Īsā al-Tirmidhī (d. 279/892), hadith scholars developed a new name to describe the hadiths that were not sahīh but still strong enough to use as proof in Islamic law: hasan, or 'fair.' Al-Tirmidhī describes a hasan hadith as one that 'does not have in its isnād someone who is accused of lying or forgery, is not anomalous (shādhdh), and is narrated via more than one chain of transmission.'86 For al-Tirmidhī, a hasan hadith was thus a report whose isnād was not seriously flawed and enjoyed corroboration through other narrations, which mitigated the chances of a serious error creeping into the text of the report. The later jurist and hadith scholar al-Khattābī (d. 388/998) described hasan hadiths as those 'with an established basis and whose transmitters were well-known.'87 All Sunni scholars have accepted both sahīh and hasan hadiths as compelling proof in matters of law. As we will discuss in chapter 6 on the role of hadith in theology, there was prolonged debate over whether hadiths narrated through a handful of isnāds were reliable enough to inform Islamic dogma. Just as we do today, Muslim critics felt that certain topics required more strenuous efforts at authentication than others. From the times of early critics and ahl al-hadīth jurists like Ibn al-Mubārak and Ibn Hanbal, it was accepted that hadiths that were not reliable enough to be admitted in discussions of law could still be used for other purposes. When Ibn al-Mubārak was asked what to do with the hadiths of one weak narrator, he replied that they should not be used as proof in legal discussions. 'It is still,' however, 'possible to narrate from him what he has on issues like good manners (adab), goodly preaching (maw'iza), pious abstemiousness (zuhd) and such things.'88 Ibn Hanbal stated: If we are told hadiths from the Messenger of God concerning what is permissible and forbidden, the sunan and laws, then we are strict with their isnāds. But if we are told hadiths from the Prophet about the virtues of certain acts (fadā'il al-a'māl), or what does not create a rule or remove one, then we are lax with the isnāds.89 In addition to moralizing or exhortatory preaching, the standards for hadith authenticity also dropped for genres outside what was considered the purview of musnad hadiths, or hadiths with full isnāds originating with the Prophet and generally addressing legal issues. These included stories about the Prophet's campaigns and the subsequent Islamic conquests (maghāzī), reports from Companions and Successors about the meanings of Quranic words or the contexts in which Quranic verses were revealed (tafsīr) and stories foretelling the end of days (malāhim). As Ibn Hanbal stated, these three genres 'had no basis (asl)' – namely, they often consisted of statements made by Companions or Successors. In other words, they were not Prophetic hadiths at all.90 Figure 3.3 Rating of Hadiths and Their Uses among the Early and Later Hadith Critics Even when such reports were attributed to the Prophet, the critics' standards were lax. Maghāzī, along with what emerged as the genre of 'history (tārīkh),' demanded less rigor because scholars did not feel that they impacted the core of the Islamic tradition: law, dogma, and ritual. Malāhim hadiths, like hadiths dealing with good manners or urging Muslims to do good deeds, were admitted for use in teaching even if their contents were not reliable, because they encouraged Muslims to fear God. Here we can note a remarkable feature of the way in which Sunni Muslims understood the boundaries of religion and prioritized the functions of scripture. Today we consider the stories that religious traditions tell about the apocalypse and the means by which they propagate a moral vision of the world to be essential dimensions of a faith. For Muslims in the classical period, however, they were merely tools by which scholars could purvey the true substance of Islam, which the hadith tradition was designed to preserve: law, ritual, and essential beliefs about God. ENTER LEGAL THEORY: MUSLIM LEGAL THEORISTS AND THEIR EFFECT ON HADITH CRITICISM Ahl al-hadīth jurists like al-Shāfi'ī, his student Ibn Hanbal and his student al-Bukhārī understood well that one could not simply take every hadith that one heard from the Prophet as the law. Even if a legal hadith was authentic, the Prophet could have said it in a specific circumstance, intended it for a specific person, or changed the ruling mentioned in the hadith later on. Senior scholars were thus venerated not only for their knowledge of hadiths, but also for their ability to understand how those hadiths related to one another, fit under, added to or modified Quranic rulings. Early expressions of the ahl al-hadīth legal theory appear in the chapter of al-Bukhārī's Sahīh on holding fast to the Quran and Sunna, and most eminently in al-Shāfi'ī's works the Umm and the Risāla. Another tradition of legal theory developed parallel to that of the ahl al-hadīth. Hanafī jurists of the ninth century, many of whom subscribed to the Mu'tazilite rationalist outlook, derived this system partially from the Hellenistic tradition of philosophy prevalent in the Near East before Islam. In addition to the ahl al-hadīth division of hadiths into sahīh/hasan/da'īf or mashhūr/munkar, the Hanafī/Mu'tazilite school of legal theory elaborated a gradated system based on the level of certainty that various forms of reports conveyed. Reports about the past, whether hadiths or simply historical accounts, that were so widespread that they could not have been forged by any one group were called mutawātir (massively transmitted) and yielded epis-temologically certain knowledge ('ilm yaqīn). One might not have ever actually gone to China, but the number of reports that one has heard about it convey utter certainty that the place actually exists. There was a wide range of opinions among Mu'tazilite scholars about how many transmissions of a report were required to make it mutawātir, with scholars asserting anywhere from four (the number of witnesses required in Islamic law to prove a case of adultery) to seventy (the number of people believed to have accompanied Moses up Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments). This number was required at every stage of transmission. Any hadith that did not fulfill the requirements for a mutawātir hadith was known as āhād, or a hadith of individual narrators. Unlike mutawātir hadiths, āhād hadiths only yielded strong probability (zann) of what the report described. As we have seen, Mu'tazilites had no compunction about making content criticism the centerpiece of their method of hadith evaluation. The Hanafī judge 'Īsā b. Abān (d. 221/836) thus argued that the early Muslim community rejected āhād reports that contradicted the Quran or established Sunna, or described an event that would have been more widely reported had it really occurred. He also makes the verdict of reason the ultimate arbiter for judging the veracity of a report, not the isnād.91 Although Sunnis considered Mu'tazilism to be a heresy, Mu'tazilite legal theory and its perspective on hadiths had a major impact on Sunni legal theory. A seminal figure in Sunni legal theory and theology, Abū al-Hasan al-Ash'arī (d. 324/935–6), was a former Mu'tazilite who had embraced the Sunni theological worldview and then used Mu'tazilite rationalism to defend it. The major architects of what is known as the Jumhūr (Majority) school of Sunni legal theory followed in his footsteps, essentially tailoring Mu'tazilite thought to the contours of Sunni belief. In the early 1000s, two of the most influential Shāfi'ī legal theorists, al-Qādī 'Abd al-Jabbār (d. 415/1025) and his student Abū al-Husayn al-Basrī (d. 436/1044), were actually Mu'tazilites in their conception of knowledge and theology. Their works in this field greatly informed the scholars who defined Sunni legal theory after them, such as al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085) and his student Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111). With the work of the hadith master al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī (d. 463/1071), the Mu'tazilite-inspired thinking of Sunni legal theorists entered Sunni hadith criticism. Specifically, al-Khatīb and all the theorists of hadith criticism who followed him adopted the division of hadiths into mutawātir and āhād (which we will discuss in more depth in Chapter 6) along with the levels of certainty they yielded. Mutawātir hadiths yielded total certainty that the Prophet had in fact said the report, while āhād hadiths yielded only strong probability. This was, however, strong enough for them to be used in deriving law. Sunni legal theorists introduced a middle tier between āhād and mutawātir dubbed 'wide-spread (mashhūr or mustafīd).' These hadiths were reports that started out as āhād, being transmitted by only a few people in the first few generations, before spreading out and becoming mutawātir. But because these hadiths had been accepted as reliable by the community of scholars, they were known to be authentic. This was based on the Sunni belief, phrased in the Prophet's words, that 'God will not let my community agree on an error' (see Chapter 5). Hadith criticism also absorbed the principles of content criticism described by Ibn Abān. The result of this merging was a composite tradition that joined two perspectives on hadith criticism that were originally in opposition, if not antithetical, to one another. Since the eleventh century, Sunni hadith criticism has therefore produced many internal contradictions. The most prominent display of this schizophrenia has been theories of hadith criticism that do not correspond to the work of hadith critics. We have already seen how the Sunni legal theorist's definition of upstanding character ('adāla) did not apply at all to the criteria that early hadith critics like al-Bukhārī used to determine the reliability of a narrator. In terms of content criticism, al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī affirms the principles derived from Ibn Abān. Not once, however, in the course of his criticism of the thousands of hadiths in his vast History of Baghdad, does al-Khatīb openly reject a hadith because its contents were unacceptable! As mentioned earlier, it was not until the mawdū'āt work of al-Jawzaqānī (d. 543/1148–9) and those who followed him that Sunni hadith critics actually overtly applied rules of content criticism in the course of their hadith evaluations. Even then their use of content criticism was fraught with tension. Essentially every Sunni hadith scholar since al-Khatīb has upheld Ibn Abān's rules of content criticism. But few have ever applied them.92 The categories of mutawātir and āhād were similarly unsuitable for the hadith tradition, for essentially all hadiths were āhād. As Ibn al-Salāh (d. 643/1245), the most famous scholar of hadith criticism in the later period, explained, at most one hadith ('Whoever lies about me intentionally, let him prepare for himself a seat in Hellfire') would meet the requirements for mutawātir.93 No hadiths could actually be described as being narrated by a large number of narrators at every stage of their transmission. In fact, when Mu'tazilites had insisted that hadiths be transmitted by a mere two people at every stage, the Sunni Ibn Hibbān had accused them of trying to destroy the Sunna of the Prophet in its entirety.94 THE 'BIG TENT' OF THE LATE SUNNI TRADITION: INCREASED ACCEPTANCE AND USE OF WEAK HADITHS The absorption of Mu'tazilite legal theory into the Sunni hadith tradition in the 1000s is indicative of the major changes that occurred in the later period of hadith criticism. From the eleventh century onward, hadith criticism would be characterized by an increasing distance from the methods of early critics. Especially with the solidification of the Late Sunni Tradition in the 1300s, we can see a tendency towards authenticating more and more hadiths that had previously been considered outside the pale of usage. Partially explained by the broader perspective enjoyed by later critics and partially justified by manipulations of the methods of hadith critics, hadith criticism became an increasingly 'Big Tent' of inclusivity. We note the beginning of the critical laxity of the later period in the Mustadrak collection of al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī (d. 405/1014), in which the author claimed he had collected thousands of hadiths that met the authenticity requirements of al-Bukhārī and Muslim. In reality, however, al-Hākim's methods of authentication fell far short of his two predecessors. He declared a hadith authentic if its isnād consisted of transmitters used in the Sahīhayn or transmitters similar to them. The later analyst Jamāl al-Dīn al-Zayla'ī (d. 762/1361), however, uncovered the weakness at the heart of al-Hākim's strategy: he had relied on the same transmitters as al-Bukhārī and Muslim, but he did not examine the hadiths for corroboration or ensure contiguous transmission.95 According to al-Dhahabī, only half of the Mustadrak's contents were actually authentic. The other half was of dubious reliability.96 Neglecting the need for corroboration has been a hallmark of later hadith criticism. Whereas a critic like al-Bukhārī would accept a hadith narrated by only one chain of transmission as long as it consisted of master scholars like al-Zuhrī and Mālik, later critics often authenticated hadiths based on only one chain regardless of the infer-ior standing of some transmitters. Ibn Abī Hātim, Ibn 'Adī, and other early critics had declared the hadith saying that 'The most truthful speech is that said after sneezing' was weak or forged. In the thirteenth century, however, al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277) argued for its reliability based on a solitary narration from the Musnad of Abū Ya'lā al-Mawsilī (d. 307/919) even though one of its transmitters had been severely impugned.97 Later critics did have one tangible advantage over earlier critics. A later scholar like Ibn Hajar or al-Suyūtī had access to works that consolidated and synthesized the vast and diverse expanse of the hadith corpus as well as collections that might not have been within reach of an early critic. As the case studies at the end of this chapter demonstrate, where early critics like al-Bukhārī or al-Tirmidhī had access to only some narrations of a Prophetic tradition when they declared it weak, in the 1400s Ibn Hajar could take into consideration additional narrations that might raise that hadith to hasan or sahīh status. Ibn al-Salāh used the term 'hasan due to other narrations (hasan li-ghayrihi)' and 'authentic due to other narrations (sahīh li-ghayrihi)' to describe this procedure. The twentieth-century Moroccan hadith scholar Ahmad al-Ghumārī (d. 1960) exemplified later scholars' access to material out of the reach of an early critic by writing a book entitled (Laysa kadhālik)', (Not So), in which he rebuts a series of statements that early critics like Ibn Hanbal made about transmitters and hadiths based on new evidence. Of course, while later critics could authenticate a hadith that had previously been considered unreliable, the opposite was theoretically very difficult. When al-Bukhārī judged a hadith to be sahīh, his decision was based on information about the hadith that may have been lost to history. As Ibn Taymiyya explains, 'whatever hadiths reached [early scholars] and that they deemed authentic may only have come down to us through unknown transmitters, broken isnāds or not at all.'98 How, then, could a later scholar question the authentication of an earlier master? Not all the previously inaccessible evidence to which later hadith critics had access, however, was reliable according to the hadith critical method. Scholars of the Late Sunni Tradition made large numbers of hadiths admissible in religious discourse by exploiting the tremendous range of questionable hadiths found in the late musnad collections of the tenth to twelfth centuries as well as the principle that weak hadiths were acceptable as proof on non-legal issues. Basing their argument on the above-mentioned stance of early masters like Ibn Hanbal, leading late Sunni scholars like al-Nawawī and al-Suyūtī all agreed that as long as a hadith was not forged it could be used in any discussion not concerning the prohibition and permissibility of an act.99 In order to raise a hadith to the level of admissibility in such cases, all a scholar had to do was prove that it was not forged – proving that it was merely 'weak' sufficed. This was the course of action that al-Suyūtī admitted to taking when he presented hadiths supporting his argument that the Prophet's parents were destined for Heaven even though they had never known Islam during their lives. In order to rehabilitate a hadith that critics had earlier declared a forgery, one had to provide evidence that it had some 'basis (asl)' in the early Islamic tradition. For example, even though there might not be enough evidence to trace a hadith authentically to the Prophet, a weak hadith might be the result of a Companion's statement or an early legal ruling that had accidentally been attributed to Muhammad. It was still a legitimate indicator of proper Islamic values. The most frequently cited sources for finding such an 'asl' for a hadith were the Musnad al-Shihāb of al-Qudā'ī and the Musnad al-Firdaws of al-Daylamī, both late works infamous for the unreliability of their contents. When Mullā 'Alī Qārī argued for accepting the hadith 'Wiping one's neck [during ablutions] is protection against fetters [on the Day of Judgment] (mash al-raqaba amān min al-ghill),' which al-Nawawī had said was forged and which other critics had declared a Companion statement, he announced that a Prophetic version was found in the Musnad al-Firdaws and thus that the hadith was weak, not forged. 'And weak hadiths,' he added, 'are acted on by consensus for establishing the virtues of actions.'100 When attempting to raise a weak hadith to the status of 'hasan due to other narrations,' the evidence to which later critics often resorted were the narrations that earlier critics like Ibn 'Adī or al-Bukhārī had listed in their weak transmitter collections to show a certain person's flawed hadiths! (See Case Study Two in this chapter). Although the early masters Ibn Ma'īn, al-Bukhārī, Abū Zur'a al-Rāzī, al-Tirmidhī, Ibn 'Adī, al-Dāraqutnī, and al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī all declared that various versions of the hadith 'I am the city of knowledge and 'Alī is its gate' were baseless, later critics such as al-'Alā'ī (d. 761/1359), Ibn Hajar, and al-Suyūtī all agreed that, when taken together, these narrations made the hadith hasan.101 The final means by which hadiths achieved exaggerated authority in the Late Sunni Tradition was the exploitation of the concept of mutawātir reports. It was accepted by consensus among Sunni scholars that if a report had reached the level of mutawātir it was utterly certain that the Prophet had said it. Although scholars like Ibn al-Salāh had declared that no such hadith existed in actuality, al-Suyūtī composed a collection titled al-Azhār al-mutanāthira fī al-ahādīth al-mutawātira (The Scattered Flowers of Massively Transmitted Hadiths) in which he included 111 hadiths he declared mutawātir because ten or more Companions had narrated it from the Prophet. But a mutawātir hadith had to have such a number of isnāds at every level of transmission, and not all the chains of transmission that al-Suyūtī used as evidence were reliable to begin with. Because the concept of mutawātir was so ambiguous, later critics frequently abused the label to argue for the undeniable authenticity of a hadith they were citing. Although earlier scholars had agreed that the hadith 'My community will not agree on an error' lacked any fully sahīh isnāds, 'Abdallāh al-Ghumārī (d. 1993) claimed that it was mutawātir. How do we explain seemingly deceptive tactics like the exploit-ation of weak hadiths by late Sunni scholars? Were they not pious defenders of the hadith tradition, whose whole purpose was 'to ward off lies from the Prophet of God'? Although we might note that the Late Sunni Tradition was very permissive with hadiths, scholars like al-Suyūtī felt they were on firm ground. In the case of the Prophet's parents going to heaven, after all, al-Suyūtī did not just have hadiths in mind when attempting to prove his case. He had the whole heritage of Islamic thought at his disposal, such as Quranic verses saying that 'No bearer of burdens will bear the burdens of another' and theological principles such as the Sunni tenet that people born in a community before its prophet arrives will not be held accountable for ignorance of God's religion. As we shall see in chapter 5, in the early period of Islam, if the Muslim community's practice agreed with a hadith then that hadith was considered reliable even if its isnād was poor. This was the same approach taken by the Late Sunni Tradition; if centuries of Muslim scholars had agreed that the meaning of a hadith was accurate, then ascribing it to the Prophet was acceptable as well. As Ibn al-Qayyim said, such a hadith, 'even if it has not been established as reliable, the fact that it has been acted on in all regions and eras with no rejection is sufficient for us to act on it.'102 Of course, this assumes that those centuries of Muslim scholars were right. AUTHENTICATING HADITHS BY DREAMS OR INSPIRATION Islamic civilization has accorded great credence to dreams or inspired visions in which Muslims encounter the Prophet. This is based on two sahīh hadiths: 'Nothing of prophethood will remain after me except righteous nightly dreams,'103 and 'Whoever has seen me in a dream has seen me while awake, for indeed Satan does not assume my form.'104 Seeing the Prophet in a dream is thus a reliable experience with probative value. Muslim jurists and legal theorists, however, have agreed unanimously that, while a vision of the Prophet may reveal truths to someone concerning personal matters, it cannot have any effect on law or formal relationships. It cannot excuse you from work or school.105 In the first few centuries of the hadith tradition, dreams and visions therefore played a colorful but ultimately superficial role in hadith authentication. Al-Tabarānī had a dream in which he asked the Prophet about the status of the hadith, 'The believers in their mercy towards one another are like a man part of whose body is in pain – the rest of his body feels the pain.' The Prophet replied 'Sahīh, sahīh, sahīh!' This hadith, however, had already been authenticated by al-Bukhārī and Muslim, so al-Tabarānī's inspired vision effected no change in its standing.106 The Late Sunni Tradition was characterized by a more prominent and novel method of facilitating hadith authentication: illuminating inspiration, or 'kashf' (literally, 'unveiling'). This method was developed by the influential and highly controversial Sufi systematizer Ibn 'Arabī (d. 638/1240). For Ibn 'Arabī, receiving revelatory inspi-ration (kashf) from contact with God's ultimate truth as reflected in the 'Muhammadan reality' (see chapter 7), was one of the three means by which a human could acquire sound religious knowledge. Unlike the other two methods, rational investigation and prophetic revelation, however, kashf allowed the saint on whom God bestowed this power to place the knowledge attained by these other methods in their proper place.107 As Ibn 'Arabī explained, weak hadiths are not valid proofs because they lack a reliable isnād. But some of these reports might in fact be real sayings of the Prophet that have gone unrecognized because of poor transmitters. If one could find a reliable isnād for such a hadith, then it could be acted on. A saint who receives direct, unveiling knowledge from God is like a Companion hearing this hadith from the Prophet, except that he hears it from the eternal Prophetic light. His inspiration can inform him that the Prophet actually said that hadith since, like a Companion, the saint is actually in the Prophet's presence. Like other legal theorists, however, Ibn 'Arabī acknowledges that a hadith authenticated by kashf cannot be used in legal arguments. But he does contend that kashf can reveal to a saint that a certain hadith that had been authenticated by traditional hadith criticism was in fact forged.108 Hadith critics of the Late Sunni Tradition adopted Ibn 'Arabī's belief that inspiration provided proof that a hadith was authentic provided that it did not affect law, although the technique has found little use outside the work of a few scholars like the North African Sufi 'Abd al-'Azīz al-Dabbāgh (d. 1719) (who claimed to have heard hadiths from the Prophet via the sole intermediary of the enigmatic character of Muslim legend, Khidr).109 Almost no critics have accepted that kashf could overrule a sahīh ruling arrived at by the traditional methods of hadith criticism. Some scholars have squarely rejected any allowance for kashf in hadith – the Egyptian Mālikī scholar Muhammad 'Illaysh (d. 1882) stated, 'There is no room for such laxity in the religion of God, and sainthood and miracles have no role in this issue [of hadith authentication]. Rather, recourse is to the hadith masters knowledgeable about this matter.'110 APPLYING HADITH CRITICISM TO THE REST OF ISLAMICCIVILIZATION: TAKHRĪJ AND MUSHTAHIR BOOKS By the 1200s the collection of hadiths had come to an end, and hadith scholars devoted themselves to consolidation, commentary, and criticism. With the hadith canon firmly established, hadith critics turned their attention away from hadith collections and towards the manner in which other areas of Islamic scholarship used hadiths. In books of takhrīj, a rash of which appeared during the 1300s and 1400s, a hadith scholar took a book from another genre and discussed the status of the hadiths it contained. Since few books outside hadith collections featured isnāds when they quoted hadiths, takhrīj books first provided all the hadith collections that provided chains of transmission for a hadith and then discussed its reliability. The earliest known takhrīj book was the work that 'Abd al-'Azīm al-Mundhirī (d. 656/1258) devoted to the Muhadhdhab, a major work of Shāfi'ī law written by Abū Ishāq al-Shīrāzī (d. 476/1083). Many takhrīj books devoted to works of Islamic law followed. The Hanafī al-Zayla'ī produced his famous Nasb al-rāya (Erecting the Standard), a takhrīj of the hadiths in the Hidāya, a formative Hanafī law book by al-Marghīnānī (d. 593/1196–7). Ibn al-Mulaqqin (d. 804/1401) and Ibn Hajar wrote their Badr al-munīr and Talkhīs al-habīr respectively, both devoted to the hadiths included in the major Shāfi'ī legal text of al-Rāfi'ī. Several takhrīj books dealt with the hadiths cited in prominent books of legal theory, such as Ibn Kathīr's Tuhfat al-tālib, which addressed the contents of Ibn al-Hājib's abridged treatise on legal theory. Ibn Hajar also devoted a takhrīj work to the Kashhāf, the famous Quranic commentary by al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1144). Renowned Sufi texts also attracted takhrīj's. Ibn Hajar's teacher Zayn al-Dīn al-'Irāqī (d. 806/1404) wrote a very critical takhrīj of the hadiths that the great Sufi al-Ghazālī had used as proof in his famous but controversial opus, the Ihyā' 'ulūm al-dīn (Revival of the Religious Sciences). Ibn Hajar's student, Shams al-Dīn al-Sakhāwī (d. 902/1497), wrote a takhrīj of al-Sulamī's popular Forty Hadith collection on Sufism. Later hadith scholars also directed their hadith criticism towards Muslim society as a whole. A whole genre of books emerged that took takhrīj 'to the streets,' examining hadiths that were widespread in Muslim society. Ibn al-Jawzī, Ibn Taymiyya, and al-'Irāqī each wrote a book analyzing and criticizing the often baseless hadiths recited by popular storytellers (qussās). Books of 'mushtahir,' or 'well-known,' hadiths examined hadiths popular in everyday Muslim life in order to determine if they had any basis in the Prophet's speech and judge their reliability. Badr al-Dīn al-Zarkashī (d. 794/1392) wrote the first known book in this genre. Al-Sakhāwī's al-Maqāsid al-hasana and Ismā'īl al-'Ajlūnī's (d. 1748-9) Kashf al-khafā' are the most famous books on mushtahir hadiths. HADITH CRITICISM CASE STUDY ONE: CAN YOU PUT YOUR SHOES ON STANDING OR NOT? Having traced the origins and development of Sunni hadith criticism, let us take a look at their methods in action. Our first case study is the report 'The Prophet forbade people from putting on their shoes while standing (nahā Rasūl Allāh 'an yanta'ila al-rajul qā'iman),' which appears in the Sunans of Ibn Mājah, al-Tirmidhī, and Abū Dāwūd, as well as the Tārīkh al-kabīr of al-Bukhārī and the Musnad of Abū Ya'lā al-Mawsilī. Figure 3.4 Hadith Prohibiting Putting on one's Shoes while Standing: the Transmission of Abū Hurayra This was not seen as an extremely important legal issue. Even those who upheld the authenticity of the hadith maintained that the Prophet was suggesting that people put on their shoes while seated because this was easier. But the question was the subject of some disagreement: the Tabaqāt of Ibn Sa'd and the Musannafs of Ibn Abī Shayba and 'Abd al-Razzāq al-San'ānī include reports that Aisha and the prominent Successor scholars Ibn Sīrīn, Ibrāhīm al-Nakha'ī, and al-Hasan al-Basrī all saw no problem with putting on one's shoes while standing. The Companion Abū Hurayra and the early scholar Yahyā b. Abī Kathīr, however, are reported to have discouraged the practice. Figure 3.5 Hadith Prohibiting Putting on one's Shoes while Standing: the Transmission of Anas b. Mālik The Muslim hadith critic's first step in evaluating a Prophetic trad-ition would be to collect all the available narrations of the report. These could be scattered everywhere from hadith collections to books of law, history, or Quranic exegesis. Once this was done, the critic would organize all these narrations according to the Companions who narrated them, since the transmission of each Companion is technically a hadith distinct from those of other Companions, who might have heard the report from the Prophet at another time. The critic would then examine the hadith of each Companion one by one to establish its reliability. Figure 3.6 Hadith Prohibiting Putting on one's Shoes while Standing: the Transmission of Jābir b.'Abdallāh To accomplish this, the critic would trace the different narrations of the various Successors from the Companion in question, then the narrations from the next generation after the Successor, et cetera, starting with the latest person in the isnād and working towards the source to evaluate the quality of the isnād. The critic would ask: is each link reliable? Did each link hear hadiths from their supposed source? If any narration from the Companion has a fatal flaw, such as a seriously weak transmitter or a clear break in the isnād, then it would be inadmissible as evidence. If a narration had a transmitter who was criticized for a lesser failing such as occasional errors or a bad memory, the critic would keep this narration in mind for consideration in comparison with the other narrations from the Companion or the Successor. Figure 3.7 Hadith Prohibiting Putting on one's Shoes while Standing: the Transmission of Ibn 'Umar If there were some disagreement in wording or form between the different versions of the narration from the Companion, then the critic would use the various strengths and weaknesses of the competing narrations, along with any data gleaned from weaker versions maintained for consideration, to choose the most reliable version. This task would then be performed for the next Companion's transmission from the Prophet. Once one Companion's hadith has been verified, the hadith is considered sahīh or hasan depending on its strength. If, in addition to one Companion's hasan narration, another Companion's narration was acceptable as well, then this could raise the tradition as a whole to the level of sahīh. Let us first examine the narration of Abū Hurayra (see Figure 3.4). We see that three Successors supposedly narrated this hadith from Abū Hurayra: Abū Sālih, 'Ammār b. Abī 'Ammār and 'Urwa b. 'Alī al-Sahmī. We can immediately dismiss the narrations of 'Ammār b. Abī 'Ammār and 'Urwa b. 'Alī al-Sahmī, for al-Tirmidhī and al-Bukhārī agree that the former is weak because of the presence in its isnād of al-Hārith b. Nubhān, who critics agree was unreliable. The narration of 'Urwa b. 'Alī is similarly baseless, for al-Bukhārī says it enjoys no corroboration, and there are two unknown transmitters in the isnād. This leaves us with the narration of Abū Sālih from Abū Hurayra. Here, however, we find disagreement among the two narrations from Abū Sālih's isnād. The version that Ibn Abī Shayba recorded from Abū Mu'āwiya in his Musannaf is not a Prophetic hadith at all, but rather the opinion of Abū Hurayra. The version that Ibn Mājah recorded from his teacher 'Alī b. Muhammad, from Abū Mu'āwiya, however, is a Prophetic hadith. Which version is correct? Both Ibn Abī Shayba and 'Alī b. Muhammad are respected and reliable hadith scholars; is there any way to judge whose version should be taken? Ibn Abī Shayba was one of the most prominent hadith transmitters of his generation, while 'Alī b. Muhammad served only as a source for hadith collectors in the northern Iranian cities of Rayy and the Qazvin, where he became an important source for Ibn Mājah. Although the rigorous critic Abū Hātim al-Rāzī, who studied with both Ibn Abī Shayba and 'Alī b. Muhammad, felt that 'Alī was more reliable for hadiths concerning the virtues of actions and righteous behavior, Ibn Abī Shayba was in general in command of more hadiths and possessed of a better understanding of his craft. Because the hadith of putting on one's shoes is a legal issue, Abū Hātim's testimony would lead us to incline towards Ibn Abī Shayba's mawqūf (Companion) version of the report. More important, however, is the conclusion of the great critic al-Dāraqutnī, who introduces another Companion version of the report narrated from al-A'mash by Ibrāhīm al-Ru'āsī. Since it is the Companion version that enjoys corroboration and the preponderance of evidence, al-Dāraqutnī concludes that the hadith is really the opinion of Abū Hurayra and not a Prophetic hadith. Turning to the narration of the hadith from the Prophet by Anas b. Mālik (see Figure 3.5), found in al-Tirmidhī's Jāmi' and the Musnad of Abū Ya'lā al-Mawsilī, we see that al-Tirmidhī and al-Bukhārī categorically state that this narration by Ma'mar from Qatāda has no basis (asl). Al-Tirmidhī does not even think the narration is worthwhile enough to inform us of his immediate source for this particular version. In the case of Abū Ya'lā's narration, it seems probable that Sulaymān b. 'Ubaydallāh, deemed weak by many critics, erred in his narration from his father and turned a Successor opinion transmitted by Ma'mar into a Prophetic hadith. The transmission of the report from Jābir b. 'Abdallāh is also not admissible as proof of the hadith's reliability (see Figure 3.6). The hadith was transmitted from Jābir by Abū al-Zubayr al-Makkī, who did not hear all the sahīfa of Jābir from him through direct transmission. This means that, unless Abū al-Zubayr explicitly states that he heard this hadith aurally from Jābir, there is too much chance that Abū al-Zubayr could commit an error in his reception of the report for his testimony to be reliable. Of the three versions we have examined so far, one has turned out to be a Companion opinion in reality and two are unreliable. This is not the case, however, for the hadith narrated by the Companion Ibn 'Umar in Ibn Mājah's Sunan (see Figure 3.7). The isnād of this narration seems to be extremely strong – all its transmitters were highly respected, and there are no evident breaks in the isnād. So far the first two steps of the three-tiered hadith critical method (Is there an isnād? Who is in the isnād?) have proceeded successfully. But there seems to be no corroboration for this transmission. This seems very odd in light of how famous the scholars in the isnād were and how prolifically they transmitted hadiths. It seems very unlikely that only one person would transmit this from Sufyān al-Thawrī, who was the most sought-after scholar of his day. It is equally bizarre that only one person would transmit this hadith from Wakī', who was another pillar of hadith transmission. Should this lack of corroboration from scholars who, it would seem, should have students spreading this hadith far and wide, lead us to doubt the reliability of this report from Ibn 'Umar? The nature of these transmitters' relationships with one another lessens our worries. Wakī' was the leading disciple of Sufyān, so much so that he was called 'The Transmitter of Sufyān (rāwiyat Sufyān),' and when Sufyān died Wakī' took up his place teaching in the mosque. Although 'Alī b. Muhammad was not as famous as these two earlier generations, he was in Kufa for many years with Wakī' and did not emigrate from the city to his new home in Qazvin until after Wakī''s death. None of the transmitters in the isnād, then, were students who studied only briefly with their sources for the hadith; all were long-term students or senior disciples, so it is not surprising that they might have heard some hadiths from their teachers that other students who had less exposure to them did not. The report from Ibn 'Umar thus seems reliable. Its lack of corroboration may cause us enough concern, however, to deem it hasan instead of sahīh. This is, in fact, how many later hadith critics judged this hadith. Al-Nawawī and al-'Irāqī called it hasan. Al-'Irāqī's student, the famous Ibn Hajar, notes that while some of the transmissions of the report are weak the tradition is 'established (ma'rūf).' Al-Būsīrī states that the hadith is sahīh based mainly on the transmission of Ibn 'Umar in the Sunan of Ibn Mājah. The modern hadith scholars al-Albānī and Khaldūn al-Ahdab also deem the hadith authentic. HADITH CRITICISM CASE STUDY TWO: CONDEMNING BELIEF IN FREE WILL This case study deals with a much more controversial topic: do human beings have free will or has God preordained their actions? Some Muslim schools of theology, such as the Mu'tazila, affirmed free will because they insisted that God was totally just (how could He punish people for deeds He ordained for them?). For Sunni Islam, however, the question was more one of power than justice. Sunni theologians wanted to protect the notion of God's power (qadar), namely His power to know eternally what all human actions would be. If humans were free to choose, they thought, this would give humans power beyond God's knowledge. Sunni scholars thus insisted that God predestined a person's fate in the womb. How this could be reconciled with the justice of God punishing the bad and rewarding the good in the afterlife was a divine mystery beyond human ken. The two traditions discussed here address the early Islamic school of thought that believed in free will, referred to by Sunnis as the Qadariyya (or Qadarites). One hadith refers to them as Zoroastrians (majūs) because Zoroastrians believe in two deities, a benevolent creator god and a god of darkness. For Sunnis, believing that humans possessed a power beyond the control of God was tantamount to elevating them to godlike status; hence, a second god. The second group referred to in one of the hadiths, the Murji'a, was a school of thought that believed in suspending judgment about people's fate in the afterlife. Chapters condemning the Qadarites were commonplace in the Sunni hadith collections of the ninth and tenth centuries, and a huge number of elaborate hadiths were forged denigrating that theological position. Here we will examine two of the more reliable (from a Sunni perspective) hadiths on the subject. They are instructive because they illustrate well the difference between the criticism of narrations and those of the traditions they constitute. We also see how later critics could take advantage of this distinction in their rulings on authenticity. As we shall see, all but two of the following narrations were declared decidedly 'weak' or even forged by hadith critics in the early period, and even the one narration that might rise to the level of hasan still suffered from serious flaws. Early critics like al-Bukhārī, Ibn 'Adī, and al-'Uqaylī (d. 323/934) pointed out the flaws in these individual narrations, assuming their learned audience would know that such errors had no bearing on other narrations of the same traditions. When the twelfth-century scholar Ibn al-Jawzī wrote his influential collection identifying forged hadiths, however, he declared both the traditions examined here to be forged altogether. Figure 3.8a Hadith 1 on the Qadarite Heresy: 'Two types...' – the Narration of Ibn 'Abbās The first hadith is the Prophet's statement 'Two types from my community have no share in Islam: the Murji'ites and the Qadarites,' with some narrations including variations such as the phrase that these two groups 'will not gain my intercession.' As Figure 3.8a illustrates, a main narration of this tradition comes through the Companion Ibn 'Abbās via his student 'Ikrima. This narration is only transmitted from 'Ikrima by Nizār and Sallām, both of whom are harshly criticized by a wide range of hadith critics. Moreover, the individual narrations from transmitters like 'Abdallāh al-Laythī have each been identified as unacceptable (munkar), due to a lack of corroboration, or declared false by early critics such as Ibn 'Adī and al-'Uqaylī. As a result of all this, the tradition from Ibn 'Abbās has uniformly been declared weak by scholars such as al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī, al-'Alā'ī, Ibn Hajar, al-Suyūtī, al-Albānī, and others. Figure 3.8b Hadith 1 on the Qadarite Heresy: Sundry Narrations As Figure 3.8b shows, there were other narrations of this 'Two types...' tradition as well. Like the version through Ibn 'Abbās, all these narrations were declared unreliable by Muslim scholars at various times. For several of the narrations, we see the problem of a lack of corroboration. This raised suspicions because it might be an instance of a sinister forger 'stealing' an isnād from an existing hadith and attaching it to a concocted matn. Or it might be the result of a careless transmitter accidentally creating a whole new, baseless transmission for a hadith. Looking at each narration from left to right on the chart, we see: • The narrations from the Companion Anas b. Mālik found in the Hilyat al-awliyā' (Ornament of the Saints) of Abū Nu'aym al-Isbahānī (d. 430/1038) and the Ibāna al-kubrā (Greater Clarification) of the Hanbalī theologian Ibn Batta (d. 387/997) each depend on transmitters who are either wholly unidentified or whose reliability is unknown (majhūl al-hāl). • The narration through Anas Humayd in the Mu'jam al-awsat of al-Tabarānī comes via transmitters who are all reliable, according to al-Haythamī. But they are not common transmitters from one another, and al-Tabarānī himself boasts of how no one besides Abū Damra Anas b. 'Iyād narrated this from Humayd, and no one besides Hārūn narrated it from Abū Damra. Because of the total lack of corroboration from this transmission, Ibn 'Adī calls this narration 'unknown (munkar).' • The two narrations from the Companion Jābir b. 'Abdallāh are also both found in al-Tabarānī's Mu'jam. Bahr al-Saqqā' was so incredibly unreliable that one early critic recalled that, after he had written down some hadiths from Bahr, a cat, sensing the value of the material, came and urinated on the pages. As for the narration via Sahl b. Qarīn, al-Tabarānī boasts that only Sahl narrated this from his father, from the famous jurist Ibn Abī Dhi'b. But, as Ibn 'Adī notes, this narration is a gross error on the part of Sahl. • The narration via the Kufan jurist Ibn Abī Laylā 'Amr b. Qāsim, also in al-Tabarānī's Mu'jam al-awsat, is unreliable because 'Amr was known for lacking corroboration for his narrations. • The narration from Ibn Abī Laylā that is found in the Kitāb al-sunna of Ibn Abī 'Āsim (d. 287/900) is an isolated narration and relies on a weak transmitter, Sulaymān b. Ja'far. The second tradition regarding Qadarites quotes the Prophet as saying, 'The Qadarites/those who deny God's power (qadar) are the Zoroastrians of my nation....' Although al-'Uqaylī noted that all its narrations are via weak transmitters, some were reliable enough to earn the tradition an overall rating of sahīh from al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī and hasan from al-Albānī. Looking at Figure 3.9, from left to right, we see: • The most reliable narration is found in the Sunan of Ibn Mājah and comes from the Companion Jābir b. 'Abdallāh, via a chain of strong transmitters, until Baqiyya b. al-Walīd. Although Ibn 'Adī noted that Baqiyya would often narrate from Ibn Jurayj via unmentioned intermediaries – a major violation – in this case he names as his intermediary the leading jurist and hadith transmitter of Syria, al-Awzā'ī. • The narrations from Ibn 'Umar via Salama b. Dīnār (Abū Hāzim) Zakariyyā b. Yahyā b. Manzūr, found in the Mu'jam al-awsat of al-Tabarānī and the Kitāb al-sunna of Ibn Abī 'Āsim, are dismissed as unreliable because al-Bukhārī, Ibn Ma'īn, al-Nasā'ī, and others said Zakariyyā was very weak. Moreover, as Ibn 'Adī notes, only Zakariyyā's narration from Salama includes Salama specifying that he heard the hadith from Nāfi'. This is important, since Ibn Hajar states that it is largely agreed upon that Salama did not hear directly from the Companion Ibn 'Umar. If the narration from Nāfi' Salama is unreliable, then the only remaining narrations from Salama come through Ibn 'Umar Salama, which includes a break in the isnād. Some critics, such as al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī and Ibn al-Qattān of Fez (d. 628/1230), considered this narration sahīh provided (and this is a big provided!) that Salama had heard hadiths directly from Ibn 'Umar. Figure 3.9 Hadith 2 on the Qadarite Heresy: 'The Zoroastrians of my nation ...' • The narrations from Ibn 'Umar via 'Umar b. 'Abdallāh, the freeman of Ghufra, appear in works like the Sunan of Abū Dāwud and the Musnad of his teacher Ibn Hanbal. 'Umar the freeman of Ghufra was a moderately respected transmitter whose main fault was frequent mursal narrations, i.e., quoting a Companion without specifying that he heard the hadith from an intermediary (as in the case of one narration in the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal). This is compensated for by his specifying in another narration in the Musnad that he heard the hadith from Ibn 'Umar Nāfi'. But, as Ibn 'Adī and al-Albānī point out, the lack of clarity constitutes a flaw ('illa) in the narration. • There is also a narration through 'Umar of Ghufra via an unnamed man from the Medinan Ansār, from the Companion Hudhayfa b. Yamān, found in the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd and Ibn Hanbal's Musnad. It includes an additional clause in the matn: '... and they are the party of the Antichrist, and it befits God to join them with him.' This narration is unreliable because of the unidentified transmitter. • One narration via Nāfi' bypasses the problem of 'Umar of Ghufra. According to al-Bukhārī and Ibn 'Adī, however, it is fatally flawed (munkar) because it is known only through the unreliable al-Hakam b. Sa'īd. • Finally, the narrations of the hadith from the Companion Abū Hurayra are hopelessly tangled. These are found in several works from the tenth century, but the earliest source for them is the Kitāb al-qadar of Ja'far al-Faryābī (d. 301/913) and the Kitāb al-sunna of Ibn Abī 'Āsim (narrations not shown). They all come through the Syrian Successor Makhūl. But one comes through an unidentified 'man,' while the others have Makhūl citing Abū Hurayra, whom he never met, and come through the problematic transmitter 'Atā' al-Khurāsānī. The one narration that features Makhūl narrating from Abū Hurayra via an intermediary, the prominent Successor of Mecca, Ibn Abī Rabāh, is known to us only via Maslama b. 'Alī, who is criticized for this uncorroborated narration. Conclusion: Rating these Two Hadiths With the exception of the narration of the 'Qadariyya are the Zoroastrians...' hadith from Jābir in the Sunan of Ibn Mājah, every narration of these two traditions is either impugned for weak transmitters, lack of corroboration, or both. Looking at these narrations as particulars, Ibn al-Jawzī thus considered the two hadiths to be complete forgeries. Most later scholars, however, defended the overall acceptability of our two hadiths. Responding to what they thought was an extreme ruling by Ibn al-Jawzī, al-'Alā'ī, Ibn Hajar, al-Suyūtī, and most recently Ahmad al-Ghumārī and al-Albānī all defended these two hadiths. They argued that most of the narrations are weak, but they do not merit the label of outright forgeries. When they are aggregated, the hadiths even rise to the level of hasan. Several scholars took a middle ground. Al-Munāwī labeled both hadiths as weak, and the Hanafī scholar Ibn Abī al-'Izz (d. 792/1390) declared simply that all hadiths on the Qadariyya are weak.111 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING For further information on hadith criticism and its historical development, see Ignaz Goldziher's Muslim Studies II, Muhammad Siddiqi's Hadith Literature (Cambridge, 1996), Eerik Dickinson's The Development of Early Sunnite H.adīth Criticism (Leiden, 2001), and Jonathan Brown's The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim (Leiden, 2007). For a work specifically discussing the contributions of Sunni hadith critics, see Scott Lucas, Constructive Critics, H.adīth Literature and the Articulation of Sunnī Islam (Leiden, 2004). See also Brown, 'Critical Rigor versus Juridical Pragmatism,' Islamic Law and Society 14, no. 1 (2007), pp.1–41. For more depth on the issue of content/matn criticism of hadiths, see J. Brown, 'How We Know Early Hadith Critics Did Matn Criticism and Why It's So Hard to Find,' Islamic Law and Society 15 (2008), pp.143–184 and the same author's 'The Rules of Matn Criticism: There Are No Rules,' Islamic Law and Society 19 (2012), pp. 356–396. For more on how sure Muslims scholars were that the Prophet had said something and debates over using hadiths scholars knew were unreliable, see the author's 'Did the Prophet Say It or Not?: the Literal, Historical and Effective Truth of Hadiths in Sunni Islam,' Journal of the American Oriental Society, 129, no. 2 (2009), pp. 1–27; and 'Even if it's not True it's True: Using Unreliable Hadiths in Sunni Islam,' Islamic Law and Society 18 (2011), pp. 1–52. Two useful primary sources for the method of hadith criticism in the early period are G.H.A. Juynboll's 'Muslim's Introduction to His Sahih,' republished in Studies on the Origins and Uses of Islamic Hadīth (Variorum, 1996) and J. Brown's translation of The Kitab al-'Ilal of Imam al-Tirmidhi (Madina Institute, 2018). Eerik Dickinson has translated one of the most important Muslim texts on the technical terms of hadith study, the Muqaddima of Ibn al-Salāh, into English under the title An Introduction to the Science of Hadith (Reading, UK, 2005). James Robson has also translated an earlier and shorter manual on hadith criticism by al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī entitled An Introduction to the Science of Tradition (London: Luzac & Co., 1953). A recent example of traditional Muslim hadith criticism is Zafar Ahmad al-Tahānawī's (d. 1974) Qawa'id fi Ulum al-Hadith: Principles of the Sciences of Hadith (London: Turath Publishing, 2014). A translation of a representative book of mawdū'āt (forged) hadiths is Mullā 'Alī al-Qārī's Encyclopedia of Hadith Forgeries, trans. G.F. Haddad (Beacon Books, 2013). Ibn al-Jawzī's fascinating book on storytellers, popular preachers, and their abuse of hadiths has been translated into English by Merlin Swartz as Ibn al-Jawzī's Kitāb al-Qus.s.ās. wa'l-Mudhakkirīn (Beirut: Dar El-Machreq, 1986). ENDNOTES 1 Benjaminson and Anderson, Investigative Reporting, p. 30. 2 'Pet food: too posh to eat pooch,' The Economist, June 20, 2015. 3 Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-i'tidāl, vol. 2, p. 293. 4 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 517. 5 Cited from al-Madā'inī's Kitāb al-ahdāth; Ahmad b. Sa'd al-Dīn al-Miswarī, Al-Risāla al-munqidha min al-ghiwāya fī turuq al-riwāya, pp. 51–55. 6 'Abdallāh b. al-Zubayr al-Humaydī, Al-Musnad, vol. 1, p. 2. 7 'Abd al-Razzāq al-San'ānī, Musannaf, vol. 10, p. 381. 8 Sahīh Muslim: kitāb al-janā'iz, bāb al-mayyit yu'adhdhabu bi-bukā' ahlihi 'alayhi. 9 Musnad Ibn Hanbal: vol. 6, p. 246. 10 Abū Zur'a al-Dimashqī, Tārīkh Abī Zur'a al-Dimashqī, p. 270. 11 For an example, see al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-i'tidāl, vol. 2, p. 369. 12 Ismā'īl b. Ahmad al-'Ajlūnī, Kashf al-khafā', vol. 1, p. 227. 13 'Kuntu 'ind al-nabī dhāt layla qāl: unzur hal tarā fī al-samā' min shay' ...'; Musnad Ibn Hanbal: vol. 1, p. 209. 14 Al-Suyūtī, al-La'ālī' al-masnū'a fī al-ahādīth al-mawdū'a, vol. 1, p. 357. 15 Al-Rāfi'ī, al-Tadwīn fī akhbār Qazwīn, vol. 1, p.452. 16 Osama al-Syed Mahmoud, personal communication 2/06. 17 Al-Suyūtī, al-La'ālī al-masnū'a, vol. 1, p. 16; vol. 2, p. 221. 18 Al-Khatīb, Tārīkh Baghdād, vol. 9, p. 334; vol. 2, p. 379. 19 9 Mullā 'Alī Qārī, al-Asrār al-marfū'a fī al-akhbār al-mawdū'a, p. 442. 20 Ibid., p. 236; Ibn al-Jawzī, Kitāb al-mawdū'āt, vol. 1, p. 41. 21 Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-i'tidāl, vol. 1, p. 187; Qādī 'Iyād, Kitāb al-shifā, p. 226. 22 Al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī, Kitāb al-madkhal ilā ma'rifat kitāb al-iklīl, pp. 134–135. 23 Ibn 'Adī, al-Kāmil fī du'afā' al-rijāl, vol. 1, p. 151. 24 Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-i'tidāl, vol. 1, p. 141. 25 Ibn al-Jawzī, Kitāb al-mawdū'āt, vol. 1, p. 39. 26 Ibn Hajar, Fath al-bārī, vol. 1, p. 266. 27 Al-'Ajlūnī, Kashf al-khafā', vol. 1, pp. 412–413. 28 Mullā 'Alī Qārī, al-Masnū' fī ma'rifat al-hadīth al-mawdū', p. 121. 29 Al-'Ajlūnī, Kashf al-khafā', vol. 1, pp. 319–320; Ibn Abī Hātim al-Rāzī, 'Ilal al-hadīth, vol. 2, p. 342. 30 Sahīh Muslim: muqaddima, bāb al-isnād min al-dīn. 31 Al-Albānī, Silsilat al-ahādīth al-da'īfa wa al-mawdū'a, vol. 1, p. 53. 32 2 Jonathan Brown, 'How We Know Early H.adīth Critics Did Matn Criticism,' pp. 170–171. 33 Sahīh Muslim: muqaddima, bāb al-isnād min al-dīn. 34 Al-Hākim, Kitāb al-madkhal ilā ma'rifat kitāb al-iklīl, p. 58. 35 Lucas, Constructive Critics, pp. 143–156. 36 Abū Ghudda, ed., Arba' rasā'il fī 'ulūm al-hadīth, p. 180. 37 Abū Ja'far al-'Uqaylī, Kitāb al-du'afā' al-kabīr, vol. 1, p. 13. 38 Sahīh Muslim: muqaddima, introduction. 39 Al-'Uqaylī, Kitāb al-du'afā' al-kabīr, vol. 1, p. 13. 40 Al-Khatīb, Tārīkh Baghdād, vol. 10, p. 260. 41 Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-i'tidāl, vol. 1, pp. 218 ff. 42 Muhammad Ibn al-Amīr al-San'ānī, [Question and Answer], 38b. 43 Muhammad b. 'Aqīl, al-'Atb al-jamīl 'alā ahl al-jarh wa al-ta'dīl, p. 92. 44 Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-i'tidāl, vol. 2, p. 205. 45 Ibn Abī Hātim, al-Jarh wa al-ta'dīl, vol. 2, p. 37. 46 Al-Mundhirī, Jawāb al-hāfiz al-Mundhirī, p. 89. 47 Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-i'tidāl,vol. 4, p. 237. 48 Al-'Irāqī, al-Taqyīd wa al-īdāh, p. 231. 49 Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb fadā'il al-sahāba, bāb 1. 50 Al-Khatīb, al-Kifāya, vol. 1, p. 188. 51 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū'at al-fatāwā, vol. 27, p. 223. 52 'Alī Jum'a, personal communication, 8/27/03. 53 Jum'a, Qawl al-sahābī 'ind al-usūliyyīn, p. 34. 54 For example, the Prophet's stepson Hind b. Abī Hāla; al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-du'afā' al-saghīr, p. 123. 55 Abū Ghudda, Arba' rasā'il fī 'ulūm al-hadīth, pp. 111, 207; J. Brown, 'Crossing Sectarian Boundaries in the 4th/10th Century,' pp. 55–58. 56 Abū Zur'a al-Dimashqī, Tārīkh Abī Zur'a al-Dimashqī, p. 93. 57 Ibn Abī Hātim al-Rāzī, al-Taqdima, p. 127. 58 Salāh al-Dīn al-'Alā'ī, Jāmi' al-tahsīl fī ahkām al-marāsīl, p. 80. 59 Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-'ilal, bāb al-mursal. 60 Ibn Hibbān al-Bustī, Sahīh Ibn Hibbān, vol. 1, pp. 144–145. 61 Sahīh Muslim: muqaddima, introduction. 62 Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-i'tidāl, vol. 2, pp. 440–441. 63 Sahīh Muslim: muqaddima, introduction. 64 Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-jihād, bāb mā jā'a fī al-mighfar. 65 Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-'ilal; kitāb al-birr wa al-sila, bāb mā jā'a fī adab al-walad. 66 Al-Khalīlī, Al-Irshād, p. 21. 67 J. Brown, 'Critical Rigor versus Juridical Pragmatism,' p. 21 ; 'Alī b. 'Umar al-Dāraqutnī, Kitāb al-ilzāmāt wa'l-tatabbu', ed. Muqbil al-Wādi'ī (Medina, al-Maktaba al-Salafiyya, [1978]), pp. 266–7. 68 J. Brown, 'Critical Rigor,' pp. 38–41. 69 Badī' al-Sayyid al-Lahhām, al-Imām al-hāfiz Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūtī, pp. 460–463. 70 Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-i'tidāl, vol. 3, p. 306. 71 Al-Bukhārī, al-Tārīkh al-awsat, vol. 2, pp. 109–110. 72 Muslim, Kitāb al-tamyīz, p. 147. 73 Ibn al-Murtadā, Tabaqāt al-mu'tazila, p. 81. 74 This is attributed to 'Alī b. al-Madīnī; Ibn 'Adī, Al-Kāmil, vol. 1, p. 131. 75 Sunan al-Nasā'ī: kitāb al-janā'iz, bāb al-niyāha 'alā al-mayyit. 76 Ibn Qutayba, Ta'wīl mukhtalif al-hadīth, p. 208. 77 Ibn 'Abd al-Barr, Kitāb al-tamhīd, vol. 1, p. 58. 78 Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-'ilal. 79 Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-i'tidāl, vol. 1, p. 119. 80 Al-Husayn b. Ibrāhīm al-Jawzaqānī, al-Abātīl wa al-manākīr, pp. 89–90. 81 Ibn al-Jawzī, Kitāb al-mawdū'āt, vol. 1, p. 106. 82 J. Brown, 'The Rules of Matn Criticism,' pp. 364, 376–80. 83 Ibn Khuzayma, Sahīh Ibn Khuzayma, vol. 1, p. 3. 84 Ibn Hajar, al-Nukat 'alā kitāb Ibn al-Salāh, p. 134. 85 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū'at al-fatāwā,vol. 18, p. 23. 86 Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-'ilal. 87 Hamd al-Khattābī, Ma'ālim al-sunan, vol. 1, p. 6. 88 Ibn Abī Hātim, al-Jarh wa al- ta'dīl, vol. 2, pp. 30–31. 89 Al-Khatīb, al-Kifāya fī ma'rifat usūl 'ilm al-riwāya, vol. 1, p. 399. 90 Al-Khatīb, al-Jāmi', vol. 2, p. 195. 91 J. Brown, 'The Rules of Matn Criticism,' pp. 362–64 92 Abū Bakr al-Jassās, Usūl al-Jassās, vol. 1, pp. 504 ff., 2, pp. 3–6, 14. 93 Ibn al-Salāh, Muqaddima, p. 454. 94 Ibn Hibbān, Sahīh Ibn Hibbān, vol. 1, p. 145. 95 Jamāl al-Dīn al-Zayla'ī, Nasb al-rāya li-ahādīth al-Hidāya, vol. 1, p. 342. 96 Al-Dhahabī, Siyar a'lām al-nubalā', vol. 17, p. 175. 97 Al-Nawawī, al-Adhkār, p. 214. 98 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū'at al-fatāwā, vol. 19, p. 144. 99 Al-Nawawī, Sharh Sahīh Muslim, vol. 1, p. 240; al-Suyūtī, 'al-Ta'zīm wa al-manna fī anna abawayh rasūl Allāh fī al-janna,' p. 2. 100 Mullā 'Alī Qārī, Al-Asrār al-marfū'a, p. 305. 101 Al-'Ajlūnī, Kashf al-khafā', vol. 1, pp. 236–237. 102 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Kitāb al-rūh, p. 32. 103 Mālik, al-Muwatta': kitāb mā jā'a fī al-ru'ā. 104 Sunan Ibn Mājah: kitāb ta'bīr al-ru'ā, bāb ru'yat al-nabī. 105 See 'Abd al-Rā'ūf al-Munāwī, Fayd al-qadīr sharh al-Jāmi' al-saghīr, vol. 11, pp. 5805–6. 106 Al-Rāfi'ī, al-Tadwīn fī akhbār Qazwīn, vol. 1, p. 309. 107 William Chittick, Imaginal Worlds, p. 10. 108 Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge, pp. 251–252. 109 John Voll, 'Two Biographies of Ahmad Ibn Idris al-Fasi (1760–1837),' p. 641. 110 Mullā 'Alī Qārī, Al-Masnū', p. 216. See also, al-Sakhāwī, Maqāsid, p. 424. 111 Ibn al-Jawzī, Kitāb al-Mawdū'āt, vol. 1, pp. 275–278; Ibn Abī al-'Izz, Sharh al-'Aqīda al-Tahāwiyya, p. 273; Ibn Hajar, Hidāyat al-ruwāt, vol. 1, p. 102; al-Suyūtī, al-La'ālī al-masnū'a, vol. 1, pp. 236–240; al-Munāwī, Fayd al-qadīr, vol. 7, p. 3743, vol. 8, p. 4398; Ahmad al-Ghumārī, al-Mudāwī, vol. 4, p. 638; al-Albānī, Da'īf Sunan Ibn Mājah, p. 11, idem, Silsilat al-ahādīth al-da'īfa, vol. 12, pp. 481–482. * The early scholar al-Dārimī (d. 255/869) interpreted 'Umar's command 'Be frugal in narrating from the Prophet' to apply only to reports about his battles, not to hadiths about law and belief; Sunan al-Dārimī: intro chapters, bāb man hāba al-futyā. PROPHETIC TRADITIONS IN SHIITE ISLAM INTRODUCTION Muhammad's authority to interpret definitively the meaning of the Quran and instruct Muslims did not disappear when he died. It continued in the form of an inheritance left to the Muslim community. To a large extent, sectarian divisions in Islam have revolved around competing claims over who should assume this role of authoritative interpreter. The tradition that became Sunni Islam offered one answer: the community as a whole, represented by the ulema (the Muslim scholarly class), was heir to Muhammad. Their collective interpretation of Islam, expressed through consensus (ijmā'), was as definitive as the Quran or the Prophet's edicts. The tradition that would become Shiite Islam proposed a different answer: the family of the Prophet had inherited his authority, which was held by select members of the family known as imams. The first imam was 'Alī b. Abī Tālib (d. 40/660), Muhammad's cousin and the husband of his daughter Fatima, through whom all descendants of the Prophet trace their ancestry. Shiites maintain that the Prophet had imparted his knowledge to 'Alī, and through 'Alī to his descendants. When one of these revered descendants, Mūsā al-Kāzim (d. 183/799), was asked if the Prophet had brought mankind all the knowledge they would require to understand their religion and if any of that had been lost, he replied, 'No, it is with his family.'1 Mūsā's father, Ja'far al-Sādiq (d. 148/765), had given the same answer. The Quran contains the answers to all questions, he said, 'but men's minds cannot grasp them.' For an imam in whose veins the Prophet's esoteric knowledge of God's will runs, however, he can see these answers in the Quran 'as easily as he looks at his own palm.'2 Hadiths were one medium for transmitting the Prophet's legacy through the generations of his community as they expanded outwards from Medina in time and space. Since Shiism had a different vision of the heirs to the Prophet's authority, it is no surprise that the Shiite hadith tradition differs greatly from its Sunni counterpart. As the majority of the world's Shiites subscribe to the Imami, or Ithna'asharī ('Twelver,' so called because it traces the Prophetic authority through twelve imams) creed, and since Imami hadith scholarship has dwarfed that of other Shiite sects, in this chapter we will focus mainly on the Imami Shiite hadith tradition. We will then turn our attention briefly to Zaydi Shiite hadith scholarship. As in the previous chapters, mention of 'authentic' or 'forged' hadiths refers to Muslim standards for reliability, not Western historical ones. In Sunni Islam, hadiths were reports transmitted from the only individual that Sunnis deemed infallible: the Prophet Muhammad. In Imami Shiite Islam, the infallibility of the Prophet lived on in the form of the imams, each one appointing one of his sons as the next imam. Not only were these imams therefore the best source for sayings of the Prophet, they themselves were sources of their own hadiths. The vast majority of Imami Shiite hadiths thus occur in one of three forms: 1 A hadith of the Prophet is transmitted through an isnād made up of the imams after him. 2 The saying of an imam is transmitted from him by later imams. 3 The saying of an imam is transmitted from him via an isnād of his followers. Figure 4.0 The Twelve Imams Figure 4.1 Forms of Imami Shiite Hadiths Whether a hadith originated with the Prophet or an imam, or whether or not the isnād between an imam and the Prophet was complete was of no importance. After all, imams were infallible and spoke with the inherited authority of the Prophet. A famous Shiite hadith makes this amply clear. The sixth imam, Ja'far al-Sādiq, is reported to have said: My hadiths are the hadiths of my father, and the hadiths of my father are the hadiths of my grandfather, and the hadiths of my grandfather are the hadiths of al-Husayn, and the hadiths of al-Husayn are the hadiths of al-Hasan, and the hadiths of al-Hasan are the hadiths of the Commander of the Faithful ('Alī b. Abī Tālib) (s), and the hadiths of the Commander of the Faithful are the hadiths of the Messenger of God (s), and the hadiths of the Messenger of God are the words of God most high.3 Shiites also sometimes narrated hadiths from the Prophet via his Companions in the same manner as Sunnis. But as we will discuss below, this was generally done for polemical purposes. There was little reason for Shiites to rely on the all-too-fallible Companions of the Prophet when they believed that the imams who descended from him were immune to deception or misguidance. THE DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY SHIITE HADITH LITERATURE Three major events defined the Imami Shiite community and had a formative influence on its hadith tradition. First, the failure of the early Muslims to acknowledge collectively that 'Alī and his descendants should have been the rightful political and religious rulers in Islam made the idealistic Sunni vision of the early Muslim community untenable. Unlike the categorical trust that Sunnis placed in the reliability of the Companions as hadith transmitters, Shiites believed that even this founding generation had failed. Any Companion who did not support 'Alī's claim to succeed the Prophet was at best complicit with injustice, at worst an active denier of the truth. Second, for the Imami Shiites, like other Shiite groups who identified religious leadership with the Prophet's descendants, this reliance on the family of the Prophet resulted in a crisis when the line of imams seemed to come to an end. In 260/874, Hasan al-'Askarī, the eleventh imam, died in captivity in the Abbasid court. A young man, he had no heir that the public knew of. The Shiite imams had served as the authoritative interpreters of the Quran, the Prophet's legacy, and Islam in general for their followers. Who now would meet this need? Some members of the Shiite community claimed that the eleventh imam had indeed had a son, who had been hidden away by the community from the Abbasid caliph. Tired of the unjust and iniquitous world, the infant boy had vanished in an underground cave in Samarra, to return in the future as the rightly guided Messiah (Mahdī) and 'fill the world with justice as it had been filled with injustice.' In the coming decades, certain members of the community claimed to be in contact with the 'Hidden Imam,' even delivering questions posed by members of the community to him. Eventually the prominent Shiite noble Ibn Rawh al-Nawbakhtī formalized this function, announcing that he and two predecessors were 'ambassadors (safīr)' of the Hidden Imam.4 In 329/941 the third formative event occurred: the last of the 'ambassadors' died. This controversial office, claimed disputably by many, proved too problematic to both the Hidden Imam and his community, and all contact between the two would be cut off until the Imam's return. The last 'ambassador' informed his followers soon before his death that the Hidden Imam had instructed him that anyone from that point on who claimed contact with the Imam was a fraud.5 The Shiite community, who had held that God would not leave His community without an authoritative interpreter of His religion, found itself completely alone. This duty would now fall upon the shoulders of the scholars. Although not in contact with him, they would act as the Hidden Imam's regents until his return. It is in this period of crisis, beginning with the initial disappearance of the twelfth imam and reaching a crescendo with his ultimate occultation (passing into a state of supernatural seclusion), that we find the earliest development of Imami Shiite doctrine and hadith. First, the Imami community, with its centers at Qumm and Rayy in Iran, would have to distinguish itself from other Shiite groups who believed that it was in fact earlier imams who had represented the end of the earthly Alid line and would return as the awaited Mahdī. Hasan b. Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī's (d. between 300–310/912–922) and Sa'd b. Abdallāh al-Qummī's (writing 292/905) ninth-century books on various sects of the Shiites are the first surviving articulations of Imami doctrine. These books seek to carve out a doctrinal identity for the Imami Shiites that distinguishes them from both the earlier Shiite extremist groups, such as those that believed that 'Alī was divine, as well as the groups such as the Ismailis (many of whom awaited the return of the imam Ismā'īl, the brother of the seventh imam Mūsā al-Kāzim, whom they claimed was in occultation) and the Waqifiyya sect, who believed that it was Mūsā al-Kāzim who had gone into occultation. Furthermore, who was this twelfth 'Hidden' imam, unknown to all but a few prominent Shiites, and what was the nature of his occultation? Even many of the Shiite families who had believed in the imamate of the Hidden Imam's father al-Hasan al-'Askarī did not know the answer to these questions. The scion of a great Shiite family of Qumm, Ibn Bābawayh (d. 381/991), attempted to clarify these points to his community in his Epistle on Beliefs, which comprehensively formulated the doctrine of Imamis.6 What heritage did Imami Shiite scholars like Ibn Bābawayh have to draw on in their efforts to define Imami law and doctrine? Like many pious Muslims in the first three generations of Islam, those individuals who believed that the family of the Prophet enjoyed a special status or religious authority collected the sayings and rulings of the imams in order to preserve their legacy. In particular, the students who flocked around the sixth imam, Ja'far al-Sādiq (The Truthful), in Medina collected their notes of his teachings. The legacy of his son, the seventh imam, Mūsā al-Kāzim, was also collected in numerous small books by his students. Even until the time of the eleventh imam, devotees of the family of the Prophet labored to record their teachings, rulings, and interpretations of the Quran.7 A notebook of sayings of imams like Ja'far al-Sādiq was called an asl ('source,' pl. usūl). Hundreds (Imami Shiites have traditionally talked of the 'four hundred usūl,' but other numbers have been mentioned as well) of these usūl were compiled, sometimes by a student of the imam recording his teachings directly and sometimes through an isnād from the imam to a slightly later collector. The usūl contained the material essential for formulating a religious and communal vision: elaborations of doctrine, answers to legal queries and polemics against those who opposed the rightful station of the ahl al-bayt (The Family of the Prophet). In addition, early Shiite compilers collected books on the virtues (fadā'il, khasā'is) of 'Alī and his progeny as well as the history of their careers. Zayd b. Wahb (d. 96/714–15), a Kufan devotee of the family of the Prophet, compiled a book of the sermons of 'Alī (Kitāb khutab amīr al-mu'minīn).8 Like the Sunni hadith tradition, some of these early books may really have been written after the deaths of their supposed authors by some later figure. Even some Shiite scholars, for example, doubt the authenticity of a book of hadiths attributed to the Successor Sulaym b. Qays al-'āmirī called Kitāb al-saqīfa.9 Some of the usūl drew on these dubious early books, like the 'Book of the Sunna, Rulings and Judicial Cases' (Kitāb al-sunan wa al-ahkām wa al-qadāyā) of the Companion Ibrāhīm Abū Rāfi' and al-Sahīfa al-sajjādiyya attributed to the fourth imam, 'Alī Zayn al-'Ābidīn.10 These early books may have really existed, or they may have been conjured up by later Shiites eager to show that 'Alī and his descendants truly had some special knowledge, in book form, that no other Companions possessed. For the Imami community, eager to elaborate a clear doctrine, ritual, and law in the absence of its imam, however, these usūl were not very useful. They needed to be reorganized according to topic. Starting in the early eighth century, Shiite scholars began making selections of hadiths and organizing them into 'compendia' (jāmi', pl. jawāmi') and 'topical books' (mubawwab). These books could either address one issue or, like the musannaf and sunan books of the Sunnis, a whole range of subjects. For example, Ja'far al-Sādiq's student Ghiyāth b. Ibrāhīm had compiled a book of the imam's teachings organized along the lines of what was permitted or forbidden for various legal topics.11 Ibn al-Qaddāh (d. c. 180/796–7) collected a book of hadiths specifically on the nature of heaven and hell.12 These early topical collections by students of the imams provided a foundation for the Imami Shiite community to draw from and build on. Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Saffār al-Qummī (d. 290/903) wrote the famous Basā'ir al-darajāt, which specifically dealt with the virtues and prerogatives of imams.13 Ibn Bābawayh's Kitāb al-jāmi' li-ziyārat al-Ridā provided reports on the virtues of the eighth imam and the importance of visiting his grave, while the Kitāb al-jāmi' al-kabīr fī al-fiqh by Ibrāhīm b. Muhammad al-Thaqafī (d. 283/896) more closely resembled a comprehensive sunan book.14 A tafsīr replete with reports about why verses of the Quran were revealed was attributed to the eleventh imam al-Hasan al-'Askarī (although Shiite scholars debate whether or not the imam actually wrote it). Even as the usūl and early books were broken up to create these topical works, some Shiite scholars like Ahmad Ibn 'Uqda (d. 332/944), who were deeply committed to hadith transmission, continued to transmit the usūl in their original form – approximately thirteen survive today.15 It is interesting that, as Ron Buckley has noted, Shiites started compiling topical collections of hadiths as part of developing their law at approximately the same time that great Sunni scholars such as Mālik b. Anas and al-Bukhārī were doing the same.16 THE SHIITE HADITH CANON These topical works of law, ritual, and doctrine formed the basis for what became the four books of the Shiite hadith canon: the Kāfī fī 'ilm al-dīn of Muhammad b. Ya'qūb al-Kulaynī (d. 329/939), the Man lā yahduruhu al-faqīh of Ibn Bābawayh (d. 381/991) and the two collections of Abū Ja'far Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Tūsī (d. 460/1067), the Tahdhīb al-ahkām and the Istibsār fīmā ukhtulifa fīhi al-akhbār. While the Sunni hadith canon is made of books very similar to one another in structure and purpose (they are all from the sunan genre), the components of the Shiite canon represent varying tools for different visions of the role of hadith in religious rulemaking.17 Al-Kulaynī offered his massive al-Kāfī fī 'ilm al-dīn (The Sufficient Book in the Knowledge of Religion) as a source for Shiites who could not find scholars possessing true knowledge of Islam or sort out the tangled web of reports narrated from the Prophet and the imams. Al-Kulaynī says that this dearth of knowledge was due to the unwillingness of scholars to resort only to 'the Quran and the Prophet's sunna with true knowledge and understanding.' Instead, they have turned to blind imitation (taqlīd), what they saw as their own best judgment (istihsān) and baseless interpretation (ta'wīl). The Kāfī, al-Kulaynī says, is the answer. It will suffice for 'those who want knowledge of the religion and to act on it according to authentic reports from the Truthful Ones [i.e., the imams] and the established Sunna that is the basis for right legal action.'18 The Kāfī covers the whole range of legal topics applicable in Muslim life as well as the issues of the origins and nature of the imamate. Like al-Bukhārī's Sahīh, the very structure of the books explains the lessons the reader should derive from it; the titles of each subchapter instruct the reader how to understand the hadiths it includes. The author trusts the book to be its own explanation. A generation later, the great Ibn Bābawayh compiled another comprehensive topical hadith collection designed to assist Imami Shiites who had no other source for understanding Islam properly. His Man lā yahduruhu al-faqīh (He Who Has No Legal Scholar at Hand) is even more consciously a reference work than the Kāfī. Unlike al-Kulaynī, Ibn Bābawayh does not provide full isnāds for each hadith. He does not want the reader to concern himself with such specialized details, but rather assures his audience that he has only included reports that are authentic.19 Ibn Bābawayh and early Imami scholars sought to meet the immediate challenges facing the community with reports from the Prophet and imams alone as evidence. Ibn Bābawayh's most famous student, Muhammad b. al-Nu'mān al-Hārithī (d. 413/1022), called al-Shaykh al-Mufīd, however, was a Mu'tazilite rationalist who saw hadiths as only a limited component of elaborating law and doctrine for the Imami community. Hadiths should be part of a larger framework for understanding Islam, used properly and supervised by a more authoritative master: reason. As a follower of the Mu'tazilite school in Baghdad, al-Shaykh al-Mufīd believed that rational investigation was an essential tool for determining correct belief, and he abandoned his teacher Ibn Bābawayh's reliance on using āhād reports from the imams as evidence in many issues.20 It was one of al-Shaykh al-Mufīd's students in Baghdad who would be responsible for half of the Shiite hadith canon and become one of the most influential scholars in Shiism: Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Tūsī (d. 460/1067). While al-Kulaynī and Ibn Bābawayh had assured their readers that their books consisted of only authentic hadiths, al-Tūsī's two hadith works made this authentication process more transparent. Furthermore, for him hadiths were clearly just one part in a larger process of deriving law. Al-Tūsī's first book, the Tahdhīb al-ahkām, is in fact not a true hadith collection at all. It is a commentary on a legal work by al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (called al-Muqni'), structured along its lines but focusing on its hadiths. Al-Tūsī's al-Istibsār fīmā ukhtulifa fīhi al-akhbār (Seeking Clarity on that which Reports Differ) resembles much more closely the books that Sunni scholars like al-Shāfi'ī devoted to sorting out and reconciling hadiths that seemed to contradict one another: books of ikhtilāf al-hadīth (see chapter 5). Western scholars refer to these four collections as the Shiite hadith 'canon' because Shiites consider them the most authoritative sources for hadiths.21 In effect, with the compilation of these four works, the earlier usūl and topical hadith collections became practically obsolete.22 The authority of the canonical collections does not, however, entail that criticizing the authenticity of hadiths in them is unseemly or impermissible. Their canonicity derives from their widespread acceptance and use, not their infallibility. CONTINUED HADITH LITERATURE AND THE MEGA-COLLECTIONS Of course, the formation of the Shiite hadith canon did not mean an end to Shiite hadith literature. Ibn Bābawayh devoted several books to explaining the legal reasoning behind a selection of hadiths as well as explaining the meanings of controversial or confusing hadiths (his 'Ilal al-sharā'i' and Ma'ānī al-akhbār). We also have the surviving records of great Shiite scholars like Ibn Bābawayh giving dictation sessions (amālī) to students in which they would narrate a selection of hadiths from the Prophet, the imams, and even Sunni hadith transmitters for teaching purposes. Of course, Shiite scholars continued to write about the virtues of the imams in books like Khasā'is amīr al-mu'minīn by al-Sharīf al-Radī (d. 406/1015) and the Kitāb al-irshād fī ma'rifat hujaj Allāh 'alā al-'ibād by al-Shaykh al-Mufīd. Although not strictly a hadith collection, al-Sharīf al-Radī's Nahj al-balāgha (The Path of Eloquence), a collection of what are said to be the speeches of 'Alī b. Abī Tālib (of which some are clearly among the oldest surviving pieces of Arabic writing), is seen as a literary masterpiece by Shiites and Sunnis alike (although Sunnis consider much of the book to be forged).23 Also frequently cited is Ibn Shahrāshūb's (d. 588/1192) collection of all the literature on the lives, virtues and feats of the imams: the massive Manāqib Āl b. Ābī Tālib. The greatest transformative step that the Shiite hadith tradition took after its canon had formed, however, occurred much later. In the early seventeenth century, a movement arose among Shiite scholars in the Hijaz, Iraq, and Iran that opposed what it viewed as the overly rationalist character of Imami Shiite thought as well as the overly hierarchical structure of the Shiite clergy. Followers of this trend believed that Imami Shiites should reaffirm their reliance on the hadiths of the Imams as the only true way to understand law and dogma properly, and they were thus known as the Akhbārī school (because of its reliance on akhbār, reports). This led to a renewed interest in collecting and commenting on Shiite hadiths in the seventeenth century.24 Although Shiites did not develop as extensive a tradition of penning massive commentaries on their hadith collections as did Sunnis, in this period they did amass several mega-collections that combined and commented on existing hadith works, and some of which are more gigantic than even the largest Sunni commentary.25 Three of these mega-collections are extremely well known. The first is the Wasā'il al-shī'a ilā ahādīth al-sharī'a (The Paths of the Shiites to the Hadiths of the Holy Law) by Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-'Āmilī (d. 1104/1693). Second, Mullā Muhsin Fayd al-Kāshānī (d. 1091/1680) wrote a massive digest and commentary on the four canonical hadith collections, entitled al-Wāfī. The last is a work astounding not only in its vast size, but also in the great accuracy with which its author drew on and cited earlier books. The mammoth Bihār al-anwār (Oceans of Light) by Muhammad Bāqir al-Majlisī (d. 1110/1700), one hundred and ten printed volumes, is so enormous that one needs a guidebook, the Safīnat al-bihār (The Ship of the Seas) by 'Abbās al-Qummī (d. 1936) to navigate it effectively. The Bihār covers almost all the topics pertinent to Shiite history, belief, and law. Not only does Majlisī's huge collection include the material found in earlier hadith books, the author also unearthed old manuscripts of usūl that survive only in his book.26 Majlisī's work is encyclopedic, not critical, and he left his readers to decide what material is authentic or not. SHIITE HADITH CRITICISM Shiite hadith criticism began much later than its Sunni counterpart, appearing in full force only in the early eleventh century. While the imams were alive, there was no need to worry about forged hadiths – any reports attributed to an earlier imam would be checked by his descendants.27 In the immediate wake of the twelfth imam's disappearance, however, Shiites like al-Kulaynī, and later Ibn Bābawayh, understood that it was now the responsibility of scholars to assure that the Shiite community only acted on reports authentically traced to the imams. The failure of scholars to distinguish between reliable and unreliable hadiths had been a leading motivation for the writing of al-Kulaynī's and Ibn Bābawayh's collections. Writing in the decades after the final occultation of the twelfth imam, Ibn Bābawayh already acknowledged that the two usūl books of Zayd al-Zarrād and Zayd al-Narsī were forged.28 Early Shiite hadith scholars like al-Kulaynī and Ibn Bābawayh had believed that the usūl of the imams contained all the knowledge necessary for the Shiite community to survive during the Hidden Imam's absence. This school of thought, later known as the Akhbārī school, considered the four canonical collections to be totally reliable records of the earlier usūl books. With the rise of the Shiite Mu'tazilite school of al-Shaykh al-Mufīd in Baghdad (later the origin of the Usūli school, which advocated the use of independent legal reasoning and a more critical use of hadiths), Shiite scholars began to look more skeptically at the contents and use of these collections. Their contents sometimes created serious liability for what had emerged as Imami orthodoxy. Al-Kulaynī's Usūl, for example, contained a report that the existing Quran was only one third of the original revealed book. In the decades after al-Kulaynī's death, however, Ibn Bābawayh had established the historical integrity of the Quranic text as a tenet of Imami belief.29 Imami scholars acknowledged that some reports in these books could have been inserted by Shiites with deviant beliefs. Moreover, even a pious and well-intentioned usūl compiler could have made an error in including one report instead of another. Like the Sunnis, some Imami Shiites forged hadiths to help reinforce communal identity. One forged hadith, for example, said that visiting the grave of the eighth imam, 'Alī al-Ridā, in Mashhad was worth seventy pilgrimages to Mecca.30 Transmitter Criticism Like the Sunni tradition, Shiite hadith criticism centered on evaluating transmitters and then using this information to help decide the reliability of isnāds. Proper belief was the centerpiece of Shiite transmitter criticism. Before the occultation of the twelfth imam and the formation of a distinct Imami Shiite community, there was a sense that a Muslim's realization that the family of the Prophet was the sole religious authority was testament enough to his reliability. It was thus reported that Ja'far al-Sādiq had said, 'Know the status of people by the extent to which they narrate from us (i'rifū manāzil al-nās 'alā qadr riwāyatihim 'annā).'31 As the Shiite scholarly tradition grew more elaborate, however, this would not suffice. Al-Shaykh al-Mufīd's student, the famous al-Tūsī (d. 460/1067), began developing a system of transmitter criticism to weed out reports from unreliable people and ensure that Shiites were only taking hadiths from 'the party of truth.'32 Although al-Tūsī seems to have been the first Shiite to employ a system of rating the reliability of transmitters, like the Sunnis, Shiite hadith scholars had long been keeping records in order to identify the myriad of people who made up their isnāds to the imams. Ahmad Ibn 'Uqda (d. 332/944) devoted a large book to identifying all the people who studied with and transmitted the teachings of Ja'far al-Sādiq, Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Hamdānī (d. 333/944–5) wrote a book entitled 'The Book of Dates and Those Who Narrated Hadiths (Kitāb al-tārīkh wa dhikr man rawā al-hadīth),' and later Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Jawharī (d. 401/1010–11) compiled a work called 'The Comprehensive Book on Identifying Hadith Transmitters (Kitāb al-ishtimāl 'alā ma'rifat al-rijāl).'33 Although these books have been lost, the earliest surviving book on Shiite transmitters, that of Muhammad b. 'Umar al-Kashshī (d. c. 340/951), focuses on laying out the full names of transmitters, their relationships to other transmitters and, if possible, when they lived. Like many early Sunni books of hadith transmitters, these books were concerned more with identifying transmitters than criticizing them. When he began his efforts to make sure no fraudulent material had crept into the usūl since the disappearance of the twelfth imam, al-Tūsī had to ensure that Shiites had received material from Muslims with the proper beliefs. Certainly, Imami Shiites needed to be on guard against hadiths forged or propagated by anti-Shiite Sunnis. But the more immediate danger was sifting out reports from Shiites who had extremist beliefs like the deification of 'Alī and those who believed that the line of the Prophet had ended with an earlier imam going into occultation. Before worrying about Sunni opponents, the Imami community had to demonstrate that it was not extremist and to distinguish itself from other Shiites. Al-Tūsī's book of transmitter criticism (Rijāl al-Tūsī) is thus more concerned with identifying Shiite transmitters who believed that it was actually an earlier imam, like Mūsā al-Kāzim, who had disappeared and ended the imamate than with criticizing anti-Shiite Sunnis. Ibn Hanbal, a fierce critic of Shiism, is mentioned in the books with no disapproving comment, while many Shiites are dismissed for their belief in the occultation of an earlier imam or their extremist Shiite beliefs. Al-Tūsī tries to list those transmitters who collected usūl from the imams, determining whether they are 'trustworthy (thiqa)' or not. Abū al-'Abbās al-Najāshī (d. 450/1058) followed al-Tūsī in compiling an influential book of Shiite transmitter criticism, the Rijāl al-Najāshī. Unlike al-Tūsī, however, he aimed his book at a Sunni audience. Tired of his opponents accusing Shiites of having no trad-ition of hadith transmission and hadith books, he offers example after example of accomplished Shiite hadith authors and the isnāds in which he found them. He even uses books of Sunni transmitters to help in his evaluation. It appears, in fact, that al-Najāshī was consciously imitating the methods and language of Sunni transmitter criticism; he frequently called narrators 'weak (da'īf),' or 'having accurate transmissions (sahīh al-samā'),' just like his Sunni contemporaries. Isnād and Matn Criticism Al-Tūsī not only seems to have been the first Imami scholar consistently to evaluate hadith transmitters, he was also the first to apply these criticisms to authenticate or dismiss hadiths. In the Istibsār he uses isnād criticisms to show how what seems to be two contradictory hadiths is really just an unreliable hadith clashing with a reliable one.34 The Shiite science of isnād criticism was further developed by Jamāl al-Dīn b. Tāwūs (d. 673/1274) of Baghdad and the great founder of the Hilla school in Iraq, 'Allāma Muhammad b. Idrīs al-Hillī (d. 726/1325). Shiite hadith criticism continued to draw on and in effect mirror Sunni hadith criticism. The first major book defining the technical terms and methods of Shiite hadith criticism, written by al-Shahīd al-Thānī (d. 965/1558) (entitled 'Knowledge of Hadith, Dirāyat al-hadīth'), is basically a digest of the Sunni Ibn al-Salāh's famous Muqaddima. Only on a few important issues does the Shiite method diverge from its Sunni counterpart. For example, a hadith is defined as the report transmitted from any 'infallible (ma'sūm)' individual, not just the Prophet. This allows for the Shiite reliance on the hadiths of the imams.35 The concern for avoiding extremist Shiites or believers in earlier vanished imams appears clearly in the labels that Shiites use to indicate unreliable narrators: 'extremist (ghāl)' and 'believing in the occultation of an earlier imam (Wāqifī),' from whom one can accept hadiths only before he adopted deviant beliefs.36 Allowance is made for occasionally narrating from Sunnis: one of the sub-grades of hasan hadiths, 'trustable (muwaththaq),' is defined as a hadith that is reliable even though a Sunni is in the isnād.37 Al-Shahīd al-Thānī sharply critiques his Sunni brethren by noting how they concerned themselves only with the outward signs of a transmitter's upright character ('adāla), ignoring the need for an appropriate belief in the family of the Prophet. Hence, he says with an air of tragedy, there is such a plethora of supposedly 'authentic' hadiths in Sunni eyes.38 As the Sunnis knew well, Mu'tazilism had always held an examin-ation of the contents of a hadith to be the final arbiter in determining its authenticity. The Shiite adoption of the Mu'tazilite framework in the eleventh century thus meant that content criticism would enjoy a more prominent role in Shiite hadith criticism than it did among Sunnis. Just because the isnād was reliable did not mean the report was authentic or legally compelling.39 Al-Sharīf al-Murtadā (d. 436/1044) maintained that every report attributed to the Prophet or imams had to be authenticated by reason.40 Influential scholars like 'Allāma al-Hillī would not even accept the medium grade of reports, hasan, because they were too unreliable.41 Interestingly, even the earlier Akhbārī scholars like al-Kulaynī had reserved an important role for content criticism. The Kāfī cites a number of hadiths from the Prophet and Ja'far al-Sādiq with statements like 'Everything is compared to the Book of God and the Sunna, and any hadith that does not agree with the Book of God is but varnished falsehood.'42 While Sunni scholars had uniformly rejected statements such as Ja'far's because they contradicted the important role of hadiths in explaining and modifying the Quran (see chapter 5), Shiites embraced them as an indication of the importance of content criticism. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SUNNI AND SHIITE HADITHS Although we have seen some of the important differences between the Sunni and Shiite traditions of hadith study, they have never been totally separate. They share common origins, overlap, and have interacted with one another over the course of Islamic history. The chief factors for the commonalities or interactions between the two have been the decidedly non-sectarian beliefs of many early Shiites, the lingering (and sometimes burgeoning) devotion to the family of the Prophet among Sunnis, and the Shiite need to draw on Sunni hadiths in their defense of Shiite doctrine. To what extent can we talk about separate bodies of Sunni and Shiite hadiths? In the first two hundred years after the death of the Prophet, the majority of early Shiites did not espouse a doctrine that differed dramatically from the majority of Muslims. Of course, there were those supporters of 'Alī and his family who despised or totally rejected the legitimacy of the first two rulers after the Prophet – Abū Bakr and 'Umar – who were lionized by mainstream Sunni Islam. Sunnis could generally not accept such Shiites as Muslims in good standing. Other early Shiite extremists believed that 'Alī was God incarnate and were thus ostracized uniformly by other Muslims, Sunnis and Shiites alike. There was also a germinating Imami community who looked to the Shiite imams for sole religious guidance. Most early Shiites, however, were merely characterized by 'an enhanced reverence' for the descendants of the Prophet, an attraction to their charisma and support for their general disapproval for the less-than-ideal regimes of the Umayyads and early Abbasids.43 Love for the family of the Prophet was particularly intense in Kufa, 'Alī's adopted capital and the setting for many 'Alid revolts against the Umayyads. In fact, Sunni hadith critics accepted that, in the case of a Kufan transmitter, such loyalties did not mean the transmitter was necessarily Shiite. It was just part and parcel of being Kufan. Although never considered infallible religious authorities or the perennial rightful rulers of Islam, the family of the Prophet has always been venerated in Sunni Islam. Certainly, in times of intense Sunni/Shiite conflict or in the writings of diehard Sunnis like Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), Sunnis have deemphasized this. Even the notoriously anti-Shiite Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1348), however, warned 'May God curse those who do not love 'Alī.'44 Especially in the first two centuries of Islam, many scholars later glorified by Sunni Muslims, such as Abū Hanīfa and al-Shāfi'ī, displayed pronounced affection for the family of the Prophet. Brought before the Abbasid caliph on charges of being an extreme Shiite, al-Shāfi'ī composed a verse of poetry proclaiming that, if loving the family of the Prophet was being a heretic, then he would proudly admit to that charge. Even the most trusted Sunni hadith collections contain hadiths urging Muslims to love and honor the Prophet's family and descendants. Al-Bukhārī included in his famous Sahīh the report in which the Prophet said, 'Fatima is part of me, so whoever has angered her has angered me (Fātima bad'a minnī fa-man aghdabahā aghdabanī).'45 In the seventh and eighth centuries, much of what would make up the Shiite hadith corpus was just hadiths expounding the virtues of 'Alī.46 Sunni hadith critics embraced much of this material. Ibn Hanbal himself commented that 'there has not appeared via authentic isnāds, hadiths testifying to the virtues of any Companion like what has appeared testifying to the virtues of 'Alī b. Abī Tālib.'47 In the eighth century, however, as the sayings of imams like Ja'far al-Sādiq were compiled, we see the emergence of an independent body of specifically Shiite hadiths.48 By the time of the twelfth imam's final disappearance in 941 CE, the body of material that made up the Shiite hadith corpus was effectively complete.49 What sorts of hadiths did this corpus consist of? First, we find hadiths that are simply not found among Sunnis, such as hadiths in which the Prophet is quoted as explicitly foretelling the coming of the twelve imams and ordering Muslims to follow them, or the hadiths of the imams themselves. Sunnis would never accept hadiths requiring them to believe in the Twelver imamate, nor would they even consider the reports of the imams as counting as 'hadiths.' With their collection of the hadiths of the imams, the Shiites thus built up a body of material totally absent in Sunni hadith collections even though they might dovetail perfectly with Sunni themes. Reports in the Kāfī in which Mūsā al-Kāzim curses those who use analogical reasoning to derive Islamic law would fit seamlessly into the writings of Ibn Hanbal or al-Bukharī, but the fact that they were the hadiths of an imam put them outside the pale of Sunni Prophetic hadiths.50 Second, we find pro-Shiite hadiths that appear in Sunni books but without the sectarian element. In the collection of Ibn Bābawayh's dictation sessions (Amālī), he narrates a hadith that the pro-'Alid Companion Jābir b. 'Abdallāh narrated from the Prophet: ' 'Alī b. Abī Tālib is the earliest to embrace Islam in my community, the most knowledgeable of them, the most correct in his religion, the most virtuous in his certainty, the most prudent, generous and brave of heart, and he is the imam and caliph after me.'51 We find that many Sunni hadith collections, even early ones such as the Musannaf of 'Abd al-Razzāq al-San'ānī (d. 211/827) and the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal, include the section of this hadith that says that 'Alī is 'the earliest to embrace Islam in my community, the most knowledgeable of them.' The sections ordaining him as caliph and imam, however, are absent. Third, we find hadiths with a distinct pro-'Alid content that both Sunnis and Shiites accept equally. For example, the famous hadith of Ghadīr Khumm, in which the aging Prophet stops his followers by the pool of Ghadīr Khumm and tells them 'Whoever's master I am, 'Alī is his master.' The vaunted Sunni hadith critics al-Tirmidhī and al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī both considered this report to be authentic. In another hadith that al-Hākim, Ibn Khuzayma, and even the great Muslim b. al-Hajjāj include in their Sahīh collections, the Prophet tells his followers, 'Indeed I am leaving you with two things of great import (thaqalayn) ... you will not go astray as long as you hold fast to them: the Book of God and my family.' Of course, Sunnis and Shiites have upheld two very different interpretations of these hadiths. Shiites view them as clear evidence that Muhammad wished 'Alī and his descendants through Fatima to succeed him both in temporal and religious leadership of the Muslim community. Sunnis view them as two exhortations to honor 'Alī and the Prophet's family, but contextualize such hadiths with the plentiful pool of reports in which the Prophet praises his leading Companions like Abū Bakr and 'Umar using the same language and appears to reserve places of leadership for them. Some Sunnis were less patient with such pro-'Alid hadiths than others. Al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī, who was so accepting of pro-'Alid reports that he was accused of Shiism, declared authentic the hadith in which the Prophet supposedly said, 'O Fatima, God is angered when you are angered, God is pleased when you are pleased.' Al-Hākim's teacher, al-Dāraqutnī (d. 385/995), however, was not so generous. He exposed it as a hadith that the fifth imam Muhammad al-Bāqir attributed directly to the Prophet – a typical and laudable Shiite isnād, but a case of broken transmission (mursal) according to Sunnis.52 Al-Tabarānī's collections featured a hadith in which the Prophet reversed the sun so that 'Alī could make up a prayer he had missed. Ibn al-Jawzī, Mullā 'Alī al-Qārī and others ruled it a forgery by Shiites, while other prominent Sunnis like Qādī 'Iyād and al-Suyūtī declared it sahīh.53 Finally, many Shiite hadiths appear in the Sunni collections that aimed merely at collecting as many hadiths as possible and made no pretension at any critical stringency. Many of these collections, such as the Hilyat al-awliyā' (The Ornament of the Saints) of Abū Nu'aym al-Isbahānī (d. 430/1038), were works devoted to documenting the rich heritage of Sufism and therefore included a great deal of pro-'Alid material. 'Alī was, after all, seen as the progenitor of the Sufi tradition and the beginning of most of the isnāds though which the Sunni Sufi orders traced their teachings to the Prophet (see chapter 7). These reports were generally innocuous, with no sectarian edge, and urged goodly and pious behavior. While Ibn Bābawayh quoted the fifth imam Muhammad al-Bāqir that the Prophet had said that the best of God's slaves are those 'Who, when they seek perfection in their acts, hope for good tidings, seek forgiveness when they do wrong, are thankful to God when they give, persevere when they are tried, and forgive when they are angered,' Abū Nu'aym cites it through a very Sunni isnād in his Hilyat al-awliyā'.54 The biggest factor in the Sunni embrace of many Shiite hadiths was the veneration for the family of the Prophet that gained great currency among the Sunni Muslim majority of Egypt, Iraq, Iran, and Central Asia beginning in the eleventh century. In that time, almost every village and town 'discovered' its own imāmzāde, or the tomb of a pious descendant of the Prophet, to serve as a local pilgrimage and miracle center.55 The Sunni fascination with the family of the Prophet as a medium for baraka (blessing) led to a widespread study and transmission of hadiths narrated through the Shiite imams, even if professional hadith scholars like al-Dhahabī and Mullā 'Alī Qārī (d. 1014/1606) decried such books as forgeries. In the Iranian city of Qazvin in particular, the Sahīfa of the eighth imam 'Alī Ridā (d. 203/818), who traced his isnāds back through the imams to the Prophet, became widely transmitted for pietistic purposes. Most of its contents were harmless pieces of advice, such as 'Knowledge is a treasure, and questions are its key.'56 The religious power of an isnād through the imams sometimes manifested itself in bizarre and miraculous reports. The great Sunni hadith critic Ibn Abī Hātim al-Rāzī (d. 327/938) is reported (falsely, in my opinion) to have said that once, when he was in Syria, he saw a man unconscious in the road. He remembered that one of his teachers had once told him, 'the isnād of 'Alī Ridā, if it is read over a senseless person, he'll recover.' Ibn Abī Hātim tried out this cure, and the man returned immediately to health.57 As we found in our discussion of Sunni hadiths, for Sunni critics a hadith transmitter's sectarian affiliation ultimately took the back seat to his or her reliability in transmission. If you consistently transmitted hadiths that were corroborated by other experts, even deviant beliefs would not disqualify you from participating in the Sunni hadith tradition. Individuals with pronounced Shiite leanings, such as 'Abd al-Rahmān b. Sālih (d. 235/849–50) and Sa'īd b. Khuthaym (d. 180/796–97), thus served as respected and valued transmitters in mainstay Sunni hadith books such as the Sunans of al-Nasā'ī and al-Tirmidhī. In theory, Sunni hadith critics restricted themselves from accepting the transmissions of Shiite narrators who tried to convert others to their cause (since this might provoke them to forge pro-Shiite hadiths) or, at the very least, not accepting those hadiths with a pro-'Alid message from such Shiite transmitters. In reality, however, even the great Muslim b. al-Hajjāj included in his Sahīh a report from a known Shiite, 'Adī b. Thābit (d. 116/734), in which the Prophet announced that only a believer could love 'Alī and only a hypocrite could hate him. As such, we find a marked overlap of transmitters between the Sunni and Shiite hadith traditions. Abān b. Taghlib (d. 140/757) was a well-known and devoted Kufan Shiite who appears as a narrator from the imams in al-Kulaynī's Kāfī, but all the Sunni Six Books except Sahīh al-Bukhārī included his hadiths as well. On rare occasions, there was also overlap between Sunnis and Shiites on influential hadith critics. Ibn 'Uqda (d. 332/944) was the most important collector of the Shiite usūl and a pioneer in compiling the names of Shiite transmitters.58 Yet he was praised by the most prominent Sunni critics of his day, like al-Dāraqutnī and Ibn 'Adī, and later the scholar al-Subkī (d. 771/1370) called him 'one of the hadith masters of the Shariah;'59 this, even though he was such a staunch Shiite that he occasionally disparaged Abū Bakr and 'Umar. He commanded one the most impressive memories of his day, either having memorized or being current with 850,000 hadiths, 3,000 from the family of the Prophet alone. When he wanted to move from his native Kufa, he found that his personal library of six hundred camel-loads of books prevented him. Not only did Sunnis appreciate Ibn 'Uqda's command of hadith transmissions, they also valued his opinions on evaluating transmitter criticism. In fact, the earliest evaluation of al-Bukhārī's and Muslim's famous Sahīhayn comes from Ibn 'Uqda.60 SHIITE USE OF SUNNI HADITHS Imami Shiism matured under the looming shadow of the Sunni Abbasid caliphate and had to survive under Sunni states such as the Seljuq Turks, the Ilkhanid Mongols, and the Ottoman Empire. Even during periods in which Shiites achieved political ascendancy, such as the tenth century (called the 'Shiite Century' because the Shiite Buyids ruled Iraq and Iran, with the Shiite Fatimids in Egypt and Syria), Shiites still lived as a minority among the Sunni masses. Shiite scholars very much appreciated the use of Sunni hadiths, especially reports with a pro-'Alid bent, as tools for either debating their Sunni opponents or convincing them that Imami Shiism presented no threat to Sunni Islam. The Shiite scholar Radī al-Dīn Ibn Tāwūs (d. 664/1266) kept a digest of the Sahīhayn in his library for such uses.61 In such cases, Shiites would abandon their own method of hadith criticism and play by Sunni rules in the hopes of convincing Sunnis on their own terms. Ibn Bābawayh, for example, began one of his dictation sessions in the mosque with a hadith narrated from the Prophet by Abū Hurayra, whom Shiites considered an arch-liar who had covered up 'Alī's right to the caliphate by forging hadiths to the contrary. In this hadith, however, Abū Hurayra is quoted telling the Muslims to fast on the eight-eenth of the month Dhū al-Hijja because that was the day of Ghadīr Khumm – the day when the Prophet had announced to his followers that 'Alī was to be their master after him.62 In his efforts to prove that no one in history had ever been named 'Alī before 'Alī b. Abī Tālib, the Shiite scholar of Qazvin, Abū al-Husayn Qazvīnī (d. c. 560/1165), invoked as evidence the Sahīhayn and other Sunni hadith books that 'are relied upon.' Qazvīnī tells his opponents to 'take up the Sahīhayn' and find the hadith that says that 'Alī's name is written on the leg of God's throne and on the doorway to Paradise as the brother of Muhammad. Since both these structures existed before the creation of the world, 'Alī is doubtless the first person to have been so named.63 Qazvīnī's attempt was admirable, but it did not convince his opponents; the hadiths he cited were nowhere to be found in the Sahīhayn or any reputable Sunni collection.64 THE ZAYDI HADITH TRADITION Zaydism is a branch of Shiism associated with Zayd b. 'Alī (d. 122/740), son of the fourth imam 'Alī Zayn al-'Ābidīn, who rebelled unsuccessfully against the Umayyads in the twilight days of their rule. Although Zaydi Islam is a relatively small sect, flourishing in classical times in Kufa and northern Iran but now limited to northern Yemen, its hadith tradition deserves attention due to both its originality and influence. Zaydis believe that the true teachings of Islam, as a religious system and a message of political justice, have been preserved by members of the family of the Prophet who rose up against the tyrannical and impious rule of the Umayyads, Abbasids, and later dynasties. Unlike Sunnis, Zaydis do not see early Islamic history as an idealized expansion of the pure faith under ultimately legitimate Muslim rulers. Zaydis believe that 'Alī should have been the first caliph, but, unlike Imami Shiites, they believe that the Prophet's instruction on this matter was ambiguous.65 Zaydis also break with Imami Shiism by not attributing a specific line of infallible, divinely specified imams with any special access to the esoteric truths of Islam and the Quran. Nor do they pay any special attention to the awaited Hidden Imam. Instead, Zaydis believe that the family of the Prophet is the histor-ical protector and preserver of the true teachings of Islam and that it is their duty to stand up for justice in the face of oppressive rulers. Any member of the family of the Prophet who combines a mastery of Islamic scholarship with an ability to stand up against injustice has the right to call himself the imam. In many ways, Zaydism is a middle ground between Sunni and Imami Shiite Islam. In their outlook on hadiths, Zaydis can be distinguished from Sunnis by four features: 1) an enhanced reverence for the family of the Prophet, 2) a case-by-case evaluation of the Companions, 3) a more cynical view of early Islamic history, and 4) their Mu'tazilite thought. Zaydis summarize this with a quote from their Imam al-Hasan b. Yahyā b. al-Husayn b. Zayd b. 'Alī: The solution to disagreements over what is permissible and prohibited is to follow the clear and established texts from the Quran and to draw on those well-known, consistently transmitted reports from the Prophet which have no chance of being conspired forgery, as well as reports from the righteous members of his Family that agree with the clear indications of the Book of God. In addition, we must follow the just and pious members of the Family of the Messenger of God. These are the compelling proofs for Muslims, and it is not permitted to follow other than these.66 The Zaydi Imam al-Murtadā Muhammad b. Yahyā (d. 310/922) said: Indeed many hadiths disagree with the Book of God most high and contradict it, so we do not heed them, nor do we use them as proof. But all that agrees with the Book of God, testified to by it as correct, is authentic according to us, and we accept it as evidence. And also what our ancestors narrated, father from son, from 'Alī, from the Prophet, we use as proof. And what was narrated by the reliable (thiqāt) people of the Prophet's Companions, we accept and apply it. And what disagrees with [all] this we do not see as correct, nor do we espouse it.67 Zaydis feel that there is undeniable evidence from the Quran and Sunna that 'Alī and his descendants through the Prophet's daughter enjoy unique virtues and leadership responsibilities. The legal rulings and consensus of scholars from the Family of the Prophet and the hadiths they transmit are authoritative for Zaydis. Like Imamis, Zaydis accept the mursal hadiths of imams (their narrations from the Prophet without citing a full isnād). In addition, as Imam Sharaf al-Dīn (d. 965/1557–8) stated, whatever scholars from the Family of the Prophet declare to be authentic hadiths is so. Although Zaydis foreswear those who openly opposed the Family of the Prophet, they generally allow the narration of hadiths from Sunni transmitters either in order to use their hadiths as evidence against them or because those specific hadiths have been verified by Zaydi scholars. One of the Zaydi criticisms of the Sunni hadith tradition is the relatively small reliance on hadiths transmitted through the family of the Prophet. Zaydi scholars, for example, blame al-Bukhārī for narrating hadiths via Khārijites known for their hatred of 'Alī but not through the revered imam Ja'far al-Sādiq. Zaydi Islam also upholds a unique stance on the Companions of the Prophet. Both Sunni and Imami Shiite Islam espouse absolute positions – either anyone who saw the Prophet even for a moment was upstanding or only those who actively supported 'Alī were. For Zaydis, only those individuals who enjoyed prolonged exposure to the Prophet and remained loyal to his teachings after his death are worthy of the title 'Companion.' Individuals known for impious behavior, like Walīd b. 'Uqba, or those who actively fought against 'Alī, such as Mu'āwiya, are not considered to be Companions at all. Zaydis take Sunnis to task for naively believing that anyone who met the Prophet could serve as a reliable hadith transmitter. Zaydis maintained this more cynical perspective in their approach to early Islamic history in general. The political agendas of Umayyad and Abbasid rule, they assert, left lasting affects on Sunni Islam. They believed that the Umayyads had encouraged the forgery of anti-Alid hadiths as well as hadiths praising other less worthy Companions. The Abbasids cultivated the four Sunni madhhabs as a means to stem any loyalty to the Family of the Prophet, making a dismissal of the Prophet's Family a hallmark of early Sunni Islam. As influential to their hadith worldview as their Alid loyalties is the Zaydi commitment to the Mu'tazilite school of theology and legal theory. Like other Mu'tazilites, Zaydis believe that passing the tests of the Quran and reason is essential for determining the authenticity of hadith. Zaydis often require hadiths to be massively transmitted (mutawātir) or accepted by the consensus of scholars in order to be used in defining theological stances. But Zaydis also accepted hadiths on these subjects if they were approved by imams. The Mu'tazilite rejection of anthropomorphism has led Zaydis to dismiss any hadith that describes God in overly human terms in a manner that could not be interpreted figuratively. Zaydis thus hold that hadiths like the ones stating that when God sits on his throne it squeaks like a saddle or that Muhammad is physically seated next to God on His throne are elements of Jewish and Christian lore that crept into the Islamic tradition through early converts like Ka'b al-Ahbār. Major Zaydi Hadith Collections and Critics The specifically Zaydi corpus of hadith is not as vast as either its Sunni or Imami Shiite counterparts. Its foundation is the Musnad of Zayd b. 'Alī, which Zaydis claim to be the first book of hadiths written in Islam. It consists of 228 Prophetic hadiths, 320 reports from 'Alī, and two reports from al-Husayn.68 Interestingly, many of the reports that Zayd narrates from his great-great grandfather 'Alī appear as Prophetic hadiths in Sunni collections, such as the statement 'The ulema are the heirs of the prophets. The prophets have not left a dinar or a dirham; rather, they left knowledge as an inheritance among the scholars.'69 Small amālī, or dictation session, collections are very important in Zaydi Islam. Two famous ones are the Amālī of Abū Tālib Yahyā b. Husayn (d. 424/1033) and the Amālī al-sughrā of Imām al-Mu'ayyad Ahmad b. al-Husayn al-Hārūnī (d. 421/1030). Another central work of hadith and law is the Jāmi' al-kāfī of Abū 'Abdallāh Muhammad b. 'Alī of Kufa (d. 445/1053–4). Zaydis have generally drawn heavily on what we would define as the Sunni and Imami Shiite hadith reservoirs. Zaydi scholars regularly quote mainstream Sunni hadith collections as well as Imami works like the Usūl al-kāfī of al-Kulaynī and the Nahj al-balāgha of al-Sharīf al-Radī, choosing material that they feel conforms to Zaydi doctrine. Zaydis can draw from such eclectic sources because of the intermediate position that their school occupies between Sunni and Imami Shiite Islam. Sunni scholars that the Sunni tradition saw as favoring or cultivating a great affection for the Family of the Prophet are seen by Zaydis as pious Shiites. The Zaydi scholar Sārim al-Dīn al-Wazīrī (d. 914/1508) thus declares that al-Nasā'ī, who refused to write a book on the virtues of Mu'āwiya, al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī, who declared the hadith of Ghadīr Khumm to be sahīh, and al-Tabarī are all Shiites.70 The most important works of Zaydi hadith criticism appeared relatively late in Islamic history. Although these books draw at great length from earlier works of Zaydi hadith scholarship, few early works have survived intact. Zaydis view Ibn 'Uqda (d. 332/944) (mentioned above as a Sunni and an Imami hadith critic, an indication of how elastic these sectarian identities could be) as the progenitor of their formalized study of hadith transmitters and criticism, citing his many lost books on the various students who transmitted from imams like Ja'far al-Sādiq.71 The most frequently cited later works are al-Falak al-dawwār fī 'ulūm al-hadīth wa al-fiqh wa al-āthār (The Orbiting Heavenly Body on the Sciences of Hadith, Reports and Law), an ambitious one-volume work by the fifteenth-century scholar Sārim al-Dīn Ibrāhīm al-Wazīrī that lays out the basics of the Zaydi worldview, hadith criticism, important transmitters, and stances on major legal issues, as well as the Kitāb al-I'tisām of al-Qāsim b. Muhammad b. 'Alī (d. 1059/1620). SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING A further study of Shiite hadiths should begin with more involved reading on Shiism in general. Heinz Halm's Shi'ism (2nd ed., New York, 2004) is both succinct and comprehensive, discussing all the branches of Shiism. Moojan Momen's An Introduction of Shi'i Islam (New Haven, 1985) is a classic guide to Imami Shiism in particular. For specific discussions of Shiite hadith, see Etan Kohlberg's chapter 'Shī'ī Hadīth' in The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: Arabic Literature until the End of the Umayyad Period (London, 1983) as well as his article 'Al-Usūl al-Arba'umi'a' in Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 10 (1987). Ron P. Buckley's article 'On the Origins of Shī'i Hadīth' in Muslim World 88, no. 2 (1998), Robert Gleave's 'Between Hadīth and Fiqh: The "Canonical" Imāmī Collections of Akhbār' in Islamic Law and Society 8, no. 3 (2001), and Andrew Newman's The Formative Period of Twelver Shī'ism: Hadīth as Discourse between Qum and Baghdad (Richmond, Surrey, 2000) are also very informative. Anyone interested in the early period of Shiism under the imams should consult Hossein Modaressi's encyclopedic Tradition and Survival: A Bibliographical Survey of Early Shī'ite Literature Vol. 1 (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003). For a summary of the circumscribed Ismaili hadith tradition, see Ismail Poonwala, 'Hadith Isma'ilism' in the Encyclopedia Iranica. For an analysis of Imami Shiite hadith criticism, see Asma Afsaruddin's article 'An Insight into the Hadīth Methodology of Jamāl al-Dīn Ah.mad b. T.āwūs,' Der Islam 72, no. 1 (1995): 25–46. For original works of Shiite hadith scholarship in translation, see a fascinating section of al-Kulaynī's Al-Kāfī, trans. Muhammad Hasan al-Rizvani (Karachi, 1995) and 'Abd al-Hādī al-Fadlī and al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Introduction to Hadīth, including Dirāyat al-Hadīth, trans. Nazmina Virjee (London, 2002). ENDNOTES 1 Muhammad b. Ya'qūb al-Kulaynī, Al-Kāfī (Karachi), p. 150. 2 Ibid., pp. 158–160. 3 Ibid., pp. 136–137. 4 Heinz Halm, Shi'ism, p. 36. 5 Ibid., pp. 36–37. 6 Ibid., p. 42. 7 Etan Kohlberg, 'Shī'ī Hadīth,' p. 301. 8 Hossein Modaressi, Tradition and Survival, p. 81. 9 Kohlberg, 'Shī'ī Hadīth, pp. 300–301. 10 Ibid., p. 306. 11 Modaressi, Tradition and Survival, p. 228. 12 Ibid., p. 147. 13 Kohlberg, 'Shī'ī Hadīth,' p. 304. 14 Kohlberg, 'Al-Usūl al-Arba'umi'a,' p. 133. 15 Ibid., p. 170. 16 Ron Buckley, 'On the Origins of Shī'i Hadīth,' p. 182. 17 Robert Gleave, 'Between Hadīth and Fiqh: The "Canonical" Imāmī Collections of Akhbār,' p. 351. 18 Al-Kulaynī, al-Usūl al-kāfī, vol. 1, pp. 45–49. 19 Ibn Bābawayh, Man lā yahduruhu al-faqīh, vol. 1, p. 71. 20 Al-Sharīf al-Murtadā, 'al-Man' min al-'amal bi-khabar al-wāhid,' in Masā'il al-Murtadā, p. 81. 21 Gleave, p. 352. 22 Kohlberg, 'Al-Usūl al-Arba'umi'a,' p. 135. 23 See al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-i'tidāl, vol. 3, p. 124. 24 Devin Stewart, 'The Genesis of the Akhbārī Revival,' p. 188. 25 Kohlberg, 'Shī'ī Hadīth,' p. 306. 26 Kohlberg, 'Al-Usūl al-Arba'umi'a,' p. 137. 27 Ibid., pp. 139–140. 28 Ibid., p. 141. 29 Mohammed Amir Moezzi, The Divine Guide in Early Shiism, pp. 89–90. 30 Halm, p. 58. 31 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī (Karachi), pp. 129–130. 32 Kohlberg, 'Al-Usūl al-Arba'umi'a,' pp. 139–141. 33 Ahmad b. 'Alī al-Najāshī, Rijāl al-Najāshī, vol. 1, pp. 225, 240. 34 Gleave, p. 372. 35 'Abd al-Hādī al-Fadlī and al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Introduction to Hadīth, including Dirāyat al-Hadīth, p. 25. 36 Ibid., p. 34. 37 Ibid., p. 26. 38 Ibid., p. 25. 39 Cf. Kohlberg, 'Shī'ī Hadīth,' p. 303. 40 Halm, p. 51. 41 Al-Fadlī and al-Thānī, p. 26. 42 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī (Karachi), p. 179–180. 43 Buckley, p. 168. 44 Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-i'tidāl, vol. 4, p. 357. 45 Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb fadā'il ashāb al-Nabī, bāb manāqib qarābat Rasūl Allāh. 46 Buckley, p. 168. 47 Ibn Abī Ya'lā, Tabaqāt al-hanābila, vol. 2, p. 156. 48 Kohlberg, 'Shī'ī Hadīth,' p. 299. 49 Ibid., p. 303. 50 Al-Kulaynī, Al-Kāfī (Karachi), p. 147. 51 Ibn Bābawayh, Amālī al-sadūq, p. 7. 52 Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-i'tidāl, vol. 2, p. 492; al-Hākim, al-Mustadrak, vol. 3, p. 154. 53 Al-Suyūtī, al-La'ālī al-masnū'a, vol. 1, pp. 308–313; idem, al-Khasā'is al-kubrā, vol. 2, p. 82; al-Albānī, Silsilat al-ahādith al-da'īfa, vol. 2, p. 395. 54 Ibn Bābawayh, Amālī, p. 9; Abū Nu'aym al-Isbahānī, Hilyat al-awliyā' fī tabaqāt al-asfiyā', vol. 6, p. 120. 55 Cf. Halm, pp. 58–59. 56 'Musnad 'Alī Ridā,' p. 446. 57 Al-Rāfi'ī, Al-Tadwīn fī akhbār Qazwīn, vol. 3, p. 482; Sunan Ibn Mājah: muqaddima, bāb fī al-īmān. 58 Kohlberg, 'Al-Usūl al-Arba'umi'a,' pp. 130–131. 59 Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī, Tabaqāt al-shāfi'iyya al-kubrā, vol. 1, pp. 314–316. 60 J. Brown, 'Crossing Sectarian Boundaries,' pp. 55–58. 61 Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, pp. 324–325. 62 Ibn Bābawayh, Amālī, p. 2. 63 Nāsir al-Dīn Qazvīnī, Ketāb-e naqd, pp. 576–578. 64 The hadith of 'Alī's name being written on the doorway to Paradise does, however, appear in the Kitāb fadā'il al-sahāba of Ahmad b. Hanbal; Ibn Hanbal, Kitāb fadā'il al-sahāba, vol. 2, p. 665. 65 Muhammad Yahyā al-'Azzān, Al-Sahāba 'ind al-zaydiyya, p. 56. 66 'Abdallāh Hamūd al-'Izzī, 'Ilm al-hadīth 'ind al-zaydiyya p. 42. 67 Al-Miswarī, Al-Risāla al-munqidha, pp. 60–62. 68 Al-'Izzī, 'Ilm al-hadīth 'ind al-zaydiyya, p. 271. 69 Zayd b. 'Alī, Musnad Zayd b. 'Alī, p. 383. 70 Sārim al-Dīn Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr, Al-Falak al-dawwār fī 'ulūm al-hadīth wa al-fiqh wa al-āthār, pp. 69, 222. 71 Al-'Izzī, 'Ilm al-hadīth 'ind al-zaydiyya, p. 225. THE FUNCTION OF PROPHETIC TRADITIONS IN ISLAMIC LAW AND LEGAL THEORY THE AUTHORITY OF THE SUNNA IN LAW All Muslims believe that the Quran is the primary source of Islamic law. Throughout Islamic history, the vast preponderance of Muslims have also affirmed that the teachings of the Prophet adjust, augment and explain the Holy Book, although they have disagreed on how and to what extent it occurs. The Quran is not a detailed legal manual. Only about five hundred of the book's verses provide legal injunctions, and even on major questions such as ritual prayer the Quran is often vague. For both Sunni and Shiite Islam, the Prophet's Sunna has thus proven an essential resource for explaining and supplementing the Quranic message. As the Companion 'Imrān b. Husayn supposedly told a person who wanted to take religious law only from the Holy Book and not from the Sunna, 'Indeed you are an idiot, do you find in the Book of God prayer explained!? Do you find in it fasting explained!? Indeed the Quran ordains this, but the Sunna explains it.'1 As the lens through which the Quran was understood, the Sunna of the Prophet has controlled the way in which Muslims have interpreted the Quranic revelation. Although no Muslim would claim that the word of Muhammad is ontologically equal or superior to the word of God, early Sunnis such as Yahyā b. Abī Kathīr (d. 129/747) long ago acknowledged that 'The Sunna came to rule over the Quran, it is not the Quran that rules over the Sunna.'2 This was not in any way an admission of any deficiency in the Quran – rather it recognizes that the book required the Prophet's example and teachings in order to explain its verses and unlock its manifold meanings to an evolving community. As many early Muslims such as Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī (d. 131/748) noted, 'The Quran needs the Sunna more than the Sunna needs the Quran.'3 Muslim schools of thought at various times have insisted, out of principle, that the words of a mere mortal, even Muhammad, could never conceivably carry more interpretive weight than the word of God. Yet they have all historically recognized that, whichever way one chooses to phrase it, the Prophet's legacy has profoundly informed and altered the way the Quran's legal message has been understood. The word 'Sunna,' of course, is not fully synonymous with 'hadith.' In the first century and a half of Islamic history, 'sunna' was often understood as the accepted set of practices and beliefs of the Muslim community as passed on from the Companions. A 'hadith' was merely a report from the Prophet that may or may not have actually been acted on as a rule in daily Muslim life. Shu'ba b. al-Hajjāj was thus considered a master of hadiths but not of sunna, while Sufyān al-Thawrī (d. 161/778) was considered a master of both.4 We have already seen that Mālik believed that the practice of the people of Medina, which he felt had been transmitted en masse from the time of the Prophet, was a much more reliable source for discovering the Prophet's Sunna than a solitary hadith narrated by one isnād. By the time of Mālik's student al-Shāfi'ī, however, among the ahl al-hadīth a concerted study of hadiths had become the essential route for learning and implementing the Sunna of the Prophet. The importance of hadiths in the Sunni derivation of Islamic law is clear from the sources from which the different Sunni schools of law drew. Hanafīs ranked the sources of law as 1) the Quran, 2) sound hadiths, 3) Companion opinions, and 4) methods of legal reasoning based on the Quran and Sunna. Al-Shāfi'ī consulted 1) the Quran and reliable hadiths, 2) the consensus of scholars, 3) Companion opinions, and 4) analogical reasoning based on the Quran and Sunna. Mālikīs described their sources of law as 1) the Quran, 2) the Prophet's Sunna, which was understood through hadiths, Companion rulings, and the practice of Medina, 3) consensus, 4) legal reasoning and communal needs. Hanbalīs described Ibn Hanbal's sources of law as 1) the Quran and reliable hadiths, 2) the consensus of the early community, 3) Companion opinions, 4) weak hadiths, and 5) analogical reasoning based on the Quran and Sunna.5 It is worth noting that accepting the Sunna and hadiths as an essential source of Islamic law was not uncontested. In the first two centuries of Islam (and indeed, in the modern period as well, see chapter 10), there were schools of thought that rejected the use of hadiths in Islamic law entirely. The works of al-Shāfi'ī record his disputations with these scholars, known to Sunnis as the 'People of Speculative Theology (ahl al-kalām),' who could not accept the idea of taking their religion and its laws from reports transmitted merely 'from so-and-so, from so-and-so.'6 This was a function fit for something as historically reliable as the Quran alone. This extreme skepticism towards hadiths, however, died out in classical Sunni and Shiite Islam, although its traces will be seen below in the Mu'tazilite approach to hadiths. Sunni Islam in particular followed the reasoning with which al-Shāfi'ī had confronted the 'People of Speculative Theology': without the Sunna and hadiths, how could Muslims know the details of prayer or of the Ramadan fast?7 THE INTERACTION OF THE SUNNA WITH THE QURAN IN LAW Al-Shāfi'ī offered a succinct description of the manner in which the Sunna could affect interpretation of the Quran. First, the Prophet could demonstrate that the meaning of a general Quranic verse was more specific than it appeared. The Quran, for example, states 'The thief, male or female, cut off their hand in retribution for what they have done, an exemplary punishment from God, for God is mighty and wise' (Quran 5:38). We learn from a hadith narrated from the Prophet by Aisha, however, that we should 'not cut off someone's hand for an item whose value is less than a quarter dinar' (1/4 dinar is approximately $25). From other hadiths we learn that the punishment also does not apply in cases of stealing things from unsecured locations, embezzlement or taking things publicly.8 The Sunna also clarified ambiguous or vague Quranic commands. The Quran orders Muslims to pray and fast, but only the Sunna explains how these rituals are performed. The Sunna could also abrogate or add entirely new information to the Quran. The Quran forbids Muslims from eating carrion, but in a famous hadith the Prophet approves of a group of Muslims who had eaten the meat of a dead whale they had found on the beach, for he reminds them that everything that comes from the sea is permissible to eat. Hadiths also inform Muslims that they can eat dead grasshoppers they find. The Quran forbids men from marrying their mothers, sisters, daughters, or aunts (with the corresponding male relationships for women implied as well), saying that women 'other than these are permissible' (Quran 4:24). Hadiths add that a man cannot marry a woman and her aunt at the same time. Traditional Sunni scholars have uniformly rejected the hadith, invoked by Mu'tazilites, that orders Muslims to reject hadiths that differ with the Quran. As al-Shāfi'ī said, such an idea was 'pure ignor-ance,' since the purpose of hadiths was to explain, modify, and add to the Quran. Hadiths could thus by definition break with the evident meaning of Quranic verses. Coming from the ahl al-ra'y tradition, the Hanafīs also recognized these interactions between the Sunna and the Quran, although as we will see they maintained different standards for when hadiths could fulfill these functions. Hanafī legal theorists discussed how hadiths could reinforce Quranic rulings (called an 'affirming indication,' or bayān taqrīr), add explanatory information to a Quranic ruling (called an 'explanatory indication,' or bayān tafsīr), or replace and restrict a Quranic ruling (called an 'abrogating indication,' or bayān tabdīl).'9 DIFFERENT CONDITIONS FOR THE USE OF HADITHS IN LAW The ahl al-hadīth movement (the original core of Sunni Islam) was built on the premise that a report established as coming from the Prophet was legally compelling. As al-Shāfi'ī famously stated, 'If the hadith is reliable, then that is my ruling (in sahha al-hadīth fa-hādhā madhhabī).'10 Both sahīh and hasan hadiths were considered admissible in law, and we have seen that early ahl al-hadīth jurists like Ibn Hanbal sometimes acted on weak hadiths if they could find no other evidence whatsoever on a particular issue. When Sunni legal theory matured in the eleventh century, it was accepted that, although āhād (i.e., non-massively transmitted) hadiths did not yield epistemological certainty (yaqīn) that the Prophet had made that statement, they did yield a very strong probability (zann). This was sufficient for fixing law and ritual. While almost all legal hadiths were āhād, the Quran was epistemologically certain, massively transmitted from the time of the Prophet. This posed a problem for proponents of the majority Ash'arī school of legal theory (subscribed to by Shāfi'ī, Mālikī, and many Hanbalī scholars). These legal theorists could not accept that an āhād hadith, which conveyed mere probability, could replace a Quranic ruling. They therefore rejected the doctrine that āhād hadiths could abrogate (naskh) the Quran. But if this were the case, then how could they explain rulings such as allowing eating dead fish or the prohibition on marrying a woman and her aunt? As the Ash'arī legal theorist Ibn Fūrak (d. 406/1015) cleverly explained, this was possible because such a ruling could be phrased as an āhād hadith specifying or adjusting Quranic verses, not replacing their rulings.11 The various groups that made up the Partisans of Legal Reasoning (ahl al-ra'y) also accepted the compelling power of hadiths. In principle, no Muslim could argue that the Prophet's words merited anything short of obedience. Abū Hanīfa is quoted as saying, 'Whoever says that we prefer our own legal reasoning (qiyās) to a revealed text [from the Prophet] has lied, by God, and defamed us. For what need is there for legal reasoning in the presence of such a text!?'12 The crux of the difference between the ahl al-hadīth and the ahl al-ra'y was how one determined if a hadith was reliable enough to be accepted in law. As a rule, the Hanafī school of law does not allow hadiths to abrogate or specify the evident meaning of Quranic verses unless the report is mashhūr (widespread and accepted by jurists). They viewed specification (takhsīs) of a Quranic verse as a form of abrogation (naskh) of the holy book and therefore did not permit it by āhād hadiths. For example, the other three Sunni schools of law require a Muslim to have the intention to perform his ritual ablutions before he starts washing on the basis of the famous hadith 'Indeed deeds are [judged] by intentions (innamā al-a'māl bi'l-niyyāt).' But because this hadith is only narrated by one solitary chain of transmission for four stages in the isnād (Prophet 'Umar b. al-Khattāb 'Alqama b. Waqqās Muhammad b. Ibrāhīm Yahyā b. Sa'īd al-Ansārī), the Hanafīs do not consider it widespread enough to adjust the Quran, which simply instructs Muslims to wash certain parts of their bodies for ablutions (Quran 5:6). For Hanafīs, then, one can take a shower and then retroactively count that as one's ablutions even if one had not intended to do so while showering. In the case of a hadith that is not widely enough transmitted to be deemed mashhūr, Hanafīs do not accept it in legal discussions if it deals with a case of 'umūm al-balwā, or an issue of great importance to Islamic law. If the issue addressed by the hadith were crucial for Muslims' understanding of their religion, then God and His prophet would have assured that it was transmitted by more reliable means. Hanafīs also do not accept a non-mashhūr hadith if the early scholars who transmitted it did not act according to its ruling. If the hadith truly represented the Prophet's Sunna, then why would a pious narrator not follow it? Finally, until the 1000s CE many Hanafī jurists favored their own legal reasoning over a non-mashhūr hadith if its transmitters were not considered skilled in legal analysis. A hadith from Sahīh al-Bukhārī quotes the Prophet permitting parties in a sales transaction to change their minds up until 'the two part company.' Although accepted as a rule in the Shāfi'ī and Hanbalī schools, this broke with the Hanafī school's principle that sales are finalized upon agreement, barring some fraud or defect. Hanafīs did not reject this hadith outright. Rather, they turned to comments on it by the Kufan authority Ibrāhīm al-Nakha'ī (d. 96/717), who explained that 'parting company' was understood not in the physical sense but as the verbal end of the negotiation.13 The Mālikī school of law was also considered by some to be part of the ahl al-ra'y movement. It is very difficult, however, to determine exactly what the early Mālikī stance on hadiths was. Mālik himself often rejected hadiths that contradicted the practice of the people of Medina. For example, Mālik also did not act on the evident meaning of the 'parting company' hadith because it was not acted on in Medina. He also took the meaning of 'parting company' as ending the negotiation. Mālik also chose not to act on hadiths that he recognized as reliable if he feared they would lead to misunderstandings or facilitate prohibited acts (a concept known as sadd al-dharā'i', or 'blocking means'). He did not allow acting on a sahīh hadith that recommended that Muslims fast for six days in the month immediately following the obligatory month-long fast of Ramadan because he feared people would confuse this optional fast with the required one.14 The Mu'tazilite school of theology and legal theory, of course, retained the most rigorous standards for accepting hadiths for use in law. According to later Mu'tazilites, the founder of the school, Wāsil b. 'Atā' (d. 131/750), would only accept hadiths if they were agreed upon as authentic by the whole community of scholars.15 For matters of law, the Mu'tazilite master Abū Hudhayl (d. 200/815) required a hadith to have four separate narrations, although later members of the school required only two.16 WEAK HADITHS AND PRACTICE: DIFFERENT PROOFS FOR THE AUTHENTICITY OF LEGAL HADITHS During the formative first three centuries of the Sunni legal tradition, there was a diversity of approaches to weighing the evidence provided by isnāds against the accepted practice of legal scholars. Despite their obsession with the isnād as the only means of authenticating hadiths, early ahl al-hadīth jurists affirmed that the widespread acceptance of a legal ruling could offset a lackluster isnād. In such a case, it is actually the accepted practice of Muslim scholars that justifies the ruling. The hadith only embodies it in the Prophetic word. The Quran specifies certain family relations who automatically inherit if a family member dies (Quran 4:11–12). In a hadith that appears in the Four Sunans of al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasā'ī, Abū Dāwūd and Ibn Mājah, the Prophet states that 'The killer does not inherit,' meaning that if someone murders someone from whom they stand to inherit, they will not inherit anything. Despite being widely quoted, al-Tirmidhī notes that 'this hadith is not sound,' an opinion with which later critics agree. Yet al-Tirmidhī adds, 'practice has been based on this hadith amongst the people of knowledge.' Indeed, though this hadith is the only scriptural basis for this position, the ruling has been agreed upon by all schools of law in Islam.17 Another famous example occurs in the case of inheritance as well. The Quran and hadiths set detailed regulations for how much a person must leave to each of his or her inheritors – a person can distribute no more than one third of the estate to people of his or her own choosing. In a famous hadith, however, the Prophet declares, 'No bequest to an inheritor unless the inheritors all agree (lā wasiyya li-wārith illā in shā'a al-waratha)'; in other words, one cannot leave part of this third to someone who already inherits automatically. Every one of the many narrations of this hadith suffers from some flaw in the isnād according to Muslim hadith critics. But as al-Shāfi'ī and the Mālikī hadith scholar of Lisbon, Ibn 'Abd al-Barr (d. 463/1070), declared, 'With reports like this that became well established among all the scholars, it is not necessary to provide an isnād. For its widespread transmission and well-known status among them is stronger than any isnād.'18 Some also maintained that juridical mastery obviated the need to cite an isnād at all. From the early Islamic period onward, jurists from the Hanafī school held that a competent scholar of the early period need not provide an isnād for a hadith he cited. Unlike the Partisans of Hadith, they therefore considered mursal hadiths (hadiths in which an early scholar such as a Successor quoted the Prophet without an isnād, see chapter 3) to be acceptable proofs in legal discourse. They argued that when Abū Hanīfa cited the Prophet's words or deeds as legal proof without providing any isnād, this was because he was so confident in the authenticity of the hadith that he did not bother with a chain of transmission.19 In addition, in the time of Abū Hanīfa (who was considered a Successor because he had seen the Companion Anas b. Mālik as a boy) it had not become predominate practice for scholars to provide isnāds. Mālik thus frequently included mursal hadiths in his Muwatta'. Al-Shāfi'ī, however, led the Partisans of Hadith attack on mursal hadiths and insisted on providing an isnād in order to prove the reliability of one's hadith. He stated that he had examined the mursal hadiths in circulation and found that only those of the senior Successor Sa'īd b. al-Musayyab were reliable, since it was assumed that he had heard them all through his father-in-law Abū Hurayra.20 Because there was a break in the isnāds of mursal hadiths, the ahl al-hadīth considered them to be unreliable. Scholars from the Shāfi'ī and Hanbalī schools of law thus only used mursal hadiths as evidence if they came from Sa'īd b. al-Musayyab, when they were backed up by the legal rulings of Companions or to tip the balance in the case of two competing hadiths.21 THE EVOLVING USE OF HADITHS IN THE SUNNI SCHOOLS OF LAW Although hadiths have played an undeniably crucial role in constructing Islamic law, that role has not remained static since the early period of Muslim legal thought. As we saw in the musannaf period, early legal scholars like Mālik b. Anas relied on Companion opinions and the rulings of early jurists from the Successor generation more often than Prophetic hadiths. Companion opinions and analogical legal reasoning ranked highly among the sources of law that the Shāfi'ī, Mālikī, Hanafī, and Hanbalī schools identified. By the ninth century, however, it had become necessary for schools of law to find Prophetic hadiths to justify their stances. In his massive book of substantive law, the Umm, al-Shāfi'ī had cited only about four thousand three hundred hadiths with full isnāds to the Prophet as evidence. The eleventh-century Shāfi'ī scholar Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī, however, filled his massive Sunan al-kubrā (The Great Sunan) with over twenty thousand narrations from the Prophet in order to back up every detail of Shāfi'ī law. The history of Sunni legal thought, however, was not a linear process of collecting more and more hadiths to justify a certain legal position. The Sunni schools of law were evolving interpretive traditions that presented evidence in different ways depending on their needs. Each madhhab (school of law) represented a tradition of transmitting, explaining, reexamining, adjusting and adapting the body of law originated by its founding figures. In the case of the Hanbalī school of law, for example, the legal opinions given by Ibn Hanbal were collected from his senior students by Abū Bakr b. al-Khallāl (d. 311/923–4). His student al-Khiraqī (d. 334/945–6) sifted through the many and sometimes seemingly contradictory opinions of Ibn Hanbal, attempting to place each one in its proper context. His work, known as the Mukhtasar (The Abridgement), was the foundational text of the Hanbalī school. Later scholars transformed this work to fit various needs. Ibn Qudāma (d. 620/1223), for example, channeled the Mukhtasar into four works of increasing size and complexity: the 'Umda (The Pillar), designed to introduce students of the school to its principal rulings; the Muqni' (The Convincing Book), which introduced Hanbalī students to the various differences of opinion among the school's major figures; the Kāfī (The Sufficient Book), which introduced students to the evidence and argumentation for these positions; and finally the huge Mughnī (The Obviating Book), which added more evidence and the opinions of other schools of law as well. The Muqni' was digested by Mūsā al-Hajjāwī (d. 968/1560) into a small and easily memorized text called the Zād al-mustaqni' (Provisions for One Seeking Certainty), which provided the official Hanbalī stances on issues of law. This work was then explained by Mansūr al-Buhūtī (d. 1051/1641) in his al-Rawd al-murbi' (The Abundant Garden), in which the author expanded the work and also provided the reader with evidence for its rulings. In these works, the Hanbalī school's use of hadiths expanded and contracted according to the purpose of a particular book. We can see this clearly in the example of the Hanbalī position on how someone should pray if he is too weak to stand or even sit up straight: he should lie on his side facing the direction of prayer, nodding with his head to represent the normal bowings and prostrations of prayer. The Mukhtasar of al-Khiraqī does not concern itself with providing evidence on this – it merely seeks to identify Ibn Hanbal's stances on legal issues. The lengthy Mughnī of Ibn Qudāma, however, provides a myriad of Quranic verses, hadiths, and early scholarly opinions to justify Ibn Hanbal's choice. We find Ibn Qudāma citing a hadith that Ibn Hanbal had included in his famous Musnad: The Prophet said to 'Imrān b. Husayn: 'Pray standing, and if you cannot, then sitting, and if you cannot, then on your side (salli qā'iman wa in lam tastati' fa-qā'idan wa in lam tastati' fa-'alā janb).' This was excellent evidence for the Hanbalī opinion, since the hadith had been included in the Sahīhayn and was thus extremely reliable. Ibn Qudāma also lists other hadiths transmitted by al-Nasā'ī that add that the person should lie down fully if unable to lie on his side.22 Centuries later, however, when al-Buhūtī was providing evidence for the Hanbalī position in his Rawd al-murbī', he omitted these reliable hadiths and instead used an otherwise very weak hadith from the Sunan of al-Dāraqutnī. The reason for this was clear: this one hadith lays out the Hanbalī position word for word! It reads: The Prophet said: The sick person should pray standing if he can. If he cannot, he should pray sitting down. If he is unable to prostrate, he gestures with his head and makes the gesture of prostration lower than the gesture representing bowing. If he is unable to pray sitting, he should pray on his right side facing the direction of prayer, and if he is unable to do that he should lie with his legs facing the direction of prayer.23 In the Mughnī, Ibn Qudāma sought to collect the most reliable hadiths as evidence to support the Hanbalī school. For al-Buhūtī, the school's position was already justified. He only wanted to provide his reader with one concise piece of evidence that summarized it even if that hadith was unreliable. IKHTILĀF AL-HADĪTH: DISAGREEMENT AND DIFFERING INTERPRETATION OF HADITHS AMONG JURISTS The Prophet taught thousands of followers, interacted with his community for twenty-three years, and acted as a judge and political leader for the last ten. As a result, sifting through his Companions' sundry recollections of his words in order to determine his precedent (Sunna) was a monumental task. The vast number and complex meaning of the hadiths with which jurists had to contend in their attempts to derive Islamic law made the hadith tradition fertile ground for disagreement and varying interpretations. Even a cursory reading of major hadith collections illustrates the difficulty of reaching definitive conclusions based on hadiths. In al-Tirmidhī's Jāmi', for example, we find one section listing hadiths forbidding drinking while standing up followed by another section with hadiths describing how the Companions saw the Prophet drinking while standing up! In addition to determining which hadiths to act on, a Muslim scholar had to place these hadiths within the framework of Quranic injunctions and the specific interests of the Muslim community. A common saying among Muslim scholars thus identifies hadith critics with pharmacists, who provide the medicine, and legal scholars with doctors, who know how to use this medicine properly.24 Disagreement was often the outcome of limited access. As we have seen, in its first two centuries the hadith tradition was highly localized. In Medina, Mālik did not have access to the same hadiths as Abū Hanīfa in Kufa. These two jurists were thus working from different bodies of hadiths. Al-Shāfi'ī is reported to have said that the hadiths that provide the basis for all legal rulings (usūl al-ahkām) are only fifty or so in number. He adds that his teacher Mālik only had thirty, while his teacher Sufyān b. 'Uyayna (d. 196/811) in Mecca had all but six.25 Assuming that scholars had access to the same hadiths, what are the factors that could lead Muslim jurists to reach different legal conclusions on their basis? Why might a scholar ignore a hadith or take one over another? The fourteenth-century analyst Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) explained that disagreements over the Prophet's Sunna as communicated by the hadith literature revolved around three points.26 First, a scholar might not have thought that a certain hadith was reliable. Instead, he might have chosen another narration over it. For an example, let us turn to al-Tirmidhī's Jāmi', which documented legal disagreement as well as hadiths. In his section on how one should say 'Amen' in prayer, al-Tirmidhī writes: It was reported to us by Bundār Muhammad b. Bashshār: it was reported to us by Yahyā b. Sa'īd al-Qattān and 'Abd al-Rahmān b. Mahdī: it was reported to us by Sufyān, from Salama b. Kuhayl, from Hujr b. 'Anbas, from Wā'il b. Hujr: he said, 'I heard the Prophet read [the Quranic verse in prayer] "And not those rejected by God nor those who have gone astray" and then he said, "Amen," stretching out his words.' And on that issue there are also hadiths from 'Alī b. Abī Tālib and Abū Hurayra. The hadith of Wā'il b. Hujr is a hasan hadith, and that is the position of more than one of the people of knowledge from among the Companions of the Prophet, the Successors and those after them. They hold that a person raises his voice in saying 'Amen' and does not say it silently. This is the opinion of al-Shāfi'ī, Ahmad b. Hanbal and Ishāq b. Rāhawayh. But Shu'ba b. al-Hajjāj narrated this hadith from Salama b. Kuhayl, from Hujr b. al-'Anbas, from 'Alqama b. Wā'il, from his father, that 'the Prophet read [the verse] "Not those rejected by God nor those who have gone astray," and said "Amen" but lowered his voice.' I heard Muhammad [al-Bukhārī] say, 'the first hadith, [that] of Sufyān, is more authentic than the [second] hadith, [that] of Shu'ba on that issue. And Shu'ba erred at several points in the hadith, saying "from Hujr b. al-'Anbas", when it is really 'Hujr b. 'Anbas... and he added in the hadith "from 'Alqama b. Wā'il" when that is not part of the hadith's [isnād]. Rather it is "from Hujr b. 'Anbas, from Wā'il b. Hujr." Finally, [Shu'ba] said, "and he lowered his voice," when really it is "and he extended his voice in saying Amen." I asked Abū Zur'a [al-Rāzī] about that hadith and he said, 'Sufyān's hadith on that issue is more authentic than Shu'ba's.' He added, 'And there is [a hadith of] al-'Alā' b. Sālih al-Asadī, from Salama b. Kuhayl, like the narration of Sufyān. It was reported to us by Abū Bakr Muhammad b. Abān: it was reported to us by 'Abdallāh b. Numayr: it was reported to us by al-'Alā' b. Sālih al-Asadī, from Salama b. Kuhayl, from Hujr b. 'Anbas, from Wā'il b. Hujr, from the Prophet, the likes of Sufyān's hadith, from Salama b. Kuhayl.'27 Here we see the debate surrounding two narrations of the same hadith, one through Sufyān, from Salama b. Kuhayl, which describes the Prophet saying 'Amen' out loud during prayer; and one through Shu'ba, from Salama b. Kuhayl that says the opposite. Jurists like al-Shāfi'ī and Ibn Hanbal chose Sufyān's narration, which describes the Prophet saying 'Amen' out loud, rejecting Shu'ba's version. Al-Tirmidhī provides the opinions of the influential hadith critics al-Bukhārī and Abū Zur'a al-Rāzī to explain why: Shu'ba's narration includes an error (a very minor one!) in the name of the transmitters and adds another transmitter incorrectly into the isnād. More import-antly, al-'Alā' b. Sālih al-Asadī's narration of the hadith from Salama b. Kuhayl corroborates Sufyān's narration of 'Amen' being said out loud. The hadith scholars' critical method, focusing on the reliability of the isnād and corroboration, thus led many jurists to uphold saying 'Amen' out loud in prayer. Second, a jurist might conclude that one hadith had abrogated another one, annulling and replacing its ruling. All hadith scholars and jurists acknowledged an authentic hadith in which the Prophet instructed Muslims to perform ablutions after eating food cooked by fire. Al-Suyūtī even declared it mutawātir.28 Sunni scholars, however, agreed on hadiths transmitted by Ibn 'Abbās and Abū Bakr that during the last few years of his life in Medina the Prophet had been served a cooked lamb shoulder and then had prayed his afternoon prayer without performing ablutions. The Companions therefore understood that the earlier requirement for ablutions had been nullified.29 Several hadith scholars penned books devoted to listing and analyzing hadiths that abrogated or were abrogated. Ibn Hanbal's student Abū Bakr Ahmad al-Athram (d. 261/875) wrote his Nāsikh al-hadīth wa mansūkhuhu (Abrogating and Abrogated Hadiths), Ibn Shāhīn (d. 385/996) of Baghdad and Abū Bakr al-Hāzimī (d. 584/1188–89) also wrote large and widely studied works on hadith abrogation. Finally, a jurist might not have thought that a hadith addressed a particular issue or may have weighed it against other evidence in a manner that differed from other jurists. We have already seen that Hanafīs did not allow hadiths to modify or abrogate Quranic rulings unless they were well established. This led Hanafīs to break with the other Sunni schools of law in not requiring Muslims to declare their intentions before performing ritual ablutions. Mālik, for his part, favored the practice of Medinans over many hadiths. In the case of the apparent contradiction between hadiths in which the Prophet instructed his followers not to drink while standing up and hadiths describing the Prophet doing just that, many jurists understood this as meaning that drinking standing up was discouraged but nonetheless permissible.30 The context in which a hadith appeared could have tremendous impact in its implications. We find, for example, two narrations of a hadith narrated from 'Urwa b. al-Zubayr, from his aunt Aisha, from the Prophet. In one the Prophet states 'Whoever is tried by having daughters and perseveres with them, they will veil him from the Hellfire [on the Day of Judgment].' This report does not leave a very positive impression of daughters! In the second narration, however, we find illuminating details. Aisha recounts how 'A woman entered asking me [for food] and had two daughters with her. But all I had with me was a date, so I gave it to her, and she split it between her two daughters without eating any herself. When the Prophet came I told him of this, and he said, 'Whoever is tried by these daughters, they will be a veil from Hellfire [on the Day of Judgment].'31 In the modern period, context has strongly informed the use of another gender-related hadith. In his defense of women's right to hold public office, the Egyptian scholar Muhammad al-Ghazālī (d. 1996) noted that the majority of classical scholars had objected to women serving as judges on the basis of the sahīh hadith, 'The people who entrust their affairs to a woman will not succeed (lan yufliha qawm wallū amrahum imra'a).' Al-Ghazālī, however, retorts that the context in which this hadith was said clarifies its meaning. The Persian Sassanid Empire was experiencing internal political crises as well as military defeats at the hands of the Byzantines. In the midst of this trouble, the Sassanids brought a woman to the throne. The Prophet was merely noting that this would not prevent the empire's downfall.32 Ever creative, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūtī (d. 911/1505) wrote a book on the 'reasons for the appearance of hadiths' (Asbāb wurūd al-hadīth¸ the book had that same title), as did Ibrāhīm b. Hamza (d. 1708). These books, however, did not introduce any new information about hadiths. The context and motivations for the Prophet's statements were already found either within hadith collections or in commentaries on these works. Books like al-Suyūtī's simply culled that information from these sources and reorganized it. The different reasons for disagreement over interpreting hadiths could coincide. Al-Shāfi'ī described how scholars should address such situations. In a case of clashing hadiths, one should first examine which hadiths have the most reliable isnāds. First, he states unequivocally that no two reliable hadiths can be contradictory, since it is impossible for the Prophet to have an inconsistent Sunna. Instead, one must determine the proper relationship between the contrasting hadiths. Al-Shāfi'ī states that hadiths that convey different rulings on an issue may indicate that the Prophet intended there to be latitude and flexibility. If this is not the case, then the one hadith might address certain circumstances and the second one other circumstances. If neither of these options is possible, one hadith must abrogate the other. The scholars who emerged amongst the early generations of Muslims were key resources in fitting the data provided by individual, reliable hadiths into a coherent system. As Abū Dāwūd wrote in his Sunan, 'If two reports from the Messenger of God clash, one looks to what the Companions and those who came after them acted on.'33 We can see the way in which reconciliation and abrogation interacted in the question of 'the Two Prostrations of Error (sajdatā al-sahw).' When Muslims perform their canonical prayer – done five times daily – their prayers consist of a fixed cycle of actions and utterances including bowing, prostrations, and kneeling. In the last prayer cycle of the prayer, the worshipper performs the 'Taslīm', or turning one's head to the right and left and saying 'May the peace and mercy of God be upon you (al-salām 'alaykum wa rahmat Allāh)' to the person to the right and left. This marks the end of the prayer. If a worshipper errs in the proper procedures of the prayer, they can touch their foreheads to the ground twice while seated at the end of the prayer. These two prostrations are called 'The Two Prostrations of Error.' The Shāfi'ī school holds that these prostrations should be done before the Taslīm, while Hanafīs maintain that they should be performed afterwards. Mālikīs and Hanbalīs take more subtle positions. The following is al-Tirmidhī's discussion of the different hadiths dealing with this issue and the different ways that scholars have interpreted them. He mentions a hadith affirming that the Two Prostrations are made before the Taslīm, only alluding to another famous one in which the Prophet prays them afterwards: It was reported to us by Qutayba [b. Sa'īd]: it was reported to us by al-Layth [b. Sa'd], from Ibn Shihāb [al-Zuhrī], from al-A'raj, from 'Abdallāh b. Bujayna al-Asadī, associate of the Banū 'Abd al-Muttalib [family], that the Prophet stood up in the Noon prayer when he should have remained seated, so when he finished his prayer he prostrated twice, saying 'God is most great (Allāhu akbar)' for both prostrations, before saying the final Taslīm [to exit the prayer]. And the congregation following the Prophet in prayer did the same as him. He had done this to make up for forgetting to remain seated during part of the prayer. ... The hadīth of Ibn Bujayna is a hasan sahīh hadith, and it is acted on by some of the people of knowledge, being the opinion of al-Shāfi'ī. He holds that the Prostrations of Error are always before the Taslīm, saying that this hadith abrogates the other hadiths on this issue. Al-Shāfi'ī mentions that this hadith represents the practice of the Prophet in the last stage of his career. Ahmad Ibn Hanbal and Ishāq b. Rāhawayh say that if someone stands up in prayer in the midst of his normal two prostrations he should perform the two Prostrations of Error before the Taslīm as per the hadith of Ibn Bujayna. The scholars have disagreed on when one should perform the two Prostrations of Error, before the Taslīm or after it? Some hold that one should perform them after the Taslīm; this is the position of Sufyān al-Thawrī and the Kufans [in other words, the Hanafīs]. Some have said 'before the Taslīm,' and this is the position of most the Medinan jurists like Yahyā b. Sa'īd, Rabī'a [al-Ra'y] and others. This is the opinion of al-Shāfi'ī. Others have said that if the mistake is adding something to the prayer then the Prostration of Error is after the Taslīm, and if it is an error of omission then before the Taslīm. This is the opinion of Mālik b. Anas. Ahmad Ibn Hanbal said, 'All the hadiths related from the Prophet concerning the two Prostrations of Error should be employed, each according to its specific context.' He sees that when the Prophet stood up incorrectly in the hadith of Ibn Bujayna, he prayed the two Prostrations before the Taslīm. When the Prophet accidentally prayed five prayer cycles during the Noon prayer (which consists of four) he prayed the two Prostrations after the Taslīm. And when the Prophet accidentally said the Taslīm after only two prayer cycles in the four-prayer-cycle Noon or Afternoon prayers, he did the two Prostrations after the Taslīm. So every report is acted on according to its specific context, and every error in prayer that is not mentioned in one of these hadiths, then the two Prostrations of Error should be before the Taslīm.34 On this issue, we see that al-Shāfi'ī concluded that the hadith of the Prophet performing the two Prostrations of Error before the Taslīm abrogated all earlier hadiths and represented the Prophet's final Sunna. Mālik and Ibn Hanbal, however, attempted to reconcile the contrasting hadiths on the issue. Several influential works were devoted to examining and attempting to reconcile seemingly contradictory hadiths. The first and most famous was al-Shāfi'ī's Ikhtilāf al-hadīth. The Hanafī scholar Abū Ja'far al-Tahāwī (d. 321/933) also wrote his voluminous Sharh mushkil al-āthār. Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889) devoted his Ta'wīl mukhtalif al-hadīth to defending and reconciling hadiths that Mu'tazilites had dismissed as contradictory or irrational. THE FUNCTION OF HADITHS IN ISLAMIC LEGAL THEORY Hadiths did not just provide much of the substance of Islamic law, they also informed the theories through which that law was understood and derived. The Prophet's legacy shaped the manner in which Muslim legal theorists discussed law and epistemology, and these theorists also turned to hadiths as justification for their own ideas. In chapter 3 we saw how Islamic legal theory (usūl al-fiqh) affected hadith criticism. Now let us examine how hadiths influenced Islamic legal theory. Interestingly, many of the most important hadiths in legal theory are considered weak (da'īf) by Muslim hadith critics. Genealogy of Knowledge and the Transmission of Authority from the Prophet The Sunni tradition portrays itself as a genealogy of transmission in which each generation of scholars inherits its knowledge and methods of reasoning from its teachers. Paralleling the isnād exactly, this chain continues back to the Prophet. It is this transmission from teacher to student that creates and passes on interpretive authority. The hadith that expressed this worldview and was frequently invoked to bolster it was narrated from the Prophet by the Companion Abū Dardā' and is found in the three sunans of Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, and Ibn Mājah: 'Indeed the scholars are the inheritors of the prophets (al-'ulamā' warathat al-anbiyā').' Books in the Sunni tradition (written, of course, by members of the scholarly class) frequently refer to the ulema by this honorific. The great thirteenth- century Sufi master Abū Hafs al-Suhrawardī (d. 632/1234) wrote to one of the most vaunted legal theorists of his day, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210), that the religious knowledge of the Muslim scholars is 'the greatest inheritance. For earthly inheritors received the inheritance of the world according to the rules of the people of the earthly world, while the prophets bequeath as their legacy divine wisdom. So know that, just as there is no station higher than that of prophethood, there is no honor above that of those who inherit this station.'35 Even the early scholar of the Successors, Abū al-Zinād (d. 130/748), used to tell his students that, just as the Quran ordered Muslims not to raise their voices over that of Muhammad, 'Silence in the presence of the scholars and respecting them is incumbent upon those learning, for the scholars are the inheritors of the prophets.'36 This hadith thus served to justify the Muslim scholarly class's role as the sole interpreters of the Prophet's message. Interestingly, most scholars, such as al-Suyūtī, consider this hadith to be weak.37 Ibn Hajar, however, notes that there are enough reports conveying this meaning to prove that the hadith has some basis in the Prophet's speech.38 The Companions were the first essential link in the Sunni genealogy of knowledge. They transmitted the Prophet's legacy in the form of hadiths. Moreover, in their own approaches to questions of law and dogma the Companions demonstrated the principles and methods of reasoning of the early Muslims. The Companions were the medium and lens through which the Prophet's teachings passed on to later generations. Not only were the actual legal rulings of senior Companions such as 'Alī, 'Umar, and Zayd b. Thābit an important legal source for later scholars like Abū Hanīfa and al-Shāfi'ī, but the Sunni worldview and notion of religious authority depended on a veneration of the Companions. If they could not be trusted, then how could one have confidence in the Shariah? A hadith commonly employed to affirm the Companions' suitability as the conduit for the transmission of this legal authority was 'My Companions are like the stars, which ever of them you follow, you will be rightly guided (ashābī ka'l-nujūm bi-ayyihim iqtadaytum ihtadaytum).' This hadith was commonly found in books of legal theory in order to prove that any Companion was a worthy representative of the Prophet's legal teachings. Both the ahl al-hadīth and ahl al-ra'y bent the hadith to their own purposes, however. Al-Shāfi'ī's student al-Muzanī (d. 264/878), who wrote the most important abridgement of al-Shāfi'ī's Umm, contended that it meant that the Companions were all upstanding hadith transmitters.39 The Hanafī legal theorist Fakhr al-Islām al-Bazdawī (d. 482/1089) argued that the hadith demonstrates that, like the Companions, Muslim scholars should employ their individual legal reasoning (ra'y).40 Yet this hadith is also considered unreliable or even forged by Muslim hadith critics. The manner in which these hadiths about the inheritance of knowledge in Islam were woven together by scholars can be seen in a work of the Damascene scholar Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), who wrote that, after believing in God and the Prophet, it is the duty of all Muslims to follow the scholars 'who are the inheritors of the prophets and whom God made like the stars, by whom one seeks guidance on land and sea.'41 The Authoritative Consensus of the Muslim Community (ijmā') The most powerful expression of authority in the Sunni tradition is not the Quran or even the Prophet's Sunna. Rather, it is ijmā', or the consensus of the community. As an adage of Cairo's al-Azhar University puts it, 'Consensus is the stable pillar on which the religion depends (al-ijmā' al-rukn al-rakīn yastanidu ilayhi al-dīn).' If the Sunna controls the interpretation of the Quran, then consensus controls the interpretation of the Sunna. In the controversial modern debate over whether or not Islam requires Muslim women to wear headscarves, some argue that this law is not found in the Quran and that the hadiths ordering it are not reliable. But since the community of Sunni scholars has historically declared that it is 'agreed upon by consensus' that the headscarf is required, arguing otherwise means breaking with the Sunni schools of law. The role of ijmā' in Islamic law began in the early Islamic period. The Successor al-Musayyab b. Rāfi' (d. 105/723–4) stated, for example: The community, if an event occurred for which they could find no reports from the Prophet, would come together on it and reach a consensus. And the truth was in what they agreed on, the truth was in what they agreed on.42 Consensus received more formal justifications in books of legal theory. Because the Quran did not provide any unambiguous evidence that the consensus of the Muslims was authoritative, scholars turned to hadiths. One of the most commonly cited proofs is a famous hadith, the most well-known version of which can be found in the Sunan of al-Tirmidhī through Ibn 'Umar, that the Prophet said, 'Indeed God most high will not bring my community together on an error, and the hand of God is over the collective, and who splits away splits away into the Hellfire (Inna Allāh ta'ālā lā yajma'u ummatī 'alā dalāla wa yad Allāh 'alā al-jamā'a, wa man shadhdha shadhdha ilā al-nār).'43 Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalānī notes that 'this is a well-known hadith narrated via many paths, but none of them are free of some criticism,' although al-Suyūtī declares the hadith to be hasan because of its many narrations.44 In addition to such criticisms of the hadith, legal theorists actually found themselves in an even direr predicament: an āhād hadith such as this one did not yield the certainty that scholars required to establish an important principle of legal theory. Unfortunately, the usual tool that Sunni legal theorists used to turn an āhād hadith into absolute certainty was to claim that the community had come to consensus on its accuracy! Since Sunni scholars were at risk of lapsing into circular reasoning here, legal theorists like al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) argued that the authenticity of this hadith was not guaranteed by consensus but rather by 'the general rules governing reality (al-'āda al-jāriya).' If Muslim scholars from Spain to Central Asia agreed on this hadith, it was realistically impossible for it not to have a true basis in the Prophet's teachings.45 Creating Islamic Law outside the Quran and Sunna In the Sunni tradition the Quran and Sunna are known as 'the two bases (al-aslān)' and are the only constitutive sources of law. Consensus derives its authority from them, and legal analogy refers new cases back to known rules from the Holy Book and the hadiths. Muslims, however, have maintained avenues for legal reasoning outside the letter of these scriptures. Various Sunni schools of law have reserved the right to rule on legal issues based on the best judgment of legal scholars or in pursuit of the Muslim community's best interest (with the general stipulation that such rulings cannot contradict the Quran and Sunna). Both these procedures are based on and legitimized by hadiths. Like the other hadiths in this section, however, these reports do not measure up to the standards of Muslim hadith critics. In fact, the famous report 'Whatever the Muslims see as good is good according to God; and whatever the Muslims see as reprehensible is reprehensible according to God (mā ra'āhu al-muslimūn hasanan fa-huwa 'ind Allāh hasan wa mā ra'āhu al-muslimūn sayyi'an fa-huwa 'ind Allāh sayyi')' is not really a Prophetic hadith at all. Hadith critics determined that it was a statement of the Companion Ibn Mas'ūd. Yet the early Hanafī scholar of Baghdad, Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Shaybānī (d. 189/805), one of Abū Hanīfa's leading disciples, attributed it to the Prophet in his argument for Muslims instituting new practices that they felt enhanced their religious life but did not exist during the time of the Prophet. Specifically, he was defending 'Umar b. al-Khattāb's decision to organize voluntary communal nightly prayers in the mosque during the month of Ramadan.46 This was not practiced during the Prophet's lifetime but was quickly embraced and became ubiquitous in the Muslim world. An even more famous hadith is the Prophet's saying 'No harm and no harming (lā darar wa lā dirār),' which Abū Dāwūd, the author of one of the Six Books, called one of the four pillars of legal hadiths.47 Mālik and his student al-Shāfi'ī narrated this hadith as a mursal report, while Ibn Mājah had it via a full isnād from the Companion 'Ubāda b. Sāmit in his Sunan. It has generally been considered hasan. Regardless of its authenticity in the eyes of hadith scholars, however, this hadith became a central principle in Islamic legal thought. Muslim legal theorists used the phrase to elaborate what they saw as one of the principal goals of Islamic law, namely 'Promoting benefit and preventing harm.' They have also used it to justify the widely accepted notion of 'public interest (maslaha mursala),' which posited that Muslim scholars could rule in the interest of their community as long as they did not contravene any explicit injunctions from the Quran or Sunna. The Hanbali scholar Najm al-Dīn al-Tūfī (d. 716/1316) used this hadith to craft the controversial argument that if the public interest of the Muslim community clashed with scripture, public interest should take precedence.48 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING The most interesting book to read on this topic is the recently translated Muhammad 'Awwama, The Influence of the Noble Hadith upon the Differences of Opinion Amongst the Jurist Imams (London: Turath, 2014). To see how Mālik used hadiths in his Muwatta', see Aisha Bewley's translation of the book, entitled Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik ibn Anas (London: Kegan Paul Intl., 1989) and Umar F. Abd-Allah's Malik and Medina (Brill, 2013). For the manner in which al-Shāfi'ī placed hadiths in his system of legal theory, see the translation of his extremely influential Risāla entitled, The Epistle on Legal Theory, trans. Joseph Lowry (New York: NYU Press, 2015). For more reading on the use of hadiths in early Sunni law, see Harald Motzki, The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence: Meccan Fiqh Before the Classical Schools, trans. Marion Katz (Leiden: Brill, 2002); Yasin Dutton's The Origins of Islamic Law: The Qur'an, the Muwatta' and Medinan 'Amal (London: Curzon, 1999); Scott Lucas's 'Abu Bakr Ibn al-Mundhir, Amputation and the Art of Ijtihād,' International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 39 (2007): 351–368, and Christopher Melchert's 'The Traditionist-Jurisprudents and the Framing of Islamic Law,' Islamic Law and Society 8, no. 3 (2001): 383–406. For a general discussion of the legal implications of hadiths in mature Sunni law, see Ibn Rushd's The Distinguished Jurist's Primer, trans. Imran Ahsan Nyazee (Reading, UK: Garnet Pub., 1994). For in-depth discussions of mature Sunni legal theory, see Wael Hallaq's A History of Islamic Legal Theories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) and Bernard Weiss's The Search for God's Law (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1992). For a translation of a short book that Ibn Rajab al-Hanbalī (d. 795/1392) devoted to the 'Scholars are the inheritors of the prophets' hadith, see Ibn Rajab al-Hanbalī, Heirs of the Prophets, trans. and introduction Zaid Shakir (Chicago: Starlatch Press, 2001). ENDNOTES 1 'Inna al-Qur'ān ahkama dhālik wa al-sunna tufassiru dhālik'; Abū Sa'd al-Sam'ānī, Adab al-imlā' wa al-istimlā', p. 4. 2 Sunan al-Dārimi: introductory chapters, bāb al-sunna qādiya 'alā kitāb Allāh. 3 'Al-Qur'ān ahwaj ilā al-sunna min al-sunna ilā al-Qur'ān'; Abū Muhammad al-Barbahārī, Sharh al-sunna, p. 71. 4 Ibn Abī Hātim al-Rāzī, al-Jarh wa al-ta'dīl, p. 2:20. 5 Abū Zahra, Abū Hanīfa, p. 235; idem, Al-Shāfi'ī, p. 166; idem, Ibn Hanbal, p. 205; idem, Mālik, p. 224. 6 Al-Shāfi'ī, Al-Umm, p. 7:256. 7 Al-Shāfi'ī, Al-Risāla, p. 177. 8 Jāmi'al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-hudūd, bāb fī kam tuqta' al-yad; Sunan Abī Dāwūd: kitāb al-hudūd, bāb man saraqa min hirz, bab al-qat' fī al-khulsa.... 9 Abū Zahra, Abū Hanīfa, p. 266. 10 Ibn Hibbān, Sahīh Ibn Hibbān, p. 5:498. 11 Brown, The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, p. 191. 12 'Abd al-Wahhāb al-Sha'rānī, Al-Mīzān al-kubrā, p. 1:71. 13 Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-buyū', bāb mā jā'a fī al-khiyār; Anwar Shāh Kashmīrī, al-'Arf al-shadhī (Karachi, Qadīmī Kutubkhāne), p. 304. 14 Abū Zahra, Mālik, p. 259; al-Muwatta': kitāb al-buyū', bāb bay' al-khiyār. 15 Abū Hilāl al-'Askarī, Kitab al-awā'il, p. 2:119. 16 Brown, The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, pp. 178 ff. 17 Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-farā'id, bāb mā jā'a fī ibtāl mīrāth al-qātil. 18 Ibn 'Abd al-Barr, al-Tamhīd, p. 24:290. 19 Al-Tahāwī, Sharh mushkil al-āthār, p. 15:39. 20 Al-'Alā'ī, Jāmi' al-tahsīl fī ahkām al-marāsīl, p. 40. 21 See Muhammad 'Awwāma, Athar al-hadīth al-sharīf fī ikhtilāf al-a'imma al-fuqahā', pp. 30 ff. 22 Ibn Qudāma al-Maqdisī, al-Mughnī, p. 2:570; Musnad Ibn Hanbal: 4 :426. 23 Mansūr al-Buhūtī, Al-Rawd al-murbi', p. 108. 24 Al-Khatīb, 'Nasīhat li-ahl al-hadīth,' p. 124. 25 Al-Khalīlī, Al-Irshād, p. 6. 26 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū'at al-fatāwā, pp. 19:128 ff. 27 Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-salāt, bāb mā jā'a fī al-ta'mīn. 28 Al-Suyūtī, Al-Azhār al-mutanāthira fī al-ahādīth al-mutawātira, p. 12. 29 Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-tahāra, bāb mā jā'a fī al-wudū' mimmā ghayyarat al-nār; bāb tark al-wudū' min al-nār. 30 Badr al-Dīn al-Zarkashī, Al-Bahr al-muhīt fī usūl al-fiqh, p. 3:268. 31 Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-birr wa al-sila, bāb mā jā'a fī al-nafaqa 'alā al-banāt wa al-akhawāt. 32 Muhammad al-Ghazālī, Al-Sunna al-nabawiyya bayn ahl al-fiqh wa ahl al-hadīth, pp. 56–57; Ibn Hajar, Fath al-bārī, p. 13:70–71. 33 Ibn 'Adī, Al-Kāmil, p. 1:125; Sunan Abī Dāwūd: kitāb al-salāt, bāb man qāla lā yaqta'u al-salāt shay'. 34 Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-salāt, bāb mā jā'a fī sajdatay al-sahw qabl al-taslīm. 35 Al-Munāwī, Fayd al-qadīr, vol. 8, p. 4:4101. 36 Ibn Battāl, Sharh Sahīh al-Bukhārī, vol. 1, p. 196. 37 Al-Suyūtī, Al-Jāmi' al-saghīr, p. 352. 38 Al-'Ajlūnī, Kashf al-khafā', vol. 2, p. 83. 39 Ibn Hajar, Fath al-bārī, vol. 4, p. 70. 40 Fakhr al-Islam al-Bazdawī, Usūl al-Bazdawī, vol. 1, p. 236. 41 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū'at al-fatāwā, vol. 19, p. 128. 42 Sunan al-Dārimī: introductory chapters, bāb al-tawarru' 'an al-jawāb fīmā laysa fīhi kitāb wa lā sunna. 43 Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-fitan, bāb mā jā'a fī luzūm al-jamā'a. 44 Ibn Hajar, Talkhīs al-habīr, p. 3:141; al-Suyūtī, al-Jāmi' al-saghīr, p. 113. 45 Wael Hallaq, 'On the Authoritativeness of Sunni Consensus,' pp. 434 ff. 46 Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Shaybānī, Muwatta' Mālik: bāb qiyām shahr Ramadān wa mā fīhi min al-fadl. 47 Al-Khatīb, al-Jāmi', vol. 2, p. 301. 48 Najm al-Dīn al-Tūfī, Risāla fī ri'āyat al-maslaha, p. 23. THE FUNCTION OF PROPHETIC TRADITIONS IN THEOLOGY INTRODUCTION Throughout their history, Muslims have rarely doubted that hadiths should play some role in understanding what actions were acceptable or unacceptable in God's sight. Even the most intransigent rationalists of ninth-century Baghdad accepted that hadiths could be used as a source for law if narrated by two or four chains of transmission. Law has always been a central part of the Islamic faith tradition, but it has not required total certainty. The different Sunni legal schools, for example, accepted that differences of interpretation could exist regarding the sources of the law, and the dubious authenticity of some of those sources itself left room for further doubt. Since the eleventh century, mainstream Sunni opinion has held that, even if considered reliable, hadiths narrated by only a limited number of chains of transmission (termed āhād hadiths, which are the vast preponderance of reports that make up the hadith collections) yield only strong probability (zann rājih) and not total certainty (yaqīn) that they were truly the commands of the Prophet. This strong probability has been deemed acceptable for deriving Islamic law, so in practice both scholars and lay Muslims have treated sahīh hadiths as being the authenticated words of the Prophet. But what about theology, those tenets of what Muslims should believe about God, the cosmos, and a person's fate after death? Did the Quran not lambast earlier communities who had made pronouncements about God and religion based not on revelation but merely on their own beliefs? The Quran had proclaimed that 'they have no knowledge of this, they do but conjecture' (Quran 45:24). If Muslim scholars held that the reports found in the great hadith compilations of the ninth century only yielded 'strong probability' as opposed to the total certainty yielded by the Quran, what should be the role of hadiths in theology? THE ORIGINAL SUNNIS AND THE PRIMACY OF HADITHS IN THEOLOGY By the twelfth century, Sunni Islam had become a very adaptive religious tradition that could accommodate four varied schools of law, divergent schools of both literalist and speculative theology, and numerous Sufi orders all under one 'big-tent' of deference to the Quran and the Prophet's legacy. Since that time, Sunni scholars have been able to adopt the rational methods of Greek logicians and the thought of Gnostic Christians into the Islamic tradition, all the while sincerely professing their loyal adherence to the Prophet's Sunna and rejection of bid'a, or heretical innovation in religion. The Sunni worldview, however, was not always so flexible. Sunni Islam began as the small and strictly conservative ahl al-hadīth (Partisans of Hadith) sect in the eighth and ninth centuries. For these original Sunnis 'the isnād is part of religion,' and they preached that if anyone 'impugns reports from the early community or denies anything from the hadiths of the Messenger of God, then doubt his Islam.'1 Even great scholars like Abū Hanīfa, who promoted using independent legal reasoning, were heretics in the eyes of these original Sunnis.2 For these original Sunnis, in whose ranks we find early pillars of the hadith tradition like Ibn Hanbal, al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, and al-Tirmidhī, hadiths were not only reliable enough to inform Muslims of proper theology – they were its primary source. As early Sunnis proclaimed, 'Islam is the Sunna, and the Sunna is Islam,' and 'the Sunna of the Messenger of God is not known by reason, but by transmission.'3 Some of the theological beliefs that these early Sunnis upheld (and have since become part of Sunni Islam) included: A belief that God knew before creation whether a person would enter Heaven or Hell and that humans cannot comprehend the true nature of free will and predestination. A belief in the 'punishment of the grave' ('adhāb al-qabr), or the notion that the dead are punished for their sins or rewarded for their good deeds in the grave even before they are resurrected on the Day of Judgment. This recompense will be determined by a test administered by two angels, Munkar and Nakīr, who will appear to a person in his grave and ask him about God, the true religion, and the Prophet. A belief that Jesus will return at the end of time along with another Messianic figure known as the Mahdī (The Guided One) and that together they will vanquish the Antichrist (Dajjāl). A belief that late at night God descends to the lowest heavens to answer the prayers for forgiveness of those Muslims who have stayed up late in worship (see the hadith examined at the end of chapter 9). A belief that on the Day of Judgment believers will be rewarded for their faith by actually seeing God. A belief that there will be certain landmarks on the Day of Judgment. One of these is the Fount (al-Hawd), a pool where Muhammad will meet his community. Another is the Bridge (al-Sirāt). This bridge crosses Hellfire, and, although the believers will cross it easily, for the unbelievers it will become narrower than a hair and sharper than a sword, causing them to fall into Hell. None of these articles of faith is clearly laid out in the Quran. There are vague or ambiguous references to some of these tenets; the holy book contains verses such as 'On that Day [of Judgment] their faces will be pleased, gazing at their Lord' (Quran 75:22–23), which Sunnis have argued establish seeing God. But the only unambiguous description for these beliefs, and the only mention at all of others such as the Antichrist and the Mahdī, come from hadiths such as the following: The hadith from the Companions 'Abdallāh b. Mas'ūd, Hudhayfa b. Yamān, Jundub, and others in various permutations that the Prophet said, 'I will be the first of you to the Fount [on the Day of Judgment], with some from among you raised up with me but then falling back trembling. I will say, "O my Lord, these are from my community!" but it will be said, "You do not know what wrongs they committed after you!" ' (from the Sahīhayn of al-Bukhārī and Muslim) The hadith of the Companion Abū Sa'īd al-Khudrī: We were afraid that there would come after our prophet some catastrophe, so we asked the Prophet of God and he said, 'Indeed in my community there will be the Messiah (mahdī), he will come and live five or seven or nine (the transmitter was not sure).' We asked the Prophet, 'Five or seven or nine what?,' and he said, 'years.' Then the Prophet continued, 'And a man will come to the Messiah and say, 'Give me, give me,' and he will dispense whatever he can from his own clothing.' (From the Sunan Ibn Mājah and the Jāmi' of al-Tirmidhī)4 The hadith of Abū 'Ubayda b. al-Jarrāh, that 'the Messenger of God said, "Indeed every prophet since Noah has warned his community of the Antichrist (Dajjāl), so indeed I warn you of him." Then he described him and said, "It may be that some of those who have seen me or heard my words will live to see him." ' (From the Jāmi' of al-Tirmidhī)5 The hadith of the Companion Abū Hurayra, from the Prophet: 'Indeed the dead person goes to the grave, and the righteous man sits in his grave with no fear or terror. It is said to him, "What [religion] were you?" and he replies, "Islam." And it is said to him, "Who is that man?" and he replies, "Muhammad the Messenger of God, he came to us with clear evidence from God and we believed in him." It is said to him, "Did you see God?" and he replies, "It is not for anyone to see God." Then a small glimpse of Hell is given to him, and he sees its people bound to one another, and it is said to him, "Behold what God has spared you!" Then he is given a glimpse of Heaven and sees its splendor and all within. It is said to him, "This is your place, you believed in truth and died with that belief, so you will be resurrected in truth, God willing." The iniquitous man, however, sits in his grave terrified. It is said to him, "What [religion] were you?" and he replies, "I do not know." And it is said to him, "Who is that man?" and he replies, "I heard the people saying things about him so I said them too." Then he is shown a glimpse of Heaven and its splendor, and it is said to him, "Look at what God has denied you." Then he is shown a glimpse of Hell, and he sees its inhabitants bound to one another, and it is said to him, "This is your place, you were in doubt, in doubt you died and in doubt you will be resurrected, God willing." ' (from the Sunan of Ibn Mājah)6 The hadith narrated by Abū Hurayra in which the Prophet says: 'Adam and Moses argued, and Moses said, "O Adam, you whom God created with His hands and breathed His spirit into have led the people astray and exiled them from Paradise." Adam replied, "And you, O Moses, whom God purified with His own speech, do you blame me for committing an act which God had fated for me before the creation of the heavens and the earth?" So Adam bested Moses in the argument.' (from the Sahīh Muslim)7 The hadith narrated by Abū Hurayra that 'The Messenger of God (s) came out to us while we were debating free will and predestination (al-qadar) and was angered to the point that his face turned red, as if a pomegranate had burst on his cheeks. He said, "Is this what you have been taught to do?! Is this what I was sent with!? Indeed those who came before you perished when they began debating this matter, so I have ordered you not to contend over it." ' (from the Jamī' of al-Tirmidhī)8 The elaborate epistemological (having to do with the study of knowledge and its sources) classification of sources into those yielding probability or certainty, introduced into Sunni Islam in the tenth century by Muslim rationalists, was totally foreign to the early Sunnis. Hadiths that early Sunnis deemed authentic according to their system of criticism were the words of the Prophet and compelling in every sense. As Ibn Hanbal said about the hadith in which the Prophet foretells that Muslims will literally see God on the Day of Judgment, 'We believe in it and we know that it is the truth.'9 When al-Tirmidhī presents a hadith describing how God will take people's charitable donations 'with His right hand,' the author explains: More than one scholar has said that this hadith and other narrations like it dealing with God's attributes and the Lord most high's descending every night to the lowest heavens, that these narrations have been established [as reliable] and are to be believed. They say that one should not fall into error concerning them and say 'How could this be?' It has been reported that Mālik b. Anas, Sufyān b. 'Uyayna, and 'Abdallāh b. al-Mubārak all said about such hadiths, 'Take them as is without asking "How".' Such is the stance of the scholars from the People of the Sunna and the Early Community (Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jamā'a).10 Contrast this with the stance of early Muslim rationalists like the great Mu'tazilite author al-Jāhiz (d. 255/869), who wrote 'If not for reason, religions would never be upheld for God, and we would never have been able to distinguish ourselves from the atheists, and there would be no distinction between truth and falsehood.'11 For these rationalists, the idea that God could be seen or move from place to place, they felt, belittled the omnipotent and unknowable creator of the universe. Claims that people would be punished in their graves had no basis in the Quran and were only transmitted by glorified rumors – precisely what the Quran had warned Muslims against. LATER SUNNISM AND THE RECONCILIATION OF REASON AND HADITHS IN THEOLOGY The tenth century witnessed a merging of the strict, literalist Sunni theological beliefs of Ibn Hanbal and the rationalist Mu'tazilites' theories of knowledge. The individual most responsible for this was Abū al-Hasan al-Ash'arī (d. 324/935–6), who was born in Basra in southern Iraq and became a prominent member of the Mu'tazilite rationalist school there. In 300/912–13, however, he had a series of dreams in which the Prophet appeared to him and instructed him to take care of his community, to follow the Sunna but not to abandon the ways of rationalist theology. He understood this as meaning that he should embrace the beliefs of the Sunnis but express and defend them with the tools of rational and speculative argument. Al-Ash'arī's strategy of forcing the rationalist methods of the Mu'tazilites into service for Sunni beliefs became hugely influential. It allowed a merging of the Sunni and Mu'tazilite schools, and in the century after al-Ash'arī's death three Sunni scholars, Abū Ishāq al-Isfarā'īnī (d. 418/1027), Ibn Fūrak (d. 406/1015), and Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī (d. 403/1013), combined hadith scholarship and the ration-alist tools of the Mu'tazilites into what became the dominant Ash'arī school of theology. Because the ways in which knowledge is derived affect law as well as theology, this school was also a way of looking at legal theory. It is often referred to as the Ash'arī, or 'Majority (Jumhūr)' school of theology and legal theory. Along with the surviving ahl al-hadīth school of the early Sunnis (discussed below), which still generally rejected all use of rationalist tools, the Ash'arī/Majority school constitutes one of the two great Sunni theological and legal-theory orthodoxies.i Abū al-Hasan al-Ash'arī embraced all the tenets of the early Sunni theology, such as the punishment of the grave, seeing God on the Day of Judgment, and the denial of unrestricted free will, proclaiming that these were the beliefs of true Sunnis.12 Merging Sunni beliefs and the Mu'tazilite vision of knowledge, however, presented serious challenges. As we saw in chapter 3, with the contributions of legal theory to hadith criticism, Mu'tazilite legal theory and its Ash'arī successors divided reports transmitted from the past into two distinct levels, each conveying its own level of certainty and suited to its appropriate tasks. Āhād reports, or those transmitted by only a few chains of transmission, yielded probable knowledge (zann) and were only suitable for establishing Islamic law or the details of ritual. The second type of reports was a massively transmitted (mutawātir) one, or a report transmitted by such a vast number of people in so many different places that it is impossible to imagine that anyone could have made it up or conspired to forge it. Although the hadiths establishing the beliefs mentioned above by al-Ash'arī appear in highly respected Sunni hadith collections such as the Sahīhayn of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, they were only āhād hadiths. The Mu'tazilite and Ash'arī traditions of epistemology had made clear the requirements that reports had to meet in order to convey absolute certainty. Legal theorists required that a hadith be transmitted by anywhere from five to forty transmitters at every stage in its transmission in order to be considered mutawātir. Other influential Ash'arīs, like al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085), avoided this focus on specific numbers. Instead, they argued that a hadith was mutawātir as long as it was transmitted via circumstances that made conspiring to forge it impossible and allowed it to convey immediate certainty to anyone who heard it. But as we saw in chapter 3, Sunni hadith scholars admitted that no (or at most one) hadith actually met these requirements for being mutawātir. How could the Sunnis who followed the new Ash'arī tradition of theology and epistemology, then, justify their beliefs in things like the punishment of the grave or the coming of the Antichrist? They found two solutions: first, legal theorists like Abū Ishāq al-Isfarāyīnī and Hanafī contemporaries like Abū Bakr al-Jassās (d. 370/981) developed a middle tier of reports between āhād hadiths and the almost unattainable certainty of mutawātir ones. This middle tier was called 'well-known (mashhūr)' or 'widespread (mustafīd)' and was defined as those hadiths that might have started out with only a few chains of transmission but then became massively transmitted as time went on. Their authority was guaranteed not by the breadth of their transmission, but rather by the fact that the Muslim community had agreed on their authenticity.13 Second, in the eleventh century, Ash'arī hadith scholars and legal theorists like al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī (d. 463/1071) and Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) articulated the notion of reports that were 'mutawātir bi'l-ma'nā', or 'massively transmitted in their meaning.' Even if one particular hadith, they said, was not transmitted widely enough to meet the requirements for being mutawātir, what happened if you had a number of different hadiths that all shared one common element? Maybe no one hadith about the Messiah (Mahdī) could be considered mutawātir, but what if we collected all the hadiths mentioning him? We find a hadith in the books of al-Tirmidhī, Ibn Mājah, al-Bayhaqī, and al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī transmitted by several Companions in which the Prophet says, 'When the black banners come from eastern Iran, go join that army, for indeed the Messiah is among them.' We find another hadith from two Companions in which the Prophet tells his followers that, even if only one day were remaining before the end of the world, God would lengthen that day so that He could send a messiah from the descendants of the Prophet with the same name as him. In another hadith through 'Alī, the Prophet predicts the coming of one of his descendants who will fill the earth with justice as it has been full of injustice. Even in the comments of the Companions, we find Ibn 'Abbās saying that a ruler will come from the family of the Prophet, bringing justice so absolute that under his rule flocks of sheep will be safe from predators.14 If we take all these hadiths together they all agree on one common element: there is a Messiah who will come. According to Ash'arī scholars, just as it is impossible to imagine that one massively transmitted hadith could have been forged, so it is impossible to imagine that all these separate hadiths could be forged with one common theme if that theme were not really representative of the Prophet's words. By creating a middle tier of non-mutawātir hadiths whose certainty was assured by the consensus of the Muslim community or whose meanings appeared in many different hadiths that together could be considered mutawātir, Muslims from the mainstream Ash'arī school of theology could justifiably believe in articles of faith found not in the Quran, but rather in their hadith collections.15 THE OTHER SUNNI ORTHODOXY: THE SURVIVING AHL AL-HADĪTH SCHOOL The Ash'arī school of theology is often called the Sunni 'orthodoxy.' But the original ahl al-hadīth, early Sunni creed from which Ash'arism evolved has continued to thrive alongside it as a rival Sunni 'orthodoxy' as well. While Ash'arīs proclaimed the theological beliefs of the early Sunnis like Ibn Hanbal, the influence of Mu'tazilite rationalism had led them to decline some of the most extreme early Sunni beliefs. Certainly, Ash'arīs affirmed that believers would 'see God' on the Day of Judgment, but this could not involve actually seeing God as we see objects in front of us today. Rather, God will create an optical image of God in their minds. How could an omnipotent creator, wholly outside creation, be seen? The Quran says that our vision 'cannot grasp Him' (Quran 6:103). Yes, authentic hadiths left no doubt that God does indeed 'descend to the lowest heavens' at some point in the night, but how could an unencompassable being engage in physical movement? Rather, it was God figuratively 'approaching' the believers by responding to their prayers.16 Ash'arī theologians had accepted the Mu'tazilite principle of content criticism. As al-Ghazālī said, any hadith describing God in an anthropomorphic way or assigning Him some physical location must be interpreted figuratively or rejected as false.17 In a famous hadith known as the Hadith of the Slave Girl (hadīth al-jāriya), the Prophet tests to see if a slave girl was Muslim by asking her if he was a prophet and asking her where God was. She replied by saying 'In the sky (fī al-samā')'. The Prophet acknowledged this as a correct profession of faith and ordered that the girl be freed.18 Ash'arī theologians, however, said that, although it is recognized as authentic, this hadith is only āhād and is not sufficient to establish belief.19 Extreme Ash'arīs have gone so far as to say that anyone who assigns a direction to God or believes that He actually moves is an unbeliever.20 In the wake of the tenth-century Ash'arī synthesis, some Muslim theologians still maintained the strict details of the early Sunni creed. This continuation of the original Sunni theological school is often referred to as the Salafī school of theology (because they claim to follow the righteous early Muslim community, or the Salaf) or as followers of 'Traditional (Atharī)' or ahl al-hadīth theology. Famous adherents of this school include the Sufi 'Abdallāh al-Ansārī (d. 481/1089) of Herat and the Damascene scholar Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328). For this Salafī school, reason has no role in determining theological beliefs. It is 'nothing more than a tool for distinguishing things.'21 If the Prophet described God as descending during the night, who are we to insist that this descent occurs in one form as opposed to another? Ibn Taymiyya argues that the early Muslim community had no compunction about assigning a direction to God. He asserted that the Quran, the Sunna, and the practice of the righteous early community provided undeniable evidence that it was acceptable to point upward when referring to God (although he maintained that this meant that God was above the heavens, not in them).22 Adherents of the Salafī school of theology felt that the Ash'arīs had allowed the influence of rationalism to lead them astray from the true beliefs of Muhammad. How could they claim that a sahīh hadith cannot provide a reliable basis for belief, demanded the Salafī scholar Abū Nasr al-Wā'ilī of Mecca (d. 444/1052), but that frail human reason can?23 Hadiths like the Hadith of the Slave Girl that address theological tenets, al-Wā'ilī continues, have been transmitted by numerous chains of transmission that are more than enough to make one's heart feel at ease with believing in them.24 Unlike the wayward Ash'arīs, al-Wā'ilī boasts, his school of theology is that of the true 'People of the Sunna (ahl al-sunna), who stand fast on what the early generations (salaf) had transmitted to them from the Messenger of God.'25 Today this school of ahl al-hadīth theology is espoused by the Wahhābī movement in Saudi Arabia and the various other hadith-based Salafī movements (see chapter 10 for more on this). SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING For an accessible discussion of the Mu'tazilite rationalist school, including the translation of one of their texts, see Yahyā Nātiq bi'l-Haqq, Basran Mu'tazilite Theology, ed. Wilfred Madelung et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2011); Defenders of Reason in Islam: Mu'tazilism from Medieval School to Modern Symbol, by Richard Martin et al. (Oxford: Oneworld, 1997). A selection of different theological creeds, including one attributed to Ibn Hanbal, is translated in Montgomery Watt's Islamic Creeds (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994). Another excellent selection can be found in John Alden Williams, ed., The Word of Islam (Austin: University of Texas, 1994, chapter 5). Two of al-Ash'arī's short treatises on theology have been translated in The Theology of al-Ash'ari, trans. Richard McCarthy (Beirut: Imprimérie Catholique, 1953). For a discussion of apocalyptic visions in Islam, see David Cook, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic (Princeton: Darwin Press, 2002). ENDNOTES 1 Al-Barbahārī, Sharh al-sunna, p. 81. 2 Al-Khatīb, Tārīkh Baghdād, vol. 2, p. 176. 3 Al-Barbahārī, Sharh al-sunna, p. 59; Abū Nasr al-Wā'ilī, Risālat al-Sijzī ilā ahl Zabīd, p. 99. 4 Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-fitan, bāb mā jā'a fī al-mahdī. 5 Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-fitan, bāb mā jā'a fī al-dajjāl. 6 Sunan Ibn Mājah: kitāb al-zuhd, bāb dhikr al-qabr wa al-bilyā. 7 Sahīh Muslim: kitāb al-qadar, bāb hijāj Ādam wa Mūsā (s). 8 Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-qadar, bāb mā jā'a fī al-tashdīd fī al-khawd fī al-qadar. 9 Ibn al-Farra, Al-'Udda fī usūl al-fiqh, vol. 3, p. 900. 10 Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-zakāt, bāb mā jā'a fī fadl al-sadaqa. 11 Al-Jāhiz, Rasā'il al-Jāhiz, vol. 1, p. 285. 12 Abū al-Hasan al-Ash'arī, Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn, vol. 1, pp. 346–348. 13 Brown, The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, pp. 183–193. 14 See Ahmad al-Ghumārī, Ibrāz al-wahm al-maknūn min kalām Ibn Khaldūn, p. 113. 15 Al-Sarakhsī, Usūl al-Sarakhsī, vol. 1, p. 329. 16 Al-Kawtharī, Maqālat, p. 145. Al-Bayjūrī (d. 1860) held that the hadith referred to the descent of God's angels, not God himself; al-Bayjūrī, Sharh Jawharat al-tawhīd, p. 158. 17 Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī, al-Mankhūl min ta'līqāt al-usūl, p. 286. 18 Sunan Abī Dāwūd: kitāb al-ayman wa al-nudhūr, bāb al-raqaba al-mu'mina. 19 Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī, al-Sayf al-saqīl fī al-radd 'alā ibn al-Zafīl, p. 94. 20 See, for example, al-Kawtharī, Maqālāt, p. 146. Ibn Hajar al-Haytamī, al-Fatāwā al-hadīthiyya, p.152. 21 Al-Wā'ilī, Risāla, p. 85. 22 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū'at al-fatāwā, vol. 3, p. 97; Abū Zahra, Ibn Taymiyya, p. 269. 23 Al-Wā'ilī, Risāla, p. 101. 24 Al-Wā'ilī, Risāla, pp. 187–190. 25 Al-Wā'ilī, Risāla, p. 99. i There is a third Sunni school, the Māturīdī school, which closely resembles the Ash'arī school and thus will not be discussed in this book. THE FUNCTION OF PROPHETIC TRADITIONS IN SUFISM INTRODUCTION The Islamic mystical tradition, or Sufism, has historically been one of the religion's most important components. Sufism has played a dual role in Islamic history. It has served as the medium through which a spiritual elect has achieved and described direct experience with God. At the same time, through popular rituals and the veneration of saints, Sufism has allowed those unsung masses in Islamic civilization, whether villagers in India or merchants in the Balkans, to feel closer to God and more intimately ensconced in their faith. As the tradition of seeking and describing direct mystical experiences with God, Sufism is 'the art of knocking' on the door of the Divine.1 Because for Muslims Muhammad was the human closest to God, practitioners of Sufism also see it as the science of understanding and applying the Prophet's message in the fullest and most perfect way. As the process of fulfilling the duties of the pious Muslim and gaining proximity to God, the famous Sufi Abū Bakr al-Shiblī (d. 334/945–6) described Sufism as 'comforting the heart with the fan of purity, clothing the mind with the cloak of faithfulness, acquiring generosity and rejoicing in meeting God.'2 As the perfection of character, Sufism is 'all proper manners, for every time and every place.'3 As in other domains, in Sufism hadiths have served as a source of guidance and a medium of connection to the Prophet. In one sense, in Sufism the isnād of the hadith is all-important, for it establishes the transmission of the Prophet's teaching, his excellence of character as well as esoteric knowledge inherited from him and taught by the pious elite. In another sense, however, isnāds and their authenticity mean nothing in Sufism – those Sufi masters for whom the door has been opened have been able to access God's truth directly without the medium of prophecy or Muhammad's teachings. For them, truths about the reality of God and man are true whether actually said by the Prophet or phrased in his words. The tension has been a constant one in the Sufi tradition. One early Sufi, al-Dārānī (d. 204/820) taught that, even if you are inspired to perform some act of worship, you should not do so until you find a hadith justifying it. Ironically, another Sufi took a similar statement from Ibn Hanbal and tacked on a forged isnād to the Prophet.4 THE FOUNDATION OF SUFISM IN HADITH: THE HADITH OF GABRIEL Hadiths have always played an important role in Muslim etiquette and pious ethics. The famous hadith scholar Abū Dāwūd once wrote that a Muslim only needed to know four hadiths, none of which involve dogmatic or legal strictures: 'Actions are judged only by intentions,' 'Part of a person perfecting their Islam is to leave aside matters that do not concern them,' 'What is prohibited is clear, what is permissible is clear, and what is other than that is uncertain,' and 'No one's faith is complete until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.'5 From its early coalescence in the ninth century, the Sufi tradition has employed hadiths to instruct those seeking the Sufi path and to justify its teachings. The Forty Hadith collection devoted to Sufism written by the famous Iranian Sufi Abū 'Abd al-Rahmān al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021) was one of the most widely transmitted books in the centuries after its author's death and served as a primer for Sufism among Muslim students. It contained hadiths urging piety, generosity, and asceticism, such as 'Whoever wants to join me, let him suffice from the goods of this world with only what a traveler needs. And beware of mixing with the rich.'6 The hadith that has historically essentialized the Sufi tradition and provided its most firm foundation in the Prophet's teachings is the famous Hadith of the Angel Gabriel. This report is extremely well known and met Muslim hadith critics' highest standards of authent-icity. It appears in the Sahīhayn of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, as well as the three Sunans of Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, and Ibn Mājah, narrated from the Prophet by the Companions 'Umar b. al-Khattāb, Talha b. 'Ubaydallāh, Anas b. Mālik, or Abū Hurayra. The version from Abū Hurayra appearing in al-Bukhārī's Sahīh reads: Ishāq Jarīr Abū Hayyān Abū Zur'a Abū Hurayra: One day the Prophet was out before the people when a man came walking up to him and said, 'O Messenger of God, what is faith (īmān)?' [The Prophet] said, 'Faith is to believe in God, His angels, His messengers, that you will meet Him, and to believe in the resurrection.' [The man] said, 'O Messenger of God, what is Islam (submission)?' [The Prophet] replied, 'Islam is to worship God, not associate anything with Him, to perform the prayer, render the poor tithe, and fast Ramadan.' The man asked, 'O messenger of God, what is ihsān (perfection)?' [The Prophet] said, 'Ihsān is to worship God as if you could see Him, for indeed even if you cannot see Him, He sees you.' [The man] said, 'O messenger of God, when is the Hour [of Judgment]?' [The Prophet] said, 'The one being asked is no more knowledgeable about that than the one asking, but I will tell you about its signs: when women give birth to their mistresses, that is one of the signs; when the naked and barefoot rule the people, that is one of the signs; one of five things that only God knows "Indeed God knows the Hour, he sends down the rain and knows what is in the wombs" (Quran 31:34). Then the man left, and the Prophet ordered that he be brought back to him, but no one could find him. Then the Prophet said, 'That was Gabriel, he came to teach the people their religion.'7 The Hadith of Gabriel has served as a formative expression of how Muslims broadly conceive of their religion. The hadith structures Islam in three tiers: it consists first of select articles of belief, followed by the outward submission to God through the performance of set rituals and deeds. Beyond these two basic levels of religious commitment lies the level of supererogatory piety sought by those who truly want to live in a state of constant God-consciousness: ihsān. Sufism has defined itself as the quest for ihsān, to be continually in a state of remembering God and acting accordingly. Sufis have therefore considered their path to be an optional one. Those who do not choose to pursue it still remain fully Muslim in faith and practice. Sufis elect to go beyond what is required. 'For this elite of the elite,' explains the great theologian and mystic Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), 'the verse "And God is better and more enduring" (Quran 20:73) has become manifest, and they have chosen a place "in an assembly of truth in the presence of an omnipotent Lord" (Quran 54:55).'8 THE ISSUE OF THE AUTHENTICITY OF SUFISM AND THE ISNĀD OF SUFI TEACHINGS From its inception, Islam has been an iconoclastic faith opposed to erecting intermediaries between God and man, founded on the premise that only revelation can shape the contours of faith and ritual. This extremely conservative approach to tenets of belief and ritual (as opposed to law) explains why Muslims from China to Great Britain, Sunni and Shiite, all pray their daily prayers in the same way, differing only in details. This conservative spirit has also meant that, although Sufism has played an undeniably prominent role in Islam, it has also been one of the most controversial dimensions of the faith tradition. The central objection launched by Muslim critics of Sufism has been that it contains elements of heretical innovation (called bid'a) or belief not originally part of Islam. Some Muslim scholars have found three aspects of Sufism to be problematic: 1) ritual practices and prayers that are viewed as imported innovations not originating in the Sunna of the Prophet or his Companions, 2) the institution of Sufi brotherhoods in the twelfth century with formalized relationships between a spiritual guide (Arabic 'shaykh' or Persian/Turkish 'pīr') and his disciples, and 3) a theosophical cosmology that upholds the 'Unicity of Existence (wahdat al-wujūd),' or the notion that only God actually exists and that creation is a mere illusion. The first point was unacceptable to many Muslim scholars because it seems to break with the fundamental Islamic principle that only the Quran and Sunna can serve as the basis for ritual and belief. As Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 750/1351), a famous critic of Sufism, explained, in Islam 'the presumption about claims of ritual is that they are false until some proof is provided, whereas the presumption in contracts and personal interactions is that they are valid until proven otherwise.'9 The second point caused concern because Sufi brotherhoods and the veneration of shaykhs seemed to create formalized institutions and invest certain people with authority unacknowledged in the Prophet's message. As Ibn Taymiyya objected, 'It is not for anyone to belong to a shaykh by swearing to be his follower... but rather he should take as a guide anyone who is from among the people of faith without specifying anyone with an excessive position of spiritual authority.'10 Finally, for many, 'the Unicity of Existence' was a theological perspective similar to pantheism, or the belief that the divine was present in creation and objects of nature – a position firmly rejected in Islam. Architects and proponents of the Sufi tradition were aware from an early stage of these objections and sought to ground their ideas in the original revelation of the Prophet. Abū al-Qāsim al-Junayd (d. 298/910), the epicenter of classical Sufism in Baghdad, thus declared that 'Our science [of Sufism] is bounded by the Quran and the Sunna.'11 Sufis admitted that practices such as ritual gatherings where the names of God are recited or specific liturgies said after prayers were innovations. But they were like flowers that had blossomed from seeds rooted in the Prophet's original teachings. As the Sufi Abū al-Hasan al-Fūshanjī (d. 348/959) said, 'Today Sufism is a name without a reality, it was once a reality without a name.'12 Al-Fūshanjī's quote raises another important point concerning objections to Sufism: many of Sufism's harshest critics, such as Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1201) and Ibn Taymiyya, were themselves Sufis who only rejected certain corrupted components of Sufism, such as extremist beliefs or the excessive practices of some Sufis. They maintained the legitimacy of the ethical components of Sufism, what they called 'the science of purifying the heart.' As in hadiths and law, the principal anchor for the authenticity of Sufism was the isnād. The Sufi tradition cultivated two kinds of isnāds to the Prophet. The first was known as the isnād al-tazkiya (isnād of purification) or the isnād al-suhba (isnād of discipleship) and was a commonsense feature of traditional Islamic piety. The second form of isnād represented a formal or mystical chain of transmission from teacher to student back to the Prophet. The isnād of purification/discipleship was based on a very sensible premise. If the Companions spent many years around the Prophet, they would have learned his pious and God-fearing ways from his example. The Successors who studied at the Companions' hands would have learned this from them, and so would any committed students of the Prophet's teachings in subsequent generations. A sincere scholar's duty to his students did not stop at teaching them the Quran, the Sunna, and Islamic law. He also instructed them on proper etiquette and instilled in them a desire for ihsān. We can see an example of this with Ismā'īl b. 'Ulayya (d. 193/809) of Baghdad, an early hadith scholar whose mother had brought him to a senior scholar and said, 'This is my son, let him be with you and take from your etiquette and character.'13 As a youth the famous jurist and Sufi of Baghdad, Ibn al-Jawzī, would attend the hadith dictation sessions of one teacher who would recite a hadith and then start crying out of fear of God and love for the Prophet. Later in life Ibn al-Jawzī would write, 'I benefited more from his crying than his simply transmitting the hadith.'14 The earliest recorded isnāds for Sufi teachings go back through al-Junayd. One Ja'far al-Khuldī (d. 348 /959) said that he 'took' from al-Junayd, who took from al-Sarī al-Saqatī, from Ma'rūf al-Karkhī, from Farqad al-Sabakhī, from al-Hasan al-Basrī, from Anas b. Mālik and the other great Companions, from the Prophet.15 The famous Sufi systematizer al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072) traces his isnād through his teacher Abū 'Alī al-Daqqāq, from Abū al-Qāsim al-Nasrābādī, from al-Shiblī, from al-Junayd, from Sarī al-Saqatī, from Ma'rūf al-Karkhī, from Dāwūd al-Tā'ī, from the Successors, from the Companions, from the Prophet.16 The second type of isnād in Sufism was understood as the transmission of esoteric knowledge – a weighty matter indeed – or something equally intangible but less serious: the transmission of blessings (baraka) from a saint to an aspirant. Many Muslims believed that the Prophet had chosen certain Companions with whom to deposit secret knowledge beyond the comprehension of normal Muslims and limited to the spiritual elite. The Companion Hudhayfa b. Yamān was told about all the strife and challenges that would afflict the Muslims until the Day of Judgment, and it was reported that Abū Hurayra said, 'I memorized two vessels [of knowledge] from the Prophet. As for the first, I made it known among the people. As for the second, if I made it known my throat would be cut.'17 This esoteric knowledge could be transmitted from the Prophet to a Companion, and later from saint to student, by a mere touch. As one report (admittedly very unreliable, according to Muslim hadith critics) has it, when 'Alī was washing the Prophet's body for burial some water splashed from the body into 'Alī's eyes, granting him in one instant 'the knowledge of the ancient and latter day sages.'18 Many Sufis believed that this knowledge could be transmitted from such Companions through teacher to student. For many Sufis, however, and even for critics of Sufism, these isnāds were not conduits for any secret mystical knowledge. They were merely symbols for the transmission of blessings from a revered pious figure to his students. Only in the eleventh and twelfth centuries did the Sufi tradition elaborate the isnād as a medium for transmitting the Prophet's mystical knowledge or his blessings, at which point 'Alī b. Abī Tālib first emerged as an important component in the Sufi chain of transmission.19 'Alī had always been seen as the Prophet's spiritual heir, leading al-Junayd to say, 'that is a person who was granted 'ilm ladunnī', or the directly, divinely granted wisdom that God gives to select people.20 Sufis quoted the Companion Ibn Mas'ūd as saying that the Quran was revealed with 'an Outer and Inner meaning, and indeed 'Alī b. Abī Tālib has with him the knowledge of both.'21 The Sufi isnād through 'Alī became very famous after the eleventh century because of what was known as the 'Investiture with the Cloak (libs al-khirqa).' In this ritual, a Sufi master put a khirqa (a cloak or shawl) on a student being initiated into his Sufi order. The khirqa became the sign of 'taking the path' of a Sufi order and was often given to the student after he had fulfilled certain requirements such as a year of charity or of spiritual vigilance. Along with being told the special prayers of the order and giving his oath of allegiance to the shaykh, being invested with the khirqa was a crucial part of joining a Sufi order. Sometimes khirqas were colored and served as the uniform for a particular Sufi order. In addition to the khirqa of initiation, Sufis also cultivated the tradition of the khirqat al-tabarruk, or the 'cloak of blessings,' which was given as a benediction to a layman who did not intend to join the order.22 The famous Hanbalī scholar and Sufi Ibn al-Mubrad (d. 909/1502) explains that the devoted student of knowledge should 'be invested with a khirqa to wear, for blessing is to be hoped for from that. And a group of the righteous early Muslims used to do this, asking the righteous to invest them with a cloak and seeking to learn from their behavior and actions.'23 Ibn al-Mubrad provides us with one of the isnāds for his khirqa, which we immediately note proceeds via the Family of the Prophet. He traces it back through a long chain of masters to: Abū Bakr al-Shiblī, who was invested with the khirqa by the hand of Abū al-Qāsim al-Junayd, who received it from the hand of Sarī al-Saqatī, who received it from the hand of Ma'rūf al-Karkhī, who was the spiritual disciple of 'Alī b. Mūsā al-Ridā, who was the disciple of [his father Mūsā] al-Kāzim, who was the disciple of [his father] Ja'far al-Sādiq, who was the disciple of [his father Muhammad] al-Bāqir, who was the disciple of [his father] Zayn al-'Ābidīn, who was the disciple of his father al-Husayn, who was the disciple of his father 'Alī b. Abī Tālib, who was the companion of the Prophet.24 The most famous isnād for the khirqa, however, was through the Successor al-Hasan al-Basrī, from 'Alī, from the Prophet. Critics of Sufism pounced on the chain of transmission for the khirqa as a point of vulnerability. Because the Sufi tradition had invested so much of its legitimacy in this isnād, the methods of hadith criticism would become a central tool for those who wished to question that legitimacy or to defend it. Ibn al-Jawzī of Baghdad criticized the way the Sufis of his day wore the khirqa in order to appear pious and gain repute. In fact, he rejected the idea of having an isnād for receiving the khirqa from one's shaykh, calling it 'all a lie' that had no basis in the Sunna.25 Ibn Taymiyya argued that, not only did the donning of a khirqa not come from the Prophet's practice, not even the early Sufis engaged in the practice (we can note in Ibn al-Mubrad's isnād (above) that all mention of receiving the khirqa goes no further back in time than Ma'rūf). 'Rather,' he writes, 'it resembles more a king passing on the trappings to his successor... which is fine if done with good intentions. But as for making that a Sunna [of the Prophet] or a path to God most high, that is not the case.'26 Many critics of Sufism attacked a more technical aspect of the khirqa isnād. Many Sufis traced their isnāds through al-Hasan al-Basrī, from 'Alī to Muhammad. But hadith masters who did not support many Sufi practices, such as Ibn al-Salāh (d. 643/1245), Ibn Hajar (d. 852/1449), and al-Sakhāwī (d. 897/1402) all argued that al-Hasan al-Basrī had never met or heard hadiths from 'Alī.27 How could he have received the khirqa, or any knowledge at all for that matter, from him? Proponents of Sufism have tried to find evidence from the hadith tradition to bolster the claim of al-Hasan receiving the khirqa from 'Alī. Al-Suyūtī (d. 911/1505) points out that al-Hasan al-Basrī was born in Medina and grew up in the house of one of the Prophet's wives. He met many of the Companions and attended congregational prayers led by the caliphs 'Uthmān and 'Alī. Since 'Alī did not leave Medina until al-Hasan was fourteen years old, al-Hasan would have had ample time to study with 'Alī. Furthermore, al-Suyūtī finds examples of hadiths where al-Hasan al-Basrī explicitly states that he heard the report from 'Alī, such as the hadith from the Musnad of Abū Ya'lā al-Mawsilī that 'The parable of my community is like the rain: it is not known which is better, its beginning or its end.'28 The debate over the strength of the isnād for the khirqa and al-Hasan's hearing hadith from 'Alī was intense and has lasted until the present day, when the Moroccan Ahmad al-Ghumārī wrote a book entitled 'The Evident Proof for Sufis Being Connected to 'Alī (al-Burhān al-jalī fī intisāb al-sūfiyya ilā 'Alī).' But ultimately this one point cannot settle the argument over the legitimacy of Sufism. As is clear from the isnāds listed above, Sufis cite many other isnāds for their teachings that do not involve al-Hasan al-Basrī, 'Alī, or the khirqa. More importantly, many of the hadith scholars, such as Ibn al-Salāh, who criticized the isnāds for the khirqa practice, themselves sought and received khirqas from Sufi masters! Regardless of the authenticity of the practice, they did so because it had become an accepted tradition for receiving blessings (baraka) from pious Muslim saints. No matter how poor its isnād, the khirqa carried great weight as the sign of a relationship with a Sufi master as well as a token of his blessings. HADITHS IN THEOSOPHICAL SUFISM Since the early period of Sufism, mystics have underscored the absolute contrast between the ultimate reality of God and the transience of His creation. As the Quran states, 'All things perish except His face' (Quran: 28:68). Many Sufis stressed how all of creation is nothing more than an ephemeral reflection of God's magnificence and held that man's greatest accomplishment is to penetrate the veil of this world and 'become annihilated' in God in this life – as one forged hadith puts it, to 'die before you die.'29 A truly pious and perspicacious mystic grasps that God reveals His beauty (tajallī) in every object in this world and that the pinnacle of human awareness is to know God more and more intimately through His signs and perfectly reflect His attributes. Attaining this state of being dissolved in God is what led ecstatic Sufi mystics like Bayazid al-Bastāmī (d. 261/874) to declare 'Glory be to Me!' and the famous Sufi martyr al-Hallāj (d. 309/922) to pronounce 'I am the Ultimate Truth/God (anā al-haqq)!,' both phrases being otherwise reserved for God alone. To achieve this profound understanding was to reconnect completely with the source of all existence and fulfill the deepest yearnings of the soul. As the great Persian Sufi poet Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 672/1273) wrote, like the reed flute whose song laments its separation from the reed bed: Every person who has long remained far from his source, Longingly seeks the day of his reunion. This mystical worldview flourished in the writings of Sufis like al-Ghazālī but was first organized into a comprehensive cosmology, or view of the universe, by the seminal Sufi Muhyī al-Dīn Ibn 'Arabī (d. 638/1240), who hailed from Spain, traveled throughout the Middle East and eventually died in Damascus. Ibn 'Arabī devised a conception of creation as a reflection of God's perfect attributes. Each of the manifold components and dimensions of the cosmos and the natural world mirrors His endless beauty, order, and creative capacity. The pinnacle and capstone of creation is mankind, the element that reflects God's most essential attribute: His unity. Humans embody within their souls and character all the multiplicity of the cosmos but are able to bring them into unified balance and proper proportion. A person who has achieved this state of enlightened balance not only embodies 'the spirit of the cosmos,' he or she also is the most perfect reflection of God's perfection. This is 'the perfect human being (al-insān al-kāmil),' who has purged him or herself of imperfections and grown closer and closer to God's attributes until he dissolves into non-existence. For only God truly exists at all.30 For Ibn 'Arabī, investiture with the khirqa symbolizes 'putting on' the divine qualities.31 The function of revealed religion is similar. Each of the great prophets sent by God to their respective communities embodied and reflected one of His attributes. Their culmination, which Ibn 'Arabī refers to with the Quranic phrase 'the Seal of the Prophets' (Quran 33:40), was Muhammad. He was 'the perfect human' par excellence, the consummate reflection of God who represented the goal that all seekers of truth sought and the station attained by saints. His timeless reality, which Ibn 'Arabī called 'the Muhammadan Reality (al-haqīqa al-muhammadiyya)' was, in fact, the whole purpose of creation. The theosophical Sufi tradition, brought to its height by Ibn 'Arabī, explained the reason for God's creation in the 'Hadith of the Hidden Treasure,' which Ibn 'Arabī cites many times in his massive treatise al-Futuhāt al-makkiyya (The Meccan Revelations). It is a hadith qudsī, in which the Prophet quotes God directly as saying 'I was a hidden treasure, and I wanted to be known. So I created the cosmos so that I might be known' (kuntu kanza makhfīyan fa-ahbabtu an u'raf fa-khalaqtu al-khalq li-u'rafa).This hadith communicated an essential point of Ibn 'Arabī's cosmology: knowing God is the purpose of all creation. Humans exist because God wanted them to know Him and strive to become His flawless reflections. Although this sense is conveyed in Quranic verses such as the one reading 'I have not created the jinn or mankind except to worship me' (Quran 51:56, with Ibn 'Abbās glossing 'worship' as 'know'), the Hadith of the Hidden Treasure imbued this motivation with an almost emotional longing that conveys the themes of desire and intimate knowledge so key to the Sufi tradition. A second hadith that served as an important piece of evidence in theosophical Sufism was known as the Hadith of Reason (hadīth al-'aql). It is another qudsī hadith, in which the Prophet explains: Indeed God, when he created reason, He said to it, 'Come,' and it came. Then He said, 'Go back,' and it went back. So God said, 'By my glory and beauty, I have not created anything nobler than you. By you I will take and by you I will give' (Inna Allāh lammā khalaqa al-'aql qāla lahu: aqbil fa-aqbala, thumma qāla adbir fa'adbara, fa-qāla 'wa 'izzatī wa jamālī mā khalaqtu khalqan ashraf minka, fa-bika ākhudhu wa bika u'tī). This hadith established an important tenet of Sufism and speculative theology in Islam in general: man's reason is ultimately subordinate to God and serves the cause of grasping His truth. For Ibn 'Arabī and upholders of the theosophical Sufi tradition, there were three ways for humans to attain knowledge: prophetic revelation, inspiration from God (often called 'dhawq,' 'tasting,' or kashf, 'unveiling'), and ra-tional investigation. Yet the mainstream Sunni tradition, especially in its infancy during the ninth and tenth centuries, was highly suspicious of relying on reason. They considered it a loophole for human beings to meddle in matters of religion that God alone should define. For Sufis, the Hadith of Reason established that reason obeyed God and prophecy. Unfortunately, neither the Hadith of the Hidden Treasure nor the Hadith of Reason had any basis in the actual words of the Prophet, according to Muslim scholars. Opponents of Ibn 'Arabī's theosophical Sufism, such as Ibn Taymiyya, said that the Hadith of the Hidden Treasure 'has no isnād, weak or strong, to the Prophet,' and even moderate scholars who supported Sufism, like Ibn Hajar and Mullā 'Alī Qārī, acknowledged that its attribution to the Prophet was baseless.32The Hadith of Reason actually did appear in some hadith collections, although highly unreliable ones. Ibn Hanbal's son 'Abdallāh included it as a mursal hadith in his book of zuhd, and al-Tabarānī included it in his large mu'jam. However, every major Sunni hadith critic, from early figures such as al-'Uqaylī (d. 323/934) and al-Dāraqutnī to later ones such as al-Sakhāwī and Mullā 'Alī Qārī, agreed that the report was extremely weak or forged.33 Ibn 'Arabī himself was no amateur in hadiths; he had cultivated his own collection of hadiths with full isnāds back to the Prophet. He acknowledged that these two hadiths had no basis according to the methods of hadith critics. Rather, as he states in the case of the Hadith of the Hidden Treasure, it was known to be 'sound on the basis of unveiling (kashf)' (see Chapter 3 on Criticism through Unveiling).34 What concern was it to Sufis if no reliable isnād could be found for an important hadith? Sufi masters like Ibn 'Arabī felt that their understanding of the cosmos superseded the mere probabilities generated by Sunni hadith criticism and its reliance on the isnād. As the early Sufi al-Bastāmī was quoted as saying, 'You take your knowledge dead from the dead, but I take my knowledge from the Living One who does not die.'35 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING Fortunately, a great deal has been written about Sufism in English. Helpful works include Annemarie Schimmel's Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975) and Sayyed Hosein Nasr's Sufi Essays (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1972). Michael Sells' Early Islamic Mysticism (New York: Paulist Press, 1996) contains many original texts in translation. For a more specific discussion about the theosophical Sufism of Ibn 'Arabī, see Claude Addas, The Quest for the Red Sulfur: The Life of Ibn 'Arabī (Cambridge: Islamic Text Society, 1993) and William Chittick's The Sufi Path of Knowledge (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989). For an edited collection of essays dealing with debates over Sufism within the Islamic tradition, see F. de Jong and Bernd Radtke's Islamic Mysticism Contested (Leiden: Brill, 1999). For a translation and discussion of many of the hadiths frequently used in Sufism, see Javad Nurbakhsh, Traditions of the Prophet (New York: Khaniqahi-Nimatullahi Publications, 1981). Ibn 'Arabī's Mishkāt al-anwār is translated as Divine Sayings, trans. Stephen Hirtenstein (Oxford: Anqa Publications, 2004). ENDNOTES 1 Martin Lings, What is Sufism?, p. 7. 2 Al-Khatīb, Tārīkh Baghdād, vol. 14, p. 393. 3 This statement is from Abū Hafs al-Naysābūrī; Al-Sulamī, Tabaqāt al-sūfiyya, p. 119. 4 Al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, vol. 1, p. 167; Abū Nu'aym al-Isbahānī, Hilyat al-awliyā', vol. 10, p. 15. 5 Ibn Nuqta, Kitāb al-taqyīd, p. 280. 6 Al-Sulamī, Kitāb al-arba'īn fī al-tasawwuf, p. 5. 7 Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-īmān, bāb 38. 8 J. Brown, 'The Last Days of al-Ghazzālī and the Tripartite Division of the Sufi World,' p. 93. 9 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, I'lām al-muwaqqi'īn, vol. 1, p. 344. 10 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū'at al-fatāwā, vol. 11, p. 289. 11 Al-Khatīb, Tārīkh Baghdād, vol. 7, p. 251. 12 'Alī Hujvīrī, Kashf al-mahjūb, p. 49. 13 Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-i'tidāl, vol. 1, p. 217. 14 Ibn al-Jawzī, Mashyakhat Ibn al-Jawzī, p. 86. 15 Ibn al-Nadīm, The Fihrist, p. 455. 16 'Abd al-Ghāfir al-Fārisī, Tārīkh Naysābūr, pp. 513–514. 17 Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-'ilm, bāb hifz al-'ilm. 18 Badr al-Dīn al-Zarkashī, Al-Tadhkira fī al-ahādīth al-mushtahira, p. 93. 19 J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam, p. 261. 20 Abū Nasr al-Sarraj, The Kitáb al-Luma' fi'l-Tasawwuf, p. 129. 21 Abū Nu'aym al-Isbahānī, Hilyat al-awliyā', vol. 1, p. 65. 22 Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam; pp. 80, 183–185. 23 Ibn al-Mubrad, Tahdhīb al-nafs li'l-'ilm bi'l-'ilm, p. 86. 24 Ibid., p. 88. 25 Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs Iblīs, pp. 186, 191. 26 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū'at al-fatāwā, vol. 11, p. 289. 27 Shams al-Dīn al-Sakhāwī, Al-Maqasid al-hasana, p. 338. 28 Al-Suyūtī, al-Hāwī li'l-fatāwā, vol. 1, pp. 102–104. 29 Javad Nurbakhsh, Traditions of the Prophet, p. 66. 30 William Chittick, Imaginal Worlds, pp. 34–37. 31 Lings, What is Sufism?, p. 18. 32 Al-Sakhāwī, Al-Maqāsid al-hasana, p. 334; Mullā 'Alī Qārī, Al-Asrār, pp. 269 ff. 33 Al-Albānī, Silsilat al-ahādīth al-da'īfa, vol. 1, p. 53. 34 Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge, p. 250. 35 'Abd al-Wahhāb al-Sha'rānī, Al-Tabaqāt al-kubrā, p. 11. THE FUNCTION OF PROPHETIC TRADITIONS IN POLITICS If there is one area of the Islamic heritage familiar to the lay reader, it is that of politics. Yet this is a subject that the Quran does not address in any elaborate manner. The themes of power, obedience, of rise and fall that grace the pages of the holy book concern how human communities should relate to God's absolute dominion, not the proper modes of human governance. The Quran instructs Muslims to 'Obey God, and obey the Messenger and those in authority amongst you' (Quran 4:59), and it praises those who conduct their affairs by mutual consultation (shūrā) (42:38). 'Reconciliation is best,' the Quran teaches (4:128), but otherwise it is not a strikingly political text. The basic foundations of Muslim political life were laid not in the Quran but through the rapid and immediate experience of the early Muslim community: first as it consolidated power in Arabia towards the end of the Prophet's life; and then as it burst into the greater Middle East after his death in 632 CE.1 Many of the key, early traditions and institutions of the Muslim polity emerged from Arabian tribal life: the role of the leader as first amongst equals, cleverly balancing competing interests; the centrality of mutual oaths of allegiance (bay'a) between the leader and his subjects (see Quran 4:10); the significance of family relations and tribal politics; the temptations of conquest and the challenge of fairly distributing its spoils; and finally the hopeless suffering of civil war. Both these ideals and instructions for dealing with political realities infused the hadith corpus as it formed in the early Islamic period. But in that formative era Muslims were only a small minority in their new empire (for example, even 230 years after the Islamic conquests, only fifty percent of Iraq was Muslim and only forty percent of Iran).2 They ruled over a diverse population with its own ancient political heritage. Within a century and a half of the Prophet's death, the massively expanded state he had founded had moved its capital from Medina, first to Kufa, then to Damascus, and then finally to Baghdad, 'The City of Peace' and 'The Navel of the World.' Arabian political tradition gave way as Muslim rulers adopted the Near Eastern Roman and Persian traditions of the ruler being, as one unreliable but still very popular hadith phrased it, 'the shadow of God on earth.'3 THE CALIPH IS FROM THE QURAYSH In June 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) issued a proclamation that it had 'established the Islamic caliphate and appointed a caliph for the state of Muslims.' It had chosen as the caliph a man known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, one of its guerilla leaders. He was not the most expressive or powerful member of the organization, but he was a descendent of the Prophet's tribe of Quraysh. This bolstered his claim to Islamic leadership.4 The Prophet had made it clear that this bloodline was a requirement for a claimant to the caliphate, as is described in famous hadiths in Sahīh al-Bukhārī and Sahīh Muslim, such as 'This matter will remain with the Quraysh as long as there are two of them,' and other hadiths in which the Prophet states, 'Dominion is with the Quraysh,' 'The Quraysh are the authorities over the people in good and bad until the Day of Resurrection,' and 'The leaders (a'imma) are from the Quraysh.'5 Until its abolition in 1924, leadership in the Muslim community had been tied in some way or another to the institution of the caliphate (Arabic khilāfa, with caliph, khalīfa, meaning 'successor' or 'appointed representative'). Although various forms of this word are used in the Quran, in the holy book they generally convey the notion of succession in time. In two instances the Quran uses the term khalīfa to describe those whom God has placed on earth to exercise authority or to whom some authority has been delegated (Quran 38:26 and 2:30). But by the late 800s CE Muslim exegetes had elided all of these meanings and merged them with the notion of supreme political authority in the Abode of Islam.6 Nonetheless, surviving evidence – such as coins – leaves no proof of the title 'caliph' being used before the late 600s CE. At that point, well into the Umayyad dynasty, it appears alongside the primary title that had been used by Muslim rulers since the decade after the Prophet's death: 'Commander of the Faithful (amīr al-mu'minīn)' (this title is attested in a rock inscription dated 58/678, during the reign of the first Umayyad caliph, Mu'āwiya).7 The title of caliph is, however, mentioned repeatedly in the hadith corpus, which also provides detailed guidance on the qualifications and conditions for Muslim rulers as well as the duties of their subjects. The title of caliph has cast a long shadow in Islamic civilization. But neither the reality of this office nor perceptions of it have been static. Leadership of the Muslim community passed from the Prophet's close friend Abū Bakr, who had been selected through a contentious negotiation within the Muslim community, through three other close lieutenants of the Prophet, until 657 CE. At that point, the Muslim state fragmented in civil wars over who should hold the reins of power. This strife – as well as any notion of meritocratic rule – came to an end in 692 CE, when the Umayyad clan of the Quraysh tribe solidified their dynasty in Damascus, passing the mantle of caliph down within their family. In 750 CE, after several years of rebellion against the crumbling Umayyad regime, descendants of the Prophet's uncle, 'Abbās, seized the title and built the new caliphal capital of Baghdad. As spoils of war from raids or new conquests dwindled, however, the Abbasid caliphs lost control of their armies and provincial governors. By the mid 800s, the provinces of North Africa, Egypt, and what is today northeastern Iran and Central Asia were controlled by local dynasties bound only by nominal loyalty to the caliphs. In Baghdad itself, the Abbasid caliphs had become prisoners or pawns in the hands of the Turkic slave bodyguards originally imported to protect them. From the late ninth century onward, the Abbasid caliphs would enjoy the 'protection' of various Persian or Turkic warlord dynasties. The caliphate survived despite its lack of military clout because it provided the symbolic aegis under which the Abode of Islam cohered. The various local dynasties that ruled in the caliph's name could only argue their legitimacy in the language of Islam. So compelling was the office of the caliphate that parallel claimants arose: the Shiite Fatimid ruler of North Africa declared himself caliph in 910 CE, and soon after the surviving Umayyad province of Andalusia declared itself a caliphate as well. In the central Islamic lands the prestige of the Abbasid caliphate waned. In 1258 CE the pagan Mongols sacked Baghdad and executed the Abbasid caliph and most of his family. A refugee member of the Abbasid clan fled to Cairo, where he and his descendants continue to 'rule,' and, more accurately, to bestow the formal right to rule in their name upon the Mamluk sultans of Egypt and Syria. Ironically, on the expanding peripheries of Islamic civilization the caliphate still carried great prestige. The warlord sultan of Delhi in the mid 1300s proudly had his appointment as the Abbasid caliph's legitimate deputy read aloud at Friday prayers. In 1498 CE the sultan of the Songhay Empire of Mali, Askia Muhammad, also obtained the blessings of the Abbasid caliph in Cairo to rule.8 The belief that the caliph had to hail from the Quraysh tribe was widely held during the early centuries of Islam. The widely respected scholar al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277) wrote that this was the consensus of the Prophet's Companions.9 It was so important, in fact, that when the Abbasid caliphs fell under the actual control of the Persian Buyid state in 945 CE, and later under the control of the Turkic Seljuq dynasty, leading Sunni scholars like al-Ghazālī preferred to theorize a nominal Qurayshi caliph who 'delegated' authority to a Persian or Turkic warlord rather than to transfer the title of caliph to that warlord himself.10 This formalistic effort to preserve a Qurayshi caliphate, however, soon lost out to a more pragmatic approach. Beginning with al-Ghazālī's own mentor, the famous Shāfi'ī jurist and theologian al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085), Muslim scholars began to see that the caliph and the real holder of power had to be one and the same person, regardless of lineage.11 By the 1400s, however, the currency of political legitimacy had suffered staggering inflation. In the wake of the Mongol conquests, it was descent from the world conqueror Genghis Khan that granted a right to empire. Such favor of God, shown through conquest, obviated any need for recognition from the caliph, argued a prominent Sunni theologian of the era. In fact, he declared the Turkic warlord who ruled western Persia to be the caliph.12 In the sixteenth century various sultans in Southeast Asia took the title of caliph and commander of the faithful as well.13 When the Ottoman Empire conquered Egypt and Syria in 1517, the sultan received recognition from the last Abbasid caliph for his legitimate rule. But this was less than a formality. For the Ottoman sultans, conquest of Constantinople in 1453 bestowed upon them the title of Caesar. Moreover, the real anchor of their legitimacy was as supposed descendants from the great Oghuz Turkish clan that had conquered the Middle East in the eleventh century.14 As the millennium of the Islamic calendar approached (1591 CE), the rulers of powerful Muslim states took on the title of the messianic Mahdī. Both the Ottoman Suleiman the Magnificent (d. 1566 CE) and the Mughal sultan Akbar the Great (d. 1605 CE) thus ruled as 'emperor of Islam, Mahdī,' etc. Caliph was but one of the titles they both claimed. Had it mattered more, the Ottomans certainly had the strongest claim to the universal caliphate. The dynasty had formally received recognition from the last Abbasid caliph. Akbar's grandson, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (d. 1666 CE), praised the Ottoman sultan as 'successor' of the first four caliphs, known in Sunni Islam as the Rāshidūn (rightly guided) caliphs. But this was a diplomatic nicety.15 Being the caliph in such a context granted little leverage. In the sixteenth century, the newly Muslim state of Aceh in Southeast Asia hailed the Ottoman sultans as 'God's caliph on earth.' But this was only because the Ottomans had sent crucial arms and military support in the Acehnese war against the Portuguese.16 In the mid nineteenth century, however, the claim of universal caliphate took on renewed utility for the Ottoman Empire. In the wake of conflicts in Russia and the Caucasus, the Ottoman sultan 'Abd al-'Azīz (r. 1861–76) reasserted his family's claim to the universal caliphate to act as the protector of Muslim refugees. The last powerful Ottoman sultan, 'Abd al-Hamīd II (r. 1876–1909), realized that even greater potential lay in foregrounding the Ottoman title. Encroached on from all sides by the colonial machinations of the European Great Powers, and with his empire being chipped away by nationalist movements in the Balkans, Sultan 'Abd al-Hamīd realized he could leverage his title as the caliph of all the world's Muslims, many of whom now lived under British, French, or Dutch rule, to protect himself from colonial pressures.17 Ironically, reviving the caliphate's Quraysh requirement may not have been a Muslim initiative. Eager to oppose what they considered to be the dangerous influence of Ottoman claims to global Muslim authority, elements within the British government began agitating against the legitimacy of the Ottoman claim to the caliphate. Beginning in 1877, numerous British Orientalists put forth arguments that the Ottomans could not be the caliphs since they were clearly not descended from the Quraysh. They happily pointed to the hadiths stating this condition. British authorities hoped to move the seat of the caliphate to friendlier areas that fell under British influence, such as Egypt or later to Mecca.18 In March 1924, the Turkish Republic abolished the caliphate. That same month Sherif Husayn of Mecca, a proud Qurayshi descendant of the Prophet and also a British client, proclaimed himself caliph (only a few months later he fled Mecca into exile as Saudi armies conquered the Hejaz).19 Two years later it was the turn of the king of Egypt, who was of Albanian-Turkish descent, to hold a caliphal congress in hopes of receiving nomination for the office. Though the king's hopes were ultimately dashed, his supporters countered those who argued that the caliph had to be of Qurayshi descent by pointing to the long precedent of non-Quraysh caliphs.20 They had a strong point. The Ottomans, Mughals, and many other claimants to the caliphate had all ignored the Quraysh requirement. But how could they have done so when it is so clearly stated in hadiths found in the premier Sunni hadith collections? In his argument against the Quraysh condition, al-Juwaynī notes regarding the hadith 'The leaders are from the Qurasyh (al-a'imma min Quraysh)' that 'some leading scholars have ruled that it is widely transmitted (mustafīd), with its attestation known with certainty (maqtū' bi-thubūtihi).' Al-Juwaynī rebuts this by drawing on the epistemological standards developed in Sunni legal theory and theology: the hadith may be sahīh, but its narrations fall short of the number needed for massive parallel transmission (tawātur) and thus for certainty. Therefore no certainty ('ilm) exists as to the genealogical requirement. In fact, al-Juwaynī adds, God can, and has, granted temporal power to whomever He chooses.21 Addressing the Ottoman lack of proper genealogy after that dynasty's claim to the caliphate in the early sixteenth century, the Ottoman grand vizier Lutfī Pasha wrote a treatise in 1544 CE in which he argued that the hadiths on the Quraysh requirement were only applicable to the first few decades of Islamic rule, namely the era of the four Rāshidūn caliphs.22 In fact, Lutfī Pasha had a strong argument. Terse hadiths like 'The leaders are from the Quraysh' were among the least reliable reports on this subject in the eyes of Sunni hadith critics. The most reliable narrations specify conditions for the Quraysh claim to the caliphate. A hadith in Sahīh Bukhārī, narrated by Mu'āwiya, quotes the Prophet as saying, 'Indeed this matter lies among the Quraysh, and no one will oppose them but God will cause him to fall upon his face as long as they uphold the faith' (emphasis mine).23 Others, from less reliable collections such as the Sunan of al-Bayhaqī and the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal, include the condition 'as long as they obey God and are righteous in His rule,' or that the Quraysh 'have a right upon you all as long as they do three things: as long as they are just; if mercy is sought from them, they grant it; and as long as, if they make a covenant, they fulfill it.'24 According to the great historian, hadith scholar, and social philosopher Ibn Khaldūn (d. 808/1406), the conditional nature of the requirement for Qurayshi descent was clear from the reasoning behind the hadiths. The only reason God had placed leadership of the Muslim community in the hands of the Quraysh, Ibn Khaldūn argued, was because of the tribe's strong group solidarity ('asabiyya), which the philosopher considered to be the essential ingredient for a successful state. Following the natural cycle by which such a ruling group loses its solidarity (success breeds complacency and then weakness, observed Ibn Khaldūn), the reason for God having favored the Quraysh would no longer apply.25 THE LEGITIMACY OF REBELLION IN SUNNI ISLAM Anyone who doubted the relevance of hadiths in the modern world had only to follow events in Egypt from 2011 to 2013, during the Arab Spring and its subsequent winter chill. Throughout this tumultuous period, invocations of the Prophet's words flew back and forth across various media as contending parties argued for or against protest, revolution, and finally various government responses, each invoking religious argument to prove the legitimacy of their claims. As the protests against the regime of Hosni Mubarak forced the leader out in late January 2011, Egyptians arguing that it was a Muslim's duty to protest cited the hadith that 'The best jihad is a word of truth spoken before an oppressive ruler (kalimat haqq 'ind sultān jā'ir).'26 Many ulama, including the then Grand Mufti of Egypt, 'Alī Jum'a, warned against the protests and the chaos and bloodshed that might result, quoting a hadith that had become well known despite being highly unreliable: 'Civil strife sleeps, and God curses whomever awakens it.'27 When a military coup finally toppled the president elected to replace Mubarak and the army massacred over a thousand civilians protesting the coup, Jum'a also turned to hadiths to assuage any guilt on the part of the military and its supporters. He drew on the hadith that 'Whoever seeks to break apart this nation, when it is united, strike him with the sword whoever he may be.'28 The Prophet's career passed from oppression, through exile and struggle, and finally to victorious return. Once he and his followers had been expelled from their home city of Mecca, the Quran granted the Muslims permission to fight the Quraysh lords of the city in order to regain what they had lost. Although the holy book notes several times the severity of warfare and killing, it stresses that the Muslims' cause was just. God commands the Muslims to fight those who had made war on them, who had driven them from their homes and who were trying to extirpate their religion. War is unappealing, the Quran affirms, but 'strife (fitna) is worse than killing' (Quran 2:191, 217). Fighting should be avoided, but there are causes that justify it: self-defense, securing religious freedom, and defense against injustice.29 But what happens when these just causes clash with the Quranic command that Muslims should 'Obey God, and obey the Messenger and those in authority amongst you'? It is silent on whether this means Muslims should refrain from rebellion if threats against life, property, and justice come from their own rulers. The Sunni hadith corpus, however, is not silent. As it gelled in the ninth century, Sunni Islam was dogmatically politically quietist. In this respect it stood out against the politically activist strains of Islam that eventually coalesced into the Zaydi Shiite tradition, which produced consistent rebellions against Umayyad and then Abbasid rule through the late 800s CE, when Zaydis retreated to redoubts in northern Iran and soon thereafter to Yemen. Very much unlike the Zaydi doctrine that a true imam proved himself in part by openly resisting tyranny, firm tenets of Sunni doctrine were that Muslims should 'pray behind every righteous and sinful leader' and that obedience to the ruler was an absolute requirement provided he did not command them to disobey God.30 These positions rested not on the Quran but on the myriad hadiths found in the mainstay Sunni hadith collections like the Sahīhayn of al-Bukhārī and Muslim. They conveyed a clear political message. Reports attributed to the Prophet include 'Whoever obeys the ruler has obeyed me, and whoever disobeys the ruler has disobeyed me,' and 'Incumbent upon you is listening and obeying, in hardship and in ease, in what pleases and displeases, and even if your properties are taken unfairly.'31 In one hadith, the Prophet is asked about rulers who would deny people their rights. After hesitating to answer several times, he replies, 'Listen and obey, for what they have taken on is upon them, and what has been put on you is upon you.'32 Perhaps the most extreme is the hadith, found in Sahīh Muslim, in which the Prophet tells the Companion Hudhayfa: There will be after me leaders who will not be guided by my guidance, nor will they abide by my Sunna. Men will arise among them whose hearts are those of devils though they be in human bodies.... Listen and obey the commander, even if your back is beaten and your wealth taken. Listen and obey.33 Yet there were limits. The hadiths commanding obedience even to unjust rulers draw a line at the ruler demonstrating 'egregious disbelief (kufran bawāha),' and the Prophet's order to listen to and obey rulers has the condition 'as long as they pray.'34 In addition, Muslims should not obey commands that entail clearly disobeying God's law. When the commander of one raiding party sent out by the Prophet ordered his soldiers to jump into a fire to show their respect for his assigned command, they refused. They told the Prophet, who applauded them for their disobedience. 'Obedience is only in what is right,' he explained, which Sunni scholars soon formulated into a maxim: 'There is no obedience to a creature if it means disobeying the Creator.'35 The Sunni tenet is clear: Muslims must not rebel against a ruler no matter how unjust or impious he is provided he is nominally Muslim. The reasoning behind the Sunni position, and presumably behind the sayings attributed to the Prophet, was simple. Injustice and oppression were evils, but they were markedly better than civil war and anarchy. A brutal and uncaring ruler was awful. But, in theory at least, Muslims who steered clear of posing any challenge to him could lead their lives in relative safety and security. It was fitna (civil, political, and misguided religious strife) that was the ultimate worldly evil, since it undermined all other areas of life, 'trading security for fear, spilling blood, freeing the hands of the foolish, launching attacks upon the Muslims and spreading corruption in the land,' as the famous scholar al-Qurtubī (d. 671/1273) wrote. A saying commonly repeated in Sunni works of political theory was 'An oppressive leader is better than unending strife (imām ghashūm khayr min fitna tadūm).'36 In hadiths, the strife (fitna) that the Prophet spoke of was understood to be the civil wars that ravaged the nascent Muslim polity in the decades after his death, the general decay of the Muslim polity over time, as well as the tribulations and temptations prophesied to afflict the world as the end of days approached. 'There will be fitnas,' one famous hadith states, 'in which the one who stays seated is better than the one who stands, and the one who stands still is better than the one who walks....'37 Countless hadiths of varied reliability preach the same message: do not involve yourselves in such strife. 'If there is fitna between the Muslims,' states another hadith, 'then take up a sword of wood.'38 Al-Nawawī summarized the Sunni position: rebellion against the ruler is prohibited by the consensus of the Muslims even if he is sinful, due to a fear of strife (fitna) and anarchy. The only exception is if the ruler becomes an avowed unbeliever.39 This tenet of political theory remained strong into the modern period. The most notable hadiths on the topic were brought together by the Ottoman judge Yūsuf al-Nabhānī (d. 1932), a passionate advocate of the last caliphs, in his Forty Hadiths on the Obligation of Obeying the Commander of the Faithful. Sunni quietism, however, was at odds with the Quran's powerful imperative for ordaining justice in the public sphere. 'Indeed God commands justice, virtue and giving the near of kin their due, and He forbids indecency, wrong and wickedness,' states the Quran (16:90). It commands those who believe to 'be steadfast in upholding justice, witnesses to God, even against yourselves, your parents or your kin' (Quran 4:135). This theme of standing for justice is also stated most explicitly in well-known hadiths from the mainstay Sunni collections. When the Umayyad caliph Marwān tried to give the sermon on Eid before the prayer instead of after it, a man rose and objected that the caliph was changing the Sunna. The Companion Abū Sa'īd al-Khudrī then rose and reminded everyone of the Prophet's command, 'Whoever among you sees a wrong, let him change it with his hand. And if he is not able, then with his tongue. And if he is not able, then with his heart, but that is the weakest of faith.'40 Outside the Sunni fold, other Muslims had long read the Quran as prohibiting the tolerance of unjust rulers. God tells Abraham that he is making him a 'leader (imām)' for all mankind but that, among his progeny, 'My covenant does not include the unjust (zālimīn)' (Quran 2:124). Some Muslims understood this as meaning that no tyrant could be a rightful ruler or authority. Adherents to this school of thought read the quietist hadith (found in the Sahīhayn) in which the Prophet states, 'We do not contest the authority of those holding it (lā nunāzi'u al-amr ahlahu),' not as Sunnis did, namely 'we do not contest the authority of those in charge,' but rather that legitimate holders of authority must be 'befitting it (ahluhu).'41 Even some Sunnis trod a more nuanced path between political quietism and activism. This was particularly true amongst early figures, who predated the formation of classical Sunnism. Abū Hanīfa, for example, supported several rebellions against the Umayyads and Abbasids. The Hanafī scholar al-Jassās (d. 370/981) reminded his readers that Abū Hanīfa's position was 'well known on fighting oppressors and unjust leaders.' Al-Jassās shared the position of the Mālikī scholar Ibn Khuwayz Mindād (d. 390/1000), who explained that the Quranic verse stating that no one unjust can uphold God's covenant meant that, indeed, no unjust person could be the rightful caliph. But, he adds, Muslims should not rebel against such a ruler or try to remove him until the decision-making elite (ahl al-hall wa'l-'aqd) decided he should be removed.42 Commenting on the above hadiths warning against involvement in fitna, the Shāfi'ī scholar Muhibb al-Dīn al-Tabarī (d. 694/1295) affirms that Sunnis all agreed that Muslims should not involve themselves in conflicts between parties driven by desire for power or worldly goods. But this does not entail remaining silent in any disagreement: ... since, if it were required to stay out of every disagreement between two parties among the Muslims, and to break the sword, then none of God's limits would be upheld. Falsehood would never be defeated, and the people of oppression and hypocrisy would find an easy path to declare licit people's inviolable property and to spill their blood....43 Nor should we understand that Sunni Islam approved of unjust or despotic rulers. Hadiths clearly condemned unjust conduct on the part of the ruler, even if they urged Muslims to obey the ruler nonetheless. The Sahīhayn feature the hadith promising that God will deny Heaven to rulers who cheat their subjects of their rights.44 Another hadith quotes the Prophet as saying, 'Indeed there will be rulers over you all, but do not aid them in their injustice or believe their lies....'45 The dogmatic quietism of the Sunni tradition, however, was able to elide the activist message found in some hadiths. The influential sixteenth-century Hanafī scholar Mullā 'Alī Qārī explained that the hadith calling on believers to right wrongs by force if needed should be understood as follows: 'Enjoining right with the hand is done by the state, with the tongue by scholars, and with the heart by the masses.' This was repeated by the Salafi scholar Muqbil bin Hādī al-Wādi'ī (d. 2001), who penned a whole book, intended for mass audiences, entitled A Way out of Strife (Makhraj min al-fitna). Al-Wādi'ī argues that not rebelling against the state is the key to escaping chaos and violence.46 In light of the intense debates sparked by the Arab Spring/Winter, contention has swirled around details of some of the hadiths advocating political quietism, in particular the Companion Hudhayfa's dramatic narration that Muslims should obey the ruler even if he beats their backs and takes their property (found in Sahīh Muslim). Interestingly, this clause of the hadith appears in only a few of the many, varied narrations of this tradition via Hudhayfa. It is also a rare instance of a hadith in the Sahīhayn being criticized. The tenth-century hadith master al-Dāraqutnī had concluded that this narration of the hadith suffered from a broken isnād, since the narrator who reported it from Hudhayfa, one Abū Salām, had never actually met him or even anyone around him.47 Al-Nawawī argued that this flaw was compensated for by the collective strength of the tradition. But he did not address the specific wording of 'even if your back is beaten or your wealth taken.' Modern defenders of the hadith have argued that a similar wording is found in a narration in the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd and the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal and point to al-Albānī's conclusion that this narration is hasan.48 Depending on their political leanings, Muslim scholars have understood the meanings of this hadith as either supporting existing regimes or validating their opposition. The well-known Saudi scholar 'Abd al-'Azīz al-Turayfī, who has shown himself to be more politically conscious than the generally quietist clerical establishment in his country, nonetheless offers that the details of the controversial added clause do not matter because they are merely examples of the overall injustice (zulm) that a ruler might visit upon his subjects. The Prophet's ruling is the same: do not rebel as long as the ruler is nominally Muslim.49 One of the most outspoken scholarly critics of the quietist camp in and after the Arab Spring has been the Mauritanian hadith scholar Muhammad Hasan Didū. In a 2013 television appearance, he argues that Hudhayfa's tradition must be read in its entirety. Referring to the narration of it in the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd, which defenders use to substantiate the 'beating backs and taking wealth' clause, Didū notes how the Prophet precedes this remark with a condition: 'If God has a caliph in the world, even if he strikes your back or takes your wealth, obey him.' The viewer is left with the conclusion that extreme political quietism is only owed to the one, universal caliph of the Muslims, not to petty dictators. Didū reinforces this when he states that these dictators do not implement the Shariah and therefore do not enjoy the obedience due a true Muslim ruler.50 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING For an overview of Islamic political thought and its relation to law, see Ovamir Anjum's Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), and for a comprehensive study of the caliphate and disputes around it, see Mona Hassan, Longing for the Lost Caliphate (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016). Yūsuf al-Nabhānī's forty hadith collection has been translated as Forty Hadiths on the Obligation to Obey the Ruler, trans. S. Z. Chowdhury (CreateSpace, 2015). For an excellent study on the heritage of political activism and quietism in Sunni Islam, see Ahmet Alibašic, 'The Right of Political Opposition in Islamic History and Legal Theory: An Exploration of an Ambivalent Heritage,' Shajarah: Journal of ISTAC 4, no. 2 (1999): pp. 231–295. For an important analysis of Muslim scholars articulating Shariah arguments for or against rising up against oppressive rulers in the Arab Spring, see Aria Nakissa, 'The Fiqh of Revolution and the Arab Spring: Secondary Segmentation as a Trend in Islamic Legal Doctrine,' Muslim World 105 (2015): pp. 398–421. For more on the bay'a, see Ella Landau-Tasseron, The Religious Foundations of Political Allegiance: A Study of Bay'a in Pre-Modern Islam (Washington, D.C.: Hudson Institute, 2010), available at https://www.hudson.org/content/researchattachments/attachment/1166/20100521_baya3may20.pdf. ENDNOTES 1 Paul Heck, 'Politics and the Qur'ān,' in Encyclopaedia of the Qur'ān, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe (Leiden: Brill, 2001). 2 Richard Bulliet, 'Conversion to Islam and the Emergence of a Muslim Society in Iran,' in Levtzion, ed., Conversion to Islam, p. 31; idem, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period, p. 85. 3 Al-Albānī, Silsilat al-ahādīth al-da'īfa, vol. 1, pp. 687–688; vol. 2, pp. 69–70; Ahmad al-Ghumārī, al-Mudāwī, vol. 4, pp. 269–270. 4 See 'Dā'ish yu'linu qiyām khilāfa islāmiyya wa yubāyi'u al-baghdādī,' Al-Hayat, 29 June 2014, <http://www.alhayat.com/Articles/3292478>; and Ali Hashem, 'The Many Names of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,' Al Monitor, 23 March 2015, <http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/en/originals/2015/03/isis-baghdadi-islamic-state-caliph-many-names-al-qaeda.html>; Cole Bunzel, 'From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State,' Brookings Institute (2015), pp. 18, 23 and 26. Available at <https://www.brookings.edu/research/from-paper-state-to-caliphate-the-ideology-of-the-islamic-state/>. 5 For these hadiths, see Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-ahkām, bāb al-umarā' min Quraysh; Sahīh Muslim: kitāb al-imāra, bāb al-nās taba' li-Quraysh; Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-manāqib, bāb fī fadl al-yaman (the author notes that the most reliable version is actually a Companion opinion); kitāb al-fitan, bāb mā jā'a anna al-khulafā' min Quraysh; Musnad Ibn Hanbal, vol. 3, p. 129. 6 Wadad Kadi, 'Caliph,' in Encyclopaedia of the Qur'ān. 7 See Ovamir Anjum, Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought, p. 47; Ali Ibrahim Ghabban and Robert Hoyland, 'The inscription of Zuhayr, the oldest Islamic inscription (24 AH⁄AD 644–645), the rise of the Arabic script and the nature of the early Islamic state,' Arabian Archeology and Epigraphy 19 (2008): pp. 216–218. 8 John O. Hunwick, 'Muhammad b. Abī Bakr,' in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W. P. Heinrichs, eds. First published online: 2012. 9 Al-Nawawī, Sharh Sahīh Muslim, vol. 12, p. 441. 10 See Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī, al-Iqtisād fī al-i'tiqād, p. 115. 11 Anjum, Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought, pp. 111–112. 12 This theologian was the famous Jalāl al-Dīn Davānī (d. 908/1502); John Woods, The Aqquyunlu, pp. 103–105. 13 Howard M. Federspiel, Sultans, Shamans and Saints, p. 45. 14 Hakan Karateke, 'Legitimizing the Ottoman Sultanate: a Framework for Historical Analysis,' in Legitimizing the Order: The Ottoman Rhetoric of State Power, pp. 26–27. 15 Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment, p. 38. 16 Martin Kramer, Islam Assembled: The Advent of the Muslim Congresses, p. 4. 17 M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire, p. 130. There is evidence that a message from 'Abd al-Hamīd prevented major Muslim forces from joining an uprising against the USA in the Philippines; Kemal Karpat, The Politicization of Islam, p. 235. 18 Tufan Buzpinar, 'Opposition to the Ottoman Caliphate in the Early Years of Abdülhamid II: 1877–1882,' pp. 59–89; Mona Hassan, Longing for the Lost Caliphate, pp. 9, 171–182. 19 Kramer, Islam Assembled, pp. 83–85. 20 Kramer, Islam Assembled, p. 101. 21 Al-Juwaynī, Ghiyāth al-umam, pp. 62–63. 22 Karateke, 'Legitimizing the Ottoman Sultanate,' p. 27. 23 Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-ahkām, bāb al-umarā' min Quraysh. 24 Al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunan al-kubrā, vol. 8, p. 246; Musnad Ibn Hanbal, vol. 4, p. 424. 25 Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddimah, p. 159. 26 Sunan al-Nasā'ī: kitāb al-bay'a, bāb fadl man takallama bi'l-haqq 'ind imām jā'ir. 27 This hadith first appears in the thirteenth century, in al-Rāfi'ī's Tadwīn fī akhbār qazwīn, vol. 1, p. 291. Just a few decades later the hadith was used by the Ayyubid sultan to warn a scholar against making trouble; al-Subkī, Tabaqāt, vol. 8, p. 231. See also al-Suyūtī, al-Jāmi' al-saghīr, p. 370; al-'Ajlūnī, Kashf al-khafā, vol. 2, p. 108; Nakissa, 'The Fiqh of Revolution,' p. 412. 28 See <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=081BXWsGWhc>, where Jum'a elides several hadiths from Sahīh Muslim: kitāb al-imāra, bāb hukm man farraqa amr al-muslimīn wa huwa mujtami'. See also the Human Rights Watch report on the massacres, available at <https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/08/12/all-according-plan/raba-massacre-and-mass-killings-protesters-egypt>. 29 See Quran 2:217; 2:190–193; 22:39–40; 60:7. 30 Abū Ja'far al-Tahāwī, The Creed of Imam al-Tahāwī, p. 68. 31 Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-fitan, bāb qawl al-Nabī s sa-tarawn ba'dī umūran tunkirūnahā; Sahīh Muslim: kitāb al-imāra, bāb wujūb tā'at al-umarā'.... 32 Sahīh Muslim: kitāb al-imāra, bāb fī tā'at al-umarā' wa in mana'ū al-huqūq. 33 Sahīh Muslim: kitāb al-imāra, bāb al-amr bi-luzūm al-jamā'a 'ind zuhūr al-fitan. See also Sunan of Abū Dāwūd: kitāb al-fitan wa'l-malāhim, bāb dhikr al-fitan wa dalā'ilihā. 34 Sahīh Muslim: kitāb al-imāra, bāb wujūb al-inkār 'alā al-umarā' fīmā yukhālifu al-shar' wa tark qitālihim mā sallū.... 35 Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-ahkām, bāb al-sam' wa'l-tā'a li'l-imām mā lam takun ma'siya; Jāmi' al-Tirmidhī: kitāb al-jihād, bāb mā jā'a lā tā'a li-makhlūq fī ma'siyat al-khāliq. 36 This is originally attributed to the Companion 'Amr b. al-'Ās; Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī, Ihyā' 'ulūm al-dīn, vol. 4, p. 2616. 37 Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-fitan, bāb takūnu fitna al-qā'id fīhā khayr min al-qā'im. 38 Sunan Ibn Mājah: kitāb al-fitan, bāb al-tathabbut fī al-fitna. 39 Al-Nawawī, Sharh Sahīh Muslim, vol. 12, pp. 466–470. 40 Sahīh Muslim: kitāb al-īmān, bāb bayān kawn al-nahy 'an al-munkar min al-īmān.... 41 Al-Qurtubī, al-Jāmi' li-ahkām al-Qur'ān, vol. 1, p. 520; Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-fitan, bāb qawl al-Nabī (s) sa-tarawn ba'dī umuran tunkirūnahā. 42 Al-Qurtubī, ibid; Abū Bakr al-Jassās, Ahkām al-Qur'ān, vol. 1, pp. 85–87. 43 Al-Munāwī, Fayd al-qadīr, vol. 2, p. 842. 44 Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-ahkām, bāb man istar'ā ra'iyya fa-lam yansuh; Sahīh Muslim: kitāb al-īmān, bāb istihqāq al-wālī al-ghāshsh li-ra'iyyatihi al-nār. 45 Musnad Ibn Hanbal, vol. 3, p. 24; vol. 6, p. 395. 46 'Alī Qārī, Mirqāt al-mafātīh, ed. Jamāl Aytānī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyya, 2001), vol. 9, p. 324; Muqbil bin Hādī al-Wādi'ī, al-Makhraj min al-fitna, pp. 143, 186; idem, Majmū' fatāwā al-Wādi'ī, p. 74. 47 Al-Dāraqutnī, Kitāb al-Tatabbu', ed. Muqbil al-Wādi'ī (Medina: al-Maktaba al-Salafiyya, 1978), pp. 181–182. 48 Sunan of Abū Dāwūd: kitāb al-fitan wa'l-malāhim, bāb dhikr al-fitan wa dalā'ilihā; Musnad Ibn Hanbal, vol. 5, p. 403. The wording in this version is '... and if God has a caliph on earth, and he strikes your back and takes your wealth, obey him....'; al-Albānī, Silsilat al-ahādīth al-sahīha, vol. 4, p. 400 (#1791). See <http://www.ahlalhdeeth.com/vb/showthread.php?t=60584>; <http://www.almeshkat.net/vb/showthread.php?t=99133>. 49 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utzUaboX-NI> 50 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ey9D2Konac>; <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Lo3LD1wmhU> THE AUTHENTICITY QUESTION: WESTERN DEBATES OVER THE HISTORICAL RELIABILITY OF PROPHETIC TRADITIONS INTRODUCTION Thus far we have discussed hadiths and their functions in Islamic civilization as a tradition developed by a people who affirmed that Muhammad was a prophet, the last in a series sent to humanity by a God who created the universe and is its sole font of truth. So far, the hadith tradition has unfolded among Muslims. Though they might have disagreed on the proper use or interpretation of hadiths, Muslims have controlled the boundaries of the discussion. This book, however, does not assume that the reader believes that God influences the course of history or that Muhammad was a prophet. Instead, you may have noticed (assuming I've done my job) that this book discusses hadiths in a 'neutral' or 'objective' tone according to the methods of modern historians of a religious tradition. Like Muslim hadith critics, however, our methods of historical criticism in the West have their own tradition with its own assumptions. What we must admit before any further discussion is that, because a book does not assume that God directly intervenes in human events, that Muhammad was a prophet, or that hadiths are in general authentic, then what it really assumes is that God does not directly interfere in historical events, that Muhammad was just a man, and that there are real doubts about the historical reliability of the entire hadith corpus. Few Western readers of this book, for example, would accept the explanation that we know the Muslim hadith tradition is an accur-ate record of Muhammad's words because God would never let his chosen religion go unpreserved (a standard Muslim explanation). As you can imagine, discussion of hadiths in the West differs dramatic-ally from its indigenous Muslim counterpart. This chapter explores the Western academic investigation of early Islamic history and its radical critiques of the Sunni hadith tradition. 'The Authenticity Question,' as we will term it, has two implications that we must bear in mind. First, Western scholars' critical examination of hadiths and the methods that Muslims used to authenticate them can be seen as laudably advancing our understanding of Islamic origins and as part of a larger human endeavor to expand all areas of knowledge. Second, however, Western criticism of the hadith tradition can be viewed as an act of domination in which one worldview asserts its power over another by dictating the terms by which 'knowledge' and 'truth' are established. From this perspective, one could ask why the 'light' that Western scholars shed on hadiths is necessarily more valuable to 'the advancement of human understanding' than what the Muslim hadith tradition has already offered. As the likes of Edward Said have shown, knowledge is power, and studying an object is an act of establishing control over it. It is thus no coincidence that four of the five main avenues through which the Western study of the Islamic world progressed grew out of European colonial or diplomatic interests (the French study of Islamic law and culture in colonial North Africa, similar Dutch studies in Southeast Asia, British studies of Persianate Islam in India, and European diplomatic interest in the Ottoman Empire). The fifth avenue, which proved most important for our subject, was that of Semitic studies, and stemmed from Biblical studies (as we shall discuss below).1 European diplomats in the late nineteenth century plotted how to promote a 'progressive' Islam among their colonial populations, much as their American successors have in the twenty-first. Western discussions about the reliability of the hadith tradition are thus not neutral, and their influence extends beyond the lofty halls of academia. When reports surfaced in 2008 that the Turkish government was preparing a 'radical revision' of the Sunni hadith canon, mainstream Western media applauded this move towards reformation (the rumor proved false).2 The Authenticity Question is part of a broader debate over the power dynamic between 'Religion' and 'Modernity,' and between 'Islam' and 'the West.' Instead of approaching the Authenticity Question from a teleological perspective, where we assume that the native 'Muslim' vision of the hadith tradition is wrong and that Western scholars have awakened it from its millennial slumber and are guiding it gradually forwards, we will assume what I think is a more accurate approach: the hadith tradition is so vast and our attempts to evaluate its authenticity so inevitably limited to small samples, that any attitudes towards its authenticity are necessarily based more on our critical worldview than on empirical fact. Because we ultimately cannot know empirically whether Muhammad was a prophet or a character formed by history, or whether or not God played any role in preserving his words for posterity, we will not look at the Authenticity Question as one to which there is a right and wrong answer. Instead, we will identify what the various schools of thought on this question have taken as their basic assumptions and how they have built on them. We will examine how some schools of thought reacted to others and how their assumptions cast doubt on those of others. THE ORIGINS AND ASSUMPTIONS OF THE WESTERN STUDY OF HADITH VS. THE ISLAMIC TRADITION The Muslim hadith tradition and the Western academic study of Islamic origins represent diametrically opposed approaches to evaluating the authenticity of reports about the past. Both are critical, in that they concern themselves with questions of the reliability of historical sources, but they proceed from two sets of assumptions that are at loggerheads. The following section is a digression from the subject of hadiths, but it is an essential one if we are to understand why Western and Muslim scholars view the study of hadiths so differently. As we have seen, the Sunni tradition of hadith criticism was founded on a commitment to sifting reliable from unreliable hadiths based on criteria that examined both the sources of a report and its contents. In the absence of conflicting evidence or some strong objection, however, Muslim hadith scholars and jurists treated a report attributed to the Prophet prima facie as something he really said. Ibn Hanbal thus famously stated that even a hadith whose authenticity was not established was a better source for law than ruling by one's reason alone. A critical examination of a hadith was required only when a scholar had some compelling reason to doubt its authenticity. Even then, the charismatic authority of the Prophet could overwhelm any critical concerns. The famous Egyptian scholar Ibn al-Hājj (d. 737/1336) ignored the legal ruling of a hadith and was subsequently afflicted by leprosy. When the Prophet appeared to him in a dream, the scholar asked him why he was being punished, since he had analyzed the hadith and concluded that it was not reliable. The Prophet replied, 'It suffices you to have heard it.' Ibn al-Hājj repented and was cured by the Prophet in his dream.3 Furthermore, Muslim belief that the Prophet had been granted knowledge of the unseen and intended his legacy to form the basis for the civilization of Islam has meant that Muslims venerate statements attributed to the Prophet before they doubt them. Skepticism towards hadiths was not the default setting of Muslim hadith critics. The approach of Western scholars has been the converse. According to the famous Lord Acton (d. 1902), the modern historian cannot believe in the presumption of innocence. His first reaction to any historical report must be suspicion.4 The modern Western study of history, commonly referred to (despite its internal diversity) as the Historical Critical Method (HCM), is an approach to the past that emerged from Renaissance humanism and the critical approach to the sources of history and religion that subsequently developed in Germany in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Maintaining a 'historical critical' perspective towards the past means that we do not accept what historical sources tell us without question. Instead, we interrogate them and attempt to establish their reliability according to a set of assumptions about how human society functions. As the great German historian Leopold von Ranke (d. 1886) declared, history is about looking behind the sources to find out 'What really happened.'5 Numerous books have been written on the origins of the modern, historical critical worldview. In brief, its roots lie in 1) The Renaissance rediscovery of the Classical heritage of Greece and Rome; 2) The Age of Discovery, particularly the discovery of the New World; and 3) The Protestant Reformation. The rediscovery of the Classical heritage gave European scholars a sense of historical distance from the past and revealed the historical changes undergone by long revered texts like the Bible. At the same time, it affirmed a constant, unchanging human nature – an essential tool for how Western scholars authenticate stories from the past. Greek and Roman historians exuded a cosmopolitan skepticism that European minds found irresistible and introduced the model of the historian as detached analyst, as opposed to Christian chronicler. Ironically, reengaging with Classical philosophy did not energize rumination on metaphysics and theology as much as it led to a new focus on studying the rules governing the material world. Meanwhile, the discovery of the Americas exploded the established map of the world, which had been drawn from the genealogies and geographies of the Bible. The Protestant Reformation dismantled the Church's monopoly on interpreting scripture, ultimately resulting in a view of the Bible as a historical product bound in its own context rather than an inerrant and timeless spring of literal truth. The roots of the HCM emerged from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, when Italian and French humanist scholars were reintroduced to the range of the Classical Greco-Roman heritage through manuscripts brought from the Muslim world and Byzantium. This led Western European scholars to a new perspective towards their cultural heritage. Western Europe had always considered itself a continuation of the Roman tradition, looking to Roman law and literature as exempla. But this relationship lacked any notion of historical distance; pre-Renaissance medieval artists painted Biblical heroes in the armor of English knights and portrayed French kings in Roman regalia.6 History was conceived according to the scheme articulated by St. Augustine (d. 430) and drawn from Biblical themes and markers. Since the time of Adam, history had been punctuated by one great cosmic event, the life of Christ, and since his crucifixion mankind had been in unrelenting decline, awaiting his second coming. One effect of the Renaissance 'rebirth' of interest in Roman figures like Cicero (d. 43 BCE) was that Italian scholars like the poet Petrarch (d. 1374) developed a sense of historical depth. Far from Augustine's medieval synthesis of the Classics and Christianity, what Petrarch found as he fell in love with the prose of Cicero's Latin letters was a pagan outlook on religion. Cicero's writings revealed a culture of supercilious skepticism alongside public piety. The famous Roman Senator readily admitted how ridiculous Roman religious practices were but still demanded they be respected in public.7 Nowhere was historical distance more obvious than in the Latin language itself. Renaissance humanism was first and foremost a realization of how different (or, according to the humanists, how decadent) medieval Church Latin was from the language of Cicero. This fascination with recovering the pure Latin of the ancient Romans led the Italian scholar of language, or philologist, Lorenzo Valla (d. 1457) to realize how many Latin words had come to mean something other than their original meaning. Examining a document called The Donation of Constantine, which the Roman emperor Constantine supposedly had written in the early fourth century granting the pope control over lands in the West, Valla pointed out that the presence of linguistic anachronisms (things that appear out of place in time – like a letter supposedly written by Jesus but mentioning mobile phones) meant that this document must have been a later forgery. The document mentions 'fiefs,' or land grants, but Valla points out that this word did not appear until much later.8 Noticing how language changed over time had led Valla to unmask a historical forgery that had long served as a pillar of the papacy's claim to the right to act as a temporal power. Identifying anachronisms would serve as a pillar of the HCM. The Renaissance fascination with language as a tool for rediscovering origins had even more stunning implications for the study of the Bible. One of Valla's successors in philology, the famous Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (d. 1536) duplicated Valla's obsession with Classical Latin in the field of Greek. Erasmus devoted his career to producing the most reliable and accurate versions of ancient Greek texts by comparing the oldest possible manuscripts of the books and then purging them of mistakes made in copying and the linguistic misunderstandings or even insertions of later scholars. When producing a new edition of the original Greek text of the New Testament, Erasmus discovered that a verse that had long been part of the Latin Bible and used as a definitive proof of the Trinity was a later addition totally absent in the original Greek.9 Erasmus' life straddled stunning discovery and religious upheaval. In the span of his adult life, two new continents were added to the map. Not only had the great minds of the past never guessed their existence, but their inhabitants had no place in the Biblical genealogy based on Adam's children. With the globe as conceived by Church fathers shattered, a path was opened for novel scholarship. The French Protestant Isaac de la Peyrère (d. 1676) made the controversial argument that the Bible must have been more local than global. Adam was not the first man but merely the patriarch of one of many tribes (since Cain was able to flee and marry elsewhere, see Genesis 4:16). Similarly, Noah's flood was not global, just a local punishment for the land of Canaan.10 By Peyrère's time, the Protestant Reformation had opened new space for theological speculation in Protestant realms like England and the Netherlands. The revival of philosophy, or the notion that metaphysical truth can be attained by reason alone, led to the blossoming in seventeenth-century England of Deism, or the belief in a rational God knowable and bound by reason. In line with contempt for the papacy and the discovery of the human hand in shaping scripture, Deists like John Toland (d. 1722) argued that Christianity had originally been a purely rational religion but that the early Church had corrupted it with Roman superstitions.11 The great Protestant reformers had called for Christianity to be based on scripture alone, with the Holy Spirit, not Church tradition, guiding the believer to the proper understanding of the Bible. In contrast to Church fathers, who had long read Biblical passages in accord with Church doctrine or with select tenets of Aristotelian philosophy, Protestant founders like John Calvin (d. 1564) insisted on a reading of the Bible that adhered more closely to its literal sense.12 Ironically, this approach produced an influential Protestant outgrowth whose perspectives on the Bible proved hugely consequential. The Quakers soon came to see the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as a more important guide to truth than scripture, so critiques of the Bible's historical integrity began losing their sting.13 By the late seventeenth century, such developments had raised a key question at the fringes of Protestant thought. If truth could be known from outside scripture, either through reason or inspiration, and if that scripture itself seemed more and more like a historical product of a flawed Church tradition, then was the Bible really a timeless vessel of universal truth? Benedict Spinoza (d. 1677) of Amsterdam gave the most influential answer. In his landmark Theological-Political Treatise, he argued that the Bible must be treated as the product of a particular time and place, phrased in the language and idiom of its original audience. The Old Testament's description of God walking with man (Genesis 5:24) or the miracles of Jesus in the New Testament were not universal theological claims or historical facts. They were expressions of how religion was understood by the Bible's original audiences. This did not mean that the Bible was pointless, but it no longer held the paramount place in the hierarchy of truth. The 'universal foundation' of all religion, wrote Spinoza, was to love God and love one's neighbor, to 'defend justice, assist the poor, not to kill, not to covet other men's property, etc.'14 But the historically bound Bible only shared in this truth, it did not monopolize it. Contrast Spinoza's approach with the Muslim position that the Quran is, as Muslim scholars have held, 'the most truthful of speech, suitable for all times and all places.'15 The critical methods of Erasmus and the philosophical outlook of Spinoza and the Deists took root and blossomed in the university cities of Germany, where the HCM emerged as a clear scholarly methodology in the late 1700s. The philological study of ancient texts led to a myriad of critical revelations about Greco-Roman history and the Bible. Examining the style of Greek in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, F. A. Wolf concluded in 1795 that the two works could not have been the product of one author.16 Studies of the New Testament Gospels led German scholars to conclude that, far from being themselves eye witnesses to the events of Jesus' life, the gospel writers Luke and Matthew had both constructed their versions of Christ's life based on material from the book of Mark. As Voltaire (d. 1778) reported, scholars now knew that the many non-canonical gospels that had been discovered actually predated the four gospels of the New Testament.17 One German scholar, Hermann Reimarus (d. 1768), made the controversial but ultimately influential contention that the first generations of Christians had invented much of the life of Jesus. Leading German scholars of theology adopted the position that the truth of religion was knowable first and foremost by reason, with both scripture and Church teachings constructed by human hands. The truth of biblical narrative was no longer assumed. It had to correspond to reason and fact. Of course, some German scholars still maintained the inerrant and literal truth of the Bible. Others tried to rationalize its miracles (Jesus did not walk on water, for example, this was merely what the Apostles perceived). But what emerged as the conventional approach, exemplified by the theology professor Johann Semler (d. 1791), was that the true function of the Bible was to convey spiritual truth, not historical or scientific fact. The Biblical canon was a historical development, and its particular meanings were tied to the worldviews of its original audiences. The Bible was no longer the sole storehouse of truth for mankind. Rather, it was just a stage in man's journey towards a greater philosophical truth working its way through history.18 The development of the HCM among German scholars culminated in David Friedrich Strauss's (d. 1874) controversial 1835 book The Life of Jesus. The work called for a total rejection of the historicity of the gospels (Jesus' miracles were just 'culturally conditioned myths') and a recognition that Christianity must be based on the Christ of faith not of history.19 By the mid nineteenth century, what had been controversial seventy years earlier had become mainstream scholarship. The primary focus of university scholarship in Germany had shifted from Christian theology to history (though controversy still raged in more conservative colleges in Scotland and America). Historians no longer served the Bible and theology, now these subjects were merely objects of historical study.20 A crucial principle of the HCM was that the original founders of all religions were not actually responsible for the later, formalized teachings of those religions. This idea was already present in Voltaire's observation that the early Church fathers relied on non-canonical gospels.21 But it was ultimately formalized by the German sociologist Max Weber (d. 1920), who argued that a religion's orthodoxy was organized by later generations in order to institutionalize the founder's charismatic religious authority. Contrast this with the Sunni belief that hadith scholars were merely preserving their Prophet's original teachings by 'fending off lies from the Sunna of God's Messenger.' This new German school of history assumed that the first step of studying any text was to question its reliability and determine its authenticity. In other words, the default setting for scholars was to doubt the reliability of material transmitted about the past. Certainly, this principle of doubt did not mean that European historians doubted everything about the past. But as their criticisms of the textual integrity of Homer's epics or the historical veracity of the Bible illustrate, they were willing to indulge fundamental doubts about the cornerstones of Western history and religion based upon what they considered anachronisms or stylistic inconsistencies within a text. Contrast this with the statement of Sunni hadith critics like Mullā 'Alī al-Qārī (d. 1014/1606), who asserted that 'it is manifestly obvious that if something has been established by transmission [from the Prophet], then one should not heed any contradiction with sense perception or reason.'22 In contrast to the mission of Muslim chroniclers – to preserve God's message and recount the history of God's chosen community – from the eighteenth century onward European historians envisioned themselves as detached observers. They were inspired by the Classical historians whose works Petrarch and others had recovered in the Renaissance. In writing his monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon (d. 1794) channeled the Roman historians Tacitus (d. circa 117 CE) (whom he called the first historian who 'applied the science of philosophy to the study of facts')23 and Polybius (d. 118 BCE), who insisted it was the historian's duty to criticize friend and foe impartially.24 Far from defending some religious truth, historians like Gibbon saw themselves like Cicero, standing above and outside religion's benighted confessional traditions while remarking on the deeper, underlying constancies of human history. Along with an a priori doubt about textual reliability and the human construction of religious orthodoxy, the HCM rested on other revolutionary methodological foundations. The Renaissance had reacquainted European scholars with the Classical skepticism of Sextus Empiricus (d. circa 210 CE), who dismissed inherent truth and universal morality as unknowable and who urged people to focus on their immediate moral and physical surroundings. In the sixteenth century, the Italian city of Padua emerged as a center for 'natural philosophy' (i.e., science) where Aristotle's empirical observations, not his metaphysics, were front and center. Based on this Classical foundation, scholars in Padua developed the procedure of hypothesis and demonstration that became the foundation of empirical investigation.25 The writings of the Roman philosopher Lucretius (d. circa 55 BCE), a materialist who believed that only the material world existed and that natural causes, not the gods, governed our affairs, became wildly popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His poetic stanza 'Happy is he who understands the causes of things' became a mantra often quoted by Enlightenment scholars. It embraced a materialist understanding of the world in which events proceeded according to natural laws and not according to divine intervention. The most influential scientists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Blaise Pascal (d. 1662), were still committed Christians. But for them, in order to protect Christian belief from critics, faith had to be placed beyond the realm of reason and scientific study. The physical world, on the other hand, was created by God according to fixed laws that could be measured and relied on. In the late 1700s, a certain crass materialism emerged that did not just set the metaphysical respectfully aside. It mocked any belief in the supernatural (reminiscent of Lucretius himself). Particularly evident in the writings of the French encyclopedist Diderot (d. 1784), this crass materialism would become a dominant cultural theme in Europe by the late 1800s. Contrast this with the position of Muslim scholars (and, indeed, medieval Christians) that scripture and empirical observation had to be read in accord with one another, since both revelation and nature were 'signs' of God. The scientific revolution sealed the assumption that miracles or God's direct involvement could not be called on to explain history and scripture. European historians embraced the Roman poet Horace's command 'Let no god intervene (nec deus intersit)'; it was the immutable laws of nature and human society that shaped human history. They followed their Greco-Roman exemplars, who adhered to the ancient position that human nature was an unchanging constant.26 Herodotus (d. circa 420 BCE), the 'Father of History,' concluded that Helen could not actually have been at Troy because people would never choose fighting a ten-year war over surrendering a woman they had wrongly abducted in the first place.27 Just as Newton discovered the laws of motion, Voltaire described human society as governed by its own, constant laws.28 One of the central principles of the HCM was thus the Principle of Analogy (sometimes called, clumsily, uniformitarianism), which dictates that, although cultures can differ dramatically from place to place and era to era, human societies always function in essentially the same way. As a result, we can reconstruct how and why events transpired in Greece thousands of years ago based on our understanding of how individuals and groups function in our own societies today. If people generally tend to pursue their own interests and advance their own agendas today, then they did so in Greek times or at the time of Christ, and no one can be realistically exempted from such motivations.29 Contrast this with the Sunni Muslim view of history in which, as the Prophet supposedly said, 'The best generation is the one in which I was sent, then the next, then the next' (or, indeed, contrast it with the pre-Renaissance Christian view of history). For Sunni hadith critics, the Prophet's time was 'free of evil.'30 His Companions were incapable of lying about him and certainly not analogous to anyone else. Along with the Principle of Analogy and the detection of anachronisms to identify unreliable reports, the HCM has also relied on a tool often referred to as the Principle of Dissimilarity. Articulated by the Dutch classicist Jakob Perizonius (d. 1715), this states that a report that seems to contradict or challenge orthodoxy is probably originally true, since no one trying to construct or defend that orthodoxy would have made it up.31 In the study of the Bible, these trains of thought led to the development of what was termed Form criticism in Germany in the first decades of the twentieth century. This method of criticism combined the presumed doubt in the integrity of texts with the modern critic's confidence that the construction of these texts was affected by very profane, worldly interests. Form critics identified smaller sections within Biblical books from which their larger narratives were composed. Each of these smaller components, termed forms, 'served a definite function in a concrete situation in the life of the early church.' 'The main purpose for the creation, the circulation, and the use of these forms was not to preserve the history of Jesus, but to strengthen the life of the church.'32 From the mid nineteenth century to the early twentieth, the various strands of European thought on science, history, and religion came together to form a worldview immediately familiar to us today. Often called Positivism, it held that through their newly developed methods of science and rigorous scholarship, humans were able to cast aside ignorance and superstition and uncover the truth about their surroundings and their past. Equally important, only truth so discovered was worth following. Although glimpses of it had appeared in the Renaissance and around the time of the French Revolution, one crucial pillar of Positivism was the notion of progress – that human civilization was improving. Unlike almost everything else mentioned so far, this belief was unprecedented. It was alien to the Greeks, the Romans, and St. Augustine alike. Despite two world wars, Positivism remains alive today. It is immediately exemplified by the popular character Sherlock Holmes, whose detailed scientific method allows him to reconstruct past events and determine the exact character of any person. As summarized neatly by Voltaire, historians applying the HCM believed reports coming from people in the past if 'what they say of themselves is to their disadvantage, when their stories have some resemblance of truth, and they do not contradict the normal order of nature.'33 The important basic assumptions and methods that together made up the Historical Critical Method of scholars in Europe and later America are: 1 a presumption of doubt about the authenticity or reliability of a historical text or historical reports; 2 a general suspiciousness towards orthodox narratives presented in such texts or reports; 3 the conviction that by analyzing historical sources using the methods noted above a scholar can sift the reliable from unreliable by identifying which parts of the text served which historical agendas. The development of the Historical Critical Method would have immediate consequences for the questions of authenticity in the Islamic tradition. The nineteenth century in particular saw French and British scholars begin investigating the life of Muhammad and Islam's origins as part of their efforts to dominate colonized Muslim populations. For German scholars of the ancient Near East, studying Islam was a byproduct of Biblical studies. In his efforts to better understand the historical development of the Old Testament, the German Biblical scholar Julius Wellhausen (d. 1918) saw studying Islam as the best way to approximate the Bible's Semitic context. But, in seeking to 'uncover' the origins of Islam and its scripture, these German scholars were engaging in a conscious, if well-intentioned, act of domination. As it was announced proudly in 1902 at a German Orientalist conference, 'the darkness of antiquity has been illuminated' and 'light has been carried into the dusky forests' of India, Africa, and the Middle East by Europeans uncovering the origins and developments of these peoples' religions. As one scholar has put it, Theodor Nöldeke's (d. 1930) influential 1860 book on the origins of the Quran typified 'Europe's newfound confidence in its superior knowledge of oriental texts and traditions.'34 More important for our purposes, these Orientalists were making an imposing assumption: that what had proven true of Christianity and the Bible must be true of all other religions and all other sacred texts as well. Soon the methods of Biblical scholars would be brought to bear on the Arab-Islamic tradition. THE STAGES OF WESTERN CRITICISM OF EARLY ISLAMIC HISTORY Unlike Muslims, who developed a distinct and independent science of hadiths, Western scholars have studied hadiths as part of a broader investigation of early Islamic history and the origins of the religion. We can divide these studies into three general areas, all of which touch upon the reliability of hadith literature: early Islamic political and sectarian history, the origins of the Quran, and the origins of Islamic law. In the Western study of early Islam and the Authenticity Question we can discern four stages that are either chronologically or thematically distinct: 1 The Orientalist Approach: the initial application of the Historical Critical Method to early Islamic history, which challenges many features of the traditional Islamic legal and historical narratives but accepts its general structure. 2 The Philo-Islamic Apology: the arguments of some non-Muslim and Muslim scholars trained in the West responding to Orientalist critiques of hadiths. 3 The Revisionist Approach: beginning in the late 1970s, this approach applied the critical assumptions of the Orientalist Approach at a more basic level and questioned the greater narrative of early Islamic history, the origins of the Quran and of Islamic law. 4 The Western Revaluation: since the 1980s, this approach has rejected the extremes of the Revisionist Approach while continuing criticism of the early Islamic period according to the Historical Critical Method. Rejecting the radical skepticism of the Revisionists, however, has led some Western scholars to recognize both that the Orientalist method involves some questionable assumptions and also that the Muslim hadith tradition is much more sophisticated than previously believed. THE HISTORICAL CRITICAL METHOD AND THE MATN: GOLDZIHER'S REVOLUTIONARY CRITICISM OF HADITHS One of the first Western writers to question the reliability of the hadith corpus as a source for Muhammad's life and deeds was the Scotsman William Muir (d. 1905), who served as a colonial administrator and educator in British India. In his Life of Mohamet (1861) he rejects the hadith corpus as clearly biased and unreliable. Hadiths merely promoted the Muslim 'chorus of glory to Moh.ammad' as well as the political, sectarian, and scholarly ambitions of the early Muslim community.35 Only the Quran was a reliable source for the Prophet's teachings, Muir claims. Although he feels that 'European critics' must reject at least half of the material in Sahīh al-Bukhārī, Muir admits that some hadiths can be considered reliable. These include hadiths on issues on which independent reports are in general agreement as well as hadiths that portray the Prophet unfavorably (an example of the Principle of Dissimilarity at work).36 He also notes that classical hadith criticism was useless because it focused only on the isnād and not the content of the hadiths themselves.37 Although with Muir we see the application of the Historical Critical Method to hadith literature, it was the Hungarian Ignaz Goldziher (d. 1921) who applied this on a larger scale and with more academic rigor. Faithful to the German school of history, Goldziher approached the textual sources of early Islamic history and thought with 'skeptical caution.' The fact that there was no historical documentation of the Prophet's life written in his own time, and that material about him had been transmitted through the very flexible medium of oral traditions, meant that hadiths could not be viewed as documentary evidence. They were eminently subject to forgery and manipulation. Like Valla and the German biblical scholars, the critical keys that Goldziher used to sift true from false reports about the Prophet were anachronism and the Principle of Analogy; hadiths that seemed to address conflicts and concerns that emerged only after the Prophet's death must be propaganda created by parties involved in these conflicts, not the actual words of the Prophet. As a result, the contents of many hadiths not only prove they were forged, but they also allow the historian to determine who forged them and when.38 For Goldziher, then, hadiths serve not as a document of the Prophet's actual legacy, but rather as 'a direct reflection of the aspirations of the Islamic community.'39 Goldziher notes that the Prophet's authority was immediately both compelling and appealing to Muslims. He concludes that the limited writing down of hadiths was a very early process, but the very power of the Prophet's precedent meant that Muslims also quickly found manipulating hadiths for their own purposes irresistible.40 The fact that the Prophet could have had knowledge of future events served as a license for anachronism among early hadith forgers. Events unfolding in the nascent Muslim community could be 'described' or 'judged' by attributing statements to the Prophet, who had been informed about them by God.41 (The hadith on the Qadarites examined in Chapter 3 is an example of this). Goldziher lays out four main stages and motivations for the forgery of hadiths by Muslims during the first three hundred years of Islam: political agendas, legal agendas, sectarian agendas, and communal/historical agendas. For Goldziher, the original and most potent motivation for the forgery of hadiths was politics. Specifically, he argues that many hadiths and the nature of the early hadith tradition as a whole leave no doubt that the Umayyad dynasty pursued a program of political propaganda in which hadith forgery played an important part. Unlike the Muslim community during the Prophet's lifetime and the pious inhabitants of Medina after his death, in Goldziher's opinion Umayyad rule from Syria was entirely secular with no inherent Islamic legitimacy.42 The Umayyads thus arranged for hadiths to be forged which legitimized their rule and political practices. Goldziher argues, for example, that during the Second Civil War (680–92), when the Umayyads' enemy 'Abdallāh b. al-Zubayr (d. 73/692) was in control of Mecca and the pilgrimage routes, the Umayyads circulated a hadith that urged Muslims not 'to remove the saddles from their mounts [in other words, to visit] except at three mosques,' the Haram Mosque in Mecca, the Prophet's Mosque in Medina and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Goldziher infers that this hadith was an attempt to establish an alternative annual pilgrimage location in Umayyad-controlled territory in Palestine.43 When the Umayyad caliphs wanted to appear more majestic before the congregation by delivering sermons while seated at Friday prayers, agents of the dynasty forged a hadith that the Prophet had given his sermons while seated.44 The Umayyads were able to forge and circulate these hadiths successfully, Goldziher argues, because they patronized and sponsored the early collection of hadiths in general. Goldziher points out that the early pivot of hadith collection in the Hejaz and Syria, al-Zuhrī, served as a tutor to Umayyad princes and a judge for the state. He even wore the uniform of the Umayyad military. Goldziher thus does not find it surprising that al-Zuhrī appears in the isnād of the above- mentioned hadith of the three mosques suitable for visiting.45 He notes that many other early hadith masters, such as al-Sha'bī al-Himyarī (d. 103–10/721–8), were also associated with the Umayyad court. To a large extent, he suggests, the study of hadiths on a large scale occurred because of Umayyad interest in political propaganda. Just as political concerns drove forgery of hadiths in the Umayyad period, Goldziher continues, they continued to motivate forgery under the Abbasids. Unlike the 'secular' Umayyads, the Abbasid state was built on a religious message: the return of rule to the family of the Prophet, the Quran, and the Sunna.46 He argues that under Umayyad rule, many of the Muslims living in their newly conquered realms had very little knowledge about the ritual and legal details of their religion.47 Under Abbasid patronage, the pious religious scholars whose voices had been subdued during Umayyad times had to produce a comprehensive legal, dogmatic, and communal vision for the new Islamic empire. It was under the Abbasids that the Sunna of the Prophet became seen as the norm for all areas of life and that hadiths began to be used in religious law.48 Since the Quran contained very little legal material, these Muslim scholars had to resort to other means to construct Islamic law. The Partisans of Reason (ahl al-ra'y) turned to the legacy of Roman provincial law where, for example, Goldziher claims Muslims acquired the notion that a defendant in a case may clear himself of charges by swearing an oath. As for the Partisans of Hadith (ahl al-hadīth), 'the path followed by them was a less honest one.' They invented whole swathes of hadiths on issues of Islamic law and dogma in order to provide the raw material for their construction of Islamic trad-ition. With the Abbasids promoting such activities, he concludes, 'it may be imagined how greatly the fabrication of h.adīths flourished under these circumstances.' In addition to forging a vast number of hadiths, Goldziher claims that the Abbasid-era Partisans of Hadith also invented the system of hadith criticism wholesale as a tool for rebutting any hadiths that their opponents might use against them in debates.49 Like the Umayyads, the Abbasids and their partisans also forged hadiths to legitimize their rule. Concerning a hadith in which the Prophet gives the spoils of war to his clan, the Banū Hāshim, from whom the Abbasids claimed descent, while giving none to the Banū 'Abd Shams, the clan of the Umayyads, Goldziher remarks that the 'dynastic-legitimistic character of this h.adīth is obvious.'50 Throughout the early Islamic period, he asserts, pious Muslims also forged hadiths that allowed them to make sense of the turmoil and strife wracking their community. Thus we find the hadith in which the Prophet says that his is the best of generations and that all subsequent ones will diverge further and further from his golden age.51 These pious scholars similarly forged hadiths urging political quietism – a cause no doubt supported by the government – with hadiths such as 'Blessed is he who avoids public agitations (inna al-sa'īd man junniba al-fitan).'52 Forging hadiths became a way for religious scholars to narrate the course of Islam's history, as well as to predict its future, through the Prophet's words. Goldziher states that the Partisans of Hadith 'do not restrain themselves at all when they make the Prophet speak about the general development of the Islamic empire.' Hence we find hadiths describing how the Prophet, while digging the defensive ditch around Medina, saw visions of the faraway castles of Syria and Persia that the Muslims would conquer.53 Of course, Goldziher noted how more strictly sectarian conflicts also led to the forgery of large numbers of hadiths.54 Shiites eager to prove 'Alī's claim to leadership forged the hadith of Ghadīr Khumm, in which the Prophet is made to announce to his Companions that 'Whoever's master I am, 'Alī is his master.' Sunnis countered by forging exact counterparts to such hadiths featuring Abū Bakr or 'Umar instead of 'Alī, or circulating reports emphasizing that the Prophet had in fact made no will at all assigning a successor.55 He also identified some less idealistic motivations for forging hadiths. Individual cities, tribes, and schools of law would forge chauvinistic hadiths in which the Prophet would foretell or affirm their prominence.56 Since Goldziher's work provides the foundation for later Western criticisms of hadiths, we must pause to examine some of his assumptions. As we saw with the German school of historical criticism, Goldziher maintains an attitude of pronounced skepticism towards the orthodox Muslim narrative of Islamic history. It is neither shaped by God's will nor immune from the profane motivations that afflict humans everywhere. The early Muslim community was not some morally upright polity but a series of self-interested parties that exploited the authority of the Prophet to their benefit. At the root of his reasoning lies the critical assumption that, if a hadith serves the purposes of a group, it was forged by that group. This is especially clear if the hadith contains some anachronism. His willingness to indulge in skepticism is crucial for his conclusions about the hadith tradition. Describing the hadith activity of the early transmitter 'Abd al-Rahmān b. Khālid, Goldziher states confidently that 'there are presumably many [of his hadiths] which were to benefit the prevailing political tendencies, because this 'Abd al-Rahmān was for years an important official of Umayyad princes.'57 In other words, the simple fact that 'Abd al-Rahmān served as an Umayyad functionary meant that he must have forged hadiths to support Umayyad causes. Less skeptical scholars might not feel comfortable with this reasoning, since a person can work for a state or company without lying on its behalf. In the above-mentioned case of the Prophet giving his clan more of the spoils of war than he gave to the Umayyad clan, why should we assume that this is forged simply because it seems to support the anti-Umayyad agenda of the Abbasids? It is not inconceivable that the Prophet actually did grant his clan the lion's share of booty, especially since the chief of the Umayyad family, Abū Sufyān, had been a diehard opponent of Islam in Mecca. Sometimes Goldziher's vision of the hadith tradition as inherently manipulative and unreliable leads him to misinterpret evidence. As proof that Abbasid-era hadith scholars forged reports for the benefit of the state, he discusses the case of Ghiyāth b. Ibrāhīm, who made up a hadith in which the Prophet allowed raising pigeons for competition because Ghiyāth knew that the Abbasid caliph al-Mahdī was fond of them. Goldziher concludes that, although the caliph caught on to the forgery, 'the tale nonetheless shows what a court theologian was capable of doing in matters of the tradition.'58 This story, however, is only found in Muslim sources as a textbook example of the sin of forging hadiths. Sunni hadith critics reviled Ghiyāth b. Ibrāhīm as a forger and referred to the incident as an example of how one person forged a hadith and how the network of critics immediately caught it. Goldziher, on the other hand, uses a story designed to illustrate an exception to represent the rule. Goldziher's investigation of forgery in the hadith tradition nonetheless leads to some tremendous insights as to how pious Muslims could concoct lies about their Prophet. He describes how after the Prophet's death even his Companions forged hadiths 'which were thought to be in accord with his sentiments and could therefore, in their view, legitimately be ascribed to him.'59 Under the Umayyads and Abbasids, he suggests, hadith scholars could justify forging hadiths because phrasing statements as the words of the Prophet was the idiom in which authority was expressed. 'The end sanctified the means.' The widespread circulation of hadiths such as one in which the Prophet instructs Muslims that, if they hear a hadith whose meaning accords with the Quran, 'then it is true whether I said it or not,' demonstrate that some Muslims found no conflict in preserving what they felt were legitimate components of the Prophet's teachings by attributing false hadiths to him (Note: Muslim scholars considered this hadith to be unreliable or forged).60 Like Muir, Goldziher concluded that content criticism played no discernable role in the work of Muslim hadith critics. Even if the text of a hadith is replete with suspicious material, he observes, 'Nobody is allowed to say: "because the matn contains a logical contradiction or historical absurdity I doubt the correctness of the isnād." ' From this he concludes that 'Muslim critics have no feeling for even the crudest anachronisms provided that the isnād is correct.'61 Goldziher's conclusion that examining the contents of reports was not a component of early hadith criticism has been consistently echoed by Western scholars. DATING HADITH FORGERY BYISNĀDS: THE SCHOOL OF JOSEPH SCHACHT Goldziher had brought the European historical critical tradition to bear on hadith literature and had concluded that a significant number of hadiths that Muslims believed were authentic were actually forged as part of the articulation of Islamic political, legal, dogmatic, and historical worldviews. Western criticism of hadiths was brought to a new level by a German scholar named Joseph Schacht (d. 1969), who built on Goldziher's skepticism towards the reliability of hadith literature. Schacht also concludes that hadiths cannot be assumed in any way to actually describe the Prophet's life.62 While Goldziher focused on political propaganda and sectarian agendas, Schacht focused specifically on the function of hadiths in Islamic law. Whereas Goldziher had utilized the matn of hadiths to determine when and why they were forged, Schacht examined the isnāds and the diachronic (literally, 'across time') tradition of hadith collection and use. Legal hadiths, Schacht argues, do not represent the actual details of the Prophet's life. Rather, they were attributed to the Prophet by later schools of law to lend support to their doctrines.63 He presents one simple observation that underlies his entire criticism of the hadith corpus. If we look at admittedly early Muslim scholarly writings, such as the letter that al-Hasan al-Basrī (d. 110/728) addressed to the Umayyad caliph 'Abd al-Malik (d. 86/705) warning him not to adopt a predestinarian outlook, we find that al-Hasan does not mention hadiths as part of his argument. Instead, he draws on the Quran and stories of earlier prophets.64 Since Sunni hadith collections contain plentiful hadiths that al-Hasan al-Basrī could have used as evidence in his treatise, Schacht concludes, the fact that he did not use them in his polemics means that these hadiths must not have existed at the time.65 This type of argument is known as an argument e silentio, or 'from silence.' Schacht argues that the original study and elaboration of Islamic law, which he calls 'the ancient schools of law,' developed in cities such as Kufa and Medina around the practice of that local community and the opinions of its senior Muslim religious figures, such as Abū Hanīfa, Mālik b. Anas, and al-Layth b. Sa'd. The Prophet's Sunna was not an immediately revered source for law. Debates among these scholars, however, caused a great deal of contention because none of these ancient schools of law possessed arguments that their opponents found compelling enough to follow. Schacht thus concludes that by the late eighth and early ninth centuries, Muslim scholars of these ancient schools attempted to resolve this interpretive chaos by investing the legal precedent of the Prophet and his Companions with more authority. Schacht associates this transition with al-Shāfi'ī (d. 204/820), whose famous Risāla documents his campaign to identify the notion of authoritative precedent (sunna) solely with Prophetic hadiths.66 Figure 9.0 Schacht's Common Link According to Schacht's thought, the movement away from the precedent of numerous authoritative figures such as the Companions and Successors to the Prophet himself manifested itself in the 'backgrowth' of isnāds. Schacht's reasoning was simple and clear. Books surviving from the ancient schools of law, like Mālik's Muwatta', include far more reports from later figures than from the Prophet himself.67 The collections compiled after al-Shāfi'ī, however, such as the canonical Six Books, were undeniably focused on Prophetic reports.68 Furthermore, these collections often included reports attributed to the Prophet that the authors of earlier hadith collections had attributed to Companions or Successors. A report in the Muwatta' may be attributed to a Companion, while a generation later al-Shāfi'ī attributes the same report to the Prophet through a defective mursal isnād (in which there exists a gap in the isnād between the Prophet and the person quoting him). Two generations later, in the Sahīh of al-Bukhārī, we find the same hadith with a complete isnād to the Prophet.69 Schacht contended that the Prophetic versions of these reports had clearly been forged after the compilation of works such as the Muwatta', since if they had existed earlier, then scholars like Mālik no doubt would have included them in their writings to trump their adversaries in legal debates.70 In Schacht's view, the development of law in the first centuries of Islam was thus a slow process of finding more and more compelling sources of authority for legal or doctrinal maxims. Statements from Successors were the oldest and thus most historically accur-ate.71 In debates between early legal scholars, however, the problem of competing Successor reports was solved by disingenuous experts attributing these statements to the next highest rung on the ladder of authority: the Companions of the Prophet. We should thus treat these Companion reports as historical fabrications.72 By the mid eighth century, the problem of competing reports from the Companions resulted in such statements being pushed back to the Prophet himself. Al-Shāfi'ī proved the greatest champion of this total reliance on Prophetic hadiths. Since the major Sunni hadith collections consist almost entirely of reports from the Prophet, much of their material must have been put into circulation after al-Shāfi'ī's time.73 Schacht's conclusions yielded a simple rule: the farther back the isnād of a hadith goes, the more assured we should be of its fabrication and the later the date that this fabrication occurred.74 But how do we know who was responsible for the backgrowth of an isnād and when they had attributed a statement to the Prophet? For the legal hadiths that Schacht studies, he posits the theory of the Common Link (see Figure 9.0). Schacht notices that for the hadiths he selected for analysis, the report is transmitted by only one chain until a certain point several generations after the Prophet. After this transmitter, whom Schacht terms the 'Common Link,' the hadith spreads out to more chains of transmission. Since the eighth century witnessed a process of isnāds growing backwards, then it seems reasonable to assume that this Common Link is responsible for fabricating his isnād back to the Prophet. Everything before the Common Link is thus made up, which explains why the hadith only spreads out widely after him.75 Schacht adds that, in addition to the backgrowth of isnāds leading to a massive increase in the number of 'hadiths,' jurists and hadith scholars also created 'parallel' isnāds to help avert the arguments made by Mu'tazilites who rejected the use of hadiths with a limited number of chains of transmission.76 To avoid the stylistic awkwardness of putting what were clearly legal statements made by early Muslim scholars in the mouth of Muhammad, Schacht explains that the circumstances and contextual details of legal hadiths were added to provide 'an authentic touch.'77 Schacht's understanding of the early Islamic legal tradition and his Common Link Theory became the dominant vision of the hadith tradition among Western scholars and has exercised tremendous influence. This approach was elaborated further by the Dutch scholar G.H.A. Juynboll (d. 2010), one of the leading proponents of what we have termed the Orientalist school. While acknowledging that the origins of what became hadith literature no doubt occurred in the life the Prophet, Juynboll adds that 'surely it is unlikely that we will ever find even a moderately successful method of proving with incontrovertible certainty the histor-icity of the ascription of such to the prophet but in a few isolated instances.' Too many of the Companions, he continues, were credited 'with such colossal numbers of obviously forged traditions that it is no longer feasible to conceive of a foolproof method to sift authentic from falsely ascribed material.'78 If it is beyond the historian's means to prove that the Prophet did say something, Juynboll certainly believes that one can prove that he did not say something. He does this by dating when the hadith came into existence. Building on Schacht's Common Link Theory, Juynboll asserts that the more people transmit a hadith from a scholar, 'the more historicity that moment has.' In other words, the more people narrated a hadith from a transmitter, the more attestation there is that the hadith actually existed at the time.79 It must therefore have been forged at some earlier date. Any links in an isnād that lack such multiple attestations are of dubious historical reliability, especially in light of the supposed adoration that early Muslims had for hadiths and their preservation. Juynboll asks, if the Prophet had really uttered a certain hadith in the presence of his devoted followers, how do we explain why he 'should choose to convey his saying about [a topic] to just one companion, and why this companion should choose to convey it to just one successor?'80 For Juynboll, then, the only historically verifiable 'moment' in the transmission of a hadith occurs with a Common Link. Because it is inconceivable that a real hadith could be transmitted by only one isnād from the Prophet, anything before this Common Link must have been fabricated by him or her.81 Juynboll feels that concluding that a hadith must have been forged because more transmissions of it do not exist (an argument e silentio) is well justified. Since Muslim hadith scholars habitually collected all the available transmissions of a hadith they could find, their omission of any transmission must entail that it did not exist.82 In his case-by-case analysis of many hadiths, Juynboll develops a jargon for describing the different phenomena of isnād fabrication. As is illustrated in Figure 9.1, we see that the hadith has a clear Common Link, whom Juynboll would accuse of attributing the hadith to the Prophet along with a suitable isnād. We also find two other transmissions of the hadith besides that of the Common Link, one through the Common Link's source and another through a second Companion. Since there is no historical way to verify the existence of these two alternative transmissions (they lack a Common Link), they must have been forged by a transmitter or collector to provide an alternative chain of transmission, perhaps with a more elevated isnād, to that of the Common Link. Juynboll terms these alternative transmissions 'Diving' isnāds.83 A hadith that has no Common Link, only a set of unrelated 'diving' chains (which Juynboll terms a 'spider'), is not historically datable in any sense.84 Juynboll's judgment on 'diving' chains of transmission leads him to dismiss the whole notion of corroborating transmissions (mutāba'a) among Muslim hadith scholars. Because these chains of transmission appear independently and lack any Common Link, they cannot be verified and should be assumed to be forgeries. They are simply plagiarisms of the Common Link's isnāds to make the hadith seem more reliable. Juynboll notes that it 'never ceases to astonish' him that master Muslim hadith scholars like Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalānī did not realize that corroborating isnāds were in fact groundless fabrications.85 Figure 9.1 Juynboll's Common Link Theory As his treatment of corroborating transmissions suggests, Juynboll feels that the Muslim methods of hadith criticism were wholly ineffective at weeding out forged hadiths. First of all, he says, the science of hadith criticism emerged far too late to judge with any reliability what transpired in the early period of hadith forgery in the late seventh and early eighth centuries. Second, the methods of hadith critics did not consider the possibility that isnāds could be made up wholesale, a fact that rendered the proof value of any corroborating isnāds null. Juynboll notes that the phenomenon Muslim critics called tadlīs (obfuscation in transmission, see chapter 3) would have allowed disingenuous forgers to attribute a hadith to an earlier respected scholar. He claims that tadlīs 'was hardly ever detected.' Finally, he follows Goldziher in asserting the 'near absence of application of suitable criteria' for content criticism by early hadith critics.86 Like Goldziher and Schacht, Juynboll concludes that the 'programmatic' production of hadiths started after the death of the Companions, with the standardization of the isnād format taking place in the 680s and 690s.87 Following those earlier Orientalists, he agrees that hadiths originated as the exhortatory material of storytellers and preachers and only later addressed topics of Islamic law. Most of what Muslims considered to be the most reliable hadiths probably emerged in the 700s to 720s, when Muslim scholars began to invest the Sunna of the Prophet with ultimate authority and when the backgrowth of isnāds allowed material to be manufactured to furnish the Prophet's legacy. While Schacht had identified the backgrowth of an isnād if he found a Prophetic hadith in a collection like Sahīh al-Bukhārī that had appeared in an earlier collection as a statement of a Companion or Successor, Juynboll generalized this conclusion. Even if you cannot find a Companion/Successor opinion that corresponds to a Prophetic hadith, the fact that so many hadiths seem to have originated from these kinds of non-Prophetic statements makes 'any "prophetic" saying suspect as also belonging to that genre.'88 Using information provided by Muslim hadith critics and collectors themselves, Juynboll offers proof for the massive multiplication of hadiths in this period. In the earliest sources available, he says, major hadith transmitters like Ibn 'Abbās were described as narrating as few as nine hadiths from the Prophet. Yet by the time Ibn Hanbal compiled his vast Musnad in the first half of the 800s he collected 1,710 narrations from Ibn 'Abbās (although Juynboll admits that these included repetitions of the same hadith).89 Beyond the backgrowth of isnāds, in his numerous articles Juynboll criticized a variety of other concepts developed by Muslim hadith critics. He challenges the provenance of the isnād that Muslim critics considered one of the most reliable: Mālik Nāfi' Ibn 'Umar Prophet, by claiming that the transmitter Nāfi', the client of Ibn 'Umar, did not really exist as a major hadith narrator. Arguing that Nāfi' cannot be established as a Common Link, and pointing to the fact that the early transmission critic Ibn Sa'd (d. 230/845) did not describe him as a noteworthy hadith transmitter, Juynboll concludes that Mālik and other early scholars simply invented Nāfi' as a useful tool for anchoring their own legal opinions in the words of the Prophet.90 Juynboll also challenges the notion that attaining the level of mutawātir in the eyes of Muslim critics in any way guaranteed the authenticity of a hadith. Using his Common Link method on the famous hadith of 'Whoever lies about me intentionally, let him prepare a seat for himself in Hell,' Juynboll claims that Common Link analysis cannot establish it as reaching back to the Prophet. He thus concludes that if the most famous mutawātir hadith cannot be proven to be authentic according to his methods, then the whole idea of mutawātir hadiths 'is no guarantee for the historicity of a h.adīth's ascription to the prophet.'91 THE PHILO-ISLAMIC APOLOGY Orientalist criticisms of hadiths quickly elicited responses from Muslim scholars. Although he affirmed many of Muir's critiques of the hadith tradition, the Indian Islamic modernist, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898) retorted that Muir's assumption that the bulk of hadith transmitters were engaged in deliberate misrepresentation stemmed from his anti-Muslim bias. Furthermore, Khan accuses Muir of supporting his accusations of the political and sectarian motivations behind hadith forgery using as evidence the same reports he had deemed historically unreliable.92 Later, more in-depth responses to Orientalist criticisms came from scholars working and trained in Western universities who did not wholly agree with Goldziher, Schacht, and their followers. From the 1960s to the 1980s, a number of scholars, most of them from Muslim or Middle Eastern backgrounds, challenged Orientalist conclusions either wholly or in part. The most influential challenge came from Nabia Abbott (d. 1981) (a Christian from Iraq and later professor at the University of Chicago) who based her book Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri II: Qur'ānic Commentary and Tradition (1967) on a selection of early Arabic papyrus documents from the second half of the eighth and the early ninth centuries. Abbott presents an interesting challenge to Goldziher's theory that the Umayyad government, with its agents like al-Zuhrī, instituted hadith collection and actively fabricated a substantial component of the hadith corpus pursuant to their political agenda. Evidence from our earliest sources on the origins of hadith study, she contends, portrays the Umayyads as concerned first and foremost with collecting the Prophet's teachings on administrative issues like taxes and charity, not with material connected to the political image of their rule. She notes how the first state attempt to collect hadiths, ordered by the caliph 'Umar b. 'Abd al-'Azīz (d. 101/720), was limited to administrative hadiths. The hadiths that al-Zuhrī collected for the Umayyads for promulgation in the provinces dealt only with charitable tithes (sadaqa).93 Abbott argues that the 'family isnāds' like those from Nāfi' Ibn 'Umar or al-'Alā' b. 'Abd al-Rahmān his father Abū Hurayra emerged far earlier and were far more numerous than previously imagined. Umayyad rulers were attempting to make these private collections public, not ordering the forgery and circulation of baseless hadiths.94 Abbott also rebuts the argument that the exponential increase in the number of hadiths in the eighth and ninth centuries proves that hadiths were being forged en masse. First of all, she notes that even early written collections of hadith could be sizable: al-Hasan al-Basrī's sahīfa was a scroll six inches in diameter. Certainly, however, early written collections were much smaller than the great hadith compendia of the ninth century. Al-Zuhrī's library could be carried in one bag, while Ibn Hanbal's was twelve and a half camel loads, and al-Wāqidī's (d. 207/822) six hundred boxes.95 The explanation for this growth, however, was not necessarily forgery. Papyrus and parchment were extremely expensive, and scholars could only use them to record the most basic information about their hadiths, such as the matn with perhaps one isnād. With the arrival of cheap paper in the Middle East at the end of the eighth century, scholars could afford to write down every hadith narration they came across. In his famous Musnad, for example, Ibn Hanbal tried to include an average of seven narrations for every tradition he listed.96 As the science of hadith collection and criticism developed in the mid eighth century, a 'hadith' became identified with its isnād, not with its matn. As ninth-century scholars obsessively collected all the various transmissions (each called a 'hadith') of one tradition, the number of 'hadiths' multiplied rapidly. As isnāds developed and became interlaced, this number increased even more, while the actual number of Prophetic traditions remained relatively small.97 Abbott's challenging some of the Orientalist attacks on the Sunni hadith tradition, however, did not mean that she embraced it fully. She notes that the widespread disagreement between Muslim critics on the reliability of a transmitter or isnād 'nullified' the real effectiveness of the Muslim science of hadith as a critical tool.98 Abbott provides perhaps the most insightful explanation of how so much forged mater-ial did appear. Since Muslim hadith critics treated hadiths dealing with law much more severely than those that they used in exhortatory preaching (al-targhīb wa al-tarhīb), the type of matn greatly affected the critical stringency with which the hadith was treated. Much of the material forged in areas such as exhortatory preaching thus survived because Muslims allowed it to.99 A vigorous rebuttal of Orientalist scholarship came from an Indian scholar who studied at Cambridge University, Muhammad Mustafa al-Azami. In two books, Studies in Early h.adīth Literature (1978) and On Schacht's Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (1984), Azami attacked Schacht's work (and also that of Goldziher) and those who had relied on his conclusions. One of the points for which Azami takes Goldziher and Schacht to task is the substantial inferences they make without any conclusive evidence. Goldziher, for example, had concluded that the Umayyad state had sponsored hadith forgery based on the fact that certain hadiths seemed to support Umayyad interests and that certain transmitters were linked to the court. Certainly, Azami acknowledges that the Umayyads fought groups like the Shiites. But he contends that there is no evidence of an official or unofficial Umayyad directive to fabricate hadiths for the cause of the state (here we should note that the historian al-Madā'inī did adduce evidence for this; see chapter 3).100 One of Azami's principal objections to Schacht is his reliance on a small number of sources to reach broad generalizations. Azami begins his discussion by pointing out how few sources Schacht had relied on and drawing attention to the numerous early Arabic manuscripts that had been discovered since his time. Western scholars of hadiths, he states, should update their data instead of parroting Schacht uncritically.101 Azami states that Schacht based his conclusions on the Muwatta' of Mālik and the Umm of al-Shāfi'ī, but he 'imposed the results of his study on the entire h.adīth literature.'102 Moreover, one of the isnāds that Schacht relies on for his evidence that isnāds grew backwards in Mālik's case was an instance in which later Muslim hadith critics believed Mālik had made a mistake. Schacht thus took an error on Mālik's part as an example of the rule instead of an exception to it.103 Azami also accuses Schacht of fundamentally misunderstanding the realities of early Islamic legal scholarship.104 Schacht's argument e silentio, where a scholar failing to mention a hadith or a complete isnād meant that the hadith or that complete isnād must not have existed at that time, is flawed. A legal expert (muftī), Azami argues, often answered questions without documenting the evidence he had used in arriving at his conclusion or without providing a full isnād for his hadiths. Azami provides an example from al-Shāfi'ī's famous Risāla, where al-Shāfi'ī provides an incomplete isnād for a hadith but excuses himself because he did not have with him the book that included his more complete isnād for that hadith.105 Finally, Azami devotes a large portion of his books to attempting to prove that Muslims had begun writing down hadiths and even using the isnād during the time of the Prophet and his Companions. Here, he relies on surviving sources from the eighth and ninth centuries which mention earlier written sources. He does this in order to disprove Schacht's claim that Prophetic hadiths only appeared as isnāds grew backwards, a claim Schacht based in part on a lack of books surviving from the first two centuries of Islam that could serve as evidence that Muslims had recorded hadiths during that time.106 Of course, here Azami relies on Muslims' testimony about their own thoroughness in hadith collection – a biased source that some Orientalists would not believe to begin with. THE REVISIONIST APPROACH AND THE CATEGORICAL REJECTION OF THE MUSLIM NARRATIVE Orientalists such as Goldziher, Schacht, and Juynboll had questioned the authenticity of individual hadiths and established a skeptical outlook towards hadith literature as a genre, but they did not doubt the overall narrative of the Prophet's life and Islamic origins. Muhammad was still assumed to have been a merchant from Mecca who had preached the monotheistic 'religion of Abraham' to his peers in Mecca before fleeing the city to establish a new Muslim community in Medina. Orientalists never questioned that he had claimed to receive revelations in the form of the Quran and had engaged in known conflicts with his enemies with the help of his famous cadre of Companions. From 1977 to 1979, however, a series of studies demanded that the Historical Critical Method be applied fully and consistently to early Islamic history. If historians were supposed to adopt a skeptical attitude towards obviously biased sources and attempt to rely on the earliest, best documented evidence possible, why had Western historians believed the grand Muslim narrative of Islam's origins at all? After all, the history of the Prophet's life, message, and community was told solely by Muslims, and there were no surviving textual sources from before the mid 700s, a full century after the Prophet's death. This would have provided ample time for Muslim scholars and historians – certainly not impartial in their activities – to construct whatever legacy they wanted for their 'Prophet' from scratch. This Revisionist criticism of the Orientalists applied equally to scholars like Azami who had objected to their critiques, for Azami had also relied on sources written down long after the first generations of Islam to reconstruct the early collection of hadiths. Two scholars, Patricia Crone (d. 2015) and Michael Cook, proposed rewriting early Islamic history using the earliest written sources on Islam, which had the added benefit of not being written by Muslims. On the basis of a set of surviving Christian religious writings dating from as early as 634 CE, Crone's and Cook's book Hagarism (1977) proposed that Islam had actually been a late version of apocalyptical Judaism in which the Arabs of the Hejaz had rediscovered their Abrahamic roots and sought to retake the Holy Land of Palestine. Clearly, this was a very different history than the detailed account of Muhammad's life and teachings given in the hadith literature! The novel contribution of the Revisionist approach was not the mechanics of criticizing the hadith tradition, but the scale of skepticism. Crone, for example, espouses Schacht's and Juynboll's theory about the backgrowth of isnāds and the conclusion that hadiths cannot really tell us anything about Islam before the year c. 100/720. Crone seconds the Orientalist critique that hadiths transmitted by Muslims reflect 'what the Prophet meant to them, not what the generation before them had taken him to say, let alone what he had said or done in his own particular time and place.'107 Figure 9.2 Cook's Theory of Tadlīs and Spread of Isnāds In her work on the origins of Islamic law, Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law (1987), Crone's severe doubt about the reliability of the Islamic historical tradition leads her to a new degree of skepticism towards the hadith corpus as a whole. '[I]n the field of substantive law,' she argues, 'traditions attributed to the Prophet must indeed be presumed to be inauthentic.'108 As an example, she takes one hadith that 'practically all' Orientalists had considered authentic: the famous 'Constitution' of Medina, the agreement between Muhammad and the Jews of Medina in which all parties agreed to be part of one 'community (umma)'. (Orientalists regarded this as authentic in part because it seems to contradict the orthodox Islamic notion that non-Muslims could not join Muslims in their religious polity, an example of the Principle of Dissimilarity at work.) Concerning the legal issue of patronage (walā'), early scholars like Ibn Jurayj (d. 150/767) and Ma'mar b. Rāshid (d. 153/770) had forbidden its sale or transfer, but they narrated no Prophetic hadiths to that effect. Based on Schacht's and Juynboll's argument e silentio, that would mean that no hadiths on that topic existed at their time. In the 'Constitution' of Medina found in the Sīra of Ibn Ishāq (d. 150/767), however, we find a statement by the Prophet banning the transfer of walā'. This hadith must have therefore been altered to meet this legal agenda sometime around the 770s CE.109 If even a report that Orientalists had felt confident about was not historically reliable, then what hadith could have escaped the ingenuous designs of early Muslim scholars? 'The chance of authentic material surviving at their hands is exceedingly small,' Crone contends. 'Indeed, in purely statistical terms it is minute.' She reminds her readers of figures Juynboll had collected about the growth of the numbers of hadiths supposedly narrated by Ibn 'Abbās. If there had been this massive increase, how do we know which ones Ibn 'Abbās really transmitted? 'Under such circumstances it is scarcely justified to presume h.adīth to be authentic until the contrary has been proven.' Since this is very difficult indeed, 'then the presumption must be that no h.adīth is authentic.'110 Crone (Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, 1987), and the scholars John Wansbrough (Quranic Studies, 1977) and John Burton (Introduction to Hadith, 1994) also stressed the exegetical origins of hadiths. In other words, hadiths were often created by Muslim scholars to help them explain the meaning of the Quran. Early Muslims disagreed on the meanings of many Quranic verses, so the hadiths produced to explain its meaning differed too.111 Although Revisionists generally built on the conclusions of the Orientalists, Michael Cook argues that even a key concession they had made – that a Common Link was a historically reliable moment in transmission – was wrong. Cook offers a novel argument as to how Muslim hadith transmitters were able to multiply the number of narrations of a hadith and, in essence, fabricate a Common Link. Juynboll had noted how tadlīs allowed disingenuous forgers to attribute a hadith to an earlier scholar by falsely inserting his name in the isnād. Cook saw an even more prominent role for tadlīs. In a traditional society, Cook explains, 'the relevant issue is not originality, but authority: sharp practice consists in falsely ascribing my view to a greater authority than myself.'112 Tadlīs was the means by which a hadith transmitter accomplished this. As shown in Figure 9.2, if C2 hears a hadith from his contemporary C1, who had heard it from his teacher B1 from A, and so on from the Prophet, C2 does not want to appear to be deriving religious knowledge from a peer. He therefore attributes it to the generation of his teachers, citing the hadith from his instructor B2 and extending the isnād back to A, et cetera. If history preserves both C1's and C2's isnāds, then it seems as though two chains of transmission eman-ated from A, when in reality there was only one. This accounts for the fraudulent spread of isnāds. By asserting that the matns of certain eschatological hadiths clearly emerged later than the Common Link in their isnāds, Cook argued that dating by Common Links was naive.113 THE WESTERN REVALUATION The fundamental doubts that Revisionist scholarship raised about early Islamic history prompted an unprecedented defense of the trad-itional narrative of hadiths and Islamic origins on the part of certain Western scholars. In a sense, regardless of the specific criticisms Western scholars might have launched at individual hadiths, they had heavily invested in the basic outline of Islamic history provided by Muslim historians and hadith scholars. To defend the overall integrity of the hadith tradition was to defend the vision of early Islamic history on which generations of Western scholars had relied. What we are calling here 'Revaluation' scholars have challenged two main aspects of Orientalist and Revisionist criticisms of hadiths. First, they have argued that many of the basic assumptions made by these two groups are inherently inaccurate. Second, Revaluation scholars have demonstrated that earlier Western criticisms did not take into account the massive breadth and complexity of the Islamic hadith tradition. When hadiths are looked at from this more humble perspective, many of the arguments advanced by Orientalists and Revisionists lose their efficacy. This does not mean that Revaluation scholars have accepted the Sunni vision of hadiths and their authenticity outright. While rejecting the Revisionist arguments, Fred Donner and others have espoused a theory that until the time of the Umayyad caliph 'Abd al-Mālik (d. 86/705), Islam as a religious ideology was very pluralistic and allowed both Christians and Jews to follow Muhammad's teachings without abandoning their own religions.114 Nonetheless, the tone of Revaluation scholars is less combative than earlier generations. They speak more of 'dating' when we can be sure a hadith was in circulation than deeming it forged and identifying who forged it. The most basic objection to the Revisionist recasting of the whole Muslim narrative of early Islamic history is that it simply asks us to believe too much. We might find it difficult to believe that Muslims could avoid all the pitfalls of historical manipulation, propagandizing, and error in their collection of hadiths, but it seems even harder to believe that a scholarly community stretching from Spain to Central Asia and plagued by intense internecine conflicts could have orchestrated such a colossal historical conspiracy in a time of pre-modern communication. As Fred Donner states in his rebuttal of the Revisionists, it is inconceivable that the divided and decentralized early Muslim community could somehow orchestrate a 'comprehensive redaction of the [Islamic] tradition as a whole into a unified form'115 without leaving ample historical evidence. Similarly, Harald Motzki notes that the forgery of hadiths on the massive scale suggested by Orientalists and Revisionists would have been prevented by the communal oversight of hadith scholars.116 Some scholars have revaluated the standing assumptions that Orientalists and Revisionists had made about the overall authenticity of hadiths. Crone had stressed what Goldziher, Schacht, and Juynboll had implied: no hadith could be assumed to be the authentic words of Muhammad. This point is contested most overtly by David Powers, who is also an early pioneer of what can be termed the 'large-scale' identification of Common Links, or the notion that when one collects all the available transmissions of a hadith, its Common Link is much earlier than those supposed by Schacht and Juynboll. In an article about wills and bequests in early Islamic law, Powers challenged Crone's and Cook's dismissal of a famous hadith in which the Prophet tells the Companion Sa'd b. Abī Waqqās that he may only specify one third of his wealth for his daughter (the rest is automatic-ally divided by existing Islamic inheritance law). Powers argues that examining the isnāds and matn of the hadith suggests that it did in fact originate with Sa'd b. Abī Waqqās. In light of her error in evaluating the hadith, Powers concludes that Crone's statement that Prophetic hadiths should be assumed to be inauthentic 'hardly inspires much confidence.' Quite the opposite, Powers asserts that the burden of proof 'lies on those who would deny the authenticity of reports attributed to the Prophet.'117 The default assumption is that a hadith is actually authentic. Power's argument for dating this hadith at the very latest during the time of the Companions rested on an examination of all the extant transmissions of the report – something that Crone had neglected. He admits that trying to authenticate an isnād and find a Common Link is delving into the 'realm of conjecture and speculation,' but he argues that it seems very unlikely that the Sa'd b. Abī Waqqās trad-ition is forged. He collects all the narrations of the tradition, which emanate from six different individuals who all converge on Sa'd as the Common Link. Powers states that it is: either strange or a remarkable coincidence that half a dozen Successors, living in different cities of the Umayyad empire and presumably working independently of one another, adopted the same story to illustrate the origins of the one-third restriction, tracing it back to the Prophet by means of fabricated isnāds, all of which converge on one and the same Companion.118 The 'large-scale' analysis of transmission and fundamental questioning of Orientalist and Revisionist assumptions has continued in force in the scholarship of the German Harald Motzki. In a sense, Motzki is the first Western scholar to treat hadiths with the same 'respect' as Muslim hadith masters did. Like figures such as Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalānī, his judgments about hadiths depend on collecting all the available narrations of the report, not just the ones easily accessible in well-known collections. Motzki's work proffers three main criticisms of previous Western hadith scholarship. First, he argues that the argument e silentio relied upon by Schacht, Juynboll, and Crone is invalid. Second, he demonstrates that Common Links are much earlier than previously thought, dating some to the time of the Companions in the second half of the seventh century. Finally, Motzki argues that, rather than being consummate forgers of hadiths, major hadith transmitters such as al-Zuhrī and Ibn Jurayj were in general reliably passing on reports from the previous generation. Orientalists and Revisionists had relied on the premise that an early scholar's failure to employ a Prophetic hadith, or the best possible version of that hadith, in a debate in which it would have been pertinent proves that this Prophetic hadith did not exist at that time or in that form.119 Motzki argues that this assumption is both unreasonable and inaccurate. A scholar could decide not to mention a hadith because he did not feel that it actually addressed the issue at hand. Especially in the time of early legal synthesists like Abū Hanīfa and Mālik, hadiths were still distributed regionally. We already saw the example of Mālik's Egyptian student informing him of a reliable hadith about washing one's feet that Mālik, who never left the Hejaz, had never heard. As for the assumption that if a hadith was transmitted via only one isnād in the early period then it must have been forged, Motzki argues that we should not expect to find numerous isnāds from figures like the Successors back to the Prophet. Isnāds, after all, only came into use during the Successors' generation in the late 600s/early 700s. Even for those early hadith transmitters and legal scholars who provided isnāds to the Prophet at that time, it was only necessary to provide one isnād for a hadith, not a bundle as became common in the second half of the 700s and the 800s. As for Juynboll's argument that Muslims obsessively transmitted hadiths, with hundreds of students attending their teachers' dictation sessions, common sense tells us that there are many reasons why history preserved one person's transmission from that teacher instead of those of many students. Just as only a small percentage of a teacher's students go on to become teachers themselves, so it is not inconceivable that only one of a hadith transmitter's students would go on to become a transmitter as well. Juynboll had argued that only the transmission of one to many can be considered a historically documented 'moment' in the life of a hadith. But, Motzki counters, if we only consider transmission from one person to a number of people historic-ally reliable, then why do we have only a few hadith collections or Partial Common Links (Common Links that form in the transmission of a hadith after the Common Link, see Figure 9.1)? If we have established that the hadith came into existence with the Common Link, and that any hadith that actually existed must have been transmitted by all those who heard it from a teacher, then after the Common Links we should find thousands of chains of transmission in the fourth and fifth generations. The fact that we find so few Partial Common Links strongly suggests that Common Links and Partial Common Links were the exception rather than the rule in the transmission of hadiths. Their absence thus cannot be construed as proof for a hadith not existing at that time. One of Motzki's central criticisms of Schacht's and Juynboll's work is the small number of sources from which they drew hadiths in determining the Common Link. In collecting transmissions of a hadith to locate a Common Link, for example, Juynboll relied principally on the Tuhfat al-ashrāf of Jamāl al-Dīn al-Mizzī (d. 742/1341), a work that collects together all the chains of transmission for a hadith but is limited to the traditions and transmissions found in the Six Books (and a few other small books). Motzki draws on a much larger and more diverse body of sources including early ones, such as the Musannaf of 'Abd al-Razzāq al-San'ānī (d. 211/827), and later ones, such as al-Bayhaqī's (d. 458/1066) Dalā'il al-nubuwwa. By consulting a much wider range of sources than these earlier scholars, Motzki demonstrates that the Common Links for the hadiths he analyzes actually belong to the time of the Companions in the second half of the seventh century. Motzki lays out his rebuttal of Schacht's and Juynboll's Common-Link-as-forger argument most clearly in an article devoted to studying the hadiths related to the Prophet's order that a prominent Jewish leader in Khaybar, Ibn Abī Huqayq, be assassinated. By gathering together a tremendous array of chains of transmission from a wide variety of sources, Motzki demonstrates that this hadith has not one Common Link but several who were working independently and thus must have relied on some earlier common source. In the case of the killing of Ibn Abī Huqayq, Motzki concludes that the common link transmitters of hadiths relating to the event probably received their reports no later than the last third of the seventh century.120 The hadith was circulating during the time of the Companions. Motzki's 'large-scale' analysis of hadith transmission is based on a method of analyzing the isnād and matn together (termed isnād cum matn analysis). He explains that this process relies on three premises: 1 Variants of a tradition are (at least partially) the result of a process of transmission. 2 The isnāds of the variants reflect (at least partially) the actual path of transmission. 3 If variant texts (matns) of a tradition emanating from the same common link are in fact similar enough, then it seems to be an authentic moment of transmission. If they are not similar, this is the result of either carelessness or intentional manipulation of the material.121 In order to determine whether the basic information found in the text of the hadith originated from before a Common Link, you must see if different Common Links all have the same basic matn. This requires a two-step process: 1) analyzing the elements of the different matn variants from all the chains of transmission emanating from one Common Link; 2) comparing the conclusions about the common material from that Common Link to the matn elements of other Common Links.122 One must then ask whether the differences between the versions of the matn from the two Common Links are significant enough to preclude the possibility that one copied from the other and then provided his hadith with a different isnād.123 If two variants of the same text from two separate Common Links are too disparate to be dependent on each other, then they must stem from an earlier common source. In order to verify this conclusion, one must determine whether variants on the common matn correlate with the chains of transmission. In other words, do the variants of the common story (matn) match the isnād tree?124 We can demonstrate this method of isnād cum matn analysis with a famous hadith stating that God descends at some point in the night to answer prayers (see Figure 9.3). Strictly speaking, isnād cum matn analysis must take into consideration all the extant transmissions of a hadith. Since that would be far too time-consuming for our purposes, we will only focus on those narrations that yield the sort of benefit associated with this type of analysis. In particular, we will look at two narrations of the hadith, one from Abū Hurayra and one from another Companion, Abū Sa'īd al-Khudrī. Figure 9.3 Isnād/Matn Analysis We find the narration of Abū Hurayra recorded earliest in the Muwatta' of Mālik, which means that we know that the hadith was in existence at the very latest during the mid eighth century when Mālik was writing. Mālik's fellow student of al-Zuhrī, Ma'mar b. Rāshid, had this transmission as well as the other version from Abū Sa'īd al-Khudrī. Examining, the two matns, we find that they contain the same general tradition but also feature noticeable differences. Matn 1, for example, states that God descends in the last third of the night, while Matn 2 says He descends after the first third. Matn 2 also includes the unique wording 'God bides His time.' Since we know the tradition existed with Ma'mar, but the differences between his two versions of the hadith preclude him having copied one from the other, he must have obtained the Abū Sa'īd version from an earlier source other than al-Zuhrī. If al-Zuhrī's source and Ma'mar's second source (presumably Abū Ishāq al-Sabī'ī) both had two different versions of the same general hadith, they must have received them from a common source, especially as Abū Ishāq was from Kufa and al-Zuhrī from the Hejaz. Since al-Zuhrī and Abū Ishāq, both Successors, died in 742–3 CE and 744–6 CE respectively, their common source must have lived in the late seventh century, which demonstrates that the hadith was in existence during the time of the later Companions. One of the key sources that Motzki uses in his investigation is the Musannaf of 'Abd al-Razzāq al-San'ānī (d. 211/827). In a series of articles in the early 1990s, Motzki used the Musannaf to prove that Schacht's conclusions about the reliability of legal hadiths were tainted by the narrow range of sources he consulted and a hypothesis-driven analysis by which Schacht judged the provenance of early legal material based on flawed assumptions about the nature of early Islamic legal scholarship. In one article, Motzki takes up the material that 'Abd al-Razzāq included in his Musannaf through the well-known isnād of Ibn Jurayj (d. 150/767) the famous Meccan Successor 'Atā' b. Abī Rabāh (d. 114/732). Motzki argues that both 'Abd al-Razzāq's and Ibn Jurayj's material and their manner of presenting it exhibits two startling characteristics that dispel the likelihood that they forged or intentionally misrepresented reports they transmitted. First, the characteristics of transmissions via the isnād are entirely consistent both in their form and content. Thus, both 'Abd al-Razzāq and his source Ibn Jurayj always use the term 'I heard it from (sami'tu)...' for some of their sources, while they use 'on the authority of ('an)' consistently for others. If either of these authorities were 'back projecting' their own legal views on to earlier authorities, Motzki argues, it is improbable that they could have maintained such formal consistency in their forgery.125 Second, 'Abd al-Razzāq admits to not knowing the exact origins of some of the hadiths in his collection, and Ibn Jurayj often admits to not understanding either the meaning or the wordings of the reports he transmits.126 Moreover, in his narrations from 'Atā' b. Abī Rabāh, Ibn Jurayj sometimes posed questions directly to this scholar and sometimes heard his opinions second or even third hand. Including less direct transmissions when he could have easily claimed to have heard 'Atā' first hand suggests that Ibn Jurayj was forthcoming about such transmissions.127 Based on this evidence, Motzki argues that 'Abd al-Razzāq and Ibn Jurayj both faithfully transmitted the material they received. Since there is thus little likelihood that the hadiths narrated by Ibn Jurayj from Atā' b. Abī Rabāh were forged, they can be seen as authentic representations of Muslim legal scholarship in Mecca in the late seventh and early eighth centuries.128 In another 1991 article, Motzki continues to use the Musannaf of 'Abd al-Razzāq as a tool to correct Schacht's conclusions about early Islamic legal hadiths, in particular legal material ascribed to the famous al-Zuhrī. Motzki compares the legal hadiths narrated by al-Zuhrī's students Ma'mar b. Rāshid and Ibn Jurayj from their teacher with material found in the book of another of al-Zuhrī's students, Mālik. By proving that both the hadiths from Ma'mar/Ibn Jurayj and Mālik came from a common source, presumably al-Zuhrī, Motzki suggests that material attributed to al-Zuhrī actually came from him. Especially in the case of Ma'mar and Ibn Jurayj, their narrations bear no signs of intended forgery. These scholars drew on very diverse sources, and they readily transmitted hadiths or scholarly opinions that disagreed with their own stances. If they were using these transmissions only as a means to promote their own legal agenda, why would they transmit reports that disagreed with them? Motzki devotes special attention to a bizarre report that al-Zuhrī attributes to one of the Prophet's Companions who allowed grown men to become related to women by breast-feeding from them. By establishing the transmission from al-Zuhrī and then showing that the material that al-Zuhrī reported was in itself compiled from several sources, Motzki argues that the Common Link for this report is in fact the Companion who supposedly said it in the second half of the seventh century. That al-Zuhrī personally disagreed with the Companion ruling he transmits (he did not approve of the practice of grown men suckling) testifies to his integrity as a transmitter.129 CONCLUSION: QUESTIONS ABOUT ASSUMPTIONS Motzki raises some other interesting questions about the assumptions made by Schacht and Juynboll, assumptions that, I think, we can trace back to the Historical Critical Method itself. Extreme skeptics of the hadith tradition are motivated by the historical-critical approach of the Western tradition, which asks whether we should believe what historical sources tell us. However, sometimes doubting these sources obliges us to believe things more fantastical than simply accepting that the source might be authentic. Juynboll assumes that all 'diving' chains of transmission, all corroborating chains, and in fact any chain of transmission that does not emanate from a Common Link are forged (see Figure 9.1). But why? In the example of the hadith of God's descent at night, the only Common Link is the Companion Abu Hurayra. There are seven other chains of transmission through other Companions (not listed in Figure 9.3); are we to suppose that all these other chains coming from the Prophet, via different Companions, all with slight variations in the matn that are dispersed with total consistency among these different chains, are all fabricated? All this in a period of a hundred and fifty years (about the time that the earliest surviving written source for this hadith, the Muwatta', was produced) within a circle of scholars who exerted a great deal of effort to prevent material from being forged wholesale about the Prophet? It seems more likely that the Prophet actually said that God descends at night to answer men's prayers. As Motzki points out, there is a certain a priori doubt about the reliability of the Muslim hadith tradition that may be totally groundless. Western historians are of course totally right to point out the suspicious anachronism in a hadith in which the Prophet says, 'If you see Mu'āwiya on my pulpit, kill him,' or the even more outrageous hadith of 'There will be in my community a man named Muhammad b. Idrīs [al-Shāfi'ī], and the strife he brings will be worse than Satan.' But prominent Muslim hadith critics like Ibn 'Adī, al-Jawzaqānī, and al-Dhahabī also considered the hadith about Mu'āwiya to be unreliable or fabricated outright, and the hadith condemning al-Shāfi'ī was used by Muslim scholars as a textbook example of forgery.130 Even though many Muslim scholars considered them unreliable, the hadiths condemning the Qadarites (qadariyya) appear in collections like the respected Four Sunan. Certainly, it seems that the proper name Qadarite did not develop for over a century after the death of the Prophet.131 But jumping to dismiss these hadiths as forgeries due to the anachronism of the Prophet 'foretelling' this sect's emergence is hasty. Western scholars might not accept that the Prophet could know the future, but the Quran clearly engages the questions of free will and predestination. Some Muslims in Muhammad's time could well have angered him by advocating the idea that God did not control human actions, so it is not unreasonable that he might have warned them against this. Crucially, for every hadith in which the Prophet condemns the Qadarites by this proper name there is a corresponding, non-anachronistic narration in which he refers to them as 'the people of qadar' or 'those who disbelieve in qadar.' In fact, these non-anachronistic narrations are the most reliable ones according to Muslim scholars. What seems like a clear case of anachronism to Western scholars might actually be a case in which the Prophet condemned an existing heresy, then some later transmitters of those hadiths lazily replaced 'the people of qadar/those who disbelieve in qadar' with the conventional label Qadarite as it had emerged in their time.132 Western critics from Goldziher onwards rebuked Muslim hadith scholars for not taking the contents of a hadith into consideration when analyzing its authenticity. But as we have seen, Muslim critics like al-Bukhārī did in fact use the contents of hadiths to prove that they were unreliable, although their degree of skepticism never approached that of the HCM. Certainly, Muslim hadith critics differ from modern Western criticism in that they believe that the Prophet could know the future, but perhaps Western scholars could benefit from their cautious approach. Western reasoning for why the hadith about visiting the three mosques must be forged rested on the fact that it seemed to promote an Umayyad agenda and that al-Zuhrī, who was associated with the Umayyad court, is in the isnād.133 But there are other early isnāds for this hadith that do not have al-Zuhrī in them.134 Should we reconsider our conclusion or assume, quite without reason, that these other isnāds were forged as well? The Al-Aqsa mosque is mentioned in the Quran, so is it so inconceivable that the Prophet would order his followers to pay special attention to it along with the Haram Mosque in Mecca and his mosque in Medina? There is a certain 'chicken and the egg' logic to the Western approach to the reliability of hadiths. Goldziher and others have regularly criticized the hadith, considered sahīh by Muslims, 'When you see the black banners approaching from Khurasan, go to them, for indeed the Messiah (mahdī) is among them,' which they consider to be a product of Abbasid revolutionary propaganda (the Abbasids both had black banners and emerged from Khurasan).135 But we must accept the fact that Muhammad, prophet or not, might actually have acted like a prophet and prophesied occasionally. Did the Abbasids forge this hadith about the black banners and the Mahdī, or did they take advantage of an existing hadith and simply tailor their banners to fit the messianic image that the Prophet had actually described? Looking outside the Islamic tradition, the Old Testament Book of Zechariah reads, 'Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey' (Zechariah 9:9). Does the fact that the Gospels describe Jesus entering Jerusalem on a colt or donkey (Mark 11:1–11; Matthew 21:1–4) mean that Christians made up this part of the Book of Zechariah to bolster the case for Jesus being a messianic figure (we know this is not true since the Book of Zechariah predates Christianity)? Or did Jesus really enter Jerusalem (not unlikely) riding the transport of his day – a donkey (not unlikely) – an event that the Gospel writers then described in the language of Old Testament scripture to show how Jesus' life was part of Old Testament prophecy being fulfilled? Taken further, the entry of the Quaker James Nayler into the English town of Bristol in 1656, riding on a donkey with women strewing fronds before him and singing 'Holy, Holy, Holy', obviously does not mean that Quakers concocted the Gospel story. Nayler was simply casting himself in the image of Christ as portrayed in scripture.136 Similarly, some of the apparent anachronisms found in hadiths may simply be Muslims scripturalizing their own actions and history to dovetail with statements made by Muhammad. Both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars of hadiths have agreed that there are many forged hadiths. In my opinion, explaining how this came about involves understanding the choices made by the Sunni scholarly tradition more than it does doubting the systematic effectiveness of their method of hadith criticism. In theory as well as practice, the Three-Tiered system of demanding a source, investigating its reliability and seeking out corroborating evidence is an effective way of determining the authenticity of a report. Modern reporters, after all, employ a similar method. Juynboll and Cook cited the practice of tadlīs as the loophole by which hadiths were attributed to major transmitters or equipped with additional isnāds. Juynboll states that tadlīs 'was hardly ever detected.'137 But Muslim hadith scholars from the mid eighth century onward were obsessive about identifying which transmitters lapsed into tadlīs and when. Shu'ba (d. 160/776) said that 'tadlīs is the brother of lying' and studied the transmissions of his teacher Qatāda b. Di'āma closely to know when he had heard a hadith directly from the person he was citing and when it was unclear if there was an unspecified intermediary. Yahyā b. Sa'īd al-Qattān (d. 198/813) made sure to identify tadlīs even when it was done by as revered a figure as Sufyān al-Thawrī. Later, master critics like 'Alī b. al-Madīnī (d. 234/849), al-Husayn al-Karābīsī (d. 245/859), and others wrote multivolume books identifying the names of those who committed tadlīs and the degree of their laxity.138 Juynboll states that the critical method of Muslim hadith scholars did not take into account the possibility that isnāds were fabricated wholesale. But the intensive focus on finding corroboration in order to evaluate a transmitter was aimed at isolating those individuals who cited isnāds not backed up by other students of the same teacher. If a transmitter was making up isnāds wholesale, he would be identified as someone who 'is not corroborated (lā yutāba'u 'alayhi)' or narrates 'unacceptable (munkar)' hadiths. As we discussed in chapter 2, the number of hadiths transmitted by Ibn 'Abbās appears to increase incredulously only when we forget to distinguish between the relatively small number that Ibn 'Abbās actually heard from the Prophet and those in which he said 'the Prophet said...' leaving out the older Companion who had actually told him the hadith. Clearly, Muslim scholars' rulings on the reliability of individual hadiths cannot be accepted without careful examination. But, as Motzki and others have shown, the classical Islamic method of filtering out forged hadiths was much more effective than earlier scholars like Goldziher and Juynboll have believed. However, Sunni scholars only chose to apply their critical methods some of the time. Masters of early Sunni hadith criticism such as Sufyān al-Thawrī, Ibn al-Mubārak, Ibn Hanbal, Ibn Ma'īn, and Ibn Abī Hātim al-Rāzī all stressed that they dealt stringently with the isnāds of hadiths dealing with law and dogma but were lax with material concerning history (maghāzī), the virtues of people or acts (fadā'il), pious preaching (wa'z), the end of days (malāhim), good manners, and the meaning of Quranic terms (tafsīr). As Abbott stated, this material easily passed through the hadith scholars' critical filters. These were the doors that Sunni scholars left open for forged material. Al-Tirmidhī's collection offers a useful example, since he alone provided his own ratings for each hadith in his book. In chapters dealing with core legal topics, only a relatively small percentage of hadiths suffer from some lack or corroboration (gharīb): for the chapters on tithing (zakāt) and fasting (sawm), it is 17%. His chapter on inheritance (farā'id) has only 7%. Al-Tirmidhī's chapters on non-legal matters, however, have a much larger percentage of hadiths that the author himself acknowledges as problematic: apocalyptic strife (fitan) – 35%; the virtues of various early Muslims (manāqib) – 52%; pious invocations (da'awāt) – 50%; and manners (ādāb) – 27%. If corroboration was the keystone of Muslim hadith criticism, then al-Tirmidhī certainly dropped his critical guard in the non-legal chapters in comparison with legal ones. It is unfortunate that many of the areas that Western scholars consider the most important subjects of study – political history, apocalyptic visions, and Quranic exegesis – were simply not the priorities of Sunni hadith scholars. It is possible that it was prioritization of law over other areas that led to the inclusion of large numbers of unreliable hadiths in Sunni collections, not the failings of Sunni hadith-critical methods. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING A great deal has been written about the Authenticity Question. Students interested in further reading would be best served by consulting the scholarly works cited in this chapter and its notes as the next step in examining the topic. In particular, Harald Motzki's digests of the various Western approaches to dating and evaluating hadiths in his article, 'Dating Muslim Traditions: a Survey,' Arabica 52, no. 2 (2005): 204–253, and his introduction to the edited volume on hadiths [H.adīth: Origins and Development, ed. Harald Motzki (Aldershot: Variorum, 2004), xiii–liii], are extremely useful surveys. A more recent survey of the field is Andreas Görke, Harald Motzki, and Gregor Schoeler, 'First Century Sources for the Life of Muh.ammad? A Debate,' Der Islam 89, no. 1 (2012), pp. 2–59. The H.adīth: Origins and Development volume also includes influential pieces on the Authenticity Question from a number of scholars not mentioned in this chapter and translated from their original languages into English. Although it is slightly dated, the Guide to Sira and Hadith Literature in Western Languages, ed. Munawar Anees and Alia N. Athar (London: Mansell Publishing, 1986) is also useful. Myron Gilmore's Humanists and Jurists (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1963), Edgar Krentz's The Historical Critical Method (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), Anthony Grafton's Forgers and Critics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), Owen Chadwick's marvelous The Secularization of the European Mind in the 19th Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), Klaus Scholder's The Birth of Modern Critical Theology, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Trinity Press, 1996), Hans Frei's The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974) and Ernst Troeltsch's essay 'Historical and Dogmatic Method in Theology' in Religion in History, trans. James A. Luther and Walter Bense (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991) are very useful introductions to the Historical Critical Method. For more on European Orientalism and the study of Islam, see Ahmad Gunny, The Prophet Muhammad in English and French Literature 1650 to the Present (Islamic Foundation, 2010); Avril Powell, Scottish Orientalists and India: The Muir Brothers, Religion, Education and Empire (Boydell, 2010); and Suzanne Marchand, German Orientalism in the Age of Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2009). ENDNOTES 1 Expanding on Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, vol. 1, p. 40. 2 Joseph Massad, Islam in Liberalism, pp. 65–73. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7264903.stm.; http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2008/03/07/turkey- explains-revision-of-hadith-project/ (last cited July 2016). 3 Al-'Ajlūnī, Kashf al-khafā, vol. 1, p. 12; al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, vol. 1, p. 177. 4 Lord Acton, A Lecture on the Study of History, pp. 40–42. 5 Leopold von Ranke, Sämtliche Werke (1868–90), vol. 33, pp. v–viii. 6 For example, twelfth-century paintings of Gospel scenes in the Swiss church of Zillis show characters dressed in medieval clothes; Rosalind and Christopher Brooke, Popular Religion in the Middle Ages, p. 137; Myron P. Gilmore, Humanists and Jurists, pp. 1–10. 7 Cicero, The Nature of the Gods, pp. I:60–62, 71–73; Petrarch, The Secret, pp. 68–69. 8 Eugene F. Rice, Jr. and Anthony Grafton, The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, p. 82. 9 This verse reads: 'And there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one...' King James Bible 1 John 5:7–8. Only four Greek manuscripts mentioned this famous 'Johannan comma,' and all were historically late; Jerry Bentley, Humanists and Holy Writ, pp. 45, 152–153. 10 Klaus Scholder, The Birth of Modern Critical Theology, p. 67; Travis Frampton, Spinoza and the Rise of Historical Criticism of the Bible, pp. 208–216. 11 Peter Gay, ed., Deism, pp. 72–77. 12 Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, pp. 25–26. 13 Scholder, Birth of Modern Critical Theology, pp. 37–40. 14 Benedict Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, pp. 170–171. 15 See for a version of this, al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī, Tārīkh Baghdād, vol. 6, p. 115. 16 F. A. Wolf, Prolegomena to Homer, p. 233. 17 Voltaire, Essai sur les Moeurs, p. 1:288. 18 Frei, Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, pp. 56–57, 162; Robert Morgan and John Barton, Biblical Interpretation, p. 48. See also Pico's (d. 1494) Oration on the Dignity of Man. 19 Robert Morgan and John Barton, Biblical Interpretation, p. 47; Thomas Howard, Religion and the Rise of Historicism, p. 34. 20 Howard, Religion and the Rise of Historicism, pp. 2, 12–13. 21 Voltaire, Essai sur les moeurs, p. 1:288. 22 Mullā 'Alī al-Qārī, al-Asrār al-marfū'a, p. 407. 23 Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1, p. 186. 24 Polybius, The Histories, p. I:14. 25 John Herman Randall, The School of Padua and the Emergence of Modern Science, pp. 18, 46–47. 26 Livy, The Early History of Rome, p. 3:1. 27 Herodotus, The Histories, p. II:120. 28 J. H. Brumfitt, Voltaire, Historian, p. 103. 29 Ernst Troeltsch, 'Historical and Dogmatic Method in Theology,' pp. 13–14; W. Von Leyden, 'Antiquity and Authority: A Paradox in the Renaissance Theory of History,' p. 488. 30 The scholar al-Kirmānī (d. 786/1384) said that it is an essential belief in Islam that there was no 'evil (sharr)' in the time of the Prophet; Ibn Hajar, Fath, vol. 13, p. 26. 31 Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament, pp. 204–205; Arnaldo Momigliano, Studies in Historiography, p. 21. 32 Norman Perrin, What Is Redaction Criticism?, p. 16. 33 Voltaire, La Philosophie de l'Histoire, p. 121. 34 Suzanne Marchand, German Orientalism in the Age of Empire, pp. 157, 174, 183–184, 187; Nöldeke's Geschichte des Qorans has been translated as The History of the Qur'ān, trans. Wolfgang Behn (Leiden, Brill, 2013). 35 William Muir, The Life of Mohamet, p. xxxvii. 36 Ibid., pp. lxviii, lxxi. 37 Ibid., p. xlii. 38 Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies II, pp. 19–22. Goldziher's German original, Mohammedanische Studien, was published in 1889–1890. 39 Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, p. 40. 40 Goldziher, Muslim Studies II, pp. 22–23. 41 Ibid., p. 143. 42 Ibid., p. 40. 43 Ibid., pp. 44–45. 44 Ibid., p. 52. 45 Ibid., p. 44–47; Lecker, 'Biographical Notes on Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī.' 46 Goldziher, Muslim Studies, p. 75. 47 Ibid., pp. 38–40. 48 Ibid., p. 77. 49 ibid., pp. 79–85. 50 Ibid., p. 99. 51 Ibid., p. 121. 52 Ibid., pp. 95–97; Sunan Abī Dāwūd: kitāb al-fitan, bāb al-nahy 'an al-sa'ī fī al-fitna. 53 Goldziher, Muslim Studies, p. 122. 54 Ibid., p. 108. 55 Ibid., pp. 113–114. 56 Ibid., pp. 123–124. 57 Ibid., p. 52. 58 Ibid. pp. 74–75. 59 Ibid., p. 18. 60 Ibid., pp. 55–56. Al-Bayhaqī and Ibn Khuzayma know of no one 'from the east to the west' who corroborates this report. A similar report, also considered unreliable, is in the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal, vol. 2, p. 367. See al-Suyūtī, Miftāh al-janna fī al-ihtijāj bi'l-sunna (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyya, 1987), p. 39; Ibn Qudāma, al-Muntakhab min al-'Ilal li'l-Khallāl (Riyadh: Dār al-Rāya, 1998), p. 145. 61 Ibid., pp. 140–141. 62 Schacht, 'A Revaluation of Islamic Tradition,' pp. 146–147. 63 Ibid., p. 151. 64 Ibid., p. 149. 65 Ibid., p. 151. 66 Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, p. 13. 67 Ibid., p. 22. 68 Ibid., p. 4. 69 Ibid., pp. 165–166. 70 Schacht, 'A Revaluation,' p. 151. 71 Schacht, Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, p. 157. 72 Ibid., p. 157. 73 Ibid., pp. 4–5. 74 See Schacht, Origins, pp. 39, 165; idem, 'A Revaluation of Islamic Tradition,' p. 147. 75 Schacht, Origins, p. 175. 76 Ibid., p. 166. 77 Ibid., p. 156. 78 Juynboll, Muslim Tradition: Studies in Chronology, Provenance and Authorship of Early H.adīth, p. 71. 79 Juynboll, 'Some isnād-analytical methods illustrated on the basis of several women-demeaning sayings from H.adīth literature,' in Studies on the Origins and Uses of Islamic H.adīth, p. 352. 80 Ibid., p. 353. 81 Ibid., p. 353. 82 Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, p. 98. 83 Juynboll, 'Some Isnād-analytical methods,' p. 368. 84 Juynboll, 'Nāfi', the mawlā of Ibn 'Umar, and his position in Muslim H.adīth literature,' in Studies on the Origins and Uses of Islamic H.adīth, p. 215. 85 Juynboll, '(Re)Appraisal of some Hadith Technical Terms,' p. 318. 86 Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, pp. 52, 73, 75. 87 Ibid., pp. 5, 10. 88 Ibid., pp. 72–74. 89 Ibid., p. 30. 90 Juynboll, 'Nāfi', the mawlā of Ibn 'Umar,' pp. 219, 238–239. 91 Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, p. 98. 92 Christian Troll, Sayyid Ahmad Khan: A Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology, pp. 132–134. 93 Abbott, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri II: Qur'ānic Commentary and Tradition, pp. 31–32. 94 Ibid., p. 29. 95 Ibid., pp. 21–22, 49–51. 96 Ibid., p. 71. 97 Ibid., pp. 66, 71–72. 98 Ibid., p. 74. 99 Ibid., p. 77. 100 Muhammad Azami, Studies in Early H.adīth Literature, p. 14. 101 Ibid., p. xvi. 102 Ibid., p. 218. 103 Ibid., p. 239. 104 Ibid.; for examples, see pp. 239–242. 105 Ibid., pp. 219–221. 106 Ibid., pp. 19, 246. 107 Patricia Crone, Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law, p. 33. 108 Ibid., p. 31. 109 Ibid., pp. 32–33. 110 Ibid., p. 33. 111 Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, pp. 109–110; 203–231; John Burton, An Introduction to the Hadith, p. 181. 112 Michael Cook, Early Muslim Dogma: a Source-Critical Approach, pp. 107–108. 113 Cook, Early Muslim Dogma, pp. 100, 110; idem, 'Eschatology and the Dating of Traditions,' pp. 23–47. 114 Fred Donner, 'From Believers to Muslims: Confessional Self-identity in the Early Islamic Community,' pp. 9–53; idem, Muhammad and the Believers. 115 Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins, p. 27. 116 Motzki, 'Dating Muslim Traditions: a Survey,' p. 235. 117 David S. Powers, 'On Bequests in Early Islam,' pp. 199–200. 118 Ibid., p. 195. 119 See Motzki, 'Quo vadis, Ḥadīt-Forschung?,' pp. 40–80. This has been translated as 'Whither Hadīth Studies?,' in Harald Motzki et al., Analysing Muslim Traditions: Studies in Legal, Exegetical and Maghāzī Íadīth (Leiden: Brill, 2010). 120 Motzki, 'The Murder of Ibn Abī H.uqayq,' pp. 231–232. 121 Ibid., p. 174. 122 Ibid., p. 182. 123 Ibid., p. 184. 124 Ibid., p. 187. 125 Motzki, 'The Mus.annaf of 'Abd al-Razzāq al-S.an'ānī as a Source of Authentic Ah.ādīth of the First Century A.H,' pp. 8–9. 126 Ibid., pp. 4, 11. 127 Ibid., p. 11. 128 Ibid., p. 12. 129 See Motzki, 'Der Fiqh des Zuhrī: die Quellenproblematik.' 130 Al-Jawzaqānī, Al-Abātīl, pp. 114–115; al-Dhahabī, Mīzān, p. 3:277; Ibn 'Adī, Al-Kāmil, vol. 5, pp. 1744, 1751, 1756. 131 See the Caliph 'Umar b. 'Abd al-Azīz's (d. 101/720) letter on the subject, where he refers to them as those who hold 'al-qawl bi'l-qadar'; Abū Nu'aym, Hilyat al-awliyā', vol. 5, p. 351. Compare with Mālik b. Anas referring to them as the qadariyya in his Muwatta': kitāb al-qadar, bāb al-nahy 'an al-qawl bi'l-qadar. The earliest appearance of the Qadarite hadiths is Dirār b. 'Amr (d. 200/815), Kitāb al-Tahrīsh, p. 99. 132 For the corresponding versions of these hadiths, see Sunan Ibn Mājah: introduction, bāb fī al-qadar; Musnad Ibn Hanbal, vol. 2, p. 125, etc. 133 Lecker, 'Biographical Notes on al-Zuhri,' p. 38. 134 Al-Humaydī, Al-Musnad, vol. 2, p. 330. 135 Al-Suyūtī, Al-Jāmi' al-saghīr, # 648. 136 A True Narrative of the Examination, Tryall, and Sufferings of James Nayler [London], n.p. 1657., p. 4–5. 137 Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, pp. 52, 73, 75. 138 Khatīb, Al-Kifāya, p. 2:371–378; idem, Al-Jāmi', vol. 2, p. 312. DEBATES OVER PROPHETIC TRADITIONS IN THE MODERN MUSLIM WORLD INTRODUCTION: SETTING THE STAGE FOR MODERNITY AND ISLAM In the eighteenth century, a network of interrelated economic, technological, social, and political changes began sweeping the world, beginning in England and Western Europe. Collectively known by scholars as Modernity, these forces ushered in a new phase of human history and raised inexorable questions about the nature of religion and its place in life. The challenges of Modernity have proven especially daunting for those peoples among whom it had not developed gradually before it was imposed through European colonization. Perhaps nowhere has it been felt more sharply than among Muslims. Since their confrontation with the Modern West, Muslims have faced one daunting question: if Islam is God's true religion, and Muslims God's chosen community, why are they so powerless and subordinate before the Modern West? In attempts to answer and redress this question, Muslim discourse in the modern period has found discussing the role of hadiths in Islam unavoidable. The stage for modern Muslim thought was set by two main forces: Western colonialism and indigenous Islamic movements of revival and reform. European arms quickly proved vastly superior to Muslim armies. The British East India Company had become the de facto government of several provinces of the Muslim Mughal Empire in India by 1764. In 1798 Napoleon occupied Egypt, and in 1882 the country was brought under British control. More alarming for Muslim scholars, however, was the seeming superiority of European ideas to Islamic tradition. European scientists bent to their will technologies undreamt of in Muslim lands, and European society functioned with undeniably impressive organization. The rationalism and historicism of the European Enlightenment accompanied colonial administrations, and European Orientalists soon began turning their critical gaze on the Islamic religious trad-ition. Some Muslims immediately mistrusted Orientalism and sought to rebut it. Others were convinced by elements of European thought and swayed by Western scholars of Islam. Many Muslims were confused over what elements of Modernity they should embrace and what this entailed for their faith. Whether accepted or rejected, however, European thought and the civilization it represented became a central player in modern Islamic thought. Interestingly, even before the impact of Modernity, Islamic civilization was shaken by entirely internal forces. In the mid 1700s, previously marginal parts of the Muslim world, such as West Africa, central Arabia, and India, brought forth unprecedented movements of Islamic revival and reform that would exercise tremendous influence on the whole Muslim world. These movements were driven by a sense that the Muslim community had lost its moorings in the legacy of the Prophet. It had been led astray by heretical accretions in theology and worship as well as by chauvinistic loyalty to the schools of law. Although they did not abandon the classical Islamic tradition, these movements sought to revaluate it and revive Islam's primordial greatness by breaking with taqlīd (unquestioning loyalty to existing institutions and tradition) and embracing ijtihād (independent reasoning based on the original sources of Islam – the Quran and Sunna). Many of these revivalist scholars believed that they were just as capable as classical masters like al-Shāfi'ī and Abū Hanīfa of deriving laws directly from the Quran and the Prophet's teachings. As the great revivalist scholar Ibn al-Amīr al-San'ānī (d. 1768) wrote, 'that gift of your Lord has not been made off-bounds, and the virtues that He has bestowed are not limited to those who have come before us.'1 Some of these movements were primarily scholarly, such as the reformist trend instigated in Yemen by al-San'ānī and in India by Shāh Walī Allāh (d. 1762). Others added a strong dimension of reforming Muslim society through force of arms, such as Osman dan Fodio's (d. 1817) expansionist Sokoto Caliphate in modern-day Nigeria or Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhāb's (d. 1792) militaristic Muwahhid movement (better known as Wahhābism) in central Arabia. This common mission of bypassing the rigid institutions of the Late Sunni Tradition to revive the pure Islam of the Prophet's time and purge it of later cultural or intellectual impurities pushed the hadith tradition to the forefront. What better way to return to the source of Islam's original greatness than by renewing the study of the Sunna? Praising the Sunni devotees of hadith (ahl al-hadīth) in the early Islamic period, al-San'ānī recites: They quenched their thirst by drawing from the sea of Muhammad's knowledge, They did not have those schools of law for watering holes.2 Many revivalist scholars not only demonstrated a rejuvenated interest in hadith studies, they also believed that they were just as qualified as the great Sunni hadith critics of the classical period to rule on the authenticity of hadiths. One of the interesting byproducts of the eighteenth-century movements of revival and reform was the shift of hadith studies from its medieval locus in Iran, Egypt, and Syria to the dynamic reformist regions of the Hejaz, Yemen, India, and eventually Morocco. Since the 1700s it has been Hejazi scholars like Muhammad Hayāt al-Sindī (d. 1750), Yemenis like Muhammad al-Shawkānī (d. 1834), Indians like Shāh Walī Allāh and 'Abd al-Hayy al-Laknawī (d. 1886–7), and Moroccans like Muhammad b. Ja'far al-Kattānī (d. 1927) who have pioneered new creative ground in hadith studies. Precisely why these similar but often unconnected movements arose at this time in distant corners of the Muslim world remains a mystery. Perhaps the Late Sunni Tradition, with its strict loyalty to schools of law, elaborate speculative theology, and Sufi brotherhoods had simply become too entrenched for Islam's inherent antipathy towards institutions of religious authority. When one considers that some late Sunni scholars like the Egyptian al-Sāwī (d. 1825) had asserted that anyone who did not follow one of the four Sunni schools of law was misguided, potentially an unbeliever, even if they followed clear indications from the Quran or Sunna, it seems easy to understand why some Muslims might conclude that reform was necessary.3 THE MODERN DEBATE OVER HADITHS: FOUR MAIN APPROACHES In light of these forces, a thoughtful Muslim living in early twentieth-century Cairo, Istanbul, or Delhi might have pondered the following questions: Islam is clearly in a state of decline, whether in comparison to modern Europe or in relation to its own original greatness. But is this due to some inherent failing in the Islamic intellectual trad-ition or because Muslims have lost touch with Islam's true nature? If one seeks to recover Islam's true nature, does one take Modernity into account or ignore it completely? Ultimately, in the attempt to understand how to live as Muslims in the modern world, what components of Muslims' historical heritage (in Arabic, turāth) should they embrace, abandon, or alter, and how does one justify these choices in a way that is authentically 'Islamic'? The hadith tradition in particular posed two major questions. In light of European historical criticism on the one hand and a revived commitment to the Prophet's authentic legacy on the other, 1) had the hadith tradition and its classical method of hadith evaluation produced a reliable representation of Muhammad's Sunna? and 2) what should be the overall place of hadiths and the Sunna in understanding Islam? We can identify four broad approaches taken by Muslims to answering these questions: Islamic Modernism, Modernist Salafism, Traditionalist Salafism and Late Sunni Traditionalism. Although this four-fold division is useful, it is not watertight. Some thinkers sway between schools or change their positions depending on context. Also, some of these names are nomenclatures that I have chosen and have not actually been used by their adherents. Nonetheless, this division is helpful for understanding the complexity of Islamic thought in the modern period. Not surprisingly, Islamic responses to Modernity arose earliest in those areas earliest exposed to Europe, particularly India, Egypt, and Ottoman Istanbul. ONE: ISLAMIC MODERNISTS AND THE 'QURAN ONLY' MOVEMENT Beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, some Muslim scholars began challenging core components of the pre-modern Islamic tradition. Some concluded that the hadith tradition was not at all a reliable representation of Muhammad's message. A few of these thinkers went so far as to reject altogether the authoritativeness of the Prophet's precedent. We can label this overall trend as Islamic Modernism, which is characterized by a radical reconsideration of classical Islamic beliefs. An early, well-known Modernist was Chirāgh 'Alī (d. 1895), an Indian who worked in the civil service of the local ruler of Hyderabad. 'Alī was a close associate of the pivotal Islamic thinker of South Asia in the modern period, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898), whom we will discuss shortly. 'Alī rejected all sources of Islamic law and dogma except the Quran, and called for a reinterpretation of Islamic law based on the ideals of humanism (such as rationalism, science, and non-religiously based ethics). Limiting the sources of Islamic law to the Quran was not a hindrance to the Shariah, he argued, since the Prophet had expected his community to revise their law occasionally in accordance with the needs of the times. Influenced by the revivalist movement of Shāh Walī Allāh, he embraced ijtihād. Ijmā' (consensus), he felt, had never been an acceptable source of law, since 'Alī argued that even Ibn Hanbal had been skeptical about the validity of claims of ijmā' (Ibn Hanbal is often quoted as denying any actual occurrence of ijmā').4 'Alī accepted the criticism of hadiths published by Orientalists like Muir and Goldziher (see chapter 9) and felt that the hadith corpus was unreliable. Interestingly, it was 'Alī's desire to defend Islam against Orientalists that led him to this stance. He was disturbed by Christian missionaries and European polemicists claiming that Islam was fossilized and replete with irrational beliefs, such as those found in hadiths.5 Abandoning hadiths was necessary for saving the rest of Islam's message. Without the hadith corpus, 'Alī could offer unprecedented alternatives to beliefs that a modern mindset might consider backward. The jinn, a group of beings that the Quran mentions ambiguously as being composed of fire but that hadiths characterize as beings who inhabit earth in tandem with humans, he argued were actually another Semitic tribe.6 'Alī's thought was continued by what became known as the Ahl-e Qur'ān (The People of the Quran) movement in India. The Ahl-e Qur'ān saw hadiths as an embarrassing travesty in Islam and argued that Islamic dogma and law should be derived from the Quran alone. The movement was started by 'Abdallāh Chakrālawī (d. 1930) and Khwāja Ahmad Dīn Amritsari (d. 1936) between 1906 and 1917 and produced several journals devoted to elaborating its ideas. Amritsari had been a student at a missionary school, and his readings in hadiths led him to conclude that many hadiths were shockingly foul and patently false. He wrote a book on the Quran in which, among other things, he tried to demonstrate how Islamic inheritance law could be derived from the Quran without any reference to hadiths.7 The next generation of the Ahl-e Qur'ān was led by Muhammad Aslam Jayrapūrī (d. 1955), who mocked the traditional science of isnād criticism as senseless 'narration worship (rivāyat parastī).' Since whole isnāds were forged, he argued, it was impossible to distinguish truth from falsehood using isnād criticism.8 His colleague, Mistrī Muhammad Ramadān (d. 1940) abandoned the idea of trying to extrapolate the labyrinthine details of Islamic law from the Quran. The holy book readily provided all the legal information Muslims needed, he argued, and anything omitted or left ambiguous was intentional – God had left humans free to use their reason in order to adapt to new times.9 In recent decades, the 'Quran only' movement has flourished amongst the middle class and elite in Pakistan, particularly through the writings of Ghulam Ahmad Parwez (d. 1985) and his Tulu-e Islam (Islamic Dawn) foundation. Although the 'Quran only' movement flourished in India and Pakistan, it flared only briefly in the Arab world. In a 1906 issue of the famous Islamic reformist journal al-Manār (The Lighthouse), the Egyptian physician Muhammad Tawfīq Sidqī (d. 1920) wrote an article entitled 'Islam is the Quran Alone (al-Islām huwa al-Qur'ān wahdahu)' in which he argued that Islam was never meant to be understood from anything other than the Quran. One key proof for this was that the Prophet did not explicitly order the recording of his Sunna, and indeed hadiths were not set down in any lasting or reliable form for over a century after Muhammad's death. How, Sidqī asked, could God ever allow His religion to depend on such a dubious source?10 What has been understood as the 'Sunna' – the detailed precedent of the Prophet – was intended only to be binding on the first generation of Muslims; 'the Prophet gave the Sunna to the Arabs.'11 After the Companions, Muslims were expected to adapt their law to circumstance according to the principles laid out in the Quran.12 Like his Indian Ahl-e Qur'ān counterparts, Sidqī attempted to demonstrate how the details of Muslim prayer could be inferred from the Quran without hadiths. Hadiths were patently unreliable in Sidqī's opinion, with the possible exception of those very few that could be considered mutawātir.13 Hadith criticism had begun too late to catch many of the forged hadiths, and as a result many reports attributed to the Prophet were actually isrā'īliyyāt, or stories from Jewish lore.14 As a doctor, Sidqī devoted special attention to hadiths that he considered incompatible with the realities of modern medicine. He notes the controversial 'Hadith of the Fly' (found in Sahīh al-Bukhārī and other collections) in which the Prophet states that if a fly has landed in one's drink one should submerge it totally 'because on one wing is disease and on the other is the cure.'15 This was not only medically unsound, argued Sidqī, but it contradicted another command from the Prophet that if a mouse fell in liquid butter it should all be poured out.16 Sidqī's writings caused such a furore in al-Manār and other publications that he quickly recanted his ideas, and they died out in the Arab world.17 Although they have not announced 'Quran only' positions as explicitly as Sidqī and the Indian Ahl-e Qur'ān, many Islamic Modernists have effectively adopted this stance. The influential modern Arab biography, 'The Life of Muhammad (Hayāt Muhammad),' by the Egyptian intellectual Muhammad Husayn Haykal (d. 1956) was based on the Quran with reference to only one hadith: the famous Mu'tazilite hadith urging Muslims to reject any hadith that contradicts the Quran!18 Haykal defended his 'Quran only' biography by saying he was using 'new critical methods' that were not allowed during classical times and writing his book 'in the modern scholarly manner.' Haykal echoed Orientalist criticisms that many hadiths were forged during the early period of sectarian and political strife and that many were fabricated merely to glorify Muhammad's miraculous powers. He therefore rejected any miracles attributed to the Prophet. Moreover, classical Muslim critics like al-Bukhārī and Ibn Hajar did not even agree on what was reliable or not.19 By far the most influential Modernist critique of the Sunni hadith tradition came from the Egyptian Mahmūd Abū Rayya (d. 1970). A disciple of the leading Syrian reformist Rashīd Ridā (see below), Abū Rayya wrote a scathing work entitled 'Lights on the Muhammadan Sunna (Adwā' 'alā al-sunna al-muhammadiyya)' (1958) in which he argued that only the Quran, reason, and unquestionably reliable mutawātir accounts of the Prophet's legacy were originally meant to be the basis of Islam. 'As for applying the term "Sunna" to what is subsumed by the hadith corpus [in general], that is a later convention.'20 Neither the Prophet nor his Companions had seen fit to record his every word, and the early jurists of Islam had followed in their footsteps by acting on the legal principles of the Sunna as opposed to random hadiths. Nothing in Islam required Muslims to read or believe the contents of hadith collections.21 Like earlier Modernists, Abū Rayya explained that early hadith critics had not paid attention to the contents of hadiths, and that outrageous reports such as 'The Devil flees, farting, when he hears the call to prayer' had been declared sahīh.22 He also echoes the criticism about the long delay between the Prophet's death and the definitive recording of hadiths – a period in which myriad sectarian and political groups forged countless hadiths. The permissibility of 'narration of hadiths by general meaning (riwāya bi'l-ma'nā)' also led to the mutation and misunderstanding of many reports. Notions that all the Companions were upstanding were patently absurd, Abū Rayya argued, since the Companions violently disagreed with one another. Although Abū Rayya built directly on the work of Ridā, his criticism of the Companions took him outside the fold of what his teacher and mainstream Sunni Islam could tolerate. Abū Rayya rejected exempting the Companions from hadith criticism, saying that 'people are people in every era, and humans have natures, appetites and agendas that do not change.'23 This attitude closely resembles the Principle of Analogy used by Western scholars, and it is no coincidence that Abū Rayya referred his readers to the works of Goldziher and other Orientalists.24 Abū Rayya's most noteworthy contribution to Modernist criticisms of hadith was his multifaceted attack on the reliability of Abū Hurayra, the single most prolific transmitter of hadiths from among the Companions. Using reports from both Sunni and Shiite books of transmitter criticism, Abū Rayya produces evidence characterizing Abū Hurayra as a gluttonous and dishonest opportunist.25 Noting how he joined the Muslim community only three years before the Prophet's death, Abū Rayya asks how Abū Hurayra could ever have heard the thousands of hadiths he claimed to transmit. Citing an early Hanafī criticism of Abū Hurayra, he argued that he was not learned in issues of ritual and law and therefore frequently mangled the meanings of hadiths he reported.26 He added that Abū Hurayra was well known to be obsessed with isrā'īliyyāt, tales from Jewish lore about earlier prophets, and that he had no compunction about attributing such tales to the Prophet. Such reports included the unacceptably anthropomorphic hadith that 'God created Adam in His image' and the dogmatically offensive report (both found in Sahīh Muslim) that Moses knocked out the eye of the angel of death when he came to take his soul.27 Abū Rayya even considers the hadith urging Muslims to visit the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem to be one of the forged isrā'īliyyāt.28 Isrā'īliyyāt proved constantly irksome to Modernists, and Abū Rayya wrote a separate 1946 article entitled 'Ka'b al-Ahbār: the First Zionist' on the early hadith transmitter and Muslim convert from Judaism, Ka'b al-Ahbār (d. c. 32/653).29 Hadiths about the Messianic mahdī figure, Abū Rayya asserts, were similarly imported from Christian lore and falsely attributed to Muhammad by figures like the Companion Tamīm al-Dārī, who was a convert from Christianity.30 Abū Rayya's book proved extremely influential in the hadith debate, in part because of the author's broad erudition and in part because the book's style is less direct and caustic – and thus perhaps more convincing – than other Modernist works. It quickly prompted at least eight indignant book-length rebuttals from traditional Muslim scholars, the most famous of which was the Syrian Mustafā al-Sibā'ī's (d. 1964) al-Sunna wa makānatuhā fī al-tashrī'al-islāmī (The Sunna and its Place in Islamic Lawmaking) (1961).31 These rebuttals generally used orthodox Sunni arguments to respond to the criticisms of Abū Rayya as well as to those of Western scholars. Al-Sibā'ī, for example, deemphasizes the late writing down of hadiths by emphasizing the extraordinary memory of the early Arabs. Abū Hurayra's ability to transmit so many hadiths despite his relatively short exposure to the Prophet was due to his tremendous devotion to the Prophet's legacy, not any unscrupulousness. Finally, books of forged hadiths (mawdū'āt) showed that hadith critics did engage in content criticism (at least after the 1300s). Other defenses against 'Quran only' arguments relied solely on faith. The Pakistani Islamic political activist Abū al-'Alā' Mawdūdī (d. 1979) contended that the Sunna was intact because 'The God who preserved his last book also arranged for the preservation of the example and guidance of his last Prophet.'32 Islamic Modernism and its 'Quran only' trend have thrived among Western Muslim scholars. Although they have not always upheld explicit 'Quran only' positions, many have ignored hadiths in their discussions of Islamic law and dogma, as is the case with the American Amina Wudud's revaluation of the traditional Islamic view of gender, and Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle's argument for the permissibility of homosexual relationships in Islam.33 The 'Quran only' movement has continued in Turkey, where the activist intellectual Edip Yuksel and his colleagues have published the Reformist Quran, an English translation and explanation of the holy book written without consulting hadiths.34 We should also note a Modernist who has proven extremely adept at navigating the tradition of Islamic hadith criticism in order to argue for radical reform. In her work Women and Islam, the French- educated Moroccan social scientist Fatema Mernissi (d. 2015) states her intent to 'disinter' the original message of Islam 'from the centuries of oblivion that have managed to obscure it.'35 Her heroine is the Prophet's wife, Aisha, whose criticisms of other Companions' narrations from the Prophet Mernissi sees as epitomizing the critical spirit of Islam as well as the religion's original message of female empowerment. Mernissi argues that, with the exception of a minority of hadith critics, Muslim scholarship functioned as a tool of the social and political elite, indulging 'the desire of male politicians to manipulate the sacred.'36 In order to prove this, she examines two Companions known for transmitting hadiths that Mernissi considers misogynist and unbefitting her beloved Prophet: Abū Hurayra and Abū Bakra (not to be mistaken for Abū Bakr, the first caliph). The former transmitted sahīh hadiths such as the one that women, donkeys, and black dogs break a person's prayer if they pass in front of them, and the second narrated the hadith that 'The community that entrusts its affairs to a woman will not flourish' (the first is found in Sahīh Muslim, the second in Sahīh al-Bukhārī).37 Effectively engaging in historical psychoanalysis, Mernissi uses data from books of transmitter criticism to argue that Abū Hurayra harbored a deep personal resentment towards women and that Abū Bakra produced his hadith to secure his place with the caliph 'Alī after he had defeated Aisha at the Battle of the Camel in 656 CE.38 In a brilliant turn, Mernissi shows how Abū Bakra should be excluded as a hadith transmitter according to the Muslim hadith critics' own critical standards. Mālik is reported to have said that he would not accept hadiths from someone known to have lied about any matter, and Abū Bakra was once flogged for untruthfully accusing someone of committing adultery!39 Such misogynist figures as these transmitters, upon whom the most revered Sunni collections had relied, lead Mernissi to conclude that 'even the authentic Hadith must be vigilantly examined with a magnifying glass.'40 A unique Modernist vision for the proper treatment of hadiths came from the Pakistani intellectual and University of Chicago professor Fazlur Rahman (d. 1988). He acknowledged that the criticisms of Schacht and Goldziher were 'essentially correct' and that most hadiths were not actually spoken by the Prophet.41 Where Orientalists saw deception, however, Rahman saw the creative implementation of the Islamic message. Though many of the details of the Sunna were fabricated, the concept of the Sunna was authentic. Muhammad's Sunna was not detailed case law, but rather an umbrella of behavioral norms and an interpretive process by which Muslims could adapt their law to changing circumstances.42 This had been the practice of the Partisans of Reason (ahl al-ra'y), who had employed the legal reasoning learned from Muhammad, the original exemplar of Islam, to elaborate law in new situations. This was also why so many early hadiths were actually 'forgeries' – these early jurists had phrased the conclusions they reached using the interpretive process of the Sunna in the words of Muhammad. The Sunna was thus 'very largely the product of the Muslims themselves,' who acted organic-ally on the principles inherited from the Prophet through the mental act of ijtihād in order to form new law. Consensus (ijmā') was the acknowledgment of the community that a newly developed part of the Sunna was authoritative.43 For Rahman, the hadith tradition had been a creative process in which jurists had channeled the Prophet's authority to guide their community. Hadiths like those warning about the deterioration of Muslims' faith as time went on were designed to steer the community towards certain laudable goals.44 Yes, the hadiths in al-Bukhārī's and Muslim's Sahīhayn that predict the future were clearly fabricated by Muslims after the death of Muhammad. But they were not sinister forgeries, and the hadith corpus was not a conspiratorial web of lies, since participants in the hadith tradition never saw themselves as engaged in a strict process of recording history.45 Unfortunately, Rahman continues, the formation of the hadith canon and the literal submission to hadiths introduced by al-Shāfi'ī turned the dynamic Sunna into a petrified and unchanging set of rules. Rahman states that hadiths need to be reexamined critically according to historical criticism in order to determine if they were really part of the original Sunna, 'whose very life blood was free and progressive interpretation.'46 Once this is determined, modern Muslims can pick up with new interpretation where the jurists left off when the Sunna was frozen in the ninth century. Rahman acknowledges the value of isnād criticism in detecting forgeries. This method, however, can only tell us if a hadith is forged. It cannot ensure that it is not forged. For that we must employ modern historical criticism.47 One of the most dynamic Islamic modernist thinkers in South Asia since Rahman has been his fellow Pakistani Javed Ahmad Ghamidi. Trained as a youth in a Hanafī madrasa, Ghamidi later studied English literature and Islamic philosophy at university. He then became a disciple of Amin Ahsan Islahi (d. 1997), one of the most intellectually creative modern Muslim scholars of the Quran. Ghamidi has carried on and advanced Islahi's legacy, developing a novel method for reading the holy book that sees the Shariah as an eternal reality that must be clearly distinguished from Muslims' applications of its message in time and context – even its application by the Prophet. Certain aspects of Islamic law are thus, Ghamidi argues, meant to apply only in the Prophet's time, such as the death penalty for apostasy. Like Khan and other Islamic modernists (as well as Modernist Salafis, see below), Ghamidi enshrines the Quran as the primary source of Islamic law and dogma by reviving aspects of the classical Mu'tazilite and early Hanafī traditions. The Quran is thus unquestionably epistemologically and hermeneutically more powerful than the Prophet's Sunna, which Ghamidi trims down significantly. For him, the Sunna does not include the Prophet's optional acts of worship, his statements about science or nature, and it only pertains to 'religious,' not worldly, affairs. For Ghamidi, the Sunna is also qualitatively distinct from the hadith corpus, which he ranks as markedly lower in his epistemological and hermeneutic hierarchy. The Sunna can be known only through a combination of massively transmitted (mutawātir) hadiths and perpetual practice amongst the Muslim community. It cannot be known by isolated (āhād) hadiths, which should only be accepted if they concur with the Quran, the Sunna, reason and observed facts.48 TWO: MODERNIST SALAFĪS AND OPPOSING THE WEST The Salafī movement was the name that many of the adherents of this school of thought derived from the Salaf, or the pious early generations of Muslims, from whose example these reformists hoped to reconstitute Islam's original purity. To a large extent, the eighteenth-century movements of revival and reform were all Salafī in their approach; for them the early Muslim community represented their hopes for the future. It was powerful, dynamic, and preceded what many reformists viewed as the superstitions, blind loyalty to tradition, and the havoc wreaked on medieval Islam by foreign cultural accretions such as Greek logic and Persian mysticism. In terms of their thought, by the mid 1800s these Salafī movements had split into two main branches, which we will call the Modernist and Traditionalist Salafī groups. These two branches interacted with and affected one another, for both shared a common vision of recapturing the early Islam of the Salaf. But they proposed different means and had opposing attitudes towards Modernity. The Modernist Salafī trend has been the most influential and vigorous of the modern Muslim schools of thought. Nonetheless, it was essentially a response to Modernity. Its proponents looked back into history at the pure Arab Islam of the Prophet's time, but what they re-created by drawing unsystematically from the rich tradition of Islamic civilization was an Islam tailored to fit the modern world. Arguably the most influential Modernist Salafī was the Indian Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898), whose thought ultimately aimed at the twin goals of the rationalization of Islamic dogma and 'the liberalization of Islamic law.'49 An employee of both the British East India Company and the Mughal dynasty, after the Indian rebellion of 1857 Khan remained fiercely loyal to the British. He believed that only by reconciling with Modernity and Western rule could Islam survive. In 1868 he adopted a Western lifestyle, and in 1875 he successfully founded the Anglo-Muhammadan Oriental College at Aligarh in India, the most successful center of reformist Islamic education (today called Aligarh Muslim University).50 Khan authored numerous books, including a commentary on the Bible and a commentary on the Quran, and established an influential Urdu-language journal called Tahdhīb al-akhlāq. In general, Khan followed Shāh Walī Allāh's reformist rejection of taqlīd and innovations in Islamic belief and worship.51 He also infused his works with distinctly modern notions, such as an acceptance of Darwinian evolution and the position that nothing in the Quran can be interpreted as contradicting the laws of nature. 'If the word [of the Quran] is not according to the work [the law of nature], then the word cannot be the word of God.'52 Of course, he notes, humans have only begun to understand the laws of nature!53 He also rejected claims of ijmā' as convincing proof in scholarly discourse.54 In the 1860s Khan encountered Muir's criticisms of hadiths, and he was immediately alarmed at this unsuspected attack on Islam from its external foes. In 1870 he began a refutation of Muir's book, although he also accepted many Orientalist criticisms.55 He acknowledged, for example, that classical Muslim scholars had not performed proper content criticism of hadiths (he contends that they had intended this to be done by later scholars) and that the historical lag in writing down hadiths had resulted in copious forgeries, many concocted to sanctify and glorify Muhammad. He also noted that the permissibility of 'narration by general meaning' had led to the unintentional alteration of many hadiths.56 Khan struggled with the solution to the hadith problem throughout his life, but he consistently affirmed that the hadith corpus had to be reexamined according to a new method of content criticism that he drew partly from the Hanafī school of law and Mu'tazilism and partly from Western historical criticism. First of all, hadiths incompatible with modern reason, belittling to the Prophet, or contradicting the Quran must be rejected.57 He embraced the Hanafī requirement that all the narrators of a hadith be competent legal scholars. Only mutawātir hadiths were immune from these critical standards, and these he defined as hadiths that have been accepted as reliable by Muslim scholars throughout history – only five of which he said exist. He added that hadiths should be screened to see if they describe miracles that could not be reasonably believed or historical events that could not have happened.58 Khan's critical method for hadith evaluation led him to revolutionary breaks with Islamic tradition. He believed that the Prophet's Sunna was only pertinent to matters of religion, not political or civil affairs.59 He concluded that the Prophet's miraculous night voyage to Jerusalem was actually done in a dream (both Sunnism and Shiism generally held that he had been physically transported), and that the Prophet did not perform miracles. Like Chirāgh 'Alī, he argued that the Quran's mentioning jinn did not really mean they existed as supernatural creatures. They could well be another Semitic tribe.60 Ultimately, defending Islam against infectious Western skepticism was Khan's real goal. Although he admitted many Orientalist criticisms of hadiths, he also understood that hadiths were essential for defending the basic Islamic worldview. When Muir suggested that part of the Quran might have been lost, Khan relied on hadiths to argue the contrary.61 In proposing that the Quran be the standard against which the contents of hadiths be judged, Khan was seeking to find a critical litmus test that both Muslims and Western Orientalists could agree on (since Orientalists also believed that the Quran was the most historically reliable Islamic document).62 Khan's concern for protecting religion from Modernity even led him to defend the Bible against European critics. Against claims that the global flood of Noah was impossible and not borne out in the historical record, Khan countered that the flood had really occurred but had been restricted to one locale.63 While Khan was writing in India, Egypt witnessed a simultaneous efflorescence of the Modernist Salafī movement. In fact, the most influential participants in Islamic thought in the late nineteenth- and twentieth-century Arab world were the Egyptian scholar Muhammad 'Abduh (d. 1905) and his Syrian student Rashīd Ridā (d. 1935). 'Abduh was educated at the renowned al-Azhar University in Cairo but was exiled from Egypt in 1882 for several years due to involvement in an anti-British rebellion. He traveled to Lebanon and France and eventually returned to Egypt, where he became chief muftī (jurisconsult) under British rule. Although 'Abduh never dealt with the issue of hadiths in a systematic way, he upheld the orthodox stance that the Sunna is the second major source of law and dogma in Islam. However, he accepted that the traditional methods of hadith criticism were insufficient and that the hadith corpus must be reexamined critically.64 In theory, he states, disobeying what is known to have been the Sunna of the Prophet is anathema. This holds true, however, for 'a few only of the traditions.' In the case of non-mutawātir hadiths, whoever feels comfortable with them can believe them. But no one can be forced to believe in them or be declared an unbeliever for rejecting them. No hadith, for example, should be believed if it undermines God's total transcendence.65 'Abduh was also very skeptical about hadiths predicting the future, the end of the world or isrā'īliyyāt, and accepted very few such reports as authentic.66 This notion of only requiring Muslims to believe in mutawātir hadiths would be a hallmark of both Modernism and Modernist Salafism. Decades later it would be elaborated in a formal religious ruling by the al-Azhar Fatwā Committee.67 'Abduh's senior student Rashīd Ridā proved his chief acolyte, and his journal al-Manār was the main forum for reformist writings. Ridā dealt with hadiths in much more detail than his teacher. Like 'Abduh, he argued that the Quran is the basis of Islam and that only mutawātir hadiths can truly be relied upon. After all, āhād hadiths yielded no more than probable knowledge, while true certainty came only from mutawātir reports. He equated mutawātir hadiths with the 'practical', living Sunna that all Muslims know, such as prayer, pilgrimage rituals, and a few of the Prophet's sayings. The chapters of hadith books that list the obscure details of the Prophet's words and actions, such as chapters on manners (adab), all consist of āhād hadiths and are not necessarily reliable.68 Like Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Ridā believed that the permissibility of narrating the general meaning of hadiths had introduced many errors into the hadith corpus, since the narrators' opinions could be integrated accidentally into the hadith. Accepting isrā'īliyyāt was another source of misguidance. Even though they had been used in some of the canonical hadith collections, Ridā dismissed Ka'b al-Ahbār and another early transmitter, Wahb b. Munabbih, as unreliable because of their lax transmission of isrā'īliyyāt. Interestingly, Ridā argued that modern scholars were justified in overturning earlier approval of these two transmitters because, unlike classical Muslim critics, they could compare isrā'īliyyāt reports to the actual Jewish scriptures. Ridā thus dismisses Ka'b and Wahb as unreliable because their descriptions of the Torah were factually inaccurate (note: as the ninth-century scholar al-Jāhiz observed, by 'Torah' Ka'b and other early Muslims meant the Hebrew scriptures writ large).69 Like other reformists, Ridā called for āhād hadiths to be resubmitted to content criticism, a process that was originally part of the critical method of Muslim jurists but had been neglected. At one point, Ridā even states that the content criticism of classical Muslim scholars was the forerunner of modern historical 'analytical criticism.'70 Ridā devoted numerous articles in al-Manār to addressing problematic hadiths. He sometimes declared hadiths that had traditionally been considered authentic to be unreliable because their contents were unacceptable according to him. Using his in-depth knowledge of isnād criticism, however, Ridā could attribute this to a problem in the chain of transmission.71 The famous story of God ordering the moon to be split miraculously in half as proof of Muhammad's message to his opponents in Mecca had been a required belief in Sunni Islam (it is mentioned ambiguously in the Quran). Ridā, however, said that the various hadiths describing this event were so at variance with one another that one could not base one's faith on them.72 Another controversial hadith, found in Sahīh al-Bukhārī, that the sun passes under the earth and prostrates itself before the throne of God when it sets he declared false because it flatly contradicted modern science.73 The position of only requiring belief in mutawātir hadiths allowed Ridā ample leeway for some controversial hadiths. The Hadith of the Fly, for example, could be false or it could be true, since scientists used the flesh of a snake to help prepare antidotes to its poison.74 Since it was āhād, Muslims are not required to believe in the hadith either way. Ridā's and 'Abduh's approach to hadiths won many adherents among Muslim reformists. The Egyptian Modernist Salafī Mahmūd Shaltūt (d. 1963) was at first persecuted by conservative ulema for his reformist ideas but was eventually appointed as the head of al-Azhar by the Egyptian government (which had a reformist agenda). He held that Muslims cannot be declared unbelievers for rejecting any article of faith that is derived from āhād hadiths.75 Breaking with an essential tenet of faith in classical Sunni Islam, Shaltūt followed his reasoning to its logical but controversial conclusion: Muslims could not be repudiated for rejecting the long-held tenet of Jesus' return at the end of time or the belief in an Antichrist.76 Furthermore, he argued that one could not use consensus as proof for these issues of faith because even the consensus of the Muslim community means nothing on questions known only to God.77 'Abduh's and Ridā's school of thought was continued by Shaltūt's most famous pupil, the Azhar scholar Muhammad al-Ghazālī (d. 1996), in his prolific and extremely popular series of books on reviving Islam in the modern world. Like Shaltūt, al-Ghazālī reminds his readers of the classical legal theory stance that āhād hadiths are 'merely probable in their reliability and merely probable in their indication' and thus not suitable for essential beliefs.78 Similarly, he affirms the predominance of the Quran, saying, 'We believe that the Quran is the basis, and the Sunna is built on it.'79 Al-Ghazālī's overriding concern throughout his works is the looming presence of the West. Although he reiterates his profound respect for classical hadith scholars like al-Bukhārī, he admits that he will reject a hadith from the canonical collections 'if it touches upon the most intimate part of our religion, or opens frightening borders through which our enemies could pour.'80 When a student asks him about the sahīh hadith of Moses knocking out the angel of death's eye, he replies that its contents show that it is false, since God's prophet could not try to avoid his fate. Muslims, however, should worry about more important matters such as 'the fact that the enemies of Islam are encircling us.'81 THREE: TRADITIONALIST SALAFĪS AND THE ELEVATION OF HADITHS What we have termed Traditionalist Salafism emerged directly from the early modern movements of revival and reform. The most persistent and most politically active Traditionalist Salafī movement was founded by Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Wahhāb in the mid eight-eenth century in central Arabia, expanding through its alliance with the Saud family and eventually becoming the predominant religious movement on the Arabian peninsula. A second Salafī school appeared in the Yemeni city of Sanaa with the iconoclastic hadith scholars al-San'ānī (d. 1768) and al-Shawkānī (d. 1834). A third school developed in Damascus in the second half of the nineteenth century around revivalist hadith scholars Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī (d. 1914) and Tāhir al-Jazā'irī (d. 1920). At this same time an influential Salafī school also formed in Baghdad through the Hanbalī revival led by the famous Ālūsī family.82 In India, some of the devotees of Shāh Walī Allāh's revivalist scholarship formed their own strict Traditionalist Salafī school, dubbed the Ahl-e Hadīth (The People of Hadith), whose most famous representative was Siddīq Hasan Khān (d. 1890). Other heirs to Shāh Walī Allāh's legacy combined his hadith-based revivalism with India's longstanding adherence to the Hanafī school of law. This movement resulted in the founding of the influential school at Deoband in India. The most illustrative example of Traditionalist Salafīs is Muhammad Nāsir al-Dīn al-Albānī (d. 1999), an Albanian whose family immigrated to Syria. Growing up in Damascus, al-Albānī was deeply affected by Ridā's al-Manār articles on the extent to which unreliable hadiths had been used to justify Sufi practices.83 He began to speak out against what he saw as heretical innovations in every area of Syrian religious life and penned many works attempting to reorient social and religious practices to the pure Sunna of Muhammad as communicated by hadiths. Like the other reform movements, Traditionalist Salafīs have aimed at reviving Islam's original purity and greatness by clearing away the dross of later cultural accretions. Unlike Modernist Salafīs, who drew eclectically on Hanafī legal theory, Mu'tazilism, and modern rationalism, they have struggled literally to revive the Prophet's Sunna through a narrow focus on hadiths. Like their Modernist Salafī counterparts, Traditionalist Salafīs identify the causes of the Muslim community straying from the Sunna as excessive loyalty to the schools of law instead of a reverence for their sources, indulgence in speculative theology, and popular Sufi practices such as visiting the graves of saints. To cure these ills, Traditionalist Salafīs have not merely engaged in the study of hadiths, they have tried to cultivate its most critically rigorous spirit. They reject the use of weak hadiths in any matter, breaking with the practice of the classical Muslim scholars (see chapter 3). Al-Albānī asks rhetorically: if we do not dismiss hadiths once we have determined that they are unreliable, what is the point of the science of hadith criticism?84 Al-Albānī thus published numerous books dividing the hadiths contained in classical works such as the Four Sunans of Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasā'ī, al-Tirmidhī, and Ibn Mājah, the Jāmi' al-saghīr of al-Suyūtī, and the al-Targhīb wa al-tarhīb of al-Mundhirī into sound and unreliable. The Saudi hadith scholar 'Abdallāh al-Sa'd rejects the Late Sunni Tradition's method of bolstering evidence for a hadith's authenticity by using other dubious narrations (see chapter 3).85 The Indian hadith scholar Shibli Numani (d. 1916), a traditionalist associate of Ahmad Khan, compiled a new biography of Muhammad that purged it of reports transmitted by early Muslim historians that hadith critics had considered unreliable. Like Modernist Salafīs, Traditionalists were willing to cast aside the institutions of classical Islam, relying on hadiths as the ultimate source for interpreting the faith. The Sunna was preserved in the authentic hadiths, which are accessible to any Muslim. Like Modernists, Traditionalist Salafīs have been skeptical of claims of consensus, which served as the primary defense for employing weak hadiths as evidence and the legitimacy of many Sufi practices. They do not doubt the theoretical proof value of consensus, but the large number of dissenting scholarly opinions in Islamic history means that it was actually achieved only rarely. Unlike Modernists, however, Traditionalist Salafīs avow the same intense trust in hadiths found among the early ahl al-hadīth. They do not concur with the Modernist reemphasis on the Quran as the ultimate arbiter in matters of faith and law. Like the early ahl al-hadīth, al-Albānī asserts that in both law and dogma 'we cannot distinguish between God and His Prophet.'86 It is thus perfectly acceptable to derive articles of faith from āhād hadiths, which Muslims must accept. Did the Prophet not send single individuals as ambassadors to newly converted communities in order to teach them fundamental Islamic beliefs?87 Although Traditionalist Salafīs are willing to criticize a hadith for content reasons, like the early ahl al-hadīth they explain such faults by finding a flaw in the isnād. 'Abdallāh al-Sa'd thus declares, 'It is impossible for a hadith to have an untrue meaning without there being a flaw in the isnād.'88 Unlike their Modernist and Modernist Salafī counterparts, these Traditionalists do not approve of Aisha's criticisms of other Companions for narrating hadiths that seemed to contradict the Quran. Since these hadiths are well established by multiple sahīh isnāds, such apparent contradictions only mean that she did not interpret the Prophet's words correctly.89 Traditionalist Salafīs preserve the spirit of ijtihād. For them, hadith criticism did not end with the formation of the hadith canon in the classical period. It continues to this day, and modern scholars can achieve just as high a level of critical mastery as great classical scholars such as al-Dāraqutnī or Ibn Hajar. Tāhir al-Jazā'irī defends the right of modern scholars to criticize the meanings of hadiths in the Sahīhayn, rejecting the argument of those who warn that allowing criticism of the meaning of hadiths will open the door to the 'people with heretical agendas.' He disagrees, saying that proper criticism is a worthy practice.90 When asked about his controversial criticism of a famous classical hadith transmitter, al-Albānī replied that the science of hadith criticism 'is not simply consigned to books,' it is a dynamic process of critical review.91 Al-Albānī explained that one of the principles of Islamic scholarship is that 'religious knowledge cannot fall into rigidity.'92 This spirit of picking up the classical hadith tradition at its most critical point and applying it today has led to substantial achievements by Traditionalist Salafī scholars. Al-Albānī completed two voluminous series, 'The Series of Weak Hadiths and their Negative Effect on the Muslim Community' and 'The Series of Authentic Hadiths,' in which he revaluates thousands of hadiths. Many that he authenticates had previously been declared unreliable, and many hadiths that he criticizes had earlier won the approval of great classical critics like al-Bukhārī and Muslim. One of al-Albānī's students, the Yemeni Muqbil al-Wādi'ī (d. 2001) similarly compiled a large work entitled 'The Compendium of Sahīh Hadiths Not Found in the Two Sahīhs of al-Bukhārī and Muslim.' Traditionalist Salafīs have also revived the genre on the technical terminology and rules of hadith criticism (mustalah al-hadīth). The two most famous modern contributions are Jamāl al Dīn al-Qāsimī's Qawā'id al-tahdīth min funūn mustalah al-hadīth (The Principles of Regeneration from the Technical Science of Hadith Study) and Tāhir al-Jazā'irī's Tawjīh al-nazar ilā usūl al-athar (Examining the Principles of Transmitted Reports). These works are continuations of the classical mustalah books, such as that of Ibn al-Salāh, but are imbued with Salafī themes. Tāhir al-Jazā'irī, for example, lambasts the excessive traditionalism of the Sunni schools of law: 'The jurists interpret away any hadith that disagrees with their school, or oppose it with another hadith even if it is not well-known, even if that [first] hadith is found in the Sahīhayn.'93 Because the Salafī approach to Islamic scholarship centers on bypassing centuries of consensus-building among scholars and instead approaches the Quran and hadiths anew, it can produce divergent results. A set of Moroccan brothers who have proven the most adept hadith scholars of our time, Ahmad b. al-Siddīq al-Ghumārī (d. 1960) and his younger siblings 'Abdallāh (d. 1993) and 'Abd al-Hayy (d. 1995), followed the Traditionalist Salafī methodology. They felt entitled to reverse centuries-old rulings on the authenticity of specific hadiths and arrived at legal rulings that broke with all four Sunni schools of law. 'Abd al-Hayy argued conclusively that none of the founders of the four Sunni schools of law had access to all the necessary hadiths and that it was thus entirely acceptable to reject their rulings on the basis of hadith evidence. 'Abdallāh al-Ghumārī repeatedly wrote that 'taqlīd never comes to any good.'94 Ahmad al-Ghumārī concluded that the famous hadith in which the Prophet explained that the 'Greatest Jihad' was 'the struggle against one's own soul' was authentic, while classical critics had considered it weak or forged.95 Despite this similarity in approach to Traditionalist Salafīs like al-Albānī, the Ghumārī brothers emerged with polar opposite positions. Salafīs, both Modernist and Traditionalist, have consistently been deeply opposed to Sufism and intolerant of the Shiite veneration of 'Alī. The Ghumārīs' analysis of the Quran, hadiths, and scholarly tradition, however, has led them to embrace 'Alī as the best and most knowledgeable of all the Companions (and in Ahmad's case, to declare Mu'āwiya an unbeliever) as well as to defend vehemently Sufi practices such as visiting graves and engaging in group liturgies not practiced during the time of the Prophet.96 'Abdallāh al-Ghumārī repeatedly accused al-Albānī of unmitigated heresy, and at least one Wahhābī hadith scholar called 'Abdallāh al-Ghumārī an unbeliever. Unlike Modernists and Modernist Salafīs, Traditionalist Salafīs have no concern for the pressures of Modernity. They believe that if Muslims return to the authentic Sunna of the Prophet as preserved in the hadith corpus, the Muslim world will once again enjoy God's favor regardless of any perceived superiority boasted by the West today. Traditionalist Salafīs consider the other schools of thought discussed so far in this chapter to be misguided by Western influence. Al-Albānī thus calls both Abū Rayya and Muhammad al-Ghazālī 'Occidentalists (mustaghribūn)' and 'imitators of the Orientalists.'97 The most furious conflict among schools of Sunni thought in modern times has surged between the Traditionalist Salafīs and the Late Sunni Traditionalists (see below). Because Salafīs allow a scholar to break with the established rulings of the Sunni schools of law and perform ijtihād, Late Sunni Traditionalists accuse this movement of arrogantly claiming to be the equal of the great scholars of yesteryear. Muhammad Zāhid al-Kawtharī (d. 1952), a high religious official in the moribund Ottoman Empire, wrote that it was pure error and misguidance to believe that, today, 'at the end of time,' one could correct the great early scholars of Islam.98 Moreover, adherents of the schools of law accuse Traditionalist Salafīs of total ignorance of legal theory and thus of ignorantly following random hadiths instead of understanding how those hadiths fit into the process of deriving law. These factors combine to create, in the eyes of Late Sunni Traditionalists, interpretive chaos. Muhammad al-Ghazālī, for example, admits that he dislikes chauvinism towards one particular school of law. But it is 'less harmful than the childish ijtihād' of Salafī movements like Wahhābism, which he calls simplistic 'Bedouin legal thought.'99 Contrary to such polemical claims, Traditionalist Salafī scholars do advocate the study of basic books of legal theory (al-Albānī, for example, cites advanced legal principles such as 'Evidence that breaks with analogy cannot be used as the basis for another analogy').100 However, the Traditionalist Salafīs' egalitarian argument that any scholar can break with an established ruling if he feels it has not taken certain hadith evidence into account has undeniably led to a proliferation of erratic rulings. FOUR: LATE SUNNI TRADITIONALISTS All the approaches to understanding Islam in the modern period that we have discussed so far have advocated the rejection of significant components of Sunni Islam as it existed in the medieval world through the 1600s. Conversely, what we can call Late Sunni Traditionalism argues that it is precisely these institutions that are essential for properly living as a Muslim today. In other words, closely following one of the accepted Sunni schools of law, believing in the traditional Ash'arī school of theology, and participating in a Sufi brotherhood provides modern Muslims with all the legal, spiritual, and theological tools they need to succeed. Properly understood and correctly combined, these classical institutions allow Muslims to answer all the challenges of Modernity. Advocates of Late Sunni Traditionalism generally refer to their school of thought as 'Traditional Islam' or 'Sunnism in its authentic form (ahl al-sunna 'alā al-mashrib al-asīl).' Prominent representatives of this school include Muhammad Zāhid al-Kawtharī, Muhammad al-Ghazālī,i the late Syrian scholar Muhammad Sa'īd al-Būtī (d. 2013) and the former Grand Mufti of Egypt, 'Alī Jum'a. Late Sunni Traditionalism mitigates the stipulations of Islamic law that seem incompatible with Modernity by drawing on the collective diversity of the four Sunni legal schools and the rich intellectual heritage of Sunni legal theory. Although engaging in interest-bearing commercial transactions is generally prohibited in Islamic law, a minority opinion in the Hanafī school allows Muslims to take and pay interest if living in a non-Muslim country.101 A principle of Late Sunni legal theory, 'Let he who is afflicted with some need take the permissive ruling,' permits a Muslim to act on this minority ruling. As Muhammad al-Ghazālī states, 'when I am defending Islam... I must move between the opinions of all the imams and benefit from the full range of understandings.'102 As a result of this methodology, Late Sunni Traditionalism produces a manfestation of Islam that adapts to many of the stringencies of the modern world while remaining grounded in 'authentic' Islamic tradition. This school of thought also uses the relationship between law and ethics to circumvent seemingly harsh elements of Islamic law. Islamic marriage law, for example, seems to clash with modern sentiments with its legalistic requirements that a woman meet her husband's sexual needs and that a husband bear the full financial responsibilities of a family. Late Sunni Traditionalists, however, argue that the Shariah only addresses people's strict legal rights, and that a husband and wife should turn to the Sufi tradition in order to learn how to treat one another with love and compassion. Just as Traditionalist Salafīs have resurrected the approach of the ahl al-hadīth, Late Sunni Traditionalists have revived the methods of the ahl al-ra'y jurists. Late Sunni Traditionalists subordinate hadiths to the interpretive traditions of the Sunni schools of law and Sunni legal theory. Late Sunni Traditionalists affirm their total confidence in the classical method of hadith criticism; as al-Ghazālī says, 'I do not know its equal in the history of human culture in terms of establishing principles for verification.'103 They also, however, entrust jurists, not hadith scholars, with the ultimate authority in determining the authenticity and implication of a hadith. Al-Kawtharī explains that hadith scholars and jurists had divided up the duties of hadith criticism, with the latter responsible for content criticism.104 In an analogy similar to the doctors versus pharmacists comparison mentioned in chapter 5, al-Ghazālī states: The jurists have been, throughout our intellectual history, the leaders of the Muslim community... and the scholars of hadiths have been content to provide them with the reports they transmit just as raw building materials are given to the engineer who builds a structure.105 Al-Ghazālī adds that the classical criteria for a sahīh hadith require that it does not include any hidden flaw ('illa) or contradict more reliable evidence. Although hadith scholars can criticize isnāds, it is the jurists who are properly trained to spot such errors in the text of a hadith and issue the definitive ruling on its reliability. Al-Ghazālī thus declares that a hadith that al-Albānī authenticatedii saying that 'In the meat of a cow is disease' is false because the Quran notes the blessings of beef. The hadith is thus untrue 'whatever its isnād may be.'106 Late Sunni Traditionalists also circumvent hadiths that appear to be problematic in the modern world by relying on the classical juristic concept of communal practice or interpretation. Just as Mālik had ignored hadiths he acknowledged as authentic because the Muslim community had never acted on them in law, today's Late Sunni Traditionalists use the collective rulings of Muslim jurists to overrule hadiths. 'Alī Jum'a admits that numerous authentic hadiths exist that command Muslims to kill apostates, such as 'Whoever changes their religion [from Islam], kill them.'107 The fact that neither the Prophet nor the early caliphs actually implemented these rulings when individuals left Islam means that these hadiths addressed the issue of treason to the Muslim community and not a person's individual choice of belief.108 Another influential modern scholar, the Egyptian Yūsuf al-Dijwī (d. 1946), emphasized how classical Muslim scholarship had always employed reason, scriptural interpretation and the observation of nature to avoid the literal or superficial understanding of hadiths so mocked by Modernist critics. In a long-running dispute with Ridā, al-Dijwī argued that there was no need to reject the hadith of the sun prostrating because pre-modern Muslim scholars had always interpreted it figuratively and acknowledged that the sun is always shining on some parts of the earth and not visible elsewhere.109 THE CONTINUITY BETWEEN CLASSICAL AND MODERN DEBATES ON HADITHS It is worthy of note that debates over hadiths in the modern Muslim world have echoed or recast debates that occurred in the formative period of Islamic thought. Sidqī and other 'Quran only' advocates rehash the debate between early Muslim rationalists and Sunnis such as al-Shāfi'ī in the eighth century. Like al-Shāfi'ī's opponents in this debate, Sidqī argued that the Quran described itself as 'elucidating everything (tibyān li-kull shay')' (Quran 16:89). So how can one argue that Muslims need hadiths to understand their faith as well? The principal argument used by conservative Sunnis like al-Sibā'ī against the writings of 'Quran only' scholars is drawn directly from al-Shāfi'ī's rebuttal of that point: if you reject the Prophet's Sunna, how do you know how to pray or fast?110 The raging debate between Traditionalist Salafīs and Late Sunni Traditionalists parallels the eighth-century dispute between the ahl al-hadīth and the ahl al-ra'y. The principle invoked by Islamic Modernists and Modernist Salafīs that the hadith corpus should be submitted to content criticism revives the long-dormant debate between the Mu'tazilites and the early Sunnis, as does the specific call to use the Quran as the criterion of judgment. The hadith that Haykal cited as his evidence for the determinative role of the Quran – 'There will come to you many different hadiths from me, so what agrees with the Book of God, accept it, and what disagrees with it, reject it' – was used as evidence by early Mu'tazilites like al-Jāhiz. Sunni scholars, of course, universally deemed the hadith a forgery. Even the reliability and piety of Abū Hurayra was a major item of contention between the Mu'tazilites and the early Sunnis in the eighth century. In an audience before the Abbasid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd, the early Sunni Umar b. Habīb (d. 204/819-20) responded to Mu'tazilite and ahl al-ra'y arguments that Abū Hurayra was unreliable by claiming that if one opened the door to criticizing the Companions of the Prophet, Muslims would lose the whole Shariah.111 Even before modern medicine, the Hadith of the Fly was raising skeptical eyebrows and prompting Sunni defensiveness as early as the writings of Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889).112 Of course, modern Muslim scholars have utilized this classical heritage in unprecedented ways. Mahmūd Shaltūt used the distinction between the different levels of certainty yielded by āhād and mutawātir hadiths – a purely academic distinction in classical Islamic thought – to excuse modern Muslims from believing in 'backwards' or 'irrational' beliefs. Before Mernissi, no classical Muslim scholar had used historical reports about Abū Hurayra or Abū Bakra to claim a misogynist conspiracy at the root of Islamic law. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING For the best introductions to the revolution of modernity, see the Conclusion of Keith Thomas' Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971) and Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam (University of Chicago Press, 1974) vol. 3, pp. 163–248. The most useful books on debates over hadiths in the modern Muslim world are Daniel Brown's superb Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) and G.H.A. Juynboll's The Authenticity of the Tradition Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1969). For more general discussions of modern Islamic thought, see Albert Hourani's Arab Thought in the Liberal Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) and Aziz Ahmad's Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan (London: Oxford University Press, 1967). The two best resources on Salafism are Henri Lauzière, The Making of Salafism (Columbia University Press, 2016) and Roel Meijer, ed., Global Salafism (Columbia University Press, 2009). A recent study on the Quran-only movement is Ali Usman Qasmi, Questioning the Authority of the Past: The Ahl al-Qur'an Movement in the Punjab (Oxford University Press, 2011). For more on the eighteenth-century movements of revival and reform, see John Voll, 'Foundations of Renewal and Reform: Islamic Movements in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,' in The Oxford History of Islam, ed. John Esposito, pp. 509–548 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) and the initial chapters of Barbara Metcalf's Islamic Revivalism in British India: Deoband 1860–1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982). A difficult-to-find translation of Abū Rayya's al-Adwā' 'alā al-sunna al-muhammadiyya has been published as Lights on the Muhammadan Sunna, trans. Hasan Najafi (Qum: Ansariyan Publications, 1999). Muhammad Husayn Haykal's biography of the Prophet, translated by Ismail al-Faruqi, has been published in several editions as The Life of Muhammad. Yūsuf al-Qaradāwī's influential Kayfa nata'āmalu ma'a al-sunna al-nabawiyya has been translated as Approaching the Sunna: Comprehension and Controversy, trans. Jamil Qureshi (Washington DC: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2007). Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan's response to William Muir's critique of the sīra has been published as A Series of Essays on the Life of Muhammad (Lahore: Premier Book House, 1968), and Shibli Numani's biography of the Prophet has been published as Sirat-un-Nabi: The Life of the Prophet, 2 vols. (Delhi: Idarat Adabiyat Deli, 1979). ENDNOTES 1 Al-San'ānī, Irshād al-nuqqād ilā taysīr al-ijtihād, p. 58. 2 Al-San'ānī, Dīwān al-Amīr al-San'ānī, p. 168. 3 'Abdallāh al-Ghumārī, Al-Khawātir al-dīniyya, vol. 1, p. 123; Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Sāwī, Hāshiyat al-Sāwī 'alā Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, vol. 3, p. 9. 4 Aziz Ahmad, Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan, pp. 60–61. Ibn Hanbal does show extreme skepticism towards claims of consensus; 'Abdallāh b. Ahmad, Masā'il al-imām Ahmad, p. 439. 5 Aziz Ahmad, Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan, p. 63. 6 Ibid., p. 59. 7 Daniel Brown, Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought, pp. 38–39. 8 Ibid., p. 98. 9 Ibid., pp. 46–47. 10 Muhammad Tawfīq Sidqī, 'al-Islām huwa al-Qur'ān wahdahu,' pp. 516–517; idem, 'al-Islām huwa al-Qur'ān wahdahu: radd li-radd,' p. 912 (found in Ridā, ed., al-Manār 9, n. 7 and 12). 11 Sidqī, 'al-Islām huwa al-Qur'ān wahdahu: radd li-radd,' p. 910. 12 Sidqī, 'al-Islām huwa al-Qur'ān wahdahu,' p. 524. 13 Sidqī, 'al-Islām huwa al-Qur'ān wahdahu: radd li-radd,' p. 911. 14 Juynboll, The Authenticity of the Tradition Literature: Discussions in Modern Egypt, pp. 28–30; Brown, Rethinking Tradition, p. 89. 15 Sunan Abī Dāwūd: kitāb al-at'ima, bāb fī al-dhubāb yaqa'u fī al-ta'ām; Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-tibb, bāb idhā waqa'a al-dhubāb fī al-inā'. 16 Juynboll, Authenticity, p. 141. 17 Brown, Rethinking Tradition, p. 47. 18 Muhammad Husayn Haykal, Hayāt Muhammad, p. 67. 19 Ibid., pp. 64–66. 20 Abū Rayya, Adwā' 'alā al-sunna al-muhammadiyya, pp. 350–351. 21 Ibid., pp. 252 ff., 278. 22 Juynboll, Authenticity, pp. 41–43; see Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-adhān, bāb fadl al-ta'dhīn. Ibn Hajar notes that this should not be understood literally; Ibn Hajar, Fath al-bārī, vol. 2, pp. 108–109. 23 Abū Rayya, Adwā', p. 233. 24 Ibid., p. 148. 25 Ibid., pp. 151 ff. 26 Ibid., p. 169. 27 Juynboll, Authenticity, pp. 88, 133. 28 Abū Rayya, Adwā', p. 169. 29 Abū Rayya, 'Ka'b al-Ahbār huwa al-sahyūnī al-awwal,' al-Risāla wa'l-riwāya 665 (1946), pp. 360–62. 30 Abū Rayya, Adwā', pp. 140 ff. 31 Juynboll, Authenticity, pp. 30–40. 32 Brown, Rethinking Tradition, p. 57. Al-Albānī also argues that the Prophet's speech is part of the revelation God promises to protect in the Quran; al-Albānī, Adab al-zaffāf, p. 168–9. 33 Wadud does not deal with hadiths in her discussion, while Kugle avoids discussing hadiths that command the death penalty for those 'committing the sin of the people of Lot' because they are not in the Sahīhayn (they are found in the Four Sunan). See Amina Wadud, The Quran and Woman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) and Scott Kugle, 'Sexuality, Diversity and Ethics in the Agenda of Progressive Muslims,' in Progressive Muslims, ed. Omid Safi (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), pp. 220–221. 34 See http://www.yuksel.org/e/books/rtq.htm (last accessed 11/1/07). 35 Fatema Mernissi, Women and Islam: An Historical and Theological Enquiry, p. 77. 36 Ibid., p. 43. 37 Sahīh Muslim: kitāb al-salāt, bāb al-i'tirād bayn yaday al-musallī; Sahih al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-fitan, bāb 18. 38 Mernissi, pp. 56 ff., 71–72. 39 Ibid., p. 60. 40 Ibid., p. 76. 41 Fazlur Rahman, Islamic Methodology in History, pp. 6, 33. 42 Ibid. p. 6, 12. 43 Ibid., pp. 15–16, 19. 44 Ibid., p. 56. 45 Ibid., pp. 72–73. 46 Ibid., p. 40. 47 Ibid., p. 72. 48 Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, Islam: A Comprehensive Introduction, pp. 61–69. 49 Ahmad, Islamic Modernism, p. 53. 50 Ibid., p. 31. 51 Ibid., p. 41. 52 Aziz Ahmad and G.E. von Grunebaum, eds., Muslim Self-Statement in India and Pakistan 1857–1968, p. 34; Ahmad, Islamic Modernism, pp. 43, 46. 53 Ahmad and von Grunebaum, p. 30. 54 Ahmad, Islamic Modernism, p. 54. 55 Christian W. Troll, Sayyid Ahmad Khan: A Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology, p. 113. 56 Ibid., pp. 134, 139–140. 57 Ahmad, Islamic Modernism, pp. 49 ff. 58 Troll, pp. 137–139. 59 Brown, Rethinking Tradition, p. 64. 60 Ahmad, Islamic Modernism, pp. 47–48. 61 Troll, p. 129. 62 Ibid., p. 141. 63 Ibid., p. 111. 64 Juynboll, Authenticity, p. 15. 65 Muhammad 'Abduh, The Theology of Unity, pp. 155–156. 66 Ridā, Al-Manār, 21, no.1, p. 67. 67 Muhammad al-Ghazālī, Turāthunā al-fikrī, p. 176. 68 Ridā, Al-Manār, 27, no. 8, p. 616. 69 Ridā, Al-Manār, 27, no. 7, pp. 539 ff., 615; ibid., 28, no. 1, p. 67. See al-Jāhiz, al-Hayawān, ed. 'Abd al-Salām Hārūn (Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1996), vol. 4, pp. 202–3. 70 Ridā, Al-Manār, 27, no. 8, p. 615; ibid., p. 3:620. 71 Ridā, Al-Manār, 19, no. 2, p. 100. 72 Juynboll, Authenticity, pp. 145–146; 'Abd al-Majīd Mahmūd, Abū Ja'far al-Tahāwī wa atharuhu fī al-hadīth, p. 117. 73 Ridā, Al-Manār, 27, no. 8, p. 615; Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb bad' al-khalq, bāb sifat al-shams wa al-qamar. 74 Juynboll, Authenticity, p. 143. 75 Mahmūd Shaltūt, Al-Fatāwā, p. 52. 76 Ibid., pp. 61 ff., 82. 77 Ibid., p. 79. 78 Al-Ghazālī, Turāthunā al-fikrī, p. 169. 79 Ibid., p. 181. 80 Al-Ghazālī, al-Sunna al-nabawiyya, p. 190. 81 Ibid., pp. 35–36. 82 Brown, The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, pp. 309–310. 83 Al-Albānī, 'Tarjamat al-shaykh al-Albānī – Nash'at al-Shaykh fī Dimashq.' 84 Al-Albānī, Sahīh al-Targhīb wa al-tarhīb, p. 1:60. 85 'Abdallāh al-Sa'd, 'Sharh al-Mūqiza 3.' 86 Al-Albānī, 'Tafsīr 1.' 87 Al-Albānī, 'Tafsīr 2.' 88 'Abdallāh al-Sa'd, 'Sharh Kitāb al-Tamyīz 3.' 89 Al-Albānī, Tafsīr 3.' 90 Tāhir al-Jazā'irī, Tawjīh al-nazar ilā usūl al-athar, vol. 1, pp. 331–332. 91 Al-Albānī, 'Silsilat as'ilat Abī Ishāq al-Huwaynī li'l-shaykh Muhammad Nāsir al-Dīn al-Albānī.' 92 Al-Albānī, Sahīh al-Targhīb wa al-tarhīb, vol. 1, p. 4. 93 Al-Jazā'irī, Tawjīh al-nazar ilā usūl al-athar, p. 1:320. 94 'Abdallāh al-Ghumārī, Tawjīh al-'ināya li-ta'rīf 'ilm al-hadīth riwāya wa dirāya, p. 15. 95 Ahmad al-Ghumārī, Dar' al-da'f 'an hadīth man 'ashiqa fa-'aff, p. 121. 96 'Abdallāh al-Ghumārī, Itqān al-san'a fī tahqīq ma'nā al-bid'a, p. 41; Ahmad al-Ghumārī, Ju'nat al-attār, vol. 2, p. 154. 97 Al-Albānī, Mukhtasar Sahīh al-Bukhārī, vol. 2, pp. 8–9. 98 Al-Kawtharī, Maqālāt, p. 225. 99 Al-Ghazālī, al-Sunna al-nabawiyya, pp. 14–15. 100 'Mā kāna 'alā khilāf al-qiyās fa-'alayhi ghayruhu lā yuqās,' al-Albānī, 'al-Zawāj.' 101 'Alī Jum'a, al-Bayān li-mā yushghalu bihi al-adhhān, pp. 99 ff. 102 Al-Ghazālī, Turāthunā al-fikrī, p. 153. Jum'a, al-Bayān, pp. 103–4. 103 Al-Ghazālī, al-Sunna al-nabawiyya, p. 19. 104 Al-Kawtharī, Maqālāt, p. 55. 105 Al-Ghazālī, al-Sunna al-nabawiyya, p. 32. 106 Ibid., pp. 19–20. 107 Sahīh al-Bukhārī: kitāb al-jihād, bāb 149. 108 Jum'a, al-Bayān, pp. 78–81. 109 J. Brown, 'The Rules of Matn Criticism: There are No Rules,' pp. 389–91. 110 Al-Shāfi'ī, al-Risāla, p. 177. 111 Tārīkh Baghdād, vol. 11, pp. 197–198. 112 Ibn Qutayba, Ta'wīl mukhtalif al-hadīth, p. 228. i Earlier in this chapter we referred to Muhammad al-Ghazālī as a Modernist Salafī. In terms of the structure of his thought, this is correct. But al-Ghazālī's environment, Egypt in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, was much more religiously conservative than that of 'Abduh or Shaltūt. As a result, in his language and positions al-Ghazālī fits into the Late Sunni Traditionalist category. ii Although al-Albānī rules that this hadith is authentic, he also notes that it cannot be interpreted literally since we know that the Prophet ate beef; al-Albānī, Silsilat al-ahādīth al-sahīha, p. 4:46. CONCLUSION We must possess a grasp of the hadith tradition and its many functions in order to understand the past and present of the Islamic world. This grasp is indispensable for comprehending Muslim debates over the future as well. When we look behind the headlines today, we see that much of the time hadiths are at the vortex of the most salient debates in Islamic thought. On controversial issues from jihad and martyrdom to women's rights under Islamic law, hadiths always provide key and often determinative evidence. As we have seen, even those Muslims who reject heeding hadiths at all in such debates face the challenge of justifying this position with evidence from the classical hadith tradition. Even if we understand the importance of hadiths in parsing complex problematics such as 'Islam and the West' or 'Islam and Women,' we must always keep history in mind. History gave birth to the complexities of the present and holds the keys to unraveling them. Debates over the necessity of hadiths, their place in articulating Islamic law and dogma, and how Muslims should know true claims about reve-lation from the false have been of perennial importance throughout Islamic history. Let us retrace some of the main thematic steps in the reasoning of Muslim scholars throughout Islamic history, specifically those regarding hadiths. If the Quran is God's manifest revelation to mankind, do we need any other source for understanding His religion? If not, then how do we know how to perform (or, perhaps, how do we justify the fact that we perform) our five daily prayers and fast during Ramadan? – these practices are not explained in the holy book. If we do need another source, then does our sense of reason alone suffice? The answer seems to be 'no,' as reason on its own cannot provide the basis or specifics for Muslim prayer and fasting, which can only be known through some form of tradition handed down from Muhammad and the early Muslim community. If we must rely to some extent on this tradition, then how do we balance it with the Quran and reason? What happens when revelation, reason, and tradition seem to conflict? Does tradition trump reason and our prima facie understanding of the Quran, or vice versa? If we are to subordinate some elements of our rational thought and understanding of the Quran to tradition, how do we know when tradition is authentic or inauthentic? How is tradition transmitted or preserved? If tradition overrules the Quran and reason, then can the principles of the Quran or reason be used to authenticate tradition? These are some of the questions that have driven Islamic intellectual history in its various streams and embodiments. In this book, we have proposed thinking about hadiths in terms of their two essential functions in Islamic civilization. First, the hadith as a text (matn) – authoritative statements by the Prophet that shape Islamic law, dogma, and worldview. Second, the hadith as a chain of transmission (isnād) – a medium of connection to the Prophet and a paradigm of constructing a relationship between the Muslim present and the Muslim past. Interestingly, in both these cases, the functions of hadiths and the questions surrounding them are common to faith traditions other than Islam. In an interpretive tradition, namely one in which meaning is developed by turning (back) towards and interpreting an authoritative source such as a revealed text or constitution, the interpreter of the source is effectively more powerful than the source itself. Using the analogy of a king or ruler, the king's interpreter is more powerful than the king himself, since the interpreter controls and shapes the king's message. Similarly, it is the lens through which we view an object that controls our perception of that object, not the object itself. Early in Islamic history, both Sunni and Shiite Muslims decided that the Quran was a source that had to be interpreted through specific lenses. It could not speak on its own ('Quran only' advocates today have challenged this). The Prophet was the first interpreter, and his Sunna was what the Muslim scholar 'Alī Jum'a has called 'an infallible application of the Book of God.'1 But who, in turn, would interpret the Prophet's Sunna? Who would provide the second interpretive layer that would translate the Sunna and apply it among the coming Muslim generations in new Muslim lands? Sunnis chose the Muslim community as a whole, represented by the ulema, as the authoritative interpreter, while Shiite Muslims selected the family of the Prophet and the scholars who followed in the footsteps of the imams. But how should the Sunna be communicated and preserved? Some Sunnis believed that the Sunna was preserved mainly in the form of communal practice (like the Mālikī school of law), others in the form of the methods of problem-solving inherited from the Prophet through his Companions and their Successors (like the Partisans of Reason). The Quran is a written text, but these approaches treated the Sunna as a living and unwritten entity. Ultimately, Sunnis accepted that the Sunna must take a written form as well, that of hadiths. Although Sunni scholars continue to debate the proper relationship between practice, interpretive method, and the text of hadiths to this day, Muslim scholars generally recognize that hadiths are a powerful, even if not the ultimate, vehicle for the Sunna. This process is common to Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. In all these traditions, a written scripture is interpreted through an oral lens that is eventually also consigned to written form. Classical rabbinic Judaism is based on the idea that Moses received two Torahs on Mount Sinai, the written revelation of the scriptures, designated collectively as the Written Torah, and an oral Torah, which transmitted the authoritative interpretations of these books. This oral tradition was inherited from Moses by subsequent leaders of the Jewish people through the biblical period and on through the time of the rabbis. Eventually, in the early third century CE it was set down in written form in the Mishna. Among Christians, a Greek translation of the Old Testament served as the community's revealed scripture during the first two centuries CE. Christians read and understood the significance of the Old Testament through the orally transmitted teachings of Jesus and the elucidations of the Christian church fathers – the stories of the Old Testament and pronouncements of Hebrew prophets like Isaiah were interpreted as referring allegorically or literally to Christ. At the same time as the Jews were setting down their oral Torah in written form, the Christians adopted as their written interpretive lens a selection of written accounts of Jesus' life and mission in the form of the New Testament gospels.2 In Islam more than in the other Abrahamic traditions, however, there arose a particular interpretive problem. From the time of the Prophet and the revelation of the Quran itself, Muslims have been self-consciously obsessed with textual authenticity. The Quran explains that previous communities had corrupted or altered the revealed books of God. Muslim scholars therefore proclaimed an enduring devotion to assuring the authenticity of their religion's teachings and its textual sources. This is most obvious in the text of the Quran itself. From the time of Muhammad's Companions, Muslim scholars have obsessively safeguarded the textual integrity of the Quran, meticulously recording any variations in wording or pronunciation. The hadith corpus, however, was not set down in writing at such an early date, so the authenticity of this interpretive lens quickly became a major matter of contention. Early Sunni Muslims developed their methods of isnād criticism in an effort to assure the textual authenticity of the Sunna without relying on the same flawed rational faculties that had led earlier nations astray. However, the tension between surrendering to the isnād and its power to authenticate versus the role of reason as a criterion for evaluating truth remains unresolved among Muslim scholars. When Sunni legal theory matured fully in the tenth and eleventh centuries CE, scholars grappled with a more philosophical problem: how can you interpret a source whose historical reliability is certain (the Quran) through a lens of questionable historical reliability (hadiths)? Classical Sunni legal theorists employed the concepts of consensus (ijmā') and the certainty produced by massive transmission (tawātur) to reach a solution to this problem, but it continues to drive the debate between Islamic modernists and traditionalists today. Interestingly, there are remarkable similarities between the Islamic tradition of hadith criticism and a genre of books in Chinese Zen Buddhism known as Ching Lu, which flourished among Chinese Buddhist scholars in the period just before and during the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE). Ching Lu books were catalogs devoted to distinguishing between writings that were thought to be authentic records of the Buddha's teachings as transmitted to China from India and books that were written by Chinese scholars and thus did not originate in the Buddhist homeland of India. With an attitude very similar to Muslim hadith critics, the authors of Ching Lu books saw themselves as sorting the 'rubies from pebbles' in a struggle to preserve the authentic teachings of the Buddha from the accretions of Chinese philosophy and superstition. Unlike Muslim hadith critics, however, Ching Lu authors depended primarily on searching for anomalous contents in the books they critiqued – teachings that resembled Chinese lore, for example, were red flags for forgery. Although identifying the authors or translators of books of Buddhist teachings served as part of the Ching Lu critical arsenal, the absence of an elaborate isnād tradition and the many anonymously written texts made such transmission criticism much less common than in the Islamic hadith tradition.3 The second function of hadiths, that of a medium of connection to the Prophet and a framework for imagining historical relationships through the isnād, is only partially concerned with authenticity. It is more than anything the foundation of a religious worldview. Although the isnād was developed as a tool for authenticating hadiths, it reflected and eventually became the embodiment of a more general conception of the transmission of authority. The isnād was the key to distinguishing between reliable and unreliable hadiths for Muslim scholars, but it was also a language for expressing connections with teachers, saints, and the Prophet himself. As a criterion for textual reliability, the strength and historical accuracy of an isnād was essential. As a medium for connection, the isnād took on a meaning far beyond and indeed in spite of its historicity. Even if only as a formality, possessing some sort of isnād back to the Prophet was the essential mark of a Muslim scholar. Short isnāds for hadiths became a means of close connection to the Prophet's blessings. Bizarre isnāds were collected like rare coins – it was the rarity and supposed shortness of an isnād that made it valuable, not the authenticity of the hadith it communicated. In Sufism, the isnād was the chain of transmission for the Prophet's blessings (baraka), ethical instruction, and esoteric knowledge. The cloak (khirqa) served as the outward manifestation of this chain, literally a means of investiture into the socially expansive class of Sufi devotees. Even in its abstract sense of a connection to the first and most authoritative interpreter of God's revelation, the Prophet, however, the isnād had practical groundings. Arabic texts, whether individual hadiths or entire treatises, were written in a script that left many vowels unwritten and that could easily be misread. Reading a book or a hadith properly thus required the presence of a teacher who had heard that text read aloud. Transmission from teacher to student, however, involved more than just this practical utility. Muslim scholars believe that this living relationship passed on the light of sacred learning and the 'living word of knowledge,' as Plato (d. 347 BCE) called it, from one generation to the next.4 Transmission creates and passes on authority. Muslims have often touted this connective function of the isnād as unique to Islamic thought. Indeed, neither Christianity nor Judaism developed a tradition as intricate or ubiquitous as the isnād. But the concept of transmission creating and controlling interpretive authority is also a common theme in other traditions.5 When the Christian philosopher and maverick theologian Peter Abelard (d. 1142 CE) dared to offer a class in which he provided his own commentary on biblical scripture, students were aghast. To innovate one's own commentary on the scriptures without having the collective commentaries of generations of church scholars painstakingly explained by a teacher, one's link to this interpretive chain, was unthinkable.6 In medieval Judaism the concept of a chain of transmission that passed on an understanding of the revealed scriptures and bequeathed authority in the process was known as 'the chain of tradition (shalshelet hakabbalah).'7 The commonalities that the Islamic hadith tradition shares with other faith traditions remind us of the supreme importance of context at the close of this study. The grand tradition of Muslim hadith criticism emphasizes the paramount place of authenticity in the Islamic religious worldview. When the great hadith scholar al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī died in 1071 CE, crowds carrying his casket through the streets of Baghdad shouted 'Make way! Make way for him who fended off lies from the Messenger of God!'8 But discussing the words attributed to Muhammad, debating their authenticity and potential meaning, has never been a discourse that has taken place in objective or neutral isolation. Always there are great consequences. Discussions of the proper place of the Prophet's Sunna began among Muslims in the shadow of unspoken assumptions about the true nature of God's message to Muhammad. Ever looming over these debates have been weighty implications for how that religion would take shape on earth. If we cannot trust a body of hadiths, Muslims have asked, or if we lose the hadith corpus to modern historical criticism, how do we know God's will and sacred law? As al-Shāfi'ī asked, how do we know how to pray?9 Torn between a commitment to critical rigor and the duty to provide answers for the masses, Muslim hadith critics have always had to balance the scholarly integrity of rigorous historians with the needs and expectations of the Muslim community as a whole. In no matter have consequences been more intimidating than in that of protecting the purity of the Prophet's message from alien influences. The study and criticism of hadiths among Muslims began as a means to protect the Muslim community from competing claims to truth, such as Greek philosophy, Christian thought, or purely rational approaches to law and worship. The Partisans of Hadith, who later formed the core of Sunni Islam, and the isnād itself arose as a conservative reaction to fears of the foreign influence that other Near Eastern faiths and philosophies might have upon the still maturing Muslim community. Later, debates over the isnāds of Sufism centered on doubts over and defenses of the Islamic authenticity of Sufi beliefs and practices. Concerns over the influence of Greek philosophy or Christianity have faded into history. But today questioning whether or not Muslims can trust the historical reliability of hadiths conjures the twin specters of Western control over defining Islam and Muslims' anxieties about how to reconcile their faith with the hegemonic power of Western science. Always there are consequences for Muslims' sense of Islamic authenticity. Difficult as it has been to achieve in reality, Muslim scholars have always clung to the ideal of freeing the historical criticism of words attributed to Muhammad from the grasp of consequence and the hopes and multiform fears that always surround us. Yet the modern world is perilous and unrelenting in its temptations and terrors. After our discussion of Muslim and Western perspectives on the hadith tradition and Islamic history, we are left with a great quandary for both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars: what forces should determine our interactions with the past? Plato's Socratic voice, a voice long heeded in Islamic civilization as intently as it has been in the West, echoes across the aeons: 'I have heard a report of the ancients, whether it is true or not only they know; although if we had found the truth ourselves, do you think that we should care much about the opinions of men?'10 Wa Allāhu a'lam (And God knows best). ENDNOTES 1 'Alī Jum'a, personal communication. 2 James A. Sanders, Canon and Community, p. 14. 3 Kyoko Tokuno, 'The Evaluation of Indigenous Scriptures in Chinese Buddhist Bibliographical Catalogues,' pp. 31–59. 4 Plato, Phaedrus, p. 276a. 5 Al-Nawawī, Sharh Sahīh Muslim, vol. 1, p. 119. 6 Peter Abelard, 'Historia Calimatatum,' p. 63. 7 See Pirkei Avot, 1.1; Martin Jaffe, Torah in the Mouth (Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 30, 56–61. 8 Al-Dhahabī, Tadhkirat al-huffāz, vol. 3, p. 226. 9 Al-Shāfi'ī, al-Risāla, p. 177. 10 Plato, Phaedrus, p. 274c. GLOSSARY 'Adl: literally, 'justice' or 'just'; half of the qualification for being a reliable hadith transmitter (along with dabt). In the early period of hadith criticism, being 'adl simply meant generally being an honest and truthful person. In the later period of hadith criticism, 'adl meant being 'Muslim, of age, of sound mind, free of the paths of sin and flaws in honor.' This later definition included not being an extremist or proselytizing member of a non-Sunni group. Āhād: literally 'individuals'; a category of hadiths transmitted by individuals as opposed to being massively transmitted (mutawātir). Āhād hadiths were any hadiths that did not meet the requirements for massive transmission (tawātur). This categorization was introduced into Muslim hadith scholarship in the tenth and eleventh centuries CE by legal theorists. Ahl-e Quran: a twentieth-century Muslim school of thought particularly prominent in India and later Pakistan, which advocated the rejection of hadiths and a reliance on the Quran alone (see pp. 280–286). Akhbār: 'reports'; transmitted stories about historical events. Akhbār as a category includes hadiths, but akhbār often do not involve the life of the Prophet or feature isnāds. Muslim scholars such as Ibn Ishāq (d. 150/767) and al-Madā'inī (d. 228/843), who collected and compiled akhbār (Akhbāriyūn), are closer to 'historians' than 'hadith scholars.' 'Ālī: 'elevated'; a transmission of a hadith with a relatively short isnād (see pp. 48–51). Amālī: hadith dictation sessions, often occurring in major mosques, in which a scholar read out a selection of hadiths with full isnāds back to the Prophet before an audience. Ansāb: 'genealogies'; an early genre of Arab-Islamic historical writing that traced and recorded the genealogies of tribes along with stories and historical information about individuals. Ash'arī: one of the three main schools of Sunni theology, named after Abū al-Hasan al-Ash'arī (d. 324/935–6), which began as a defense of Sunni literalist theology using rationalist methods but later incorpor-ated many rationalist beliefs into Sunni Islam as well. Baraka: 'blessings' ; the spiritual benefit that one receives from proximity to God, the Prophet, or pious individuals. Bid'a: literally 'innovation'; although it is generally understood as heretical innovation in religious matters. Companions (Arabic, Sahāba): the founding generation of Muslims who knew and lived with the Prophet. In Sunni Islam, anyone who saw the Prophet and died as a Muslim is considered a Companion (see pp. 89–91). Dabt: literally 'accuracy'; or the requirement that a hadith transmitter generally be corroborated in his or her transmissions. Along with 'adāla (see 'adl), dabt was one of the two components necessary to make a transmitter 'reliable (thiqa)' – although dabt was the more important of the two. Da'īf: 'weak'; a complex term that generally denoted an unreliable hadith (see pp. 102–106). Gharīb: 'strange'; denoting a hadith with limited corroboration but not necessarily meaning that it contradicted more reliable hadiths or was unreliable (see p. 98). In the later period of hadith criticism it was used to describe a hadith that was sahīh but was only known through one chain of transmission. Hasan: 'fair'; a term describing a hadith that, while not meeting the isnād requirements to be sahīh, either did not have flaws serious enough to be considered weak or enjoyed some form of bolstering corroboration. Hasan hadiths were admissible as proofs in law but not theology (see p. 105). Idrāj: the phenomenon of the words of a hadith transmitter being mistaken for part of the hadith itself (see mudraj). Ihsān: the highest level of faith for Muslims, namely acting as if you could physically sense God watching over you (see p. 198). Ijāza: the permission to transmit a hadith or book. Ijāzas could take three forms: 1) ijāzat al-riwāya (the permission of transmission), which simply gave a student the right to transmit a hadith from a scholar; 2) ijāzat al-dirāya (the permission of knowledge), which meant that a teacher had acknowledged that a student had mastered the contents of a book and was thus qualified to teach it to others; 3) ijāzat al-tazkiya (the permission of purification), which meant that a student had spent sufficient time around a scholar to absorb that scholar's ethics and good behavior, with that chain of learning going back to the Prophet (see pp. 44–46). Ijtihād: independent interpretation; the action of a scholar returning to the Quran, Sunna, and interpretive methods of Muslim scholars to revaluate a legal ruling or find an answer to an unanswered question. 'Ilal: plural of 'illa, or 'flaw'; flaws in the isnād of a hadith that only become evident when that isnād is compared with other chains of transmission for that hadith (see pp. 98–99). Imam: in Sunni Islam, either the person leading the prayer or an exceptionally prominent scholar; in Shiite Islam, one of the descendants of the Prophet who inherited his interpretive authority. Isnād: the chain of transmission of a hadith. Isrā'īliyyāt: stories from Jewish lore, usually about biblical prophets, included in the Islamic tradition. Jinn: creatures mentioned in the Quran and hadiths who are composed of fire or hot wind and live unseen alongside human beings. Kashf: 'unveiling'; direct inspiration from God granted to a pious Muslim (see pp. 114–115). Khirqa: the shawl or cloak with which a Sufi initiate was invested when joining a Sufi order or receiving the blessings of a Sufi saint (see pp. 202–204). Late Sunni Tradition: the version of Sunni orthodoxy that emerged in the 1300s and has characterized Islamic civilization in the Middle East and South Asia until the modern period. It consists of an institutional combination of the four Sunni schools of law, the Ash'arī or Māturīdī schools of speculative theology, and Sufi brotherhoods. Madhhab: a Muslim school of law. Maghāzī: literally 'campaigns'; early collections of reports about the Prophet's battles and the early Muslim conquests. Mahdī: 'the guided one'; an apocalyptical figure descended from the Prophet whom both Sunnis and Shiites believe will return at the end of time to bring justice to the earth. Mashhūr: in the early period of hadith criticism, mashhūr meant a hadith that was well known, widely corroborated, and held to be an authentic representation of the Prophet's Sunna. With the influence of legal theorists in the tenth and eleventh centuries, it took on the meaning of a hadith that, while not reaching the technical requirements for the certainty provided by massive transmission (tawātur), had been verified by communal consensus and was thus reliable enough to inform dogma and restrict the meaning of Quranic verses. Matn: the text of a hadith. Mudraj: adjective describing a hadith in which idrāj (see above) has occurred. Mu'jam: a hadith collection in which a scholar organized hadiths around a certain theme. Munkar: 'unacceptable' or merely 'unfamiliar'; in the early period of hadith criticism it meant a hadith that was either uncorroborated or broke with other similar narrations either in its isnād or its meaning. In the later period, it came to mean a hadith that had only one chain of transmission without that isnād being strong enough to justify accepting it. Munqati': 'broken'; an isnād in which some transmitter, usually not in the early part of the isnād, cites a source whom he never actually met. Mursal: literally 'cast'; in the early period of hadith criticism it meant a hadith in which a transmitter cited someone or the Prophet without actually having met him. The term later came to mean a hadith in which a Successor quotes the Prophet without naming the intermediating Companion (see pp. 94–95). Mustakhraj: a genre of hadith collections in which a scholar used his own hadith corpus to replicate an existing hadith collection (see pp. 52–54). Mutāba'a: 'parallelism'; a narration that corroborated that a certain person had heard a hadith from a certain teacher by serving as evidence that a different student had heard the same hadith from that teacher (see pp. 95–98). Mutawātir: 'massively transmitted'; a term imported into hadith criticism from legal theory to describe a hadith that is so widely transmitted that there can be no possibility of it being forged (see p. 107). Mu'tazila: a school of Muslim rationalists that died out in Sunni Islam in the fourteenth century CE but survived in Imami and Zaydi Shiism. Muttasil: 'contiguous'; describing an isnād whose components all met and studied with one another and thus includes no breaks. Naskh: the abrogation of Quranic verses either by other verses or the Sunna. Also, it can be the abrogation of one hadith by another hadith. Nāzil: a relatively long isnād for a hadith; the opposite of 'ālī. Qudsī: adjective for hadiths in which the Prophet quotes God speaking (see p. 63–64). Sahīh: 'sound' or 'authentic'; the highest level of strength for an isnād (see pp. 104–107). Salafī: a complex and multifaceted term that came into use in the early twentieth century to describe the return to the methods and beliefs of the Salaf, 'the Righteous Forebears,' usually understood to mean the first three generations of Muslims. Sariqat al-hadīth: 'stealing a hadith,' or fitting an existing hadith with a new isnād. Shādhdh: 'anomalous'; although influential hadith critics like al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī (d. 405/1014) used the term shādhdh to mean a hadith that had only one narration, al-Shāfi'ī (d. 204/820) and the vast majority of scholars used it to mean a hadith that contradicted more reliable narrations or the Quran. Shāhid: a 'witness' narration or attestation, usually meaning a hadith narrated from a totally different isnād but containing the same meaning as the hadith in question and thus bolstering its reliability. Sharh: a commentary that a scholar composes about an existing book, such as a hadith collection or book of law. Sīra: literally 'biography'; generally referring to the biography of the Prophet. Sīra is distinct from hadith collections because it follows a chronological or narrative structure and often includes material without complete isnāds. Successors: the generation of Muslims who followed and learned from the Companions. Tadlīs: obfuscation in transmission; either intentionally or unintentionally narrating a hadith in a manner that obscures or omits transmitters in the isnād. Tafsīr: Quranic exegesis; during the first two centuries Hijrī tafsīr mainly consisted of glosses, or explanations of Quranic words. It soon developed into a genre of more expansive Quranic commentary on the linguistic contents, historical circumstances and meanings of verses. Takhrīj: 'indexing'; finding all the appearances of a hadith in various books and hadith collections. Taqlīd: 'imitation'; a term with both positive and pejorative connotations. Supporters of taqlīd define it as a non-scholar or non-specialist following the opinion of a qualified scholar. Those who reject taqlīd, especially adherents of the Salafī tradition, would translate it as 'blind imitation,' namely following scholars without any concern for proof. Taraf/Atrāf: the first part of the text of a hadith or its most well-known part. Ulema: the Arabic word for Muslim scholars. Sunna: the normative precedent of the Prophet. In the early Islamic period, Sunna meant the normative precedent of the early Islamic community (namely the Companions and the Successors) as a whole. Zawā'id: a genre of hadith books that listed all the hadiths found in books outside the hadith canon as well as any narrations of hadiths from the canonical collections found in the non-canonical works. BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources 'Abdallāh b. Ahmad b. Hanbal. Kitāb al-sunna, ed. Muhammad al-Qahtānī. Dammam, Dār Ibn al-Qayyim, 1986 —— Masā'il al-imām Ahmad Ibn Hanbal riwāyat ibnihi, ed. 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Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1990 Trimingham, J. Spencer. The Sufi Orders in Islam. New York, Oxford University Press, 1971 Troeltsch, Ernst. 'Historical and Dogmatic Method in Theology.' in Religion in History, ed. and trans. James A. Luther and Walter Bense. Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1991 Troll, Christian W. Sayyid Ahmad Khan: A Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology. New Delhi, Vikas Press, 1978 Voll, John. 'Two Biographies of Ahmad Ibn Idris al-Fasi (1760–1837),' International Journal of African Historical Studies, 6, no. 3, 1973, pp. 633–645 Wadud, Amina. The Quran and Woman. New York, Oxford University Press, 1999 Wen Fong. 'The Problem of Forgery in Chinese Painting: Part One,' Artibus Asiae, 25, no. 2/3, 1962, pp. 95–110 Woods, John. The Aqquyunlu. Salt Lake City, University of Utah Press, 1999 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First of all, I must thank the editor of Oneworld's Foundations of Islam series, Omid Safi, whose generosity and good manners have improved my life immensely. I extend my gratitude to all the friends and colleagues whom I bothered with this book. I sincerely thank Omar Anchassi, Ovamir Anjum, Christopher Anzalone, Andrew Booso, Sarah Eltantawi, Alyssa Gabbay, Andreas Görke, Najam Haider, Majid Khan, Suheil Laher, Mohammed Rustom, Saleem Seedat, Justin Sterns, and Devin Stewart for reading the manuscript and providing me with invaluable feedback. I am very grateful to my friends Garrett Davidson, Mohamed El-Sharawi, Matthew Ingalls, and Scott Lucas, without whose insightful (and lengthy) discussions I could not have covered much of the material in this book. Garrett Davidson deserves special thanks for expanding my understanding of the isnād in later Islamic history. I am grateful to Drs. Mark Goodacre of Duke University and Martin Jaffe for discussing biblical parallels of hadith with me. I must also thank my students at the University of Washington and the esteemed UW Historians Reading Group, who helped me work out the contents of this book. Generous financial support for writing this book came from the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA II), the American Institute for Yemeni Studies, and the University of Washington. As for my own contributions, I am entirely indebted to my teachers, particularly Fred Donner, John Esposito, Maysam al-Faruqi, Musa Furber, 'Alī Zayn al-'Ābidīn al-Jifrī, 'Alī Jum'a, Wadad al-Kadi, Haifaa Khalafallah, 'Imād 'Abbās Sa'īd, Sayyid Shaltūt, Barbara Stowasser, Tareq al-Suwaidan, and John Voll. The bulk of the credit goes to an exceptional scholar, Osama al-Syed Mahmoud, who opened my eyes to the study of hadith. Although I know them only through their books and recorded lectures, I must admit my inestimable debt to Muhammad Abū Zahra, 'Abdallāh al-Sa'd, Muhammad Nāsir al-Dīn al-Albānī, 'Abd al-Fattāh Abū Ghudda and the two hadith masters of our age, Ahmad and 'Abdallāh, the sons of al-Siddīq al-Ghumārī, rahimahum Allāh. Of course, any failings in this book are my own responsibility and no fault of those who instructed me. I must also thank my wonderful family, especially my mother, Dr. Ellen Brown, who remains a scholarly inspiration to me. My sisters Kate, Lucinda, and Senem, my aunt Kate and my friends Asad Naqvi and Brenden Kerr require special thanks for keeping me sane and making sure I dress decently. ILLUSTRATIONS 2.0 Leading Hadith Transmitters from the Companions 2.1 Transmission and Criticism of Hadiths from the Companions of the Prophet and Successors 2.2 Subchapter from 'Abd al-Razzāq's Musannaf Concerning Ablutions 2.3 Musnad Organization 3.0 Types of Errors and Forgery in Hadiths 3.1 Generations of Sunni Hadith Critics 3.2 Corroboration 3.3 Rating of Hadiths and Their Uses among the Early and Later Hadith Critics 3.4 Hadith Prohibiting Putting on one's Shoes while Standing: the Transmission of Abū Hurayra 3.5 Hadith Prohibiting Putting on one's Shoes while Standing: the Transmission of Anas b. Mālik 3.6 Hadith Prohibiting Putting on one's Shoes while Standing: the Transmission of Jābir b. 'Abdallāh 3.7 Hadith Prohibiting Putting on one's Shoes while Standing: the Transmission of Ibn 'Umar 3.8a Hadith 1 on the Qadarite Heresy: 'Two types...' – the Narration of Ibn 'Abbās 3.8b Hadith 1 on the Qadarite Heresy: Sundry Narrations 3.9 Hadith 2 on the Qadarite Heresy: 'The Zoroastrians of my nation ...' 4.0 The Twelve Imams 4.1 Forms of Imami Shiite Hadiths 9.0 Schacht's Common Link 9.1 Juynboll's Common Link Theory 9.2 Cook's Theory of Tadlīs and Spread of Isnāds 9.3 Isnād/Matn Analysis Oneworld Academic An imprint of Oneworld Publications First published by Oneworld Publications 2009 This ebook edition published 2017 This revised edition published by Oneworld Academic 2018 Copyright © Jonathan A. C. Brown 2009, 2018 The right of Jonathan A. C. Brown to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved Copyright under Berne Convention A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library ISBN 978–1–78607–307–5 eISBN 978–1–78607–308–2 Typeset by Jayvee, Trivandrum, India Oneworld Publications 10 Bloomsbury Street London WC1B 3SR England	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaBook" }	3,207
I always use the black heavy duty nail files to file any chipboard projects or to sand around photos added to wood photo blocks. So easy to hold and get into tiny areas of your project. Also Catseye inks are the best for inking edges of projects!	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	9,788
Q: Select Box not in line in IE Ok, didn't really want to ask this question as it should be quite a simple solution, but I've spent hours trying to resolve it to no avail. I have a web page with a text box, and then a select drop down next to each other. In Firefox and chrome they line up fine next to each other, but in IE the select box sits higher than the text box. Theres is no CSS applied to this select box, or the text box. This is an aspx page, the generate HTML source for this is: <label for="ctl00_main_primaryEmail" id="ctl00_main_primaryEmailLabel">Primary Email: </label> <input name="ctl00$main$primaryEmail" type="text" id="ctl00_main_primaryEmail" /> <select name="ctl00$main$acceptedDomainsDropDownList" id="ctl00_main_acceptedDomainsDropDownList"> <option value="domain.com">domain.com</option> <option value="doamin1.com">domain1.com</option> <option value="domain2.com">domain2.com</option> <option value="domain3.com">domain3.com</option> </select> A: Are you using any CSS to reset the margins and padding across all tags? It's quite useful to start your stylesheet with something like: *,html { margin: 0; padding: 0; } This gets rid of many rendering inconsistencies between browsers (i.e. IE) and the extra CSS needed to provide padding/margins where actually needed tends to be minimal. With this "reset" rule in place the boxes line up in IE (6 & 7 tested), though the issues of different default font-sizes remains: alt text http://www.mikrogroove.com/stackoverflow/textbox_selectbox_alignment.gif A: It turns out this issue was CSS related. It was a border setting for the select element buried deep in the IE only stylesheet of the Blueprint Library, hence not showing up in firebug. For anyone else that comes across it, its this CSS for the select element margin : 0.5em 0px A: I have tried the following code. This lines up perfectly, when testing in IE7. <input type="text"> <select> <option>option1</option> <option>option2</option> </select> My guess is that some CSS styling from parent elements (body, form, parent classes) gets applied to one or both of these elements, but without seeing the source code, this is hard to judge. A: using a table for layout might help A: I'd suggest putting your form in some surrounding markup. I commonly use definition lists, so the markup would be something like <dl> <dt> <label for="ctl00_main_primaryEmail" id="ctl00_main_primaryEmailLabel">Primary Email: </label> </dt> <dd> <input name="ctl00$main$primaryEmail" type="text" id="ctl00_main_primaryEmail" /> </dd> <dt style="display: none;"> <label for="ctl00_main_acceptedDomainsDropDownList">Accepted Domains</label> </dt> <dd> <select name="ctl00$main$acceptedDomainsDropDownList" id="ctl00_main_acceptedDomainsDropDownList"> <option value="exchange.samcogan.com">exchange.samcogan.com</option> <option value="doamin1.com">domain1.com</option> <option value="domain2.com">domain2.com</option> <option value="domain3.com">domain3.com</option> </select> </dt> </dl> Then you can float/position the dt and dd elements to appear in a single horizontal row. This approach, whether you use a dl, ul or other, gives better positioning in general.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange" }	4,453
The regional group ends a record year with a victory at the BOBs January 4, 2022 by Editorial staff Receiving a 2021 Best Ottawa Business (BOB) award is an extraordinary achievement – and for the team of Regional group is one more reason to celebrate the success of the past year. Since 1958, Regional Group has helped shape real estate in Ottawa and throughout Canada's National Capital Region. From its humble beginnings, the company has grown into a real estate powerhouse that offers a multitude of services to clients and investors – with projects ranging from land and commercial development, investment arrangements and urban infill to creation and delivery of complete master plans. communities. Today, Regional is recognized as one of Ottawa's most trusted and trusted developers. The company consists of a real estate pipeline of more than $ 5.2 billion, with several projects at various stages of development in Ontario and Quebec, as well as a management portfolio of more than 2.9 million feet square meters of commercial space and 2,000 residential units. . Regional has six divisions: property and asset management, investment and leasing, business development, land development, tax advice and appraisal and production house construction through the award-winning affiliate eQ Homes. This vertical integration is a powerful differentiator that allows the company to create value for its clients throughout the lifecycle of real estate investments. In 2020, Regional Group implemented a successful succession plan, transferring leadership from longtime CEO Steve Gordon to third-generation family member and son, Sender Gordon, who took the reins, gaining confidence and respect for the industry. Although 2021 presented its challenges, the maneuvers through the pandemic played on Regional's strengths. The company – known for not being content with the status quo – has successfully adapted its strategy to find new and innovative ways to capitalize on technology and business opportunities. Despite the uncertainty of the past two years, Regional has experienced significant growth and continued to diversify its line of business, resulting in a year of record earnings and earnings. The recent creation of a new commercial and multi-family division has allowed Regional to grow and prosper in the competitive market for the development of office parks and mixed-use apartment buildings. Regional has also developed two specially constructed rental properties in Greystone Village. Milieu Modern Apartments – the first of two properties – was occupied in November 2021, providing a much anticipated high-quality rental option for hundreds of Ottawa families. eQ Homes GOHBA Awarded Best Single-Family Home (2,000-3,000 sq. ft.) Additionally, Regional's affiliate and award-winning builder eQ Homes, recorded a record year with over 350 new home and condo sales, the completion of four phases in planned communities in the greater Ottawa area and added a vast collection of industry awards 2021 to their portfolio. The company continues to be driven by a philosophy of integrity and embodies a creative, forward-thinking and innovative culture. Regional attributes its success to its growing team of industry experts and recognizes the value of investing in local talent. "Our team has grown significantly over the past few years and I am very proud of the entire regional team and flagship team," said Sender Gordon, President and CEO of Regional Group. "Nothing we do can be accomplished without the support of a full team. " Regional is thrilled to celebrate the success of the past year and is thrilled to join previous year's winners of the Best Ottawa Business Award. The team congratulates all local businesses and recipients for their accomplishments and a big thank you to the Ottawa Business Journal and the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce for this honor. Storm Crow Alehouse is critically hit and will close this month How Bruyère cut costs and increased care with Algonquin's Lean program Sharp increase in firearms arrested by TSA at DC airports in 2021 Parents speak out on 'exhausting' toll on COVID stress Men over 40 should try shoulder taps for a stronger core Why is Huel protein powder suddenly so popular?	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl" }	1,488
\section{\@startsection {section}{1}{\z@} {-30pt \@plus -1ex \@minus -.2ex} {2.3ex \@plus.2ex} {\normalfont\normalsize\bfseries\boldmath}} \renewcommand\subsection{\@startsection{subsection}{2}{\z@} {-3.25ex\@plus -1ex \@minus -.2ex} {1.5ex \@plus .2ex} {\normalfont\normalsize\bfseries\boldmath}} \renewcommand{\@seccntformat}[1]{\csname the#1\endcsname. } \makeatother \newtheorem{theorem}{Theorem} \newtheorem{lemma}{Lemma} \newtheorem{conjecture}{Conjecture} \newtheorem{proposition}{Proposition} \newtheorem{corollary}{Corollary} \newtheorem{problem}{Problem} \newtheorem{definition}{Definition} \definecolor{mygreen}{rgb}{0,0.6,0} \definecolor{mygray}{rgb}{0.5,0.5,0.5} \definecolor{mymauve}{rgb}{0.58,0,0.82} \lstset{ % backgroundcolor=\color{white}, basicstyle=\footnotesize, breaklines=true, captionpos=b, commentstyle=\color{mygreen}, escapeinside={\%}{)}, keywordstyle=\color{blue}, stringstyle=\color{mymauve}, } \begin{document} \begin{center} \uppercase{\bf Crazy Sequential Representations of Numbers for Small Bases} \vskip 20pt {\bf Tim Wylie\footnote{This research was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant CCF-1817602.}}\\ {\smallit University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley\\ Edinburg, TX 78539-2999, USA}\\ {\tt timothy.wylie@utrgv.edu}\\ \end{center} \vskip 30pt \centerline{\bf Abstract} \noindent Throughout history, recreational mathematics has always played a prominent role in advancing research. Following in this tradition, in this paper we extend some recent work with crazy sequential representations of numbers$-$ equations made of sequences of one through nine (or nine through one) that evaluate to a number. All previous work on this type of puzzle has focused only on base ten numbers and whether a solution existed. We generalize this concept and examine how this extends to arbitrary bases, the ranges of possible numbers, the combinatorial challenge of finding the numbers, efficient algorithms, and some interesting patterns across any base. For the analysis, we focus on bases three through ten. Further, we outline several interesting mathematical and algorithmic complexity problems related to this area that have yet to be considered. \pagestyle{myheadings} \markright{\smalltt \hfill} \thispagestyle{empty} \baselineskip=12.875pt \vskip 30pt \section{Introduction} One constant theme throughout the history of mathematics is the lure of and the desire to create and solve puzzles. Countless areas of research have been created and extended based on an investigation into recreational mathematics. The study of games and puzzles has become a serious area in its own right often providing insights into much deeper topics. In this paper we look at an area of recreational mathematics based in number theory and combinatorics began in 2013 by Taneja \cite{Taneja:2013:1302.1479v1} and continued in \cite{Taneja:2013:1302.1479v3,Taneja:2013:1302.1479v2,Taneja:2013:1302.1479v4,Taneja:2013:1302.1479v5}. The crazy sequential representation of a number is an arithmetic expression, equal to the value of the number, that contains the digits of a base in order (ascending or descending) such as \[ \hspace{.9cm} 3227 = 123 + 45 \times 67+ 89 \hspace{.3cm} \mbox{ and } \hspace{.3cm} 3227 = 9 + 87 + 6 + 5^4 \times (3+ 2)\times 1. \] This representation is often not unique. The original work looked at expressions with only addition and multiplication as well as concatenation and exponentiation\footnote{Taneja used the term `potentiation' instead, which comes from the translated word used for exponents.}. Taneja extended this work by also allowing subtraction and division, and was able to find equations for all numbers $1-11111$ with one exception: an ascending equation for 10958. Without concatenation and exponentiation, we could look at group operations to define possible values, but these two operations do not provide closure. There are examples of this kind of representation of integers at least as far back as 1917 in a famous puzzle book by Dudeney \cite{Dudeney:1917:BOOK}, and also in another recreational book by Madachy \cite{Madachy:1966:BOOK} from 1966. Both of these works only focused on the number 100 and used other operations such as factorials and square roots, as well as decimals, etc. Taneja was unaware of these books in his original work, and discovered them later while working on the updated version. Our focus in this work is to look at possible numbers in other bases- specifically bases less than 10. We also summarize the work related to base 10 and give an exhaustive proof that under Taneja's rules, 10958 is indeed impossible. We follow previous convention and only allow addition, concatenation, exponentiation, multiplication, division, and negation\footnote{Taneja specified subtraction, but we use a broader operation, and we show that arbitrary negation is still not sufficient for 10958.} along with precedence constraints (parentheses). We can examine the limitations of specific operations, and how the possible results are affected by a change of base. Here, we focus on what is possible within a given base. As an example, Table \ref{tab:overview} shows for each base less than 10 the first positive integer that is impossible for increasing and decreasing representations as well as the first positive integer that can not be sequentially represented either increasingly or decreasingly. \begin{table}[t] \centering \footnotesize \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.2} \begin{tabular}{\| c \| c \| c \| c \|} \hline \textbf{Base} & \textbf{Increasing} & \textbf{Decreasing} & \textbf{Neither} \\ \hline 3 & 0 & 0 & 0\\ \hline 4 & 13& 11 & 16\\ \hline 5 & 27& 17 & 27\\ \hline 6 & 67& 77 & 92\\ \hline 7 & 260 & 262 & 292\\ \hline 8 & 614 & 809 & 1192 \\ \hline 9 & 3293 & 4570 & 5414 \\ \hline 10 & 10958 & 14324 & 21212 \\ \hline \end{tabular} \caption{A brief overview of the first integers that can not be sequentially represented under the defined operations for bases $3-10$.} \label{tab:overview} \end{table} Historically, these kind of derivations were done tediously and slowly, and Taneja's work also has this flavor with only using a program to find a few of the difficult numbers \cite{Taneja:2013:1302.1479v5}. Our approach leverages modern computational power and algorithmic techniques to bring this topic squarely within computational mathematics and search all possible combinations. We discuss these techniques and upper bounds in the paper. A brute force approach to a problem like this has generally been classified as computational mathematics - there is a point for many problems at which the number of possible combinations becomes too large for a human, or humanity, to check by hand in any reasonable amount of time. This has become more common with efforts to verify and prove other long open questions in mathematics such as the Kepler Conjecture \cite{Hales:2006:DCG,flyspeck:2014:WEB,Hales:2008:CORR}, the Boolean Pythagorean Triples problem \cite{Heule:2016:LNCS}, finding Ramsey numbers \cite{Graham:1990:BOOK,Radziszowski:2014:EJOC,Radziszowski:1995:JGT}, the Happy Ending problem \cite{Morris:2000:BAMS,Szekeres:2006:ANZIAM}, the 2-PATS problem \cite{Kari:2017:A}, and many others where brute-force exhaustive-search solutions were required. Fortunately for us, this problem can also be approached with dynamic programming through calculating substrings that appear in multiple equations. This recurrence relation yields an efficient solution allowing an exhaustive examination within a reasonable amount of time. For most of the bases in our study (3-9), even basic laptops are sufficient to check the millions of combinations. For base ten, we utilized some research servers due to the high memory requirements. The program required around 20 gigabytes of memory to run, but the the time was less than two hours. In the next section we give the background and definitions necessary. We then overview the approach and algorithms used in this research in Section \ref{sec:algorithms}. We discuss the small bases 2, 3, and 4 in Section \ref{sec:toosmall}, and then the more substantial possibilities of bases 5-9 in Section \ref{sec:small}. Section \ref{sec:b10} covers what is known about base 10 and the missing number 10958. Finally, in Section \ref{sec:fun} we outline several interesting mathematical and computational open problems related to their study and conclude. \section{Preliminaries} \label{sec:preliminaries} We generalize the previous definitions with negation instead of subtraction, an explicit concatenation operator, and adding parentheses. \begin{definition}[Crazy Sequential Representation] Given a number $n \in \mathbb{R}$, an increasing crazy sequential representation of $n$ in base $b$ is an equation using the sequence of numbers $\langle 1,2,\dots ,b-1 \rangle$ (decreasing being $\langle b-1, \dots , 2, 1 \rangle$) with the following operations allowed between any two of the numbers. Given two real numbers $x,y \in \mathbb{R}$ we define the following allowable operations: \begin{itemize} \item[$+$] Addition: $x + y$ resulting in the sum of the two numbers. \item[$-$] Negation: $-x$ is allowable as well as the negation of an expression $-(\dots)$. Addition with a negative is also equivalent to subtraction in this context, so subtraction is omitted from the list of operations. \item[$\times$] Multiplication: $x \times y$ resulting in their product. \item[$/$] Division: $x/y$ giving the fraction. \item[$a^b$] Exponentiation: $x^y$ meaning $x$ to the $y^{th}$ power. \item[$xy$] Concatenation: $xy$ meaning the number $xy$ in the given base (e.g., $12_3=5_{10}$ ). There are many standard symbols used for this operation. We will use $\oplus$ when we need to explicitly show it, otherwise it will be omitted when clear by context- generally $xy$ will be preferred instead of $x\oplus y$. \item[$()$] Grouping: arbitrary parentheses are allowed with derivations following the standard rule that expressions inside parentheses are evaluated first. \end{itemize} \end{definition} One goal of Taneja's work is to minimize the number of operations used for a given representation. Thus, the original work \cite{Taneja:2013:1302.1479v1} focused on numbers derivable from simply concatenation, addition, multiplication and exponentiation. Later work to add missing numbers included division and subtraction \cite{Taneja:2013:1302.1479v3,Taneja:2013:1302.1479v2,Taneja:2013:1302.1479v4,Taneja:2013:1302.1479v5}. We have also opted to generally prefer those original operations in the expression chosen when multiple expressions exists for a given number, as well as simplicity and elegance. \para{Explicit Concatenation} An issue with the way Taneja uses concatenation is that it is only allowed before evaluating the expression. This means $12$ is allowed as twelve (or $1\oplus 2$), but $(1 + 2) \oplus 3$ is not allowed to be evaluated as 33. This is the only defined operation not allowed during evaluation. If we allow it, several other numbers are possible, including 10958 in base 10. In the results, all expressions using this deviant version are colored red and use the $\oplus$ symbol explicitly. Our approach did not consider these solutions either, and thus there may be solutions of this form to some of the values listed without a solution. \subsection{Combinatorics} In calculating an upper bound we are looking at the maximum amount of different numbers that could be represented in that base. The number of parse trees that can be generated with binary operators tells us the number of ways to distribute the operations. If we, for the moment, only consider a single operation, this is the well-known Catalan numbers. Another view more relevant is the number of ways to insert $n-1$ pairs of parentheses in a word of $n$ letters. e.g., for $n=3$ ($t(2)$) there are 2 ways: $((ab)c)$ or $(a(bc))$ \cite{Guy:1973:AMM}. The Catalan numbers can be recursively derived by the following equation with $t(0)=1$ and $t(1)=1$. \begin{equation} t(n) = \sum_{i=1}^n t(i-1)t(n-i) \end{equation} Thus, for the bases considered here, we have $t:(2, 3,\dots ,9) \implies (2, 5$, $14, 42$, $132$, $429$, $1430,$ $4862)$. This gives the number of ways to group the operands (sequential numbers), and then we must consider the number of operators allowed. We allow five distinct operations as defined above: addition, multiplication, division, exponentiation, and concatenation (subtraction will be handled later). This gives $5^{n-1}$ ways to place the operations on $n$ operands. For base $b$, we therefore have $5^{b-2}$ since we exclude 0 in the representation and only use $1, \dots, (b-1)$. The last issue to deal with is negation. If we only allow subtraction, then the number of operations is $6^{n-1}$, however, we also allow negation. Thus, expressions such as $-(-4+5)$ are also allowed. Thus, for each of the parentheses or numbers, we could negate it, which adds all possible combinations of negations over the parentheses and numbers. This means we can also reduce our operations to only 5 (since we will look at adding the negated number instead). Thus, we have the power set of $n$ possible ways to add negatives to the numbers for $n$ operands, and the power set of $\{1,2,\dots,n-1\}$ for possible ways to add negatives to the parentheses (for $n$ numbers, we need at most $n-1$ parenthesis for binary operations). Since for base $b$, we have $n=b-1$, when we include all possibilities, there is an upper bound for the combinations for $n$ numbers given base $b$. \begin{align} C(n) &= 5^{n-1} \times t(n) \times 2^{n} \times 2^{n-1} \\ &=5^{n-1} \times t(n) \times 2^{2n-1}, \mbox{ or in terms of } b\\ C(b) &= 5^{b-2} \times t(b-1) \times 2^{2b-3}. \end{align} The values for bases $3-10$ are shown in Table \ref{tab:basecomb}. Note that the vast majority of these combinations do not yield integers, however, the numbers are small enough to output all possible numbers and then check the integral ones. Many of these results are duplicates with only parenthetical differences, but the number of combinations is still well within computational power to brute force every possibility even if many are duplicates. For larger bases, an examination of the unique parse trees would reduce many of the duplicates caused by analyzing strings. \begin{table}[t] \centering \footnotesize \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.4} \begin{tabular}{\|r\| c \| c \|c \|c \|} \hline \textbf{Base $b$} & \textbf{3} & \textbf{4} & \textbf{5} & \textbf{6} \\ \hline \textbf{Combinations $C(b)$} & 80 & 4000 & $2.24 \times 10^5$ & $1.344 \times 10^7$ \\ \hline \multicolumn{5}{r}{ } \\ \hline \textbf{Base $b$} & \textbf{7} & \textbf{8} & \textbf{9} & \textbf{10} \\ \hline \textbf{Combinations} $C(b)$ & $8.448 \times 10^{8}$ & $5.4912 \times 10^{10}$ & $3.6608 \times 10^{12}$ & $2.489344 \times 10^{14}$ \\ \hline \end{tabular} \caption{The upper bound on the number of combinations for crazy sequential representations for a given base, which is the maximum amount of possible numbers that could be represented.} \label{tab:basecomb} \end{table} \section{Algorithms} \label{sec:algorithms} At a high-level, in order to find all the numbers possible for a given base, an algorithm such as Algorithm \ref{alg:finddp} can be run. List the numbers from 1 to $b-1$ (or $b-1$ down to 1), and then check for all valid expressions with the given operations. This includes both the removal of any operation (concatenation) and the possibility of precedence in operations (parentheses). There are several notes of interest related to actual implementation. These include finding all binary partitions (and how this changes with concatenation), negation of terms, evaluation in the given base, and processing such large amounts of data. We cover these in the analysis of Algorithm \ref{alg:finddp}, which is a dynamic programming solution to the problem. By utilizing a dictionary of substrings, we can exponentially reduce the number of computations necessary. \begin{algorithm}[t] \footnotesize \begin{algorithmic}[1] \Function {FindExpressions}{$base, low, high \in \mathbb{Z}^+$ \If{low $\neq$ high} \State $T = \{\}$ \State numstr $\leftarrow$ CASTSTR($low$) $\oplus \dots \oplus$ CASTSTR($high$) \State catnum $\leftarrow$ CASTNUM(numstr) \State $T \leftarrow T \cup (catnum, numstr) \cup (-catnum, $``$ - $''$\oplus numstr)$ \ForAll{$low \leq k \leq high$ } \State $L \leftarrow$ FindEpressions(base, low, k) \State $R \leftarrow$ FindEpressions(base, k+1, high) \State $\triangleright$ All ways to combine the left and right expressions \ForAll{$x \in LS$} \ForAll{$y \in RS$} \State $T \leftarrow T \cup (x+y, $`$($'$\oplus$ $L_x$ $\oplus $`$+$'$ \oplus$ $R_y$ $\oplus$`$)$'$)$ \State $T \leftarrow T \cup (x\times y, $`$($'$\oplus$ $L_x$ $\oplus $`$\times$'$ \oplus$ $R_y$ $\oplus$`$)$'$)$ \State $T \leftarrow T \cup (x/y, $`$($'$\oplus$ $L_x$ $\oplus $`$/$' $\oplus$ $R_y$ $\oplus$`$)$'$)$\Comment{if $y \neq 0$} \State $T \leftarrow T \cup (x^y, $`$($'$\oplus L_x \oplus $`\^\ '$ \oplus R_y \oplus$`$)$'$)$ \EndFor \EndFor \EndFor \Return $T$ \EndIf \EndFunction \\ $F = $FindEpressions(10, 1, 9) \end{algorithmic} \caption{A recursive algorithm looking at the possible combinations using dynamic programming that builds a dictionary or lookup table of all expressible numbers.} \label{alg:finddp} \end{algorithm} \para{Finding Possible Parentheses} The possible ways parentheses can be nested for $n$ items is a classic problem in Computer Science with the proof published by Guy and Selfridge in 1973 \cite{Guy:1973:AMM}. An example of a Python algorithm to generate these is here \cite[btilly]{web:para}. \para{Finding Negations} Given all possible nested parentheses, for each we need to find all possible negations of the numbers and the individual expressions. With negation instead of subtraction, the following are all different: $(((-1+\dots$, $-(((1+\dots$, $(-((1+\dots$, and $((-(1\dots$. \para{Coding with Bases} Another small implementation detail is the need to deal with switching between multiple bases, which python has a method within casting to do so 234 in base 7 would be float(int(237,7)). \section{Too Small Bases} \label{sec:toosmall} This is a quick overview of bases that are really too small to offer the necessary flexibility to count very high. Namely, 2, 3, and 4. Five could be in this category, but there is a massive jump between 4 and 5, so we will put it with the larger bases. \para{Base 2} For base 2, since we do not use $0$, only operations on the single digit $1$ can be performed, meaning $1$ and $-1$ are the only numbers expressible in a sequential representation. Thus, we can ignore it. \para{Base 3} In base 3, we now have 2 digits at our disposal, which allows our operations to have valid operands, however, there are not many combinations and many operations lead to the same answer. Table \ref{tab:b3} lists these values. \begin{table}[H] \centering \tiny \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.4} \begin{tabular}{L L} \textbf{\textrm{Increasing}} & \textbf{\textrm{Decreasing}}\\ 0_{10} = 0_{3}=~ & 0_{10}= 0_{3}= ~\\ 1_{10} = 1_{3}=1^2 & 1_{10}= 1_{3}= 2-1\\ 2_{10}= 2_{3}= -1+2 \mbox{ or } 1\times 2 & 2_{10}= 2_{3}= 2\times 1 \mbox{ or } 2^1\\ 3_{10}= 10_{3}= 1+2 & 3_{10}= 10_{3}= 2+1\\ 5_{10}= 12_{3}= 12 & 7_{10}= 21_{3}=21\\ \end{tabular} \caption{List of most of the possible base 3 numbers in increasing and decreasing sequential order.} \label{tab:b3} \end{table} \para{Base 4} Base 4 is the smallest base where anything interesting happens and we can list a significant portion of integers with the largest number being $19683_{10}$ since in base 4 it is $3^{21}_{4}$. Table \ref{tab:b4} lists the first 20 values and then a few of interest. \begin{table}[H] \centering \tiny \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.4} \begin{multicols}{2} \begin{tabular}{L L} \textbf{\textrm{Increasing}} & \textbf{\textrm{Decreasing}}\\ 0_{10}=0_{4}= 1+2-3 & 0_{10}=0_{4}=3-2-1 \\ 1_{10}=1_{4}= 1^{2+3} & 1_{10}=1_{4}= 3-2\times 1\\ 2_{10}=2_{4}= 1-2+3 & 2_{10}=2_{4}= 3-2+1\\ 3_{10}=3_{4}= 12-3 & 3_{10}=3_{4}= 3\times (2-1)\\ 4_{10}=10_{4}= 1^2 +3& 4_{10}=10_{4}= 3+2-1\\ 5_{10}=11_{4}= -1+2\times 3 & 5_{10}=11_{4}= 3+2\times 1\\ 6_{10}=12_{4}= 1+2+3& 6_{10}=12_{4}= 3+2+1 \\ 7_{10}=13_{4}= 1+2\times 3& 7_{10}=13_{4}= 3\times 2+1 \\ 8_{10}=20_{4}= (1\times 2)^3& 8_{10}=20_{4}= 3^2-1 \\ 9_{10}=21_{4}= 12+3& 9_{10}=21_{4}= 3\times (2+1) \\ \end{tabular} \begin{tabular}{L L} \textbf{\textrm{Increasing}} & \textbf{\textrm{Decreasing}}\\ 10_{10}=22_{4}= -1+23& 10_{10}=22_{4}= 3^2+1\\ 11_{10}=23_{4}= 1\times 23& 11_{10}=23_{4}=~ \\ 12_{10}=30_{4}= 1+23& 12_{10}=30_{4}=3+21 \\ 13_{10}=31_{4}= ~& 13_{10}=31_{4}=32-1 \\ 14_{10}=32_{4}= ~& 14_{10}=32_{4}=32\times 1 \\ 15_{10}=33_{4}= \color{red}{(1+2)\oplus 3}& 15_{10}=33_{4}=32+1 \\ 16_{10}=100_{4}= ~& 16_{10}=100_{4}=~ \\ 17_{10}=101_{4}= ~& 17_{10}=101_{4}= ~\\ 18_{10}=102_{4}= 12\times 3& 18_{10}=102_{4}= ~\\ 27_{10}=123_{4}= 123& 27_{10}=123_{4}= 3\times 21\\ 57_{10}=321_{4}= ~& 57_{10}=321_{4}= 321\\ \end{tabular} \end{multicols} \caption{List of most of the possible base 4 numbers in increasing and decreasing sequential order.} \label{tab:b4} \end{table} \section{Overview of 5-9}\label{sec:small} For organizational reasons, we overview things of interest about bases 5 through 9, and the actual listings of the expressions are omitted for space with only the first 40 numbers shown for $5-7$ and the first 20 shown for 8 and 9. All possible results were generated (negatives, decimals, etc.), and everything could be listed rather than giving just the organized list as presented. However, the sheer number of results makes it infeasible to do so. For instance, with base eight, there are over 45,000 integer results, with most of them not being consecutive. \input{base5} \para{Base 5} There are four numbers in the representation for base five, and thus there is enough variability to begin making a meaningful amount of different combinations and possible integers. Still, this may be considered a relatively small base since the first impossible integer is 27. We also filled in some of the gaps with explicit concatenation. Table \ref{tab:b5} shows a list of the positive integers $0-39$ with their representations. The missing ones are not possible. \para{Base 6} Each increase in base exponentially increases the number of possibilities and the first positive integers that can not be expressed are 67 (increasing) and 77 (decreasing), and 97 is the first one not representable by either. Table \ref{tab:b6} shows a list of the positive integers $0-39$ with their representations. \input{base6} \para{Base 7} Starting with base 7, the amount of numbers possible explodes, and thus, we will simply list the numbers without trying to fit them onto a single page. In fact, every number is expressible until 260. Curiously the first inexpressible decreasing integer is 262. Table \ref{tab:b7} shows a list of the positive integers $0-39$ with their representations. \input{base7} \vspace{-.5cm} \para{Base 8} Table \ref{tab:b8} shows a list of the positive integers $0-19$ with their representations. Due to the length of the expressions, there is not room for more numbers. Base eight does not have an inexpressible number until 614 for an increasing sequence, and 809 for a decreasing sequence. The first positive integer that can not be expressed by either is 1192. \input{base8} \vspace{.2cm} \para{Base 9} Similar to base eight, only representations for numbers $0-19$ are shown in Table \ref{tab:b9}. The first unrepresentable positive integers for increasing and decreasing sequential representations are 3293 and 4570, respectively. The integer 5414 is the smallest positive integer unrepresentable by either. \input{base9} \section{Base 10} \label{sec:b10} Taneja showed that crazy increasing sequential representations for base 10 numbers was possible for all numbers to 11111 with one exception \cite{Taneja:2013:1302.1479v5}. There is no known solution to 10958 with the numbers in increasing order. It is possible to get close, but not exact. We found two extremely close solutions. \begin{align} 10957.9775 &= -1+2^{(3^4)/5}/(6+7/8)+9 \\ 10958.0021 &= (1+((2-(-3^{-4})^{5/(6\times -7)})^{-8}))+9 \end{align} No closer solutions are possible. Running an exhaustive algorithm to look at all possible combinations yields no solution of 10958. Table \ref{tbl:10958} lists all values, and an expression yielding that value (there are many), that were found within the range $[10957.9, 10958.1]$. \begin{table}[t] \centering \footnotesize \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.3} \begin{tabular}{\| L \| L \|}\hline \textbf{Number} & \textbf{Expression} \\ \hline 10957.90411 & -1+((2- 3\times 4)^5)/(((6-7)/8)-9) \\ 10957.92857 & -1/2\times 3\times (4^5\times (6/7-8)+9) \\ 10957.93277 & (-1/(2+3)+(4^{5-((6-7)/8)}))\times 9 \\ 10957.97006 & -(1/2)+(34+((5^{-(6/7)+8})/9)) \\ 10957.97751 & -1+2^{3^4/5}/(6+7/8)+9 \\ 10958.00206 & ((1+((2-((-3^{-4})^{5/(6\times -7)}))^{-8}))+9) \\ 10958.06611 & -1-2/3+ 4^{5-(6-7)/8}\times 9 \\ 10958.09749 & (1+234)\times (5\times (6+((7/8)^{-9}))) \\ \hline \end{tabular} \caption{List of base 10 numbers and the expressions that are close to 10958. This shows numbers within $.1$ of the desired number, and are rounded to five decimal digits due to the precision limitations in the calculations.} \label{tbl:10958} \end{table} However, the original author uses concatenation without defining it as one of the allowable operators between operands as a step. Matt Parker found a solution if concatenation is allowed to occur as a step of the calculation, which is not done for any other number in the original paper. Let $\oplus$ be the concatenation operator. Thus, $234$ would be shown as $2\oplus 3\oplus 4$ in an equation. His solution is shown in \cite[Matt Parker]{numberphile1,numberphile2} and is: \begin{equation} 10958 = 1 \times 2\oplus 3 + ((4 \times 5 \times 6)\oplus 7 + 8) \times 9. \end{equation} There are many other solutions if adding a new operator is allowed, such as factorials. Some examples are \begin{align} 10958 &= (1-2+3)\times (456+7!-8-9),\text{\cite[Emmanuel Vantieghem]{primepuzzle}},\\ 10958 &=1+2+3!!+(-4+5!+6-7)\times 89, \text{\cite[Inder J. Taneja]{primepuzzle}}, \\ 10958 &=1\times 2\times (3!!-4!\times (5+6)+7!-8-9), \text{\cite[Inder J. Taneja]{primepuzzle}}, \mbox{ and}\\ 10958 &= -(1 + 2 - 3 + 4 - ((5! + 6) \times (78 + 9))), \text{\cite[Chris Smith]{primepuzzle}}, \end{align} and it is possible if using the number $10$ as shown by Taneja, $10958=12^3+(4^5+6+78+9)10$ \cite[Inder J. Taneja]{primepuzzle}. Our approach settles this definitively through brute force search without the use of concatenation as a later step or another operation allowed beyond the initial ones. Thus, 10958 is the smallest integer for which this is not possible. \begin{lemma} The integer 10958 is not expressible in base 10 increasing sequential representation (numbers $1-9$) with only the operations addition, multiplication, division, exponentiation, an initial concatenation of the numbers, arbitrary parentheses for operator precedence, and negation. \end{lemma} \begin{proof} The proof is the program and its output of all combinations possible and their evaluation. The source code is available, and can be viewed (albeit in shortened form) in Appendix \ref{app:source}. \end{proof} \section{Some More Fun}\label{sec:fun} Here we look at several interesting open problems or additional ways to explore this concept. \para{Fun Number Forms} Taneja gives a few in his paper for base 10, and we extend this with a few examples of numbers that are always expressible in a given base $b$. \begin{itemize} \small \setlength\itemsep{.1em} \item $0 = 1^{1\times 2 \times \dots \times (b-3)}+(b-2)-(b-1)$ \item $0 = 1^{ 2 \dots (b-3)}+(b-2)-(b-1)$ \item $1 = 1^{1\times 2 \times \dots \times (b-1)}$ \item $1 = 1^{12 \dots (b-1)}$ \item $b-1 = 1^{1\times 2 \times \dots \times (b-2)} \times (b-1)$ \item $b-1 = 1^{12\dots(b-2)}\times (b-1)$ \item $b = 1^{1\times 2 \times \dots \times (b-2)}+(b-1)$ \item $b = 1^{12\dots(b-2)}+(b-1)$ \end{itemize} If $b$ is odd, then $0 = (b-1)-(b-2)-(b-3)+(b-4)-\dots+4-3-2+1$, and similar if $b$ is even. \para{Taneja Primes} Based on his work related to these numbers, we define a Taneja prime to be any prime expressible in crazy sequential representation for a base $b$. Here, we investigate some interesting questions. \begin{itemize} \small \setlength\itemsep{.1em} \item What is the smallest prime not expressible in a given base? \item What is the largest prime expressible in a given base? \item What is the sequence of primes not expressible (or expressible) in a given base? \item What is the characteristic function for the expressible or non-expressible primes for a base? \item What is the sequence of integers (or primes) not expressible by either an increasing or decreasing representation. \item What is the smallest base a given prime (or integer) can be expressed in for increasing and decreasing? \end{itemize} Table \ref{tab:overview} lists the first prime not expressible in a given base for increasing and decreasing representations as well as the first prime not expressible by either. For an increasing representation, Table \ref{tab:sminc} is the smallest base a prime can be sequentially represented in as well as an expression giving the value. \begin{table}[t] \centering \begin{tabular}{\| c \| c \| c \| c \|} \hline \textbf{Base} & \textbf{Inc Prime} & \textbf{Dec prime} & \textbf{Both prime} \\ \hline 3 & 7 & 5 & 11\\ \hline 4 & 13& 11 & 17\\ \hline 5 & 27& 17 & 27\\ \hline 6 & 67& 83 & 97\\ \hline 7 & 281 & 379 & 499 \\ \hline 8 & 1153 & 809 & 1579 \\ \hline 9 & 4597 & 5417 & 7027 \\ \hline 10 & 15971 & 18493 & 25763\\ \hline \end{tabular} \caption{A brief overview of the first primes not expressible in a given base for increasing and decreasing representations as well as the first prime not expressible by either.} \label{tab:overview} \end{table} \begin{table}[t] \centering \scriptsize \begin{multicols}{2} \begin{tabular}{L c L} \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.1} \textbf{$B_{10}$} & \textbf{Base} & \textbf{Increasing} \\ 2_{10} & 3 & 1 \times 2 \\ 3_{10} & 3 & 1 + 2 \\ 5_{10} & 3 & 12 \\ 7_{10} & 4 & 1 + 2 \times 3 \\ 11_{10} & 4 & 1 + 23 \\ 13_{10} & 5 & -1 + 2 + 3 \times 4 \\ 17_{10} & 5 & 1 + 2 \\ 19_{10} & 5 & -1 + (2 + 3) \times 4 \\ 23_{10} & 5 & -1 + 2 \times 3 \times 4 \\ 29_{10} & 5 & \color{red}{(1\times 2 + 3)\oplus 4} \\ 31_{10} & 5 & -1+2^3 \times 4 \\ 37_{10} & 5 & -1+2\times 34 \\ 41_{10} & 6 & (1+2)\times 3\times 4+5 \\ 43_{10} & 6 & 12+(3+4)\times 5 \\ 47_{10} & 6 & 1+2\times (3+4\times 5) \\ 53_{10} & 5 & 1+23\times 4 \\ 59_{10} & 6 & 1-2+3\times 4\times 5 \\ 61_{10} & 6 & 12\times (3+4)+5 \\ 67_{10} & 6 & \color{red}{1 \oplus(2+3)\oplus (-4 + 5 )} \\ 71_{10} & 6 & 1+2\times (3+4)\times 5v \\ 73_{10} & 6 & 1+2^{3}\times (4+5) \\ \end{tabular} \begin{tabular}{L c L} \textbf{$B_{10}$} & \textbf{Base} & \textbf{Increasing} \\ 79_{10} & 5 & -1\times 2+3^4 \\ 83_{10} & 5 & 1\times 2+3^4 \\ 89_{10} & 6 & 1+2+3^4+5 \\ 97_{10} & 7 & 12\times 3\times 4-5-6 \\ 101_{10} & 6 & 12\times 3\times 4+5 \\ 103_{10} & 6 & (1+2)^3\times 4-5 \\ 107_{10} & 6 & -1-2+34\times 5 \\ 109_{10} & 6 & 1-2+34\times 5 \\ 113_{10} & 6 & 1+2+34\times 5 \\ 127_{10} & 5 & -1+2^{3+4} \\ 131_{10} & 7 & 12+3^4+56 \\ 137_{10} & 6 & 1^2\times 345 \\ 139_{10} & 6 & 1\times 2+345 \\ 149_{10} & 7 & 12\times 3\times 4+56 \\ 151_{10} & 6 & -1+2\times (3^4-5) \\ 157_{10} & 6 & 1\times 2\times 3^4-5 \\ 163_{10} & 5 & 1+2\times 3^4 \\ 167_{10} & 6 & 1\times 2\times 3^4+5 \\ 173_{10} & 6 & 1+2\times (3^4+5) \\ \end{tabular} \end{multicols} \caption{Smallest base a prime is sequentially representable in for an increasing representation.} \label{tab:sminc} \end{table} \para{Limited Operations} The flexibility gained in sequential representations as the base gets larger is evident, and will continue for larger bases. Each new number exponentially increases the number of combinations. Of interest would be to prove some estimates about the first number not expressible for a given base under certain operations such as just addition/subtraction, just addition/multiplication, just concatenation/exponentiation, etc. \begin{itemize} \small \setlength\itemsep{.1em} \item How many unique numbers, given the operations above, can a given base generate? \item How many integers, given the operations above, can a given base generate? \item How many ways, given the operations above, can a given number be uniquely represented sequentially (ignoring parenthetical differences)? \item For $n \ge 6$, is the first missing decreasing number always greater than the first missing increasing number? Is there a way to determine if increasing or decreasing will not express a number first? \item Does a sequential representation exist with a set of operations $O$ in base $b$? \item For a given number, what bases can represent it? \end{itemize} \para{Continuing Problems} All of the listed problems so far are also open to questions about the complexity. What is the complexity of finding the smallest base that a number $N$ can be sequentially represented in? To slightly extend the question, given an $N$, what bases can it be represented in? Further, given the computational domain, what is the solution to some of these questions if limited strictly to integer arithmetic? There are many more open questions related to this problem in recreational mathematics. Such as noting that we, along with the original authors, focused solely on positive integers. All of these questions are open for rational, real, or other sets of numbers. \section*{Acknowledgements} The author would like to thank those that have already given feedback on the paper, which helped improve the quality substantially. Most notably the dynamic programming improvements. The original version was optimized for limited memory systems, but took significantly longer.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv" }	6,914
\section{Introduction} Discretization of latent representations via vector quantization is a method for improving the robustness and generalization of learned models \cite{oord2017neural,liu2021discrete}. Replacing a continuous representation with a discrete representation, and limiting the capacity of the discrete representation, both improve generalization guarantees \cite{liu2021discrete}. Discretization imposes a bottleneck \cite{tishby2000information} as the representation can take fewer values, and reducing capacity of the discrete representation tightens this bottleneck. Discretization can be used to bottleneck communication in modular inference models, for example in multi-agent reinforcement learning. Modular inference combines outputs across modules into new module inputs while restricting the number of modules that communicate \cite{goyal2019recurrent}. To make up for the loss in expressivity from being restricted to few communicative modules in each timestep, the model is forced to learn to perform inference in steps of specialized skill as opposed to applying all skills at once, which specializes the modules by definition since few are active in each step \cite{darwen1996automatic,goyal2019recurrent,bengio2017consciousness,lamb2021transformers}. The communication bottleneck is tightened by switching from continuous to discrete representations \cite{liu2021discrete}. Beyond improvements in generalization error from decreasing capacity, it has been hypothesized that the inductive bias of bottlenecked communication between modules improves generalization by 1) reflecting the true causal structure of data generated by sparse interactions between few variables, 2) increasing robustness when modules are recombined in novel ways, compared to unspecialized modules with all-to-all communication, 3) improving sample efficiency since specialized modules require fewer training points to learn \cite{goyal2019recurrent,bengio2017consciousness}. However, discrete bottleneck methods typically lack adaptability. This work improves on the vector quantization method of \citet{liu2021discrete} by making tightness of the bottleneck dynamic. Instead of a single discretization function that maps all inputs to a discrete space with fixed size, we use a pool of discretization functions with varying levels of output capacity, and choose the function applied for a given input using key-query attention between representations of the input and discretization functions. The hypothesis is that this improves generalization because the optimal level of discretization suggested by the bounds, which is the tightest bottleneck such that training error can still be minimized \cite{liu2021discrete}, is unlikely to be the same for all regions of a data distribution. The shortest description that captures adequate information in inputs for performing well on a task generally varies with the input, for example images contain different numbers of objects, and gameplay involves goals of varying complexity. In terms of generalization error, using a single discretization capacity is potentially wasteful for simpler inputs, because the generalization gap can be reduced by selectively imposing a tighter representation bottleneck on the former without increasing training error. To minimize the model selecting looser bottlenecks than necessary, we use an objective function that penalizes the choice of bottleneck proportional to its capacity. In summary, the contributions of our work are as follows: \begin{itemize} \item We propose a dynamic vector quantization method (DVQ) that adaptively chooses the number of discrete codes and the codebook size that control tightness of the bottleneck. \item Our theoretical analysis shows that dynamic adjustment of the bottleneck improves generalization error under the sufficient condition of tighter average bottleneck and equal training loss. \item We empirically show improvement in performance by using DVQ to discretize inter-component communication within a deep learning model and inter-agent communication between agents, compared to using VQ with fixed bottleneck capacity. \end{itemize} \section{Method} \subsection{Communication discretization} The process of converting data with continuous attributes into data with discrete attributes is called discretization \citep{chmielewski1996global}. In this study, we use discrete latent variables to quantize information communicated among different modules in a similar manner to codebooks \citep{liu2021discrete}, which is a general version of vector quantization (VQ-VAE, \citet{oord2017neural}) where the hidden representation is a list of discretized codes instead of a single discretized code. The discretization process for each vector $h \in \Hcal\subset \RR^{m}$ is described as follows. First, vector $h$ is divided into $G$ segments $s_1,s_2,\dots,s_G$ with $h=\textsc{concatenate}(s_1,s_2,\dots,s_G),$ where each segment $s_i \in \RR^{m/G}$ with $\frac{m}{G} \in \NN^+$. Second, each continuous segment $s_i$ is discretized separately by being mapped to a discrete latent space vector $e \in \RR^{L \times (m/G)}$ where $L$ is the size of the discrete latent space (i.e., an $L$-way categorical variable): $$ e_{o_i}=\textsc{discretize}(s_i), \quad \text{ where } o_i=\argmin_{j \in \{1,\dots,L\}} \|\|s_{i}-e_j\|\|. $$ These discretized codes, which we call the factors of continuous representation $h$, are concatenated to obtain the final discretized vector $z$ as \begin{equation} \begin{aligned} z=\textsc{concatenate}(\textsc{discretize}(s_1),\\ \textsc{discretize}(s_2),...,\textsc{discretize}(s_G)). \end{aligned} \end{equation} The multiple steps described above can be summarized by $z=q(h,L,G)$, where $q(\cdot)$ is the whole discretization process using the codebook, $L$ is the codebook size, and $G$\ is number of segments or factors per vector. The loss for model training is $\mathcal{L} = \mathcal{L}_\mathrm{task} + \mathcal{L}_{discretization}$ where \begin{equation} \label{equation2} \begin{aligned} \mathcal{L}_{discretization} = \frac{1}{G} \bigg(\sum^{G}_{i}\|\|\sg(s_{i})-e_{o_i}\|\|^2_2 \\ + \beta \sum^{G}_{i}\|\|s_{i}-\sg(e_{o_i})\|\|^2_2 \bigg). \end{aligned} \end{equation} $\mathcal{L}_\mathrm{task}$ is the loss for the specific task, \textit{e.g.}, cross entropy loss for classification or mean square error loss for regression, $\sg$ refers to a stop-gradient operation that blocks gradients from flowing into its argument, and $\beta$ is a hyperparameter which controls the reluctance to change the code. The term $\sum^{G}_{i}\|\|\sg(s_{i})-e_{o_i}\|\|^2_2$ is the codebook loss, which only applies to the discrete latent vector and brings the selected $e_{o_i}$ close to the output segment $s_i$. The term $\sum^{G}_{i}\|\|s_{i}-\sg(e_{o_i})\|\|^2_2$ is the commitment loss, which only applies to the target segment $s_i$ and trains the module that outputs $s_i$ to make $s_i$ stay close to the chosen discrete latent vector $e_{o_i}$. Following the original codebooks and VQ-VAE papers, we found 0.25 to be a good value for $\beta$, and $e$ was initialized using $k$-means clustering on vectors $h$ with $k=L$. \subsection{Dynamic bottlenecks} Instead of a single codebook and discretization bottleneck, we use multiple bottlenecks where the tightness of each bottleneck is defined by the number of factors and codebook size. A pool of $N$ discretization functions $Q={\{q_t\}_{t \in [N]}}$ is made available to all representations being discretized, where the number of factors and codebook size for each discretization function are given by $G_t$ and $L_t$ respectively. The discretization functions in the pool do not share parameters nor codebooks with each other. Each of the discretization functions is associated with a signature key vector $k_t \in \RR^{l}$ which is randomly initialized and learned in the training process. Key-value attention is conducted between $k_t$ and query $f(h) \in \RR^{l}$ where $h$ is the continuous representation being discretized and $f$ is a single layer neural network projector. Gumbel-softmax \citep{jang2016categorical} is applied on the attention scores to make a one-hot selection of which $q_t$ to use, with categorical distribution $\pi^h$ over discretization functions for $h$ given by \begin{align} \pi^h(t) = \frac{\operatorname{exp}(k_t^\intercal f(h)) }{\sum_{j \in [N]} \operatorname{exp}( k_j^\intercal f(h))}. \end{align} \begin{figure}[b] \centering \subfigure[Fixed bottleneck with a single discretization function \citep{liu2021discrete}.]{ \raisebox{7em}{\includegraphics[width=0.25\linewidth]{figures/orig_codebooks.png}} }\hfill \subfigure[Dynamic bottleneck with flat attention over discretization functions.]{ \includegraphics[width=0.31\linewidth]{figures/flat_dyn_codebooks.png} }\hfill \subfigure[Dynamic bottleneck with hierarchical attention over discretization functions.]{ \raisebox{3em}{\includegraphics[width=0.31\linewidth]{figures/hierarchy_dyn_codebooks.png}} } \caption{Dynamic discrete bottlenecks can be implemented as a flat function of continuous input $h$ (center), or as an iterative function that produces progressively coarser outputs (right). Bottleneck functions $q_t$ for $t \in [N]$, have different capacity and separate parameters. One bottleneck is selected for each input using key-value attention between representations of the input and discretization functions, $f(h)$ and $k_t$ respectively.} \label{fig:DynamicBottleneckingBoth} \end{figure} \subsection{Bottleneck tightness} In order to learn a communication bottleneck with as few bits as necessary for minimizing training error, we introduce pressure to choose $q_t$ with low $G_t$ and $L_t$. This pressure is implemented with capacity penalty $\mathcal{C}_{bottlenecking}$: \begin{align} &\mathcal{C}_{bottlenecking} = G_t \ln(L_t) \\ \mathcal{L} = \mathcal{L}_{task} &+ \alpha \mathcal{L}_{discretization} +\beta \mathcal{C}_{bottlenecking} \end{align} where $\mathcal{L}$ is the overall loss for the representation being discretized, $\mathcal{L}_{task}$ is the task loss, $\mathcal{L}_{discretization}$ is the sum of commitment and codebook losses from the discretization process and $\mathcal{C}_{bottlenecking}$ is the bottlenecking cost. $\alpha$ and $\beta$ are hyperparameters that are chosen using a validation set. In our experiments, we found that including a continuous-valued function in the pool, corresponding to expressivity in the limit of codebook size $L_t \rightarrow \infty$, improved performance in some tasks. In this case $L_t$ was set to be a large number ($10^9$) in the penalty term $\mathcal{C}_{bottlenecking}$. \subsection{Architectural choices} Given continuous representation $h$, the bottleneck can be enforced in either a flat or hierarchical manner (\cref{fig:DynamicBottleneckingBoth}). In the flat case, the bottlenecked representation is the output of a single $q_t \in Q$ selected with key-value attention. In the hierarchical case, all functions $\{q_t\}_{t \in [N]}$ are utilized by first ordering them in order of descending $G_t$, and setting the input segments of each function to be concatenated factors produced by the previous function, with $h$ as input into the first function. Then output of a single $q_t \in Q$ is selected with key-value attention. \section{Theoretical analysis} In this section, we show that the adaptive discretization process has a potential advantage in improving the performance of the final model by better trading off the balance between the generalization and expressivity adaptively for each input. Moreover, our analysis predicts that the additional regularization, $C_{bottlenecking}$, in our algorithm plays an important role for this tradeoff, and that the number of adaptive bottlenecks $N$ cannot be arbitrarily large. To achieve this goal, we follow the abstract framework of \citet{liu2021discrete}. That is, let $\phi$ be an arbitrary function, which can refer to the composition of an evaluation criterion and the rest of the network following (adaptive) discretization bottlenecks. Given any function $\phi: \RR^{m} \rightarrow \RR$ and any family of sets $S=\{S_1,\dots,S_K\}$ with $S_1,\dots,S_K \subseteq \Hcal$, let us define the corresponding function $\phi_{k}^S$ by $\phi_{k}^S(h)=\one\{h \in S_k\}\phi(h)$ for all $k \in [K]$, where $[K]=\{1,2,\dots,K\}$. Let $e^{(t)} \in \RR^{L_t \times (m/G_t)}$ be fixed and we denote by $(Q_{k_{t}}^{(t)})_{k_{t} \in [L_{t}^{G_t}]}$ all the possible values after the discretization process for $t$-th adaptive bottleneck: i.e., $q(h,L_{t},G_{t})\in \cup_{k _{t}\in [L_{t}^{G_t}]} \{Q_{k_t}^{(t)}\}$ for all $h \in \Hcal$. We define $k_{\max}= \max_{t \in [N]} L_{t}^{G_t}$ and $Q_{k_t}^{(t)}=\emptyset$ for all $k_t > L_{t}^{G_t}$. Under this abstract setting with $t=N=1$, the previous paper \citep{liu2021discrete} proved their main theoretical result, showing that the models with non-adaptive discretization process have advantages over the continuous models without it (we present a slightly tighter version of the previous paper's results in Appendix \ref{app:proof}). Thus, in this section, we focus on the comparison of adaptive and non-adaptive discretization processes. To analyze the adaptive discretization process, we introduce the additional notation: let $q_t(h)$ be the discretization process with a particular bottleneck $t \in [N]$, and $q(h)$ be the whole discretization process as $q(h) = q_{\hat t(h)} (h)$ where $\hat t(h)$ is the result of the key-value attention. Define $I_{t}=\{i\in[n]: \hat t(h_{i})=t\}$, which is the set of the indices of training samples that end up using the $t$-th adaptive bottleneck. The following theorem extends the main theorem from \citet{liu2021discrete} to the setting of adaptive bottlenecking and shows the advantage of the adaptive version over the non-adaptive version: \begin{restatable}{theorem}{thma} \label{thm:1} Let $N \in \NN_+$ and $S_{k}=\{Q_{k}^{(t)}\}_{t=1}^N$ for all $k \in [k_{\max}]$. Then, for any $\delta>0$, with probability at least $1-\delta$ over an iid draw of $n$ examples $(h_{i})_{i=1}^n$, the following holds for any $\phi: \RR^{m} \rightarrow \RR_{+}$ and $k \in [k_{\max}]$: \begin{align} \label{eq:thm:1:1} \EE_{h}[\phi_{k}^S(q(h))] &\le\frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^n\phi_{k}^S(q(h_{i}))+\alpha (\mathcal{J}_{1} +\mathcal{J}_{2}), \end{align} where $\alpha =\sup_{h \in \Hcal} \phi_k^S(h)$, \begin{align} &\mathcal{J}_{1} =\sum_{t=1}^N \frac{\|I_{t}\|}{n} \sqrt{\frac{G_{t}\ln(L_{t})+\ln(N/\delta)}{2n}}, \text{ and } \\ & \mathcal{J}_{2}=\one\{N\ge 2\}\sqrt{\frac{2N \ln2 + 2 \ln(1/\delta)}{n}}. \end{align} \end{restatable} \begin{proof} The proof is presented in Appendix \ref{app:proof}. \end{proof} Theorem \ref{thm:1} recovers the previous result of \citep{liu2021discrete} when we set $N=1$ as desired. That is, by setting $N=1$, the inequality \eqref{eq:thm:1:1} in Theorem \ref{thm:1} becomes \begin{align} \EE_{h}[\phi_{k}^S(q(h))] &\le\frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^n\phi_{k}^S(q_{1}(h_{i})) \\ \nonumber & \quad + \alpha \sqrt{\frac{G_{1}\ln(L_{1})+\ln(1/\delta)}{2n}}, \end{align} which is the previous bound in Theorem 1 of \citet{liu2021discrete}. Thus, we successfully generalized the previous analysis framework to cover both the adaptive and non-adaptive versions in an unified manner. Theorem \ref{thm:1} shows that there are two ways that the adaptive version can improve the non-adaptive version; i.e., the potential improvement happens when $\sum_{t=1}^N \frac{\|I_{t}\|}{n}\sqrt{G_{t} \ln (L_t)} < \sqrt{G_{1} \ln(L_1)}$ or $\frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^n\phi_{k}^S(q(h_{i})) <\frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^n\phi_{k}^S(q_{1}(h_{i}))$. The first criterion is met when the weighted average of the adaptive bottleneck sizes $G_{t} \ln (L_t)$ is smaller than the pre-fixed bottleneck size $G \ln(L)=G_{1} \ln(L_1)$. This is indeed encouraged by the additional regularization, $C_{bottlenecking}$, in our algorithm. The second criterion is satisfied when the training loss with adaptive bottlenecks is less than that with a fixed bottleneck. Theorem \ref{thm:1} provides the insight that the benefit of the adaptive bottlenecks lies in the tradeoff between the expressivity (to minimize the training loss $\frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^n\phi_{k}^S(q(h_{i}))$) and generalization (to minimize the term $\sum_{t=1}^N \frac{\|I_{t}\|}{n}\sqrt{G_{t} \ln (L_t)}$). For a fixed bottleneck, the training loss tends to decrease as $G_{1}$ increases because increasing $G_{1}$ improves the expressivity and trainability. However, increasing $G_{1}$ results in a worse bound on the generalization gap as the gap scales as $\sqrt{G_{1}/n}$ in Theorem 1. Thus, we have a tradeoff between the expressivity and generalization. For the adaptive bottlenecks, different values of $G_{t}$ are used for different samples. As a result, the adaptive bottlenecks can have a better tradeoff between expressivity and generalization by only using the necessary expressivity or bottleneck $G_t$ (and $L_t$) for each sample to reduce $\sum_{t=1}^N \frac{\|I_{t}\|}{n}\sqrt{G_{t} \ln (L_t)}$ while minimizing the training loss $\frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^n\phi_{k}^S(q(h_{i}))$. For example, consider a scenario with a subset of training samples that require $G$ and $L$ to be extremely large to minimize the training loss for the subset. If we use a pre-fixed bottleneck, we need to make $G_{1}\ln(L_1)$ to be extremely large to minimize all training samples. This results in a bad generalization term $\sqrt{G_{1} \ln (L_{1})/n}$ in Theorem 1. On the other hand, if we use the adaptive bottleneck, we can minimize the training loss for all samples by using a large $G_{t} \ln (L_t)$ only for the subset while using small values of $G_{t} \ln (L_t)$ for other samples. In terms of these two criteria for the tradeoff, the adaptive version seems to be always better as we increase $N$. However, this better tradeoff comes with a cost. In Theorem \ref{thm:1}, the cost is captured by the additional term $\sqrt{\frac{2N \ln2 + 2 \ln(1/\delta)}{n}}$, which increases as $N$ increases. Thus, while the adaptive version is better in the sense of the tradeoff of the two criteria, it comes with the additional cost of $\sqrt{N/n}$ term. This predicts that $N$ cannot be arbitrarily large. \section{Related Work} \paragraph{Vector Quantization.} VQ is motivated by the fundamental result of Shannon's rate-distortion theory \citep{VQ_signal_compression,element_info}: better performance can always be achieved by coding vectors instead of scalars, even if the sequence of source symbols are independent random variables. K-means \cite{macqueen1967some} is the prime method for VQ. The K-means algorithm clusters data by trying to separate the samples into $n$ groups of equal variance, this by minimizing the intra-class inertia. Despite the performance of this algorithm, K-means based VQ has an exponential complexity in encoding (computation and memory) and decoding (memory) \cite{Tan2018DeepVQAD}. Various improvements to K-means have been proposed to address complexity issues (e.g., product quantization) \cite{6678503}, but their performance is suboptimal compared to some deep neural network (DNN) based approaches \cite{Tan2018DeepVQAD}, where the idea is to map input data from the original high dimensional space to the DNN latent space with lower dimensionality, and apply K-means to the latent codes. Because K-means in the latent space is sub-optimal for VQ, \citet{Tan2018DeepVQAD} proposed DeepVQ, a fully-DNN architecture for vector quantization, in the context of data compression. DeepVQ is an autoencoder that overcomes the complexity issue by directly mapping to the binary index of the codeword. Recent works \cite{rolfe2017discrete, maddison2017concrete} proposed novel reparameterization methods to handle the non-gradient issue for discrete random variables in VAE. VQ-VAE \cite{oord2017neural} avoids such problem by using the identity function, namely copying gradients from the decoder input to encoder output \cite{bengio2013estimating}. \paragraph{Bottlenecking inter-module communication within a model.} Many methods have been used in recent years to enable efficient communication between specialized components of machine learning models, from attention mechanisms for selectively communicating information between specialized components in machine learning models \cite{goyal2019recurrent,goyal2021coordination,goyal2021neural} and transformers \cite{vaswani2017attention,lamb2021transformers}; collective memory and shared parameters for multi-agent communication \cite{Garland1996MultiagentLT,Pesce2020}, node attributes in graph-based models \cite{10.5555/1795555,battaglia2018relational} for relational reasoning, dynamical systems simulation, multi-agent systems, and in many other areas. While most of inter-specialist communication mechanisms operates in a pairwise symmetric manner, \citet{goyal2021coordination} introduced a bandwidth limited communication channel to allow information from a limited number of modules to be broadcast globally to all modules, inspired by Global workspace theory \cite{Baars2019}. Recently, \citet{liu2021discrete} showed that replacing a continuous representation with a discrete representation, and limiting the discrete representation to a short list of codes from a small codebook, both improve generalization guarantees. Following VQ-VAE \cite{oord2017neural}, \citet{liu2021discrete} proposed discrete-valued neural communication (DVNC) to improve systematic generalization in a variety of architectures, including transformers \cite{vaswani2017attention,lamb2021transformers}, RIMs \cite{goyal2020recurrent} , and graph neural networks \cite{kipf2020contrastive}. \paragraph{Bottlenecking inter-agent communication in multi-agent RL.} A wide range of multi-agent applications have benefitted from inter-agent message passing including distributed smart grid control \cite{4840087}, consensus in networks \cite{5978201}, multi-robot control \cite{ren2008}, autonomous vehicle driving \cite{Petrillo2018}, elevators control \cite{10.1023/A:1007518724497} and for language learning in two-agent systems \cite{lazaridou2017multiagent}. An important challenge in MARL is how to facilitate communication among interacting agents, especially in tasks requiring synchronization \cite{SCARDOVI20092557, wen2012}. For example, in the multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradient \cite{lowe2020multiagent}, which extends the actor-critic algorithm \cite{degris2013offpolicy}; the input size of each critic increases linearly with the number of agents, which hinders its scalability \cite{jiang2018learning}. To overcome this, \citet{Pesce2020} provides the agents with a shared communication device that can be used to learn from their collective private observations and share relevant messages with others in the centralised learning and decentralised execution paradigm \cite{foerster2016learning, KRAEMER201682, 10.5555/1622673.1622680}. However, their approach is limited to small-scale systems. \citet{iqbal2019actorattentioncritic} proposed Multi-Actor-Attention-Critic to learn decentralised policies with centralised critics, which selects relevant information for each agent at every time-step through an attention mechanism. Many other communication mechanisms have been proposed, such as CommNet \cite{sukhbaatar2016learning}, IC3NEt \cite{singh2018learning}, BiCNet \cite{peng2017multiagent}, attention \cite{jiang2018learning} and soft-attention \cite{das2020tarmac} based, master-slave architecture \cite{kong2017revisiting}, Feudal Multiagent Hierarchies \cite{ahilan2019feudal}, Bayesian Action Decoder \cite{foerster2019bayesian}. \section{Experiments} In our experiments we test the hypothesis that imposing a dynamic bottleneck on communication facilitates modularization and improved generalization compared to a fixed bottleneck. We test our method in two settings, 1) inter-component communication among different components in the same model and 2) inter-agent communication in cooperative multi-agent reinforcment learning (MARL). \subsection{Experimental setup} \paragraph{Discretize inter-module communication within a model.} We explore the effects of using DVQ to bottleneck inter-module communication for visual reasoning tasks. The tasks are to predict object movement in a grid world (referred to as \textbf{``Shapes''}) and 7 different Atari game environments. In all of the environments, changes in each image frame depend on the previous image frame and the actions applied to different objects. Objects are captured by a convolutional neural network and are passed to a Graph neural network (GNN). Positions of objects are captured by nodes in the GNN and the relative positions among different objects are communicated through the network a discrete manner \citep{kipf2020contrastive}. In this work we apply either DVQ or VQ to discretize the vector sum of edges each node is connected to. \paragraph{Bottleneck communication among reinforcement learning agents.} To investigate the potential of using DVQ to bottleneck communication among different reinforcement learning agents, we conducted experiments in two MARL environments with cooperative tasks. Multi-Agent Particle Environment is a 2D cooperative MARL environment originally proposed in the MADDPG paper \cite{lowe2020multiagent}. There are 3 agents and 3 landmarks in a 2D space. In this study, we use the cooperative navigation task (called \textbf{``SimpleSpread''}) where agents are required to cover all landmarks while minimizing inter-agent collisions. The action space is discrete and agents can move either up, down, left or right in addition to a no-move ``action''. Each agent only has a partial view of the environment. In this work, we allow agents to encode their partial view and send it as messages to other agents. We apply discretization bottlenecks on the messages each agent receives. The second MARL environment we use is GhostRun, which is an adaptation the environment available from \citet{shuo2019maenvs}. The environment consists of multiple agents, each with a partial view of the ground below them. There are multiple ghosts (red dots) moving randomly in the environment. All the agents work as a team to escape from the ghosts. Once an agent has ghosts in its view, the team receives negative rewards which are multiplied by the total number of ghosts in the joint view of all agents. Similar to the Particle environment, we allow agents to communicate with each other by sending their encoded partial view as messages, and we discretize the messages received by each agent. \begin{figure} \centering \includegraphics[width=0.40\linewidth]{figures/Task_2Dshape.png} \includegraphics[width=0.355\linewidth]{figures/TaskAtariGame.png} \includegraphics[width=0.40\linewidth]{figures/TaskParticles.png} \includegraphics[width=0.40\linewidth]{figures/Task_ghostRun.png} \caption{Two visual reasoning tasks, grid word (top left) and 7 Atari games (top right), are used to analyze effects of bottlenecking inter-module communication within a model using DVQ. Two MARL tasks, Particles (bottom left) and GhostRun (bottom right), are used to investigate the effect of bottlecking inter-agent communication using DVQ.} \label{fig:MARLParticle} \end{figure} \subsection{Inter-module communication} The bottlenecks were applied on edges of graphs in the GNN linking nodes that represent objects in the image \cite{liu2021discrete}. The visual reasoning tasks require the model to forecast future scenes in the environments based on current state and actions if available. Out of the 8 visual reasoning tasks, DVQ outperforms fixed-bottleneck VQ in 7 tasks (figure \ref{table:result_iid}), with the adaptive hierarchical architecture best on average. \begin{table} \label{table:result_iid} \caption{Performance of different methods in bottlenecking inter-module communication in a visual reasoning model} \centering \arrayrulecolor{black} \begin{tabular}{!{\color{black}\vrule}c!{\color{black}\vrule}c!{\color{black}\vrule}c!{\color{black}\vrule}c!{\color{black}\vrule}c!{\color{black}\vrule}} \arrayrulecolor{black}\hline Task/Model & \textbf{Original} & \textbf{Quantization} & \textbf{Adaptive Quantization} & \textbf{Adaptive Hierarchical} \\ \hline Alien & 0.130 $\pm$ 0.023 & 0.152 $\pm$ 0.026 & 0.170 $\pm$ 0.075 & \textbf{0.177 $\pm$ 0.057} \\ \hline BankHeist & 0.397 $\pm$ 0.043 & 0.371 $\pm$ 0.057 & 0.406 $\pm$ 0.037 & \textbf{0.414 $\pm$ 0.084} \\ \hline Berzerk & 0.436 $\pm$ 0.250 & 0.584 $\pm$ 0.011 & \textbf{0.630 $\pm$ 0.016} & 0.580 $\pm$ 0.021 \\ \hline Boxing & 0.873 $\pm$ 0.021 & 0.908 $\pm$ 0.068 & 0.929 $\pm$ 0.031 & \textbf{0.957 $\pm$ 0.041} \\ \hline MsPacman & \textbf{0.152 $\pm$ 0.037} & 0.135 $\pm$ 0.030 & 0.054 $\pm$ 0.002 & 0.057 $\pm$ 0.005 \\ \hline Pong & 0.169 $\pm$ 0.047 & 0.201 $\pm$ 0.035 & 0.205 $\pm$ 0.068 & \textbf{0.225 $\pm$ 0.031} \\ \hline shapes & 0.674 $\pm$ 0.055 & 0.672 $\pm$ 0.053 & 0.664 $\pm$ 0.034 & \textbf{0.692 $\pm$ 0.065} \\ \hline SpaceInvaders & 0.138 $\pm$ 0.037 & 0.199 $\pm$ 0.085 & \textbf{0.258 $\pm$ 0.103} & 0.232 $\pm$ 0.076 \\ \hline \end{tabular} \end{table} \begin{figure} \centering \includegraphics[width=0.45\linewidth]{figures/Berzerk_eval_eval_RR.png} \includegraphics[width=0.45\linewidth]{figures/Boxing_eval_eval_RR.png} \caption{Bottlenecking communication among components in a model in visual reasoning task. This figure shows examples of two games. Left panel: performance of different methods in Berzerk game. Right panel: performance of different methods in Boxing game } \label{fig:VisualReasoning} \end{figure} \subsection{Inter-agent communication in cooperative MARL} Next we investigate the potential benefits of using DVQ to bottleneck information exchange among multiple agents in two cooperative MARL tasks. Agents communicate with each other in a broadcasting manner where each agent $j$ sends identical messages $m_{j,t}$, the encoded partial observation of agent $j$, to all other team members simultaneously. Each agent in the cooperative game receive $M_t=\{m_{j,t}\|0\leq j < N_{agents}\}$ from all agents in the team at the same time and reads $M_t$ using an attention mechanism \mbox{$m'_{i,t} = \mathrm{softmax} \bigg( \frac{q^{m}_{i, t} \kappa_{t} }M{t}{\sqrt{d_m}}\bigg)$} where $m'_{i,t}$ is the final message agent $i$ received from others at time step $t$ and $q^{m}_{i, t}=f_q (m_{j,t})$ and $\kappa_{t}=f_m (M{t})$. Both $f_m$ and $f_q$ are MLP encoders. At each time step, for each agent, $m'_{i,t}$ is discretized. In DVQ, $L \in [16,64,256]$ and $G \in [1,2,4]$. In the VQ baseline, $L=16$ and $G=1$. In the Particle environment, both dynamic hierarchical quantization and dynamic quantization outperform VQ with fixed coarseness. In the GhostRun environment, dynamic hierarchical quantization outperforms the baseline and dynamic quantization ties with the baseline (Figure~\ref{fig:MARLGhostRun}). \begin{figure} \centering \includegraphics[width=0.48\linewidth]{figures/Particles_test.png} \caption{Bottlenecking communication among cooperative agents in Particles environment. } \label{fig:MARLParticle} \end{figure} \begin{figure} \centering \includegraphics[width=0.98\linewidth]{figures/GhostRun.png} \caption{The effect of applying DVQ to bottleneck communication among cooperative agents in GhostRun environment. } \label{fig:MARLGhostRun} \end{figure} \subsection{Task difficulty and bottleneck tightness} In the sections above, our experiments showed that DVQ outperforms VQ with fixed capacity in various tasks. Next, we seek to understand behaviors of DVQ. In the visual reasoning tasks, difficulty varies significantly among different games. For example, object movement in some Atari games are more unpredictable than others. In addition, even within the same game, difficulty many vary among episodes. This motivates us to ask the question of whether the tightness of bottleneck introduced by DVQ is influenced by how hard a task is. To answer this, we first quantify difficulty of the task based on the test performance of the visual reasoning model. Reciprocal Ranks (RR) is used as the performance metric where higher RR means better performance. Next, we break down the capacity penalty into the factor loss, which corresponds to penalty as a result of the number of factors, and codebook size loss, which is the term that penalizes high capacity caused by large codebook sizes. Our analysis shows that both factor loss and codebook size loss have positive correlation with RR, across the 8 tasks (Figure \ref{fig:RRCorLoss}), with stronger correlation in the case of number of factors. Depending on the direction of causality in this observation, it suggests that tighter bottlenecks are picked for hard tasks either because of difficulty of optimization (when the optimal level of bottleneck tightness is not found, the model tends to undershoot capacity) or because harder tasks call for stronger regularization from tighter bottenecks. \begin{figure} \centering \includegraphics[width=0.8\linewidth]{figures/Loss_RR_Corr.png} \caption{Tighter bottlenecks are used in difficult tasks. A positive correlation of both factor size (blue) and codebook size (red) with model performance measured by reciprocal rank (RR). The higher the RR, the better the model performs in the task.} \label{fig:RRCorLoss} \end{figure} \subsection{Discretization difficulty and bottleneck tightness} In addition to difficulty of the task itself, another dimension to consider is the difficulty of discretization, which is largely determined by distribution of the learned representation and dynamics of the model. We estimate difficulty of discretization using the discretization loss obtained during evaluation. Recall that the discretization loss is averaged over factors. We observed that DVQ tends to increase its capacity by increasing both the number of factors and codebook size when the discretization loss is high (figure \ref{fig:DisCor}), which is reasonable as high expressivity in inputs puts positive pressure on decreasing the tightness of the bottleneck. \begin{figure} \centering \includegraphics[width=0.45\linewidth]{figures/Loss_Dis_factor.png} \includegraphics[width=0.45\linewidth]{figures/Loss_Dis_CB.png} \caption{More factors and larger codebook sizes are used by DVQ when discretization is difficult.} \label{fig:DisCor} \end{figure} \section{Conclusion} Effective communication between different specialized components of a model or between different agents in a MARL system requires compatible representations and synchronized messages. Although communication via continuous, high-dimensional signals is a natural choice given the ease of optimization, recent work has shown that discretization can provide more robust communication. Creating a communication bottleneck with pressure to utilize only as few bits as possible needed to coordinate inference improves generalization and imposes disentangling of modules and specialization, which is beneficial for training (learning $N$ skills independently by $N$ experts is easier than learning an organization of knowledge where skills are entangled and all skills interact with each other). Among these works, those based on VQ depend on the number of discrete codes in the representation vector and the size of the codebook, which are fixed, limiting their adaptability and their ability to fit bottleneck behaviour tightly to data. We have shown theoretically and empirically the benefits of using a set of discretization functions with varying levels of output capacity and choosing the function applied for a given input using key-query attention, instead of using a single discretization function that maps all inputs to a discrete space of fixed size. Adaptively bottlenecking capacity makes tightness dependent on inputs, which allows the generalization gap to be decreased. The experiments show that performance is improved compared to using a fixed capacity bottleneck across a range of tasks in visual reasoning and multi-agent reinforcement learning. \clearpage \nocite{langley00}	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv" }	360
{"url":"https:\/\/www.physicsforums.com\/threads\/approximate-uncertainty-in-area-of-circle.528404\/","text":"# Homework Help: Approximate uncertainty in area of circle\n\n1. Sep 8, 2011\n\n### chops369\n\n1. The problem statement, all variables and given\/known data\nWhat is the approximate uncertainty in the area of a circle of radius 5.3 * 104 cm? Express your answer using one significant figure.\n\n2. Relevant equations\nA = pir2\n\n3. The attempt at a solution\nUsing the given radius, I found the area to be 8.8 109 cm2.\n\nAnd since the uncertainty is not given, I'm assuming that it's 0.1 * 104 cm.\n\nUsing this, the upper limit for the radius is 5.4 * 104 cm, which makes the upper limit for the area 9.2 * 109 cm2.\n\nSubtracting 9.2 - 8.8 = 0.4 * 109 cm2. But this is apparently not the correct answer, and I can't figure out why. Unless I'm forgetting some fundamental aspect of significant figures, the only other way I can express this in one sig fig is to write out the actual number, i.e. 400000000; but this is also incorrect.\n\nWhat am I doing wrong?\n\n2. Sep 9, 2011\n\n### daveb\n\nIf the area is A = pir2, then the difference in area is delta-A (sorry, I forgot all my latex). Can you relate delta-A to delta-r (the radius)? If you've taken calculus, then instead of delta-A it would be dA\/dr.\n\n3. Sep 9, 2011\n\n### chops369\n\nI just figured it out.\n\nTurns out it was a rounding error on my part, so what I rounded up to 4 108 should have actually been rounded down to 3 * 108.\n\n4. Sep 9, 2011\n\n### Staff: Mentor\n\nThat's the upper bound, now what's the lower bound?","date":"2018-08-20 10:17:54","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": false, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.8360418677330017, \"perplexity\": 935.5350731060709}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2018-34\/segments\/1534221216333.66\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20180820101554-20180820121554-00682.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
John Goodsir (20 March 1814 – 6 March 1867) was a Scottish anatomist and a pioneer in the formulation of cell theory. Early life Goodsir was born on 20 March 1814 in Anstruther, Fife, the son of Elizabeth Dunbar Taylor and John Goodsir (1742–1848), a medical practitioner in the town. He was baptised on 17 April 1814. His younger brother, Joseph Taylor Goodsir, entered the ministry and became minister in Lower Largo. His younger brother, Harry Goodsir, perished on the Franklin expedition. Another brother, Robert, (b. 1824) qualified as a doctor and sailed twice to the Arctic searching for his brother Harry. His youngest brother, Archibald, (b. 1826) qualified as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. In December 1826, at the age of 12, Goodsir entered the University of St Andrews, where his classes included classics and mathematics. The following year he was apprenticed to the surgeon and dentist Robert Nasmyth, at 78 Great King Street in Edinburgh's New Town. This allowed him to enter the Edinburgh University Medical School and also attend classes at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He finished his apprenticeship with Nasmyth in 1833, and qualified as Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1835. He then moved back to Anstruther to work in his father's medical practice, which allowed him to resume his boyhood hobby of searching the local coastline along the Firth of Forth for all forms of wildlife. The specimens which he collected formed the basis of the collection he later developed as a museum conservator. In Edinburgh Goodsir had befriended Edward Forbes, who would later become Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh, and George Day, later Chandos Professor of Anatomy and Medicine of the University of St Andrews. Together with Goodsir's brother Joseph they rented a flat at 21 Lothian Street close to the university, which became a meeting place for scientists, writers and artists, who together called themselves the Brotherhood of the Friends of Truth. During his surgical and dental apprenticeship with Nasmyth Goodsir had started to collect human teeth. From studies of these he made the important observation that deciduous teeth were not the 'parents' of permanent teeth but developed independently. In 1839, he published a noted paper on this topic. The following year he gave a paper to the British Association for the Advancement of Science entitled "Dentition in the ruminants", with some assistance from the University of Edinburgh Professor of Natural History, Robert Jameson. Jameson lent him an Ehrenberg microscope and encouraged him to develop microscopical studies from which Goodsir would later make major contributions to understanding of cell and tissue structure and function. Goodsir joined the Wernerian Natural History Society which had been founded by Jameson. Among his teachers at Edinburgh it was the anatomist Robert Knox who made the greatest impression. Knox broadened Goodsir's idea of the importance of comparative anatomy in the scheme of life and in the medical curriculum. Knox appreciated his pupil's skill and gave him normal and pathological specimens to mount and preserve. The two kept in touch with each other for many years. Museum conservator and anatomy demonstrator On 21 April 1841, he was appointed conservator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in succession to William MacGillivray, who had been appointed Professor of Natural History at Marischal College, Aberdeen. Goodsir promoted the museum collections by giving public lectures featuring its specimens. and by giving lectures to medical students. His lectures on pathology in 1841 and 1842 presented his innovative ideas on cell theory which were read and later developed by the German pathologist Rudolf Virchow. He gave the first description of the stomach parasite sarcina ventriculi which demonstrated his status as a shrewd observer and innovative thinker. Two years later, he was appointed curator of the University of Edinburgh natural history collection and he was succeeded as RCSEd Museum Conservator by his brother, Harry Goodsir, who continued in this post until 1845. In May 1844, Goodsir was appointed Anatomy Demonstrator under Alexander Monro and his lectures attracted large numbers of students and did much to restore the University of Edinburgh's reputation for anatomical teaching which had suffered under Monro. The following year he published, jointly with his brother Harry, Anatomical and Pathological Observations based on his earlier lectures at the RCSEd. This book brought international recognition for his ideas on cell structure and function. The Anatomical Memoirs also contain a biography by Henry Lonsdale. Goodsir also improved the quality of the instruction in the anatomy department by extending and improving the dissecting rooms, recruiting additional staff, and giving microscopic demonstrations. Goodsir's microscopists were among the first to use the achromatic microscope. Cell theory On the basis of his studies using the compound microscope Goodsir developed his theory about the nature and structure of cellular life and organisation. He concluded that all living organisms are formed of microscopic units, cells. Goodsir was not alone in postulating such a concept and the theory that cells form the basic structure of tissues in all plants and animals has been attributed to Matthias Jakob Schleiden and to Theodor Schwann. Goodsir posed and then answered the questions "What is a cell with its walls, contents, nucleus and nucleolus? How is a cell formed? How do cells multiply?" The theory which he developed from these studies was original and won the extravagant praise of Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902), who dedicated his masterpiece Cellular Pathology to Goodsir, describing him as "one of the earliest and most acute observers of cell-life both physiological and pathological." In 1842, Goodsir was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh his proposer being James Syme. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1846. In 1849, he was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society. Professor of anatomy When Alexander Monro tertius retired in 1846, Goodsir was appointed Professor of Anatomy at the University of Edinburgh. In 1848 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (FRCSEd), applied for the position of Assistant Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, but was not appointed. He moved into Edward Forbes's South Cottage at Wardie in north Edinburgh where he spent the last ten years of his life. Such was the improvement that he brought about in anatomy teaching that by 1860–1861 the size of the anatomy class had grown to 354. Later years From 1850, Goodsir became unwell, showing the features of the chronic wasting illness which would eventually prove fatal. It made slow and insidious progress and assumed the characters of locomotor ataxia. Yet despite this, after the death of his friend Edward Forbes in 1854, he took on Forbes's lectures in addition to his own. In 1863, he was invited to assist Sir David Brewster with an article for the North British Review on Faivre's analysis of Goethe's studies. Brewster, a distinguished physicist and mathematician and now Principal of the University of Edinburgh, had known Goodsir from 1839, when both were members of the Literary and Philosophical Society of St Andrews. Goodsir died at South Cottage, Wardie, Edinburgh on 6 March 1867, at the age of 52. He is buried alongside one of the central paths in Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh, next to his friend Forbes. References External links 1814 births 1867 deaths Academics of the University of Edinburgh Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Alumni of the University of St Andrews Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh People from Anstruther Scottish anatomists Scottish curators	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia" }	7,338
Rocanville Airport formerly was a registered aerodrome located north-east of Rocanville, Saskatchewan, Canada. See also List of airports in Saskatchewan List of defunct airports in Canada References Defunct airports in Saskatchewan Rocanville No. 151, Saskatchewan	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia" }	2,673
By Chris Evans FM20 Project, The Coaches: Episode 4 The Football Manager Project is back. A new manager, a new team and a new challenge. Editor of The Set Pieces, Chris Evans, has entered a fantasy draft competition with six real-life coaches and managers. But can Tromsgodset Pieces upset the odds and bring the inaugural TSP Conference home? Episode 1; Episode 2; Episode 3; Episode 4; Episode 5; Episode 6; Episode 7; Episode 8; Episode 9; Episode 10; Episode 11; The Squads The guide to becoming a successful football manager tells me I should remain positive at all times. But, quite frankly, after suffering a humiliating 6-0 loss in my first match, I think I'm already past that. It was one of the most abject displays I've been responsible for. We'd struggled to keep the ball, we had fewer shots on target than goals we'd conceded and I reckon a line-up of training dummies might have done a better job of defending set pieces than my lot. It was fucking awful. I don't mind admitting that as the fifth and sixth goals went in, I started trying to think of creative ways to quit. I mean, the old reload and replay trick doesn't work so well when there are six real-life coaches playing too. Especially when you've announced the game to a watching audience as well. After deciding it was a disproportionate reaction to board a boat and hide out in the Hebrides (where I'm sure they still have internet anyway) to avoid further humiliation, I turn to the tactics screen. Personnel-wise, I'm only going to make one change. After Gabriel's lead-footed display against Flaymond FC, he'll make way for Chris Smalling in central defence. Me and Basic Billy haven't got off to the best start, but the stage is set for him to prove his worth. The relative security Francis Coquelin gave the team from a deeper role during the middle portion of the match against Flaymond was one of few glints of hope, so I decide to do the same here. While I'm concerned about our virtual non-entity of an attack in the opener, I want to ensure we have a stable base to build from. If we can avoid being dominated early on, then my plan is to become more positive as the game progresses and release Martin Odegaard into a more offensive number 10 position. I also move to a more cautious mentality and decide not to ask my players to take such an aggressive pressing approach for fear of being pulled out of position too easily. I don't want to give off the impression that I'm frightened of another heavy defeat but, if I'm honest, I'm petrified of it happening again. My next opponent is Athletico Ashton, who scored two late goals to snatch a 2-1 victory against Killie FC in their opening match. Managed by West Ham coach Luke Hirst, they're set with a 5-2-1-2 formation, with a solid foundation supporting a fearsome front three of Erling Haaland, João Félix and Paulo Dybala. There are no cloggers at the back either, with a host of names that once more make me question my own draft picks. I'm particularly jealous of Hirst picking up Trent Alexander-Arnold, Aymeric Laporte and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic. Alas, I've made my bed and I'll have to lie in it. I tell the lads I expect to see a much better performance and they seem to be motivated by my words. So motivated, in fact, that we start the game in impressive fashion, forcing Athletico back into their own half and not letting them anywhere near our goal. What's more, we seem to be carrying some threat ourselves. As Odegaard stands over a free kick deep on the left flank, I'm filled with hope. And the Norwegian doesn't disappoint. He whips in a dangerous set piece into the six-yard box and Stefan de Vrij gets in front of his marker to head in the first goal of the Tromsgodset Pieces era. I can't tell you how relieved I am. The game is tight and littered with fouls, but that suits me down to the ground. If we can stifle the opposition, then I'm confident we've got enough quality to conjure up something ourselves. And I'm nearly proved right on the half-hour mark, as a fluent passing move starting from a David Soria goal kick ends up with Junior getting in down the left and picking out Harry Kane in the centre. I take in a sharp breath as I expect to see Kane plunder in from close range, but Matija Nastasic gets across to thwart him in the nick of time. My disappointment intensifies within minutes, as Mo Salah presents possession back to Athletico as we look to defend a throw-in deep in our own half. All of a sudden, Alexander-Arnold is in acres of space on the opposite flank and plays in Félix, who clips the ball past Soria. It's the first real chance they've created and we've been pulled back level. Salah almost makes up for his mistake immediately as he tees up Kane, but Miguel Moya manages to turn the England striker's effort wide. Despite Kane's profligacy, it's been a pleasing first half and I see no reason to change anything at half-time. Hirst clearly does though and takes off Dybala to be replaced by Jack Grealish. Watch the highlights from all of the round's games My game plan appears to be working, although we're starting to be forced deeper. Milinkovic-Savic fires in an effort from the edge of the area that looks to beat Soria but, thankfully, slams back off the post. I'm too slow to react to the danger and moments later, Alexander-Arnold picks out Grealish in the box to head home for 2-1. Another header and we're behind again. I don't want to be too reactive, so leave things as they are. Alas, a tame Jordan Henderson sighter is the best I can muster in terms of a fightback and decide I need to take action. As planned, I tweak my formation by bringing Coquelin forward to create a number 10 role. But it won't be Odegaard who fills it as I bring him off for Gerard Deulofeu and move Marco Asensio into a more central position. I also decide to make a change at left back by introducing Marvin Plattenhardt in place of Junior. While I'm now posing more of a threat going forward, I'm open to be exploited at the back with Grealish the main beneficiary of the new-found space. As I begin to worry a third goal could be coming, Plattenhardt and Asensio combine to produce a dangerous cross in from the left that Salah manages to get on the end of. GOOOOOOAL! It's 2-2! My previously conservative approach is history and I have no intention of accepting a point, so I continue to press forward. Chances keep coming at both ends as a result, with Soria denying Wissam Ben Yedder and then Plattenhardt coming to the rescue to clear a Willy Boly header off the line. Do I see this as a warning? Do I heck. I choose that attack is the best form of defence and chuck on Tammy Abraham to support Kane up front – if I'm going down, I'm going down fighting. Abraham goes close as the clock runs down and just as though it looks as if we're set for a draw, another Plattenhardt cross picks out Salah and the Egyptian converts. GOAL! I'm mid-knee slide before I realise the goal has been ruled out. I'm devastated. The replay shows it was the correct decision by the slightest of margins (watch the highlights), but I'm still as aggrieved as only a true competitor can be. Because that's what I am now, a true competitor. After being so well-beaten in my first game, I've got a point and arguably could have taken all three. I'm also off the bottom of the table and have genuinely seen enough within my ranks to start believing we're not so hopeless as first thought. At least that's what I'm clinging on to. Played a blinder – Adam Cooper (AJCFC 2-0 win v Stoneham AFC) "Despite not winning my first match, I thought the performance was very good. We dominated possession and had a lot of clear opportunities, so there was no real need to change much. "My only swap was on the bench, where I included Cesc Fàbregas instead of Sofiane Boufal. I felt Asier lllarramendi and Matteo Guendouzi looked a little weak at times in the first game, so that provided a little more strength available to me if I needed to change anything mid-game. "Being at home, I decided we could continue with a similar mentality but was disappointed by the lack of possession. Even so, we created a significant number of good and key opportunities to help us win. "I felt we controlled the game from early on, with Memphis Depay and Nabil Fekir in particular putting in strong performances. And with Virgil van Dijk at the back, I'm confident we'll keep more clean sheets. "My only current worry is the form of Sadio Mané, who is one of my key attacking players but has been the worst performer so far. My main aim in coming games is to continue, perhaps be a little more clinical and get Mané up to speed." Had a shocker – Craig Clark (KillieFC 2-1 loss v BC) "A second consecutive defeat and another after I'd taken the lead. The roots of my problems so far are that I'm not good enough in possession or as good at creating chances as I'd hoped. In hindsight, I probably recruited too many individuals, hence why Zlatan Ibrahimovic has scored my only goals. In the first game, I lost a last-minute goal to a free kick from the edge of the area, so maybe I should have been more conservative in the defensive third in the final few moments of the game. "I lost the first two matches as I was too focused on how I wanted to play, rather than just winning the game. So I need to manage the game better in the phases. A couple of changes to personnel and shape will get me off the mark, I'm sure of that." Want to see more? You can watch all the key action from each game week in our FM20 Project, The Coaches highlights post.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl" }	8,089
using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Data.Entity.Core.Metadata.Edm; using System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure; using System.Linq; using System.Linq.Expressions; using Vstack.Common.Extensions; using Vstack.Services.Data.EntityFramework; using Vstack.Services.Data.General; using Vstack.Services.Data.Generator.Procedures; using Vstack.Services.Domain; using Vstack.Services.Filters; using Vstack.Services.General; namespace Vstack.Services.Mappers { public abstract class BaseEfAndCacheMapper<TContext, TDmn> : BaseEfAndStoredProcMapper<TContext, TDmn> where TContext : VstackDbContext where TDmn : class, IDataDomain { protected BaseEfAndCacheMapper(TContext context, ICacheHelper cacheHelper) : base(context) { context.ValidateNotNull(); this.CacheHelper = cacheHelper; this.CacheHelper.SetContext(context); } private ICacheHelper CacheHelper { get; } public override IEnumerable<ActionResult<int>> DeleteAll(IEnumerable<TDmn> domains) { domains.ValidateNotNull(); List<TDmn> domainsList = domains.ToList(); List<UpdatedDomain<TDmn>> updatedDomains = domainsList .ConvertAll(dmn => UpdatedDomain<TDmn>.FromEntry(this.Context.Entry(dmn))); IEnumerable<ActionResult<int>> result = base.DeleteAll(domainsList); this.UpdateCache(updatedDomains); return result; } public override IEnumerable<ActionResult<TDmn>> SaveAll(IEnumerable<TDmn> domains) { domains.ValidateNotNull(); List<TDmn> domainsList = domains.ToList(); List<UpdatedDomain<TDmn>> updatedDomains = domainsList .ConvertAll(dmn => UpdatedDomain<TDmn>.FromEntry(this.Context.Entry(dmn))); IEnumerable<ActionResult<TDmn>> result = base.SaveAll(domainsList); this.UpdateCache(updatedDomains); return result; } protected override IEnumerable<int> GetIdsFromGetAll(DeletedState deletedState) { if (deletedState == DeletedState.Undeleted) { string getAllProcName = Naming.GetGetAllProcName(typeof(TDmn).Name, deletedState); IEnumerable<int> ids = this.CacheHelper.GetList(getAllProcName, null); if (ids == null) { ids = base.GetIdsFromGetAll(deletedState); this.CacheHelper.SetList(getAllProcName, null, ids); } return ids; } else { return base.GetIdsFromGetAll(deletedState); } } protected override IQueryable<object> BulkGetByIds(Type domainType, IEnumerable<int> ids) { ids.ValidateNotNull(); List<int> idsNotInCache = new List<int>(); List<object> domains = new List<object>(); foreach (int id in ids) { object domain = this.CacheHelper.GetDomain(domainType, id); if (domain != null) { domains.Add(domain); } else { idsNotInCache.Add(id); } } if (idsNotInCache.Any()) { List<object> domainsFromDb = base.BulkGetByIds(domainType, idsNotInCache).ToList(); this.CacheHelper.AddDomains(domainsFromDb); domains.AddRange(domainsFromDb); } return domains.AsQueryable(); } protected override IEnumerable<int> GetIdsFromForeignKeyProcedure(ReferentialConstraint constraint, IEnumerable<int> ids) { ids.ValidateNotNull(); string procName = Naming.GetForeignKeyProcName(constraint, DeletedState.Undeleted); List<int> idsNotInCache = new List<int>(); List<int> allChildIds = new List<int>(); foreach (int id in ids) { IEnumerable<int> childIds = this.CacheHelper.GetList(procName, new object[] { id }); if (childIds != null) { allChildIds.AddRange(childIds); } else { idsNotInCache.Add(id); } } if (idsNotInCache.Any()) { List<ForeignKeyProcOutputRow> outputRowsFromDb = this.GetForeignKeyProcOutput(constraint, idsNotInCache).ToList(); foreach (int id in idsNotInCache) { IEnumerable<int> childIds = outputRowsFromDb .Where(k => k.ParentId == id) .Select(k => k.ChildId); this.CacheHelper.SetList(procName, new object[] { id }, childIds); } allChildIds.AddRange(outputRowsFromDb.Select(i => i.ChildId)); } return allChildIds; } protected override IEnumerable<int> GetIdsFromFilter(IEntityEqualityStoredProcedurePrimaryFilter filter, DeletedState deletedState) { filter.ValidateNotNull(); if (deletedState == DeletedState.Undeleted) { string procName = Naming.GetFilterProcName(filter, deletedState); object[] parameters = filter.GetParameters(); IEnumerable<int> ids = this.CacheHelper.GetList(procName, parameters); if (ids == null) { ids = base.GetIdsFromFilter(filter, deletedState); this.CacheHelper.SetList(procName, parameters, ids); } return ids; } else { return base.GetIdsFromFilter(filter, deletedState); } } protected override IEnumerable<int> GetIdsFromFilter(IEntityCustomStoredProcedurePrimaryFilter filter) { filter.ValidateNotNull(); string procName = filter.ProcedureName; object[] parameters = filter.GetParameters(); IEnumerable<int> ids = this.CacheHelper.GetList(procName, parameters); if (ids == null) { ids = base.GetIdsFromFilter(filter); this.CacheHelper.SetList(procName, parameters, ids); } return ids; } private void UpdateCache(IEnumerable<UpdatedDomain<TDmn>> updatedDomains) { updatedDomains.ValidateNotNull(); if (updatedDomains.Any()) { string getAllProcName = Naming.GetGetAllProcName(typeof(TDmn).Name, DeletedState.Undeleted); IEnumerable<TDmn> domains = updatedDomains.Select(i => i.Domain).ToList(); IEnumerable<TDmn> nonDeletedDomains = domains.Where(dmn => !dmn.UtcDateDeleted.HasValue).ToList(); if (nonDeletedDomains.Any()) { this.CacheHelper.AddDomains(nonDeletedDomains); this.CacheHelper.AddToListIfExists(getAllProcName, null, nonDeletedDomains.Select(dmn => dmn.Id)); } IEnumerable<TDmn> deletedDomains = domains.Where(dmn => dmn.UtcDateDeleted.HasValue).ToList(); if (deletedDomains.Any()) { this.CacheHelper.RemoveDomains(typeof(TDmn), deletedDomains.Select(dmn => dmn.Id)); this.CacheHelper.RemoveFromListIfExists(getAllProcName, null, deletedDomains.Select(dmn => dmn.Id)); } this.UpdateContraintCachedLists(updatedDomains); this.UpdateEqualityFilterCachedLists(updatedDomains); this.UpdateCustomProcFilterCaches(updatedDomains); } } private void UpdateContraintCachedLists(IEnumerable<UpdatedDomain<TDmn>> updatedDomains) { updatedDomains.ValidateNotNull(); IEnumerable<ReferentialConstraint> constraints = this.Context.Constraints .Where(c => c.ToRole.GetEntityType().Name == typeof(TDmn).Name); foreach (ReferentialConstraint constraint in constraints) { string procName = Naming.GetForeignKeyProcName(constraint, DeletedState.Undeleted); string propertyName = constraint.GetPrimaryToProperty().Name; foreach (UpdatedDomain<TDmn> updatedDomain in updatedDomains) { TDmn domain = updatedDomain.Domain; DbPropertyValues originalValues = updatedDomain.OriginalValues; int? originalParameter = originalValues != null ? originalValues.GetValue<int>(propertyName) : (int?)null; DbPropertyValues currentValues = this.Context.Entry(domain).CurrentValues; int? currentParemeter = !domain.UtcDateDeleted.HasValue ? currentValues.GetValue<int>(propertyName) : (int?)null; if (originalParameter != currentParemeter) { if (originalParameter != null) { this.CacheHelper.RemoveFromListIfExists(procName, new object[] { originalParameter }, new int[] { domain.Id }); } if (currentParemeter != null) { this.CacheHelper.AddToListIfExists(procName, new object[] { currentParemeter }, new int[] { domain.Id }); } } } } } private void UpdateEqualityFilterCachedLists(IEnumerable<UpdatedDomain<TDmn>> updatedDomains) { updatedDomains.ValidateNotNull(); IEnumerable<IEntityEqualityStoredProcedurePrimaryFilter> filters = this.Context.EqualityFilters .Where(f => f.GetType().IsPrimaryFilterForDomain<TDmn>()); foreach (IEntityEqualityStoredProcedurePrimaryFilter filter in filters) { string procName = Naming.GetFilterProcName(filter, DeletedState.Undeleted); IEnumerable<string> parameterNames = filter.Expressions.Select(i => (i.Body as MemberExpression).Member.Name); foreach (UpdatedDomain<TDmn> updatedDomain in updatedDomains) { TDmn domain = updatedDomain.Domain; DbPropertyValues originalValues = updatedDomain.OriginalValues; IEnumerable<object> originalParameters = originalValues != null ? parameterNames.Select(p => originalValues.GetValue<object>(p)) : null; DbPropertyValues currentValues = this.Context.Entry(domain).CurrentValues; IEnumerable<object> currentParameters = !domain.UtcDateDeleted.HasValue ? parameterNames.Select(p => currentValues?.GetValue<object>(p)) : null; if ((originalParameters == null \|\| currentParameters == null) \|\| !originalParameters.SequenceEqual(currentParameters)) { if (originalParameters != null) { this.CacheHelper.RemoveFromListIfExists(procName, originalParameters, new int[] { domain.Id }); } if (currentParameters != null) { this.CacheHelper.AddToListIfExists(procName, currentParameters, new int[] { domain.Id }); } } } } } private void UpdateCustomProcFilterCaches(IEnumerable<UpdatedDomain<TDmn>> updatedDomains) { updatedDomains.ValidateNotNull(); IEnumerable<UpdatedDomain> updatedDomainsNonGeneric = updatedDomains .Select(i => i.ToNonGeneric()) .ToList(); IEnumerable<IEntityCustomStoredProcedurePrimaryFilter> filters = this.Context.CustomProcFilters .Where(f => f.GetType().IsPrimaryFilterForDomain<TDmn>()); foreach (IEntityCustomStoredProcedurePrimaryFilter filter in filters) { filter.UpdateCache(this.CacheHelper, updatedDomainsNonGeneric); } } } }	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub" }	31
6. The position of his legs (one resting on the ground and one raised) indicate the importance of living and participating in the material world as well as in the spiritual world, the ability to live in the world without being of the world. 9. Ganesha Symbolism – Ganpati Symbolism: The third hand, turned towards the devotee, is in a pose of blessing, refuge and protection (abhaya); The fourth hand holds a lotus flower (padma), and it symbolizes the highest goal of human evolution, the sweetness of the realised inner self.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	1,446
\section{1. Introduction} \par Generalized exclusion statistics (GES) \cite{hal} has attracted much interest in recent papers [2 -- 8] A typical example of the application of generalized exclusion statistics is the Cologero-Sutherland model \cite{cal,suth,ha}. D. Bernard and Y.-S. Wu \cite{ber} studied the GES in the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz (TBA) using equivalence of the Bethe ansatz (BA) equations and the ones obtained by the Haldane principle \cite{ha}. M. Wadati has shown \cite{wad} that a change in the statistics is determined by an appropriate choice of the phase shift of the scattering matrix. The generalization of exclusion statistics for multicomponent systems was provide in the paper \cite{fu}. \par The goal of this paper is to consider the exclusion statistics of excitations in the Kondo problem. To solve this problem we have applied the TBA for a multicomponent system of particles obeying the GES. We have found the universal behavior of the statistical matrix in high- and low-temperature limits. In these limits the statistical matrix is proportional to the Cartan matrix for the $A_{n}$-algebra. \par The paper is organized as follows. In the second section we provide the main equations of the exclusion statistics theory to complete the discussion. In this section we have also derived the relation between the derivative of phase shift (DPS) of the scattering matrix and the statistical matrix in the framework of the TBA equations for the multicomponent system of particles. The third section deals with the application of this result to the Kondo problem. We show that distribution function and statistical matrix in this problem have the universal form in high and low temperature limits. \section{2. Exclusion Statistics Equations} \par A change in the number $D_{\alpha i}$ of the vacant states due to the addition of the number $N_{\beta j}$ of the particles, according to Haldane \cite{hal} is defined as \begin{equation} \frac{\partial D_{\alpha i}}{\partial N_{\beta j}} = -g_{\alpha i,\beta j}\, . \label{E1} \end{equation} Here $g_{\alpha i,\beta j}$ is the matrix of statistical interaction. The indices $\alpha$ $(\alpha = 1,2,...M)$ and $i$ correspond to the internal and the dynamical degrees of freedom, respectively. The solution of Eq.(\ref{E1}) has the form: \begin{equation} D_{\alpha i} = -\sum_{\beta j} g_{\alpha i,\beta j} N_{\beta j} + D^{0}_{\alpha i}\, , \label{E2} \end{equation} where $D^{0}_{\alpha i}$ is the number of vacant states of the $\alpha i$-th type without particles. The number of holes $D_{\alpha i}$ determines the statistical weights $W$ as follows \begin{equation} W = \prod_{\alpha,i}\frac{(N_{\alpha i}-1+D_{\alpha i}(\{N_{\beta j}\}) +\sum_{\beta j} g_{\alpha i,\beta j}\delta_{\alpha\beta}\delta_{ij})!} {(N_{\alpha i})!(D_{\alpha i}(\{N_{\beta j}\})-1+\sum_{\beta j} g_{\alpha i,\beta j}\delta_{\alpha\beta}\delta_{ij})!}\, . \label{E3} \end{equation} In the specific cases of $g_{\alpha i,\beta j}=0$ and $g_{\alpha i,\beta j}= \delta_{\alpha\beta}\delta_{ij}$ Eq.(\ref{E3}) yields the well-known expression for the statistical weights of Bose and Fermi particles. \par The distribution function $n_{\alpha i}$ is defined usually \cite{wu,ber,isak} in the following way $n_{\alpha i}=N_{\alpha i}/G_{\alpha i}^{0}$. This is not convenient for systems with internal degrees of freedom. For example, in the hierarchical basis of the states in the fractional quantum Hall effect $n_{\alpha i}=\infty $ if $\alpha = 2,3,...$ because $G_{\alpha i}^{0}=0$ for spin degrees of freedom. The definition of the distribution function in the form \begin{equation} n_{\alpha i} = \frac{N_{\alpha i}}{G_{\alpha i}} \label{E4} \end{equation} with \begin{equation} G_{\alpha i} = G^{0}_{\alpha i} + N_{\alpha i}-\sum_{\beta j} g_{\alpha i,\beta j}N_{\beta j} \label{E5} \end{equation} is more convenient because it takes into account the influence of the statistical interaction on the number of the states. The equilibrium distribution function $ n_{\alpha i}$ can be found in this case from the extremum of the grand partition function as a solution of the following equations: \begin{equation} \frac{1}{n_{\alpha i}}\prod_{\beta j}\left[ 1-n_{\beta j}\right]^ {g_{\beta j,\alpha i}} = \exp\{(\epsilon_{\alpha i}-\mu_{\alpha})/T\}\, . \label{E6} \end{equation} Here $\epsilon_{\alpha i}$ is the energy and $\mu_{\alpha}$ is the chemical potential for the particles of type $\alpha$. The distribution function $n_{\alpha i}$ determines the free energy \begin{equation} F = \sum_{\alpha}\mu_{\alpha}N_{\alpha} - T\sum_{\alpha i} G^{0}_{\alpha i}\ln \left[ \frac{1}{1+n_{\alpha i}}\right] \label{E7} \end{equation} as well as the value of the entropy $S=\ln W$. \par The interection between quasiparticles from the TBA point of view is encoded in the phases $\Theta_{\alpha i,\beta j}$ of the dynamical scattering matrix $S_{\alpha i,\beta j}=-\exp(-i\Theta_{\alpha i,\beta j})$. The statistical properties expressed by the statistical matrix $g_{\alpha i,\beta j}$ depend on the DPS of the scattering matrix \cite{ber,wad}. \par Let us consider the TBA equations for the set of multicomponent particles obeying the GES. Quantizing a gas of such particles on a circle of length $L$ requires that the momentum $k_{\alpha i}$ of the $\alpha i$-th particle satisfies the following condition: \begin{equation} \exp \{ik_{\alpha}(\theta_{i})L\}\sum_{\beta j}^{N}S_{\alpha ,\beta } (\theta_{i}-\theta_{j}) = 1\, . \label{E8} \end{equation} The momentum and the energy of the particles are parametrized by the rapidity $\theta$. Going to the limits $L\rightarrow\infty$ and $N\rightarrow\infty$ with the finite value of $N/L$ and taking the derivative of the $\log$ of Eq.(\ref{E8}) yield \begin{equation} 2\pi q_{\alpha}(\theta) = \frac{dk_{\alpha }(\theta)}{d\theta} + \sum_ {\beta =1}^{M}\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}\Phi_{\alpha \beta}(\theta-\theta') \rho_{\beta}(\theta')d\theta'\, , \label{E9} \end{equation} where \begin{equation} \Phi_{\alpha\beta}(\theta)=\frac{1}{i}\frac{d}{d\theta}\ln S_{\alpha\beta} (\theta)\; \label{E10} \end{equation} is DPS. The function $\rho_{\beta}(\theta)$ in Eq.(\ref{E9}) is the density of the particles of $\beta$-type, $q_{\alpha}(\theta)$ is the density of the states. \par The information about the statistical properties of the system is contained in the distribution functions $n_{\alpha i}$ and in the entropy $S$. In the framework of the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz \cite{zam}, we have neither information about the ground state energy, nor about the structure of low-lying excitations with the energy $\epsilon_{\alpha}^{0}(\theta)$. They are the objects of the traditional Bethe ansatz approach. The equilibrium state at temperature $T$ is obtained by minimizing the free energy $F=E-TS$, where the energy of the system is \begin{equation} E = \sum_{\alpha = 1}^{M}\int\epsilon_{\alpha}^{0}(\theta)\rho_{\alpha} (\theta)d\theta\, . \label{E11} \end{equation} The variation of $F$ with respect to $\rho_{\alpha}$ yields the following equations for the dressed energy $\epsilon_{\alpha}(\theta)$: \begin{equation} \epsilon_{\alpha}(\theta) = \epsilon_{\alpha}^{0}(\theta) +\mu_{\alpha} - \frac{T}{2\pi}\sum_{\beta=1}^{M}\int \Phi_{\beta\alpha}(\theta-\theta') \ln \left[\frac{1}{1-n_{\beta}(\theta')}\right]d\theta'\, . \label{E12} \end{equation} Here the function $n_{\alpha}$ relates to the functions $\rho_{\alpha}$ and $q_{\alpha}$ in Eq.(\ref{E9}) as follows: $n_{\alpha}=\rho_{\alpha}/ q_{\alpha}$. \par Let us assume that the particles are fermions, i.e., $g_{\beta j,\alpha i}=\delta_{\alpha\beta}\delta_{ij}$. We see from Eq.(\ref{E6}) that \begin{equation} n_{\alpha} =\frac{1}{1+ \exp \left[(\epsilon_{\alpha}^{f}(\theta) -\mu_{\alpha})/T\right]}\, . \label{E13} \end{equation} After substituting this expression into Eq.(\ref{E12}), we have the standard TBA equations \begin{equation} \epsilon_{\alpha}^{f}(\theta) = \epsilon_{\alpha}^{0}(\theta) +\mu_{\alpha} - \frac{T}{2\pi}\sum_{\beta=1}^{M}\int\Phi_{\beta\alpha}^{f}(\theta-\theta') \ln \left[1+\exp \left(-\frac{\epsilon_{\beta}^{f}(\theta')- \mu_{\beta}}{T}\right)\right]d\theta' \label{E14} \end{equation} for fermions (superscript $"f"$ denotes the Fermi statistics). \par Each statistics corresponds to the specific value of DPS $\Phi_{\alpha\beta}(\theta)$ in Eq.(\ref{E12}). The transition to the Fermi statistics leads to the new value $\Phi_{\alpha\beta}^{f}(\theta)$ of this function. Assuming that the function $n_{\beta}(\theta)$ in Eq.(\ref{E12}) coincides with Eq.(\ref{E13}) we can find from Eqs.(\ref{E12}), (\ref{E14}) the relation between DPS $\Phi_{\alpha\beta}(\theta)$ for the arbitrary statistics and for the Fermi statistics. This relation has the form \begin{equation} \Phi(\theta-\theta') = \Phi^{f}(\theta-\theta') -2\pi\delta(\theta-\theta')[\cal I-\cal G]\, , \label{E15} \end{equation} where $\cal I$ is the unit matrix and \begin{equation} \cal G = \left( \matrix {g_{11} & g_{12} & g_{13} & ... \cr g_{21} & g_{22} & g_{23} & ... \cr g_{31} & g_{32} & g_{33} & ... \cr \vdots &\vdots & \vdots & \ddots \cr} \right) \, . \label{E16} \end{equation} is the statistical matrix. It is easy to see from Eq.(\ref{E15}) that for models with the function $\Phi_{s\alpha}^{f}(\theta-\theta')\sim \delta (\theta-\theta')$ one can find such statistical matrix $\cal G$ which gives a zero value of the r.h.s. in this equation. In these models the phase of the scattering matrix has the structure of the step function. From the TBA point of view these systems look like a gas of non-interacting particles having the GES. This case is known \cite{ber,mur} as the ideal exclusion statistics. In these models the correlations between particles can be transformed to the statistical interaction. The distribution function of excitations in the systems with the ideal exclusion statistics can be obtained from Eq.(\ref{E6}) where the statistical matrix is now $g_{\alpha,\beta}=\delta_{\alpha,\beta}-\frac{1}{2\pi}\Phi_{\alpha\beta}^{f}$ and the dressed energy of excitations coincides with bare energy $\epsilon_{\alpha}^{0}$. Note that the structure of Eq.(\ref{E6}) looks like that for Eq.(\ref{E15}) (after some simple transformation) because the function $n_{\alpha}$ satisfies Eq.(\ref{E13}). \section{2. Generalized exclusion statistics in the Kondo problem.} \par Let us consider the Kondo problem from the GES point of view. Bethe-ansatz equations for the isotropic $s-d$ exchange model \cite{tz3} in the Kondo problem are \begin{equation} \exp (ik_{j}L) = \exp \left(\frac{iIS}{2}\right)\prod_{\gamma}^{P} \left(\frac{\lambda_{\gamma}+i/2}{\lambda_{\gamma}-i/2}\right)\, , \label{E17} \end{equation} \begin{equation} \left(\frac{\lambda_{\gamma}+i/2}{\lambda_{\gamma}-i/2}\right)^{N} \left(\frac{\lambda_{\gamma}+1/g+iS}{\lambda_{\gamma}+1/g-iS}\right) = -\prod_{\beta}^{M}\left(\frac{\lambda_{\gamma}-\lambda_{\beta}+i} {\lambda_{\gamma}-\lambda_{\beta}-i}\right)\, . \label{E18} \end{equation} These equations solve the problem of diagonalization of the $s-d$ exchange hamiltonian with the impurity spin $S$ and with the coupling constant $I$. Here the total number of (up-spin) electrons is denoted as $N (P)$. The general solutions of Eqs.(\ref{E17}), (\ref{E18}) have the form of $n$-strings according to the string hypothesis \cite{yang}. The $n$-string is a set of $n$ solutions given by \begin{equation} \lambda_{\gamma}^{(n,j)} = \lambda_{\gamma}^{n} + i\left(\frac{n+1}{2}-j\right),\qquad j=1,...,n\, . \label{E19} \end{equation} Here $\lambda_{\gamma}^{n}$ is the real number and $n$ is the order of the string. The distribution of the $n$-type particles (holes) density in the thermodynamic limit is $\rho_{n}(\lambda)$ ($\rho_{n}^{(h)}(\lambda)$). Assuming that the particles obey the Fermi statistics, the TBA equations for the function $\epsilon_{n}(\lambda)$ have the form \begin{eqnarray} \epsilon_{n}(\lambda) &=& -\frac{2\epsilon_{F}}{\pi}\tan^{-1}\exp (\pi \lambda)\delta_{n1} + \frac{T}{2\pi}\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} \frac{1}{\cosh (\lambda-\lambda')} \nonumber \\ & &\left[\ln\left(1+e^{\epsilon_{n-1}(\lambda')/T}\right)+ \ln\left(1+e^{\epsilon_{n+1}(\lambda')/T}\right)\right]d\lambda'\, . \label{E20} \end{eqnarray} Here and below the dressed energy is $\epsilon_{n}(\lambda)=T\ln [\rho_{n}^{(h)} (\lambda)/\rho_{n}(\lambda)]$. \par The solutions of these nonlinear integral equations describe the thermodynamic properties of the $s-d$-model. The external magnetic field $H$ of the problem enters in the boundary condition as follows: \begin{equation} \lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}\frac{\epsilon_{n}(\lambda)}{n} - H = 0\, . \label{E21} \end{equation} Note that this boundary condition means the condition of compensation of the internal magnetic field $h~=~\lim\limits_{n\to\infty} (~\epsilon_{n}~/~n)$ by external magnetic field $H$. This situation takes place as well for some phase states in $(2~+~1)~D$ systems. \par The spin free energy \begin{eqnarray} F^{sp} &=&-NT\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}\frac{1}{2\cosh (\pi\lambda)} \ln\left(1+e^{\epsilon_{1}(\lambda)/T}\right)d\lambda \nonumber \\ & &-T\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}\frac{1}{2\cosh (\pi\lambda+1/g)} \ln\left(1+e^{\epsilon_{2S}(\lambda)/T}\right)d\lambda \label{E22} \end{eqnarray} is expressed by the functions $\epsilon_{n}(\lambda)$. The first term in the r.h.s. of Eq.(\ref{E22}) corresponds to the spin free energy in the absence of impurity. The second term is the impurity contribution to the free energy. We will focus on the universal properties of the solutions of Eqs.(\ref{E20}) in the limits $T\to\infty$ and $T\to 0$. \par Comparing BA Eqs.(\ref{E20}) and TBA Eqs.(\ref{E14}) one can see that the relation between them exists if \begin{equation} \epsilon_{n}^{f}(\lambda) = - \epsilon_{n}(\lambda)\, . \label{E23} \end{equation} In other words, the energy of the particles in TBA Eqs.(\ref{E14}) corresponds to the energy of the holes in BA Eqs.(\ref{E20}) of the Kondo problem. The $\alpha$-type particle in the TBA equations is made corresponding to the $n$-th string solution of Eqs.(\ref{E20}). By changing the index $n$ by $\alpha$ we can rewrite Eqs.(\ref{E20}) in the new notations as follows \begin{eqnarray} \epsilon_{\alpha}^{f}(\lambda) &=& \frac{2\epsilon_{F}}{\pi}\tan^{-1}\exp (\pi \lambda)\delta_{\alpha 1} - \frac{T}{2\pi}\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} \frac{1}{\cosh (\lambda-\lambda')} \nonumber \\ & &\left[\ln\left(1+e^{-\epsilon_{\alpha -1}^{f}(\lambda')/T}\right)+ \ln\left(1+e^{-\epsilon_{\alpha +1}^{f}(\lambda')/T}\right)\right]d\lambda'\, . \label{E24} \end{eqnarray} The boundary conditions have now the form $\epsilon_{0}^{f}=\infty$ and $\lim\limits_{\alpha\to\infty}\epsilon_{\alpha}^{f}/\alpha=-H$. From Eqs.(\ref{E24}) and Eqs.(\ref{E14}) we have \begin{equation} \Phi^{f}(\lambda-\lambda') = \frac{1}{\cosh (\lambda-\lambda')} \cal L \label{E25} \end{equation} and \begin{equation} \epsilon_{\alpha}^{0}(\lambda) = \frac{2\epsilon_{F}}{\pi}\tan^{-1}\exp (\pi \lambda)\delta_{\alpha 1} \, , \label{E26} \end{equation} where \begin{equation} {\cal L}= \left( \matrix { 0 & 1 & \null & \smash{\lower1.7ex\hbox{\LARGE 0}} \cr 1 & 0 & \ddots & \null \cr \null & \ddots & \ddots & 1 \cr \smash{\hbox{\LARGE 0}} & \null & 1 & 0 \cr} \right) \, . \label{E27} \end{equation} Unlike in the TBA Eqs.(\ref{E14}), we know the function $\epsilon_{\alpha}^{0} (\lambda)$ in Eqs.(\ref{E26}) because it was found by the BA method. \par Let us assume now that the particles have the GES with any statistical matrix $\cal G$. In this case the matrix $\Phi$ in Eqs.(\ref{E15}) for the Kondo problem is \begin{equation} \Phi(\lambda-\lambda') = \frac{1}{\cosh (\lambda-\lambda')} {\cal L} - 2\pi\delta(\lambda-\lambda')\left[\cal I-\cal G\right]\, . \label{E28} \end{equation} It is easy to see from the last expression that in the general case we cannot find a matrix $\cal G$ to set the matrix $\Phi$ to zero. However, it is possible to consider the particular cases of high- and low-temperature limits. The asymptotic behavior of the spin free energy determines the different values of the rapidity range required for the consideration of the high- and low-temperature limits. When $T\to\infty$ (weak coupling limit), the impurity free energy is given by \begin{equation} F_{imp} = -\frac{T}{2}\ln\left( 1+\exp \left(-\frac{\epsilon_{2S}^{f} (-\infty)} {T}\right)\right)\, . \label{E29} \end{equation} When $T\to 0$ (strong coupling limit), \begin{equation} F_{imp} = -\frac{T}{2}\ln\left( 1+\exp\left(-\frac{\epsilon_{2S}^{f} (+\infty)} {T}\right)\right)\, . \label{E30} \end{equation} Therefore, in these temperature limits we have to consider $\epsilon_{2S}^ {f}(\lambda)$ at $\vert\lambda\vert\to\infty$. Taking the limit $\vert\lambda\vert\to\infty$ in Eqs.(\ref{E24}) we have the equations for $\epsilon_{\alpha}^{f}(\pm\infty)$: \begin{equation} \epsilon_{\alpha}^{f}(\pm\infty) = -\frac{T}{2}\ln\left[\left(1+ \exp \left( -\frac{\epsilon_{\alpha -1}^{f}(\pm\infty)}{T} \right)\right) \left(1+\exp\left( -\frac{\epsilon_{\alpha +1}^{f}(\pm\infty)} {T}\right)\right) \right]\, . \label{E31} \end{equation} The boundary conditions are: $\lim\limits_{\alpha\to\infty} \epsilon_{\alpha}^{f} (\pm\infty)/\alpha =-H$, $\epsilon_{0}^{f}(-\infty)=\infty$ and $\epsilon_{1}^ {f}(+\infty)=\infty$. The solution of these equations is \cite{tz3} \begin{equation} \epsilon_{\alpha}^{f}(+\infty) = \epsilon_{\alpha +1}^{f}(-\infty) = -T\ln\left[\left(\frac{\sinh\left[ \frac{H}{2T}(\alpha +1)\right] } {\sinh (\frac{H}{2T})}\right)^{2}-1\right]\, . \label{E32} \end{equation} \par This result will be the same if we assume that the matrix $\Phi^{f}(\lambda)$ in Eqs.(\ref{E24}) is proportional to the $\delta$-function, i.e., \begin{equation} \lim_{\vert\lambda\vert\to\infty}\Phi^{f}(\lambda-\lambda') = \pi\delta(\lambda-\lambda')\cal L \, . \label{E33} \end{equation} It is clear because the function $\lim\limits_{\lambda\to\infty}1/ [\cosh (\lambda-\lambda')]=2/[\exp (\infty-\lambda')]$ acts as the $\delta$-function at $\lambda'=\infty$. Therefore, in the GES case the matrix $\Phi(\lambda)$ has the following form \begin{equation} \Phi(\lambda-\lambda') = \pi\delta(\lambda-\lambda') \left[{\cal L} - 2 {\cal I} + 2 {\cal G}\right] \label{E34} \end{equation} for these temperature limits. From the condition $\Phi=0$ of the ideal statistics we have the following form of the statistical matrix: \begin{equation} {\cal G}=\frac{1}{2} \left( \matrix {2 & -1 & \null & \smash{\lower1.7ex\hbox{\LARGE 0}} \cr -1 & 2 & \ddots & \null \cr \null & \ddots & \ddots & -1 \cr \smash{\hbox{\LARGE 0}} & \null & -1 & 2 \cr} \right) \, . \label{E35} \end{equation} We see that it is proportional to the Cartan matrix for algebra, $A_{n}$. \par To find the distribution function $n_{\alpha}$ we need to know the structure of the low-lying excitations. It follows from Eq.(\ref{E24}) that $\epsilon_{\alpha}(\lambda)=0$ for all $\alpha\ne 0$ when $\lambda=-\infty$ and for all $\alpha\ne 1$ when $\lambda=+\infty$. The structure of the equations for the distribution function of particles $n_{\alpha}$, which can be obtained from Eq.(\ref{E6}) with the statistical matrix (\ref{E35}), resembles that of the equations for $\epsilon_{\alpha}(\vert\lambda\vert = \infty)$ (\ref{E31}): \begin{equation} \left( \frac{1}{n_{\alpha}}-1\right)^2 = \left( 1- n_{\alpha+1}\right)\left( 1-n_{\alpha-1} \right)\, . \label{E36} \end{equation} The solution of Eqs.(\ref{E36}) (with the boundary condition $\lim\limits_{\alpha\to\infty}\left(\frac{1}{n_{\alpha}}-1\right) \to\exp (-\alpha H/T)$) coincides with the solutions (\ref{E32}) : \begin{equation} \left( \frac{1}{n_{\alpha}}-1\right) = e^{\epsilon_{\alpha}^{f}/T} = \left[\left(\frac{\sinh (\frac{H}{2T}(\alpha+1)}{\sinh (\frac{H}{2T})} \right)^{2}-1\right] \label{E37} \end{equation} at $T\to 0$ and \begin{equation} \left( \frac{1}{n_{\alpha}}-1\right) = e^{\epsilon_{\alpha}^{f}/T} = \left[\left(\frac{\sinh (\frac{H}{2T}\alpha )}{\sinh (\frac{H}{2T})} \right)^{2}-1\right] \label{E38} \end{equation} at $T\to\infty$. The spin free energy does not vary when we change the particle statistics. \par The function $\Phi^{f}$ does not change in the TBA equations for multichannel Kondo effect \cite{noz,ts1,ts2}. But the function $\epsilon_{\alpha}^{0}(\lambda)$ is changed. It depends on the number of channels, $k$, as \begin{equation} \epsilon_{\alpha}^{0} = \delta_{\alpha k}\exp{\pi\lambda}\, . \label{E39} \end{equation} This leads to the new solutions for $\epsilon_{n}^{f}(\lambda)$ in the low-temperature limit $(~\lambda~\to ~+~\infty~)$: \begin{eqnarray} \epsilon_{\alpha}^{f}(+\infty) = \cases{ -T\ln\left[\left(\frac{\sin (\pi (\alpha +1)/(k+2)}{\sin (\pi /(k+2))} \right)^{2}-1\right] \qquad \alpha <k \cr -T\ln\left[\left(\frac{\sinh (\frac{H}{2T}(\alpha +1-k)}{\sinh (\frac{H}{2T})} \right)^{2}-1\right] \qquad \alpha\geq k\cr }\, . \label{E40} \end{eqnarray} The solutions for the higher-temperature limit $(\lambda\to -\infty)$ are not changed. To find the solution (\ref{E40}) using the statistical matrix (\ref{E35}) we have to impose the additional boundary condition $n_{\alpha}=1$ at $\alpha=k$. \section{Conclusion} \par Let us discuss in conclusion what new insights into the thermodynamics of integrable systems (the Kondo problem in particular) are gained by considering these systems in terms of the GES. \par Using the GES principle we introduce an additional "parameter", that is, particle statistics determined by the form of the statistical matrix. If we suppose that the statistical matrix is arbitrary, we can write the TBA equations for a system of particles with any statistics. Each form of the statistical matrix in this case has a corresponding distribution- and the DPS-function. Therefore, we can write the TBA equations in a more convenient form. A successful choice of the statistical matrix may lead to a simpler form of the coupled equations for the dressed energy and for the distribution function. In particular, in the case of ideal statistics one can find a statistical matrix such that the solution of the TBA equations for the dressed energy coincides with the bare energies, and the equations for the distribution function repeat (up to transformation) the TBA equations for Fermi particles. \par Let us focus on the features of the Kondo problem which are studied using the GES principle. The consideration of spin excitations as quasiparticles in the Kondo problem leads to the conclusion that spin excitations correspond to the holes in the TBA approach. To find the distribution function in the system of particles with internal degrees of freedom we need additional information besides the statistical matrix. We should know the detailed structures of the ground state \cite{fu}. The energy of the ground state shows itself as the boundary conditions for the equations determining the distribution function. The boundary conditions include the external magnetic field which compensates the internal "conformal" magnetic field of the system. \par The solution for the distribution function in high and low-temperature regions has the universal form. It is determined by the $q$-deformed dimension $[~\alpha~+~1~]~_{q}$ of irreducible representations of the quantum group $U_{q}(sl_{2})$. Here $[~x~]_{~q~}~=~(q^{x}-q^{-x})/(q-q^{-1})$. In the case of the single channel Kondo problem, the deformation parameter $q~=~\exp ~(~H~/~2~T~)$ is real. It depends on the external magnetic field and the temperature. In the multichannel Kondo problem (at $\alpha < k$), the deformation parameter $q= \exp [i\pi /(k+2)]$ being the root of unity, is determined by the number, $k$ of the channels. \par In summary, we used the TBA equations for a system of particles with internal degrees of freedom to consider the features of the GES in the Kondo problem. It is shown that the statistical matrix and the distribution function in the Kondo problem have a universal form in high- and low-temperature limits. \section*{Acknowledgments} This work was supported in part by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research under Grants Nos. 95-02-05620 and 96-02-19272. \newpage	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv" }	2,189
\section{Introduction} LS I $+61 \, 303$ is a Be/X-ray binary that presents unusually strong and variable radio emission (Gregory \& Taylor 1978). The X-ray emission is weaker than in other objects of the same class (e.g. Greiner \& Rau 2001) and shows a modulation with the radio period (Paredes et al. 1997). The most recent determination of the orbital parameters (Casares et al. 2005) indicates that the eccentricity of the system is $0.72\pm0.15$ and that the orbital inclination is $\sim 30^{\circ}\pm 20^{\circ}$. The best determination of the orbital period ($P=26.4960\pm0.0028$) comes from radio data (Gregory 2002). The primary star is a B0 V with a dense equatorial wind. Its distance is $\sim 2$ kpc. The X-ray/radio ourtbursts are triggered 2.5-4 days after the periastron passage of the compact object, usually thought to be a neutron star. These outbursts can last until well beyond the apastron passage. Recently, Massi et al. (2001) have detected the existence of relativistic radio jets in LS I $+61 \, 303$, which makes of it a member of the microquasar class. Microquasars are thought to be potential gamma-ray sources (Paredes et al. 2000, Kaufman Bernad\'o et al. 2002, Bosch-Ramon et al. 2005a) and, in fact, LS I $+61 \, 303$ has long been associated with a gamma-ray source. First with the COS-B source CG135+01, and later on with 3EG J0241+6103 (Gregory \& Taylor 1978, Kniffen et al 1997). The gamma-ray emission is clearly variable (Tavani et al. 1998) and has been recently shown that the peak of the gamma-ray lightcurve is consistent with the periastron passage (Massi 2004), contrary to what happens with the radio/X-ray emission, which peaks {\sl after} the passage. The matter content of microquasars jets is unknown, although in the case of SS 433 iron X-ray line observations have proved the presence of ions in the jets (Kotani et al. 1994, 1996; Migliari et al. 2002). In the present paper we will assume that relativistic protons are part of the content of the observed jets in LS I $+61 \, 303$ and we will develop a simple model for the high-energy gamma-ray production in this system, with specific predictions for Cherenkov telescopes like MAGIC. We emphasize that our model is not opposed, but rather complementary to pure leptonic models as those presented by Bosch-Ramon \& Paredes (2004) and Bosch-Ramon et al. (2005a), since the leptonic contribution might dominate at lower gamma-ray energies and after the periastron passage. In the next section we will describe the basic features of the model, and then we will present the calculations and results. \section{General picture} A hadronic model for the gamma-ray emission in microquasars with early-type companions has been already developed by Romero et al. (2003). This model, however, is limited to the simple case of a massive star with a spherically symmetric wind and a compact object in a circular orbit. Here we will consider a B-type primary with a wind that forms a circumstellar outflowing disk of density $\rho_{\rm w}(r)=\rho_0({r}/{R_})^{-n}$ (Gregory \& Neish, 2002). The continuity equation implies a wind velocity of the type $v_{\rm w} = v_0 (r/R_)^{n-2}$. We will consider that the wind remains mainly near to the equatorial plane, confined in a disk with half-opening angle $\phi=15^\circ$, with $n=3.2$, $\rho_0=10^{-11}$ g cm$^{-3}$, and $v_0=5$ km s$^{-1}$ (Mart\'{\i} and Paredes 1995). The modeled properties of the system will be expressed in terms of the orbital phase $\psi$ ($\psi=0.23$ at the periastron passage according to the latest determination by Casares et al. 2005) which is related to the separation between the stars by $r(\psi)=a (1-e^2)/[1-e \cos (2\pi (\psi+0.73))]$, where $a$ is the semi-major axis of the orbit and $e$ the eccentricity. The wind accretion rate onto the compact object of mass $M_{\rm c}$ can be estimated as: \begin{equation} \dot{M}_{\rm c}=\frac{4 \pi (G\,M_{\rm c})^2 \rho_w(r)}{v_{\rm rel}^3}, \label{macc} \end{equation} where $v_{\rm rel}$ is the relative velocity between the neutron star (moving in a Keplerian orbit) and the circumstellar wind, assumed to be flowing radially on the equatorial plane. Following the basic assumption of the jet-disk symbiosis model (Falcke \& Biermann 1995) we will assume that the accretion rate is coupled to the kinetic jet power by: \begin{equation} Q_{\rm j}=q_{\rm j} \dot{M}_{\rm c} c^2, \end{equation} where $q_{\rm j}\sim 0.1$ is the coupling constant. Most of this power will consist of cool protons that are ejected with a macroscopic Lorentz factor $\Gamma\sim 1.25$ (Massi et al. 2001). Only a small fraction $q^{\rm rel}_{\rm j}\sim 10^{-3}$ is in the form of relativistic hadrons. The relativistic jet is confined by the pressure of the cold particles ($P_{\rm cold}>P_{\rm rel}$), which expand laterally at the local sound speed. The jet axis, $z$, will be assumed normal to the orbital plane. The jet will be conical, with a radius $R_{\rm j}(z)= z (R_0/z_0)$, where $z_0$ is the injection point and $R_0$ is the initial radius of the jet. We will adopt $z_0= 10^7$ cm and $R_0=z_0/10$ as reasonable values (see Romero et al. 2003 and Bosch-Ramon et al. 2005a, who deals with similar jets for additional details). The relativistic proton spectrum will be a power law $N'_{p}(E'_{p})= K_p\; {E'}_{p}^{-\alpha}$, valid for $ {E'_{p}}^{\rm min}\leq E'_{p} \leq {E'_{p}}^{\rm max}$ (in the jet frame). The corresponding relativistic proton flux will be $J'_{p}( E'_{p})= (c/4\pi) N'_{p}(E'_{p})$. Since the jet expands in a conical way, the proton flux evolves with $z$ as: \begin{equation} J'_p(E'_p)=\frac{c}{4 \pi} K_0 \left(\frac{z_0}{z}\right)^2 {E'_p}^{-\alpha}, \label{Jp} \end{equation} where it is implicit the assumption of the conservation of the number of particles (see Ghisellini et al. 1985), and a prime refers to the jet frame. Using relativistic invariants, it can be shown that the proton flux, in the lab (observer) frame, becomes (e.g. Purmohammad \& Samimi 2001): \begin{equation} J_p(E_p,\theta)=\frac{c K_0}{4 \pi} \left(\frac{z_0}{z}\right)^ 2 \frac{\Gamma^{-\alpha+1} \left(E_p-\beta_{\rm b} \sqrt{E_p^2-m_p^2c^4} \cos \theta\right)^{-\alpha}}{\left[\sin ^2 \theta + \Gamma^2 \left( \cos \theta - \frac{\beta_{\rm b} E_p}{\sqrt{E_p^2-m_p^2 c^4}}\right)^2\right]^{1/2}}. \label{Jp_lab} \end{equation} In this expression, $\Gamma$ is the jet Lorentz factor, $\theta$ is the angle subtended by the proton velocity direction (which will be roughly the same as that of the emerging photon) and the jet axis (notice that then $\theta \approx \theta_{\rm obs}$), and $\beta_{\rm b}$ is the bulk velocity in units of $c$. We will make all calculations in the lab frame, where the cross sections for $pp$ interactions have suitable parametrizations. The number density ${n_0}'$ of particles flowing in the jet at $R_0$, and the normalization constant $K_0$ can be determined as in Romero et al. (2003). In the numerical calculations of the next section we have considered ${E'}_p^{\rm max}=100$ TeV, ${E'}_p^{\rm min}=1$ GeV, $\Gamma=1.25$, and, $\alpha=2.2$ (see the list of the assumed parameters in Table 1). The assumed maximum energy is consistent with the jet size and shock acceleration with an efficiency $\sim0.01-0.1$. The matter from the wind can penetrate the jet from the side, diffusing into it as long as the particle gyro-radius is smaller than the radius of the jet. This imposes a constraint onto the value of the magnetic field in the jet: $B_{\rm jet}\geq E_k/(e R_0)$, where $E_k= m_p\,v_{\rm rel}^2/2$. For the periastron passage ($E_k$ maximum) results $B_{\rm jet}\geq 2.8\,10^{-6}$ G, which is surely satisfied. However, some effects, like shock formation on the boundary layers, could prevent some particles from entering into the jet. Given our ignorance of the microphysics involved, we adopt a parameter $f_{\rm p}$ that takes into account particle rejection from the boundary in a phenomenological way. In a conservative approach, we will adopt $f_{\rm p}\sim 0.1$ . Some of the particles entering the jet flow would be immediately accelerated to the jet velocity (by Coloumb interactions or wave-particle interactions). As a consequence, the jet should be slowed down during its motion through the equatorial wind. However, it is a fact that the jet survives this interaction since it is seen at radio wavelengths far beyond the wind region, up to distances of $\sim400$ AU (Massi et al. 2001, 2004). Since the bulk velocity seems not to be very high (Massi et al. 2001) and hence its change does not affect seriously the calculations of the gamma-ray emissivity, we will neglect, in what follows, the effects of a macroscopic deceleration. The reader interested in the case of the hadronic gamma-ray emission of a jet slowed down to rest by the effects of the wind and the resulting standing shock wave as the major source of radiation is referred to the recent treatment presented by Romero \& Orellana (2005). In Figure \ref{esquema} we show a sketch of the general situation and in Figure \ref{orbita} we show the orbit of the system and the corresponding phases. \section{Gamma-ray emission} Relativistic protons in the jet will interact with target protons in the wind through the reaction channel $p+p\rightarrow p+p+ \xi_{\pi^{0}} \pi^{0} + \xi_{\pi^{\pm}} (\pi^{+} + \pi^{-})$, where $\xi_{\pi}$ is the corresponding multiplicity. Then pion decay chains will lead to gamma-ray and neutrino emission. The differential gamma-ray emissivity from $\pi^0$-decays can be expressed as (e.g. Aharonian \& Atoyan 1996): \begin{equation} q_{\gamma}(E_{\gamma},\theta)= 4 \pi \sigma_{pp}(E_p) \frac{2Z^{(\alpha)}_{p\rightarrow\pi^0}}{\alpha}\;J_p(E_{\gamma},\theta) \,\eta_{\rm A}, \label{q} \end{equation} where $Z^{(\alpha)}_{p\rightarrow\pi^0}$ is the so-called spectrum-weighted moment of the inclusive cross-section (see, for instance, Gaisser 1990). $J_p(E_{\gamma})$ is the proton flux distribution (\ref{Jp_lab}) evaluated at $E=E_{\gamma}$. The cross section $\sigma_{pp}(E_p)$ for inelastic $p-p$ interactions at energy $E_p\approx 6 \xi_{\pi^{0}} E_{\gamma}/K$, where $K\sim0.5$ is the inelasticity coefficient and $\xi_{\pi^{0}}=1.1 (E_p/\rm GeV)^{1/4}$, can be represented for $E_{p}\geq 1$ GeV by $$\sigma_{pp}(E_p)\approx 30 \times [0.95 + 0.06 \log \;(E_p/{\rm GeV})]\;\; (\rm mb).$$ Finally, the parameter $\eta_{\rm A}$ takes into account the contribution from different nuclei in the wind and in the jet (for standard composition of cosmic rays and interstellar medium $\eta_{\rm A}\sim1.4$). The spectral energy distribution is: \begin{equation} L_{\gamma}(E_{\gamma},\theta)= E_\gamma^2 \int_V n(\vec{r'})\,q_{\gamma}(E_\gamma,\theta)\, d^3\vec{r'}, \label{Lum} \end{equation} where $V$ is the interaction volume between the jet and the circumstellar disk. The particle density of the wind that penetrates the jet is $n(r)\approx f_{\rm p} \rho_w(r)/m_p$. In our calculations, we adopt a viewing angle of $\theta = 30^\circ$ in accordance with the average value given by Casares et al. (2005). In Figure \ref{Lum} we show a 3-D plot that shows the evolution of the gamma-ray spectral energy distribution as a function of the orbital phase. Other two plots in this figure show cuts at both the periastron and apastron, and the luminosity evolution with the orbital phase at 100 GeV. In both cases we show the unabsorbed (dashed lines) and the absorbed (continuum lines) curves. This absorption is discussed in the next section. At the periastron passage the unattenuated luminosity is $\sim 10^{33}$ erg s$^{-1}$. We can make a simple order-of-magnitude estimate of this value. The accretion rate at the periastron is $\sim 3\times 10^{17}$ g s$^{-1}$. This means that the total power in relativistic protons should be $Q^{\rm rel}_{\rm j}=10^{-3} \dot{M}_{\rm c} c^2 \sim 2.8 \times 10^{35}$ erg s$^{-1}$. The density of the stellar wind at the injection point of the jet is $n\sim 4\times 10^{11}$ cm$^{-2}$ and the cross section for protons of $E_p\sim 1$ TeV, $\sigma_{pp}\sim 34$ mb. Hence, the mean free path of the protons results $\lambda_{pp}\sim 8.3 \times 10^{13}$ cm. The thickness of the region of the disk traversed by the jet is $\Delta z \sim r_{\rm perias} \tan 15^{\circ}\sim 4.4 \times 10^{11}$ cm. Consequently, we can approximate the gamma-ray luminosity by: \begin{equation} L_{\gamma}=2 f_{\pi} Q^{\rm rel}_{\rm j} \left(1-e^{-\Delta z/\lambda_{pp}}\right),\label{L} \end{equation} where $f_{\pi}\sim 0.2$ is the fraction of the energy of the leading proton that goes into neutral pions and hence into gamma-rays. With a simple substitution into Eq. (\ref{L}) we get $L_{\gamma}\sim 6.6 \times 10^{32}$ erg s$^{-1}$, in good agreement with the detailed numerical calculations presented in Fig. \ref{Lum}. \section{Opacity} The optical depth for a photon with energy $E_{\gamma}$, which in this case depends upon the direction observed, can be estimated as \begin{equation} \tau(\rho,\,E_{\gamma})=\int_{E_{\rm min}(E_{\gamma})}^\infty\int_{\rho}^\infty\,n_{\rm ph}(E_{\rm ph},\rho')\sigma_{e^-e^+}(E_{\rm ph},E_{\gamma})d\rho'\,dE_{\rm ph}, \label{tauXg} \end{equation} where $E_{\rm ph}$ is the energy of the ambient photons, $n_{\rm ph}(E_{\rm ph},\rho)$ is their density at a distance $\rho$ from the neutron star, and $\sigma_{e^-e^+}(E_{\rm ph},E_{\gamma})$ is the photon-photon pair creation cross section given by: \begin{equation} \sigma_{e^+e^-}(E_{\rm ph}, \;E_{\gamma})=\frac{\pi r_0^2}{2}(1-\xi^2)\left[2\xi(\xi^2- 2)+(3-\xi^4)\ln\left(\frac{1+\xi}{1-\xi}\right) \right], \end{equation} where $r_0$ is the classical radius of the electron and \begin{equation} \xi=\left[1-\frac{(m_e c^2)^2}{E_{\rm ph} E_{\gamma}}\right]^{1/2}. \end{equation} In Eq. (\ref{tauXg}), $E_{\rm min}$ is the threshold energy for pair creation in the ambient photon field. This field can be considered as formed by two components, one from the Be star and the other from the hot accreting matter impacting onto the neutron star: $n_{\rm ph}=n_{\rm ph,1}+ n_{\rm ph,2}$. Here, \begin{equation} n_{\rm ph,1}(E_{\rm ph},\rho)= \left(\frac{\pi B(E_{\rm ph})}{hc\,E_{\rm ph}}\right)\frac{R_\star ^2}{\rho^2+r^2-2\rho r \sin\theta}\;, \end{equation} is the black body emission from the star, with \begin{equation} B(E_{\rm ph})= \frac{2 E_{\rm ph}^3}{(hc)^2\,(e^{E_{\rm ph}/kT_{\rm eff}}-1)} \end{equation} and $T_{\rm eff}=22500$ K (Mart\'{\i} \& Paredes 1995). The separation $r$ between the stars is again variable with the phase angle $\psi$. The emission from the heated matter can be approximated by a Bremsstrahlung spectrum: \begin{equation} n_{\rm ph,2}(E_{\rm ph},\rho)=\frac{L_X\,E_{\rm ph}^{-2}}{4\pi c\,\rho^2\,e^{E_{\rm ph}/E_{\rm cut-off}}}\mbox{ for $E_{\rm ph}\geq 1$ keV}, \end{equation} where $L_X$ is the total luminosity in hard X-rays and $E_{\rm cut-off}\sim 100$ keV. The photon index of the hard X-rays is taken to be within the range published by Greiner \& Rau (2001), which was observationally determined. $L_X$ is also constrained by observations, being $L_X\sim 10^{34}$ erg s$^{-1}$ (Paredes et al. 1997). Notice that no bump due to a putative accretion disk has been observed at X-rays, so we neglect this contribution. As an example, Figure \ref{tau} shows the dependence of the optical depth $\tau$ with the energy of the $\gamma$-rays and its variation along the $z$ axis for the observer at $\theta_{\rm obs}=30^\circ$. From detailed versions of this plot, we find that for photons of $E_\gamma=100$ GeV significant absorption occurs mostly between $\psi=0.1$ and $\psi=0.5$. The optical depth remains well below the unity along the whole orbit for photons of energies $E_\gamma\la 30$ GeV and $E_\gamma\ga 2$ TeV. \section{Secondary electron-positron pairs and synchrotron emission} Secondary pairs are produced by the decays of charged pions and muons, as well as by photon-photon interactions. The main reactions that lead to charged pions are: \begin{eqnarray} p+p &\rightarrow& p+p+ \xi_{\pi^{0}} \pi^{0} + \xi_{\pi^{\pm}} (\pi^{+} + \pi^{-}) \label{pi0}\\ p+p &\rightarrow& p+ n+\pi^+ +X \label{n}\\ p+p &\rightarrow& 2n + 2\pi^+ +X \label{2n} \end{eqnarray} where $n$ is a neutron, $X$ stands for anything (neutral) else, and the charged pion multiplicity is $\xi_{\pi^{\pm}}\approx 2 (E_p/\rm GeV)^{1/4}$. The neutrons have a proper lifetime of $886\pm1$ s and since they move at ultrarelativistic speed can escape from the source, decaying at considerable distances (Eichler \& Wiita 1978). On the contrary, pions decay into the jet trough $\pi^{\pm}\rightarrow\mu^{\pm}+\nu$ and $\mu^{\pm}\rightarrow e^{\pm}+\nu+\overline{\nu}$. For an injection proton spectrum given by Eq. (\ref{Jp}) with $\alpha=2.2$, we have that the pion spectrum (in the jet's system) will be a power-law $J'_{\pi^{\pm}}(E'_{\pi^{\pm}})=K_{\pi^{\pm}}\; {E'}_{\pi^{\pm}}^{-\alpha_{\pi}}$, with $\alpha_{\pi}\sim 2.3$. The electron-positron distribution mimics this power law (Ginzburg \& Syrovatskii 1964, Dermer 1986): \begin{equation} {J'}_{e^{\pm}}({E'}_{e^{\pm}})= K_{\pi\rightarrow e^{\pm}} {E'}_{e^{\pm}}^{-\alpha_{\pm}}, \end{equation} with \begin{equation} K_{\pi\rightarrow e^{\pm}}=\left(\frac{m_{\mu}}{m_{e}}\right)^{\alpha_{\pm}-1} \frac{2(\alpha_{\pm}+5)}{\alpha_{\pm}(\alpha_{\pm}+2)(\alpha_{\pm}+3)} \; K_{\pi^{\pm}}, \end{equation} and $\alpha_{\pm}=\alpha_{\pi}$. The energy density of pion-generated pairs along the jet at the periastron passage can be calculated as: \begin{equation} w_{\pi\rightarrow e^{\pm}}= \int (4\pi/c) {E'}_{e^{\pm}} {J'}_{e^{\pm}}({E'}_{e^{\pm}}) d{E'}_{e^{\pm}}, \end{equation} where ${J'}_{e^{\pm}}({E'}_{e^{\pm}})$ takes into account all the contributions from $z_0$ to $z_{\rm max}$. Integrating we get $w_{\pi\rightarrow e^{\pm}}\approx 3 \times 10^{9}$ erg cm$^{-3}$. We can compare the energy density of pairs from the charged pion decays with that of the pairs produced by direct gamma-ray absorption. The total luminosity of these pairs is: \begin{equation} L_{e^{\pm}}= L_{\gamma}^{0}(1-e^{-\tau}). \end{equation} Then, using the opacity calculated in the previous section, the pair energy density results \begin{equation} w_{\gamma\gamma\rightarrow e^{\pm}}\sim \frac{L_{e^{\pm}}}{4\pi R_0^2 c}. \end{equation} At the periastron passage, we get $w_{\gamma\gamma\rightarrow e^{\pm}}\approx 3.7 \times 10^{9}$ erg cm$^{-3}$. Hence, the pair injection from the photon-photon annihilation is similar to that of pion decay. In what follows we will evaluate the spectrum of these particles using the approximation derived by Aharonian et al. (1983), which is in excellent agreement with the more detailed calculations (exact to 2nd order QED) presented by B$\ddot{\rm o}$ttcher \& Schlickeiser (1997). The differential pair injection rate is given by (B$\ddot{\rm o}$ttcher \& Schlickeiser 1997): \begin{eqnarray} \dot{n}_{e^{\pm}}(\gamma)&=& \frac{3}{32}c \sigma_{\rm _T} \int^{\infty}_{\gamma} d\epsilon_{\gamma} \frac{N_{\gamma}(\epsilon_{\gamma})}{\epsilon^{3}_{\gamma}} \int^{\infty}_{\frac{\epsilon_{\gamma}}{4\gamma(\epsilon_{\gamma}-\gamma)}} d\epsilon_{\rm ph} \frac{n_{\rm ph}(\epsilon_{\rm ph})}{\epsilon^{2}_{\rm ph}} \times \nonumber \\ & & [\;\; \frac{4\epsilon^{2}_{\gamma}}{\gamma (\epsilon_{\gamma}-\gamma)} \ln \left(\frac{4 \epsilon_{\rm ph} \gamma (\epsilon_{\gamma}-\gamma)}{\epsilon_{\gamma}} \right) -8 \epsilon_{\gamma}\epsilon_{\rm ph}+ \frac{2(2\epsilon_{\gamma}\epsilon_{\rm ph}-1)\epsilon^{2}_{\gamma}}{\gamma(\epsilon_{\gamma}-\gamma)} - \nonumber \\ && \left( 1- \frac{1}{\epsilon_{\gamma}\epsilon_{\rm ph}} \right) \frac{\epsilon^{4}_{\gamma}}{\gamma^{2}(\epsilon_{\gamma}-\gamma)^{2}}\;\;], \end{eqnarray} where $\gamma=E_{e^{\pm}}/m_{\rm e} c^2$, $\epsilon_{\gamma}=E_{\gamma}/m_{\rm e} c^2$, and $\epsilon_{\rm ph}=E_{\rm ph}/m_{\rm e} c^2$. A numerical integration yields a pair spectrum that can be well fitted by a power law $N_{e^{\pm}}\propto E^{-1.9}_{e^{\pm}}$. The proportionality constant $K_{\gamma\gamma\rightarrow e^{\pm}}$ can be obtained from the absorbed gamma-ray luminosity. The presence of a magnetic field in the jet will imply that all these secondary pairs will produce synchrotron emission. Following Bosch-Ramon et al. (2005b) we assume that the magnetic field is entangled to cold protons in such a way it has random directions and hence the synchrotron emission is isotropic in the jet's frame. To calculate the synchrotron luminosity we estimate the specific emission ($j_{\epsilon}(z)$) and absorption ($k_{\epsilon}(z)$) coefficients from the secondary particle distribution (see Pacholczyk 1970 for the detailed formulae), in such a way that: \begin{equation} \frac{dL_{\epsilon}(z)}{dz}=2\pi R_{\rm j} \frac{j_{\epsilon}(z)}{k_{\epsilon}(z)}\times [1-\exp(-l_{\rm j}k_{\epsilon}(z))], \label{eq:syncem} \end{equation} where to simplify the notation we are not using now primes to indicate that the calculation is in the jet's frame. In Eq. (\ref{eq:syncem}) $l_{\rm j}\sim R_{\rm j}$ is the typical size of the synchrotron emitting plasma and $\epsilon$ is the photon energy in units of $m_{\rm e}c^2$. Integrating over the jet length we get the spectral energy distribution as: \begin{equation} L^{\rm obs}_{\rm syn}=\epsilon \int^{z_{\rm max}}_{z_0} \delta^2 \frac{dL_{\epsilon}}{dz}dz \label{eq:L}, \end{equation} where $\delta$ is the Doppler boosting factor defined as: \begin{equation} \delta=\frac{1}{\Gamma (1-\beta_{\rm b}\cos\theta_{\rm obs})}. \label{eq:dopb} \end{equation} To calculate the specific emission $j_{\epsilon}(z)$ we adopt different values of the magnetic field at $z_0$: $B_0=1$, 10, and 100 Gauss (Bosch-Ramon \& Paredes 2004). In Figure \ref{f5} we show the spectral energy distribution of the synchrotron radiation of all secondary pairs for the 3 different values of $B_0$. The radio emission is quite negligible in comparison to the observed values, which at the minimum imply a luminosity of $\sim 10^{31}$ erg s$^{-1}$ (e.g. Rib\'o et al. 2005). \section{Discussion} The predicted gamma-ray luminosity is clearly at its maximum during the periastron passage, when the neutron star travels through the densest parts of the wind. This is in accordance with the fact noticed by Massi (2004) that the peaks of the EGRET flux are coincident with the periastron and not with the radio maxima. The radio outbursts are the result of particle injection in the jet that occurs after some relaxation time from the periastron passage, when the accretion rate is increased (Paredes et al. 1991). Any purely leptonic model for the gamma-ray emission would have to explain why the radio and gamma-ray peaks are not observed in similar orbital phases. Other specific feature of the gamma-ray emission predicted by our model is the presence of a local, secondary maximum at $\psi\sim 0.65$ when the accretion rate, given by (\ref{macc}), has also a local maximum due to the fact that the wind velocity is roughly parallel to the neutron star orbital velocity, hence reducing $v_{\rm rel}$ and increasing $\dot{M}_{\rm c}$, as noticed by Mart\'{\i} \& Paredes (1995). The effects of the opacity of the ambient photon fields to gamma-ray propagation produces a ``valley'' in the spectral energy distribution, between a few tens of GeV and a few TeV, with a local minimum at around 100 GeV, during the periastron passage. The predicted luminosity is within the detection possibilities of an instrument like MAGIC, which, integrating over several periastron passages, could build up a SED which can be compared with that presented in Fig. \ref{Lum}. Upper limits obtained with the Whipple telescope (Hall et al. 2003, Fegan et al. 2005) are indicated in the figure. The source is too weak for the sensitivity of this instrument according to our model. \section{Concluding remarks} We have presented a hadronic model for the high-energy gamma-ray production in the microquasar LS I $+61 \, 303$. The model is based on the interaction of a mildly relativistic jet with a small content of relativistic hadrons with the dense equatorial disk of the companion B0 V star. Gamma-rays are the result of the decay of neutral pions produced by $pp$ collisions. Charged pion decay will lead to neutrino production, that will be discussed elsewhere. The model takes into account the opacity of the ambient photon fields to the propagation of the gamma-rays. The predictions include a peak of gamma-ray flux in the periastron passage, with a secondary maximum at phase $\psi\sim 0.65$. The spectral energy distribution presents a minimum around 100 GeV due to absorption. The spectral features should be detectable by an instrument like MAGIC through exposures $\sim 50$ hr, integrated along different periastron passages. \section*{Acknowledgments} We thank J.M. Paredes and V. Bosch-Ramon for careful readings of the manuscript and comments. The latter gave us useful support on calculations for the secondary emission. We also thank constructive suggestions by an anonymous referee. This work has been supported by the Argentinian agencies CONICET and ANPCyT (PICT 03-13291). HRC thanks support from FUNCAP and CNPq (Brazil).	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv" }	410
Kevin Robert Is New Church Growth and Evangelism Director Kevin Robert Is New Church Growth and Evangelism Director https://nccsda.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Kevin-and-Tanya-Robert.jpg 720 540 Julie Lorenz Julie Lorenz https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/002a07232e8f3faf045c0eac8820b7a7?s=96&d=mm&r=g December 9, 2021 December 21, 2021 On Dec. 1, 2021, the Northern California Conference Executive Committee voted to invite Kevin Robert to serve as NCC church growth and evangelism director. He plans to begin his new role in January. "We feel blessed to welcome Kevin to the NCC," said President Marc Woodson. "God has certainly answered our prayers because Kevin's skillset, passion, and experience match our conference's needs!" A pastor and church planter, Robert comes from the Southern New England Conference, where he has served the Merrimack Valley and Billerica churches since 2017. During the last few years, he planted One Connection Academy and One Connection Community church—both in Wakefield, Mass. Robert is also a facilitator and coordinator for the North American Division Evangelism Institute's ACTS Church Planting Support System. He is currently coaching church planters in Massachusetts, Florida, the Philippines, Albania, and Mozambique. His passion is growing missional communities—modeled by the New Testament church—to reach people for Christ. "In a missional community, the believers eat together, study together, go on missions together," he said. "The whole group has a desire to change the community where they live for the gospel." The high school he planted was an intentional part of this type of evangelism. "We planted a core missional community team to use the school as a center of influence," he said. Robert didn't always plan to be a pastor. A native of Massachusetts, he graduated from Atlantic Union College with a bachelor's degree in physical education. He spent a number of years as a sleep lab manager before answering the Lord's calling to the ministry. As a young married couple, he and his wife, Tanya, were part of a church plant in Massachusetts, where Robert got involved in preaching and evangelism. With his wife's encouragement, he began working on a Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University, which he finished in 2016. In the midst of his studies, he was called to the Pennsylvania Conference, where he served in a four-church district until called back to Massachusetts. He was ordained in 2019. The Robert family will soon be moving to Angwin, where Tanya will teach nursing at Pacific Union College. The couple has three daughters: Gianna, a college freshman; Carmela, a high school freshman; and Analia, a third grader. Robert is excited to join the NCC team. "I'm looking forward to working with all the pastors and administrators, collaborating together, letting creativity flow," he said. "We want to focus on multiplication, rather than addition—growing disciples that make disciples and churches that plant churches." Resilience in the Classroom: When Students Take Ownership of Their Learning Panorama of Prophecy Reaches Thousands	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl" }	8,953
Emballonura monticola is een zoogdier uit de familie van de schedestaartvleermuizen (Emballonuridae). De wetenschappelijke naam van de soort werd voor het eerst geldig gepubliceerd door Temminck in 1838. Schedestaartvleermuizen IUCN-status niet bedreigd	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia" }	3,286
Q: What are Invoke & InvokeAsync methods? What is Invoke methods? Below here is my viewcomponent() method. public IViewComponentResult Invoke() { ViewBag.SelectedCategory = RouteData?.Values["category"]; return View(repository.Products.Select(x=>x.Category).Distinct().OrderBy(x=>x)); } Is this is the anonymous function? what is the name of this function ? I tried to change "Invoke" with "func" but there is no syntax error but run-time error Occurred. Is it Possible to have multiple methods with "Invoke" name and receiving different parameters In a single view component class. I Know that view component use to render partial views for this we use helper which is this @await Component.InvokeAsync("Here is the name of your view component") "component.InvokeAsynk" Goes to your component class and finds The Invoke method and then follows this method A: The Invoke and InvokeAsync methods on a ViewComponent are the methods that define the logic of the view component. These are not anonymous functions. They are regular c# methods that simply have the names Invoke and InvokeAsync. You don't need to define both of them in your view component. On the contrary you can only define one method. Let us say you named it Invoke and then you rename it to func then you have changed the name of the method: * you won't get a compiler error, but a runtime error will occur. This is because the Asp.Net Core framework code that calls your view component expects it to have either a Invoke or InvokeAsync method and your ViewComponent now has neither. You can name your view component anything you like but the name of the method which gets called to invoke it must be called Invoke or InvokeAsync. A ViewComponent can only have one Invoke or InvokeAsync method. A ViewComponent can't have both and it can't multiples of either one (with different parameters). Attempting to do so will produce the following runtime error: View component 'ViewComponents.NameOfComponent' must have exactly one public method named 'InvokeAsync' or 'Invoke'.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange" }	1,606
Tasmarubrius pioneer är en spindelart som beskrevs av Davies 1998. Tasmarubrius pioneer ingår i släktet Tasmarubrius och familjen Amphinectidae. Artens utbredningsområde är Tasmanien. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life. Källor Spindlar pioneer	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia" }	4,633
{"url":"https:\/\/grishchenko.org\/","text":"# Recent Posts\n\n### Talk of Nikita Doikov\n\nHello everyone, On Monday, $23^{\\text{rd}}$ September Nikita Doikov will give a talk about some recent results on accelerated proximal \u2026\n\n# Recent & Upcoming Talks\n\n### Identification-Based First-Order Algorithms for Distributed Learning\n\nIn this talk, we present a first-order optimization algorithm for distributed learning problems. We propose an efficient sparsification \u2026\n\n### Distributed First-Order Optimization with Tamed Communications\n\nMany machine learning and signal processing applications involve high-dimensional nonsmooth optimization problems. The nonsmoothness is \u2026\n\n### Identify and Sparsify$:$ Distributed Optimization with Asynchronous Moderate Communications\n\nWe present an asynchronous optimization algorithm for distributed learning, that efficiently reduces the communications between a \u2026\n\n### Identify and Sparsify$:$ Distributed Optimization with Asynchronous Moderate Communications\n\nWe present an asynchronous optimization algorithm for distributed learning, that efficiently reduces the communications between a \u2026\n\n### Distributed Optimization with Sparse Communications and Structure Identification\n\nWe propose an efficient distributed algorithm for solving regularized learning problems. In a distributed framework with a master \u2026\n\n# Recent Publications\n\n### Asynchronous Distributed Learning with Sparse Communications and Identification\n\nIn this paper, we present an asynchronous optimization algorithm for distributed learning, that efficiently reduces the communications \u2026\n\n### A Privacy Preserving Randomized Gossip Algorithm via Controlled Noise Insertion\n\nIn this work we present a randomized gossip algorithm for solving the average consensus problem while at the same time protecting the \u2026\n\n### Privacy preserving randomized gossip algorithms\n\nIn this work we present a randomized gossip algorithm for solving the average consensus problem while at the same time protecting the \u2026\n\n### Origami: What One Can Get via Paper Folding (Rus)\n\nIn this work we study the set of origami numbers, more precisely the set of coordinates of points that could be reached via paper \u2026\n\n# Teaching\n\n#### Refresher course$:$ Numerical Matrix Analysis and Optimization\n\nThis short course focuses on matrix analysis and optimization\n\n#### Optimisation Num\u00e9rique\n\nBasic course on numerical optimization (theory and implementation)\n\n#### Convex and Distributed Optimization\n\nIncremental and Stochastic Optimization for Learning, Spark, Distributed Optimization.\n\n#### Refresher course$:$ Numerical Matrix Analysis and Optimization\n\nThis short course focuses on matrix analysis and optimization\n\n# Experience\n\n#### Universit\u00e9 Grenoble Alpes\n\nSep 2018 \u2013 Present Grenoble, France\n\n2018 - 2019\n\n\u2022 Matrix Analysis and Numerical Optimization\n\n\u2022 Convex and Distributed Optimization\n\n\u2022 Numerical Optimization\n\n#### Altium\n\nJan 2016 \u2013 Sep 2017 Moscow, Russia\n\n#### Citibank\n\nJul 2014 \u2013 Feb 2015 Moscow, Russia\n\n#### Higher School of Economics\n\nSep 2013 \u2013 Jun 2015 Moscow, Russia\n\u2022 Calculus","date":"2019-10-14 11:03:34","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.2563660442829132, \"perplexity\": 3535.2642832037436}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2019-43\/segments\/1570986653216.3\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20191014101303-20191014124303-00116.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
\section{Introduction} Initial state density fluctuations and the pressure gradient of the strongly interacting medium in transverse plane result in azimuthal anisotropies of the emitted particles in the final state. These can be characterized by a Fourier expansion with magnitudes given by prefactors v$_{\rm n}$ \cite{1,2}. The longitudinal structure of the initial state, particularly at RHIC energies, remains largely unexplored. The density fluctuations can be studied in terms of correlations of particles in the longitudinal direction, {\it i.e.} in (pseudo)rapidity \cite{3,4}. Long-range rapidity correlations, and other ``short range" mechanisms such as resonance decays, jet fragmentation, and quantum statistical effects, appear in specific ways in the correlation functions \cite{4}. The shape of the longitudinal correlations can be characterized by Chebyshev \cite{3} or Legendre polynomials \cite{4} with magnitudes given by prefactors $a_{nm}$. Recently, the ATLAS collaboration has studied \cite{5} the longitudinal fluctuations in terms of $a_{nm}$ and provided information on the early time dynamics in different collision systems. A relativistic hydrodynamical calculation \cite{6} has also been used to show that the rapidity correlations are sensitive to the number of particle-producing sources and the transport properties of the medium. The importance of doing this analysis at RHIC was also emphasized in Ref\cite{6}. In this work, rapidity correlations were studied with STAR for Au$+$Au collisions at eight different beam energies from 7.7 to 200~$\mathrm{GeV}$ for the BES-I program at RHIC. The calculated Legendre coefficients $\langle a_{nm}\rangle$ from experimental data are also compared with the results from the UrQMD model \cite{6b}. \section{Analysis Method} Two-particle rapidity correlation function is defined as \cite{7}: \begin{equation} R_{2}(y_{1},y_{2}) =\frac{\langle\rho_{2}(y_{1},y_{2})\rangle}{\langle\rho_{1}(y_{1})\rangle\langle\rho_{1}(y_{2})\rangle}-1 ; \label{formula1} \end{equation} where $\langle\rho_{2}(y_{1},y_{2})\rangle$ and $\langle\rho_{1}(y_{1,2})\rangle$ are two particle, and single particle, multiplicity density distributions in rapidity, respectively; averaged over events within a narrow centrality class. In order to study the purely dynamical fluctuations, a normalization is used to decouple the residual centrality dependence from the rapidity correlation function, $C(y_{1},y_{2})$=$R_{2}(y_{1},y_{2})$+1 \cite{4,5}. This normalized correlation function is given by: \begin{equation} C_{N}(y_{1},y_{2}) =\frac{R_{2}(y_{1},y_{2})+1}{C_{p}(y_{1})C_{p}(y_{2})} ; \label{formula2} \end{equation} where $C_{p}$ is the projection of the correlation function along the rapidity axis of each particle. The correlation function $C_{N}(y_{1},y_{2})$ can be decomposed onto a basis set of normalized Legendre polynomials $T_{n}(y)=\sqrt{n+\frac{1}{2}}P_{n}(y/Y)$ in the (pseudo)rapidity range of $[-Y,Y]$ as \cite{4,5}: \begin{equation} C_{N}(y_{1},y_{2}) =1+\sum\limits_{n,m=1}^{\infty}\langle a_{nm}\rangle\frac{T_{n}(y_{1})T_{m}(y_{2})+T_{n}(y_{2})T_{m}(y_{1})}{2} . \label{formula3} \end{equation} The first diagonal coefficient $\langle a_{11}\rangle$ represents the contribution from the forward-backward asymmetry of the participating nucleons, $\langle a_{22}\rangle$ reflects the fluctuations in the width of the single particle density distribution, and $\langle a_{nm}\rangle$ coefficients with m$=$n+2 and larger quantify the strength of shorter range correlations \cite{4}. Two-particle correlation functions for the most central (0-5\%) Au$+$Au events were calculated as the ratio of the same-event and mixed-event pairs, where the mixed event pairs were formed by sampling from the single particle distributions in (y, $\varphi$, p$_{\rm T}$). Charged pions, kaons (0.2$<$p$_{\rm T}$$<$2~GeV/c) and protons (0.4$<$p$_{\rm T}$$<$2 GeV/c) were studied in this analysis. The reconstructed tracks with $\|$y$\|$$<$0.5 (0.7 for protons), and $\|\Delta y\|$$<$1.0 (1.4 for protons) were used. Every track used in the analysis was directly identified as either $\pi$, K, or p by requiring correct values of both the ionization energy loss and time of flight in the STAR TPC and TOF, respectively. Thus, ``charged hadrons" in this analysis, labelled h$^\pm$, are not simply all reconstructed TPC tracks but are doubly directly-identified $\pi$, K, or p particles. Pseudo-correlations caused by the experimental effects of z-vertex smearing were corrected. The systematic uncertainties were estimated by varying the track selection cuts. In addition, track crossing effects \cite{7b} were corrected by p$_{\rm T}$-ordering the particles in each pair and then removing the pairs with $\|\Delta y\|$$<$0.05 and $-$60$^{\circ}$$<$$\|\Delta\varphi\|$$<$0$^{\circ}$ from both the same-event and mixed-event pairs. In this analysis, the three-dimensional correlation function $R_{2}(y_{1},y_{2},\Delta\varphi)$ was formed to allow the study of both R$_{2}$(y$_{1}$,y$_{2}$), ({\it i.e.} Eq. \ref{formula1}) and R$_{2}$($\Delta$y,$\Delta\varphi$) correlations. The averaged one-dimensional correlation function $\langle$$R_{2}(\Delta y)$$\rangle$ was obtained by projecting the two or three-dimensional correlation function. The same analysis was also done for events from the UrQMD model \cite{6b}, version 3.4. \section{Results} Figure \ref{Fig1} shows the most significant diagonal Legendre coefficients $\langle a_{nm}\rangle$ for charged hadrons, pions, kaons and protons for 0-5\% centrality and for each of eight beam energies from 7.7 to 200~GeV. \begin{figure}[h] \centering \includegraphics[trim= 0cm 0.25cm 0cm 1.5cm,clip,width=.57\textheight,height=.33\textheight]{Fig1.pdf} \caption{\small Legendre coefficients $\langle a_{11}\rangle$ (left), $\langle a_{22}\rangle$ (middle) and $\langle a_{13}\rangle$ (right) calculated from the two-particle rapidity correlation function for charged hadrons and pions (top), and kaons and protons (bottom), at 8 different beam energies in Au$+$Au collisions. Here, charged hadrons are directly-identified pions, kaons, and protons. The statistical uncertainties are shown as the vertical lines, while the horizontal caps indicate the systematic uncertainties.} \label{Fig1} \end{figure} The magnitude of the coefficients decreases with increasing beam energy, indicating decreased two-particle correlations per pair as $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ increases. The first diagonal coefficient $\langle a_{11}\rangle$ is positive for charged hadrons, pions, and kaons. This is expected from wounded nucleon model arguments \cite{3}. However, the $\langle a_{11}\rangle$ coefficient is negative for protons at all eight energies. This results from the relative anti-correlation of $\langle$$R_{2}(\Delta y)$$\rangle$ at $\Delta$y$=$0 that is seen in Figure \ref{Fig2}. Such an anti-correlation for protons has also been observed in p$+$p collisions at 7~TeV by ALICE \cite{8} and in $e^{+}e^{-}$ collisions at 29~GeV by the TPC/Two-Gamma collaboration \cite{9}. \par A significant increase in the magnitude of the $\langle a_{nm}\rangle$ coefficients for pions at 19.6 and 27.0~$\mathrm{GeV}$ was observed and shown in Figure \ref{Fig1}. A further investigation shows that there is a strong correlation structure in pions around $\Delta$y$\sim$0 that is elongated in the $\Delta\varphi$ direction. This structure only appears for pions and is similar in shape to those observed in cluster emission models applied to p$+$p collisions at RHIC and the LHC \cite{10,11}.\par In order to further understand the observed structure, the averaged correlation functions for pions versus $\Delta y$ were calculated in three different ranges of the azimuthal angle $\Delta\varphi$: near-side (-30$^{\circ}$$<$$\Delta\varphi$$<$30$^{\circ}$), far-side (150$^{\circ}$$<$$\Delta\varphi$$<$210$^{\circ}$) and transverse $\Delta\varphi$ (30$^{\circ}$$<$$\Delta\varphi$$<$150$^{\circ}$ \& 210$^{\circ}$$<$$\Delta\varphi$$<$330$^{\circ}$) for 19.6 and 27~GeV and their neighboring energies (14.5 and 39~GeV) as shown in Figure \ref{Fig3}. In the near-side projection there is a peak around $\Delta$y$\sim$0 which is stronger in unlike-sign pions than like-sign pions. This is an expected feature of the short-range correlation mechanisms \cite{5} that are dominant in this $\Delta\varphi$ range. There is no significant structure in the far-side projection of both like-sign and unlike-sign pions at these energies. However, the transverse projection shows a significant peak around $\Delta$y$\sim$0 at 19.6 and 27~GeV. This structure has the same magnitude for both like-sign and unlike-sign pions. The UrQMD model does not reproduce this observation (see Figure~\ref{Fig2}). \begin{figure}[h] \centering \includegraphics[trim= 0.1cm 0.22cm 0.1cm 6.2cm,clip,width=.41\textheight,height=.16\textheight]{Fig2.pdf} \caption{\small The averaged rapidity correlation function for pions (left) and protons (right) over the full $\Delta\varphi$ range at 19.6~$\mathrm{GeV}$. The solid histograms depict the UrQMD results. The middle point at $\Delta$y$=$0 for protons has large fluctuations due to the track crossing effects which exist solely in this bin. } \label{Fig2} \end{figure} \begin{figure}[h] \centering \includegraphics[trim= 2cm 0.45cm 2cm 0.3cm,width=.45\textheight,height=.39\textheight]{Fig3.pdf} \caption{\small The averaged correlation function for pions as a function of $\Delta y$ for 14.5, 19.6, 27, and 39~GeV (from left to right respectively) beam energies in 0-5\% central Au$+$Au collisions. Averages were taken over three different ranges of $\Delta\varphi$: (top) near-side, (middle) far-side and (bottom) transverse region. See the text for the definition of the different $\Delta\varphi$ ranges.} \label{Fig3} \end{figure} \section{Conclusions} Two-particle rapidity correlations have been studied for like-sign and unlike-sign charged hadrons and directly-identified particles ($\pi, K$, and $p$) in 0-5\% central Au$+$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$$=$7.7-200~GeV. The shape of the rapidity correlations has been quantified by decomposing the correlation functions onto a basis set of Legendre polynomials. The $\langle a_{11}\rangle$ coefficients have been observed to be positive for pions and kaons, and they are negative for protons at all eight beam energies. The positive or negative values of $\langle a_{11}\rangle$ are indicative of correlations or anti-correlations, respectively. A charge-independent structure has been observed in the correlation function for pions. This structure is very localized in beam-energy (19.6 and 27~GeV) and at $\Delta$y$\sim$0 and extends as a ridge in the $\Delta\varphi$ direction. Further studies are needed to understand the underlying physical mechanisms for this structure. \bibliographystyle{elsarticle-num}	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv" }	2,997
Another bankrupt print media company may be getting a buyout. A white knight has emerged for the bankrupt parent of the Chicago Sun-Times, the rival Chicago Tribune reported Friday. For the last few years, we have watched the world around us changing, but within the industry's walls, we have seen just glimmers of change surfacing along the horizon. Now, we are going to watch this industry evolve around us in a massive blaze. As I write this, the Book Business Extra e-newsletter reported developments in mobile content, MP3 audiobooks and free book downloads. The fi rst story covered digital book distributor OverDrive's new offering of downloadable audiobooks (for retailers, libraries and schools) in MP3 format that will be compatible with nearly every mobile phone and MP3 player, including the iPod. Borders will be the fi rst to offer the audiobooks at Audiobooks. Borders.com and at Digital Centers inside select Borders stores. Spending on advertising in the U.S. fell 15.4% in the first half of 2009, compared with the same period a year earlier, according to an annual report released Tuesday by The Nielsen Company. For the six-month period, ad spending plummeted more than $10.3 billion to $56.9 billion. National newspapers saw ad spending decline 22.8%. Local newspapers dropped 13.2%. National magazines, outdoor media and network radio similarly fell 21.2%, 14.9% and 9%, respectively. Even the Web took a hit. Ad spending declined 1% through the first six months of the year. He Said the Magic Word! Can high-power corporate executives run a local newspaper like a local newspaper? At least one of Star Tribune's potential new board members (who was once president of the UK Starbucks Coffee Co.), thinks so. The Star Tribune said Monday that unless another buyer emerges, its board of directors will include L. Gordon Crovitz, former Wall Street Journal publisher; Michael T. Sweeney, managing partner of the Minneapolis private equity firm of Goldner Hawn Johnson & Morrison; former banker and investor William F. Farley of Minneapolis; and Michael E. Reed, head of GateHouse Media Inc. of Fairport, N.Y. Two additional board members are expected to be named later. "I think a local newspaper company like the Star Tribune is the epitome of a local business," said Sweeney, who previously served as president of Starbucks Coffee Co. (UK) in London. "So it's a pleasure to be involved in such a local business." Click "Read more" for the rest. Faced with plunging ad and circulation revenue and heavy debt, the Star Tribune filed for bankruptcy protection last January. The Chapter 11 filing came less than two years after Avista Capital Partners, a private equity firm, bought the Star Tribune for $530 million from The McClatchy Co. WASHINGTON (AFP) – Freedom Communications, owner of the Orange County Register and 30 other US newspapers, is expected to file for bankruptcy protection this week, according to published reports. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times quoted unidentified sources as saying that the bankruptcy filing would lead to Freedom's lenders taking over the company, which is owned by the Hoiles family. The Times said the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, which protects a company from its creditors while it restructures, could come as early as Tuesday. Should Newspapers Really be Saved? Some months ago I was invited (about a dozen times) to join the "Don't Let Newspapers Die" cause on Facebook. Most of the well-meaning folks who invited me to the cause were, in fact, people in the newspaper industry with whom I have worked for many, many years. As a nearly 20-year veteran of the business, I can forgive my Facebook friends for assuming that I would be interested in preserving the newspaper industry as it exists today, and as it has existed for the bulk of my career. It was with a not-so-heavy heart that I silently ignored the pleas for my participation in this particular cause. Why? Because information gathering and reporting, like any other human industry, must be allowed to change and evolve with the technologies and the demands of the times. We no longer live in an era when the common man, he who puts his nose to the grindstone every day just to feed his family, is restricted to digesting a filtered, dumbed-down hashing of the day's events with his breakfast bagel or his evening meal. News delivery today is consumer-participatory. We read it, we digest it, we "tweet" it, and we do not necessarily glean what we regurgitate from traditional sources. The print newspaper business must evolve if it is to remain a viable information utility. To date, it has been the slowest overall of the more traditional news reporting sources to successfully leverage the Internet in the daily lives of news junkies. Granted, it's had more to overcome. Flipping on the television or radio and sponging the news in spoken or visual form is still easier than putting it together yourself from various blogs, feeds, and editorial content online, even with technologies like RSS and social media sites. Let's look at it this way: no one hires a scribe to manually copy, translate, and distribute documents anymore. Why? Because Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type printing and the printing press. Even as far back as the 1400s, technology was changing the way news was delivered. And then there were newsboys, who are famous in American history for shouting headlines on street corners in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in order to sell papers. Word-of-mouth, in fact, was one way newspapers managed to attract readers and subscribers throughout the ages. "Did you read that story in the…?" was most often the phrase that led to more eyeballs on a particular column. These days, there's nary a newsboy to be found and no one uses movable type printing anymore. Why? Because we have desktop publishing applications that make it simple to put words on a page, and we have television, radio, blogs, advertising, social media, and a host of other means of spreading word-of-mouth. Now fast-forward to 1997, when Matt Drudge "revolutionized" online newsgathering by becoming one of the first aggregated news sites on the Web to both make news and break major political scandal. Suddenly, people were turning to the Internet in droves to read news from sources that were not ABC, NBC, CBS, New York Times, or Wall Street Journal. What Drudge did was successfully break a Newsweek work-in-progress on the Internet. Although it wasn't Drudge who uncovered the story, his action on it was the very beginning of what would become the medium accused of destroying the newspaper. For years, I've heard that craigslist is killing print media because of free online classifieds, and that bloggers are killing print media because they have become the new, true "community" journalists, that they are performing original local reporting rather than just spilling something from the Associated Press into an empty hole every day. In the end, though, it is up to the newspaper to maintain (and build) its readership, and not up to craiglist, bloggers, twitterers, or whatever the next generation of newsgatherer becomes, to protect the old gray print media from wasting away to nothing. Should traditional print media go the way of the dinosaur? Absolutely. It should evolve. Creditors will extend for two months the company's exclusive right to present a reorganization plan. Their plan proposes the auction and posts a starting bid of $37 million in cash plus real estate and bankruptcy costs. The company values the plan at $92 million. The debtors propose to keep $60 million in debt on the books, in contrast to the company's plan to emerge debt-free. "We believe that it achieves the highest and best value for estate assets for the benefit of creditors," said lawyer Larry McMichael, who represents Philadelphia Newspapers. "We believe that because we haven't been able to find anybody else to put money in." Ailing newspapers in Boston, Minneapolis and other U.S. cities have all struggled to raise capital or find new buyers, he noted. Today's publishing reality is that approximately 4% of manuscripts submitted to publishers ever become books. If you have written a book you need to face the truth. The odds of getting your book published through traditional methods are slim to none. Recently a self-publishing author of my acquaintance inked a deal with a major publishing company for some very large bucks, maybe the largest in history for a new author. How did he do it? I'll tell you.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	6,258
(RTTNews) - Germany's investor confidence rose sharply in March, reversing a steep fall in the previous month, to its highest level in a year, survey data from the ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research showed on Tuesday. The latest reading was the highest since March last year, when the score was 5.1. "The significant increase in the ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment shows that major economic risks are considered to be less dramatic than before," ZEW President Achim Wambach said. "The possible delay in the Brexit process as well as the renewed hope for a deal on the UK's withdrawal from the EU seem to have given rise to more optimism among financial market experts." The current situation index of the survey fell to 11.1 from 15. Economists had expected the index to ease to 13. The expectations for the medium-term economic development are less pessimistic than they were a month or two ago, the ZEW said. Survey data also showed that Eurozone investor confidence improved sharply with the relevant index rising 14.1 points to minus 2.5. However, the current conditions index for the euro area survey decreased further, by 3.6 points to minus 6.6. On Monday, the Bundesbank said in its monthly report that the German economy is unlikely to rebound in the first quarter as the manufacturing slowdown continued. The group forecast 1.7 percent expansion for next year. Christoph Schmidt, the chairman of the panel, said the boom for the German economy is over now, but a recession is unlikely, thanks to the robust domestic economy.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	8,822
package org.apache.ignite.internal.processors.hadoop; import java.io.File; import java.io.FilenameFilter; import java.io.IOException; import java.net.MalformedURLException; import java.net.URL; import java.nio.file.Files; import java.nio.file.Path; import java.nio.file.Paths; import java.util.ArrayList; import java.util.Collection; import java.util.LinkedList; import java.util.List; /** * Hadoop classpath utilities. / public class HadoopClasspathUtils { /* Prefix directory. / public static final String PREFIX = "HADOOP_PREFIX"; /* Hadoop home directory. / public static final String HOME = "HADOOP_HOME"; /* Hadoop common directory. / public static final String COMMON_HOME = "HADOOP_COMMON_HOME"; /* Hadoop HDFS directory. / public static final String HDFS_HOME = "HADOOP_HDFS_HOME"; /* Hadoop mapred directory. / public static final String MAPRED_HOME = "HADOOP_MAPRED_HOME"; /* Arbitrary additional dependencies. Compliant with standard Java classpath resolution. / public static final String HADOOP_USER_LIBS = "HADOOP_USER_LIBS"; /* Empty string. / private static final String EMPTY_STR = ""; /* * Gets Hadoop class path as a list of URLs (for in-process class loader usage). * * @return List of class path URLs. * @throws IOException If failed. / public static List<URL> classpathForClassLoader() throws IOException { List<URL> res = new ArrayList<>(); for (SearchDirectory dir : classpathDirectories()) { for (File file : dir.files()) { try { res.add(file.toURI().toURL()); } catch (MalformedURLException e) { throw new IOException("Failed to convert file path to URL: " + file.getPath()); } } } return res; } /* * Gets Hadoop locations. * * @return The locations as determined from the environment. / public static HadoopLocations locations() throws IOException { // Query environment. String hadoopHome = systemOrEnv(PREFIX, systemOrEnv(HOME, EMPTY_STR)); String commonHome = systemOrEnv(COMMON_HOME, EMPTY_STR); String hdfsHome = systemOrEnv(HDFS_HOME, EMPTY_STR); String mapredHome = systemOrEnv(MAPRED_HOME, EMPTY_STR); // If any composite location is defined, use only them. if (!isEmpty(commonHome) \|\| !isEmpty(hdfsHome) \|\| !isEmpty(mapredHome)) { HadoopLocations res = new HadoopLocations(hadoopHome, commonHome, hdfsHome, mapredHome); if (res.valid()) return res; else throw new IOException("Failed to resolve Hadoop classpath because some environment variables are " + "either undefined or point to nonexistent directories [" + "[env=" + COMMON_HOME + ", value=" + commonHome + ", exists=" + res.commonExists() + "], " + "[env=" + HDFS_HOME + ", value=" + hdfsHome + ", exists=" + res.hdfsExists() + "], " + "[env=" + MAPRED_HOME + ", value=" + mapredHome + ", exists=" + res.mapredExists() + "]]"); } else if (!isEmpty(hadoopHome)) { // All further checks will be based on HADOOP_HOME, so check for it's existence. if (!exists(hadoopHome)) throw new IOException("Failed to resolve Hadoop classpath because " + HOME + " environment " + "variable points to nonexistent directory: " + hadoopHome); // Probe Apache Hadoop. HadoopLocations res = new HadoopLocations( hadoopHome, hadoopHome + "/share/hadoop/common", hadoopHome + "/share/hadoop/hdfs", hadoopHome + "/share/hadoop/mapreduce" ); if (res.valid()) return res; // Probe CDH. res = new HadoopLocations( hadoopHome, hadoopHome, hadoopHome + "/../hadoop-hdfs", hadoopHome + "/../hadoop-mapreduce" ); if (res.valid()) return res; // Probe HDP. res = new HadoopLocations( hadoopHome, hadoopHome, hadoopHome + "/../hadoop-hdfs-client", hadoopHome + "/../hadoop-mapreduce-client" ); if (res.valid()) return res; // Failed. throw new IOException("Failed to resolve Hadoop classpath because " + HOME + " environment variable " + "is either invalid or points to non-standard Hadoop distribution: " + hadoopHome); } else { // Advise to set HADOOP_HOME only as this is preferred way to configure classpath. throw new IOException("Failed to resolve Hadoop classpath (please define " + HOME + " environment " + "variable and point it to your Hadoop distribution)."); } } /* * Gets base directories to discover classpath elements in. * * @return Collection of directory and mask pairs. * @throws IOException if a mandatory classpath location is not found. / private static Collection<SearchDirectory> classpathDirectories() throws IOException { HadoopLocations loc = locations(); Collection<SearchDirectory> res = new ArrayList<>(); // Add libraries from Hadoop distribution: res.add(new SearchDirectory(new File(loc.common(), "lib"), AcceptAllDirectoryFilter.INSTANCE)); res.add(new SearchDirectory(new File(loc.hdfs(), "lib"), AcceptAllDirectoryFilter.INSTANCE)); res.add(new SearchDirectory(new File(loc.mapred(), "lib"), AcceptAllDirectoryFilter.INSTANCE)); res.add(new SearchDirectory(new File(loc.common()), new PrefixDirectoryFilter("hadoop-common-"))); res.add(new SearchDirectory(new File(loc.common()), new PrefixDirectoryFilter("hadoop-auth-"))); res.add(new SearchDirectory(new File(loc.hdfs()), new PrefixDirectoryFilter("hadoop-hdfs-"))); res.add(new SearchDirectory(new File(loc.mapred()), new PrefixDirectoryFilter("hadoop-mapreduce-client-common"))); res.add(new SearchDirectory(new File(loc.mapred()), new PrefixDirectoryFilter("hadoop-mapreduce-client-core"))); // Add user provided libs: res.addAll(parseUserLibs()); return res; } /* * Parse user libs. * * @return Parsed libs search patterns. * @throws IOException If failed. / public static Collection<SearchDirectory> parseUserLibs() throws IOException { return parseUserLibs(systemOrEnv(HADOOP_USER_LIBS, null)); } /* * Parse user libs. * * @param str String. * @return Result. * @throws IOException If failed. / public static Collection<SearchDirectory> parseUserLibs(String str) throws IOException { Collection<SearchDirectory> res = new LinkedList<>(); if (!isEmpty(str)) { String[] tokens = normalize(str).split(File.pathSeparator); for (String token : tokens) { // Skip empty tokens. if (isEmpty(token)) continue; File file = new File(token); File dir = file.getParentFile(); if (token.endsWith("")) { assert dir != null; res.add(new SearchDirectory(dir, AcceptAllDirectoryFilter.INSTANCE, false)); } else { // Met "/" or "C:\" pattern, nothing to do with it. if (dir == null) continue; res.add(new SearchDirectory(dir, new ExactDirectoryFilter(file.getName()), false)); } } } return res; } /** * Get system property or environment variable with the given name. * * @param name Variable name. * @param dflt Default value. * @return Value. / private static String systemOrEnv(String name, String dflt) { String res = System.getProperty(name); if (res == null) res = System.getenv(name); return res != null ? res : dflt; } /* * Answers if the given path denotes existing directory. * * @param path The directory path. * @return {@code True} if the given path denotes an existing directory. / public static boolean exists(String path) { if (path == null) return false; Path p = Paths.get(path); return Files.exists(p) && Files.isDirectory(p) && Files.isReadable(p); } /* * Check if string is empty. * * @param val Value. * @return {@code True} if empty. / private static boolean isEmpty(String val) { return val == null \|\| val.isEmpty(); } /* * NOramlize the string. * * @param str String. * @return Normalized string. / private static String normalize(String str) { assert str != null; return str.trim().toLowerCase(); } /* * Simple pair-like structure to hold directory name and a mask assigned to it. / public static class SearchDirectory { /* File. / private final File dir; /* Filter. / private final DirectoryFilter filter; /* Whether directory must exist. / private final boolean strict; /* * Constructor for directory search with strict rule. * * @param dir Directory. * @param filter Filter. * @throws IOException If failed. / private SearchDirectory(File dir, DirectoryFilter filter) throws IOException { this(dir, filter, true); } /* * Constructor. * * @param dir Directory. * @param filter Filter. * @param strict Whether directory must exist. * @throws IOException If failed. / private SearchDirectory(File dir, DirectoryFilter filter, boolean strict) throws IOException { this.dir = dir; this.filter = filter; this.strict = strict; if (strict && !exists(dir.getAbsolutePath())) throw new IOException("Directory cannot be read: " + dir.getAbsolutePath()); } /* * @return Child files. / public File[] files() throws IOException { File[] files = dir.listFiles(new FilenameFilter() { @Override public boolean accept(File dir, String name) { return filter.test(name); } }); if (files == null) { if (strict) throw new IOException("Failed to get directory files [dir=" + dir + ']'); else return new File[0]; } else return files; } } /* * Directory filter interface. / public static interface DirectoryFilter { /* * Test if file with this name should be included. * * @param name File name. * @return {@code True} if passed. / public boolean test(String name); } /* * Filter to accept all files. / public static class AcceptAllDirectoryFilter implements DirectoryFilter { /* Singleton instance. / public static final AcceptAllDirectoryFilter INSTANCE = new AcceptAllDirectoryFilter(); /* {@inheritDoc} / @Override public boolean test(String name) { return true; } } /* * Filter which uses prefix to filter files. / public static class PrefixDirectoryFilter implements DirectoryFilter { /* Prefix. / private final String prefix; /* * Constructor. * * @param prefix Prefix. / public PrefixDirectoryFilter(String prefix) { assert prefix != null; this.prefix = normalize(prefix); } /* {@inheritDoc} / @Override public boolean test(String name) { return normalize(name).startsWith(prefix); } } /* * Filter which uses exact comparison. / public static class ExactDirectoryFilter implements DirectoryFilter { /* Name. / private final String name; /* * Constructor. * * @param name Name. / public ExactDirectoryFilter(String name) { this.name = normalize(name); } /* {@inheritDoc} */ @Override public boolean test(String name) { return normalize(name).equals(this.name); } } }	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub" }	6,689
{"url":"https:\/\/jhaberstro.blogspot.com\/","text":"## Thursday, September 14, 2017\n\n### Learning vs Inference\n\nIn machine learning, the terms \"learning\" and \"inference\" are used often and it's not always clear what is meant. For example, is \"variational inference\" and neural network \"inferencing\" the same thing? Usually not!\n\nWhen the deep learning crowd says \"inference\", what they mean is \"perform a prediction.\" When the bayesian crowd says \"inference\", what they really mean is \"compute the posterior distribution of a latent variable model\"; e.g., for a model p(x, z) = p(x \| z)p(z) and data x, compute p(z \| x).\n\nWhen someone says learning, they mean their model has a set of parameters and they need to find a good setting of those parameters; e.g. their model is actually p(x, z) = p(x \| z; theta)p(z) and they want to find theta. For frequentists, this means finding a point estimate of the parameters. For a bayesian, learning is inference because the parameters are treated as latent, random variables, so they can use normal variational inference or MCMC to compute a distribution over the parameters. Note that for 99% of deep learning practitioners, training is synonymous with learning as the practitioner will likely only be computing a single set of values (aka point estimate) for their weights.\n\n## Sunday, September 10, 2017\n\n### Why is the ELBO difficult to optimize?\n\nThe task of bayesian inference is to compute the posterior p(z \| x) of the model p(x, z) = p(x\|z)p(z) where z is a latent variable. This is often intractable, so a bayesian may resort to approximating it with some easier distribution q(z) \u2014 this method is called variational inference . Usually the approximating distribution is chosen from a parameterized family of distributions. Thus q(z) is really the variational distribution q(z; lambda) for some chosen value lambda. How is this parameter lambda chosen?\n\nA common method is to minimize the KL-divergence between the variational distribution and the true posterior, KL[q(z; lambda) \|\| p(z \| x)]. Of course, the posterior isn\u2019t actually known, but if we break down this KL divergence, we see the following:\n\nKL[q(z) \|\| p(z \| x)] = E_q(z)[log(q(z)) - log(p(z\|x))]\n= E_q(z)[log(q(z)) - log(p(x, z)\/p(x))]\n= E_q(z)[log(q(z)) - log(p(x, z)) + log(p(x))]\n= E_q(z)[log(q(z)) - log(p(x, z))] + log(p(x))\n= E_q(z)[log(q(z)) - log(p(x\|z)) - log(p(z))] + log(p(x))\n\nThe KL divergence can be minimized up to a constant (the marginal likelihood) wrt the variational parameters since we know how to compute p(x, z) per the model\u2019s definition. This term that we want to minimize \u2014 E_q(z)[log(q(z)) - log(p(x\|z)) - log(p(z))] \u2014 is the negative evidence lower bound (ELBO). So, back to the original title question \u2014 why is the ELBO difficult (but not impossible) to optimize?\n\nIt actually isn\u2019t difficult to optimize for certain classes of models. If all the latent variables are chosen to be independent in the variational distribution (i.e. the mean-field assumption) and the model is conditionally conjugate, then one can use coordinate ascent variational inference. \u00a0This method is fast to compute. Unfortunately, the restrictions it places on the model are also quite limiting. It is when the model is unconstrained is optimizing the ELBO difficult. But again, why?\n\nIf nothing is known about the model p(x\|y)p(y) except a method to evaluate it, we are relegated to optimizing the ELBO by gradient descent. This entails computing the gradient of the ELBO (excuse my abuse of notation):\n\nGradient of E_q(z)[log(q(z)) - log(p(x\|z)) - log(p(z))]\n= gradient of (integral of q(z)(log(q(z)) - log(p(x\|z)) - log(p(z)))dz)\n= gradient of (integral of q(z)log(q(z))dz) - (integral of q(z)(log(p(x\|z)) - log(p(z))dz))\n= integral of (gradient of q(z)log(q(z))dz)) - (integral of (gradient of q(z))(log(p(x\|z)) - log(p(z))dz))\n\nwhere the I've shortened q(z; lambda) to q(z) and the gradient is wrt lambda.\n\nWhen I first saw this equation, I wasn\u2019t sure what the big deal was. This is because I wasn\u2019t accustom to staring at math equations all day, but to any (applied) mathematician it should be obvious. I\u2019ll put in bold font: computing the gradient of the ELBO requires computing some likely high-dimensional, likely intractable integral.* Why is it intractable? Well, you may get lucky and the integral has an analytic solution, but in general that won\u2019t be true. Also, because \u00a0this quantity no longer takes the form of an expectation, it can\u2019t easily be estimated by Monte Carlo. It may be possible to do so if z is discrete and its sample space is small (as you could exhaustively evaluate the integrand at all z), but that implies z is very low dimensional which may not be true either.\n\nLuckily there exist some methods to side-step these issues by placing mild(ish) \u00a0constraints on either the variational family of distributions or both the variational family and the model. These methods are the score function gradient and reparameterization gradient, but I won\u2019t be discussing them in this post \u2014 they\u2019re best left to be explained another day (or by Google)..\n\n## Thursday, September 7, 2017\n\n### Expectation Maximization vs Variational Bayes\n\nI constantly find myself forgetting the details of the EM algorithm, variational bayes, and what exactly the difference is between the two. To avoid confusion in the future, I wrote the following note.\n\nQ: What is the difference between EM and Variational Bayes (aka \"Variational Bayesian EM\")?\nA:\u00a0Both are iterative methods for learning about the parameters theta and the posterior p(z \| x, theta) in a latent variable model p(x, z \| theta) by trying to a maximize a lower bound to the marginal likelihood p(x) (or p(x \| theta) when using EM). The difference between the two techniques lies in following:\n\n1. VB assumes that, even when given a setting of the parameters theta, it is not tractable to compute the posterior p(z \| x, theta). Thus, it must be approximated by some variational distribution q(z). On the other hand, EM makes the opposite assumption - given a setting of the parameters theta, it will compute the exact posterior p(z \| x, theta). In this sense, VB is a relaxation of EM.\n2. VB is a bayesian technique while EM is a frequentist technique. As such, VB treats theta as a latent, random variable and computes a distribution q(theta) that approximates the posterior distribution p(theta \| x). EM, a maximum likelihood technique, computes a point estimate to the parameters theta instead of a full distribution.\nWith these differences in mind, we can describe the two algorithms using a similar framework.\n\nObjective:\nEM\u2019s objective is to maximize a lower bound to p(x \| theta), \u00a0E_q(z)[log(p(x, z \| theta))].\nVB\u2019s objective is to maximize a lower bound to p(x), E_q(z, theta)[log(p(x, z, theta))].\n\nE-step:\nEM first maximizes the objective by fixing theta and then finding an optimal setting of q(z). This optimal setting is always calculated to be the posterior p(z \| x, theta).\nVM first maximizes the objective by fixing q(theta) and finding a better\u00a0setting of q(z) \u00a0(often by some gradient method).\n\nM-step:\nEM maximizes the objective by fixing q(z) to the posterior from the previous E-step, and then calculates a maximum likelihood point estimate of the parameters theta.\nVM maximizes the objective by fixing q(z) and then finding a better setting of q(theta) (again, often by some gradient method).\n\nThe E and M step are then repeated until convergence (i.e. until the point at which the log marginal likelihood no longer improves).\n\nOne last point: there is another algorithm called \"Variational EM\". This algorithm is just the E-step of VB combined with the M-step of EM. Since parameters are not treated as random variables, it is not a bayesian technique.\n\n## Monday, May 2, 2016\n\n### Frequentists vs Bayesians\n\nA really wonderful aspect of learning about machine learning is that you can't help but learn about the field statistics as well. As a computer scientist (or really, a software engineer -- I have a hard time calling myself a computer scientist), one of the joys of the field is that many interesting problems require expertise from other fields and so computer scientists tend to be exposed to a great many of ideas (even if only in a shallow sense)!\n\nOne of the major divides among statisticians is in the philosophy of probability. On one hand there are frequentists who like to place probabilities only on data; there is some underlying process that the data describes, but one doesn't have knowledge of all data, so there only exists uncertainty about what unknown data the process could generate. On the other hand there are bayesians who, like the frequentists, place probabilities on data for the same reason, but who also place probabilities on the models they use to describe the underlying process and on the parameters of these models. They allow themselves to do this because they concede that, although there does exist one true model that could perfectly describe the underlying process, as the modeler they have their own uncertainty about what that model may be.\n\nI think this is an interesting divide because it highlights two different sources of uncertainty. Some uncertainty exists because there exists true randomness in the world (or so physicists believe), while other uncertainty exists solely due to our own ignorance -- the quantity in question may be completely determined! We are just forced to work with incomplete information. I think it is fascinating that there exists a unified framework that allows us to manage both sources of uncertainty, but it does make me wonder: do these two sources of uncertainty warrant their own frameworks?\n\n## Saturday, April 2, 2016\n\n### An intuition of Newton's method\n\nDuring my lazy weekend afternoons (and all the other days of the week) I've been going through Nando de Freitas' undergraduate machine learning course on youtube. In lecture 26 he introduces gradient descent, an iterative algorithm for optimizing (potentially non-convex) functions. I'll refrain from explaining gradient descent more than that as there are many good explanations on the internet (including Professor de Freitas'), but I do want to discuss gradient descent's learning rate parameter and why intuitively Newton's method, also introduced in lecture 26, is able to side-step the learning rate.\n\nAs described in the video lecture, a common difficulty with gradient descent is picking the learning rate hyper-parameter. Pick too small of a learning rate and gradient descent will come to crawl and make very little progress or even eventually stop making progress due to floating point underflow. Pick too large of a learning rate and gradient descent will oscillate around the minimum\/maximum, bouncing around, very slowly making progress. In an ideal world, as the gradient vanishes, the gradient descent algorithm would be able to compensate by adjusting the learning rate so to avoid both underflow and oscillation. This is exactly what Newton's method does.\n\n$$\\boldsymbol\\theta _{k+1} = \\boldsymbol\\theta _{k} - \\eta_{k}\\nabla f(\\boldsymbol\\theta_{k})$$\nto Newton's method\n$$\\boldsymbol\\theta _{k+1} = \\boldsymbol\\theta _{k} - H_{k}^{-1}\\nabla f(\\boldsymbol\\theta_{k})$$\n\nThe only difference is that Newton's method has replaced the learning rate with the inverse of the Hessian matrix. The lecture derived Newton's method by showing that $f(\\boldsymbol\\theta)$ can be approximated by a second-order Taylor series expansion around $\\boldsymbol\\theta_{k}$. If you're familiar with Taylor series, then this explanation may be sufficient, but I prefer to think about it differently.\n\nWhat is this Hessian matrix we've replace the learning rate with? Just as the gradient vector is the multi-dimensional equivalent of the derivative, the Hessian matrix is the multi-dimensional equivalent of the second-derivative. If $\\boldsymbol\\theta_{k}$ is our position on the surface of the function we're optimizing at time step $k$, then the gradient vector, $\\nabla f(\\boldsymbol\\theta_{k})$, is our velocity at which we're descending towards the optimum, and the Hessian matrix, $H$, is our acceleration.\n\nLet's think back to the original problem of choosing the learning rate hyper-parameter. It is often too small, causing underflow, or it is too big, causing oscillation, and in an ideal world we could pick just the right the learning rate at any time step, most likely in relation to the rate at which the gradient vector vanishes, to avoid both these problems. But wait, now we have this thing called the Hessian matrix that measures the rate at which the gradient vanishes!\n\nWhen starting the algorithm's descent we will quickly gain acceleration as we starting going downhill along the function's surface (i.e. the Hessian matrix will \"increase\"). We don't want to gain too much velocity else we'll overshoot the minimum and start oscillating, so we'd want to choose a smaller learning rate. As the algorithm nears the optimum, the geometry of the function will flatten out and we will eventually lose acceleration. We don't want to lose too much velocity else we'll underflow and stop making progress. It is precisely when we lose acceleration (i.e. the Hessian matrix \"decreases\") that we want to increase our learning parameter.\n\nSo we have observed that heir is an inverse relationship between the magnitude of the acceleration at which we descend towards the minimum and the magnitude of the most desirable learning parameter. That is to say, at greater accelerations we want smaller learning rates and at smaller accelerations we want larger learning rates. It is precisely for this reason why Newton's method multiplies the gradient vector (the \"velocity\") by the inverse Hessian matrix (\"the inverse acceleration\")! At least, this is how I intuitively think about Newton's method. The derivation involving Taylor series expansions is probably the actual precise reason, but I like thinking about it in terms of velocities and accelerations.\n\nFinally, I'd like to end with one cautionary note. I'm an amateur mathematician. I like to think my intuition is correct, but it may not be. By sharing my intuition, I hope to help others who are looking to gain intuition, but if you need anything more\u00a0than an intuitional understanding of Newton's method or gradient descent (because perhaps you're an actual mathematician in training), please consult a textbook or your favourite professor :-).\n\n## Wednesday, December 9, 2015\n\n### On optimizing high-dimensional non-convex functions\n\nExcuse me for the (in)completeness of this post. What follows is merely a thought, inspired by two independent statements, about a domain of science (or math, really) with which I am barely initiated. Let me give you these two statements first.\n\nIn the book Foundations of Data Science, the very first paragraph of the book says\nIf one generates n points at random in the unit d-dimensional ball, for sufficiently large d, with high probability the distances between all pairs of points will be essentially the same. Also the volume of the unit ball in d-dimensions goes to zero as the dimension goes to infinity.\nThat is statement one. Statement two is an assertion given in this year's Deep Learning Tutorial at the Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) conference. They claim that \"most local minima are close to the bottom (global minimum error).\"\n\nThe second statement is significant for training (deep) neural networks. Training a neural network always uses a variant of a gradient descent, a method for minimizing the neural network's error by iteratively solving for when the gradient (i.e. the derivative) of the function that gives the error is 0. Ideally gradient descent will approach the global minimum error (the point where the neural network will give the most desirable approximations of the training data), but that is only guaranteed when the error function is convex (there are no hills when the function is plotted). Unfortunately, a neural network almost never has a convex error function. Hence, during gradient descent, one might find a local minimum that is nowhere near as low as the global minimum. The second statement however says we shouldn't be so concerned -- all local minima will be close to the global minimum!\n\nBut why?\n\nMy thought is that somehow the first statement can be used to prove the second statement. The training data of modern neural networks is high dimensional. It will also often be normalized as part of feature scaling. Given those two properties, the high-dimensional hills and valleys of a neural network's error function then (roughly) form unit hemispheres. This (possibly) implies that that local minima are close to the global minimum because the volumes of every valley nears zero, making all the valleys increasing similar to each other as the dimensionality of the training data increases.\n\nI want to stress though, this is a half-baked idea. It's probably rubbish. It might also be redundant! Perhaps the second statement already has a proof and I've missed it. Either way, I would love to see if others find my intuition plausible or, even better, to be pointed in the direction of a proof for the second statement.\n\n## Saturday, October 3, 2015\n\n### TIL: premultiplied-alpha colors\n\nAlpha is the measure of how translucent an object is. An alpha of 0.0 means the object is entirely transparent, an alpha of 1.0 means the object is entirely opaque, and an alpha in the middle means a fraction of the total light may passthrough the object. Traditionally, a color is represented by 4 constituent components: a red contribution, a green contribution, a blue contribution, and the alpha. When compositing two colors together, one on top of the other, the alpha acts as a modulus of the colors, indicating how much of the top color and how much of the bottom color contribute to the new composited color. The traditional compositing operation is as follows, where A\u00a0is being composited over top B:\n\nAlternatively, we may wish to premultiply the red, green, and blue\u00a0components by the alpha:\n\nWith this representation we get a new compositing equation:\n\nThis new form is interesting for a couple reasons.\n1. It is computationally more efficient. It requires one less vector multiplication.\n2. It is a closed form. Compositing a premultiplied-alpha color over top a premultiplied-alpha color yields another premultiplied-alpha color. The same cannot be said of non-premultiplied-alpha colors. Compositing two non-premultiplied-alpha colors yields, interestingly, a premultiplied-alpha color.\n3. When filtering (aka\u00a0downsampling), it produces more visually accurate results. A picture is worth a thousands words.\nAnd that's it. 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<?php namespace Elixir\Security; use Elixir\HTTP\ServerRequestFactory; use Elixir\Session\Session; use Psr\Http\Message\ServerRequestInterface; use function Elixir\STDLib\array_get; use function Elixir\STDLib\array_remove; use function Elixir\STDLib\array_set; /** * @author Cédric Tanghe <ced.tanghe@gmail.com> / class CSRF { /* * @var int / const DEFAULT_TIME = 3600; /* * @var string / const TOKEN_KEY = '___CSRF___'; /* * @var ServerRequestInterface / protected $request; /* * @var array\|\ArrayAccess / protected $storage; /* * @param ServerRequestInterface $request * @param array\|\ArrayAccess $storage / public function __construct(ServerRequestInterface $request = null, $storage = null) { $this->request = $request ?: ServerRequestFactory::createFromGlobals(); $this->storage = $storage ?: Session::instance(); } /* * @return ServerRequestInterface / public function getRequest() { return $this->request; } /* * @return array\|\ArrayAccess / public function getStorage() { return $this->storage; } /* * @param string $name * @param array $config * * @return string / public function create($name, array $config = []) { $config += [ 'time' => self::DEFAULT_TIME, 'regenerate' => false, ]; $time = time(); if ($config['time'] instanceof \DateTime) { $config['time'] = $config['time']->format('U') - $time; } elseif (version_compare(phpversion(), '5.5', '>=') && $config['time'] instanceof \DateInterval) { $config['time'] = $config['time']->format('U'); } elseif (!is_numeric($config['time'])) { $config['time'] = strtotime($config['time']); } $token = uniqid(rand(), true); array_set( [self::TOKEN_KEY, $name.$token], [ 'expire' => $time + $config['time'], 'time' => $config['time'], 'regenerate' => $config['regenerate'], ], $this->storage ); return $token; } /* * @param string $name * @param array $options * * @return bool */ public function isValid($name, array $options = []) { $options += [ 'referer' => null, 'token' => null, ]; if (null === $options['token']) { $params = $this->request->getParsedBody(); if (!isset($params[$name])) { $this->invalidate(); return false; } else { $options['token'] = $params[$name]; } } $error = false; $name .= $options['token']; $config = array_get([self::TOKEN_KEY, $name], $this->storage, []); $time = isset($config['expire']) ? $config['expire'] : 0; if (time() > $time) { $error = true; } if (!$error && null !== $options['referer']) { $params = $this->request->getServerParams(); if (!isset($params['HTTP_REFERER']) \|\| $params['HTTP_REFERER'] !== $options['referer']) { $error = true; } } $regenerate = array_key_exists('regenerate', $config) ? $config['regenerate'] : false; if ($error \|\| !$regenerate) { array_remove([self::TOKEN_KEY, $name], $this->storage); } elseif ($regenerate) { $config['expire'] = time() + $config['time']; array_set([self::TOKEN_KEY, $name], $config, $this->storage); } $this->invalidate(); return !$error; } public function invalidate() { $tokens = array_get(self::TOKEN_KEY, $this->storage, []); $time = time(); foreach ($tokens as $key => $config) { $expire = isset($config['expire']) ? $config['expire'] : 0; if ($time > $value) { unset($tokens[$key]); } } array_set(self::TOKEN_KEY, $tokens, $this->storage); } }	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub" }	856
Gordon Dann (born 2 August 1944) is a former Australian rules footballer who played with South Melbourne in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Notes External links Living people 1944 births Australian rules footballers from Victoria (Australia) Sydney Swans players	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia" }	2,167
Produced by Katie Hernandez, sp1nd and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) THE GREEN HAND THE GREEN HAND Adventures of a Naval Lieutenant BY GEORGE CUPPLES AUTHOR OF "THE TWO FRIGATES" [Illustration] SANDS & COMPANY 23 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C. AND EDINBURGH. LIFE OF GEORGE CUPPLES (AUTHOR OF "THE GREEN HAND") Excepting for one short episode--that, indeed, to which we owe "The Green Hand"--the life of George Cupples was almost devoid of those external incidents and vicissitudes which lend the interest of romance to biographical narrative. It is therefore possible, even within the narrow limits assigned to the present sketch, to satisfy reasonable curiosity regarding the mere facts of this distinguished author's career. Cupples was, by virtue of two or three generations, a son of the manse. His grandfather, the Rev. George Cupples, was the minister of Swinton; and his father, who bore the same name, was also a minister. The George Cupples with whom we have to do was born at Legerwood, in Berwickshire, on the 2nd of August 1822. He was the eldest of the family, which consisted, including George, of three sons and one daughter. The father was a clergyman of orthodox views, and from the descriptions of him that have been left we may infer that the severity of his Calvinism had imparted a decided severity to his character. "He was much respected," says his son Joseph, "and, indeed, a good deal feared." The children were accordingly treated by him with rigid strictness, modified by their mother's greater leniency. This stern master was George's only teacher during the first ten years of his life. His books were an Arithmetic, Cordery, Ruddiman's Rudiments, and Cornelius Nepos. In his tenth year he and his brother Joseph went to school at Earlston, "walking daily a weary four and a half miles and back again--to lessons at home!" George was in his twelfth year when his father was "translated" to Stirling. While the family was settled here, the wish to go to sea seems to have grown in the boy's mind to a settled determination, fostered, it appears, by his reading of novels, of which he was extremely fond. He was sixteen years of age when his father, probably much against his will, allowed him to be apprenticed as a sailor. So it came about that the minister's son, nurtured on the classics and Calvinism with quite different purposes in view, made a voyage to India and back--an eighteen months' affair it turned out--as a ship's boy. On the nature of his experiences we need not speak here, for whoever reads "The Green Hand" will understand it without further aid. As his biographer strikingly says: "It had a physical effect on him ... made him quiet and still in every expression, in every externality of life afterwards." At all events, the young adventurer returned home perfectly cured of his taste for the sea, petitioned his father to get his indentures cancelled, and declared he would content himself for the future on land. Resuming his interrupted studies, he proceeded to Edinburgh University, where he took the Arts course. One of the professors was Wilson, the famous "Christopher North," for whom Cupples felt an admiration scarcely short of hero-worship, and of whom he afterwards wrote a "Memorial Sketch." Later on he went through the Divinity course, and had the privilege of sitting at the feet of the great Chalmers, of whom he always writes with enthusiasm. But though prepared and equipped for the paternal calling, Cupples "recoiled from the stairs of the pulpit," more, it would seem, from a growing inclination to literature than from any heterodoxy in his religious views. He became a contributor to _Blackwood's Magazine_, where his essay on Emerson appeared in 1848. In _Maga_ also was first published "The Green Hand," that magnificent story of the sea which we are now sending forth, to delight and enthral, we feel sure, a new generation of readers. Two opinions may here be quoted of the story, to which each of our readers may afterwards add his own. George MacDonald pronounced it "the best sea-novel I have ever read"; and Clark Russell, whose right to speak on such a subject will scarcely be disputed, declares "it is the colours of 'The Green Hand' that I have nailed to my mast." Cupples was a constant and unwearied writer. Much of his work was done for newspapers and periodicals, but even the most ephemeral of his productions bore testimony to the earnest and solid qualities of the man. That these qualities were duly appreciated is proved by the frequent kindly mention of him by men of the highest literary repute. He was married, in 1858, to Ann Jane Douglas, an Edinburgh lady, who, though much younger than her husband, was singularly congenial in her tastes and pursuits. She has written a large number of books, mostly for children. Even before the time of his marriage, Cupples suffered from the _sequelae_ of hip-joint disease, and all the remainder of his life he seems never to have been quite free from the burden of ill-health. His home during his literary career was in different parts of Edinburgh or its vicinity, latterly in Newhaven, where he succumbed to heart-disease on the 17th of October 1891. His tombstone testifies to the admiration of his friends for his "varied literary gifts, and his simple, upright, and reverent character." One of the literary projects which Cupples had long cherished has been happily carried out since his death in the publication, by Messrs Blackwood, of a splendid volume on "Scotch Deerhounds and their Masters." This volume contains a fine portrait of the author, and also an interesting memoir, written by Dr. Hutchison Stirling, which is in itself at once a tribute and a testimony to the lasting impression which both the works and the character of George Cupples made upon cultured and critical minds. AUTHOR'S PREFACE The popularity of "The Green Hand," both among seamen and others, as being true to life, has been wide. It has, however, been thought desirable to issue a revised edition, freed from various expressions now to a certain extent obsolete or otherwise unsuitable, so as to make it more thoroughly fit for juvenile readers. Some considerable time has now elapsed since the period to which these adventures refer, not without producing a good deal of alteration in much that goes on at sea, most especially in the outward accessories of nautical life. The spanking frigate of former days, for instance, is now no more; her place being, to the eye at any rate, ill taken up by the ironclad screw-steamer. The mechanical appliances have been improved, particularly in the merchant service, as, for example, by the Patent-Reefing-Topsail, which is only one of the countless new helps to the seaman. In navigation, instead of now taking five, six, or seven months to reach Australia from this country, the captain of any clipper-line sailing ship would be ashamed of himself if he did not do it within three. Not to multiply cases, Jack himself has, as a rule, added the moustache to his exuberance of whisker; he thinks better than he used to do of these excellent institutions, the Sailors' Homes; he is frequently a temperance man, and has even been known to take the chair at a meeting for vindication of sailors' rights. But the state of the case, from a plain practical point of view, is pretty well illustrated by an anecdote current at sea among forecastle story-tellers. According to them, a singular discovery was made, some forty years or so back, in Portsmouth harbour, aboard no less conspicuous a craft than that immortal three-decker hulk, H.M.S. _Victory_ herself, when some alterations were being made down in her lower decks. There certain of the dock-yard people, having occasion to lift a small out-of-the-way lazarette hatch, down on the after-part of the orlop, which had been long covered with old coils of hawsers or the like, were surprised to find a man lying beneath, who rubbed his eyes, stretched himself as if waking out of sleep, and was finally brought up on deck. From undoubted evidence, it turned out that he had been shut down in joke, under the effect of some strange potion, his rough messmates having, of course, intended to release him before long; but a sudden commotion of a more important nature had arisen, owing to which they had forgotten him until too late, being themselves appointed on active service abroad. Hence it occurred that he had been left there, fast enclosed and asleep, ever since shortly after Trafalgar, when the _Victory_ had come home with Nelson's body, and been paid off, dismantled, and moored in her place as a hulk. From a young reefer, this gentleman had meanwhile grown into a grizzled oldster, on midshipman's half-pay, not likely to have his services further required, seeing that the French had long ceased to offer battle afloat. He was, however, freely invited into professional society, where his opinions on the changes that had taken place were naturally much looked to. The things he is said to have principally remarked as new, were that pigtails had gone out of fashion; the midshipmen's messes were supplied with silver forks; boatswains--in stimulating the men at work--put more force into their language, less into their rattans, and that the leading-blocks of the mizzen-topsail-reef-tackles hung at the slings of the yard instead of being as formerly at the rim of the round-top; nor did he ever feel sure that such changes were for the better. This yarn, with a good moral tacked on at the end, in one form or another, still affords entertainment to many a tarry audience in ships outward bound, at second dog-watch time, when rolling down the Trades; particularly if spun by some fluent ex-man-o'-war's-man from any of Her Majesty's iron-clads. The said moral generally being to the effect, that little difference is made in essentials at sea by progress in the mere shoregoing world. In the following story no great amount of correction requires to be made in bringing it up to date; and, except in a few minor points, I have left this to be done by each juvenile reader for himself, supposing the case that he should ever find reason in his own professional experience. The terms _larboard_ and _starboard_ are both left in use throughout the book, although the former has long been replaced by the word port--which, in my time, was chiefly confined to the helm, when the resemblance of sound would always have been dangerous at a sudden emergency. The cry "All larbowlins ahoy!" no longer is added to the summons that rouses the sleepy watch below. But after everything is said, the main realities of sea-life continue to be what they were. There is constant truth in those grand words known to us all: Thy shores are empires, changed in all save Thee-- * * * * * Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play, Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow. The strangeness of foreign sights and tropical wonders has not altered; nor the thrill of excitement amid tempest; wind and weather are no-way different; the sailor feels as much pride as ever in his ship's good qualities; the occasion of danger still brings out his manhood; hearts-of-oak will always be ready to man our floating bulwarks so long as Britain remains. If it were only in order to express a hearty belief in this, I am glad to have had the opportunity afforded by the few words prefixed to a fresh edition of "The Green Hand." And to all you young readers who must ere long embark upon the troubled sea of life, success and a good voyage to you is the cordial wish of your sincere friend, THE AUTHOR. _Edinburgh, August 31, 1878._ CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I 1 CHAPTER II 19 CHAPTER III 38 CHAPTER IV 58 CHAPTER V 69 CHAPTER VI 79 CHAPTER VII 89 CHAPTER VIII 98 CHAPTER IX 109 CHAPTER X 125 CHAPTER XI 135 CHAPTER XII 162 CHAPTER XIII 170 CHAPTER XIV 188 CHAPTER XV 203 CHAPTER XVI 218 CHAPTER XVII 234 CHAPTER XVIII 248 CHAPTER XI 260 CHAPTER XX 270 CHAPTER XXI 290 CHAPTER XXII 310 CHAPTER XXIII 328 CHAPTER XXIV 346 CHAPTER XXV 357 CHAPTER XXVI 372 CHAPTER XXVII 390 CHAPTER XXVIII 401 CHAPTER XXIX 413 CHAPTER XXX 420 CHAPTER XXXI 429 CHAPTER XXXII 436 THE GREEN HAND CHAPTER I "Ah! Come, old ship, give us a yarn!" said the younger forecastlemen to an old one, on board of an Indiaman then swiftly cleaving the waves of the western Atlantic before the trade-wind, and outward-bound, with a hearty crew and a number of passengers. It was the second of the two dog-watches; and, the ship being still in the region of evening twilights, her men, in a good humour and with leisure, were then usually disposed, as on this occasion, to make fast their roaming thoughts by help of a good yarn, when it could be got. There were plenty of individuals, amongst a crew of forty, calculated by their experience, or else by their flow of spirits and fancy, to spin it. Each watch into which they were divided had its especial story-teller, with whose merits it twitted the other, and on opportunity of a general reunion, they were pitted against one another like two fighting-cocks. The one was a grave, solemn, old North-Sea whaler, with one eye, who professed to look down with contempt upon all raw head-work, on navigation compared with seamanship, and fiction against fact. As for himself, he rested all his fame upon actual experience, and told long dry narratives of old shipmates, of his voyages and adventures, and sometimes of the most incredible incidents, with a genuine briny gusto, which pleased the veteran stagers beyond expression. They were full of points of seamanship--expedients for nice emergencies, tacks, knots, and splices; he gave the very conversation of his characters, with all the "says he" and "says I"; and one long recital of the old fellow's turned upon the question between himself and a new-fangled second-mate, about the right way to set up back-stays, in which he, the sailor, was proved correct by the loss of the ship. The other story-teller, again, was a Wapping man; a lively, impudent young Cockney, who had the most miraculous faculty of telling lies--not only palpable lies, but lies absolutely impossible; yet they were so sublimely told often, and he contrived to lug into them such a quantity of gorgeous tinsel ornament, as, in his happier efforts, decidedly to carry the day against his opponent. The London hand had seen _life_ too, of which, with respect to what is called the world, his competitor was as ignorant as a child. He had his sentimental vein, accordingly, in which he took the last love-tale out of some "Penny Story-Teller" or fashionable novel he had spelled over below, and made of it a parody that would have thrown its unfortunate author into convulsions of horror, and his critics into shrieks of laughter. The fine language of lords and ladies, of romantic heroines, or of foreign counts and bandits, was gravely retailed, and gravely listened to by a throng of admiring jack-tars; while the old whaler smoked his pipe sulkily apart, gave now and then a scornful glance out of his weather-eye, and called it "all _high-dic'_ and soger's gammon." On this occasion, however, the group for'ard did not solicit the services of either candidate, as they happened to have present among them a shipmate who, by general confession, "took the shine" out of both, although it was rarely they could get hold of him. "Old Jack," the captain's private steward, was the oldest seaman on board, and having known the captain when the latter went to sea, had sailed with him almost ever since he commanded a ship, as well as lived in his house on shore. He did not now keep his watch, nor take his "trick at the helm," except when he chose, and was altogether a privileged sort of person, or one of "the idlers." His name was Jacobs, which afforded a pretext for calling him "Old Jack," with the sailor's fondness for that Christian cognomen, which it is difficult to account for, unless because Jonah and St John were seafaring characters, and the Roman Catholic holy clerk St Nicholas was baptised "Davy Jones," with sundry other reasons good at sea. But Old Jack was, at any rate, the best hand for a yarn in the _Gloucester_ Indiaman, and had been once or twice called upon to spin one to the ladies and gentlemen in the cuddy. It was partly because of his inexhaustible fund of good-humour, and partly from that love of the sea which looked out through all that the old tar had seen and undergone, and which made him still follow the bowsprit, although able to live comfortably ashore. In his blue jacket, his white canvas trousers edged with blue, and glazed hat, coming forward to the galley to light his pipe, after serving the captain's tea of an evening, Old Jack looked out over the bulwarks, sniffed the sharp sea-air, and stood with his shirt-sleeve fluttering as he put his finger in his pipe, the very embodiment of the scene--the model of a prime old salt who had ceased to "rough it," but could do so yet if needful. "Come, old ship!" said the men near the windlass, as soon as Old Jack came forward, "give us a yarn, will ye?" "Yarn!" said Jack, smiling--"what yarn, mates? 'Tis a fine night, though, for that same--the clouds flies high, and she's balling off a good ten knots sin' eight bells." "That she is, bo'--so give us a yarn now, like a reg'lar old A1, as you are!" said one. "'Vast there, mate," said a man-o'-war's-man, winking to the rest--"you're always a-cargo-puddling, Bill! D'ye think Old Jack answers to any other hail nor the Queen's? I say, old three-decker in or'nary, we all wants one o' your close-laid yarns this good night. Whaling Jim here rubs his down with a thought overmuch o' the tar, an' young Joe dips 'em in yallow varnish--so if you says nay, why, we'll all save our grog, and get slewed as soon as may be." "Well, well, mates," said Jack, endeavouring to conceal his flattered feelings, "what's it to be, though?" "Let's see," said the man-o'-war's-man--"ay, give us the Green Hand!" "Ay, ay, the Green Hand!" exclaimed one and all. This "Green Hand" was a story Old Jack had already related several times, but always with such amusing variations, that it seemed on each repetition a new one--the listeners testifying their satisfaction by growls of rough laughter, and by the emphatic way in which, during a pause, they squirted their tobacco-juice on the deck. What gave additional zest to this particular yarn, too, was the fact of its hero being no less than the captain himself, who was at this moment on the poop quarter-deck of the ship, pointing out something to a group of ladies by the round-house--a tall good-looking man of about forty, with all the mingled gravity and frank good-humour of a sailor in his firm weather-tinted countenance. To have the power of secretly contrasting his present position and manners with those delineated by Old Jack's episode from the "skipper's" previous biography, was the _acme_ of comic delight to these rude sons of Neptune, and the narrator just hit this point. "Ye see," began he, "'tis about six-an'-twenty year gone since I was an able seaman before the mast, in a small Indyman they called the _Chester Castle_, lying at that time behind the Isle of Dogs in sight of Grennidge Hospital. She was full laden, but there was a strong breeze blowing up that wouldn't let us get under weigh; and, besides, we waited for the most part of our hands. I had sailed with the same ship two voyages before; so, says the captain to me one day, 'Jacobs, there's a lady over at Greenwich yonder wants to send her boy to sea in the ship--for a sickening I s'pose. I'm a-going up to town myself,' says he, 'so take the small quarter-boat and two of the boys, and go ashore with this letter, and see the young fool. From what I've heard,' says the skipper, 'he's a jackanapes as will give us more trouble than thanks. However, if you find the lady's bent on it, why she may send him aboard to-morrow if she likes. Only we don't carry no young gentlemen, and if he slings his hammock here, you must lick him into shape. I'll make a sailor of him, or else a cabin boy.' 'Ay, ay, sir,' says I, shoving the letter into my hat; so in half-an-hour's time I knocks at the door of the lady's house, rigged out in my best, and hands over the screed to a fat fellow with red breeches and yaller swabs on his shoulders, like a captain of marines, that looked frightened at my hail, for I thou't he'd been deaf by the long spell he took before he opened the door. In five minutes I hears a woman's v'ice ask at the footman if there was a sailor a-waiting below. 'Yes, marm,' says he; and 'show him up,' says she. Well, I gives a scrape with my larboard foot, and a tug to my hair, when I gets to the door of _sich_ a fine room above decks as ever you see, all full o' tables, an' chairs, an' sofers, an' piangers, an' them sort o' high-flying consarns. There was a lady all in silks and satins on one of the sofers, dressed out like a widow, with a pretty little girl as was playing music out of a large portmankey--and a picter of a man upon the wall, which I at once logged it down for his as she'd parted company from. 'Sarvint, marm,' says I. 'Come in, my good man,' says the lady. 'You're a sailor?' says she--asking, like, to be sure if I warn't the cook's mate in dish-guise, I fancy. 'Well, marm' I raps out, 'I make bould to say as I hopes I am!'--an' I catches a sight o' myself in a big looking-glass behind the lady, as large as our sky-sail--and, being a young fellow in them days, thinks I, 'Blow me, if Betsy Brown axed me that now, I'd up an' hax her if _she_ war a _woman_!' 'Well,' says she, 'Captain Steel tells me, in this here letter, he's a-going to take my son. Now,' says she, 'I'm sore against it----couldn't you say some'at to turn his mind?' 'The best way for that, yer ladyship,' says I, 'is for to let him go, if it was only the length of the Nore. The sea'll turn his stomich for him, marm,' I says, 'an' then we can send him home by the pilot.' 'He wanted for to go into the navy,' says the lady again, 'but I couldn't think on that for a moment, on account of this here fearful war; an', after all, he'll be safer in sailing at sea nor in the army or navy--doesn't you think so, my good man?' 'It's all you knows about it,' thinks I; hows'ever, I said there wasn't a doubt on it. 'Is Captain Steel a rash man?' says she. 'How so, marm?' says I, some'at taken aback. 'I hope he does not sail at night, or in storms, like too many of his profession, I'm afeard,' says she; 'I hope he always weighs the anchor in such cases, very careful.' 'Oh, in course,' says I, not knowin', for the life of me, what she meant. I didn't like to come the rig over the poor lady, seein' her so anxious like; but it was no use, we was on such different tacks, ye see. 'Oh yes, marm,' I says, 'Captain Steel al'ays reefs taups'ls at sight of a squall brewing to wind'rd; and then we're as safe as a church, ye know, with a man at the wheel as knows his duty.' 'This relieves my mind,' the lady says, 'wery much'; but I couldn't think why she kept sniffing all the time at her smelling-bottle, as she wor agoin' to faint. 'Don't take it to heart so, yer ladyship,' I says at last; 'I'll look after the young gentleman till he finds his sea-legs.' 'Thank you,' says she; 'but I beg your parding, would ye be kind enough for to open the winder, and look out if you see Edward? I think he's in the garding--I feel sich a smell of pitch and tar!' I hears her say to the girl! and says she to me again, 'Do you see Edward there?--give a call to him, please. Accordently, I couldn't miss sight of three or four young slips alongside, for they made plenty of noise--one of 'em on top of a water-barrel smoking a sea-gar; another singing out inside of it for mercy; and the rest roaring round about it, like so many Bedlamites. 'No wonder the young scamp wants off to sea,' thinks I, 'he's got nothin' arthly to do but mischief.' 'Which be's the young gentleman, marm?' says I, lookin' back into the room--'is it him with the sea-gar and the red skull-cap?' 'Yes,' says the lady--'call him up, please.' 'Hallo!' I sings out, and all runs off but him on the barrel, and 'Hallo!' says he. 'You're wanted on deck here, sir,' I says; and in five minutes in comes my young gemman, as grave as you please. 'Edward,' says his mother, 'this is one of Captain Steel's men.' 'Is he going to take me?' says the young fellow, with his hands in his pockets. 'Well, sir,' I says, ''tis a very bad look-out, is the sea, for them as don't like it. You'll be sorry ten times over you've left sich a berth as this here, afore you're down Channel.' The young chap looks me all over from clue to earing, and says he, 'My mother told you to say that!' 'No, sir,' says I, 'I says it on my own hook.' 'Why did you go yourself, then?' says he. 'I couldn't help it,' answers I. 'Oh,' says the impertinent little beggar, 'but you're only one of the common sailors, ain't you?' 'Split me!' thinks I, 'if I doesn't show you the odds betwixt a common sailor, as ye call it, and a lubber of a boy, before long!' But I wasn't goin' to let him take the jaw out o' me, so I only laughed, an' says I, 'Why, I'm captain of the foretop at sea, anyhow.' 'Where's your huniform, then?' says the boy, lowering his tone a bit. 'Oh,' I says, 'we doesn't al'ays wear huniform, ye know, sir. This here's what we call ondress.' 'I'm sorry, sir,' says the lady, 'I didn't ax you to sit down.' 'No offence at all, marm,' I says, but I took a couple o' glasses of brandy as was brought in. I saw 'twas no use goin' against the young chap; so, when he asked what he'd have to do aboard, I told him nothing to speak of, except count the sails now and then, look over the bows to see how the ship went, and go aloft with a spy-glass. 'Oh,' says his mother at this, 'I hope Captain Steel won't never allow Edward to go up those dangerous ladders! It is my pertic'lar request he should be punished if he does.' 'Sartinly, marm, I'll mention it to the captain,' I says, 'an' no doubt he'll give them orders as you speak on. The captain desired me to say the young gentleman could come aboard as soon as he likes,' says I before goin' out of the door. 'Very well, sir,' says the lady, 'I shall see the tailor this same arternoon, and get his clothes, if so be it must.' The last word I said was, I puts my head half in again to tell 'em, 'There was no use gettin' any huniforms at present, seein' the ship's sailmaker could do all as was wanted arterwards, when we got to sea.' "Well, two or three days after, the captain sent word to say the ship would drop down with the morning tide, and Master Collins had better be aboard by six o'clock. I went ashore with the boat, but the young gemman's clothes warn't ready yet; so it was reg'lar made up he was to come on board from Gravesend the day after. But his mother and an old lady, a friend of theirs, would have it they'd go and see his bedroom, and take a look at the ship. There was a bit of a breeze with the tide, and the old Indyman bobbed up and down on it in the cold morning; you could hear the wash of the water a-poppling on to her counter, with her running-gear blown out in a bend; and Missus Collins thought they'd never get up the dirty black sides of the vessel, as she called 'em. The other said her husband had been a captain, an' she laid claim to a snatch of knowledge. 'Sailor,' says she to me, as we got under the quarter, 'that there tall mast is the main-bowsprit, ain't it? and that other is the gallant bowling you call it, don't you?' says she. 'No doubt, marm,' says I, winking to the boys not to laugh. 'It's all right,' I says. Howsoever, as to the bedroom, the captain showed 'em over the cabin, and put 'em off by saying the ship was so out of order he couldn't say which rooms was to be which yet, though they needn't fear Master Ned would get all comfortable; so ashore the poor woman went, pretty well pleased, considerin' her heart was against the whole consarn. "Well, the next afternoon, lying off Gravesend, out comes a wherry with young master. One of the men said there was a midshipman in it. 'Midshipman be blowed!' says I; 'did ye ever see a reefer in a wherry, or sitting anywheres out o' the starn-sheets? It's neither more nor less nor this precious greenhorn as we've got.' 'Why don't the bo'sun pipe to man side-ropes for him?' says t'other; but, 'my eye, Bob,' says he to me, 'what a sight of traps the chap's got in the boat!--'twill be enough to heel the _Chester Castle_ to the side he berths upon, on an even keel. Do he mean to have the captain's cabin, I wonder!' Up the side he scrambles, with the help of a side-ladder, all togged out to the nines in a span-new blue jacket and anchor buttons, a cap with a gould band, and white ducks made to fit--as jemmy-jessamy a looking fellow as you'd see of a cruise along London parks--with the waterman singing out alongside to send down a tackle for the dunnage, which it took a pair of purchase-blocks to hoist them out on board. 'What's all this?' says the mate, coming for'ard from the quarter-deck. ''Tis the young gemman's traps, sir,' I says. Says the mate, 'D'ye think we've got spare room to stow all this lumber? Strike it down into the fore-hold, Jacobs--and get out a old blue shirt or two, and a Scotch cap, for the young whelp first, if he wants to save that smooth toggery of his for his mammy. You're as green as cabbage, I'm feared, my lad!' says he. By this time the boy was struck all of a heap, an' didn't know what to say when he saw the boat pulling for shore, except he wanted to have a sight of his bedroom. 'Jacobs,' says the mate, laughing like an old bear, 'take him below, and show him his bedroom, as he calls it!' So down we went to the half-deck, where the carpenter, bo'sun, and three or four of the 'prentices, had their hammocks slung. There I leaves him to overhaul his big donkey of a chest, which his mother had stowed it with clothes enough for a lord ambassador, but not a blessed thing fit to use--I wouldn't 'a given my bit of a black locker for the whole on it, ten times over. There was another choke-full of gingerbread, pots o' presarves, pickles, and bottles; and, thinks I, 'The old lady didn't know what _shares_ is at sea I reckon. 'Twill all be gone for footing, my boy, before you've seen blue water, or I'm a Dutchman.' "In a short time we was up anchor, going down with a fast breeze for the Nore; and we stood out to sea that night, having to join a convoy off Spithead. My gentleman was turned in all standing, on top o' some sails below; and next day he was as sick as a greenhorn could be, cleaning out his land-ballast where he lay, nor I didn't see him till he'd got better. 'Twas blowing a strong breeze, with light canvas all in aloft, and a single reef in the tops'ls; but fine enough for the Channel, except the rain--when what does I see but the 'Green Hand' on the weather quarter-deck, holding on by the belaying pins, with a yumbereller over his head. The men for'ard was all in a roar, but none of the officers was on deck save the third mate. The mate goes up to him, and looks in his face. 'Why,' says he, 'you confounded longshore, picked-up son of a greengrocer, what _are_ you after?' an' he takes the article a slap with his larboard-flipper, as sent it flying to leeward like a puff of smoke. 'Keep off the quarter-deck, you lubber,' says he, giving him a wheel down into the lee-scuppers--'it's well the captain didn't catch ye! Come aft here, some of ye,' sings out the third mate again, 'to brace up the main-yard; and you, ye lazy beggar, clap on this moment and pull!' At this the greenhorn looks round doubtful, like, then at last he takes out a pair o' double gloves, shoves his fingers into 'em, and tails on to the rope behind. 'Well!' says the mate, 'if I ever see the likes o' that! Jacobs, get a tar-bucket and dip his fists in it; larn him what his hands were made for! I never could a-bear to see a fellow ashore with his flippers shoed like his feet; but at sea, confound me, it would make a man green-sick over again.' If you'd only seen how Master Collins looked when I shoved his missy fingers into the tar, and chucked them gloves o'board! The next moment he ups fist and made a slap at me, when in goes the brush in his mouth; the mate gives him a kick astarn; and the young chap went sprawling down into the half-deck ladder, where the carpenter had his shavin'-glass rigged to crop his chin--and there he gets another clip across the jaws from Chips. 'Now,' says the mate, 'the chap'll be liker a sailor to-morrow. He's got some spunk in him, though, by the way he let drive at you, my lad,' says he; 'that fellow'll either catch the cat or spoil the monkey. Look after him, Jacobs, my lad,' says the third mate; 'he's in my watch, and the captain wants him to rough it out; so show him the ropes, and let him taste an end now an' then. Ha, ha, ha!' says he, again, laughing, ''tis the first time I ever see a embrella loosed out at sea, and but the second I've seen brought aboard even. He's the greenest hand, sure enough, it's been my luck to come across! But green they say's nigh to blue, so look out if I don't try to make a sailor of the young spark!' "Well, for the next three or four days the poor fellow was knocked about on all hands; he'd got to go aloft to the 'gallant cross-trees, and out on the yard foot-ropes the next morning, before breakfast; and, coming down, in course, ye know, the men made him fast till he sent down the key of his bottle-chest to pay his footing. If he closed his eyes a moment in the watch, slash comes a bucketful o' Channel water over him. The third mate would keep him two hours on end, larnin' to rig out a sterns'l boom, or grease a royal mast. He led a dog's life of it, likewise, in the half-deck; bein' last come, in course, he had al'ays to go and fill the bread-barge, scrub the planks, an' do all the dirty jobs. Them _owners' 'prentices_, sich as he had for messmates, is always worse to their own kind by far nor the '_comming sailors_,' as the longshore folks calls a foremast-man. I couldn't help takin' pity on the poor lad, bein' the only one as had known the way of his upbringing, and I feels a sort of a charge of him like; so one night I gets a quiet spell with him in the watch, an' as soon 's I fell to speak kind-ways, there I seed the water stand i' the boy's eyes. 'It's a good thing,' says he, tryin' to gulp it down--'it's a goo--good thing mother don't see all this!' 'Ho, ho!' says I, 'my lad, 'tis all but another way of bein' sea-sick! You doesn't get the land cleared out, and sniff the blue breeze nat'ral like, all at once! Hows'ever, my lad,' says I, 'take my advice--bring your hammock an' chest into the foc'sle; swap half your fine clothes for blue shirts and canvas trousers; turn to, ready and willing, an' do all that's asked you--you'll soon find the differings betwixt the men and a few petty officers an' 'prentices half out their time. The men'll soon make a sailor of you; you'll see what a seaman is; you'll larn ten times the knowledge; an', add to that, you'll not be browbeat and looked jealous on!' "Well, next night, what does he do but follers what I said, and afore long most of his troubles was naterally over; nor there wasn't a willin'er nor a readier hand aboard, and every man was glad to put Ned through anything he'd got to do. The mates began to take note on him; and though the 'prentices never left off calling him the Green Hand, before we rounded the Cape he could take his wheel with the best of them, and clear away a sternsail out of the top in handsome style. We were out ten months, and Ned Collins stuck to the foc'sle throughout. When we got up the Thames, he went ashore to see his mother in a check shirt and canvas trousers made out of an old royal, with a tarpaulin hat I built for him myself. He would have me to come the next day over to the house for to have a supper; so, havin' took a kindness to the young chap, why, I couldn't say nay. There I finds him in the midst of a lot o' soft-faced slips and young ladies, a spinning the wonderfullest yarns about the sea and the East Ingees, makin' em swallow all sorts of horse-marines' nonsense, about marmaids, sea-serpents, and sich like. 'Hallo, my hearty!' says he, as soon as he saw me, 'heave a-head here, and bring to an anchor in this here blessed chair. Young ladies,' says he, 'this is Bob Jacobs, as I told you kissed a marmaid hisself. He's a wonderful hand, is Bob, for the fair ones!' You may fancy how flabbergasted I was at this, though the young scamp was as cool as you please, and wouldn't ha' needed much to make him kiss 'em all round; but I was al'ays milk-and-water alongside of women, if they topped at all above my rating. 'Well,' thinks I, 'my lad, I wouldn't ha' said five minutes agone, there was anything of the green about ye yet, but I see 'twill take another voy'ge to wash it all out.' For to my thinkin', mates, 'tis more of a land-lubber to come the rig over a few poor creaters that never saw blue water, than not to know the ropes you warn't told. 'Oh, Mister Jacobs!' says Missus Collins to me that night, before I went off, 'd'ye think Edward is tired of that 'ere horridsome sea yet?' 'Well, marm,' I says, 'I'm afeared not. But I'll tell ye, marm,' says I, 'if you wants to make him cut the consarn, the only thing ye can do is to get him bound apprentice to it. From what I've seen of him, he's a lad that won't bear aught again his liberty; an' I do believe, if he thought he couldn't get free, he'd run the next day!' Well, after that, ye see, I didn't know what more turned up of it; for I went round to Hull, myself, and ships in a timber-craft for the Baltic, just to see som'at new. "Now, one day, the third voy'ge from that time, no sooner does we get up to Blackwall than we hears of a strong press from the men-o'-war; and as I'd got a desperate mislike to the sarvice, there was a lot of us marchantmen kept stowed away close in holes an' corners till we could suit ourselves. At last we got well tired, and a shipmate o' mine and I wanted to go and see our sweethearts over in the town. So we hired the slops from a Jew, and makes ourselves out to be a couple o' watermen, with badges to suit, a-carrying of a large parcile and a ticket on it. In the afternoon we came back again within sight of the Tower, where we saw the coast was clear, and makes a fair wind along Rosemary Lane and Cable Street. Just then we saw a tall young fellow, in a brown coat, an' a broad-brim hat, a-standing in the door of a shop, with a paper under his arm, on the look-out for someone. 'Twig the Quaker, Bob!' my shipmate says to me. As soon as he saw us, out the Quaker steps, and says he to Bill, in a sleepy sort of a v'ice, 'Friend, thou'rt a waterman, I b'lieve?' 'Yes,' says Bill, with an oath, 'that's what we hails for. D'ye want a boat, master?' 'Swear not, friend,' says the broad-brim; 'but what I want is this, you see. We have a large vessel, belonging to our house, for to send to Havannah, and willin' to give double wages, but we can't find any marineers at this present time for to navigate. Now,' says he, 'I s'pose this onfortunate state o' things is on account of the sinful war as is a-goin' on--they're afraid of the riskses. Hows'ever, my friends,' says he, 'perhaps, as you knows the river, thee could put us upon a way of engagin' twenty or more bold marineers, as is not afeared of venturing for good pay?' and with this he looks into his papers; and says Bill, 'Well, sir, I don't know any myself--do you, Bob?' and he gives me a shove, and says under the rose, 'No fear, mate,' says Bill, 'he's all over green--don't slip the chance for all hands of us at Jobson's.' 'Why, master,' I says, 'what 'ud ye give them marineers you speaks on, now?' 'Four pound a month, friend,' says he, looking up; 'but we gives tea in place of spirits, and we must have steady men. We can't wait, neither,' says he, 'more nor three days, or the vessel won't sail at all.' 'My eye!' says Bill, ''twon't do to miss, Bob!--stick to him, that's all.' 'Well, sir,' I says, 'I thinks I does have a notion of some'at of the sort. If you sends your papers to Jobson's Tavern to-night, second lane 'twixt Barnaby Street and the Blue Anchor Road, over the water, why, I might get ye as many hands for to sign as you wants.' 'Thanks, friend,' says the young broad-brim, 'I will attend to thine advice.' So he bids us good-day, and stepped into his door again. 'Bill,' says I, as we went off, 'now I think on it, I can't help a notion I've seen that chap's face afore.' 'Very like,' says Bill; 'for the matter o' that, 'tis the same with me--them broad-brims is so much of a piece. But that 'ere fellow don't know nothin' of ships, sure enough, or he wouldn't offer what he did, and the crimps' houses all of a swarm with hands!' "'Take my word, mate,' says I, 'it's a paying trip, or he wouldn't do it--leave a Quaker alone for that. Why, the chap's a parfit youngster, but I am blessed if he don't look as starched as if he'd sat over a dask for twenty year!' "Well, strike me lucky, mates all, if the whole affair warn't a complete trap! Down comes a clerk with the papers, sure enough; but in ten minutes more the whole blessed lot of us was puckalowed, and hard an' fast, by a strong press-gang. They put us into a cutter off Redriff Stairs, and the next noon all hands was aboard of the _Pandora_ frigate at Sheerness. The first time of being mustered on deck, says Bill to me, 'Cuss my eyes, Bob, if there isn't the 'farnal Quaker!' I looked, and sees a midshipman in uniform like the rest, and so it was. 'The sly, soft-sawderin' beggar!' says I. 'All fair in war, and a press, mate!' says one o' the frigate's men. All the while I kept looking and looking at the midshipman; and at last I says to Bill when we got below, giving a slap to my thigh, 'Blessed if it ain't! It's the _Green Hand_ himself!' 'Green Hand!' says Bill, sulky enough, 'who's the Green Hand? Blow me, Bob, if I don't think we're the green hands ourselves, if that's what you're upon!' So I told him the story about Ned Collins. 'Well,' says he, 'if a fellow was green as Chinee rice, cuss me if the reefers' mess wouldn't take it all out on him in a dozen watches. The softest thing I know, as you say, Bob, just now, it's to come the smart hand when you're a lubber; but to sham green after that style, ye know, why, it is a mark or two above either you or I, messmate. So, for my part, I forgives the young scamp, 'cause I ought to ha' known better.' "By the time the frigate got to sea the story was blowed over the whole main-deck; many a good laugh it gived the different messes; and Bill, the midshipman, and me, got the name of the 'Three Green Hands.' "One middle-watch Mister Ned comes for'ard by the booms to me, and says he, 'Well, Bob Jacobs, you don't bear a grudge, I hope?' 'Why,' says I, 'Mister Collins, 'twould be mutiny now, I fancy, you being my officer.' So I gave a laugh; but I couldn't help feelin' hurt a little, 'twas so like a son turnin' against his father, as 'twere. 'Why, Bob,' says he, 'did ye think me so green as not to know a seaman when I saw him? I was afeared you'd know me that time.' 'Not I, sir,' I answers; 'why, if we hadn't sailed so long in company, I wouldn't know ye now!' So Master Ned gived me to understand it was all for old times he wanted to ship me in the same craft; but he knew my misliking to the sarvice, though he said he'd rather ha' lost the whole haul of 'em nor myself. So many a yarn we had together of a dark night, and for a couple of years we saw no small sarvice in the _Pandora_. But if ye'd seen Ned, the smartest reefer aboard, and the best liked by the men, in the fore-tops'l bunt in a gale, or over the main-deck hatch, with an enemy's frigate to leeward, or on a spree ashore at Lisbon or Naples, you wouldn't ha' said there was anything green in his eye, I warrant ye! He was made acting-leftenant of a prize he cut out near Chairboorg, before he passed examination; so he took me for his prize-bo'sun, and carried her into Plymouth. Soon after that the war was ended, and all hands of the _Pandora_ paid off. Master Ned got passed with flying colours, and confirmed leftenant besides, but he had to wait for a ship. He made me say where I'd be found, and we parted company for about a year. "Well, I was come home from a short trip, and one day Leftenant Collins hunts me up at Wapping Docks, where I'd had myself spliced, six years before, to Betsy Brown, an' was laid up for a spell, having seen a good deal of the sea. Ye must know the young leftenant was fell deep in love with a rich Indy naboob's daughter, which had come over to take her back to the East Ingees. The old fellow was hard close-hauled again the match, notwithstanding of the young folks makin' it all up; so he'd taken out berths aboard of a large company's ship, and bought over the captain on no account to let any king's navy man within the gangways, nor not a shoulder with a swab upon it, red or blue, beyond the ship's company. But, above all, the old tyrant wouldn't have a blue-jacket, from stem to starn, if so be he'd got nothing ado but talk sweet; I s'pose he fancied his girl was mad after the whole blessed cloth. The leftenant turns over this here log to me, and, says he, 'I'll follow her to the world's end, if need be, Bob, and cheat the old villain!' 'Quite right, too, sir,' says I. 'Bob,' says he,' I'll tell you what I wants you for to do. Go you and enter for the _Seringapatam_ at Blackwall, if you're for sea just now; I'm goin' for to s'cure my passage myself, an' no doubt doorin' the voy'ge something'll turn up to set all square; at any rate, I'll stand by for a rope to pull!' 'Why, here's a rum go!' thinks I to myself. 'Is Ned Collins got so green again, spite of all that's come and gone, for to think the waves is a-goin' to work wonders, or ould Neptune under the line's to play the parson and splice all!' 'Well, sir,' I says, 'but don't you think the skipper will smoke your weather-roll, sir, at sea, as you did Bill Pikes an' me, you know, sir?' says I. 'Oh, Bob, my lad,' says the leftenant, 'leave you that to me. The fellow most onlikest to a sailor on the Indyman's poop will be me, and that's the way you'll know me.' "Well, ship I does with the _Seringapatam_ for Bombay--plenty of passengers she had; but only clerks, naboobs, old half-pay fellows, and ladies, not to speak o' children and nurses, black and white. She sailed without my seein' Leftenant Collins, so I thought I was to hear no more on it. When the passengers began to muster on the poop, by the time we got out o' Channel, I takes a look over the ladies, in coilin' up the ropes aft, or at the wheel; I knowed the said girl at once by her good looks, and the old fellow by his grumpy, yallow frontispiece. All on a sudden I takes a note of a figger coming up from the cuddy, which I made out at once for my Master Ned, spite of his wig and a pair o' high-heeled boots, as gave him the walk of a chap a-treading amongst eggs. When I hears him lisp out to the skipper at the round-house if there was any fear of wind, 'twas all I could do to keep the juice in my cheek. Away he goes up to windward, holding on by everything, to look over the bulwarks behind his sweetheart, givin' me a glance over his shoulder. At night I see the two hold a sort of collogue abaft the wheel, when I was on my trick at the helm. After awhile there was a row got up amongst the passengers, with the old naboob and the skipper, to find out who it was that kept a-singing every still night in the first watch, alongside of the ladies' cabin, under the poop. It couldn't be cleared up, hows'ever, who it was. All sorts o' places they said it comed from--mizzen-chains, quarter-galleries, lower-deck ports, and davit-boats. But what put the old hunks most in a rage was, the songs was every one on 'em such as 'Rule Britannia,' 'Bay of Biscay,' 'Britannia's Bulwarks,' and 'All in the Downs.' The captain was all at sea about it, and none of the men would say anything, for by all accounts 'twas the best pipe at a sea-song as was to be heard. For my part, I knowed pretty well what was afloat. One night a man comed for'ard from the wheel, after steering his dog-watch out, and 'Well, I'm blessed, mates,' says he on the foc'sle, 'but that chap aft yonder with the lady--he's about the greenest hand I've chanced to come across. What d'ye think I hears him say to old Yallow-chops an hour agone?' 'What was it, mate?' I says. 'Says he, "Do you know, Sar Chawls, is the hoshun reelly green at the line--_green_ ye know, Sar Chawls, _reelly_ green?" "No, sir," says the old naboob, "'tis blue." "Whoy, ye don't sa--ay so!" says the young chap, pullin' a long face.' 'Why, Jim,' another hand drops in, 'that's the very chap as sings them first-rate sea-songs of a night. I seed him myself come out o' the mizzen-chains!' 'Hallo!' says another at this, 'then there's some'at queer i' the wind! I _thought_ he gave rather a weather-look aloft, comin' on deck i' the morning. I'll bet a week's grog that chap's desarted from the king's flag, mates!' Well, ye know, hereupon I couldn't do no less nor shove in my oar, so I takes word from all hands not to blow the gaff,[1] an' then gives 'em the whole yarn to the very day, about the Green Hand--for somehow or another I was al'ays a yarning sort of a customer. As soon as they heard it was a love consarn, not a man but swore to keep a stopper on his jaw; only, at findin' out he was a leftenant in the Royal Navy, all hands was for touching hats when they went past. [1] Let out the secret. "Hows'ever, things went on till we'd crossed the line a good while; the leftenant was making his way with the girl at every chance. But, as for the old fellow, I didn't see he was a fathom the nearer with _him_; though, as the naboob had never clapped eyes on him to know him like, 'twan't much matter before heaving in sight o' port. The captain of the Indyman was a rum, old-fashioned codger, all for plain sailing and old ways--I shouldn't say overmuch of a smart seaman. He read the sarvice every Sunday, rigged the church an' all that, if it was anything short of a reef-taups'l breeze. 'Twas queer enough, ye may think, to hear the old boy drawling out, 'As 'twas in the beginning--'then, in the one key, 'Haul aft the mainsheet----' 'is now, and ever shall be----' 'Small pull with the weather brace----' 'Amen----' 'Well the main-yard----' 'The Lord be with you----' 'Taups'l yard well!' As for the first orficer, he was a dandy, know-nothing young blade, as wanted to show off before the ladies; and the second was afraid to call the nose on his face his own, except in his watch; the third was a good seaman, but ye may well fancy the craft stood often a poor chance of being rightly handled. "'Twas one arternoon watch, off the west coast of Africay, as hot a day as I ever mind on, we lost the breeze with a swell, and just as it got down smooth, land was made out, low upon the starboard bow, about south-east-and-by-sou', as near as may be. The captain was turned in sick below, and the first orficer on deck. I was at the wheel myself, and I hears him say to the second as how the land breeze would come off at night. A little after, up comes Leftenant Collins, in his black wig and his 'long-shore hat, an' he begins to squint over the starn to nor'west'ard. 'Jacobs, my lad,' whispers he to me, 'how do ye like the looks o' things?' 'Not overmuch, sir,' says I; 'small enough sea-room, leastways for a sky like that 'ere.' Up goes he to the first officer, after a bit. 'Sir,' says he, 'do ye notice how we've risen the land within the last hour and a half?' 'No, sir,' says the first mate. 'What d'ye mean?' 'Why, there's a current here, takin' us inside the point,' says he. 'Sir,' says the Company's man, 'if I didn't know what's what, d'ye think I'd learn it off a gentleman as is so confounded green? There's nothing of the sort,' he says. 'Look on the starboard quarter, then,' says the leftenant, 'at the man-o'-war bird afloat yonder with its wings spread. Take three minutes' look!' says he. Well, the mate did take a minute or two's squint through the mizzen-shroud, and pretty blue he got, for the bird came abreast of the ship by that time. "'It's a underdrift,' says the leftenant, wonderful knowing-like--'though it's nothing on the surfage, look ye, why, with the draught the ship has it's a-taking her along like a tideway, below! Now, d'ye think you'd weather that there point two hours after this, if a gale come on from the nor'-west, sir?' 'Well,' says the first mate, 'I dare say we shouldn't--but what of that?' 'Why, if you'd cruised for six months off the coast of Africa, as I've done,' says the leftenant, 'you'd think there was something ticklish about that white spot in the sky, to nor'-west! But on top o' that, the weather-glass is fell a good bit since four bells.' 'Weather-glass!' the mate says, 'why, that don't matter much in respect of a gale, I fancy.' Ye must understand, weather-glasses wan't come so much in fashion at that time, except in the Royal Navy. 'Sir,' says the mate again, 'mind _your_ business, if you've got any, and I'll mind mine!' 'If I was you,' the leftenant says, 'I'd call the captain.' 'Thank ye,' says the mate--'call the captain for nothing!' Well, in an hour more the land was quite plain on the starboard bow, and the mate comes aft again to Leftenant Collins. The clouds was beginning to grow out of the clear sky astarn too. 'Why, sir,' says the mate, 'I'd no notion you was a _seaman_ at all! What would you do yourself now, supposin' the case you put a little ago?' 'Well, sir,' says Mr Collins, 'if you'll do the thing, I'll put ye up to it at once----'" At this point of Old Jack's story, however, a cabin-boy came from aft, to say that the captain wanted him. The old seaman knocked the ashes out of his pipe, which he had smoked at intervals in short puffs, put it in his jacket pocket, and got up off the windlass end. "Why, old ship!" said the man-o'-war's-man, "are ye goin' to leave us in the lurch with a _short yarn_ again?" "Can't help it, bo'," said old Jack; "orders must be obeyed, ye know," and away he went. "Well, mates," said one, "if the yarn's been overhauled before, what was the upshot of it? I didn't hear it myself." "Blessed if I know," said several--"Old Jack didn't get the length last time he's got now." "More luck!" said the man-o'-war's-man; "'tis to be hoped he'll finish it next time!" CHAPTER II We left the forecastle group of the _Gloucester_ disappointed by the abrupt departure of their story-teller, Old Jack, at so critical a thread of his yarn. As old Jacobs went aft on the quarter-deck, where the binnacle-lamp before her wheel was newly-lighted, he looked in with a seaman's instinct upon the compass-boxes, to see how the ship headed; ere ascending to the poop, he bestowed an approving nod upon his friend the steersman, hitched up his trousers, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand in a proper deference to female society, and then proceeded to answer the captain's summons. The passengers, in a body, had left the grand cabin to the bustling steward and his boys, previously to assembling there again for tea--not even excepting the little coterie of inveterate whist-players, and the pairs of inseparable chess-men, to whom an Indian voyage is so appropriately the school for future nice practice in etiquette, war, and commerce. Everybody had at last got rid of sea-sickness, and mustered for a promenade; so that the lofty poop of the Indiaman, dusky as it was, and exposed to the breeze, fluttered with gay dresses like the midway battlement of a castle by the waves, upon which its inmates have stolen out from some hot festivity. But the long heave from below, raising her stern-end slowly against the western space of clear-obscure, in the manner characteristic of a sea abaft the beam, and rolling her to either hand, exhibited to the eyes on the forecastle a sort of _alto relievo_ of figures, amongst whom the male, in their blank attempts to appear nautical before the ladies, were distinguished from every other object by their variety of ridiculous postures. Under care of one or two bluff, good-humoured young mates--officers polished by previous opportunities of a kind unknown either to Navy-men or mere "cargo-fenders," along with several roguish little quasi-midshipmen--the ladies were supported against the poop-rail, or seated on the after-gratings, where their contented dependence not only saved them from the ludicrous failures of their fellow-passengers, but gained them, especially the young ones, the credit of being better sailors. An accompaniment was contributed to this lively exercise on the part of the gentlemen promenaders, which otherwise in the glimmering sea-twilight, would have been striking in a different sense; by the efforts, namely, of a little band of amateur musicians under the break of the poop, who, with flute, clarionet, bugles, trombone, and violin, after sundry practisings by stealth, had for the first time assembled to play "Rule Britannia." What, indeed, with the occasional abrupt checks, wild flourishes, and fantastic variations caused by the ship's roll; and what with the attitudes overhead, of holding on refractory hats and caps, of intensely resisting and staggering legs, or of sudden pausing above the <DW72> which one moment before was an ascent, there was additional force in the designation quaintly given to such an aspect of things by the foremast Jacks--that of a "cuddy jig." As the still increasing motion, however, shook into side-places this central group of cadets, civilians, and planters adrift, the grander features of the scene predominated: the broad mass of the ship's hull--looming now across and now athwart the streak of sinking light behind--drawn out by the weltering outline of the waters; the entire length of her white decks ever and anon exposed to view, with their parallel lines, their nautical appurtenances, the cluster of hardy men about the windlass, the two or three "old salts" rolling to and fro along the gangway, and the variety of forms blending into both railings of the poop. High out of, and over all, rose the lofty upper outline of the noble ship, statelier and statelier as the dusk closed in about her--the expanse of canvas whitening with sharper edge upon the gloom; the hauled-up clues of the main-course, with their huge blocks, swelling and lifting to the fair wind--and the breasts of the topsails divided by their tightened buntlines, like the shape of some full-bosomed maiden, on which the reef-points heaved like silken fringes, as if three sisters, shadowy and goddess-like, trod in each other's steps towards the deeper solitude of the ocean; while the tall spars, the interlacing complicated tracery, and the dark top-hamper showing between gave graceful unity to her figure; and her three white trucks, far overhead, kept describing a small clear arc upon the deep blue zenith as she rolled: the man at the wheel midway before the doors of the poop-cabin, with the light of the binnacle upon his broad throat and bearded chin, was looking aloft at a single star that had come out beyond the clue of the main-topsail. The last stroke of "six bells," or seven o'clock, which had begun to be struck on the ship's bell when Old Jack broke off his story, still lingered on the ear as he brought up close to the starboard quarter-gallery, where a little green shed or pent-house afforded support and shelter to the ladies with the captain. The erect figure of the latter, as he lightly held one of his fair guests by the arm, while pointing out to her some object astern, still retained the attitude which had last caught the eyes of the forecastle group. The musical cadets had just begun to pass from "Rule Britannia" to "Shades of Evening"; and the old sailor, with his glazed hat in his hand, stood waiting respectfully for the captain's notice. The ladies, however, were gazing intently down upon the vessel's wake, where the vast shapes of the waves now sank down into a hollow, now rose seething up into the rudder-trunk, but all marked throughout with one broad winding track, where the huge body of the ship had swiftly passed. From foaming whiteness it melted into yesty green, that became in the hollow a path of soft light, where the sparks mingled like golden seed; the wave-tops glimmered beyond; star-like figures floated up or sank in their long undulations; and the broad swell that heaped itself on a sudden under the mounting stern bore its bells, and bubbles, and flashes upwards to the eye. When the ship rose high and steady upon it, and one saw down her massy taffrail, it looked to a terrestrial eye rather like some mystic current issuing from the archway under a tall tower, whose foundations rocked and heaved; and so said the romantic girl beside the captain, shuddering at the vividness of an image which so incongruously brought together the fathomless deep and the distant shores of solid old England. The eye of the seaman, however, suggested to him an image more akin to the profession, as he directed his fair companion's attention to the trough of the ship's furrow, where, against the last low gleam of twilight, and by the luminous wake, could be seen a little flock of black petrels, apparently running along it to catch what the mighty ploughshare had turned up; while a grey gull or two hovered aslant over them in the blue haze. As he looked round, too, to aloft, he exchanged glances with the old sailor who had listened--an expression which even the ladies understood. "Ah! Jacobs," said the captain, "get the lamp lighted in my cabin, and the tea-kettle aft. With the roll she has on her, 'twill be more ship-shape there than in the cuddy." "Ay, ay, sir," said the old seaman. "How does she head just now, Jacobs?" "Sou'-west-and-by-south, sir." "She'd lie easier for the ladies though," said the captain, knowing his steward was a favourite with them, "were the wind a point or two less fair. Our old acquaintance, Captain Williamson of the _Seringapatam_ now, Jacobs, old-fashioned as he was, would have braced in his lee-yard only to steady a lady's tea-cup." "Ay, your honour," replied Jacobs, and his weather-eye twinkled, "and washed the foc'sle under, too! But ye know, sir, he'd got a reg'lar-built naboob aboard, and a beauty besides!" "Ah, Mr Jacobs!" exclaimed the romantic young lady, "what was that? Is it one of your stories?" "Well, your ladyship, 'tis a bit of a yarn, no doubt, and some'at of a cur'ous one." "Oh!" said another of the captain's fair _protegees_, "I _do_ love these 'yarns,' as you call them; they are so expressive, so--and all that sort of thing." "Nonsense, my love," said her mother; "you don't understand them, and 'tis better you should not--they are low, and contain a great many bad words, I fear." "But think of the imaginative feeling, aunt," rejoined the other girl, "and the adventures! Oh, the ocean of all places for that! Were it not for sea-sickness, I should dote upon it! As for the _storm_ just now, look how safe we are, and see how the dear old ship rises up from the billows, with all her sails so delightfully mysterious one over another!" "Bless your heart, marm, yes," responded Old Jack, chuckling; "you talks just like a seaman, beggin' your pardon. As consarns the tea, sir, I make bold to expect the'll be a shift o' wind directly, and a slant deck, as soon as we get fair into the stream, rid o' this bit of a bubble the tail of it kicks up hereabouts." "Bear a hand then, Jacobs," said the captain, "and see all right below for the party in the cabin--we shall be down in a few minutes." The captain stood up on the quarter-gallery, to peer round into the dusk and watch the lifting of the main-royal; but the next minute he called to the ladies, and their next neighbours, to look towards the larboard bow, and see the moon rise. A long edge of gray haze lay around the eastern horizon, on which the dark rim of the sea was defined beyond the roll of the waves, as with the sweep of a soft brush dipped in indigo; while to westward it heaved up, weltering in its own watery light against the gloom. From behind this low fringe of vapour was silently diffusing, as it were, a pool of faint radiance, like a brook bubbling from under ice; a thread of silver ran along the line of haze, growing keener at one point, until the arch of the moon shot slowly up, broad and fair: the wave-heads rising between were crested here and there with light; the bow of the ship, the bellies of her fore-canvas, her bowsprit with the jibs hanging idly over it, and the figure-head beneath, were tinged by a gentle lustre, while the hollow shadows stole out behind. The distant horizon, meanwhile, still lay in an obscure streak, which blended into the dark side of the low fog-bank, so as to give sea and cloud united the momentary appearance of one of those long rollers that turn over on a beach, with their glittering crest: you would expect to see next instant what actually seemed to take place--the whole outline plashing over in foam, and spreading itself clearly forward, as soon as the moon was free. With the airy space that flowed from her came out the whole eastern seaboard liquid and distinct, as if beyond either bow of the lifting Indiaman one sharp finger of a pair of compasses had flashed round, drawing a semi-circle upon the dull background, still cloudy, glimmering, and obscure. From the waves that undulated towards her stern, the ship was apparently entering upon a smoother zone, where the small surges leapt up and danced in moonshine, resembling more the current of some estuary in a full tide. To north-westward, just on the skirts of the dark, one wing of a large, soft-grey vapour was newly smitten by the moon-gleam; and over against it on the south-east, where the long fog-bank sank away, there stretched an expanse of ocean which, on its farthest verge, gave out a tint of the most delicate opal blue. The ship, to the south-westward of the Azores, and going large before the trade-wind, was now passing into the great Gulf Stream, which there runs to the south-east; even the passengers on deck were sensible of the rapid transition with which the lately cold breeze became warmer and fitful, and the motion of the vessel easier. They were surprised, on looking into the waves alongside, to perceive them struggling, as it were, under a trailing network of seaweed; which, as far as one could distinctly see, appeared to keep down the masses of water, like so much oil--flattening their crests, neutralising the force of the wind, and communicating a strangely sombre green to the heaving element. In the winding track of the ship's wake the eddies now absolutely blazed; the weeds she had crushed down rose to the surface again in gurgling circles of flames, and the showers of sparks came up seething on either side amongst the stalks and leaves; but as the moonlight grew more equally diffused, it was evident that she was only piercing an arm of that local weed-bed here formed, like an island, in the _bight_ of the stream. Farther ahead were scattered patches and bunches of the true Florida Gulf-weed, white and moss-like; which, shining crisp in the level moonlight, and tipping the surges as it floated past, gave them the aspect of hoary-bearded waves, or the garlanded horses of Neptune. The sight still detained the captain's party on deck, and some of the ladies innocently thought these phenomena indicative of the proximity of land. "I have seldom seen the Stream so distinct hereabouts," said Captain Collins to his first officer, who stood near, having charge of the watch. "Nor I, sir," replied the chief mate; "but it no doubt narrows with different seasons. There goes a flap of the fore-topsail, though! The wind fails, sir." "'Tis only drawing ahead, I think," said the captain; "the stream _sucks_ the wind with its heat, and we shall have it pretty near from due nor'-west immediately." "Shall we round in on the starboard hand, then, sir, and keep both wind and current _aft_?" "I think not, Mr Wood," said the captain. "'Twould give us a good three knots more every hour of the next twenty-four, sir," persisted the officer eagerly--and chief mates generally confine their theories to mere immediate progress. "Yes," rejoined the captain, "but we should lose hold of the 'trade' on getting out of the stream again. I intend driving her across, with the nor'-wester on her starboard beam, so as to lie well up afterwards. Get the yards braced to larboard as you catch the breeze, Mr Wood, and make her course south-west by west." "Very well, sir." "Ladies," said the captain, "will you allow me to hand you below, where I fear Jacobs will be impatient with the tea?" "What a pity, Captain Collins," remarked the romantic Miss Alicia, looking up as they descended the companion--"what a pity that you cannot have that delicious moonlight to shine in at your cabin windows just now; the sailors yonder have it all to themselves." "There is no favour in these things at sea, Miss Alicia," said the captain, smiling. "Jack shares the chance there, at least, with his betters; but I can promise those who honour my poor suite of apartments this evening both fine moonshine and a steadier floor." On reaching the snug little after-cabin, with its swinging lamp and barometer, its side "state-room," seven feet long, and its two stern-windows showing a dark glimpse of the rolling waters, they found the tea-things set, nautical style, on the hard-a-weather, boxed-up table--the surgeon and one or two elderly gentlemen waiting, and old Jacobs still trimming up the sperm-oil lights. Mrs St Clair, presiding in virtue of relationship to their host, was still cautiously pouring out the requisite half-cups, when, above all the bustle and clatter in the cuddy, could be heard the sounds of ropes thrown down on deck, of the trampling watch, and the stentorian voice of the first officer. "Jacobs!" said the captain, a minute or two afterwards; and that worthy factotum instantly appeared from his pantry alongside of the door--from whence, by-the-way, the old seaman might be privy to the whole conversation--"stand by to _dowse_ the lamp when she heels," an order purposely mysterious to all else but the doctor. Everyone soon felt a change in the movement of their wave-born habitation; the rolling lift of her stern ceased; those who were looking into their cups saw the tea apparently take a decided inclination to larboard--as the facetious doctor observed, a "tendency to _port_." The floor gradually sloped down to the same hand, and a long, wild, gurgling wash was suddenly heard to run careering past the timbers of the starboard side. "Dear me!" fervently exclaimed every lady at once; when the very next moment the lamps went out, and all was darkness. Captain Collins felt a little hand clutch his arm in nervous terror, but the fair owner of it said nothing; until, with still more startling effect than before, in a few seconds there shot through both stern windows the full rays of the moon, pouring their radiance into the cabin, shining on the backs of the books in the hanging shelves by the bulkhead, on the faces of the party, and the bald forehead of old Jacobs "standing by" the lamp--lastly, too, revealing the pretty little Alicia with her hand on the captain's arm, and her pale, terrified face. "Don't be alarmed, ladies!" said the surgeon, "she's only hauled on the starboard tack!" "And her counter to the east," said the captain. "But who put out the lamp?" rejoined the doctor. "Ah, I see, sir!--'But when the moon, refulgent lamp of night.'" "Such a surprise!" exclaimed the ladies, laughing, although as much frightened for a moment by the magical illumination as by the previous circumstances. "You see," said the captain, "we are not like a house--we can bring round our scenery to any window we choose." "Very prettily imagined it was, too, I declare!" observed a stout old Bombay officer, "and a fine compliment to the ladies, by Jingo, sir!" "If we had any of your pompous Bengal '_Quy hies_' here though, colonel," said the doctor, "they wouldn't stand being choused so unceremoniously out of the weather side, I suspect." "As to the agreeable little surprise I meant for the ladies," said Captain Collins, "I fear it was done awkwardly, never having commanded an Indiaman before, and laid up ashore these half-a-dozen years. But one's old feelings get freshened up, and without knowing the old _Gloucester's_ points, I can't help reckoning her as a lady too--a very particular old 'Begum,' that won't let anyone else be humoured before herself--especially as I took charge of her to oblige a friend." "How easily she goes now!" said the doctor, "and a gallant sight at this moment, I assure you, to anyone who chooses to put his head up the companion." "Ah, mamma!" said one of the girls, "couldn't you almost think this was our own little parlour at home with the moonlight coming through the window on both sides of the old elm, where we were sitting a month ago hearing about India and papa?" "Ah!" responded her cousin, standing up, "but there was no track of moonshine dancing beyond the track of the ship yonder! How blue the water is, and how much warmer it has grown of a sudden!" "We are crossing the great Gulf Stream," said the captain--"Jacobs! open one of the stern-ports." "'Tis the very place and time, this is," remarked a good-humoured cotton-grower from the Deccan, "for one of the colonel's tiger-hunts, now!" "Sir!" answered the old officer, rather testily, "I am not accustomed to thrust my _tiger-hunts_, as you choose to call my humble experiences, under people's noses!" "Certainly not, my dear sir," said the planter--"but what do you say, ladies, to one of the captain's sea-yarns, then? Nothing better, I'm sure, here now, sir--eh?" Captain Collins smiled, and said he had never spun a yarn in his life, except when a boy, out of matter-of-fact old junk and tar. "Here is my steward, however," continued he, "who is the best hand at it I know, and I daresay he'll give you one." "Charming!" exclaimed the young ladies; and "What was that adventure, Mr Jacobs," said Miss Alicia, "with a beauty and a nabob in it, that you alluded to a short time ago?" "I didn't to say disactly include upon it, your ladyship," replied old Jacobs, with a tug of his hair, and a bow not just _a la maitre_; "but the captain can give you it better nor I can, seeing as his honour were the Nero on it, as one may say." "Oh!" said the surgeon, rubbing his hands, "a lady and a rupee-eater in the case!" "There seems something curious about this said adventure of yours, my dear captain," said Mrs St Clair, archly, "and a beauty too! It makes me positively inquisitive, but I hope your own fair lady has heard the story?" "Why, not exactly, ma'am," replied Captain Collins, laughing as he caught the doctor looking preternaturally solemn, after a sly lee-wink to the colonel, who, having his back to the moonlight, stretched out his legs and indulged in a grim, silent chuckle, until his royal-tiger countenance was unhappily brought so far _flush_[2] in the rays as to betray a singular daguerreotype, resembling one of those cut-paper phantasmagoria thrown on a drawing-room wall, unmistakably black and white, and in the character of Malicious Watchfulness. The rubicund, fidgety little cotton-grower twiddled his thumbs, and looked modestly down on the deck, with half-shut eyes, as if expecting some bold revelation of nautical depravity; while the romantic Miss Alicia and was silent. "However," said the captain, coolly, "it is no matrimonial secret, at any rate! We both talk of it sometimes when we read the Church Service of a Sunday night at home, with Jacobs for the clerk." "Do, Mr Jacobs, oblige us!" requested the younger of the girls. "Well, miss," said he, smoothing down his hair in the doorway, and hemming, "'tain't neither for the likes o' me to refuse a lady, nor accordin' to rules for to give such a yarn in presence of a supperior officer, much less the captain; with a midship helm, ye know, marm, ye carn't haul upon one tack nor the other. Not to say but next forenoon watch----" "I see, Jacobs, my man," interrupted Captain Collins, "there's nothing for it but to fore-reach upon you, or else you'll be 'Green-Handing' me aft as well as forward; so I must just make the best of it, and take the _winch_ in my own fashion at once!" "Ay, ay, sir--ay, ay, your honour!" said Old Jack demurely, and concealing his gratification as he turned off into the pantry, with the idea of for the first time hearing the captain relate the incidents in question. "My old shipmate," said the latter, "is so fond of having trained his future captain, that it is his utmost delight to spin out everything we ever met with together into one endless yarn, which would go on from our first acquaintance to the present day, although no ship's company ever heard the last of it. Without falling knowingly to leeward of the truth, he makes out every lucky coincidence almost to have been a feat of mine, and puts in little fancies of his own, so as to give the whole thing more and more of a marvellous air the farther it goes. The most amusing thing is, that he almost always begins each time, I believe, at the very beginning, like a capstan without a paul--sticking in one thing he had forgot before, and forgetting another; sometimes dwelling longer on one part--a good deal like a ship making the same voyages over again. I knew, now, this evening, when I heard the men laughing, and saw Old Jack on the forecastle, what must be in the wind. However, we have shared so many chances, and I respect the old man so much, not to speak of his having dandled my little girls on his knee, and being butler, steward, and flower-gardener at home, that I can't really be angry at him, in spite of the sort of every man's rope he makes of me!" "How very amusing a character he is!" said one young lady. "A thought too tarry, perhaps?" suggested the surgeon. "So very original and like a--a seaman!" remarked Miss Alicia, quietly, but as if some other word that crossed her mind had been rejected, as descriptive of a different variety, probably higher. "_Original_, by Jove!" exclaimed the colonel; "if my _Khansa-man_, or my _Abdar_,[3] were to make such a dancing dervish and _tumasha_[4] of me behind back, by the holy Vishnu, sir, I'd rattan him myself within an inch of his life!" [2] _Flush_--_i.e._ level. [3] Steward and butler. [4] Sport. "Not an unlikely thing, colonel," put in the planter; "I've caught the scoundrels at that trick before now." "What did you do?" inquired the colonel, speculatively. "Couldn't help laughing, for my soul, sir; the _puckree-bund_[5] rascals did it so well, and so funnily!" The irascible East-Indian almost started up in his imaginative fury, to call for his palkee, and chastise his whole verandah, when the doctor reminded him that it was a long way there. "Glorious East!" exclaimed the medico, looking out astern, "where we may cane our footmen, and whence, meanwhile, we can derive such Sanscrit-sounding adjurations, with such fine moonlight!" [5] Turban-wearing. The presence of the first officer was now added to the party, who came down for a cup of tea, fresh from duty, and flavouring strongly of a pilot cheroot. "How does she head, Mr Wood?" asked the captain. "Sou'-west-by-west, sir--a splendid night, under everything that will draw--spray up to the starboard cathead!" "But as to this story, again, Captain Collins?" said Mrs St Clair, as soon as she had poured out the chief mate's cup. "Well," said the captain, "if you choose to listen till bedtime to a plain draught of the affair, why I suppose I must tell it you; and what remains then may stand over till next fine night. It _may_ look a little romantic, being in the days when most people are such themselves, but, at any rate, we sailors--or else we should never have been at sea, you know; so you'll allow for that, and a spice to boot of what we used to call at sea 'lovemaking'; happily there were no soft speeches in it, like those in books, for then I shouldn't tell it at all. * * * * * "By the time I was twenty-four, I had been nine years at sea, and at the end of the war, was third lieutenant of a crack twenty-eight, the saucy _Iris_--as perfect a sloop-model, though over-sparred certainly, as ever was eased off the ways of Chatham, or careened to a north-easter. The Admiralty had almost learned to build by that day, and a glorious ship she was, _made_ for going after the small fry of privateers, pirates, and slavers, that swarmed about the time. Though I had roughed it in all sorts of craft, from a first-rate to a dirty French lugger prize, and been eastward, so as to see the sea in its pride at the Pacific, yet the feeling you have depends on the kind of ship you are in. I never knew so well what it was to be fond of a ship and the sea; and when I heard of the poor _Iris_, that had never been used to anything but blue water on three parts of the horizon at least, laying her bones not long after near Wicklow Head, I couldn't help a gulp in the throat. I once dreamt I had gone down in her, and risen again to the surface with the loss of my brains, such as I had had; while at the same moment, there I was, still sitting below on a locker in the wardroom, with the arms of her beautiful figure-head around me, and her mermaid's tail like the best-bower cable, with an anchor at the end of it far away out of soundings, over which I bobbed and dipped for years and years, in all weathers, like a buoy. We had no Mediterranean time of it, though, in the _Iris_, off the Guinea coast, from Cape Palmas to Cape <DW64>; looking out to windward for white squalls, and to leeward for black ones, and in-shore for Spanish cattle-dealers, as we called them, had made us all as sharp as so many marling-spikes; and our captain was a man that taught us seamanship, with a trick or two beyond. The slavers had not got to be so clever then, either, with their schooners and clippers: they built for stowage, and took the chance, so that we sent in _bale_ after bale to the West India admiral, made money, and enjoyed ourselves now and then at the Cape de Verdes. However, this kind of thing was so popular at home, as pickings after the great haul was over, that the _Iris_ had to give up her station to a post-frigate, and be paid-off. The war was over, and nobody could expect to be promoted without a friend near the blue table-cloth, although a quiet hint to a secretary's palm would work wonders, if strong enough. But most of such lucky fellows as ourselves dissipated their funds in blazing away at balls and parties, where the gold band was everything, and the ladies wore blue ribbons and anchor brooches in honour of the navy. The men spent everything in a fortnight, even to their clothes, and had little further chance of eating the king's biscuit with hopes of prize-money; I used to see knots of them, in red shirts and dirty slops, amongst the foremast Jacks in outward-bound ships, dropping past Greenwich, and waving their hats to the Hospital. You knew them at once by one of them giving the song for the topsail-halliards, instead of the merchantmen's bull's chorus; indeed, I could always pick off the dashing men-o'-war's-men, by face and eye alone, out from among the others, who looked as sober and solitary, with their serious faces and way of going about a thing, as if everyone of them was the whole crew. I once read a bit of poetry called the 'Ancient Mariner,' to old Jacobs, who by-the-by is something of a breed betwixt the two kinds, and his remark was: 'That old chap warn't used to hoisting altogether with a run, your honour! By his looks I'd say he was bred where there was few in a watch, and the watch-tackle laid out pretty often for an eke to drag down the fore-tack.' "As I was riding down to Croydon in Surrey, where my mother and sister had gone to live, I fell in with a sample of the hard shifts the men-o'-war's-men were put to in getting across from harbour to some merchant port, when all their money was chucked away. It was at a little town called Bromley, where I brought to by the door of a tavern and had a pail for the horse, with a bottle of cider for myself at the open window, the afternoon being hot. There was a crowd of townspeople at the other end of the street, country bumpkins and boys--women looking out at the windows, dogs barking, and children shouting--the whole concern bearing down upon us. "'What's all this?' said I to the ostler. "'Don't know, sir,' said he, scratching his head; ''tis very hodd, sir! That corner _is_ rather a sharp turn for the coach, sir, and she do sometimes run over a child there, or somethink. But 'tain't her time yet! Nothink else hever 'appens 'ere, sir.' "As soon as I could hear or see distinctly for the confusion, I observed the magnet of it to be a party of five or six regular blue-jackets, a good deal battered in their rig, who were roaring out sea-songs in grand style as they came along, leading what I thought at first was a bear. The chief words I heard were what I knew well. 'We'll disregard their tommy-hawks, likewise their scalping-knives--and fight alongside of our mates to save our precious lives--like British tars and sowldiers in the North Americay!' "On getting abreast of the inn door, and finding an offing with good holding-ground, I suppose, they hove to and struck up the 'Buffalo,' that finest of chants for the weather forecastle with a spanking breeze, outward bound, and the pilot lately dropped: "Come, all you young men and maidens, that _wishes_ for to sail, And I will let you hear of where you must a-roam; We'll embark into a ship which her taups'ls is let fall, And all unto an ileyand where we never will go home; Especiallye you _ladies_ that's anxious for to rove-- There's _fishes_ in the sea, my love, likewise the buck an' doe, We'll lie down--on the _banks_--of yon pleasant shadye gro-ove, Through the wild woods we'll wander and we'll chase the buffalo--ho--ho-- We'll chase the buffalO! "I really couldn't help laughing to see the slapping, big-bearded fellows, like so many foretopmen, showing off in this manner--one mahogany-faced thoroughbred leading, the rest thundering in at the chorus, with a tremendous stress on the 'Lo--ho--ho,' that made the good Bromley folks gape. As to singing for money, however, I knew no true tar with his members whole would do it; and I supposed it to be merely some 'spree ashore,' until the curious-looking object from behind was lugged forward by a couple of ropes, proving to be a human figure above six feet high, with a rough canvas cover as far as the knees. What with three holes at the face, and the strange colour of the legs, which were bare--with a pair of turned-up India shoes, and the whole shape like a walking smoke-funnel over a ship's caboose--I was puzzled what they would be at. The leading tar immediately took off his hat, waved it round for a clear space, and gave a hem! while he pointed to the mysterious creature. 'Now my lads!' said he, 'this here wonderful bein' is a savitch we brought aboard of us from the Andyman Isles, where he was caught one mornin' paddling round the ship in a canoe made out of the bark of a sartain tree. Bein' the ownly spice of the sort brought to this country as yet is, and we havin' run short of the needful to take us to the next port, we expects every lady and gemman as has the wherewithal will give us a lift by consideration of this same cur'ous sight, and doesn't----' 'Heave ahead, Tom, lad!' said another encouragingly, as the sailor brought up fairly out of breath. 'Doesn't want no man's money for nou't d' ye see, but all fair an' above board. We're not agoin' to show this ere sight excep' you makes up half-a-guinea amongst ye--arter that all hands may see shotfree--them's the articles!' 'Ay, ay, Tom, well said, old ship!' observed the rest; and, after a considerable clinking of coin amongst the crowd, the required sum was poured, in pence and sixpences, into Tom's hat. 'All right!' said he, as soon as he had counted it--'hoist away the tarpaulin, mates!' For my part, I was rather surprised at the rare appearance of this said savage, when his cover was off--his legs and arms naked, his face streaked with yellow, and both parts the colour of red boom-varnish; his red hair done up in a tuft, with feathers all round it, and a bright feather tippet over his shoulders, as he stood, six feet in his yellow slippers, and looking sulkily enough at the people. 'Bobbery puckalow!' said the nautical head-showman, and all at once up jumped the Andaman islander, dancing furiously, holding a little Indian _punkah_ over his head, and flourishing with the other hand what reminded me strongly of a ship's top-maul--shouting 'Goor--goor--gooree!' while two of the sailors held on by the ropes. The crowd made plenty of room, and Tom proceeded to explain to them very civilly, that 'in them parts 'twas so hot the natives wouldn't fight, save under a portiable awning.' Having exhibited the points of their extraordinary savage, he was calmed again by another uncouth word of command, when the man-o'-war's-man attempted a further _traverse_ on the good Bromley folks, for which I gave him great credit. 'Now, my lads and lasses,' said he, taking off his hat again, 'I s'pose you're all British subjects and Englishmen!' at which there was a murmur of applause. 'Very good, mates all!' continued the foretopman, approvingly. 'Then, in course, ye knows as how whatsomever touches British ground is _free_!' 'Britons never, never shall be slaves!' sung out a boy, and the screaming and hurrahing was universal. Tom stuck his tongue in his cheek to his messmates, and went on: 'Though we was all pressed ourselves, and has knocked about in sarvice of our king and country, an' bein' poor men, we honours the flag, my lads!' 'Hoorah! hoorah! hoor-r-ray!' 'So you see, gemmen, my shipmates an' me has come to the resolve of lettin' this here wild savidge go free into the woods--though bein' poor men, d' ye see, we hopes ye'll make it up to us a bit first! What d' ye say, all hands?--slump together for the other guinea, will ye, and off he goes this minute, and--Eh? what d' ye say, shipmates?' 'Ay, ay, Tom, sink the damage, too!' said his comrades; 'we'll always get a berth at Blackwall, again!' "'Stand by to ease off his tow-lines, then,' said Tom--'now look sharp with the shiners there, my lads--ownly a guinea!' 'No, no!' murmured the townspeople, 'send for the constable--we'll all be scalped and murdered in our beds!--no, no, for God's sake, mister sailors!' A grocer ran out of his door to beg the tars wouldn't think of such a thing, and the village constable came shoving himself in with the beadle. 'Come, come,' said the constable, in a soothing style, while the beadle tried to look big and blustering, 'you mustn't do it, my good men--not on no desideration, _here_--in his majesty's name. Take un on to the next parish--I horder all good subjects to resist me!' '_What!_' growled the foretopman, with an air of supreme disgust, 'han't ye no feelin's for liberty hereaway? Parish be blowed! Bill, my lad, let go his moorings, and give the poor wretch his nat'ral freedom!' 'I'm right down ashamed on my country,' said Bill. 'Hullo, shipmates, cast off at once, an' never mind the loss--I hasn't slept easy myself sin' he wor cotched!' 'Nor me either,' said another; 'but I'm feared he'll play old Harry when he's loose, mate.' "I had been watching the affair all this time from inside, a good deal amused, in those days, at the trick--especially so well carried out as it was by the sailors. 'Here, my fine fellows,' said I at last, 'bring him in, if you please, and let me have a look at him.' Next minute in came the whole party, and supposing from my plain clothes I was merely some longshore traveller, they put their savage through his dance with great vigour. 'Wonderfully tame he's got, your honour!' said the topman; 'it's nothing to what he does if you freshens his nip.' 'What does he eat? 'I asked, pretending not to understand the hint. 'Why, nought to speak on, sir,' said he; 'but we wonst lost a boy doorin' the cruise, nobody know'd how--though 'twas thought he went o'board, some on us had our doubts.' 'Curiously tatooed, too,' I said; 'I should like to examine his arm.' 'A bit obstropolous he is, your honour, if you handles him.' 'Never mind,' said I, getting up and seizing the wrist of the Andaman islander, in spite of his grins; and my suspicions were immediately fulfilled by seeing a whole range of familiar devices marked in blue on the fellow's arm--amongst them an anchor with a heart transfixed by a harpoon, on one side the word 'Sal,' and on the other 'M. O., 1811.' 'Where did you steal this top-maul, you rascal?' said I, coolly looking in his face; while I noticed one of the men overhauling me suspiciously out of his weather-eye, and sliding to the door. 'I didn't stale it at all,' exclaimed the savage, giving his red head a scratch, ''twas Bill Green there--by japers! whack pillalew, mates, I'm done!' 'Lor! oh lor!' said Bill himself, quite crestfallen, 'if I didn't think 'twas him. We're all pressed again, mate, it's _the_ leftenant.' 'Pressed, bo'?' said Tom; 'more luck, I wish we was--but they wouldn't take ye now for a bounty, you know.' Here I was fain to slack down and give a hearty laugh, particularly at recognising Bill, who had been a shipmate of Jacobs and myself in the old _Pandora_, and was nicknamed 'Green'--I believe from a small adventure of ours--so I gave the men half-a-guinea a piece to carry them on. 'Long life to your honour,' said they; and said Tom, 'If I might make so bould, sir, if your honour has got a ship yet, we all knows ye, sir, and we'd enter, if 'twas for the North Pole itself.' 'No, my lad,' said I, 'I'm sorry to say I have not got so far yet. <DW18>s, my man, can you tell me where your old messmate Jacobs has got to?' 'Why, sir,' replied Bill, 'I did hear he was livin' at Wapping with his wife, where we means to give him a call too, sir.' 'Good day, your honour,' said all of them, as they put on their hats to go, and covered their curiosity again with his tarpaulin. 'I'm blessed, Bill,' said Tom, 'but we'll knock off this here carrivanning now, and put before the wind for Blackwall,' 'Won't you give your savage his freedom, then?' I asked. 'Sartinly, your honour,' replied the roguish foretopman, his eye twinkling as he saw that I enjoyed the joke. 'Now, Mick, my lad, ye must run like the devil so soon as we casts ye off.' 'Oh, by the powers, thry me!' said the Irishman; 'I'm sick tired o' this cannible minnatchery. By the holy Moses, though, I must have a dhrop o' dew in me, or I'll fall!' Mick accordingly swigged off a noggin of gin, and declared himself ready to start. 'Head due nor'-east from the sun, Mick, and we'll pick you up in the woods, and rig you out all square again,' said the captain of the gang, before presenting himself to the mob outside. 'Now, gemmen and ladies all,' said the sailor coolly, 'ye see we're bent on givin' this here poor unfort'nate his liberty--an' bein' tould we've got the law on our side, why, we means to do it. More by token, there's a leftenant in the Roy'l Navy aboard there, as has made up the little salvage-money, bein' poor men, orderin' us for to do it--so look out. If ye only gives him a clear offing, he'll not do no harm. Steady, Bill--slack off the starboard sheet, Jack--let go--all!' 'Oh! oh!--no! no!--for God's sake!' screamed the bystanders, as they scuttled off to both hands--'shame, shame--knock un down, catch un--tipstaff, beadle!' 'Hurrah!' roared the boys, and off went Mick O'Hooney in fine style, flourishing his top-maul, with a wild 'hullaloo,' right away over a fence, into a garden, and across a field towards the nearest wood. Everybody fell out of his way as he dashed on; then some running after him, dogs barking, and the whole of the seamen giving chase with their tarpaulins in their hands, as if to drive him far enough into the country. The whole thing was extremely rich, seen through the open air from the tavern window, where I sat laughing till the tears came into my eyes, at Jack-tars' roguishness and the stupefied Kent rustics, as they looked to each other; then at the sailors rolling away full speed along the edge of the plantation where the outlandish creature had disappeared; and, lastly, at the canvas cover which lay on the spot where he had stood. They were actually consulting how to guard against possible inroads from the savage at night, since he might be lurking near, when I mounted and rode off; I daresay even their hearing that I was a live and real lieutenant would cap the whole story. "Croydon used to be a pretty, retired little town, you know, so quiet and old-fashioned that I enjoyed the unusual rest of it, and the very look of the canal, the market-place, the old English trees and people--by comparison with even the _Iris's_ white decks, and her circumference of a prospect, so different every morning or hour of the day. My mother and my sister Jane were so kind--they petted me so, and were so happy to have me down to breakfast and out walking, even to feel the smell of my cigar--that I hardly knew where I was. I gave them an account of the places I had seen, with a few tremendous storms and a frigate-fight or two, instead of the horse-marine stories about mermaids and flying Dutchmen I used to pass upon them when a conceited youngster. Jane, the little gipsy, would listen with her ear to a large shell, when we were upon sea matters, and shut her eyes, saying she could fancy the things so well that way. Or was it about India, there was a painted sandal-wood fan carved in open-work like the finest lace, which she would spread over her face, because the seeing through it, and its scent, made her feel as if she were in the tropics. As for my mother, good simple woman, she was always between astonishment and horror, never having believed that lieutenants would be so heartless as to mast-head a midshipman for the drunkenness of a boat's crew, nor being able to understand why, with a gale brewing to seaward, a captain tried to get his ship as far as he could from land. The idea of my going to sea again never entered her head, the terrible war being over, and the rank I had gained being invariably explained to visitors as at least equal to that of a captain amongst soldiers. To the present day, this is the point with respect to seafaring matters on which my venerated and worthy parent is clearest: she will take off her gold spectacles, smoothing down her silver hair with the other hand, and lay down the law as to reform in naval titles, showing that my captain's commission puts me on a level with a military colonel. However, as usual, I got tired by little and little of this sort of thing; I fancy there's some peculiar disease gets into a sailor's brain that makes him uneasy with a firm floor and no offing beyond; certainly the country about Croydon was to my mind, at that time, the worst possible--all shut in, narrow lanes, high hedges and orchards, no sky except overhead, and no horizon. If I could only have got a hill, there would have been some relief in having a look-out from it. Money I had no want of; and as for fame or rank, I neither had the ambition, nor did I ever fancy myself intended for an admiral or a Nelson; all my wish was to be up and driving about, on account of something that was _in_ me. I always enjoyed a good breeze as some do champagne; and the very perfection of glory, to my thinking, was to be the soul of a gallant ship in a regular Atlantic howler: or to play at long bowls with one's match to leeward, off the ridges of a sea, with both weather and the enemy to manage. Accordingly, I wasn't at all inclined to go jogging along in one of your easy merchantmen, where you have nothing new to find out; and I only waited to hear, from some friends who were bestirring themselves with the Board, of a ship where there might be something to do. These were my notions in those days, before getting sobered down, which I tell you for the sake of not seeming such a fool in this said adventure. CHAPTER III "Well, one evening my sister Jane and I went to a race-ball at Epsom, where, of course, we saw all the 'beauty and fashion,' as they say, of the country round, with plenty of the army men, who were in all their glory, with Waterloo and all that; we two or three poor nauticals being quite looked down upon in comparison, since Nelson was dead, and we had left ourselves nothing at the end to fight with. I even heard one belle ask a dragoon 'what uniform that was--was it the horse-artillery corps?' 'Haw!' said the dragoon, squinting at me through an eyeglass, and then looking with one eye at his spurs, and with the other at his partner, 'not at all sure! I _do_ think, after all, Miss----, 'tis the--the marine body--a sort of amphibious animals! They weren't with _us_, though, you know--_couldn't_ be, indeed, though it _was Water_loo! Haw! haw! you'll excuse the joke, Miss----?' 'Ha! ha! how extremely witty, Captain----!' said the young lady, and they whirled away towards the other end of the hall. I never felt more inclined to pull a fellow's nose, till all of a sudden my head turned, and I forgot there was such a thing as a dragoon in the world, for I saw what I thought the loveliest young creature ever crossed my eyes, coming out of the refreshment-room with two ladies, an old and an elderly one. The first was finely dressed out, and I set her down for an aunt, she was so unlike; the other for a governess. The young lady was near sixteen to appearance, all in white. There were many beauties in the ball-room you would have called handsomer; but there was something about her altogether I could compare to nothing else but the white figure-head of the _Iris_, sliding gently along in the first curl of a breeze, with the morning sky far out on the bow--curious as you may think it, ladies! Her hair was brown, and her complexion remarkably pale notwithstanding; while her eyes were as dark blue, too, as--as the ocean near the line, that sometimes, in a clear calm, gets to melt till you scarcely know it from the sky. 'Look, Edward!' whispered my sister, 'what a pretty creature! She can't be English, she looks so different from everybody in the room. And such pearls in her hair! such a beautifully large diamond in that brooch! Who can she be, I wonder?' I was so taken up, however, that I never recollected at all what Jane said till at night, in thinking the matter over; and then a whole breeze of whisperings seemingly came from every corner of the cloakroom, of 'Who is she?' 'Who can she be?' 'Who's her father?' and so on, which I remembered to have heard. I only noticed at the time that somebody said she was the daughter of some rich East India nabob or other, just come home. A post-captain who was present--one of Collingwood's flag-lieutenants--went up to the old _chaperon_, whom he seemed to know, and got into talk with her: I found afterwards she was an admiral's widow. In a little I saw him introduced to the young lady, and ask her to dance; I fancied she hung back for a moment, but the next she bowed, gave a slight smile to the captain's gallant sea-fashion of deep respect to the sex, and they were soon swimming away in the first set. Her dancing was more like walking with spread wings upon air than upon planks with one's arms out, as the captain did. I'd have given my eyes, not to speak of my commission and chances to come, to have gone through that figure with _her_. When the captain had handed her to her seat again, two or three of the dragoons sauntered up to Lady Somers's sofa: it was plain they were taken; and after conversing with the old lady, one of them, Lord Somebody, as I understood, got introduced, in his turn, to the young beauty. As may be supposed, I kept a look-out for his asking her to dance, seeing that, if she had done so with one of the embroidered crew, and their clattering gear, I'd have gone out that instant, found out the Waterloo fellow next day, and, if not shot myself, have drilled him with an anchor button for a bullet, and run off in the first craft I could get. The cool, easy, impertinent way this second man made his request, though--just as if he couldn't be refused, and didn't care about it--it was as different from the captain of the _Diomede's_ as red from blue! My heart went like the main-tack blocks thrashing when you luff too much; so you may guess what I felt to see the young lady, who was leaning back on the sofa, give her head a pettish sort of turn to the old one, without a word, as much as to say she didn't want to. 'My love!' I heard the old lady say, 'I fear you are tired! My Lord, your lordship must excuse Miss Hyde on this occasion, as she is in delicate health!' The dragoon was a polite nobleman, according to his cloth; so he kept on talking and smiling, till he could walk off without seeming as if he'd got his sabre betwixt his feet; but I fancied him a little down by the head when he did go. All the time the young beauty was sitting with her face as quiet and indifferent as may be, only there was a sparkle in her blue eyes, and in nothing else but the pearls in her hair, as she looked on at the dancing; and, to my eye, there was a touch of the rose came out on her pale cheek, clear though it was before the dragoon spoke to her. Not long after, an oldish gentleman came out with a grey-haired old general from the refreshment-room: a thin yellow-complexioned man he was, with no whiskers and bald forehead, and a bilious eye, but handsome, and his face as pompous and solemn-looking as if he'd been First Lord, or had got a whole court-martial on his shoulders for next day. I should have known him from a thousand for a man that had lived in the East, were it nothing but the quick way he looked over his shoulder for a servant or two, when he wanted his carriage called--no doubt just as one feels when he forgets he's ashore, like I did every now and then, looking up out to windward, and getting a garden-wall or a wood slap into one's eyesight, as 'twere. I laid down the old gentleman at once for this said nabob; in fact, as soon as a footman told him his carriage was waiting, he walked up to the young lady and her companions, and went off with them, a steward and a lady patroness convoying them to the break of the steps. The only notion that ran in my head, on the way home that night with my sister, was, 'By heavens! I might just as well be in love with the bit of sky at the end of the flying-jibboom!' and all the while the confounded wheels kept droning it into me, till I was as dizzy as the first time I looked over the fore-royal-yard. The whole night long I dreamt I was mad after the figure-head of the _Iris_, and asked her to dance with me, on which she turned round with a look as cold as water, or plain 'No.' At last I caught firm hold of her and jumped overboard; and next moment we were heaving on the blue swell in sight of the black old Guinea coast--when round turned the figure and changed into Miss Hyde; and the old nabob hauled us ashore upon a beautiful island, where I woke and thought I was wanted on deck, although it was only my mother calling me. "All I had found out about them was, that Sir Charles Hyde was the name of the East Indian, and how he was a Bengal judge newly come home; where they lived, nobody at the ball seemed to know. At home, of course, it was so absurd to think of getting acquainted with a rich Indian judge and his daughter, that I said no more of the matter; although I looked so foolish and care-about-nothing, I suppose, that my mother said to Jane she was sure I wanted to go to sea again, and even urged me to 'take a trip to the Downs, perhaps.' As for going to sea, however, I felt I could no more stir, _then_, from where I was, than with a best bower down, and all hands drunk but the captain. There was a favourite lazy spot of mine near the house, where I used to lie after dinner, and puff away amongst the grass, at the back of a high garden-wall with two doors in it, and a plank across a little brook running close under them. All round was a green paddock for cows; there was a tall tree at hand, which I climbed now and then half-mast high, to get a look down a long lane that ran level to the sky, and gave you a sharp gush of blue from the far end. Being a luxurious dog in those days, like the cloth in general when hung up ashore, I used to call it 'The Idler's Walk,' and 'The Lazy Watch,' where I did duty somewhat like the famous bo'sun that told his boy to call him every night and say the captain wanted him, when he turned over with a polite message, and no good to the old tyrant's eyes. "Well, one afternoon I was stretched on the softest bit of this retreat, feeling unhappy all over, and trying to think of nothing in particular, as I looked at the wall and smoked my cheroot. Excuse me if I think that, so far as I remember, there is nothing so consolatory, though it can't of course cure one, as a fine Manilla for the 'green sickness,' as our foremast fellows would say. My main idea was that nothing on earth could turn up to get me out of this scrape, but I should stick eternally, with my head sails shivering aback, or flapping in a sickening dead calm. It was a beautiful hot summer afternoon, as quiet as possible, and I was weary to death of seeing that shadow of the branch lying against the white wall, down to the keyhole of the nearest door. All of a sudden I heard the sweetest voice imaginable, coming down the garden as it were, singing a verse of a Hindostanee song I had heard the Bengal girls chant with their pitchers on their heads at the well, of an evening: La li ta la, ta perisi, La na comalay ah sahm-re, Madna, ca--rahm Ram li ta, co-ca-la lir jhi! La li ta la, vanga-la ta perisi. 'Coc-coka-cokatoo!' screamed a harsh voice, which I certainly could distinguish from the first. 'Pretty cockatoo!' said the other coaxingly; and the next minute the large pink-flushed bird itself popped his head over the top-stones above the door, floundering about with his throat foul of the silver chain fast to his leg, till he hung by his beak on my side of the wall, half-choked, and trying to croak out--'Pretty--pretty cocky!' Before I had time to think, the door opened, and, by heavens! there was my very charmer herself, with the shade of the green leaves showered over her distressed face. She had scarcely seen me before I sprang up and caught the cockatoo, which bit me like an imp incarnate, till the blood ran down my fingers as I handed it to its mistress, my heart in my mouth, and more than a quarter-deck bow in my cap. The young lady looked at me first in surprise, as may be supposed, and then, with a smile of thanks that set my brain all afloat, 'Oh, dear me!' exclaimed she, 'you are hurt!' '_Hurt!_' I said, looking so bewildered, I suppose, that she couldn't help laughing. 'Tippoo is very stupid,' continued she, smiling, 'because he is out of his own country, I think. You shall have no sugar to-night, mister cockatoo, for biting your friends.' "'Were you--ever in India--madam?' I stammered out. 'Not since I was a child,' she answered; but just then I saw the figure of the nabob sauntering down the garden, and said I had particular business and must be off. 'You are very busy here, sir?' said the charming young creature archly. 'You are longing till you go to sea, I daresay--like Tippoo and me.' 'You?' said I, staring at the keyhole whilst she caught my eye, and blushed a little, as I thought 'Yes, we are going--I long to see India again, and _I_ remember the sea, too, like a dream.' "Oh, heavens! thought I, when I heard the old gentleman call out--'Lota! Lota, _beebee-lee_! _Kabultah, meetoowah?_'[6] and away she vanished behind the door, with a smile dropped to myself. The tone of the judge's voice, and his speaking Hindoo, showed he was fond of his daughter at any rate. Off I went, too, as much confused as before, only for the new thought in my head. 'The sea, the sea!' I shouted, as soon as out of hearing, and felt the wind, as 'twere, coming from aft at last, like the first ripple. 'Yes, by George!' said I, 'outward bound for a thousand. I'll go, if it was before the mast.' All at once I remembered I didn't know the ship's name, or when. Next day, and the next again, I was skulking about my old place, but nobody appeared--not so much as a shadow inside the keyhole. At last one evening, just as I was going away, the door opened; I strolled slowly along, when, instead of the charming Lota, out came the flat brown turban of an ugly _kitmagar_, with a moustache, looking round to see who was there. '_Salaam_, sah'b,' said the brown fellow, holding the door behind him with one paw. '_Burra judge sahib bhote bhote salaam_ send uppiser[7] sah'b--'ope not _dekhe_[8] after sahib cook-maid.' '_Joot baht, hurkut-jee_,'[9] said I, laughing. 'Sah'b been _my_ coontree?' inquired the Bengalee more politely. '_Jee_, yes,' I said, wishing to draw him out 'I Inglitsh can is-peek,' continued the dark footman, conceitedly; 'ver well sah'b, but one misfortune us for come i-here. Baud _carry_ make--plenty too much _poork_--too much graug drink. Termeric--chili--banana not got--not coco-tree got--pah! Baud coontree, too much i-cold, sah'b?' 'Curse the rascal's impudence,' I thought, but I asked him if he wasn't going back. 'Yis, sah'b, _such baht_[10] Al-il alah? Mohummud _burra Meer-kea_. Bote too much i-smell, _my_ coontree.' 'When are you going?' I asked, carelessly. 'Two day this time, sah'b.' 'Can you tell me the name of the ship?' I went on. The _kitmagar_ looked at me slyly, stroked his moustache, and meditated; after which he squinted at me again, and his lips opened so as to form the magic word, _Buckshish_? '_Jee_,' said I, holding out a crown piece, 'the ship's name and the harbour?' 'Se,' began he; the coin touched his palm--'ring'; his fingers closed on it, and 'patahm,' dropped from his leathery lips. 'The _Seringapatam_?' I said. '_Ahn_, sah'b.' 'London, eh?' I added; to which he returned another reluctant assent, as if it wasn't paid for, and I walked off. However, I had not got round the corner before I noticed the figure of the old gentleman himself looking after me from the doorway; his worthy _kitmagar_ salaaming to the ground, and no doubt giving information how the 'cheep uppiser' had tried to pump him to no purpose. The nabob looked plainly as suspicious as if I had wanted to break into his house, since he held his hand over his eyes to watch me out of sight. [6] Little girl! Do you hear, sweet one? [7] Officer. [8] Look. [9] 'Tis a lie, you scoundrel. [10] That is true. "At night, I told my mother and sister I should be off to London next day for sea. What betwixt their vexation at losing me, and their satisfaction to see me more cheerful, with talking over matters, we sat up half the night. I was so ashamed, though, to tell them what I intended, considering what a fool's chase it would seem to anyone but myself, that I kept all close; and, I am sorry to say, I was so full of my love-affair, with the wild adventure of it, the sea, and everything besides, as not to feel their anxiety enough. How it was to turn out I didn't know; but somehow or other I was resolved I'd contrive to make a rope if I couldn't find one; at the worst, I might carry the ship, gain over the men, or turn pirate and discover an island. Early in the morning I packed my traps, drew a cheque for my prize-money, got the coach, and bowled off for London, to knock up Bob Jacobs, my sea godfather; this being the very first step, as it seemed to me, in making the plan feasible. Rough sort of confidant as he may look, there was no man living I would have trusted before him for keeping a secret. Bob was true as the topsail sheets; and if you only gave him the course to steer, without any of the 'puzzlement,' as he called the calculating part, he would stick to it, blow high, blow low. He was just the fellow I wanted for the lee brace, as it were, to give my weather one a purchase, even if I had altogether liked the notion of setting off all alone on what I couldn't help suspecting was a sufficiently harebrained scheme as it stood; and, to tell the truth, it was only to a straightforward, simple-hearted tar like Jacobs that I could have plucked up courage to make it known. I knew he would enter into it like a reefer volunteering for a cutting out, and make nothing of the difficulties--especially when a love matter was at the bottom of it: the chief question was how to discover his whereabouts, as Wapping is rather a wide word. I adopted the expedient of going into all the tobacco-shops to inquire after Jacobs, knowing him to be a more than commonly hard smoker, and no great drinker ashore. I was beginning to be tired out, however, and give up the quest, when, at the corner of a lane near the docks, I caught sight of a little door adorned with what had apparently been part of a ship's figure-head--the face of a nymph or nereid, four times as large as life, with tarnished gilding, and a long wooden pipe in her mouth that had all the effect of a bowsprit, being stayed up by a piece of marline to a hook in the wall, probably in order to keep clear of people's heads. The words painted on its two head-boards, as under a ship's bow, were 'Betsy Jacobs,' and 'licensed' on the top of the door; the window was stowed full of cakes of cavendish, twists of negrohead, and coils of pigtail; so that, having heard my old shipmate speak of a certain Betsy, both as sweetheart and partner, I made at once pretty sure of having lighted, by chance, on his very dry-dock, and went in without more ado. I found nobody in the little shop, but a rough voice, as like as possible to Jacobs' own, was chanting the sea-song of 'Come, cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer,' in the back-room, in a curious sleepy kind of drone, interrupted every now and then by the suck of his pipe, and a mysterious thumping sound, which I could only account for by the supposition that the poor fellow was mangling clothes, or gone mad. I was obliged to kick on the counter with all my might, in competition, before an eye was applied from inside to the little window; after which, as I expected, the head of Jacobs was thrust out of the door, his hair rough, three days' beard on his chin, and he in his shirt and trousers. '_Hisht!_' said he, in a low voice, not seeing me distinctly for the light, 'you're not calling the watch, my lad! Hold on a bit, and I'll serve your orders directly.' After another stave of 'Hearts of oak are our ships,' etc., in the same drawl, and a still more vigorous thumping than before, next minute out came Bob again; with a wonderful air of importance, though, and drawing in one hand, to my great surprise, the slack of a line of 'half-inch,' on which he gave now and then a tug and an ease off, as he came forward, like a fellow humouring a newly-hooked fish. 'Now, then, my hearty!' said he, shading his eyes with the other hand, 'bear a----' 'Why, Jacobs, old ship,' I said, 'what's this you're after? Don't you know your old apprentice, eh?' "Jacobs looked at my cap and epaulette, and gave out his breath in a whistle, the only other sign of astonishment being that he let go his unaccountable-looking piece of cord. 'Lord bless me, Master Ned!' said he--'I axes pardon, Lieutenant Collins, your honour!' 'Glad you know me this time, Bob, my lad, 'said I, looking round--'and a comfortable berth you've got of it, I daresay. But what the deuce _are_ you about in there? _You_ haven't a savage, _too_, like some friends of yours I fell in with a short time ago! Or perhaps a lion or a tiger, eh, Jacobs?' 'No, no, your honour--lions be blowed!' replied he, laughing, but fiddling with his hands all the while, and standing between me and the room, as if half-ashamed. ''Tis ownly the tiller-ropes of a small craft I am left in charge of, sir. But won't ye sit down, your honour, till such time as my old 'ooman comes aboard to relieve me, sir? Here's a _cheer_, and may be you'd make so free for to take a pipe of prime Americane, your honour?' 'Let's have a look into your cabin though, Bob, my man,' said I, curious to know what was the secret; when all at once a tremendous squall from within let me sufficiently into it. The old salt had been rocking the cradle, with a fine little fellow of a baby in it, and a line made fast to keep it in play when he served the shop. 'All the pitch is in the fire now, your honour,' said he, looking terribly nonplussed; 'I've broached him to, and he's all aback till his mammy gets a hold of him.' 'A good pipe the little rogue's got though,' said I; 'and a fine child he is, Jacobs--do for a bo'sun yet.' 'Why, yes, sir,' said he, rubbing his chin with a gratified smile, as the urchin kicked, threw out his arms, and roared like to break his heart; 'I'm thinking he's a sailor all over, by natur', as one may say. He don't like a calm no more nor myself; but that's the odds of being ashore, where you needs to keep swinging the hammocks by hand, instead of havin' it done for you, sir.' In the midst of the noise, however, we were caught by the sudden appearance of Mistress Jacobs herself--a good-looking young woman, with a market-basket full of bacon and greens, and a chubby little boy holding by her apron, who came through the shop. The first thing she did was to catch up the baby out of the cradle, and begin hushing it, after one or two side-glances of reproach at her husband, who attempted to cover his disgrace by saying, 'Betsy, my girl, where's your manners? why don't you off hats to the leftenant?--it's my wife, your honour.' Mrs Jacobs curtsied twice very respectfully, though not particularly fond of the profession, as I found afterwards; and I soon quite gained her smiles and good graces by praising her child, with the remark that he was too pretty ever to turn out a sailor; for, sharp as mothers are to detect this sort of flattery to anybody else's bantling, you always find it take wonderfully with respect to their own. Whenever Jacobs and I were left to ourselves, I struck at once into my scheme--the more readily for feeling I had the weather hand of him in regard of his late appearance. It was too ridiculous, the notion of one of the best foretopmen that ever passed a weather-earing staying at home to rock his wife's cradle and attend the shop; and he was evidently aware of it as I went on. It was a little selfish, I daresay, and Mrs Jacobs would perhaps have liked me none the better for it; but I proposed to him to get a berth in the Indiaman, sail with me for Bombay, and stand by for a foul hitch in something or other. 'Why, sir,' said he,' it shan't be said of Bob Jacobs he were ever the man to hang back where a matter was to be done that must be done. I doesn't see the whole bearings of it as yet, but ownly you give the orders, sir, and I'll stick to 'em.' ''Tis a long stretch between this and Bombay, Jacobs,' said I, 'and plenty of room for chances.' 'Ay, ay, sir, no doubt,' said he, 'your honour can _talk_ the length of the best bower cable.' 'More than that, Bob, my lad,' said I, 'I know these Company men; if they once get out of their regular jog, they're as helpless as a pig adrift on a grating; and before they grow used to sailing out of convoy, with no frigates to whip them in, depend upon it Mother Carey will have to teach them a new trick or two.' 'Mayhap, sir,' put in Jacobs, doubtfully, 'the best thing 'ud be if they cast the ship away altogether, as I've seen done myself for the matter of an insurance. Ye know, sir, they lets it pass at Lloyd's now the war's over, seein' it brings customers to the underwriters, if so be ownly it don't come over often for the profits. Hows'ever it needs a good seaman to choose his lee-shore well, no doubt.' 'Oh!' answered I, laughing, 'but the chances are, all hands would want to be Robinson Crusoe at once! No, no--only let's get aboard, and take things as they come.' 'What's the ship's name, sir?' inquired Jacobs, sinking his voice, and looking cautiously over his shoulder toward the door. 'The _Seringapatam_--do you know her?' I said. 'Ay, ay, sir, well enough,' said he, readily--'a lump of a ship she is, down off Blackwall in the stream, with two more--country-built, and tumbles home rather much from below the plank-sheer for a sightly craft, besides being flat in the eyes of her, and round in the counter, just where she shouldn't, sir. Them Par_chee_ Bombay shipwrights _does_ clap on a lot of onchristien flummeries and gilt mouldings, let alone quarter-galleries fit for the king's castle!' 'In short, she's tea-waggon all over,' said I, 'and just as slow and as leewardly, to boot, as teak can make her?' 'Her lines is not that bad, though, your honour,' continued Jacobs, 'if you just knocked off her poop--and she'd bear a deal o' beating for a sea-boat. They've got a smart young mate, too; for I seed him t'other day a-sending up the yards, and now she's as square as a frigate, all ready to drop down river.' The short and long of it was, that I arranged with my old shipmate, who was fully bent on the cruise, whether Mrs Jacobs should approve or not, that, somehow or other, we should both ship our hammocks on board of the _Seringapatam_--he before the mast, and I wherever I could get. On going to the agent's, however--which I did as soon as I could change my uniform for plain clothes--I found, to my great disappointment, from a plan of the accommodations, that not only were the whole of the poop-cabins taken, but those on the main-deck also. Most of the passengers, I ascertained, were ladies, with their children and nurses, going back to India, and raw young cadets, with a few commercial and civilian nondescripts; there were no troops or officers, and room enough, except for one gentleman having engaged the entire poop, at an immense expense, for his own use. This I, of course, supposed was the nabob, but the clerk was too close to inform me. 'You must try another ship, sir,' said he, coolly, as he shut the book. 'Sorry for it, but we have another booked to sail in a fortnight. A1, sir; far finer vessel--couple of hundred tons larger--and sails faster.' 'You be hanged!' muttered I, walking out; and a short time after I was on board. The stewards told me as much again; but on my slipping a guinea into the fingers of one, he suddenly recollected there was a gentleman in state-room No. 14, starboard side of the main skylight, who, being alone, might perhaps be inclined to take a chum, if I dealt with him privately. 'Yankee, sir, he is,' said the steward, by way of a useful hint. However, I didn't need the warning, at sight of the individual's long nose, thin lips, and sallow jaw-bones, without a whisker on his face, and his shirt-collar turned down, as he sat overhauling his traps beside the carronade, which was tethered in the state-room, with its muzzle through the port. He looked a good deal like a jockey beside his horse; or, as a wit of a schoolboy cadet said afterwards, the Boston gentleman, calling himself Daniel C. Snout, Esquire--like Daniel praying in the lion's den, and afraid it might turn round and roar. I must say the idea didn't quite delight me, nor the sight of a fearful quantity of baggage which was stowed up against the bulkhead; but after introducing myself and objecting to the first few offers, I at last concluded a bargain with the American for a hundred guineas, provisions exclusive, which, he remarked, was 'considerable low, I prognosticate, mister!' 'However,' said he, 'I expect you're a conversationable individual a little: I allowed for that, you know, mister. One can't do much of a trade at sea--that's a fact; and I calculate we'll swap information by the way. I'm water-pruff, I tell you, as all our nation is. You'll not _settle_ at Bumbay, I reckon, mister?' But though I meant to pay my new messmate in my own coin at leisure afterwards, and be as frank and open as day with him--the only way to meet a Yankee--I made off at present as fast as possible to bring my things aboard, resolving to sleep at Blackwall, and then to stow myself out of sight for sick, until there was somebody to take off the edge of his confounded talk. "Next afternoon, accordingly, I found myself once more afloat, the Indiaman dropping down with the first breeze. The day after, she was running through the Downs with it pretty strong from north-east, a fair wind--the pilot-boat snoring off close-hauled to windward, with a white spray over her nose; and the three _dungaree_ topsails of the _Seringapatam_ lifting and swelling, as yellow as gold, over her white courses in the blue Channel haze. The breeze freshened till she rolled before it, and everything being topsyturvy on deck, the lumber in the way, the men as busy as bees setting her ship-shape--it would have been as much as a passenger's toes were worth to show them from below; so that I was able to keep by myself, just troubling my seamanship so much as to stand clear of the work. Enjoy it I did, too; the first sniff of the weather was almost enough to make me forget what I was there for. I was every now and then on the point of fisting a rope, and singing out to the men; till at length I thought it more comfortable, even for me, to run up the mizzen shrouds when everybody was forward, where I stowed myself out of sight in the cross-trees. "About dusk, while I was waiting to slip down, a stronger puff than ordinary made them clue up the mizzen-royal from deck, which I took upon myself to furl offhand--quick enough to puzzle a couple of boys that came aloft for the purpose, especially as, in the meantime, I had got down upon the topsail-yard-arm out of their notice. When they got on deck again, I heard the little fellows telling some of the men, in a terrified sort of way, how the mizzen-royal had either stowed itself, or else it was Dick Wilson's ghost, that fell off the same yard last voyage--more by token, he used always to make fast the gaskets just that fashion. At night, however, the wind having got lighter, with half moonlight, there was a muster of some passengers on deck, all sick and miserable, as they tried to keep their feet, and have the benefit of air--the Yankee being as bad as the worst. I thought it wouldn't do for me to be altogether free, and accordingly stuck fast by Mr Snout, with my head over the quarter-deck bulwarks, looking into his face, and talking away to him, asking all sorts of questions about what was good for sea-sickness, then giving a groan to prevent myself laughing, when the spray splashed up upon his 'water-pruff' face, he responding to it as Sancho Panza did to Don Quixote, when the one examined the other's mouth after a potion. All he could falter out was, how he wondered I could speak at all when sick. 'Oh! oh dear!' said I with another howl. 'Yes--'tis merely because I can't _think_! And I daresay you are thinking so much you can't _talk_--the sea is so full of meditation, as Lord Byron----oh--oh--this water will be the death of me!' 'I feel as if--the whole--tarnation Atlantic was--inside of my bowels!' gasped he through his nostrils. 'Oh!' I could not help putting in, as the ship and Mr Snout both gave a heave up, 'and coming out of you!' "During all this time I had felt so sure of my ground as scarcely to trouble myself about the Bengal judge and his treasure of a daughter; only in the midst of the high spirits brought up by the breeze, I hugged myself now and then at the thought of their turning out by degrees as things got settled. Nobody would suspect the raw chap I looked, with smooth hair and a high collar, of any particular cue: I must say there was a little vanity at the bottom of it, but I kept thinking more and more how snug and quietly I'd enjoy all that went on, sailing on one tack with the passengers and the old nabob himself, and slipping off upon the other when I could come near the charming young Lota. The notion looks more like what some scamp of a reefer, cruising ashore, would have hit upon, than suits my taste nowadays; but the cockpit had put a spice of the imp in me, which I never got clear of till this very voyage, as you'll see, if we get through the log of it. "The first time I went down into the cuddy was that evening to tea, where all was at sixes and sevens like the decks; the lamps ill-trimmed, stewards out of the way, and a few lads trying to bear up against their stomachs by the help of brandy and biscuits. The main figure was a jolly-looking East Indian, an indigo-planter, as he turned out, with a bald forehead, a hook nose, and his gills covered with white whiskers that gave him all the cut of a cockatoo. He had his brown servant running about on every hand, and being an old stager, did his best to cheer up the rest; but nothing I saw showed the least sign of the party I looked after. I was sure I ought to have made out something of them by this time, considering the stir such a grandee as Sir Charles Hyde would cause aboard; in fact, there didn't seem to be many passengers in her, and I began to curse the lying scoundrel of a _kitmagar_ for working 'Tom Cox's traverse' on me, and myself for being a greater ass than I'd fancied. Indeed, I heard the planter mention by chance that Sir Charles Hyde, the district judge, had come home last voyage from India in this very _Seringapatam_, which, no doubt, I thought, put the Mahommedan rascal up to his trick. "I was making up my mind to an Indian trip, and the pure pleasure of Daniel Catoson Snout, Esquire's, company for two blessed months, when all of a sudden I felt the ship bring her wind a-quarter, with a furious plunge of the Channel water along her bends, that made every landman's bowels yearn as if he felt it gurgle through him. One young fellow, more drunk than sick, gave a wild bolt right over the cuddy table, striking out with both arms and legs as if afloat, so as to sweep half of the glasses down on the floor. The planter, who was three cloths in the wind himself, looked down upon him with a comical air of pity as soon as he had got cushioned upon the wreck. 'My dear fellow,' said he, 'what do you feel--eh?' 'Feel, you--old blackguard!' stammered the griffin, 'I feel _everything_! Goes through--through my vitals as if--I was a con--founded _whale_! C--can't stand it!' 'You've drunk yourself aground, my boy!' sung out the indigo-man; 'stuck fast on the coral--eh? Never mind, we'll float you off, only don't flounder that way with your tail!--by George, you scamp, you've ruined my toe--oh dear!' I left the planter hopping round on one pin, and holding the gouty one in his hand, betwixt laughing and crying; on deck I found the floating Nab Light bearing broad on our lee-bow, with Cumberland Fort glimmering to windward, and the half-moon setting over the Isle of Wight, while we stood up for Portsmouth Harbour. The old captain, and most of the officers, were on the poop for the first time, though as stiff and uncomfortable from the sort of land-sickness and lumber-qualms that sailors feel till things are _in_ their places, as the landsmen did until things were _out_ of them. The skipper walked the weather side by himself and said nothing; the smart chief officer sent two men, one after another, from the wheel for 'cows' that didn't know where their tails were; and as for the middies, they seemed to know when to keep out of the way. In a little, the spars of the men-of-war at Spithead were to be seen as we rose on a sea; before the end of the first watch, we were running outside the Spit Buoy, which was nodding and plashing with the tide in the last slant of moonshine, till at last we rounded to, and down went the anchor in five fathoms, off the Motherbank. What the Indiaman wanted at Portsmouth I didn't know; but, meantime, I had given up all hopes of the nabob being in her, and the only question with me was, whether I should take the opportunity of giving all hands the slip here, even though I left my Yankee friend disconsolate, and a clear gainer by dollars beyond count. "Early next morning there were plenty of wherries looking out for fares; so, as the Indiaman was not to sail before the night-ebb, when the breeze would probably spring up fair again, I hailed one of them to go ashore at the point, for a quiet stroll over Southsea Common, where I meant to overhaul the whole bearings of the case, and think if it weren't better to go home, and wait the Admiralty's pleasure for a ship. I hadn't even seen anything of Jacobs, and the whole hotel-keeping ways of the Indiaman began to disgust me, or else I should have at once decided to take the chance of seeing Lota Hyde somehow or other in India; but, again, one could scarcely endure the notion of droning on in a frigate without so much as a Brest lugger to let drive at. It was about six o'clock; the morning-gun from the guard-ship off the dock-yard came booming down through the harbour, the blue offing shone like silver, and the green tideway sparkled on every surge, up to where they were flashing and poppling on the copper of the frigates at Spithead. I noticed them crossing yards and squaring; the farthest out hove up anchor, loosed fore-topsail, cast her head to starboard, and fired a gun as she stood slowly out to sea under all sail, with a light air freshening abeam. The noble look of her almost reconciled me of itself to the service, were it for the mere sake of having a share in driving such a craft between wind and water. Just then, however, an incident turned up in spite of me, which I certainly didn't expect, and which had more, even than I reckoned at the time, to do with my other adventure; seeing that it made me, both then and afterwards, do the direct opposite of what I meant to do, and both times put a new spoke in my wheel, as we say at sea here. "I had observed a seventy-four, the _Stratton_, lying opposite the Spit Buoy, on board of which, as the waterman told me, a court-martial had been held the day before, where they broke a first lieutenant for insulting his captain. Both belonged to one of the frigates: the captain I had seen, and heard of as the worst tyrant in the navy; his ship was called a 'perfect hell afloat'; that same week one of the boys had tried to drown himself alongside, and a corporal of marines, after coming ashore and drinking a glass with his sweetheart, had coolly walked down to the point, jumped in between two boats and the jetty, and kept himself under water till he was dead. The lieutenant had been dismissed the service, and as I recognised the name, I wondered whether it could actually be my schoolfellow, Tom Westwood, as gallant a fellow and as merry as ever broke biscuit. Two sail-boats, one from around the _Stratton's_ quarter, and the other from over by Gosport, steering on the same tack for Southsea, turned my attention as I sauntered down to the beach. The bow of the nearest wherry grounded on the stones as I began to walk quicker towards the town-gates, chiefly because I was pretty ready for an early breakfast at the old Blue Posts, and also because I had a slight notion of what these gentlemen wanted on Southsea Beach at odd hours. Out they jumped, however--one man in naval undress, another a captain in full fig, the third a surgeon--coming right athwart my course to bring me to. The first I almost at once remembered for the notorious captain of the _Orestes_, or _N'Oreste_, as the midshipmen called her, from her French build and her character altogether. 'Hallo, you sir!' said the other captain, decidedly, 'you must stand still.' 'Indeed,' said I; 'and why so, if you please?' 'Since you _are_ here, we don't intend allowing you to pass for some few minutes.' 'And what if I should do as I choose, sir?' I asked. 'If you stir two steps, sir, I shall shoot you,' replied the captain, who was one of the bullying school. 'Oh, very well,' I said, rather confounded by his impertinence, 'then I shall stay'; and I accordingly stood stock-still, with my arms folded, until the other boat landed a party of two. They were in plain clothes; nor did I give them any particular heed till the seconds had stationed their men, when the captain of the _Orestes_ had his back to me, and his antagonist stood directly facing. As his pale resolved features came out before me with the morning sun on them, his lips together, and his nostrils large, I recognised my old friend Westwood. The captain had broke him the day before, and now had accepted his challenge, being a known dead shot, while the lieutenant had never fired a bullet in cold blood; there was, no doubt, a settled purpose in the tyrant to crush the first man that had dared to thwart his will. Westwood's second came forward and mentioned to the other that his friend was still willing to withdraw the words spoken in first heat, and would accordingly fire in the air. 'Coward!' shouted the captain of the _Orestes_ immediately, 'I shall shoot you through the heart!' 'Sir,' said I to his second, 'I _will not_ look on; and if that gentleman is shot, I will be witness against you both as murderers.' I dropped down behind a stone out of the line of fire, and to keep my eyes off the devilish piece of work, though my blood boiled to knock the fellow down that I was speaking to. Another minute, and the suspense was too great for me to help looking up. Just at that moment I saw how _set_ Westwood's face was; he was watching his enemy with an eye that showed to me what the other's must be--seeking for his life. The seconds gave the word to each other in the middle, and dropped two white handkerchiefs at once with their hands together; I caught the flash of Westwood's pistol, when, to my astonishment, I saw the captain of the _Orestes_ next moment jerk up his arm betwixt me and the sky, fire in the air, and slowly fall back--he was dead!--shot through the heart. One glance at his face gave you a notion of the devilish meaning he had had; but what was my surprise when his second walked up to Westwood, and said to him, 'Sir, you are the murderer of Captain Duncombe--my friend fired in the air as you proposed.' 'You are mistaken, sir,' answered Westwood, coldly; 'Captain Duncombe sought my life, and I have used the privilege of self-defence.' 'The surgeon is of my opinion,' said the other; 'and I am sorry to say that we cannot allow you to depart.' 'I shall give myself up to the authorities at once,' said Westwood. 'We have only your word for that, which I must be permitted, in such a case, to doubt,' replied the captain, whose evident wish it was to detain Westwood by force or threats while he sent off his surgeon. The worst of it was, as I now found, that since the court-martial and the challenge, an Admiralty order had arrived, in consideration of several gallant acts during the war, as well as private representation, restoring him to the service; so that he had, in fact, called out and shot his superior officer. As for the charge now brought forward, it was too absurd for any to believe it, unless from rage or prejudice; the case was bad enough, at any rate, without it. "In the meantime I had exchanged a word or two with Westwood's friend; after which, lifting a second pistol which lay on the sand, I went up to the captain. 'Sir,' said I, 'you used the freedom, a little ago, of forcing me into your concerns, and I have seen the end of it. I have now got to tell you, having watched your conduct, that either you must submit to be made fast here for a bit, else, by the God that made me, I'll shoot you through the head.' The captain looked at me, his surgeon sidled up to him; and being a man near my own size, he suddenly tried to wrench the pistol out of my hands. However, I had him the next moment under my knee, while Westwood's second secured the little surgeon, and took a few round sea-turns about his wrists and ankles with a neckerchief. My companion then gave me a hand to do the same with his superior officer--the medico all the time singing out like a bull, and the captain threatening--while the dead body lay stark and stiff behind us, the eyes wide, the head down, and the breast up, the hand clenching a pistol, just as he had fallen. Westwood stood quite unconscious of everything we did, only he seemed to be watching the knees drawn up as they stiffened, and the sand-flies gathering about the mouth. 'Shall we clap a stopper between their teeth?' said the second to me--he had been at sea, but who he was I never knew--'the surgeon will be heard on the walls, he bellows so!' 'Never mind,' said I, 'we'll just drop them beyond tide-mark--the lee of the stones yonder.' In fact, from the noise the tide was making, I question if the shots could have been heard even by the watermen, who had prudently sheered out of sight round a point. I couldn't help looking, when we had done this, from the captain's body to his own frigate, as she was sluing round head on to us, at single anchor, to the turn of tide, with her buoy dancing on the brisk blue sweep of water, and her figure-head shining in the sunlight. As soon as we had covered over the corpse with tangle, Westwood started as if we had taken something away from him, or freed him of a spell. 'Westwood!' said I, laying my hand on his shoulder, 'you _must_ come along with me.' He said nothing, but followed us quietly round to the wherries, where I told the watermen that the other party had gone a different way to keep clear, and we wanted them to pull for Gosport. At Gosport we had Westwood rigged out in black clothes, his hair cropped, and whiskers shaved off--as I thought it the fittest thing for his case, and what he could best carry out, to go aboard of the Indiaman with me as if he were a missionary. Poor fellow! he didn't well know _what_ he was. So, having waited till dusk, to let the watermen lose our track, and his friend having posted off for Dover, he and I both got safe over to the _Seringapatam_, where I had him stowed in the first convenient state-room I could find. I had actually forgot, through the excitement, all about having missed my first chase; from one hour to another I kept watching the tide-marks ashore, and the dog-vane on the ship's quarter, all impatience to hear the word given for 'all hands up anchor,' and hoping our worthy friends on Southsea Beach were still lying within hearing of the Channel flood. At last the order did come; round went the capstan merrily enough, till she had hove short and up with fore-topsail set; the anchor was catted, and off went the lumbering old craft through the Solent about midnight, before a fine rattling breeze, in company with six or seven others, all running for the Needles. They were loosing the Indiaman's royals when I heard a gun from the guard-ship in harbour; and a little after up went a rocket, signalling to some frigate or other at Spithead; away they kept at it, with lights from the telegraph to her mast-head, for several minutes. 'All's up!' thought I, 'and both Westwood and myself are in for it!' "Next morning at daybreak, accordingly, no sooner did the dawn serve to show us Portland Light going out on the weather quarter, with a whole fleet of Channel craft and Mediterranean brigs about us, we surging through it as fast as the Indiaman could go--than _there_ was a fine forty-four standing off and on right in our course, in fact the very identical _Orestes_ herself! She picked us out in a moment--bore up, stood across our weather-bow, and hailed. 'What ship's that?' said the first luff in her mizzen rigging. "'The _Seringapatam_, Honourable Company's ship, Captain Williamson!' sung out our first officer, with his cap off. 'Heave to, till I send a boat aboard of you,' hailed the naval man, and there we bobbed to each other with mainyards backed. In a few minutes a master's mate with gig's crew was under our lee-quarter, and the mate came on deck. 'Sir,' said he, 'the Port Admiral will thank you to deliver these despatches for Sir Charles Hyde, who I believe is aboard.' 'Certainly, sir,' said the first officer, 'they shall be given to him in an hour's time.' "'Good morning, and a fine voyage,' said the master's mate politely; and I took the occasion of asking if Captain Duncombe were on board the _Orestes_. 'No, sir,' answered the midshipman, 'he happens to be ashore at present.' I have seldom felt so relieved as when I saw the frigate haul round her main-yard, and go sweeping off to leeward, while we resumed our course. By noon we had sunk the land about Start Point, with a breeze which it was no use wasting at that season to take 'departures'; and as the afternoon set in hazy, we were soon out of sight of old England for good. For my part, I was bound eastward at last with a witness, and, like a young bear again, 'all my troubles before me.' "There is two bells though," interrupted the narrator, starting. "Let us see what sort of night it is before the ladies retire." CHAPTER IV The evening after that on which the commander of the _Gloucester_ Indiaman introduced his adventures, nearly the same party met on the poop to hear them continued. "Well then," began Captain Collins, leaning back against a stanchion of the quarter-rail, with folded arms, legs crossed, and his eyes fixed on the weather-leech of the mizzen-topsail to collect his thoughts; "well then, try to fancy the _Seringapatam_ in chase of the _Gloucester_; and if I _do_ use a few extra seaterms, I consider the ladies good enough sailors for them already. At any rate, just throw a glance aloft now and then, and our good old lady will explain herself; to her own sex, she ought to be as good as a dictionary, with signs for the hard words! "The second day out we had the wind more from seaward, which broke up the haze into bales of cloud, and away they went rolling in for the Bay of Biscay; with a longer wave and darker water, and the big old Indiaman surged over it as easily as might be, the blue breeze gushing right into her main-tack through the heave of the following seas, and the tail of the trade-wind flying high above her trucks in shreds and patches. Things got more ship-shape on deck; anchor-flukes brought in-board on the head-rail, and cables stowed away--the very best sign you can have of being clear of the land. The first officer, as they called him, was a good-looking fellow, that thought no small-beer of himself, with his glossy blue jacket and Company's buttons, white trousers, and a gold thread round his cap; he had it stuck askew to show how his hair was brushed; and changed his boots every time he came on deck. Still he looked like a sailor, if but for the East-India brown on his face, and there was no mistake about his knowing how to set a sail, trim yards, or put the ship about; so that the stiff old skipper left a great deal to him, besides trusting him for a first-rate navigator that had learned head-work at a naval school. The crew were to be seen all mustering before tea-time in the dog-watch, with their feet just seen under the foot mat of the fore-course, like actors behind a playhouse curtain--men that I warrant you had seen every country under heaven amongst them--as private as possible, and ready to enjoy their pots of tea upon the forecastle, as well as their talk. "However, all this was nothing to me, as I saw no sign of the passengers I had counted on. I could do little for poor Westwood but leave him to mope below, over his own thoughts. "If the Indian judge really chanced to be on board after all, he evidently fought shy of company, and perhaps meant to have his own mess-table under the poop as long as the voyage lasted; scarcely any of the ladies had apparently got their sea-qualms over yet, and, for all I knew, _she_ might not be with him, even if he were there; or, if she were, her father seemed quite Turk enough to keep her boxed up with jalousie-blinds, Calcutta fashion, and give her a walk in the middle watch, with the poop tabooed till morning. The jolly, red-faced indigo-planter was the only one that tried to get up anything like spirit at the table; indeed, he would have scraped acquaintance with me, if I had been in a mood for it; all I did was to say 'Yes' and 'No,' and to take wine with him. 'Poor fellow!' said he, turning to three or four of the cadets, that stuck by him like pilot-fish to an old shark, 'he's thinking of his mother at home, I daresay.' The fools thought this was meant for a joke, and began to laugh. 'Why, you unfledged griffins you,' said the planter, 'what d'ye see to nicker at, like so many jackals in a trap? D'ye suppose one thinks the less of a man for having a heart to be sick in, as well as a stomach--eh?' 'Oh, don't speak of it, Mr Rollock!' said one. 'Come, come, old boy,' said another, with a white moustache on his lip, ''twon't do for you to go the sentimental, you know.' 'Capsize my main-spanker, 'tis too funny, though,' put in a fellow who wore a glazed hat on deck, and put down all the ropes with numbers on paper, as soon as he had done being sick. The planter leant back in his chair, looked at them coolly, and burst out a-laughing. 'Catch me ever "going home" again,' said he. 'Of all the absurd occasions for impudence with the egg-shell on its head coming out, hang me if these fifteen thousand miles of infernal sea-water ain't the worst. India for ever!--that's the place to _try_ a man. He's either sobered or gets room to work there; and just wait, my fine fellows, till I see _you_ on the Custom-house _Bunda_ at Bombay, or setting off up country--you're all of you the very food for _sircars_ and _coolies_. That quiet lad there, now, soft as he looks'--meaning me--'I can tell by his eye he won't be long a griff--he'll do something. I tell you what, as soon as he's tasted his first mango-fish, he'll _understand_ the country. Why, sir,' said he again, smacking his lips, ''tis worth the voyage of itself--you begin a new existence so to speak. I'll be bound all this lot o' water don't contain one single mango-fish. Remember, boys, I promised you all a regular blow-out of mango-fish, and _florican_ with bread-sauce, whenever you can get across to Chuckbully Factory.' 'Blow, good breeze, then; blow away the main jib!' said the nautical young gentleman; 'I'll join you, old fellow!' 'Not the best way to bring it about, though,' said the indigo-planter, good-naturedly, not knowing but there _was_ such a sail on the ship. "The yellow setting sun was striking over the starboard quarter-boat, and the Bay of Biscay lay broad down to leeward for a view--a couple of large craft, with all studding-sails set before the wind, making for land, far enough off to bring their canvas in a piece, and begin to look blue with the air--one like a milk-woman with pitchers and a hoop; the other like a girl carrying a big bucketful of water, and leaning the opposite way to steady herself. There was one far to north-east, too, no more than a white speck in the grey sky; and the land-cloud went up over it into so many sea-lions' heads, all looking out of their manes. The children clapped their hands and laughed; and the ladies talked about the vessels, and thought they saw land--Spain or the Pyrenees, perhaps. However, it wasn't long before my American friend Snout caught sight of me in the midst of his meditations, as he turned bolt round on his toes to hurry aft again. 'The fact is, mister,' said he, '_I'm_ riled a little at _the_ tarnation pride of you Britishers. There now,' said he, pointing at the blaze of the sun to westward, with his chin, 'there's _a_ consolation. I calculate the sun's just over Noo-York, which I expect to give you old country folks considerable pain.' "'No doubt,' said I, with a sigh; 'one can't help thinking of a banker run off with ever so much English gold.' 'You're a sensible chap, you are. It's _a_ right-down asylum _for_ oppressed Eur_o_pains--that can't be denied.' 'And Africans, too,' I put in. 'Indy, now,' said he; 'I reckon there's a sight of dollars made in that country--you don't s'pose I'm goin' out there for _nothing_? We'll just take it out o' your hands yet, mister. I don't ought to let you into the schim till I know you better, you see; but I expect to want a sort o' company got up before we land. There's one of your nabobs now came into the ship at Possmouth, with a whole tail of niggurs dressed up----' 'And a lady with him, I think?' said I, as coolly as I could. 'I'll somehow open on that chap about British tyranny, I guess, after gettin' a little knowledge out of him. We'd just _rise_ the niggurs, if they had _not_ such a right-down cur'ous _my_thullogy--but I tell you now, mister, that's one of the very p'ints I expect to meet. Miss'naries won't do it so slick off in two thousand years, I kinder think, as this identical specoolation will in _ten_--besides payin' like Peruvain mines, which the miss'nary line don't. I'm a regoolar down-easter, ye see--kinder piercin' into a subject, like our nation in gin'ral--and the whull schim hangs together a little, I calculate, mister?' 'So I should think, Mr Snout, indeed,' I said. Here the American gave another chuckle, and turned to again on his walk, double quick, till you'd have thought the whole length of the poop shook, when who should I see with the tail of my eye but my friend the _kitmagar_ salaaming to Mr Snout by the break of the quarter-deck. The Yankee seemed rather taken aback at first, and didn't know what to make of him. 'S'laam sah'b,' said the dark servant with an impudent look, and loud enough for me to hear, as I stepped from aft. 'Judge sahib i-send genteeman salaam--say too much hivvy boot he get--all same as _illimphant_. S'pose master not so much loud walk _this_ side?' '_Well!_' broke out the American, looking at the Bengalee's flat turban and moustache, as if he were too great a curiosity to be angry with, then turning on his heel to proceed with his walk. 'Now, mister,' said he to me, 'that's what I call an incalculable imp_u_dent black; but he's the first I ever saw with hair on his lip, it's a fact.' 'Master not _mind_?' said the _kitmagar_, raising his key next time Mr Snout wheeled round. 'Judge sahib burra burra buhadoorkea!--ver' great man!' 'Low niggur!' said Mr Snout, tramping away aft; 'there's your British regoolations, I say, young man--niggurs baaing on the quarter-deck, and free-born citizens put off it!' '_Bhote khoob_, mistree!' squeaked out the native again; 'burra judge sahib not to i-sleep apter he dine, eh? Veri well; I tell the sahib, passiger mistree moor stamp-i-stamp all the moor I can say!' So off he went to report in the poop-cabin. A little after up shot a head wrapped in a yellow bandana, just on the level of the poop-deck, looking through the breast-rail; and the next thing I saw was the great East-Indian himself, with a broad-flapped Manilla hat over his topgear, and a red-flowered dressing-gown, standing beside the binnacle with Captain Williamson. 'What the deuce, Captain Williamson,' said the judge, with an angry glance up to the poop,' cannot I close my eyelids after dinner for one instant--in my own private apartments, sir--for his hideous noise? Who the deuce _is_ that person there--eh, eh?' 'He's an American gentleman, I believe, Sir Charles,' replied the captain. '_Believe_, sir,' said the judge; 'you ought to _know_ every individual, I think, Captain Williamson, whom you admitted into this vessel. I expressly stipulated for quiet, sir--I understood that no suspicious or exceptionable persons should travel in the same conveyance with _my_ suwarry. I'd have taken the whole ship, sir!' 'I've no more to do than tell him the regulations aboard, Sir Charles,' said the captain, 'and the annoyance will cease.' '_Tell_ him, indeed!' said the judge, a little more good-humouredly. 'Why, captain, the man looks like a sea-pirate. You should have taken only such raw griffins as that young lad on the other side. Ho, _kitmagar_!' '_Maharaj?_' said the footman, bowing down to the deck. '_Slippers lao!_' '_Jee khodabund_,' answered the native, and immediately after he reappeared from the round-house door, with a pair of turned-up yellow slippers. 'Take them up with my salaam to that gentleman there,' said Sir Charles, in Hindoostanee, 'and ask him to use them.' 'Hullo!' sung out Mr Snout, on being hove-to by the _kitmagar_, with one hand on his breast, and the other holding the slippers, 'this won't do! You'd better not _rile_ me again, you cussed niggur you. Out o' my way!' There they went at it along the poop together, Mr Snout striding right forward with his long legs, and the _kitmagar_ hopping backward out of his way, as he tried to make himself understood; till, all at once, the poor darkey lost his balance at the ladderhead, and over he went with a smash fit to have broken his neck, if the captain's broad back hadn't fortunately been there to receive it. The rage of Sir Charles at this was quite beyond joking; nothing else would satisfy him but the unlucky Yankee's being shoved off the poop by main force, and taken below--the one stamping and roaring like an old buffalo, and the other testifying against all 'aristocratycal t_y_ranny.' "At eight bells again I found it a fine, breezy night, the two upper mates walking the weather quarter-deck in blue-water style, six steps and a look to windward, then a wheel round, and, now and then, a glance into the binnacle. I went aft and leant over the _Seringapatam's_ lee quarter, looking at the white back-wash running aft from her bows, in green sparks, into the smooth alongside, and the surge coming round her counter to meet it. Everything was set aloft that could draw, even to a starboard main-topmast stunsail; the high Indiaman being lighter than if homeward-bound, and the breeze strong abeam, she had a good heel-over to port; but she went easily through the water, and it was only at the other side you heard it rattling both ways along the bends. The shadow of her went far to leeward, except where a gleam came on the top of a wave or two between the sails and under their foot. Just below the sheer of the hull, aft, it was as dark as night, though now and then the light from a port struck on it and went in again; but every time she sank, the bight of her wake from astern swelled up away round the counter, with its black side as smooth as a looking-glass. I kept peering into it, and expecting to see my own face, while all the time I was very naturally thinking of one quite different, and felt uneasy till I should actually see her. 'Confound it,' I thought, 'were it only a house, one might walk round and round it till he found out the window.' I fancied her bewitching face through the garden-door, as clearly as if I saw it in the dark head of the swell; but I'd have given more only to hear that imp of a cockatoo scream once--whereas there was nothing but the water working up into the rudder-case; the pintles creaking, and the tiller-ropes cheeping as they traversed; and the long welter of the sea when the ship eased down, with the surgeon and his friends walking about and laughing up to windward. From that again, I ran on putting things together, till, in fact, Jacobs' notion of a shipwreck seemed by far the best. No doubt Jacobs and Westwood, with a few others, would be saved, while I didn't even object much to the old nabob himself, for respectability's sake, and to spare crape. But, by Jove, wouldn't one bring him to his bearings soon enough there? Every sailor gets hold of this notion some night-watch or other, leaning over the side, with pretty creatures aboard he can scarce speak to otherwise; and I was coiling it down so fast myself, at the moment, that I had just begun to pitch into the nabob about our all being Adam's sons and daughters, under a knot of green palm-trees, at the door of a wooden house, half thatched with leaves, when I was brought up with a round turn by seeing a light shining through the hazy bull's-eye in the deck where I stood. No doubt the sweet girl I had been thinking of was actually there, and going to bed; I stretched over the quarter, but the heavy mouldings were in the way against seeing more than the green bars of the after window--all turned edgeways to the water, where the gallery hung out like a corner turret from the ship's side. Now and then, however, when she careened a little more than ordinary, and the smooth lee swell went heaping up opposite, I could notice the light through the venetians from the state-room come out upon the dark water in broad bright lines, like the grate across a fire, then disappearing in a ripple, till it was gone again, or somebody's shadow moved inside. It was the only lighted window in the gallery, and I looked every time it came as if I could see in; when at last, you may fancy my satisfaction, as, all of a sudden, one long slow heave over of the ship showed me the whole bright opening of the port, squared out of her shadow, where it shone upon the glassy round of the swell. 'Twas as plain as from a mirror in a closet--the lighted gallery window with its frame swung in, a bit of the deck-roof I was standing on, and two female figures at the window--mere dark shapes against the lamp. I almost started back at the notion of their seeing me, but away lengthened the light on the breast of the swell, and it sank slowly down into a black hollow, as the Indiaman eased up to windward. Minute by minute, quite breathless, did I watch for such another chance; but next time she leant over as much, the port had been closed, and all was dark; although those few moments were enough to send the heart into my mouth with sheer delight. The figure I had seen, holding with one hand by the port-sill, and apparently keeping up her dress with the other, as if she were looking down steadily on the heave of the sea below--it couldn't be mistaken. The line of her head, neck, and shoulders, came out more certain than if they hadn't been filled up with nothing but a black shadow; it was just Lota Hyde's, as she sat in the ball-room amongst the crowd, I'd have bet the _Victory_ to a bumboat on it; only her hair hung loose on one side, while the girl behind seemed to be dressing the other, for it was turned back, so that I saw clear past her cheek and neck to where the lamp was, and her ear gleamed to the light. For one moment nothing could be plainer than the glimpse old Davy Jones gave me by one of his tricks; but the old fellow was quite as decorous in his way as a chamber-blind, and swallowed his pretty little bit of blab as quickly as if it had been a mermaid caught at her morning toilet. Whenever I found there was to be no more of it for the night, the best thing to calm one's feelings was to light a cigar and walk out the watch; but I took care it should rather be over the nabob's head than his daughter's, and went up to the weather side, where there was nobody else by this time, wishing her the sweetest of dreams, and not doubting I should see her next day. "I daresay I should have walked out the first watch, and the second too, if Westwood hadn't come up beside me before he turned in. "'Why, you look like the officer of the watch, Ned!' said my friend, after taking a glance round at the night. 'Yes--what?--a--a--I don't think so,' stammered I, not knowing what he said, or at least the meaning of it, though certainly it was not so deep. 'I hope not though, Tom!' said I again; ''tis the very thing I don't want to look like!' 'You seem bent on keeping it up, and coming the innocent, at any rate,' said he; 'I really didn't know you the first time I saw you in the cuddy.' 'Why, man, you never saw our theatricals in the dear old _Iris_, on the African station! I was our best female actor of tragedy there, and _did_ Desdemona so well that the black cook, who stood for Othello, actually cried. He said, "Nobody but 'ee dibble umself go for smudder Missee Dasdemoner!"' 'I daresay,' said Westwood; 'but what is the need for it _now_, even if _you_ could serve as a blind for me?' 'My dear fellow,' said I, 'not at all--you've kept it up very well so far--just go on.' 'Keep it up, Ned?' inquired he--'what do you mean? I've done nothing except keep quiet from mere want of spirits.' 'So much the better,' I said; 'I never saw a man look more like a prophet in the wilderness; it doesn't cost you the least trouble--why you'd have done for Hamlet in the _Iris_, if for nothing else! After all, though, a missionary don't wear blue pilot cloth trousers, nor tie his neckerchief as you do, Tom. You must bend a white neck-cloth to-morrow morning! I'm quite serious, Westwood, I assure you,' continued I. 'Just think of the suspicious look of two navy men being aboard an Indiaman, nobody knows how! Why, the first frigate we speak, or port we touch at, they'd hand one or both of us over at once--which I, for my part, shouldn't at all like!' 'Indeed, Collins,' said Tom, turning round, 'I really cannot understand _why_ you went out in her! It distresses me to think that here you've got yourself into this scrape on my account! At least you'll put back in the first home-bound ship we----' "'Oh!' exclaimed I, blushing a little in the dark though, both at Westwood's simplicity, and my not wishing to tell him my secret yet--'I'm tired of shore--I _want_ to see India again--I'm thinking of going into the _army_!' 'The _army_, indeed!' said Westwood, laughing for the first time, 'and you still midshipman all over. No, no--that won't do! I see your drift, you can't deceive _me_! You're a true friend, Ned, to stand by an old schoolmate so!' 'No, Tom!' said I; ''tis you yourself that has too kind a heart, and more of a sailor's, all fair and above-board, than I can manage! I _won't_ humbug _you_, at any rate--I tell you I've got a scheme of my own, and you'll know more of it soon.' Tom whistled; however I went on to tell him, 'The long and the short of it is, Westwood, you'll bring both of us down by the head if you don't keep up the missionary.' 'Missionary!' repeated he; 'you don't mean to say you and Neville intended all that long toggery you supplied my kit with, for me to sail under _missionary_ colours? I tell you what, Ned, it's not a character I like to cut jokes upon, much less to sham.' 'Jokes!' said I; 'there's no joking about it; 'tis serious enough.' 'Why,' said Westwood, '_now_ I know the reason of a person like a clergyman sighting me through his spectacles for half an hour together, these two evenings below! This very afternoon he called me his brother, and began asking me all manner of questions, which I could no more answer than the cook's mate.' 'Clergyman be hanged!' said I, 'you must steer clear of him, Tom--take care you don't bowse up your jib too much within hail of him! Mind, I gave your name, both to the head-steward and the skipper, as the Reverend Mr Thomas, going back to Bombay. There was nothing else for it, Westwood,' I said, 'when you were beyond thinking for yourself. All you've got to do with that solemn dissenting chap in the spectacles is just to look as wise as possible, and let him know you belong to the _Church_. And as for shamming, you needn't sham a bit--_take to it_, my dear fellow, if that will do you good.' I said this in joke, but Westwood seemed to ponder on it for a minute or two. 'Indeed, Collins,' said he gravely, 'I _do_ think you're right. What do we sailors do but give up everything in life for a mere schoolboy notion, and keep turning up salt water for years together like the old monks did the ground; only they grew corn and apples for their pains, and we have nothing but ever so many dull watches and wild cruises ashore to remember! How many sailors have turned preachers and missionaries, just because something, by accident, as it were, taught them to put to account what you can't help feeling now and then in the very _look_ of the sea. What does it mean in the Scriptures, Ned, about "seeing the wonders of the Lord in the deep?"' As Westwood said this, both of us stopped on the taffrail, and, somehow or other, a touch of I didn't well know _what_ went through me. I held my breath, with his hand on my arm, just at the sight I had seen a thousand times--the white wake running broad away astern, with a mark in the middle as if it had been torn, on to the green yeast of the waves, then right to their black crests plunging in the dark. It was midnight ahead, and the clouds risen aloft over where I had been looking half-an-hour before; but the long ragged split to westward was opened up, and a clear glaring glance of the sky, as pale as death, shot through it on the horizon. '_I_ can't be sorry for having gone to sea,' said Westwood again; 'but isn't it a better thing to leave home and friends, as those men do for the sake of carrying the Gospel to the heathen?' As soon as we wheeled round, with the ship before us, leaning over and mounting to the heave, and her spread of canvas looming out on the dark, my thoughts righted. 'Well,' said I, 'it may be all very well for some--everyone to his rope; but, for my part, I think if man hadn't been made for the sea, he couldn't have built a ship, and where would your missionaries be _then_? You're older than I am, Westwood, or I'd say you let some of your notions run away with you, like a Yankee ship with her short-handed crew!' 'Oh, Ned,' said he, 'of all places in the world for one's actions coming back on him the sea is the worst, especially when you're an idler, and have nothing to do but count the sails or listen to the passengers' feet on deck. These two days, now, I've thought more than I ever did in my life. I can't get that man's death out of my head; every time the sea flashes round me as I come from below, I think of him--it seems to me he is lying yet by the side of the Channel. I can't help having the notion he perhaps _fired in the air_!' ''Twas a base lie!' said I; 'if _he_ weren't _there_, you wouldn't be here, I can tell you, Westwood.' 'I don't know how I shall ever drag through this voyage,' continued he. 'If there were a French gunboat to cut out to-morrow morning, or if we were only to have a calm some day in sight of a Spanish slaver--'tis nothing but a jogging old Indiaman though! I shall never more see the flag over my head with pride--every respect I had was in the service!' CHAPTER V "Next morning was fine, and promised to be hot; the ship still with a side-wind from near south-west, which 'twas easy to see had slackened since midnight with a pour of rain, the sails being all wet, and coats hung to dry in the fore-rigging; she was going little more than five or six knots headway. The water was bluer, lifting in long waves, scarce a speck of foam except about the ship; but instead of having broke up with the sun, or sunk below the level, the long white clouds were risen high to leeward, wandering away at the top, and facing us steady below out of the sky, a pretty sure sign they had more to do. However, the Indiaman was all alive from stem to stern; decks drying as clean as a table; hens and ducks clucking in the coops at their food; pigs grunting; stewards and cabin-boys going fore and aft, below and above, and the men from aloft coming slowly down for breakfast, with an eye into the galley funnel. Most of the passengers were upon deck, in knots all along the poop-nettings, to look out for Corvo and Flores, the western-most of the Azores, which we had passed before daybreak. "'I say, Fawd!' said the warlike cadet with the moustache, all of a sudden yawning and stretching himself, as if he'd been struck with the thing himself, 'cussed dull this vessel already, ain't it?' 'No,' said Ford, the nautical man; 'that's because you're not interested in the ocean--the sea--as I am! You should study the _craft_, Bob, my boy! I'll teach you to go aloft. I only wish it would blow harder--not a mere capful of wind, you know, but a tempest!' 'By Jove! Fawd,' said the other, '_how_ we _shall_ enjoy India--even that breakfast with old Rollock! By-the-by, ain't breakfast ready yet?' These two fellows, for my part, I took for a joint-model, just trying to hit a mid-helm betwixt them, else I couldn't have got through it; accordingly they both patronised me. 'Haw, Cawlins!' said one, nodding to me. 'Is that you, my boy?' said the other; 'now, you're a fellow _never_ would make a sailor!' 'I daresay not,' I said gravely, 'if they have all to commence as horse-marines.' 'Now, such ignorance!' said Ford; 'marines don't ride horses, Collins, you fellow!--how d'you think they could be _fed_ at sea, eh?' 'Well--now--that didn't occur to me!' said I, in the cadet key. 'Fawd, my boy, you know too much--you're quite a sea-cook!' 'Oh, now! But I'm afraid, Winterton, I never shall land ashore in India--I _am_ tempted to go into the navy, instead.' 'I say, Mr Ford,' put in a fat unlicked cub of a tea-middy, grinning as he listened, 'I've put you up to a few _rises_ aboard, but I don't think I told you we've got a dozen or so of _donkeys_[11] below in the steerage?' 'Donkeys!--no?' said the griffin. 'Yes,' replied the midshipman; 'they kick like mad, though, if they get loose in a gale: why mine, now, would knock a hole through the side in no time--I'll show you them for a glass of grog, Mr Ford.' [11] Sea slang for sailors' chests. "'Done!' and away they went. 'That fool, Fawd, you know, Cawlins, makes one sick with his stuff; I declare he chews little bits of tobacco in our room till he vomits as much as before,' said Winterton. 'I tell you what, Cawlins, you're a sensible man--I'll let you into a secret! What do you think--there's the deucedest pretty girl in the vessel, we've none of us seen except myself; I caught a sight of her this very mawning. She don't visit the cuddy at all; papa's proud, you pusseeve--a nabob, in short!' 'Oh dear!' said I. 'Yes, I do assure you, quite a bew-ty! What's to be done?--we absolutely must meet her, eh, Cawlins?' Here I mused a bit. 'Oh!' said I, looking up again, 'shall we send a deputation, do you think?' 'Or get up a ball, Cawlins? Hallo, what's this?' said he, leaning over the breast-rail to look at a stout lady who was lugging a chubby little boy of three or four, half dressed, up the poop-stair, while her careful husband and a couple of daughters blocked it up above. 'See, Tommy, dear!' said she, 'look at the _land_--the nice land, you know, Tommy.' 'Come away, my love,' said her spouse, 'else you won't see it.' Tommy, however, hung back manfully. 'Tommy don't want wook at _yand_,' sang out he, kicking the deck; 'it all such 'mell of a sheep, ma; me wook at 'at man wis _gate feel_. Fare other _feel_, man? Oh, fat a ugwy man!' The honest tar at the wheel pulled up his shirt, and looked terribly cut at this plain remark on his phiz, which certainly wasn't the most beautiful; meanwhile he had the leech of the mainto'gallant-sail shaking. 'Mind your helm, there,' sung out the second mate from the capstan. 'My good man,' said the lady, 'will you be so kind as to show us the land?' 'Ay, ay, sir,' growled he, putting up his weather spokes; 'sorry I carn't, ma'am--please not to speak to the man at the wheel.' Jacobs was coiling down the ropes on a carronade close by, and stepped forward: 'Beg your ladyship's pardon,' said he, 'but if ye'll give me charge o' the youngster till you goes on the poop--why, I've got a babby at home myself.' The stout lady handed him over, and Jacobs managed the little chap wonderfully. This was the first time Tommy had been on deck since leaving home, and he couldn't see over the high bulwarks, so he fancied it was a house he was in. 'Oh, suts big _tees, man_,' shouted he, clapping his hands as soon as he noticed the sails and rigging aloft; 'suts warge birds in a _tees_.' 'Ay, ay, my little man,' answered Jacobs, 'that's the wonderful _tree_. Did ye ever hear Jack and the Bean-stalk, Tommy?' 'Oh, 'ess, to be soo, _man_,' said Tommy, scornfully, as if he should think he had. "'Well, little un,' said Jacobs, 'that's it, ye see. It grows up every night afore Jack's door--and them's Jack an' his brothers a-comin' down out on the wonderfowl country aloft, with fruits in their hands.' The little fellow was delighted, and for going aloft at once. 'Ye must wait a bit, Tommy, my lad, till you're bigger,' said Jacobs; 'here, I'll show you the country, though'; so he lifted the boy up to let him see the bright blue sea lying high away round the sky. In place of crying, as he would have done otherwise, Tommy stared with pleasure, and finished by vowing to get as soon big as possible, Jacobs advising him to eat always as hard as he had been doing hitherto. "That morning the breakfast party was in high spirits; Mr Finch, the chief officer, rigged up to the nines in white trousers and Company's jacket, laying himself out to please the young ladies, with whom he began to be a regular hero. He was as blustering as a young lion, and as salt-tongued as a Channel pilot to the men; but with the ladies, on the poop or in the cabin, he was always twisting his sea-talk into fine language, like what you see in books, as if the real thing weren't good enough. He rubbed his hands at hearing the mate on deck singing out over the skylight to trim yards, and gave a look along to the captain. 'You must understand, ladies,' said the mate, 'this is what we mariners call the "ladies' wind"!' 'Oh, delightful!' 'Oh, _so_ nice!' 'You sailors _are_ so polite!' exclaimed the young ladies--'then does it actually _belong_ to us?' 'Why it's a _Trade_ wind, Miss Fortescue!' said Ford, the nautical cadet, venturing to put in a word; but the ladies paid no attention to him, and the chief mate gave him a look of contempt. 'You see, ladies, the reason is,' said the mate, in a flourishing way, 'because it's so regular, and as gentle as--as--why it wafts your bark into the region of, you see--the----' 'The "Doldrums,"' put in the third mate, who was a brinier individual by far, and a true seaman, but wished to pay his compliments, too, between his mouthfuls. 'At any rate,' Finch went on, 'it's congenial, I may say, to the feelings of the fair--you need never touch her braces from one day to another. I just wish, Miss Fortescue, you'd allow me the felicity of letting you see how to put the ship about.' 'A _soldier_ might put her in stays, miss,' said the third mate again, encouragingly, 'and out of 'em again; she's a remarkably easy craft, owing to her----' 'Confound it, Mr Rickett,' said the first mate, turning round to his unlucky inferior, 'you're a sight too coarse for talking to ladies. Well the captain didn't hear you!' Rickett looked dumfoundered, not knowing what was wrong; the old ladies frowned; the young ones either blushed or put their handkerchiefs to their mouths, and some took the occasion for walking off. "The weather began to have a different turn already by the time we got up--the clouds banking to leeward, the sea dusky under them, and the air-line between rather bluish. Two or three lazy gulls in our wake began to look alive and show themselves, and a whole black shoal of porpoises went tumbling and rolling across the bows for half an hour, till down they dived of a sudden, head-foremost, one after another in the same spot, like so many sheep through a gap. "My gentleman-mate was to be seen everywhere about the decks, and active enough, I must say; the next minute he was amongst two or three young ladies aft, as polite as a dancing-master, showing them everything in board and out, as if nobody knew it except himself. Here a young girl, one of Master Tommy's sisters, came skipping aft, half in a fright. 'Oh, Miss Fortescue!' cried she, 'just think!--I peeped over into a nasty black hole there, with a ladder in it, and saw ever so many common sailors hung up in bags from the ceiling. Oh, what do you think, one of them actually kissed his hand to me.' 'Only one of the watch below awake, miss,' said the mate; 'impertinent swab--I only wish I knew which it was.' 'Poor fellows,' said the young ladies, 'pray don't be harsh to them; but what have they been doing?' 'Oh, nothing,' said he, with a laugh, 'but swing in their hammocks since eight bells.' 'Then are they so lazy as to dislike getting up to such delightful-looking occupations?' 'Why, ma'am,' said the mate, staring a little, 'they've been on deck last night two watches, of four hours each, I must say that for them.' 'Dear me!' broke out the ladies; and on this the chief officer took occasion to launch out again concerning 'the weary vigils,' as he called them, 'which we mariners have to keep, far distant from land, without a smile from the eyes of the fair to bless us. But, however, the very thought of it gives courage to the sailor's manly heart, to disregard the billows' fearful rage, and reef topsails in the tempest's angry height!' Thought I, 'He'd much better do it before.' However, the young ladies didn't seem to see that, evidently looking upon the mate as the very pink of seamen! and he actually set a second lower stud-sail, to show them how fast she could walk. "'D'ye know, sir,' put in the third mate, coming from forward, 'I'm in doubt it's going to be rather a sneezer, sir, if ye look round the larboard stun-s'ls.' Sure enough, if our fine gentleman had had time, amidst his politeness, just to cast an eye beyond his spread of cloth, he would have noticed the clouds gathered all in a lump to north-eastward, one shooting into another--the breast of them lowering down to the horizon, and getting the same colour as the waves, till it bulked out bodily in the middle. You'd have fancied the belly of it scarce half-a-mile off from the white yard-arms, and the hollow of it twenty--coming as stealthily as a ghost, that walks without feet after you, its face to yours, and the skirt of its winding-sheet in 'kingdom-come' all the while. I went up on the poop, and away behind the spanker I could see the sun gleam for one minute right on the eye of a stray cloud risen to nor'-west, with two short streaks of red, purple, and yellow together--what is called a 'wind-gall'; then it was gone. The American was talking away with jovial old Rollock and Ford, who began to look wise, and think there was mischief brewing in the weather. 'Mind your helm there, sirrah!' sung out the mate, walking aft to the wheel, as everything aloft fluttered. 'She won't lie her course, sir,' said the man. 'All aback, for'ud!' hailed the men at work on the bowsprit; and hard at it went all hands, trimming yards over and over again; the wind freshening fast, stu'nsails flapping, booms bending, and the whole spread of canvas in a cumber, to teach the mate not to be in such a hurry with his absurd merchantman's side-wings next time. The last stu'nsail he hauled down caught full aback before the wheel could keep her away quick enough; the sheet of it hitched foul at the boom-end, and crack through went the boom itself, with a smash that made the ladies think it a case of shipwreck commencing. The loose scud was flying fast out from behind the top of the clouds, and spreading away overhead, as if it would catch us on the other side; while the clouds themselves broke up slowly to both hands, and the north-east breeze came sweeping along right into the three topsails, the wind one way and the sea another. As she rounded away steadying before it, you felt the masts shake in her till the topsails blew out full; she gave one sudden bolt up with her stern, like an old jackass striking behind, which capsized three or four passengers in a heap, and next minute she was surging along through the wide heave of the water as gallantly as heart could wish, driving a wave under her bows that swung back under the fore-chains on both sides, with two boys running up the rigging far aloft on each mast to stow the royals. The next thing I looked at was poor Ford's nautical hat lifting alongside on the top of a wave, as if it were being handed up to him; but no sooner seen, than it was down in the hollow a quarter of a mile off, a couple of white gulls making snatches at it and one another, and hanging over it again with a doubtful sort of scream. Still the wind was as yet nothing to speak of when once aft; the sea was getting up slowly, and the Indiaman's easy roll over it made everyone cheerful, in spite of the shifts they were put to for getting below. When the bell struck for dinner, the sun was pretty clear, away on our starboard bow; the waves to south-westward glittered as they rose; one side of the ship shone bright to the leech of the mainto'gallant-sail, and we left the second mate hauling down the jibs for want of use for them. "The splendid pace she went at was plain, below in the cuddy, to everybody; you felt her shoving the long seas aside with the force of a thousand horses in one, then sweep they came after her, her stern lifted, she rolled round, and made a floating rush ahead. In the middle of it, something darkened the half-open skylight, where I perceived the Scotch second mate's twisted nose and red whiskers, as he squinted down with one eye aloft, and disappeared again; after which I heard them clue up to'gallant-sails. Still she was driving through it rather too bodily to let the seas rise under her; you _heard_ the wind hum off the main-topsail, and sing through betwixt it and the main-course, the scud flying over the skysail-mast truck, which I could see from below. The second mate looked in once more, caught the first officer's eye with a glance aloft, and the gallant mate left attending to the ladies to go on deck. Down went the skylight frame, and somebody carefully threw a tarpaulin over it, so that there was only the light from the port windows, by which a dozen faces turned still whiter. "The moment I shoved my head out of the booby-hatch, I saw it was like to turn out a regular gale from nor'-east. Both courses brailed close up, and blowing out like rows of big bladders; the three topsail-yards down on the caps to reef, their canvas swelling and thundering on the stays like so many mad elephants breaking loose; the wild sky ahead of us staring right through in triumph, as it were, and the wind roaring from aft in her bare rigging; while a crowd of men in each top were laying out along the foot-ropes to both yard-arms. Below, they were singing out at the reef-tackles, the idlers tailing on behind from the cook to the cabin-boys, a mate to each gang, and the first officer, with his hands to his mouth, before the wheel, shouting, 'Bear a hand!--d'ye hear!----two reefs.' It did one's heart good, and I entered into the spirit of it, almost forgiving Finch his fine puppy lingo, when I saw him take it so coolly, standing like a seaman, and sending his bull's voice right up with the wind into the bellies of the topsails--so I e'en fell to myself, and dragged with the steward upon the mizzen reef-tackle till it was chock up. There we were, running dead before it, the huge waves swelling long and dark after us out of the mist, then the tops of them scattered into spray; the glaring white yards swayed slowly over aloft, each dotted with ten or a dozen sturdy figures, that leant over, with the reef-points in their hands, waiting till the men at the _earings_ gave the word; and Jacobs' face, as he turned round to do so--hanging on heaven knows what at one of the ends--was as distinct as possible against the gray scud miles off, and sixty feet above water. A middy, without his cap, and his hair blowing out, stood holding on in the maintop to quicken them; the first mate waved his hand for the helmsman to 'luff a little.' The ship's head was rounded slowly up as she rose on a big blue swell, that caught a wild gleam on it from westward, when I happened to glance towards the wheel. I could scarcely trust my eyes--in fact it had never been less in my mind since coming aboard than at that very point--but outside one of the round-house doors, which was half open, a few feet from the bulwark I leant over--of all moments in the day, _there_ stood Lota Hyde herself at last. Speak of faces!--why I hadn't even power to turn farther round, and if I was half out of breath before, what with the wind and with pulling my share, I was breathless now--all my notions of her never came up to the look of her face at that instant. She just half stopped, as it were, at sight of the state of things, her hands letting go of the large shawl, and her hair streaming from under a straw hat tied down with a ribbon--her lips parted betwixt dread and bewilderment, and her eyes wandering round till they settled to gazing straight at the scene ahead in pure delight. I actually looked away aloft from her again, to catch what it was she seemed to see that could be so beautiful!--the second reef just made fast, men crowding in to run down and hoist away with the rest, till, as they tailed along decks, the three shortened topsails rose faster up against the scud, and their hearty roaring chorus was as loud as the gale. 'Keep her away, my lad,' said the mate, with another wave of his hand; the topsails swelled fair before it, and the Indiaman gave a plunge right through the next sea, rising easily to it, heave after heave. The setting sun struck two or three misty spokes of his wheel through a cloud, that made a big wave here and there glitter; the ship's white yards caught some of it, and a row of broad backs, with their feet stretching the foot-rope as they stowed the foresail, shone bright out, red, blue, and striped, upon the hollow of the yellow fore-topsail, in the midst of the gale; while just under the bowsprit you saw her black figure-head, with his white turban, and his hand to his breast, giving a cool salaam now and then to the spray from her bows. At that moment, though, Lota Hyde's eye was the brightest thing I could find--all the blue gone out of the waves was in it. As for her seeing myself, I hadn't had space to think of it yet, when all of a sudden I noticed her glance light for the first time, as it were, on the mate, who was standing all the while with his back to her on the same plank of the quarter-deck. 'Down main-course!' he sung out, putting one hand in his jacket-pocket; 'down both tacks--that's it, my men--down with it!'--and out it flapped, slapping fiercely as they dragged it by main force into the bulwark-cleets, till it swelled steady above the main-stay, and the old ship sprang forward faster than before, with a wild wash of the Atlantic past her sides. "'Another hand to the wheel, here!' said the first officer. He took a look aloft, leaning to the rise of her bows, then to windward as she rolled; everything looked trim and weatherly, so he stepped to the binnacle, where the lamp was ready lighted; and it just struck me what a smart, good-looking fellow the mate was, with his sunburnt face; and when he went to work, straightforward, no notion of showing off. "'Confound it, though,' thought I of a sudden, seeing _her_ eyes fixed on him again, and then to seaward. 'Mr Macleod,' said he to the second mate, 'send below the watch, if you please. This breeze is first-rate, though!' "When he turned round he noticed Miss Hyde, started, and took off his cap with a fine bow. 'I beg pardon, ma'am,' said he, 'a trifle of wind we have. I hope, Miss Hyde, it hasn't troubled you in the round-house?' What Miss Hyde might have said I don't know, but her shawl caught a gust out of the spanker, though she was in the lee of the high poop; it blew over her head, and then loose--I sprang forward--but the mate had hold of it, and put it over her again. The young lady smiled politely to the mate, and gave a cold glance of surprise, as I thought, at me. I felt that moment I could have knocked the mate down and died happy. 'Why, sir,' said he, with a cool half-sneer, 'I fancied none of you gentlemen would have favoured us this capful of wind--plenty of air there is on deck, though.' "It just flashed through my mind what sort of rig I was in--I looked over my infernal longshore toggery, and no wonder she didn't recollect me at all. '_Curse_ this confounded folly!' muttered I, and made a dart to run up the poop-steps, where the breeze took me slap aback, just as the judge himself opened the larboard door. 'Why, Violet,' exclaimed he, surprised at seeing his daughter, 'are you exposing yourself to this disagreeable--I declare a perfect _storm_.' 'But see, papa!' said she, taking hold of his arm, 'how changed the sea is!--and the ship!--just look where the sun was!' 'Get in--get in, do!' kept on her father; 'you can see all that again in some finer place; you should have had a servant with you, at least, Violet.' 'I shall come out oftener than I thought, papa, I can tell you!' said she, in an arch sort of way, before she disappeared. "The mate touched his cap to the judge, who asked where the captain was. ''Gad, sir,' said the judge crossly, 'the floor resembles an earthquake--every piece of furniture swings, sir; 'tis well enough for sleeping, but my family find it impossible to dine. If this _oolta-poolta_ continues in my apartments, I must speak to Captain Williamson about it. He must manage to get into some other part of the sea, where it is less rough,' saying which, he swayed himself in and shut the door. "I still kept thinking and picturing _her_ face--Lota Hyde's--when she noticed the mate. After all, any one that knew tack from bowline might reef topsails in a fair wind; but a girl like _that_ would make more count of a man knowing how to manage wind and sea than of the Duke on his horse at Waterloo beating Bonaparte; and as for talk, he would jaw away the whole voyage, no doubt, about moonlight and the ocean, and your genteel fancy mariners. 'By George, though!' thought I, 'if the mate's a better man than me, hang me--it's all right; but burn my wig if I don't go and turn a Hindoo fakeer, with my one arm stuck up in the air till I die. Go it, old lady,' said I, as I glanced over the side before going below for the night, 'roll away, only shake something or other to _do_ out of the pace you're going at.' CHAPTER VI "The next morning, when Westwood and I went on deck, there was still a long sea running after us. However, by noon the sun came sifting through aloft, the breeze got warm, the decks were dry as a bone, and one just saw the large dark-blue swells lift up alongside with a shower of spray, between the seams of the bulwarks. By six o'clock, again, it was got pretty dusk ahead, and I strolled forward right to the heel of the bowsprit with Westwood, looking down through her head-boards into the heap of white foam that washed up among the woodwork every time she plunged. One knot of the men were sitting with their legs over the break of the top-gallant forecastle, swinging as she rolled--laughing, roaring, and singing as loud as they could bawl, since the wind carried it all forward out of the officers' hearing. I was rather surprised to see and hear that Jacobs' friends, Bill <DW18>s and Tom, were there; the rogues were taking back their savage to the Andaman Isles again, I suppose. "'Well, my lads,' said Tom, a regular sample of the man-o'-war's-man, 'this is what I calls balling it off. That mate knows how to make her go, anyhow.' 'We'll soon be into tropical regents, I consider,' remarked Bill, who made a point of never using sea-phrases except ashore, when he came out double salt, to make up for his gentility afloat. 'Hum,' grumbled a big ugly fellow, the same so flattered at the wheel by little Tommy, 'I doesn't like your fair winds. I'll tell you what, mates, we'll be havin' it puff more from east'ard ere third watch.' 'What's the odds, Harry, old ship?' said Tom, 'a fair wind still.' 'I say, my lads,' exclaimed Tom again, looking along toward the poop, 'yonder's the ould naboob squinting out of the round-house doors!--what's he after now, I wonder?' "On stooping down, accordingly, I could see the judge's face with the binnacle light shining on it, as he swayed to and fro in the doorway, seemingly in a passion at something or other. 'Why,' said Bill, 'I consider he can't altogether circumstand the shindy as this here roll kicks up inside of his blessed paliss.' 'Nabob, does ye call him,' said Harry, sulkily; 'I'll tell you what, mates, he ben't nothin' but a reg'lar ould tyrant. T'other mornin' there, I just chances to brush against him as I kiles up a rope; says he, "_Fellow_" an' says he to the skipper, "I'd take it kind," says he, "if ye'd horder them common sailors for to pay more contention alongside o' _my_ legs, Captain Williamson." Why, do the old beggar not think as a feller ben't a _man_ as well as hisself, with his _comming sailors_, an' be blowed to him.' 'Well, though, Harry, old ship,' said Tom, 'ain't that daurter of his'n a jewel! I say, mates, she's all rounded into the head, and a clear run from aft, like a corvette model. My eye, that hair of hers is worth gold; I'd go down on the deck to please her, d'ye see.' 'No doubt,' says Bill, 'she's what I call a exact sparkler.' 'Well, I doesn't know,' said Harry, 'last vy'ge but one we'd got one aboard, a'most beautifuller--half as high again, an' twice her beam--I'm not sure but _she_----' 'All my eye, messmates,' broke in Tom; 'that one were built for _stowing_, ye see, bo', like yer cargo lumpers. No, this here young gal 'minds me o' no other blessed thing but the _Nymph_ corvette's figure-head--and that warn't her match, neither. She don't look down upon a sailor, I can tell ye; there, I see her t'other morning-watch a-talkin' to Jacobs yonder, as pleasant and cheery as----Hullo, there's the captain comed out of the naboob's cabin, and speaking with the mate by the compass--blest if they ain't a-goin' to alter her course.' "'Send aft here to the braces!' sung out the first officer to the boatswain. 'Blow me, shipmates, that's yeer naboob now, I'll bet a week's grog,' growled Harry; 'ship's course as fair as a handspike through a grummit; couldn't bring the wind more aft; my eyes, the sea's comin' to be bought and sold.' Whatever it might be for, in came the starboard yard-arms till she lay over a little; down studding and topgallant-sails, as neither of them could stand it except from aft; and off went the old ship rising high athwart the seas, her head sou'-south-east, and one streak of broken yellow light, low down to westward on her lee quarter. It was beginning to blow harder, too, and by eight bells it was 'Reef topsails, single reef.' The waves played slap on her weather side, the heavy sprays came showering over her bulwarks forward, and the forecastle planks were far from being so comfortable for a snooze as the night before. "As soon as the wheel was relieved, and the other watch below, 'the ugly man' and his companions returned. 'Mates,' said he, solemnly, planting his back against the bitts, 'I've sailed this five-and-twenty year before the mast, an' I never yet seed the likes o' _that_! Take my say for it, we're _on_ a wind now, but afore next mornin' we'll be close-hauled, beating up against it.' 'Well,' said another, 'she leaks a deal in the eyes of her below; in that case, Harry, _your_ watch as slings in the fore-peak 'll be all afloat by that time.' 'What day did this craft sail on, I asks?' said the sailmaker gravely. 'Why, a Thursday night, old ship,' replied several eagerly. 'No,' went on the sailmaker; 'you counts sea-fashion, shipmates; but till ye're clear o' the pilot, ye know, it's land-fashion ye ought for to go by. 'Twas a _Friday_ by that 'ere said reckoning, shipmates.' 'No! so it was though,' said the rest; 'it don't _look_ well.' 'Howsomedever I'm not goin' to come for to go and be a croaker,' continued the sailmaker, in a voice like a ghost's. 'Well, luck or no luck, mates,' grumbled big Harry, 'if so be them larboard bowlines is hauled taut by the morning watch, blow me if I don't be upsides with that 'ere ould naboob--that's all.' "Next morning, after all, it was easy to feel the ship had really been hauled close on a wind. When we went up the weather was clearing, though with a strongish gale from eastward, a heavy sea running, on which the Indiaman strained and creaked as she rose, rolling slowly to windward with her three double-reefed topsails strained full, then pitched head into it as a cloud of foam and spray flew over her weather-bow. It was quite early, the decks lately washed down, and the Indian judge walking the weather quarter-deck as grave and comfortable as if it was all right. The captain was with him, and two mates to leeward. 'Sail ho!' hailed a man on the foreyard. 'Whereaway?' sang out the mate of the watch. 'Broad abeam!' "The captain went up to the poop, and I stood on the foremost carronade near the main rigging, where I could just see her now and then white against the blue haze between the hollows of the waves, as the Indiaman lifted. 'There she is!' said I, thinking it was Westwood that stopped behind me; it was the judge, however, and as soon as I got down he stepped up, holding on with one hand to a back-stay. The ship was rising after a pitch, every bulkhead and timber in her creaking, when all of a sudden I felt by my feet what all sailors feel the same way--she was coming up in the wind too fast to mount with the next wave, and a regular _comber_ it was going to be. I looked to the wheel--there was big Harry himself with a grin on his face, and his eye on Sir Charles, as he coolly gave her half a weather-spoke more, and then whirled it back again to meet her. 'For heaven's sake, look out, sir!' exclaimed I. 'Why, so I do,' said the judge, rather good-naturedly. 'Zounds! what's----' You felt the whole ship stop creaking for a moment, as she hung with the last wave--'Hold on!' shouted a mid--she gave a dull quiver from stem to stern, and I fairly pulled the judge close into the bulwark, just as smash, like thunder, came a tremendous green sea over us, three in one, washing down into the lee scuppers. The old gentleman staggered up, dripping like a poodle, and unable to see--one heard the water trickling through the skylights, and stepping away downstairs like a fellow with iron heels; while there was the sailor at the wheel grinding down his spokes in right earnest, looking aloft at the shaking fore-topsail, and the Indiaman seemingly doubtful whether to fall off or broach-to. Up she rose again, however, and drove round with her Turkhead in the air, then dip through the spray as gallantly as ever. "'Send that lubber from the wheel, Mr Macleod!' said the captain angrily, when he came down, 'he nearly broached the ship to just now!' The 'ugly man' put on a double-gloomy face, and grumbled something about her 'steering wild'; but the knowing squint he gave Jacobs, who relieved him, was enough to show me he was one of the best helmsmen aboard. As for the judge, he hadn't the least notion that it was anything more than a natural mischance, owing to exposing himself. He eyed the bulwark as if he couldn't understand how any wave was able to rise over it, while the captain was apologising, and hoping he wouldn't be the worse. 'Eh, young gentleman!' said Sir Charles of a sudden, turning round to me, after a glance from the weather side to the lee one, 'now I observe the circumstances, the probability is I should have had myself severely injured on the opposite side there, had it not been for your presence of mind, sir--eh?' Here I made a bow, and looked as modest as I could. 'I perceive you are wet, young gentleman,' said he again; 'you'd better change your dress--eh?' 'Thank you, sir!' I said; and as he walked off quite drenched to his cabin with the captain, I heard him remark it was 'wonderfully intelligent in a mere griffin.' "However, the wind soon got down to a fine top-gallant breeze; less of a sea on, the clouds sunk in a long grey bank to leeward, and the strange sail plain abeam of us--a large ship steering seemingly more off the wind than the _Seringapatam_, with topgallant-sails set--you could just see the heads of her courses, and her black lower-yards, when both of us rose together. Our first officer was all alive at the sight; the reefs were out of our topsails already, and he soon had us ploughing along under ordinary canvas, though still hugging the wind. In a short time the stranger appeared to take the challenge, for he slanted his yards, clapped on royals and hauled down a stu'nsail, heading our course, till he was one body of white cloth on the horizon. For awhile we seemed to gain on her; but after dinner, there was the other ship's hull up on our lee-bow, rising her white streak out of the water steadily, and just lifting at times on the long blue seas; she was fore-reaching on us as plain as could be. The mate gave a stamp on the deck, and kept her away a little to set a stu'nsail. 'Why,' said I to Westwood, 'he'll fall to leeward of himself!' 'She's too much _by the head_, Collins,' said Westwood; 'that's it!' 'Hasn't he the sense to take the fore-course off her?' said I, 'instead of packing more on! Why that craft weathers on us like a schooner--I wish you and I had the Indiaman for an hour or two, Tom!' "It wasn't an hour before we could see the very waves splashing up under her black weather-side, and over her high bows, as she slanted right through it and rose to windward again, standing up to cross our course--a fine frigate-built Indiaman, sharper stemmed than her kind in ordinary, and square in her spread; one yard-arm just looking over the other as they ranged aloft, and all signs of a weatherly craft. 'That's the _Duke o' Bedford_!' said a sailor at the braces to his companions, 'all oak planks, and not a splinter of teak in _her_! No chance!' Out flew the British colours from her mizzen-peak, and next the Company's striped ensign at her fore-royal mast-head, as a signal to speak. However, the _Seringapatam_ only answered by showing her colours, and held on. All of a sudden the other Indiaman was seen slowly falling off before the wind, as if in scorn at such rude manners, and sure of passing us if she chose. For a moment the red sunset glanced through betwixt all three of her masts, every rope as fine as wire! then the canvas swung broad against it, blood-red from the sun, and she showed us her quarter-gallery, with a glimpse of her stern-windows glittering--you even made out the crowd of passengers and soldiers on her poop, and a man or two going up her rigging. The sea beyond her lay as blue as blue could be, what with the crimson streak that came zigzag on both sides of her shadow, and gleamed along the smooth troughs, taking a crest or two to dance on by the way; and what with the rough of it near hand, where the tops of the dark waves ran hither and thither in broad white flakes, we surging heavily over them. "In a few minutes more the sun was not only down, but the clouds banked up to westward of a deep purple; and almost at once you saw nothing of the other ship except when a stray streak somehow or other caught her rising, or her mast-heads came across a pale line in the clouds. The breeze got pleasanter as the night went on, and the _Seringapatam_ rattled away in fine style, careening to it by herself. "Well, you know, nothing could be better for a good understanding and high spirits amongst us than a fast course, fine weather, and entering the tropics. As for the tropics, if you have only a roomy ship and a good run of wind, as we had, in those latitudes, everything outside of you seems almost to have double the stuff in it that air and water have in other places; while _inside_ of one, again, one felt twice the life he had before, and everybody else came out _newer_ a good deal than on the parlour-rug at home. As the days got each hotter than the last, and the sea bluer and bluer, we began to think better of the heavy old _Seringapatam's_ pace, teak though she was, and her sole good point right before the wind. Every night she lighted her binnacle sooner, till deuce the bit of twilight there was, and the dark sky came down on us like the extinguisher over a candle. However, the look of things round and aloft made full amends for it, as long as we held the "Trades"; old Neptune shifting his scenes there so quickly, that nobody missed getting weather and air, more than he could help, were it only a sight how the Indiaman got on, without trouble to any living soul save the man at the wheel, as one long, big, bright wave shoved her to another, and the slower they rose the more business she seemed to do of herself. By the time they had furbished her up at their leisure, the _Seringapatam_ had a queer Eastern style, too, throughout; with her grass mattings and husky _coir_ chafing-gear, the yellow varnish about her, and her three topsails of country canvas, cut narrow towards the head--bamboo stu'nsail booms, and spare bits of bamboo always ready for everything; besides the bilious-like gold- patches here and there in the rest of her sails, and the outlandish figure-head, that made you sometimes think there might be twenty thousand of them under the bows, dancing away with her like Juggernaut's travelling pagoda. "The decks were lively enough to look at; the men working quietly by twos and threes about the bulwarks all day long, and pairs of them to be made out at different points aloft, yarning away comfortably together, as the one passed the ball for the other's serving-mallet, with now a glance at the horizon, and now a grin at the passengers below, or a cautious squint at the top of the mate's cap. White awnings triced over poop and quarter-deck, the cover of the waist hammock-netting clean scrubbed, and the big shady main-course half brailed-up, rustling and bulging above the boats and booms amidships; every hatchway and door with a round funnel of a wind-sail swelling into it, and their bellies moving like so many boa-constrictors come down from aloft, and going in to catch cadets. You saw the bright white sky dazzling along under the awning-cheeks, that glared on it like snow; and the open quarter-deck ports let in so many squares of shifting blue light, with a draught of air into the hot carronade muzzles, that seem to gasp for it, with their red tompions stuck out like tongues. The very look of the lifting blue water on the shady side was refreshing, and the brighter the light got, _it_ grew the darker blue. You listened for every cool splash of it on the bends, and every rustle of the canvas aloft; and instead of thinking, as the landsmen did, of green leaves and a lazy nook for shelter, why to my fancy there's a great deal more satisfaction in good _dark blue_, with a spray over the cathead to show you're going, and with somewhat to go for! For want of better, one would have given his ears to jump in head-foremost, and have a first-rate bathe--the very sea itself kept rising up alongside, to make an easy dive for one, and sinking into little round troughs again, where the surges would have sprinkled over your head. Now and then a bigger wave than ordinary would go swelling up, and out sprang a whole glittering shower of flying-fish, freckling the dark side with drops, and went flittering over into the next, or skimming the crests out of sight into a hollow. "The writers and cadets were in high feather at knowing they were in the same latitude as India, and appeared in all sorts of straw hats, white trousers, and white jackets. Ford had left off talking of going aloft for awhile, to flourish about his swimming--when he looked over with the surgeon into the smooth of a hollow, and saw something big and green, like an immense cucumber, floating along within a fathom or two of the ship, deep down in the blue water. While the griffin asked what it was, a little ripple broke above, a wet black horn came right out of it, and two fiendish round eyes glared up at us ahead of it, as we leant over the quarter, set wide in a broad black snout, shaped like a gravedigger's shovel; then it sank away into the next wave. Ford shivered, in spite of the heat. 'The devil?' inquired one of the writers, coolly, to the surgeon. 'Not just him,' said the Scotchman; 'it's only the first _shark_!' "The young ladies, in their white dresses, now made you think of angels gliding about: as to the only one I had an eye for, by this time it wasn't of not seeing her often enough I had to complain, as she seemed to delight in nothing else but being somewhere or other upon deck, first one part of the ship, then another, as if to see how different the look-out could be made, or to watch something in the waves or the horizon. Instead of sitting with a needle or a book, like the rest, with the corner of one eye toward the gentlemen, or talking and giggling away at no allowance, she would be noticing a man aloft as if she were there herself, or trying to see past a sail, as if she fancied there was something strange on the other side of it. The rest of the girls appeared shy of her at first, no doubt on account of the judge's separate quarters and his grandee style; next, they made acquaintance, she speaking and smiling just as if she had known them before; then again most of them seemingly got jealous because the cadets squinted after her, while old Rollock said Miss Hyde would be the beauty on Chowringee Course, and the first officer was eternally pointing out things to her, like a showman at a fair. "However, she seemed not to mind it at all, either way; those that did talk to her would scarce hear her answer ere they lost her, and there she was, looking quietly down by herself into the ripples alongside; a minute after she would be half-playing with little Tommy, and making companions of Tommy's young sisters, to see the sheep, the pigs, and the cow, or feed the poultry. As for the handsome 'first officer,' when he caught occasion for his politeness, she took it graciously enough, and listened to all he said, till, of a sudden, a smile would break over her face, and she seemed to me to put him off as easy as a duchess--on the score, it might be, of the judge's looking for her off the poop, or something else of the kind. 'Twas the more curious how much at home she seemed amongst the men at work, when she chanced to go 'forward' with Tommy and his sisters, as they skipped hither and thither: the rough blue-shirted fellows took the quids out of their cheeks as soon as they saw the party coming from aft, and began to smirk, shoving the tar-buckets and ropes aside. "One forenoon, an old lady under the poop awning, where she and her daughter were sewing together at a bright strip of needlework, asked me to hold her woollen yarns for her as she balled them off--being the red coat for a sepoy killing a tiger, which her daughter was making in yellow. I couldn't well refuse, seeing that amongst the ladies I was reckoned a mild, quiet young man. Even in these days I must say I had a good deal of that look, and at home they used always to call me 'quiet Ned.' My mother, good soul, never would believe I broke windows, killed cats, or fought; and the mystery to her always is _why_ the neighbours had a spite at me, for if I had been a wild boy, she said, or as noisy as little Brown next door, why she wouldn't have objected to my going to sea!--that noisy little Brown, by-the-by, is now a fat banker. So in I had to stick my thumbs at arms'-length, and stoop down to the old lady, the more with a will since I guessed what they were talking of. "'Well though, Kate,' continued the old lady, winding away at the thread, 'you cannot deny her to be a charming creature, my love?' 'Oh, if you mean _pretty_!' said the girl, 'I don't _want_ to deny it--not _I_, ma'am--why should I, indeed?' 'Pity she's a little light-headed,' said her mother in a musing way. '_Affected_, you mean, mother!' said Miss Fortescue, 'and haughty.' 'Do you know, Kate,' replied the old lady, sighing, 'I fear she'll soon _go_ in India!' '_Go?_' said the daughter, sharply. 'Yes; she won't stand the hot season as I did--these flighty girls never do. Poor thing! she certainly hasn't _your_ stamina now, my love!' "Here Miss Fortescue bit her lip, tossed her head, and was saying that wasn't what she cared about, though in fact she looked ready to cry; when just at the moment I saw Lota Hyde herself half above the little gallery stair, gazing straight at me, for the first time, too; a curious kind of half-smile on her face, as I stood with my paws out, the old lady jerking the yarn off my wrists, and I staring right over her big bonnet at the sky astern of the awning, pretending not to listen. All at once my mouth fell, and before she could turn her face away from the funny countenance I no doubt put on, I saw her cheek rosy and her eyes sparkle with laughter, instead of seeming like one to die soon. "For my part I couldn't stand it at all, so I just bolted sheer round and made three strides to the poop-ladder, as dignified as was possible, with ever so many plies of red yarn foul of my wrists, and a big red ball hopping after me when I'd vanished, like a fellow running from a hot shot! I daresay they thought on the poop I'd had a stroke of the sun on my brain, but till next day I kept clear of the passengers, and took to swigging off stiff nor'-westers of grog as long as Westwood would let me. CHAPTER VII "Next evening, when the cuddy dinner was scarce over, I went up to the poop, where there was no one to be seen; the sun just setting on our starboard-quarter in a golden blaze that stretched overhead, with flakes of it melting, as 'twere, all over the sky to port, and dropping in it like threads of oil in water; the ship with a light breeze aft, and stu'nsails packed large upon her, running almost due for the line. The waves to westward were like liquid light, and the eddies round our counter came glittering out, the whole spread of her mizzen and main canvas shining like gold cloth against the fore: then 'twas but the royals and sky-sails brighter than ever, as the big round sun dipped down with a red streak or two, and the red water-line, against his hot old face. Every blue surge between had a clear green edge about its crest, the hollows turning themselves inside out from deep purple into bright blue, and outside in again--and the whole rim of the sea grew out cool and clear, away from the ship's taffrail. A pair of sharp-headed dolphins that had kept alongside for the last few minutes, swimming near the surface, turned tail round the moment I put my nose over the bulwark, and shot off like two streaks of a rainbow after the flying-fish. "I was just wondering where Lota Hyde could be this time, when on a sudden I observed little Tommy poke his curly head out of the booby-hatch, peeping cautiously round; seeing nobody, however, save the man at the wheel, who was looking over his shoulder at the sun, the small rogue made a bolt out of the companion, and scampered aft under the awning to the judge's starboard door, with nothing on but his night-shirt. There he commenced kicking and shoving with his bare feet and arms, till the door flew open, and over went Tommy on his nose, singing out in fine style. The next thing I heard was a laugh like the sound of a silver bell; and just as the boy's sister ran up in a fright lest he had gone overboard, Violet Hyde came out leading the little chap wrapped in a long shawl that trailed astern of him, herself with a straw bonnet barely thrown upon her head. 'Tommy says you put him in bed too soon, Jane!' said she, smiling. 'Iss!' said Master Thomas, stoutly, 'go 'way, Dzane!' 'You hadn't bid me good-night--wasn't that it, Tom? But oh! _what_ a sea!' exclaimed she, catching sight of it under the awning. The little fellow wanted to see it, too; so the young lady lifted him up in her arms, no small weight I daresay, and they both looked over the bulwark: the whole sky far out of the awning to westward being spotted with orange scales, turning almost scarlet, faster than the dusk from both ends could close in; the clear greenish tint of it above the openings of the canvas going up into fathomless blue overhead, the horizon purple, and one or two still black clouds tipped with vermilion against the far sky--while the Indiaman stole along, scarce plashing under her bends. "Every now and then you heard a whizz and a flutter, as the flying-fish broke out of a bigger surge, sometimes just missing the ship's side; at last two or three fell over the mizzen chains, and pop came one all of a sudden right into the white breast of Miss Hyde's dress inside her scarf, where only the wings kept it from disappearing. She started, Jane screamed, but the little boy coolly pulled it out, commencing to overhaul it in great delight. 'Oh, fat a funny ickoo bird!' shouted he; 'it's fell down out of 'ese t'ees!' looking aloft. 'No, no,' said Miss Hyde, laughing, as she drew her shoulders together with a shiver--'birds' noses don't drop water! 'Twill die if you don't put it in again, Tommy--'tis a fish!' 'A fish!' said he, opening his eyes wider, and smacking his lips. 'Yes, Tommy eat it for my beckfust!' However, the young lady took it out of his hand, and dropped it overboard; on which the small ogre went off rather discontented, and kissed her more as a favour than otherwise. It was almost dark already, the water shining up in the ship's wake, and the stars coming out aloft; so I was left wondering at the impudence of flying-fish, and the blessings of being a fat little imp in a frock and trousers, compared with this puzzle of a 'traverse,' betwixt _being_ a third lieutenant and hailing for a 'griffin.' "The night following, after a sultry hot day, the wind had varied a good deal, and the ship was running almost close-hauled on a warm south-easterly breeze, with somewhat of a swell in the water. Early in the first watch there was a heavy shower, after which I went on deck, leaving Westwood at his book. The half-moon was just getting down to leeward, clear of a ragged dark cloud, and a long space of faint white light spread away on the horizon, behind the sheets of the sails hauled aft; so that you just saw a sort of a glimmer under them, on the black heave of the swell between. Every time she rolled to leeward on it, a gleam of the moonshine slipped inside the shadow of her high bulwarks, from one wet carronade to another, and went glistening over the moist decks, and among the boats and booms, that looked like some big brute or other lying stretched out on his paws, till you saw the men's faces on the forecastle as if they were so many mutineers skulking in the dark before they rush aft: then up she righted again, and all was dark in-board. "The awnings were off, and the gruff third mate creaking slowly to and fro in his soaked shoes; the judge stood talking with the captain before one of the round-house doors; directly after I noticed a young lady's figure in a white dress close by the mizzen-rigging, apparently intent on the sea to leeward. 'Well, now or never!' thought I, stepping over in the shadow of the mainsheet. I heard her draw a long breath; and then, without turning her head at the sound of my foot, 'I wonder if there is anything so strange in India,' exclaimed she; '_is_ there now?' 'No, no, madam!' said I, starting, and watching as the huge cloud grew darker, with a rusty stain in it, while three or four broad-backed swells, one beyond the other, rose up black against the setting moon, as if they'd plunge right into her. Miss Hyde turned round, with one hand on the bulwark to steady herself, and half looked at me. 'I thought,' said she--'where is papa?--I thought my father----' I begged pardon for intruding, but next minute she appeared to have forgotten it, and said, in a musing sort of way, partly to herself, partly to me--'I seem to _remember_ it all--as if I just saw that black wave--and--that monstrous cloud over again! Oh! really that is the _very_ same top it had _then_--see!'--'Yes,' said I, leaning forward, with a notion I _had_ seen it before, though heaven knew when. 'Did you ever read about Columbus and Vasco di Gama?' asked she, though directly afterwards her features broke into a laughing smile as she caught sight of mine--at the thought, I suppose, of my ridiculous figure the last time she saw me. 'No, never,' said I; 'but look to windward, ma'am; 'tis coming on a squall again. For heaven's sake, Miss Hyde, go in! We're to have another shower, and that pretty thick. I wonder the mate don't stow the royals.' 'What do you mean?' said she, turning. 'Why are you alarmed, sir? I see nothing particular.' The sea was coming over, in a smooth round-backed swell, out of a dirty, thick jumble of a sky, with a pitch-black line behind--what Ford would have called 'wild' by daylight; but the young lady's eye naturally saw no more in it than a dark night. "Here the judge came over from the binnacle, giving me a nod, as much as to say he recollected me. 'I am afraid, sir,' said I, 'if you don't make haste, you'll get wet.' 'How!' said Sir Charles, ''tis an exceedingly pleasant night, I think, after such a very hot day. They don't know how to cool rooms here--this perpetual wood retains heat till midnight, sir! That detestable pitch precludes walking--the sea absolutely glares like tin. _Why_ do you suppose so now--eh, young gentleman?' said he again, turning back, all of a sudden, with his daughter on his arm. "'Why--why--why, Sir Charles,' said I, hesitating betwixt sham innocence and scarce knowing what reason to give; 'why, I just think--that is to say, it's my feeling, you see.' 'Ah, ah, I _do_ see,' replied the judge, good-humouredly; 'but you shouldn't ape the sailor, my good fellow, as I fancy you do a little. I don't particularly admire the class, but they always have grounds for what they say in their profession, frequently even acute. At your aunt's, Lady Somers's now, Violet, who was naturally so surrounded by naval officers, what I had to object to was, not their want of intelligence, but their forwardness. Eh--eh! who--what is _that_?' exclaimed he suddenly, looking straight up into the dark, as five or six large drops fell on his face out of it. All at once you heard a long sigh, as it were, in the canvas aloft, a clap like two or three carronades fired off, as all the sails together went into the masts--then a hum in the air far and near--and whish! rush! came the rain in sheets and bucketfuls off the edge of a cloud over our very heads, plashing and washing about the deck with coils of rope; ship rolling without a breath of wind in her sails; sails flapping out and in; the rain pouring down ten times faster than the scupper-holes would let it out, and smoking grey in the dark hollow of the swells, that sank under the force of it. "The first officer came on deck, roaring in the hubbub to clue up and furl the royals before the wind came again. It got pitch-dark, you couldn't see your hand before you, and we had all lost mark of each other, as the men came shoving in between us. However, I knew whereabouts Miss Hyde was, so I felt along the larboard rigging till I found a back-stay clasped in her hands, and the soaked sleeve of her muslin dress, while she leant back on a carronade, to keep from being jerked down in the water that washed up over her feet with every roll, full of ropes and a capstan bar or two. Without saying a word, I took up Lota in my arms, and carried her aft in spite of the roll and confusion, steering for the glimmer of the binnacle, till I got her inside one of their own cabins, where there was a lamp swinging about, and laid her on a sofa. I felt somehow or other, as I went, that the sweet creature hadn't fainted, though all the while as still as death; accordingly I made off again at once to find the judge, who, no doubt, was calling for his daughter, with a poor chance of being heard. "In a minute or two more the rain was over; it was light enough to make out the horizon, as the belt of foam came broadening out of it; the ship gave two or three wild bounds, the wheel jolting and creaking; up swelled the black waves again over one side, the topsails flapped full as the squall rushed roaring into them, and away she rose; then tore into it like a scared horse, shaking her head and throwing the snow-white foam into her fore-chains. 'Twas as much as three men could do to grind down her wheel, leaning and grinning to it; you saw just the Indiaman herself, scarce so far forward as the booms, and the broad swell mounting with her out of the dark, as she slowly squared yards before it, taking in to'gallant-sails while she did so with her topsail-yards lowered on the caps. However, the look of it was worse than its force, else the swell wouldn't have risen so fast, as every sailor knew; and by two bells of the mid-watch she was bowling under all, as easy as before, the mate of the watch setting a stunsail. "When I went down, shaking myself like a Newfoundland, Westwood was swinging in his cot with a book turned to the lamp, reading _Don Quixote_ in Spanish. 'Bless me, Ned!' said he, 'you seem to like it! paying fair and weathering it too!' 'Only a little adventure, Westwood!' said I, laughing. 'Why, here have I been enjoying better adventures than we seem likely to have,' said he, 'without stirring a hand, except for the wild swings you gave me from deck. Here's _Don Quixote_----' 'Don Quixote be hanged!' said I: 'I'd rather wear ship in a gale, myself, than all the humbug that never happened--_out_ of an old play-book. What's the use of _thinking_ you see service, when you don't? After all, you couldn't _expect_ much till we've crossed the Line--nothing like the tropics, or the Cape, for thickening a plot, Tom. Then there's the Mozambique, you know!' 'Well, we'll see,' said Westwood, lazily, and half asleep. "The whole next day would have been weary enough in itself, as not a single glimpse of the fair Lota could I catch; and the weather, between the little puffs of air and squalls we had, was fit to have melted poor Ford to the bone, but for the rain. However, that day was sufficient, by fits and starts, to bring us up to the Line; and before crossing it, which we did by six o'clock in one of the black squalls, half of the passengers had been pretty well ducked by Neptune and his gang besides. "Rare fun we had of it for three or four hours on end; the cadets and writers showing fight in a body, the Yankee being regularly keelhauled, tarred, and feathered, though I believe he had crossed the Line twice by land; while the Scotch surgeon was found out, in spite his caution, never to have been lower than the West Indies--so he got double ration. A word to Jacobs took Westwood scot-free; but, for my own part, wishing of course to blind the officers, I let the men stick the tar-brush in my mouth the first word I spoke, and was shaved like the mischief, not to speak of plumping afterwards behind the studding-sail curtain into three feet water, where I absolutely saved Ford from drowning, he being as sick as a dog. "Late at night the breeze held and freshened, and, being Saturday night, the gentlemen in the cuddy kept it uproariously after their troubles; drinking and singing songs--Tom Little's and your sentimental affairs; till, being a bit flushed myself, I was on the point of giving them one of Dibdin's, when I thought better of it, and went on deck instead. The mate was there, however, and his red-whiskered Scotch sub with the twisted snout, leaning on the capstan with their noses together. The night was dark, and the ship made a good noise through the water; so 'Hang it!' thought I, 'somehow or other I'll have out a stave of "Black-eyed Susan" at the top of my pipe, though overboard I go for it. "There was an old square topsail-yard slung alongside to larboard, as far as the quarter-boat, and I went up to the poop to get over and sit on it; especially when I found Ford's friend the fat midshipman was in the boat itself, 'caulking'[12] his watch out, as he did every night in a fresh place. [12] Sleeping on deck. "I was no sooner there again, than I saw a light in the aftermost gallery window, and took it in my head if I sung _there_, why, in place of being afraid there was someone under her casement, that and the wind and water together would put her to sleep, if she was the worse of last night--in fact, I may say I was a little '_slewed_'[13] at the time. How to get there, though, was the matter, it being rather a nice practice to sling over an Indiaman's quarter-gallery, bulging out from her steep counter; accordingly, first I took the end of coil round the mizzen-shrouds, and made a bowline-knot to creep down the stern-mouldings with, and then swing free by help of a guide-line to boot. Just before letting go of the taffrail, another fancy struck me, to hitch the guide-line to the trigger of the life-buoy that hung ready for use; not that I'd the notion of saving myself if I went overboard, but just because of the good joke of a fellow slipping his own life-buoy, and then cruising away, with a light at his mast-head, back to the Line. [Footnote 13: Anglice, _not_ sober.] "'Twas curious, but when I was 'two or three sheets in the wind,' far from growing stupid, I used always to get a sort of cunning that would have made me try and cheat a purser; so away I lowered myself till the rope was taut, when I slipped easy enough round the counter, below the window. Every time she rolled, out I swung, and in again, till I steadied with my feet, slacking off the other line from one hand. Then I began to give voice like old Boreas himself, with a sort of a notion, at each shove I got, how I was rocking the Indiaman like a big cradle, as Jacobs did his baby. All at once I felt the rope was _giving_ off the belaying-pin, till I came down with a jolt under the window below; only singing the louder, as it was half open, and I could just look in. With every wash of the waves the water, a couple of fathoms under my feet, blazed up like fire, and the wake ran boiling out from the black stern by the rudder, like the iron out of a furnace; now and then there came a sulky flare of dumb lightning to leeward, and showed the black swell out of the dark for miles. "I fancied I didn't care for the water, but I began to think 'twas rather uncomfortable the notion of sousing into such an infernally flame-looking stream; I was actually in a fright at being boiled, and not able to swim. So I dropped chorus to haul myself up, when of a sudden, by the lamp inside the state-room, I saw Winterton and Ford come reeling in, one after the other, as drunk as lords. Winterton swayed about quietly on his legs for a minute, and then looked gravely at Ford, as if he'd got a dreadful secret to make known. "'Ford!' said he. 'Ay,' said Ford, feeling to haul off his trousers--'ay--avast you--blub-lub-lubber!' 'I say, Ford!' said the cadet again, in a melancholy way, fit to melt a marling-spike, and then fell to cry--Ford all the time pulling off his trousers, with a cigar in his mouth, till he got on a chest, and contrived to flounder into his cot with his coat on. After that he stretched over to put the lamp out, carefully enough, but he let fall his cigar, and one leg of his nankeen trousers hung out of the cot, just scraping the deck every time he swung. I watched, accordingly, holding on by the sill, till I saw a spark catch in the stuff, and there it was, swinging slowly away in the dark, with a fiery ring creeping round the leg of the trousers, ready to blow into a flame as soon as it had a clear swing. No doubt the fool would come down safe enough himself with his cot; but I knew Winterton kept powder in the cabin sufficient to blow up the deck above, where that sweet girl was sleeping at the moment. 'Confound it,' I thought, quite cooled by the sight, 'the sooner I get on deck the better.' "However, you may fancy my thoughts when I heard men at the taffrail, hauling on the spanker-boom guys; so I held on till they'd go forward again; suddenly the mate's voice sung out to know 'what lubber had belayed the slack of a topsail clueline _here_?' Down I went with the word, as the rope was thrown off, with just time to save myself by a clutch of the port-sill at arm's-length--where, heaven knew, I couldn't keep long. The mate looked over and caught sight of my face, by a flicker of the summer lightning, as I was slipping down: I gave him one curse as loud as I could hail, and let go the moulding. 'Man overboard,' shouted he, and the men after him; however, I wasn't altogether overboard yet, for I felt the other part of the rope bring me up with a jerk and a swing right under the quarter-boat, where I clung like a cat. "How to get on deck again without being seen was the question, and anxious enough I was at thought of the burning train inside, when out jumped someone over my head; I heard a splash in the water, and saw a fellow's face go sinking into the bright wake astern, while the boat itself was coming down over me from the davits. I still had the guide-line from the life-buoy round my wrist, and one moment's thought was enough to make me give it a furious tug, when away I sprang clear into the eddies. The first thing I saw at coming up was the ship's lighted stern-windows driving to leeward, then the life-buoy flaring and dipping on a swell, and a bare head, with two hands, sinking a few feet off. I made for him at once, and held him up by the hair as I struck out for the buoy. A couple of minutes after, the men in the boat had hold of us and it; the ship came sheering round to the wind, and we were very shortly on board again. "'Confound it, Simm, what took you overboard, man?' asked the mid in the boat at his dripping messmate, the fat reefer. 'Oh, bother!' said he,'if you must know--why, I mistook the quarter-boats; I thought 'twas the _other_ I was in when you kicked up that shindy. Now I remember, though, there was too much _rain_ in it for comfort.' 'Well, youngster,' said Tom, the man-o'-war's-man, 'this here gentleman saved your life, anyhow!' 'Why, mate,' whispered Bill, ''tis the wery same greenhorn we puckalowed so to-day. Didn't he jump sharp over, too?' 'Pull! for your lives, my lads!' said I, looking up at Ford's window; and the moment we got on deck, below I ran into the state-room, and cut Ford down by the heels, with the tinder hanging from him, and one leg of his trousers half gone. As for the poor reefer, a pretty blowing up he got; the men swore I had jumped overboard after him, and the mate would have it that, instead of sleeping, he wanted to get into the judge's cabins; especially when next day Sir Charles was in a rage at his daughter being disturbed by some sailor or other singing outside. CHAPTER VIII "You must surely be tired by this time, ma'am, of this long-winded yarn of mine?" said the commander of the _Gloucester_ to the elder of his fair listeners, next evening they met with the evident expectation of hearing further; "but after all, this voyage must be dull work for you at present, so I daresay you are amused with anything by way of a change. "Well, one morning, when Westwood and I went on deck, it was a stark staring calm; as dead as a mill-pond, save for the long winding heave that seemed to come miles up out of the stale blue water, and get tired with the journey--from the horizon to us in one lazy coil, and on every side, just serving to jerk the wheel a spoke back and forward, with nobody at it. The very bits of pumpkin-paring and fat which the cook had thrown overboard the night before lay still alongside, with an oily track oozing round about them from the 'slush'[14]--the sails hanging from the yards, up and down, like clothes on a screen--and when you looked over the side away from the sun, you saw your own face, like a fellow's that had been long drowned, peering back at you, as it were, round the keel--in fact, there you scarce knew where the water _was_. [14] Cook's grease. "Somehow or other the ship kept sheering round, by little and little, till, although one had chosen a shady spot, all of a sudden the blazing sun came right into his eyes; or the single streak of white cloud lying behind you, to starboard, a while after stuck itself before your face from the very opposite quarter--you fancying, too, you had your eye the whole time on the same bit of water. Being lost in a wood or a fog was nothing to it, especially with the sun at noon drawn up right overhead, so that you couldn't look aloft, and staring down into the sea out of a pool of bright light; 'like one tremendously keen little eye,' as some of the passengers said, 'examining a big blind one.' 'Why,' put in one of the writers, 'I fear he wants to take the _mote_ out of his brother's eye--this vessel, that is to say!' 'Hang it, I hope not!' said Winterton, rather alarmed. 'He promises well to do it, then,' said another young civilian, 'but I wish he'd take the _beam_ out of his own first, ha, Smythe?' However, few men have the spirit to laugh at little in a calm near the Line, so Smythe gave no more than a sickly grin, while Westwood looked the clergyman very properly. "Both passengers and crew, all of us that could swim, gave wistful looks now and then alongside at the water, hot as it seemed, for a bathe; just floating up, as it were, with the mere huge size of it, under a dazzle of light, and so blue and smooth you couldn't see a hair's-breadth below; while, a bit off, the face of it and the very air appeared to dance and quiver like little streams of glass. However, all thoughts of bathing were put out of your head when you saw the black three-cornered affair, with a rake aft, somewhat like the end of a scythe, that went steering slowly round us; then cruising hither and thither, till its infernal horn was as dry as the deck; and at times driving straight off, as if it ran in a groove through the level surface; when back again it came from the other side, creeping lazily towards us, till it sank with a light _tip_, and a circle or two on the blue water. The hook and chain were hanging up and down over the taffrail, with the piece of rank pork looking green in the shadow near the rudder, where you read the white figures of her draught as plain as in dock; but the shark, a fifteen-feet customer, if he was an inch, was too knowing to have touched it. "'Pity he's gone, Collins,' said Ford to me, after we had watched him at last out of sight; 'wasn't there any plan of catching him, I wonder! Now we shall have a bathe though, at any rate.' 'Gone?' said I, 'he won't leave us in a hurry, if we don't leave _him_!' 'Poh, man!' said Ford, 'I tell you he's tired out and gone away!' Five minutes after Ford was leaning over the quarter and wiping his face, while he fanned himself with his straw hat, which fell out of his hand into the water. He had got over into the mizzen-chains to throw a line round it, when he gave a loud shriek, and jumped in-board again. Two or three fathoms of green came up from the keel, balancing on a pair of broad fins under Ford's hat, and a big round snout touched it; then a dozen feet of white belly gleamed in the water, the hat gave a gulp as it was drawn down, and a few small air-bells rose to the top. 'He prefers some flavours to others, you see, Ford,' said I. ''Tis the second hat I've seen you lose: I hope your head won't be in the _third_; but you mariners, you see----' However, Ford had bolted to his cabin. "On turning round I perceived Miss Hyde, with the general's lady, under the awning on the other side, where the old lady leant against a cushion, with her hands crossed and her bonnet strings loose--though a strapping raw-boned Irishwoman she was--and kept Miss Hyde's maid fanning her from behind with a large feather _punkah_. The old lady had started at Ford's cry, and gave a look round at me, half fierce and half orderly, as if she expected to know what was the matter at once. 'Only my friend lost his hat, ma'am,' said I, stepping forward. 'These cadets are so 'tagious, my dear!' said she to the young lady, falling back again without the least more notice of me. 'They plague the life of me, but the brigadier can't drill them as he would if this were a troopship--I wish he could, for the sake of the profession!--now, my dear, _you_ kape out of the s-hun!' However, I stuck where I was, fancying I caught the slightest bit of an arch twinkle in the corner of the young lady's eye, though she didn't look at me. 'Keep going, can't ye!' said the old lady crossly to the maid. 'No, ma'am, indeed!' said the girl, glancing over to her young mistress, 'I'm ready to drop!' 'Send up papa's _kitmagar_, then, Wilkins,' said Miss Hyde; and the girl went off toward the gallery stair, muttering she 'hoped she didn't come--here to be--made a black Indian slave of--at least to a old'--the remainder being lost in the stair. "As I leant on the rail-netting, behind the old lady, I happened to tread on her fat pug-dog's tail, whereupon the ugly brute made its teeth meet, without further notice, in the small of my leg, after which it gave a yelp, and ran beneath the chairs. 'What's that, Die?' exclaimed its mistress; 'good hivens! is that same griffin here _yet_, my dear! Hadn't he ayven the spirit to take a hint?--I say, was it _you_ hurt Dianny, young man?' 'Oh dear no, ma'am, not for the world!' said I, looking at my trousers, hard as the thing was to stand, but thinking to smooth her over, though I wasn't quite up to the old Irishwoman it turned out. 'Ha! ha! so she bit you?' said she, with a flash of her hawk's eye, and leaning back again coolly. 'If he'd only kicked poor Die for it under my chair now, I'd have forgiven him; but he hadn't ayven the heart at the time to drop her a curse--and _I_ thinking all the while, too, by the luke of his eye he was from the County Clare! My heart warms to the County Clare always, because, although I'm not Irish myself, you know, I'd once a schoolfellow was born in it--without counting all my relations! Oh, the smooth spalpeen!' continued she, harder than before, glancing at me as I looked all abroad from one to the other; 'listen, niver you let that fellow spake to you, my dear! he's too----' But here I walked quietly off to put the poop's length betwixt me and the talking old vixen, cursing her and her dog both, quite enough to have pleased her Irish fancy. "On the quarter-deck, the judge and the general seemed really to enjoy the heat and quiet, sitting with their feet up before the round-house, and smoking their long red twisted hookahs, while they watched the wreaths of smoke go whirling straight up from the bowls to the awning, and listened to the faint bubble of it through the water in the bottles, just dropping a word now and then to each other. A tall, thin 'native' servant with long sooty hair hanging from his snow-white turban, stood behind the judge's chair, bolt upright, with his arms folded, and twice as solemn as Sir Charles himself; you saw a stern-window shining far abaft, through one of the round-house doors, and the fat old fellow of a _consumah_[15] busy laying the cloth for tiffin, while the sole breath of air there was came out of thereaway. [15] East Indian steward. "Suddenly eight bells struck, and everyone seemed glad of something new; the judge's _consumah_ came out salaaming to say tiffin was ready; the cuddy passengers went below for wine-and-water and biscuit; and the men were at dinner. There being nothing to take care of on deck, and the heat of course getting greater, not a soul stayed up but myself; but I preferred at the moment lighting a cheroot, and going up aft to see clear of the awnings. The cockatoo had been left on the poop-rail, with its silver chain hitched round one of the mizzen back-stays, where it shifted from one leg to the other, hooked itself up the back-stay as far as it could go, then hurried down again, and mused a bit, as wise as Solomon--then screamed out at the top of its voice--'Tip--tip--pr-r-retty cacka--tippoo--cok-ka--whee-yew-ew-ew!' finishing by a whistle of triumph fit to have split one's ears, or brought a gale of wind--though not on account of skill in its books, at any rate. Again it took to swinging quietly head-down, at furious rate, and then slewed upright to plume its feathers, and shake the pink tuft on its head. "No sooner had I got up the stair, however, than, to my perfect delight, I saw Violet Hyde was still sitting aft, and the old Irishwoman gone; so I stepped to the taffrail at once, and, for something to be about, I hauled up the shark-hook from astern. The moment I caught her eye, the young lady smiled--by way of making up, no doubt, for the old one. 'How _very_ solitary it is!' said she, rising and looking out; 'the ship almost seems deserted, except by us!' 'By Jove! I almost wish it were,' thought I. 'A dead calm, madam,' I said, 'and likely to hold--the under-swell's gone quite down, and a haze growing.' 'Are we sure _ever_ to leave this spot then?' asked she, with a slight look of anxiety. 'Never fear it, ma'am,' said I; 'as soon as the haze melts again, we're near a breeze, I assure you--only, by the length of the calm and the heat together, not to speak of our being so far to east'ard, I'm afraid we mayn't get rid of it without a gale at the end to match.' 'Indeed?' said Miss Hyde. "The fact was, Westwood and I had been keeping a log, and calculated just now we were somewhere to south-eastward of Ascension; whereas, by the captain and mate's reckoning she was much farther to west. "'I never thought the sea could appear so dreadful,' said she, as if to herself--'much more than in a storm.' 'Why, madam,' said I, 'you haven't exactly seen one this voyage--one needs to be close-hauled off the Cape for that.' "Somehow or other, in speaking to _her_, by this time I forgot entirely about keeping up the sham cadet, and slipped into my own way again; so all at once I _felt_ her two dark-blue eyes looking at me curiously. 'How!--why,' exclaimed she suddenly, and then laughing, 'you seem to know all about it!--why, you speak--have you been studying sea affairs so thoroughly, sir, with your friend, who--but I _do_ think, now, one can scarcely _trust_ to what you have said?' 'Well--why--well,' said I, fiddling with the shark-hook, 'I don't know how it is, but I feel as if I must have been at sea some time or other before; you wouldn't suppose it, ma'am, but whenever I fix my eyes on a particular rope, I seem almost to know the name of it.' 'And its _use_ too?' asked she, merrily. 'I shouldn't wonder!' said I; 'perhaps I was _born_ at sea, you know, madam!' and I gave a side-look to notice how she took it. 'Ah! perhaps!' said Miss Hyde, laughing: 'but do you know one sometimes fancies these things; and now I think of it, sir, I even imagined for a moment I had seen _yourself_ before!' 'Oh,' said I, 'that couldn't be the case; I'm sure, for my part, I should recollect clear enough if I'd seen--a--a _lady_ anywhere! I think you said something of the kind, ma'am, that night of the last squall--about the water and the clouds, ma'am, you remember?' The young lady looked away, though a notion seemed to flash through her mind. 'Yes,' said she, 'that terrible rain, _you_ were----' 'Washed into the lee-scuppers,' said I, indifferently, for I didn't want her to suspect it was _I_ that had kissed her hand in the dark as I carried her in. 'I hope Sir Charles and yourself got in safe, Miss Hyde?' However, she was watching the water alongside, and suddenly she exclaimed, 'Dear! what a pretty little fish!' 'By heavens!' said I, seeing the creature with its sharp nose and blue bars, as it glanced about near the surface, and then swam in below the ship's bilge again, 'that's one of the old villain's pilots--he's lying right across our keel! I wish I could catch that shark!' "The pork was of no use for such an old sea-lawyer, and I cast a wistful eye on the Irishwoman's fat pug-dog stretched asleep on her shawl by the bulwark; 'he'd take _that_ in a trice though!' I even laid out some marline from a stern-locker, and noticed how neatly one could pass the hook under her belly round to the tail, and seize her so snugly on, muzzled and all; but it was no go, with the devil to pay afterwards. All of a sudden I heard somebody hawking and spitting above the awning forward, near where the cockatoo kept still trying to master his own name. 'The Yankee, for a thousand!' thought I; 'is Daniel trying to walk along the spanker-boom?' Next, someone sung out, 'Hal-loo-oo-oo!' as if there was a tomahawk over him, ready to split his brain. Miss Hyde looked alarmed, when the Scotch mate, as I thought, roared, 'Shiver my tops'ls!' Then it was a sailor hailing gruffly, 'Bloody Capting Brown--bloody Capting Brown--Capting Brown!' "'Somebody drunk aloft!' thought I, walking forward to see; when a funny little black head peeped round the awning with a yellow nose as sharp as a marling-spike, and red spectacles, seemingly, round its keen little eyes; then, with a flutter and a hop, the steward's pet mina-bird[16] came down, and lighted just under the cockatoo. 'Ha!' said I, laughing, 'it's only Parson Barnacle!' as the men called him--a sooty little creature scarce bigger than a blackbird, with a white spot on each wing, and a curious pair of natural glasses on his head, which they kept in the forecastle and taught all sorts of 'jaw,' till they swore he could have put the ship about, took kindly to tar, and hunted the cockroaches like a cat. [16] _Mina-bird_, or grakle, a frequent pet in homeward-bound East-Indiamen, and singular for its mimetic faculty; but impudent, and, from educational disadvantages, not particularly select in its expressions: appearance as described by the lieutenant. "No doubt he was glad to meet his countryman the cockatoo, but Tippoo stuck up his crest, swelled his chops, and looked dreadfully frightened; while the mina-bird cocked his head on one side, gave a knowing wink as it were, though all the time as grave, with his spectacles, as a real parson. 'How's her head?' croaked he, in a voice like a quartermaster's; 'blowing hard!' 'Old Capting Brown!' and hopped nearer to the poor cockatoo, who could stand it no longer, but hooked himself up the back-stay as fast as possible, out of sight, the chain running with him; and just as I swung myself clear of the awning to run aloft for a catch of it, out flew Parson Barnacle to the end of the crojack-yard, while the cockatoo gave a flap that loosed the _kitmagar's_ lubberly hitch, and sent him down with his wings spread on the water. "At another time it wouldn't have cost me a thought to go head-foremost after him, when I heard his young mistress exclaiming, 'Oh, poor dear Tippoo will be drowned!' but recollecting our hungry green friend on the other side, I jumped down for the end of a rope to slip myself quietly alongside with. However, at the very moment, Tom, the man-o'-war's-man, happening to come up from the forehatchway to throw something overboard, and seeing Miss Hyde's cockatoo, off went his shoes and jacket at once, and I heard the splash as he struck the water. I had scarce time to think, either, before I saw Mick O'Hooney's red head shoot up on deck, and heard him sing out, 'Man overboard, be the powers, boys! Folly my lader! Hurroo!' and over he sprang. 'Here's dip,' said another, and in half a minute every man that could swim was floundering in the smooth water alongside, or his head showing as it came up--pitching the cockatoo to each other, and all ready to enjoy their bathe; though, for my part, I made but one spring to the ship's starboard quarter, to use the only chance of saving the thoughtless fellows from a bloody fate to some of them. "I knew the shark would be cautious at first, on such a sudden to-do, and I had marked his whereabouts while the men were well toward the bows; and 'hang it,' thought I, seeing the old woman's fat pug in my way, 'Dianny, or die all; I bear no malice, but you must go for it, my beauty!' As quick as thought, I made one turn of marline round her nose, took off the pork, and lashed her fast on to the hook all standing, in spite of her squeaks; then twisted the lady's shawl round the chain for a blind to it, and flung the whole right over the larboard quarter, where I guessed the old fellow would be slewing round astern to have a look out before he went fairly in chase. I watched the line sink slowly with the weight over the gunwale for half a minute, afraid to let him see my head, and trembling for fear I should hear a cry from one of the men: when jerk went the rope clear of a belaying-pin as he ran off with his bait. I took a quick turn to hook him smartly in the throat, and then eased off again till the 'cleets' brought him up with a 'surge' fit to have parted the line, had it not been good new inch-and-a-half rope--though, as it was, the big Indiaman would soon have sheered stern-round to the force of it, if he'd only pulled fair. "The young lady stood noticing what I did, first in a perplexed sort of a way, and then with no little surprise, especially when the shark gave every now and then a fiercer tug, as he took a sweep astern; by this time, however, everybody was on deck in a crowd, the passengers all in a flurry, and half of the men scrambling up from alongside to tail on to the line, and run him out of water. So away they went with it full-speed towards the bows, as soon as the ladies were out of the way--dragging two or three cadets back-foremost, head over heels, down the poop stair--till, in spite of his tugging, the shark's round snout showed over the taffrail, with the mouth wide open under his chin, as it were, and one row of teeth laid flat behind another, like a comb-maker's shop-counter. A running bowline passed round his handsome waist, then another pull, and over he came on the poop, floundering fourteen feet long, and flourishing his tail for room, till the carpenter chopped it across, in a lucky moment with his axe. "All hands gathered round the shark to see him cut up, which was as good as a play to them, becalmed as we were; when, to my no small dismay, I heard Mrs Brigadier Brady's loud voice asking where her dog was; and the brigadier himself, who seemed more afraid of his wife than anybody else, kept poking about with his red-faced English butler to find the animal. 'For God's sake,' said he, in a half whisper, twenty times over, 'haven't ye seen Mrs Brady's dog, any of ye?--she'll rout the ship inside out for it, captain, if we don't soon ase her mind.' However, I knew only Miss Hyde was aware who caught the shark, and as she didn't appear to have told, why of course I kept all fast myself. 'Here's a 'baccy-box!' sung out the big old boatswain, standing astride over the tail, while the cook and his black mate ripped away from the tail up. 'Hand over, if ye please, sir,' said 'ugly' Harry, 'it's mine, Mr Burton!' Harry gave it a wipe on his knee, and coolly bit a quid off the end of his lost pigtail. The next thing was Ford's hat, which no one claimed, so black <DW71> clapped it on his woolly head. "'What's that you've got there now, <DW71>?' said the boatswain: 'out with it, my lad!' 'Golly!' chuckled the <DW65>, rolling the whites of his eyes and grinning like mad; 'oh sar, Misser Barton! dis 'ere shark riglar navligator! I 'clare to you, sar, um got chr'ometer aboard. Oh gum; berry much t'ink dis your own lost silber tickler, Misser Barton.' 'Bless me, so it is, my lad,' said the boatswain, as the black handed him a silver watch as big as a turnip, and he looked at the cook, who was busy fumbling with his knife. 'Sorry as you was _taxed_ with it, doctor,'[17] said he, doubtfully; 'well, I'm blowed, though, it only goes an hour and a half--and here it's a-ticking yet.' Here a burst of laughter went round, and somebody sung out, 'Maybe the ould pawn-broking Judas of a shark winded it up hisself, just to mark the time o' his "goin' off the hooks."' 'I say, doctor,' hailed another, 'too bad, ain't it though, to cut up _your uncle_?' 'Ha, ha, ha,' cried the cadets and writers, looking at the Scotch surgeon; 'd' ye hear that, doctor? I wouldn't stand it. They say you ain't particular in Edinbro', though. Some rum mistakes happened there, eh, doctor?' [17] Familiar metonymy, or nickname, at sea, for the ship's cook. "The Scotchman got into a passion at this, being the worst cut they could give any fellow from a country where they were famous for kindred and body-snatching at once--but all of a sudden there was a 'Hulloo! Shiver my taw'sels! What's this? Let's see'; and the whole poopful of us were shoving together, and jumping on each other's shoulders to have a look. 'Well, we-ell,' said the old boatswain, as he peered curiously into the mess of shark's bowels--'I'll be blowed.' 'The likes o' that now!' croaked the old sailmaker, lifting up his two hands, ''tain't lucky, Mr Burton!' 'My eye! them's not young _sharks_, anyhow!' said one of the men. 'What's t'ou think they be, mun,' said the north-country Chips, 'but litter o' young blind poops? an' here's t' ou'd un, see, as deed's mutton! Dang him, but someun's got an' baited t' hook wi't, there's nou't else in 's guts.' "The whole poop was one roar of laughing, when Mrs Brady's pug was found delivered of four pups inside the shark, since she went overboard, and two of 'em alive; the news ran fore and aft in a moment. '_Took short_ she's been, Jack!' said one. 'Beats the prophet Joney!' 'I say, mate, them whelps is born twice over. Blessed if my Sal at home, now, wouldn't give a year's 'lotment for one on 'em.' "'Look out, all hands of ye,' cried someone, 'there's the old girl herself coming on deck; sharp's the word.' And away we scuttled right and left, some aloft, and some down one poop-ladder, as Mrs Brady, with the brigadier and his butler after her, came fuming up the other. The black made one spring over the quarter as soon as he saw her; but the Irish topman, Mick, slipped his foot amongst the shark's blood, and rolled on his back, while the old bo'sun made stand in the thick of it behind. 'Saze the villains, I charge ye, brigadier,' screamed Mrs Brady, though he and his manservant only kept dodging the boatswain round a sort of a quagmire of blood and grease, while the old vixen caught Mick by his red hair and whiskers. 'Where's my dog, ye murderous spalpeen?' said she, panting for breath; 'what have ye done with my Dianny, ye monsther? Spake, or I'll----' 'Be the holy elaven thousand, yer ladyship!' said Mick, 'an' it's _lost_ did ye think she wor! Isn't there _five_ of 'em back! Whisper! yer ladyship's riv'rence--she's _laid in_, poor craythure, an'----' '_Oh!_ you Irish thief!' Tug came both Mrs Brady's hands through his hair, while the butler caught a kick in the stomach from Mick's foot. 'Murther!' gasped the poor fellow, 'sure an' I dun' know she was ayven a faym'le, fur me own part; bad luck t' ye mates, give uz a hand. Och, an' is this the road ye thrate a counthryman, mim?' '_Me_ your countryman! ye bog-trottin' wretch ye!' screamed the old fury, her brogue getting worse the more she heated--'take _that_!--don't rise, if ye dare.' 'Faix thin, yer ladyship darlin',' said O'Hooney, grinning in spite of his hard usage, 'I tould a lie--och, lave some o' me hair!--murther intirely! I'm----' "All the time none of us could stir for sheer laughing, but seeing poor Mike like to fare hard with the old vixen, who was near as big as himself, and as strong as a horse, I whispered to the men to run round and let go the poop awning--so down it came, with a few buckets of water in it, over the five of them; and you just saw Mrs Brady's sharp elbow through the canvas, lifted for the next slap, when we had her all fast, struggling like a cat in a bag, while O'Hooney and the boatswain crept out below. 'Stiff breeze that as we've had!' said the bo'sun shaking himself on the forecastle. 'Couldn't ye've bowsed over on the old jade's pitticuts, Mick?' said one of his shipmates, 'and capsized her all standing?' 'Sorra fut you'd stir, yourself, mate,' said he, wiping his face, 'wid such a shay grinnydeer! she'd man-handle ye as asy's twurl a mop!' CHAPTER IX "After all this, you may suppose one didn't weary so much, even of the calm. As soon as the decks were clear, most of us took tea on the poop, for fear of meeting the brigadier's lady below, everyone holding his cup ready for a start. Rollock, the planter, who had slept and swung in his cot half the day, was like to split his sides when he heard the story; by-the-way, I believe both the little pups lived and throve on goat's milk, and the men called one of them 'Young Jonah,' though he had so much of the terrier that the old lady disowned him. "It was quite dark, and cool for a night near the Line, though not a ripple stirred, and I stayed after the rest to smoke a cigar, stopping every now and then near the aftermost bull's-eye, that shone through the deck, and thinking of Lota. 'By Jove!' thought I, 'she hasn't said a word to the judge about our having met before. Think of having a secret, almost, with _her_!' After all, though, I felt well enough I might as soon hope for the Emperor of China's daughter as for such a creature, unless something wonderfully strange fell out; deucedly in love as I was, I wasn't puppy enough to fancy I'd ever succeed by mere talk; 'but here's for a bold heart and a weather eye,' I thought; 'and if these can't do it, I _will_!' said I aloud, when someone clapped me on the shoulder. "'Well, Tom, are you there?' said I, thinking it was Westwood. 'Why,' answered old Rollock, laughing, 'not so far wrong, my boy--but as it's thirty years since anyone called me so, I thought you _were_, for a moment!--Meditating, eh?' 'Only a cigar before bedtime--will you have one, sir?' 'Ah--well,' said the planter, 'I'll take a light at least--queer life this, eh? Shouldn't know this _was_ water, now--more like train-oil! Looks _junglish_ a little under the stars yonder.' 'Nothing but the haze come down,' said I; ''tis clear enough aloft, though--look out for squalls ere long.' 'As your friend Ford would have it,' said Rollock; 'but how a lad of your spirit can manage to stand this so well, I can't think!' 'Deyvilish dull, sir!' said I, with a lazy drawl, 'but can't be helped, you know.' 'Come, come, now, don't mend it by copying poor Winterton,' chuckled Rollock; 'you're no fool, Collins, so don't pretend to be. I say though, Collins, my boy,' continued he rather gravely, 'there is one really soft piece I begin to notice in you lately--I fear you're falling in love with that girl!' '_I_, sir!' said I; 'dear me, what makes you----' 'My dear boy,' went on the kind-hearted old fellow, 'I take an interest in you; no lad of your stuff practises all this tomfoolery without something under it, and I see you've _some_ serious meaning or other. Did you know her before?' 'Oh--why--not exactly,' I dropped out, taken rather short. 'I see, I see!' he went on; 'but I tell you what, Collins, a cadet can do nothing madder than marry at first landing; she had better be a cold-hearted flirt, after all--though, God knows, no man can say what _that_ does but one that's--felt it!--_I_--I mean I _knew_--a young fellow that went out as ambitious as you can be, and he----' "Here the planter's voice shook a little, and he stopped, puffing at his cheroot till the short end of it just lighted up his hook nose and part of his big white whiskers in the dark, only you saw his eye glistening, too. 'Devil take it!' thought I, 'who'd have expected the old boy to be so sharp, though?' 'Well but, Collins,' said he at last, 'just you enter heart and soul into your profession; I'd stake my life you'll rise, who knows how far--when you get captain's pay even, _then_ you may think of it--that is, if she----' 'Why,' said I, 'd'ye suppose the judge would----' '_Judge!_' exclaimed Mr Rollock--'worse and worse! Weren't we talking of pretty little Kate Fortescue? My _dear_ boy, you don't intend to say you mean Miss Hyde! I left _that_ to your puppy of a "first officer," as they call him! Why, that young girl will be the beauty of Calcutta.' At this I fancied someone else gave a whistle near us. 'Of course, sir,' said I, raising my voice, 'you didn't suppose me such a fool.' In fact, Miss Fortescue had never entered my head at all. 'Something strange about _you_, Collins!' said the planter, a little shortly; 'you puzzle me, I must say.' As we turned to go below, I heard somebody walk down the poop-ladder, and then the mate's voice sung out from the binnacle to 'strike eight bells!' "The calm was as dead as ever next morning, and, if possible, hotter than before--not a rope changed aloft, nor a cloth in the sails moved; but it was pretty hazy round us, which made the water a sort of pale old-bottle blue, that sickened you to look at; and a long dipping and drawling heave gradually got up as if there were blankets on it; the ship, of course, shifting round and round again slowly, like a dog going to lie down, and the helm giving every now and then a sudden jolt. Near noon it cleared up with a blaze of light, as it were; the sole difference at first being, that what looked like melting lead before now turned into so many huge bright sheets of tin, every sudden bend of it as good as flashing up thousands of needles in your eyes. A good deal surprised we were, however, shortly after, to find there was a sail in sight, another square-rigged vessel, seemingly standing up on the horizon six or seven miles off. Being end on to us at the time, though every glass in the ship was brought to bear on her, 'twas hard to say what she was; then she and we went bobbing and going up and down with a long round heave between us, slowly enough, but always at cross purposes, like two fellows see-sawing on a plank over a <DW18>. When she was up, we were down, and we just caught sight of her royal, no bigger than a gull on the water; jerk went our rudder, and next time she seemed to have vanished out of the glasses altogether, till we walked round to the other side, and made her out again under the awning on the opposite beam. At length she lifted broad to us for a moment or two, showing a long pale sort of hull with a red streak, apparently without ports, and brig-rigged, though the space betwixt her two masts was curious for that kind of craft. "'Wonderful light-sparred for her size that brig, sir,' said the third officer, dropping his glass. 'Ay, so she is, Mr Small,' replied Captain Williamson; 'what would you call her then? You've as good knowledge of craft as any man, Mr Small, I think.' 'Why,' said the old mate, screwing his eye harder for a long look, 'I'd say she's--not a cruiser, Captain Williamson--no, nor a Greenock Indyman--nor a----' 'Oh!' said Finch, 'some African timberer or other, I daresay, Small.' 'Well, Mr Finch,' said the third mate, handing him the glass, 'mayhap you'll just say yourself, sir.' 'No, no, Mr Small,' said the captain; 'I'd trust to you as soon as any man, sir, in a matter of the kind.' 'Why, the hull of her's wonderful Yankee-like, sir,' said Small again; 'I'm thinking they've been and _squared_ her out of a schooner--and made a bad job of it too, sir! Bless us! what a lean-headed pair o' taups'ls--as high as our fore one, sir.' Suddenly the old mate gave his thigh a slap, and laid down his glass on the capstan; 'Lor', sir!' said he, 'that's the thing; she's nothing more nor less but a John Crapeau, Captain Williamson!' "'I daresay you're right, Mr Small,' said the skipper, taking the glass; 'just so--ay, ay--I thought it myself!' 'Pity Old Nap's boxed up yonder nowadays, then, sir,' said the first officer, rubbing his hands and pointing to eastward, where he thought St Helena was; 'why, sir, we should have the peppering of the Frenchman; I don't suppose we'd need to care though she were twice the size--and what's more, we want fresh water before seeing the Cape, sir!' 'Well,' said the old skipper, laughing, 'that is the worst of it, Finch! As for spirit, you've as much as any man, Mr Finch, and I _do_ think we'd know how to take the weather-hand of him--eh?' 'I'll be bound we should!' said Finch, laughing too. As for the Frenchman, both Westwood and I had made him out by his rig at once, thanks to man-o'-war practice; but we smiled to each other at the notion of making a prize of Monsieur, under Finch's management, with not a gun that could have been used for half a day, and everything else at sixes and sevens. "In a little while it was proposed amongst the cadets, hot as the calm was, to make a party to go and see the French vessel. Ford of course was at the head of it. Winterton thought they would no doubt have plenty of champagne on board, and some others, who could row, wanted to try their hands. Accordingly the captain's gig was got ready, a sort of awning rigged over it, and two or three of them got in; when one, who was Miss Fortescue's cousin, persuaded her to join, if Mr Rollock would come. Then the brigadier, being rather a good-humoured man, said he should like to face the French once more, and Daniel Snout shoved himself eagerly in without asking, by your leave. One of the men was sent to take charge; and as there was room still, I was just going to jump in too, for the amusement of it, when Mrs Brady hurried to the taffrail with her parasol up, and said, if the brigadier went she should go as well--in fact, the old woman's jealousy of her rib was always laughably plain. 'Hang it! then,' thought I, 'catch me putting myself in the same boat with _her_! the same ship is enough in all conscience!' So away they were lowered off the davits, and began pulling in tolerable style for the brig, a couple of hours' good work for such hands at midday, smooth water as it was. "'Now, gentlemen,' said the first officer briskly, as we looked after them dipping over the long bright blue heave--'now, gentlemen, and ladies also, if you please, we'll have another party as soon as the men get their dinner--give these gentlemen a full hour's law, we'll overhaul them. See the larboard quarter-boat clear, Jacobs.' It was just the least possible hazy again behind the brig in the distance, and as the judge stood talking to his daughter on the poop, I heard her say, 'Is the other vessel not coming nearer already, papa? See how much more distinct its sails are this moment--there!--one almost observes the white canvas!' 'Pooh, Lota, child!' answered Sir Charles, 'that cannot be--'tis perfectly calm, don't you know?' In fact, however, Lota showed a sailor's eye for air, and I was noticing it myself; but it was _only_ the air made it look so. 'Ah! now,' exclaimed she again, ''tis as distant as ever! That must have been the light'; besides, the brig had been lifting on a wide swell. "'I beg pardon, Sir Charles,' said the mate, coming up and taking off his cap, 'but might I use the freedom--perhaps yourself and Miss Hyde would like to visit the French brig?' The judge looked at his daughter as much as to ask if she would like it. 'Oh yes! so much!' exclaimed she, her bright eyes sparkling, 'shall we?' 'No! Not _I_!' said Sir Charles. 'I shall take my siesta. Quite safe, sir--eh?' 'Oh, quite safe, Sir Charles!' said Finch, 'a dead calm, sir--I'll take the utmost care you may be sure, Sir Charles--as safe as the deck, sir!' 'Oh, very well,' replied the judge, and he walked down to see after his tiffin. The young lady was going down the quarter-gallery stair, when I caught my opportunity to say--'I hope you'll excuse it, Miss Hyde, ma'am--but I _do_ trust you'll not risk going in the boat so far, just now!' Half a minute after I spoke, she turned round, and looked at me with a curious sort of expression in her charming face, which I couldn't make out--whether it was mischievous, whether it was pettish, or whether 'twas inquisitive. 'Dear me!' said she, 'why--do you----' 'The weather might change,' I said, looking round about, 'and I shouldn't wonder if it did--or a swell might get up--or----' 'I must say, Mr--Mr Collins,' said she, laughing slightly, 'you are very gloomy in your anticipations--almost timorous, I declare! I wonder how you came to be so weather-wise! But why did you not advise poor Mrs Brady, now?' I couldn't see her face as she spoke, but the tone of the last words made me feel I'd have given worlds to look round and see what it was like at the moment. 'Perhaps, ma'am,' said I, 'you may remember the _rain_?' 'Well, we shall see, sir!' replied she, glancing up with a bright sparkle in her eye for an instant, but only toward the end of the spanker-boom, as it were; and then tripping down the stair. "I kept watching the gig pull slowly toward the brig in the distance, and the cutter making ready on our quarter till the men were in, with Jacobs amongst them; where they sat waiting in no small glee for the mate and his party, who came up a few minutes after; and I was just beginning to hope that Violet Hyde had taken my advice, when she and another young lady came out of the round-house, dressed for the trip, and the captain gallantly handed them in. 'My compliments to the French skipper, Mr Finch,' said the captain, laughing, 'and if he ain't better engaged, happy to see him to dinner at--two bells[18] in the dog-watch, we'll make it!' 'Ay, ay, sir,' said Finch. 'Now then!--all ready?' 'Smythe's coming yet.' said a 'writer.' 'We can't wait any longer for him,' replied the mate; 'ease away the falls, handsomely, on deck!' 'Stop,' said I, 'I'll go then!' 'Too late, young gentleman,' answered the mate, sharply, 'you'll cant us gunnel up, sir!--lower away, there!' However, I caught hold of a rope and let myself down the side, time enough to jump lightly into her stern-sheets the moment they touched the water. The officer stared at me as he took the yoke-lines to steer, but he said nothing, and the boat shoved off; while Miss Hyde's blue eyes only opened out, as it were, for an instant, at seeing me drop in so unceremoniously; and her companion laughed. [18] Five o'clock P.M. "'I shouldn't have supposed you so nimble, Mr Collins!' said the writer, looking at me through his eyeglass. 'Oh,' said I, 'Ford and I have practised climbing a good deal lately.' 'Ha! ha!' said the civilian, 'shouldn't be surprised, now, if your friend were to take the navigation out of Mr Finch's hands, some day!' 'Bless me, yes, sir!' said Finch, with a guffaw, as he sat handling the lines carelessly, and smiling to the ladies, with his smart cap over one ear; 'to be sure--ha! ha! ha!--it's certain, Mr Beveridge! Wouldn't you take the helm here, sir?' to me. 'Oh, thank you, no, sir!' replied I, modestly, 'I'm not quite so far _yet_--but we've got a loan of Hamilton Moore and Falconer's Dictionary from the midshipmen, and mean to----' 'No doubt you'll teach us a trick or two yet!' said Finch, with a sneer. 'Now, for instance,' said I, coolly, 'aloft yonder, you've got the _throat halliards_ jammed in the block with a gasket, and the mizzen-topsail cluelines rove wrong side of it, which Hamilton Moore distinctly----' "'Hang the lubber that did it, so they are!' exclaimed the mate, looking through the spy-glass we had with us. 'Now you've your _jibs_ hauled down, sir,' continued I, 'and if a squall came on abeam, no doubt they'd wish to shorten sail from _aft_, and keep her away--however, she would broach-to at once, as Hamilton Moore shows must----' 'You and Hamilton Moore may----Well, no fear of a squall just now, at any rate, ladies,' said he. 'Stretch out, men--let's head upon Mr Ford and his gig, yet!' "Terribly hot it was, close to the water, and so stifling that you scarce could breathe, while the long glassy swell was far higher than one thought it from the ship's deck; however, we had an awning hoisted, and it refreshed one a little both to hear the water and feel it below again, as the cutter went sliding and rippling over it to long slow strokes of the oars; her crew being all men-o'-war's-men, that knew how to pull together and take it easy. The young ladies kept gazing rather anxiously at the big old _Seringapatam_, as she rose and dropped heavily on the calm, amused though they were at first by a sight of their late home turning 'gable' on to us, with her three masts in one, and a white straw hat or two watching us from her taffrail; whereas, ahead, they only now and then caught a glimpse of the brig's upper canvas, over a hot, hazy, sullen-looking sweep of water as deep-blue as indigo--with six hairy brown breasts bending before them to the oars, and as many pair of queer, rollicking, fishy sort of eyes, fixed steadily on the bonnets aft, in a shame-faced, down-hill kind of way, like fellows that couldn't help it. In fact, I noticed a curious grin now and then on every one of the men's faces, and a look to each other when they caught sight of myself sitting behind the mate, as he paid out his high-flying speeches; Jacobs, again, regarding me all the while out of the whites of his eyes, as it were, in a wooden, unknowing fashion fit to have made a cat laugh--seeing he never missed his mark for one moment, and drew back his head at every pull with the air of a drunken man keeping sight of his own waistcoat buttons. "By the time we were halfway, the swell began to get considerable, and the mate stepped up abaft to look for the gig. 'Can't see the boat yet,' said he; 'give way there, my lads--stretch out and bend your backs! there's the brig!' 'Hallo!' exclaimed he again, 'she's clued up royals and to'gallants'ls! By heavens! there go her tops'ls down too! Going to bend new sails, though, I daresay, for it looks clear enough there.' 'The ship's run up a flag, aft sir,' said Jacobs. 'The----so she has,' said Finch, turning round; 'recall signal! What's wrong? Sorry _we_ can't dine aboard the French vessel this time, ladies!' said he, 'extremely _so_--and the griffins there after all, too. I hope _you_ won't be disappointed in any great measure, Miss Hyde; but if you wished it now, miss, I'd even _keep_ on, and----' "The young lady a little at this, and turned to her companion just as I remembered her doing from the dragoon in the ball-room. 'Do you not think, Miss Wyndham,' said she, '_we_ ought not to wish any officer of the ship should get reproved, perhaps, on _our_ account?' 'Oh dear, no,' said Miss Wyndham: 'indeed, Mr Finch, you had better go back, if the captain orders you.' "'Hold on there with your larboard oars, you lubbers!' sang out Finch, biting his lip, and round we went, pulling for the Indiaman again; but by this time the swell was becoming so heavy as to make it hard work, and it was soon rarely we could see her at all; for nothing gets up so fast as a swell, sometimes, near the Line; neither one way nor the other, but right up and down, without a breath of wind, in huge smooth hills of water darker than lead, not a speck of foam, and the sky hot and clear. 'Twas almost as if a weight had been lifted from off the long heaving calm, and the whole round of it were going up dark into the sky, in one weltering jumble, the more strange that it was quiet; sweep up it took the boat, and the bright wet oar-blades spread feathering out for another stroke to steady her, let alone making way; though that was nothing to the look of the Indiaman when we got near. She was rolling her big black hull round in it as helpless as a cask; now one side, then the other, dipping gunwale to in the round swell that came heaping up level with her very rail, and went sheeting out bright through the bulwarks again; the masts jumping, clamps and boom-irons creaking on the yards, and every sail on her shaking, as her lower yard-arms took it by turns to aim at the water--you heard all the noise of it, the plunge of her flat broadside, the plash from her scuppers, the jolts of her rudder, and voices on board; and wet you may be sure she _was_ from stem to stern. "'Comfortable,' thought I; 'we've come home too soon of a washing-day, and may wait at the door, I fear!' 'Oh dear,' exclaimed the three griffins, 'how are we to get in!' and the young ladies looked pale at the sight. The mate steered for her larboard quarter without saying a word, but I saw he lost coolness and got nervous--not at all the man for a hard pinch: seemingly, he meant to make a dash alongside and hook on. 'If you do, sir,' said I, 'you'll be smashed to staves'; and all at once the ship appeared almost over our heads, while the boat took a send in. I looked to Jacobs and the men, and they gave one long stroke off, that seemed next heave to put a quarter of a mile between us. 'Close shave that,' said the bowman. 'Begs pardon, sir,' said Jacobs, touching his hat, with his eyes still fixed past the mate, upon me; 'hasn't we better keep steadying off, sir, till such time as a sulk in the swell----' 'Hold your jaw, sirrah,' growled Finch, as he looked ahead still more flurried; 'there's a _squall_ coming yonder, gentlemen, and if we don't get quick aboard, we may lose the ship in it! Pull round, d' ye hear there!' Sure enough, when we lifted, there was the French brig clear out against a sulky patch of dark-grey sky, growing in, as it were, far off behind the uneven swell, till _it_ began to look pale; the Indiaman's topsails gave a loud flap out, too, one after the other, and fell to the mast again. "Suddenly I caught the glance of Violet Hyde's eyes watching me seriously, as I sat overhauling the Indiaman for a notion of what to do, and I fancied the charming girl had somehow got nearer to me during the last minute or two, whether she knew it or not; at any rate, the thought of having such a creature to protect made all my blood tingle. 'Never fear, ma'am,' said I, in a half whisper; when Finch's eye met mine, and he threw me a malicious look, sufficient to show what a devil the fellow would be if ever he had occasion; however, he gave the sign for the men to stretch out again, and high time it was, as the Indiaman's main-topsail made another loud clap like a musket-shot. Still he was holding right for her _quarter_--the roll the ship had on her was fearful, and it was perfect madness to try it; but few merchant mates have chanced to be boating in a Line swell, I daresay; when just as we came head on for her starboard counter, I took the boat's tiller a sudden shove with my foot, as if by accident, that sent us sheering in close under her _stern_. The bowman prized his boat-hook into the rudder-chains, where the big hull swung round us on both sides like an immense wheel round its barrel, every stern window with a face watching us--though one stroke of the loose rudder would have stove us to bits, and the swell was each moment like to make the men let go, as it hove us up almost near enough to have caught a hand from the lower-deck. "'For God's sake steady your wheel,' said I; 'hard a port!' while the mate was singing out for a line. 'Now, up you go,' said I to Jacobs in the hubbub, 'look sharp, and send us down a whip and basket from the boom-end, as we did once in the _Pandora_, you know!' Up the rope went Jacob like a cat, hand over hand; and five minutes after, down came the 'basket' over our heads into the boat, made out of a studding-sail and three capstan-bars, like a big grocer's scale dangling from the spanker-boom. The mate proposed to go up first with Miss Hyde, but she hung back in favour of her companion; so away aloft went Miss Wyndham and he, swinging across the Indiaman's stern as she rolled again, with a gant-line to steady them in--Finch holding on to the whip by one hand, and the other round the young lady, while my blood crept at the thought how it might have been Lota herself! "As soon as it came down again, she looked for a moment from me to Jacobs, when Captain Williamson himself shouted over the taffrail! 'Sharp, sharp, there! the squall's coming down! she'll be up in the wind! let's get the helm free!' and directly after I found myself swinging twenty feet over the water with Violet Hyde, as the ship heeled to a puff that filled the spanker, and rose again on a huge swell, gathering steerage way, while every bolt of canvas in her flapped in again at once like thunder. I felt her shudder and cling to me--there was one half-minute we swung fairly clear of the stern; they stopped hoisting--and I almost thought I'd have wished that same half-minute half-a-day; but a minute after she was in the judge's arms on the poop; the men had contrived to get the cadets on board, too, and the boat was dragging astern, with the line veered out, and her crew still in it baling her out. "I fixed my eyes at once, breathless as we of the boat party were, on the weather-signs and the other vessel, which everybody on the poop was looking at, as soon as we were safe, and our friends in the gig had to be thought of. The short top-swell was beginning to soften in long regular seas, with just air enough aloft to give our light sails a purchase on it, and put an end to the infernal clatter; but the vapour had gathered quicker than you could well fancy behind the brig in the distance, so that she looked already a couple of miles nearer, rising up two or three times on as many huge swells that shone like blue glass, while she steadied herself like a tight-rope dancer on the top of them, by a studding-sail set high from each side. On the far horizon beyond her, you'd have thought there was a deep black ditch sunk along under the thickening blue haze, as it stretched out past her to both hands, till actually the solid breast of it seemed to shove the brig bodily forward over the oily-like water, every spar and rope distinct; then the fog lifted below as if the teeth of a saw came splitting through it, and we saw her bearing down towards us--cloud, water, and all, as it were--with a white heap of foam at her bows. "'Brace up sharp, Mr Finch!' said the old skipper hastily, 'and stand over to meet her. Confound this! we _must_ have these people out of that brig in a trice; we shall soon have a touch of the Horse Latitudes, or my name's not Richard Williamson--ay, and bid good-bye to 'em too, I think!' "For a quarter of an hour or so, accordingly, we kept forging slowly ahead, while the brig continued to near us. No one spoke, almost--you heard the lazy swash of the water round our fore-chains, and the stillness aboard had a gloomy enough effect, as one noticed the top of the haze creep up into round vapoury heads upon the sky, and felt it darkening aloft besides. We were scarce three-quarters of a mile apart, and could see her sharp black bows drip over the bright sheathing, as she rolled easily on the swell; when the Indiaman suddenly lost way again, sheered head round, and slap went all her sails from the royals down, as if she had fired a broadside. Almost the next moment, a long low growl ran muttering and rumbling far away round the horizon, from the clouds and back to them again, as if they had been some huge monster or other on the watch, with its broad green muzzle shooting quietly over us as it lay; the brig dipped her gilt figure-head abeam of us, and then showed her long red streak; the swell sinking fast, and the whole sea far and wide coming out from the sky as dark and round as the mahogany drum-head of the capstan. "'Bless me, Small,' said the captain, 'but I hope they've not knocked a hole in my gig--ay, there _they_ are, I think, looking over the brig's quarter--but don't seem to have a boat to swim! Get the cutter hauled alongside, Mr Stebbing,' continued he to the fourth mate, 'and go aboard for them at once--confounded bothering, this! Mind get my gig safe, sir, if you please--can ye _parley-voo_, though, Mr Stebbing?' 'Not a word, sir,' said the young mate, a gentlemanly, rather soft fellow, whom the other three all used to snub. 'Bless me, can't we muster a bit o' French amongst us?' said the skipper; 'catch a _monshoor_ that knows a word of English like any other man--'specially if they've a chance of keeping my gig!' 'Well, sir,' said I, 'I'll be happy to go with the officer, as I can speak French well enough!' 'Thank ye, young gentleman, thank ye,' said he, 'you'll do it as well as any man, I'm sure--only look sharp, if you please, and bring my gig with you!' So down the side we bundled into the cutter, and pulled straight for the brig, which had just hoisted French colours, not old 'three-patches,' of course, but the new Restoration flag. "I overhauled her well as we got near, and a beautiful long schooner-model she was, with sharp bows, and a fine easy-run hull from stem to stern, but dreadfully dirty and spoilt with top-bulwarks, as if they meant to make her look as clumsy as possible; while the brig-rig of her aloft, with the ropes hanging in bights and hitches, gave her the look of a hedge-parson on a race-horse; at the same time, I counted six closed ports of a side, in her red streak, the exact breadth and colour of itself. Full of men, with a long gun, and schooner-rigged, she could have sailed round the Indiaman in a light breeze, and mauled her to any extent. "They hove us a line out of the gangway at once, the mate got up her side as she rolled gently over, and I followed him: the scene that met our eyes as soon as we reached the deck, however, struck me a good deal on various accounts. We couldn't at first see where Mr Rollock and his party might be, for the shadow of a thick awning after the glare of the water, and the people near the brig's gangway; but I saw two or three dark-faced, very French-like individuals, in broad-brimmed straw hats and white trousers, seemingly passengers; while about twenty Kroomen and <DW64>s, and as many seamen with unshaven chins, earrings, and striped frocks, were in knots before the long-boat, turned keel up amidships, careless enough, to all appearance, about us. One of the passengers leant against the mainmast, with his arms folded over his broad chest, and his legs crossed, looking curiously at us as we came up; his dark eyes half closed, the shadow of his hat down to his black moustache, and his shirt-collar open, showing a scar on his hairy breast; one man, whom I marked for the brig's surgeon, beside him; and another waiting for us near the bulwarks--a leathery-faced little fellow, with twinkling black eyes, and a sort of cocked hat fore-and-aft on his cropped head. '_Moi_, monsieur,' said he, slapping his hand on his breast as the mate looked about him, 'oui, je suis capitaine, monsieur.' "'Good-day, sir,' said Stebbing, 'we've just come aboard for our passengers--and the gig--sir, if you please.' 'Certainement, monsieur,' said the French skipper, bowing and taking a paper from his pocket, which he handed to the mate, 'I comprind, sare--monsieur le capitaine d' la fregate Anglaise, il nous demande nos--vat you call--_peppares_--voila! I have 'ad le honneur, messieurs, to be already sarch by vun off vos _crusoes_--pour des _esclaves_! vous imaginez _cela_, messieurs!' and here the worthy Frenchman cast up his hands and gave a grin which seemed meant for innocent horror. '_Slaifs! chez_ le brigantin _Louis Bourbon_, Capitaine Jean Duprez? _Non!_' said he, talking away like a windmill, 'de Marseilles a l'Isle de France, avec les vins choisis----' 'You mistake, monsieur,' said I, in French; 'the ship is an Indiaman, and we have only come for our _friends_, who are enjoying your wine, I daresay, but we must----' 'Comment?' said he, staring, '_what_, monsieur? have de gotness to----' "Here the moustached passenger suddenly raised himself off the mast, and made one stride between us to the bulwarks, where he looked straight out at the Indiaman, his arms still folded, then from us to the French master. He was a noble-looking man, with an eye I never saw the like of in anyone else, 'twas so clear, bold, and prompt--it actually went _into_ you like a sword, and I couldn't help fancying him in the thick of a battle, with thousands of men and miles of smoke. 'Duprez,' said he, quickly, 'je vous le dis encore--debarquez ces miserables!--nous _combattrons_!' 'Then, mon ami,' said the surgeon, in a low, cool, determined tone, stepping up and laying a hand on his shoulder, 'aussi, _nous couperons les ailes de l'Aigle_, seulement!--Hush, mon ami, restrain this unfortunate madness of yours!--c'est bien mal-a-propos a present!' and he whispered something additional, on which the passenger fell back and leant against the mainmast as before. 'Ah!' said the French master in his own language, shaking his head, and giving his forehead a tap, 'le pauvre homme-la! He has had a coup-de-soleil, messieurs, or rather of the _moon_, you perceive, from sleeping in its rays! _Ma foi!_' exclaimed he, on my explaining the matter, 'c'est pos-_sible_?--we _did_ suppose your boat proposed us the honour to visit, when evidently deterred by the excessive undulation!--My friends, resign yourselves to a misfort----' 'Great heavens! Mr Stebbing,' said I, 'the boat is _lost_!' 'By George! what _will_ the captain say, then!' replied he; however as soon as I told him the sad truth, poor Stebbing, being a good-hearted fellow, actually put his hands to his face and sobbed. "All this time the brig's crew were gabbling and kicking up a confounded noise about something they were at with the spare spars, and in throwing tarpaulins over the hatches; for it was fearfully dark, and going to rain heavy; the slight swell shone and slid up betwixt the two vessels like oil, and the clouds to south-westward had gathered up to a steep black bank, with round coppery heads, like smoke over a town on fire. 'Will you go down, messieurs,' said the Frenchman, politely, 'and taste my _vin de_----' 'No, sir,' said I, 'we must make haste off, or else--besides, by-the-way, we couldn't, for you've got all your hatches battened down!' 'Diable, so they are!' exclaimed he, '_par honneur_, gentlemen, I regret the occasion of--ha!' Just before, a glaring brassy sort of touch had seemed to come across the face of the immense cloud; and though everything, far and wide, was as still as death, save the creaking of the two ships' yards, it made you think of the last trumpet's mouth! But at this moment a dazzling flash leaped zigzag out of it, running along from one cloud to another, while the huge dark mass, as it were, tore right up, changing and turning it inside out like dust--you saw the sea far away under it, heaving from glassy blue into unnatural-like brown--when crash broke the thunder over our very heads, as if something had fallen out of heaven, then a long bounding roar. The mad French passenger stood up, walked to the bulwarks, and looked out with his hand over his eyes for the next; while the young mate and I tumbled down the brig's side without further to-do, and pulled fast for the ship, where we hardly got aboard before there was another wild flash, another tremendous clap, and the rain fell in one clash, more like stone than water, on sea and decks. For half an hour we were rolling and soaking in the midst of it, the lightning hissing through the rain, and showing it glitter; while every five minutes came a burst of thunder and then a rattle fit to split one's ears. At length, just as the rain began to slacken, you could see it lift bodily, the standing sheets of it drove right against our canvas and through the awnings--when we made out the French brig with her jib, topsails, and boom-mainsail full, leaning over as she clove through it before the wind. "The squall burst into our wet topsails as loud as the thunder, with a flash almost like the lightning itself, taking us broad abeam; the ship groaned and shook for a minute ere gathering way and falling off, and when she rose and began to go plunging through the black surges no brig was to be seen: every man on deck let his breath out almost in a cry, scarce feeling as yet but it was equal to losing sight for ever of our late shipmates, or the least hope of them. The passengers, ladies and all, crowded in the companion-hatch in absolute terror, every face aghast, without thinking of the rain and spray; now and then the sulky crest of a bigger wave would be caught sight of beyond the bulwarks, as the sea rose with its green back curling over into white; and you'd have said the shudder ran down into the cabin, at thought of seeing one or other of the lost boat's crew come weltering up from the mist and vanish again. I knew it was of no use, but I held on in the weather mizzen-rigging, and looked out to westward, against a wild break of light which the setting sun made through the troughs of the sea; once and again I could fancy I saw the boat lift keel up, far off betwixt me and the fierce glimmer. "'Oh, do you see them? _do_ you not see it yet?' was passed up to me over and over, from one sharp-pitched voice to another; but all I could answer was to shake my head. At last, one by one, they went below; and after what had happened, I must say I could easily fancy what a chill, dreary-like, awful notion of the sea must have come for the first time on a landsman, not to speak of delicate young girls fresh from home, at sight of the drenched quarter-deck leaning bare down to leeward, the sleet and spray battering bleak against the round-house doors, where I had seen Miss Hyde led sobbing in, with her wet hair about her face; then the ship driving off from where she had lost them, with her three strong lower masts aslant into the gale, ghastly-white and dripping--her soaked sheets of canvas blown grey and stiff into the rigging, and _it_ strained taut as iron; while you saw little of her higher than the tops, as the scud and the dark together closed aloft. Poor Miss Fortescue's mother was in fits below in her berth--the two watches were on the yards aloft, where no eye could see them, struggling hard to furl and reef; so altogether it was a gloomy enough moment. I stayed awhile on deck, wrapped in a pea-coat, keeping my feet and hanging on, and thinking how right down in earnest matters _could_ turn of a sudden. I wasn't remarkably thoughtful in these days, I daresay, but there did I keep, straining my eyes into the mist to see, I couldn't tell what, and repeating over and over again to myself these few words out of the Prayer-book, 'In the midst of life we are in death,' though scarce knowing what I said. CHAPTER X "However, the Indiaman's officers and crew had work enough in managing her at present: after a sunset more like the putting out of him than anything else, with a flaring snuff and a dingy sort of smoke that followed, the wind grew from sou'-west into a regular long gale, that drove the tops of the heavy seas into the dead-lights astern, rising aft out of the dark like so many capes, with the snow drifting off them over the poop. At midnight, it blew great guns, with a witness; the ship, under storm staysails and close-reefed main-topsail, going twelve knots or more, when, as both the captain and mate reckoned, we were near St Helena on our present course, and to haul on a wind was as much as her spars were worth; her helm was put hard down, and we lay-to for morning, the ship drifting off bodily to leeward with the water. The night was quite dark, the rain coming in sudden spits out of the wind; you only heard the wet gale sob and hiss through the bare rigging into her storm canvas, when the look-out men ahead sung out, 'Land--land close to starboard!' 'Bless me, sir,' said the mate to the captain, 'it's the Rock--well that we _did_--' 'Hard up! hard up with the helm!' yelled the men again, 'it's a _ship_!' "I ran to the weather main-chains and saw a broad black mass, as it were, rising high abeam, and seeming to come out from the black of the night, with a gleam or two in it which they had taken for lights ashore in the island. The _Seringapatam's_ wheel was put up already, but she hung in the gale, doubtful whether to fall off or not; and the moment she _did_ sink into the trough, we should have had a sea over her broadside fit to wash away men, boats, and all--let alone the other ship bearing down at twelve knots. 'Show the _head_ of the _fore-topmast-staysail_!' shouted I with all my strength to the forecastle, and up it went slapping its hanks to the blast--the Indiaman sprang round heeling to her ports on the next sea, main-topsail before the wind, and the staysail down again. Next minute a large ship, with the foam washing over her cat-heads, and her martingale gear dripping under the huge white bowsprit, came lifting close past us--as black as shadows aloft, save the glimmer of her main-tack to the lanterns aboard--and knot after knot of dim faces above her bulwarks shot by, till you saw her captain standing high in the mizzen-chains, with a speaking-trumpet. He roared out something or other through it, and the skipper sung out under both his hands, 'Ay, ay, sir,' in answer; but it turned out after that nobody knew what it was, unless it might be, as I thought, '_Where_ are you going?' The minute following, we saw her quarter-lanterns like two will-o'-the-wisps beyond a wave, and she was gone--a big frigate running under half her canvas, strong though the gale blew. "'Why, Mr Finch,' said Captain Williamson, as soon as we had time to draw breath, 'who was _that_ bid show the fo'topmast-stays'l; twan't _you_?' 'No,' said the mate, 'I'd like to know who had the hanged impudence to give orders here without----' 'Well now, Finch,' continued the old skipper, 'I'm not sure but that was our only chance at the moment, sir; and if 'twas one of the men, why I'd pass it over, or even give him an extra glass of grog in a quiet way.' No one could say who it was, however; and, for my part, the sight of the frigate made me still more cautious than before of letting out what Westwood and I were. In fact, I couldn't help feeling rather uneasy, and I was glad to hear the superstitious old sailmaker whispering about how he feared there was no luck to be looked for 'when drowned men and _ghostesses_ began to work the ship!' "The first streak of dawn was hardly seen, when a sail could be made out in it, far on our lee bow, which the officers supposed to be the frigate. Westwood and I, however, were of opinion it was the French brig, although by sunrise we lost sight of her again. Everyone in the cuddy talked of our unfortunate friends and their melancholy fate; even Ford and Winterton were missed, while old Mr Rollock had been the life of the passengers. But there was naturally still more felt for the poor girl Fortescue; it made all of us gloomy for a day or two; though the fresh breeze and the Indiaman's fast motion, after our wearisome spell of a calm, did a great deal to bring things round again. Westwood was greatly taken up with my account of the brig and her people, both of us agreeing there was somewhat suspicious about her, though I thought she was probably neither more nor less than a slaver, and he had a notion she was after something deeper: what that might be, 'twas hard to conceive, as they didn't appear like pirates. One thing, however, we _did_ conclude from the matter, that the brig couldn't have been at all inclined for visitors; and, in fact, there was little doubt but she _would_ actually refuse letting the boat aboard, if they reached her; so in all likelihood our unhappy friends had been swamped on that very account, just as the squall came on. When this idea got about the ship, of course you may suppose neither passengers nor crew to have felt particularly amiable towards the French vessel; and if we had met her again, with any good occasion for it, all hands were much inclined to give her a right-down thrashing, if not to make prize of her as a bad character. "'Well, Tom,' said I to Westwood one day, 'I wish these good folks mayn't be disappointed, but I do suspect this blessed mate of ours will turn out to have run us into some fine mess or other with his navigation! Did you notice how _blue_ the sky looked this morning, over to eastward, compared with what it did just now where the sun _set_?' 'No,' said Westwood, 'not particularly; but what of that?' 'Why, in the _Iris_,' replied I, 'we used always to reckon that a sign, hereabouts, of our being near the _land_! Just you see now, to-morrow morning, if the dawn hasn't a hazy yellow look in it before the breeze fails; in which case 'tis the African coast to a certainty! Pity these "Hyson Mundungo" men, as Jack calls them, shouldn't have their eyes about them as well as on the log-slate. I daresay now,' continued I, laughing, 'you heard the first mate bothering lately about the great variation in the compass here? Well, what do you suppose was the reason of it, but that sly devil of a _kitmagar_ shoving in his block for grinding curry under the feet of the binnacle every time he was done using it! I saw him get a kick one morning from the man at the wheel, who chanced to look down and notice him. Good solid iron it is, though painted and polished like marble, and the circumcised rascal unluckily considered the whole binnacle as a sort of second Mecca for security.' 'Hang the fellow!' said Westwood, 'but I don't see much to laugh at, Ned. Why, if you're right, we shall all be soaked and fried into African fever before reaching the Cape, and we've had misfortunes enough already. Only think of an exquisite creature like Miss----' 'Oh,' interrupted I, fancying Master Tom began lately to show sufficient admiration for her, 'betwixt an old humdrum and a conceited fool like that, what could you expect? All I say is, my dear parson, stand by for a pinch when it comes.' "On going down to tea in the cuddy, we found the party full of spirits, and for the first time there was no mention of their lost fellow-passengers, except amongst a knot of cadets and writers rather elevated by the Madeira after dinner, who were gathered round the Reverend Mr Knowles, pretending to talk regretfully of his Yankee friend Mr Daniel Snout. 'Yes, gentlemen,' said the missionary, who was a worthy, simple-hearted person, 'in spite of some uncouthness, and perhaps limited views, the result of defective education, he was an excellent man, I think.' 'Oh certainly, certainly,' said a writer, looking to his friends, 'and the one thing needful you spoke of just now, sir, I daresay he had it always in his eye, now?' 'Mixed, I fear,' replied the missionary, 'with some element of worldly feeling, for in America they _are_ apt to make even the soul, as well as religious association, matter of commerce; but Mr Snout, I have reason to be assured, had the true welfare of India at heart. We had much interesting conversation on the subject.' 'Ah,' said the sharp civilians, 'he was fond of getting information, was poor Daniel. Was that why he asked you so many questions about the Hindoo gods, Mr Knowles?' 'He already possessed much general knowledge of their strange mythology himself,' answered the missionary, 'and I confess I was surprised at it, especially as he confessed to me that that gorgeous country, with its many boundless capabilities, should have occupied his thoughts more and more from boyhood, amidst the secular activity of modern life--even as it occurred unto myself!' "Here the worthy man took off his large spectacles, gave them a wipe, and put them on again, while he finished his tea. 'Before this deplorable dispensation,' continued he again, 'he was on the point of revealing to me a great scheme at once for the enlightenment, I believe, of that benighted land, and for more lucrative support to those engaged in it. I fear, gentlemen, it was enthusiasm--but I have grounds for thinking that our departed friend has left in this vessel many packages of volumes translated into several dialects of the great Hindoo tongue--not omitting, I am convinced, the best of books.' 'Where?' exclaimed several of the cadets, rather astonished. '_Well!_ poor Snout can't have been such a bad fellow, after all!' 'All hum!' said the writer, doubtfully, 'depend upon it. I should like now to have a peep at Jonathan's bales!' 'I myself have thought also,' said the missionary, 'it would gratify me to look into his apartment--and were it permitted to use one or two of the volumes, I should cheerfully on our arrival in Bom----' 'Come along,' said the cadets--'let's have a look!--shouldn't wonder to see Daniel beside his lion yet, within! or hear "Guess I ain't."' 'My young friends,' said the missionary, as we all went along the lighted passage, 'such levity is unseemly'; and indeed the look of the state-room door, fastened outside, as the steward had left it before the gale came on, made the brisk cadets keep quiet till the lashing on it was unfastened--'twas so like breaking in upon a ghost. However, as it chanced, Mr Snout's goods had got loose during her late roll, and heaped down to leeward against the door--so, whenever they turned the handle, a whole bundle of packages came tumbling out of the dark as it burst open, with a shower of small affairs like so many stones after them. "'What's all this?' exclaimed the cadets, stooping to look at the articles by the lamp-light, strewed as they were over the deck. The reverend gentleman stooped, too, stood straight, wiped his spectacles, and fixed them on his nose, then stooped again; at length one long exclamation of surprise broke out of his mouth. They were nothing but little ugly images done in earthenware, painted and gilt, and all exactly the same: the writer dived into a canvas package, and there was a lot of a different kind, somewhat larger and uglier. Everyone made free with a bale for himself, shouting out his discoveries to the rest. 'I say, Smythe, this is Vishnu, it's marked in the corner!' 'I say, Ramsay, here's Brahma!' 'Ha! ha! ha! if I haven't got Seeva!' 'I say, what's this though?' screamed a young lad, hauling at the biggest bale of all, while the missionary stood stock upright, a perfect picture of bewilderment, '_Lo!_' being all he could say. The lad had lighted on a gross or so of hideous gentlemen and ladies with three heads and five arms, packed nicely through each other in cotton, but inside the state-room. At this last prize, however, the poor missionary could stand it no longer. 'Oh! oh!' groaned he, clapping his hand to his head, and walking slowly off to his berth; while, as the truth gleamed on the cadets and us, we sat down on the deck amidst the spoil, and roared with laughter like to go into fits, at the unfortunate Yankee's scheme for converting India.[19] I had found the American by no means to my fancy as a berth-mate, so, after some dealings with the steward, I not only had secured a pretty comfortable berth for my poor friend Westwood, but one for myself. This had been, in short, soon afterwards managed, with the help of some shifting among the best-natured of the young cadets. [19] It is here due to the credit of our friend the captain, who was not unusually imaginative for a sailor, to state, that this speculation, as a commercial one, is strictly and literally a _fact_, as the Anglo-Indian of Calcutta can probably testify. The bold and all but poetical catholicity of the idea could have been reached, perhaps, by the "progressing" American intellect alone, while Staffordshire, it is certain, furnished its realisation; the investment, it is nevertheless believed, proved eventually unprofitable. "'Well--hang me!' said a writer, as soon as he could speak, 'but this _is_ a stroke beyond the Society for Diffusing Useful Knowledge!' 'Every man his own priest--ha! ha! ha!' shouted another. 'I say, Smythe,' sung out a cadet, 'just fancy--ha! ha! "D. Snout, Esquire, and Co."--ho! ho! ho! you know it's too rich to enjoy by ourselves, "_My_thullogy store," Bombay, near the cathedral!' 'Cheap Brahmas, wholesale and retail--eh? families supplied!' 'By George! he's a genius lost!' said Smythe; 'but the parson needn't have broken with him for that--I shouldn't wonder, now, if they had joined partnership, but Daniel might have thought of mining all their clay heads with gunpowder and percussion locks, so that the missionary could have gone round afterwards and blown up heathenship by a touch!' "The noise of all this soon brought along the rest of the gentlemen, and few could help laughing. When the thing got wind on deck, however, neither the old skipper nor the men seemed to like it much; what with the notion of the ship's being taken, as it were, by a thousand or two of ugly little imps and Pagan idols, besides bringing up a drowned man's concerns, and 'yawhawing,' as they said, into his very door--it was thought the best thing to have them all chucked overboard next morning. "'Twas a beautifully fine night, clear aloft, and the moon rising large on our larboard bow, out of a delicate pale sort of haze, as the ship headed south'ard with the breeze; for I marked the haze particularly, as well as the colour of the sky, that lay high over it, like a deep-blue hollow going away down beyond, and filling up with the light. There was no living below for heat, and the showers of cockroaches that went whirring at the lamps, and marching, with their horrid feelers out, straight up your legs; so, fore and aft, the decks were astir with us all. Talk of moonlight on land! but even in the tropics you have to see it pouring right down, as it was then, the whole sky full of it aloft as the moon drew farther up, till it came raining, as it were, in a single sheet from one bend of the horizon to another, the water scarce rippling to the breeze, only heaving in long low swells that you heard just wash her bends; one track brighter than the rest, shining and glancing like a looking-glass drawn out, for a mile or so across our quarter, and the ship's shadow under her other bow. You saw the men far forward in her head, and clustered in a heap on the bowsprit-heel, enjoying it mightily, and looking out or straight aloft, as if to polish their mahogany faces, and get their bushy whiskers silvered; while the awnings being off the poop, the planks in it came out like so much ivory from the shade of the spanker, which sent down a perfect gush of light on everyone moving past. For the air, again, as all the passengers said, it was balmy, though for my part--perhaps it might be a fancy of mine--but now and then I thought it sniffed a little too much _that_ way to be altogether pleasant in the circumstances. "Of course, no sooner had I caught sight of Sir Charles Hyde than I looked for his daughter, and at last saw someone talking to a young lady seated near the after-gratings, with her head turned round seaward, whom it didn't require much guessing for me to name. Not having seen her at all since the affair of the boats, I strolled aft, when I was rather surprised to find that her companion was Tom Westwood, and they seemed in the thick of an interesting discourse. The instant I got near, however, they broke it off; the young lady turned her head--and never, I'd swear, was woman's face seen fairer than I thought hers at that moment--when the bright moonlight, that had seemed trying to steal round her loose bonnet and peep in, fell straight down at once from her forehead to her chin, appearing, as it were, to dance in under her long eyelashes to meet her eyes: while one fall of her brown hair hung bright in it, glistening against the shadow round her cheek, that drew the charming line of her nose and lip as clear as the horizon on the sky! The very moment, in fact, that a bitter thought flashed into my mind, for to my fancy she looked vexed at seeing me, and a colour seemed mounting up to her cheek, even through the fairy sort of glimmer on it. _Could_ Tom Westwood have been acting no more than the clerical near such a creature? and if a fellow like him took it in his head, what chance had _I_? The next minute, accordingly, she rose off her seat, and gave me a slight bow in answer to mine, and walked direct to the gallery stair, where she disappeared. "'We were talking of that unlucky adventure the other day,' said Westwood, glancing at me, but rather taken aback, as I thought. 'Ay?' said I, carelessly. 'Yes,' continued he; 'Miss Hyde had no idea you and I were particularly acquainted, and seems to think me a respectable clergyman, but I must tell you, Ned, she has rather a suspicious opinion of yourself!' 'Oh, indeed!' said I, suddenly. 'Fact, Ned,' said he; 'she even remembers having seen you before, somewhere or other--I hope, my dear fellow, it wasn't on the stage?' 'Ha! ha! how amusing!' I said, with the best laugh I could get up. 'At any rate, Collins,' he went on, 'she sees through your feigned way of carrying on, and knows you're neither griffin nor land-lubber, but a sailor, for I fancy this is not the first time the young lady has met with the cloth! _What_ do you suppose she asked me now, quite seriously?' 'Oh, I couldn't guess, of course,' replied I, almost with a sneer; 'pray don't----' 'Why, she inquired what could be the design of one concealing his profession so carefully--and actually appearing to be on a secret understanding with some of the sailors! Directly after, she asked whether that brig mightn't really have been a pirate, and taken off the poor general, Miss Fortescue, and the rest?' 'Ah,' said I, coldly, 'and if I might venture to ask, what did you----' 'Oh, of course,' replied Westwood, laughing, 'I could only hide my amusement and profess doubts, you know, Ned!' 'Very good joke, Mr Westwood,' thought I to myself, 'but at least you can't weather on _me_ quite so innocently, my fine fellow! I didn't _think_ it of him, after all! By Heaven, I did _not_!' "'By-the-by, Collins,' exclaimed Westwood in a little, as he kept his eye astern, 'there's something away yonder on our lee quarter that I've been watching for these last ten minutes--what do you think it may be? Look! just in the tail of the moonshine yonder!' What it might be, I cared little enough at the time, but I did give a glance, and saw a little black dot, as it were, rising and falling with the long run of the water, apparently making way before the breeze. 'Only a bit of wood, I daresay,' remarked I; 'but whatever it is, at any rate, the drift will take it far to leeward of us, so you needn't mind.' Here we heard a steward come up and say to the first officer, who was waiting with the rest to take a lunar observation, that Captain Williamson had turned in unwell, but he wanted to hear when they found the longitude; accordingly they got their altitude, and went on making the calculations on deck. 'Well, steward,' said the mate, after a little humming and hawing, 'go down and tell the captain, in the meantime, about _five east_; but I think it's a good deal over the mark--say I'll be down myself directly.' "'A long sight _below_ the mark, rather!' said I, walking aft again, where Westwood kept still looking out for the black dot. 'You'll see it nearer now, Ned,' said he; 'more like a <DW64>'s head, or his hand, than a bit of wood--eh?' 'Curious!' I said; 'it lies well up for our beam still, _'spite_ of the breeze. Must be a shark's back fin, I think, making for convoy.' In ten minutes longer the light swell in the distance gave it a lift up fair into the moonshine; it gleamed for a moment, and then seemed to roll across into the blue glimmer of the sea. 'I say, Collins,' said Westwood, gazing eagerly at it, ''tis more like a bottle, to _my_ sight!' We walked back and forward, looking each time over the taffrail, till at length the affair in question could be seen dipping and creeping ahead in the smooth shining wash of the surface, just like to go bobbing across our bows and be missed to windward. 'Crossing our hause I _do_ declare!--Hanged if _that_ ain't fore-reaching on us, with a witness!' exclaimed the two of us together: 'And a _bottle_ it _is_!' said Westwood. "I slipped down the poop-stair, and along to the forecastle, where I told Jacobs; when two or three of the men went out on the martingale-stays, with the bight of a line and a couple of blocks in it, ready to throw round this said floating oddity, and haul it alongside as it surged past. Shortly after, we had it safe in our hands; a square-built old Dutchman it was, tight corked, with a red rag round the neck, and crusted over with salt--almost like one of Vanderdecken's messages home, coming up as it did from the wide glittering sea, of a tropical moonlight night, seven weeks or so after our leaving land. The men who had got it seemed afraid of their prize, so Westwood and I had no difficulty in smuggling it away below to our berth, where we both sat down on a locker and looked at one another. 'What poor wretch hove this overboard, I wonder, now?' said he; 'I daresay it may have knocked about, God knows how long, since _his_ affair was settled.' 'Why, for that matter, Westwood,' replied I, 'I fancy it's much more important to find there's a strong easterly current hereabouts just now.'[20] [20] Currents are designated from the direction they run _towards_; winds, the quarter they blow _from_. "Here Westwood got a corkscrew, and pulled out the cork with a true parson-like gravity; as we had expected, there was a paper tacked to it, crumpled up, and scrawled over in what we could only suppose was _blood_. "'No. 20,' read he, 'what does that mean?' 'The twentieth bottle launched, perhaps,' said I, and he went on--'For God's sake, if you find this, keep to the south-west--we are going that way, we think--we've fallen amongst regular Thugs, I fear--just from the folly of these three griffins--(they're looking over my shoulder, though)--we are not ill-treated yet, but kept below and watched--yours in haste----' 'What this signature is I can't say for the life of me, Ned; no date either.' 'Did the fellow think he was writing by post, I wonder?' said I, trying to make it out. 'By the powers, Westwood, though,' and I jumped up, 'that bottle _might_ have come from the Pacific, 'tis true--but what if it were old Rollock, after all! _Thugs_, did you say? Why, I shouldn't wonder if the jolly old planter were on the hooks still. _That_ rascally brig!' And accordingly, on trying the scrawl at the end, over and over, we both agreed that it was nothing but 'T. ROLLOCK.'" CHAPTER XI The next evening our friend the captain found his fair audience by the taffrail increased to a round dozen, while several of the gentlemen passengers lounged near, and the chief officer divided his attention between the gay group of ladies below and the "fanning" main-topsail high up, with its corresponding studding-sail hung far out aloft to the breeze; the narrative having by this time contracted a sort of professional interest, even to his matter-of-fact taste, which enabled him to enjoy greatly the occasional glances of sly humour directed to him by his superior, for whom he evidently entertained a kind of admiring respect, that seemed to be enhanced as he listened. As for the commander himself, he related the adventures in question with a spirit and vividness of manner that contributed to them no small charm; amusingly contrasted with the cool, dry, indifferent sort of gravity of countenance amidst which the keen grey seawardly eye, under the peak of the naval cap, kept changing and twinkling as it seemed to run through the experience of youth again--sometimes almost approaching to an undeniable wink. The expression of it at this time, however, was more serious, while it appeared to run along the dotted reef-band of the mizzen-topsail above, as across the entry in a log-book, and as if there were something interesting to come. "_Well_, my dear captain," asked his matronly relative, "what comes next? You and your friend had picked up a--a--what was it _now_!" "Ah! I remember, ma'am," said the naval man, laughing; "the bottle--that was where I was. Well, as you may conceive, this said scrap of penmanship in the bottle _did_ take both of us rather on end; and for two or three minutes Westwood and I sat staring at each other and the uncouth-looking fist, in an inquiring sort of way, like two cocks over a beetle. Westwood, for his part, was doubtful of its being the planter's writing at all; but the whole thing, when I thought of it, made itself as clear to me, so far, as two half-hitches, and so the angrier I was at myself for being _done_--by a frog-eating bloody-politeful set of Frenchmen like these. Could we only have clapped eyes on the villanous thieving craft at the time, by Jove! if I wouldn't have manned a boat from the Indiaman, leave or no leave, and boarded her in another fashion. But where they were now, what they meant, and whether we should ever see them again, Heaven only knew. For all we could say, indeed, something strange might have turned up at home in Europe--a new war, old Boney got loose once more, or what not; and I could scarce fall asleep for guessing and bothering over the matter, as restless as the first night we cruised down the Channel in the old _Pandora_. "Early in the morning-watch a sudden stir of the men on deck woke me, and I bundled up in five minutes' time. But it was only the second mate setting them to wash decks, and out they came from all quarters, yawning, stretching themselves, and tucking up their trousers, as they passed the full buckets lazily along; while a couple of boys could be seen hard at work to keep the head-pump going, up against the grey sky over the bow. However, I was so anxious to have the first look-out ahead, that I made a bold push through the thick of it for the bowsprit, where I went out till I could see nothing astern of me but the Indiaman's big black bows and figure-head, swinging as it were round the spar I sat upon, with the spread of her canvas coming dim after me out of the fog, and a lazy snatch of foam lifting to her cutwater as the breeze died away. "The sun was just beginning to rise; ten minutes before it had been almost quite dark; there was a mist on the water, and the sails were heavy with dew; when a circle began to open round us, where the surface looked as smooth and dirty as in a dock, the haze seeming to shine through, as the sunlight came sifting through it, like silver gauze. You saw the big red top of the sun glare against the water-line, and a wet gleam of crimson came sliding from one smooth blue swell to another; while the back of the haze astern turned from blue to purple, and went lifting away into vapoury streaks and patches. All of a sudden the ship came clear out aloft and on the water, with her white streak as bright as snow, her fore-royal and truck gilded, her broad foresail as red as blood, and every face on deck shining as they looked ahead, where I felt like a fellow held up on a toasting fork, against the fiery wheel the sun made ere clearing the horizon. Two or three strips of cloud melted in it like lumps of sugar in hot wine; and after overhauling the whole seaboard round and round, I kept straining my eyes into the light, with the notion there was something to be seen in that quarter, but to no purpose; there wasn't the slightest sign of the brig or any other blessed thing. What struck me a little, however, was the look of the water just as the fog was clearing away; the swell was sinking down, the wind fallen for the time to a dead calm; and when the smooth face of it caught the light full from aloft, it seemed to come out all over long-winding wrinkles and eddies, running in a broad path, as it were, twisted and woven together, right into the wake of the sunrise. "When I came in-board from the bowsprit, big Harry and another grumpy old salt were standing by the bitts, taking a forecastle observation, and gave me a squint, as much as to ask if I had come out of the east, or had been trying to pocket the flying-jibboom. '_D'you_ notice anything strange about the _water_ at all?' I asked in an offhand sort of way, wishing to see if the men had remarked aught of what I suspected. The old fellow gave me a queer look out of the tail of his eye, and the ugly man seemed to be measuring me from head to foot. 'No, sir,' said the first, carelessly; 'can't say as how I does'; while Harry coolly commenced sharpening his sheath-knife on his shoe. 'Did you ever hear of currents hereabouts?' said I to the other man. 'Hereaway!' said he. 'Why, bless ye, sir, it's unpossible as I _could_ ha' heerd tell on sich a thing, 'cause, ye see, sir, there ain't none so far out at sea, sir--al'ays axin' _your_ parding, ye know, sir!' while he hitched up his trousers and looked aloft, as if there were somewhat wrong about the jib-halliards. "The Indiaman by this time had quite lost steerage-way and came sheering slowly round, broadside to the sun, while the water began to glitter like a single sheet of quicksilver, trembling and swelling to the firm edge of it far off; the pale blue sky filling deep aloft with light, and a long white haze growing out of the horizon to eastward. I kept still looking over from the fore-chains with my arms folded, and an eye to the water on the starboard side, next the sun, where, just a fathom or two from the bright copper of her sheathing along the water-line, you could see into it. Every now and then little bells and bubbles, as I thought, would come up in it, and break short of the surface; and sometimes I fancied the line of a slight ripple, as fine as a rope-yarn, went turning and glistening round one of the ship's quarters, across her shadow. Just then the old sailor behind me shoved his face over the bulwark, too, all warts and wrinkles, like a ripe walnut-shell, with a round knob of a nose in the middle of it, and seemed to be watching to see it below, when he suddenly squirted his tobacco-juice as far out as possible alongside, and gave his mouth a wipe with the back of his tarry yellow hand; catching my eye in a shame-faced sort of way, as I glanced first at him and then at his floating property. "I leant listlessly over the rail, watching the patch of oily yellow froth as it floated quietly on the smooth face of the water; till all at once I started to observe that beyond all question it had crept slowly away past our starboard bow, clear of the ship, and at last melted into the glittering blue brine. The two men noticed my attention, and stared along with me; while the owner of the precious cargo himself kept looking after it wistfully into the wake of the sunlight, as if he were a little hurt; then aloft and round about, in a puzzled sort of way, to see if the ship hadn't perhaps taken a sudden sheer to port. 'Why, my man,' I said, meeting his oyster-like old sea-eye, 'what's the reason of _that_?--perhaps there is some current or other here, after all, eh?' Just as he meant to answer, however, I noticed his watch-mate give him a hard shove in the ribs with his huge elbow, and a quick screw of his weather top-light, while he kept the lee one doggedly fixed on myself. I accordingly walked slowly aft as if to the quarter-deck, and came round the long-boat again, right abreast of them. "Harry was pacing fore and aft with his arms folded, when his companion made some remark on the heat, peering all about him, and then right up into the air aloft. 'Well then, shipmate,' said Harry, dabbing his handkerchief back into his tarpaulin again, 'I've seen worse, myself--ownly, 'twas in the Bight o' Benin, look ye--an' afore the end o' it, d'ye see, we hove o'erboard nine o' a crew, let alone six dozen odds of a cargo!' 'Cargo!' exclaimed his companion, in surprise. 'Ay, black _passingers_ they was, ye know, old ship!' answered the ugly rascal, coolly; 'an' I tell ye what it is, Jack, I never sails yet with passengers aboard, but some'at bad turned up in the end--al'ays one or another on 'em's got a foul turn in his conscience, ye see! I say, mate,' continued he, looking round, 'didn't ye note that 'ere longshore looking customer as walked aft just now, with them soft quest'ns o' his about----' 'Why,' says Jack, 'it's him Jacobs and the larboard watch calls the Green Hand, an' a blessed good joke they has about him, to all appearance, but they keeps it pretty close.' 'Close, do they,' growled Harry, 'I doesn't like the cut of his jib, I tell ye, shipmate! Jist you take my word for it, that 'ere fellow's done some'at bad at home, or he's bent on some'at bad afloat--it's all one! Don't ye mark how he keeps boxhaulin' and skulking fore an' aft, not to say looking out to wind'ard every now an' again, as much as he expected a sail to leave in sight?' 'Well, I'm blowed, but you're right, Harry!' said the other, taking off his hat to scratch his head, thoughtfully. 'Ay, and what's more,' went on Harry, 'it's just comed ath'art me as how I've clapped eyes on the chap somewheres or other afore this--if I don't think it was amongst a gang o' Spanish pirates I saw tried for their lives, and let off, in the Havanney!' "'Thank you, my man,' thought I, as I leant against the booms on the other side. 'Did you?--a wonder it wasn't in the Old Bailey, which would have been more possible, though less romantic--seeing in the Havannah I never was!' The curious thing was that I began to have a faint recollection, myself, of having seen this same cross-grained beauty, or heard his voice, before; though where and how it was I couldn't for the life of me say at the moment. "'Lor' bless us, Harry!' faltered out the old sailor, 'ye don't mean it!--sich a young, soft-looked shaver, too!' 'Them smooth-skinned sort o' coves is kimmonly the worst, mate,' replied Harry; 'for that matter ye may be quite sure he's got his chums aboard--an' how does _we_ know but the ship's _sold_, from stem to starn? There's that 'ere blackavizzed parson, now, and one or two more aft--cuss me if that 'ere feller smells brine for the first time! An' as for this here Bob Jacobs o' yours, blow me if there ain't over many of his kind in the whole larboard watch, Jack! A man-o'-war's-man's al'ays a blackguard out on a man-o'-war, look-ye!' 'Why, bless me, shipmate,' said Jack, lowering his voice, 'by that recknin', a man don't know his friends in this here craft! The sooner we gives the mate a hint the better, to my thinking?' 'No, blow me, no, Jack,' said Harry, 'keep all fast, or ye'll kick up a worse nitty, old boy! Just you hould on till ye see what's to turn up--ownly stand by and look out for squalls, that's all! There's the skipper laid up below in his berth, I hears--and to my notions, that 'ere mate of ours is no more but a blessed soldier, with his navigation an' his head-work, an' be blowed to him: where's he runned the ship, I'd like to know, messmate!' 'Well, strike me lucky if I'm fit to guess!' answered Jack, gloomily. 'No, s'help me Bob, if he knows hisself!' said Harry. 'But here's what _I_ says, anyhow--if so be we heaves in sight of a pirate, or bumps ashore on a ileyand i' the dark, shiver my tawsels if I doesn't have a clip with a handspike at that 'ere soft-sawderin' young blade in the straw hat!' 'Well, my fine fellow,' thought I, 'many thanks to you again, but I certainly shall look out for _you_!' "All this time I couldn't exactly conceive whether the sulky rascal really suspected anything of the kind, or whether he wasn't in fact sounding his companion, and perhaps others of the crew, as to how far they would go in case of an opportunity for mischief; especially when I heard him begin to speculate if 'that 'ere proud ould beggar of a naboob, aft yonder, musn't have a sight o' gould and jowels aboard with him! Why, for the matter o' that, mate,' continued he, 'I doesn't signify the twinklin' of a marling-spike, mind ye, what lubberly trick they sarves this here craft, so be ownly ye can get anyhow ashore, when all's done! It's nouther ship-law nor shore-law, look ye, mate, as houlds good on a lonely dazart!' 'Ay, ay, true enough, bo',' said the other, 'but what o' that? there ain't much signs of a dazart, I reckon, in this here blue water!' 'Ho!' replied Harry, rather scornfully, 'that's 'cause you blue-water, long-v'yage chaps isn't up to them, brother. There's you and that 'ere joker in the striped slops, Jack, chaffing away over the side jist now about a current--confounded sharp he thinks hisself, too--but d'ye think Harry Foster ain't got his weather-eye open? For my part, I thinks more of the streak o' haze yonder-away, right across the starboard bow, nor all the currents in----' 'Ay, ay,' said Jack, stretching out again to look, 'the heat, you means?' 'Heat!' exclaimed the ugly topman, 'heat be blowed! Hark ye, mate, it _may_ be a strip o' cloud, no doubt, or the steam over a sand-bank; but so be the calm lasts so long, and you sees that 'ere streak again by sundown with a touch o' yallow in 't----' "'What--_what_--shipmate?' asked Jack, breathless with anxiety. 'Then it's the black coast iv Africay, and _no_ mistake,' said Harry. 'And what's more,' continued the fellow, coolly, after taking a couple of short turns, 'if there _be's_ a current, why look ye, it'll set dead in to where the land lays--an' I'm blessed if there's one aboard, breeze or no breeze, as is man enough for to take her out o' the suck of a Africane current.' 'The Lord be with us!' exclaimed the other sailor, in alarm, 'what's to be done, Harry, bo'; when do you mean for to let them know aft?' 'Why, maybe I'm wrong, ye know, old ship,' said Harry, 'an' a man mustn't go for to larn his betters, ye know; by this time half o' the watch has a notion on it, at any rate. There's Dick White, Jack Jones, Jim Sidey, an' a few more Wapping men, means to stick together in case o' accidents; so Jack, man, ye needn't be in sich an a taking. What the' (here he came out with a regular string of top-gallant oaths), 'when you finds a good chance shoved into your fist, none o' your doin', ain't a feller to haul in the slack of it 'cause he's got a tarry paw and ships before the mast? I tell ye what it is, old ship, 'tain't the first time you an' me's been cast away, an' I doesn't care the drawin' of a rope-yarn, in them 'ere latitudes, if I'm cast away again. Hark ye, ould boy: grog to the mast-head, a grab at the passengers' wallibles, when they ha'n't no more use for 'em, in course; and the pick of the ladies, jist for the takin' o' them ashore!' "'Lord love ye, Harry, belay there!' said Jack; 'what's the good o' talkin' on what ain't like to be?' 'Less like things turn up,' said Harry. 'More by token, if I hasn't pitched upon my fancy lass a'ready; an' who knows, old ship, but you marries a naboob's darter yet, and gets yourself shoved all square, like a riglar hare, into his heestate, as they calls it? For my part, I've more notion of the _maid_! An' it'll go hard with me if we doesn't manage to haul that 'ere mishynar parson safe ashore on the strength of it.' 'God bless ye, Harry,' answered Jack, somewhat mournfully, 'I'm twice spliced already!' 'Third time's lucky, though,' replied Harry, with a chuckle, as he walked towards the side again and looked over; the rest of the watch being gathered on the other bow, talking and laughing; the passengers beginning to appear on the poop, and the Scotch second mate standing up aft on the taffrail, feeling for a breath of wind. The big topman came slowly back to his companion, and leant himself on the spars again. 'Blowed if I don't think you're right, mate,' said he, 'you and that 'ere lawyer. You'd a'most say there's a ripple round her larboard bow just now, sure enough--like she were broadside on to some drift or another. Hows'ever, that's neither here nor there; for my part, I sets more count by the look o' the sky to east'ard; an' be blowed, shipmate, if that same yonder don't make me think of _woods_.' 'Well,' said Jack, '_I_ goes by sunrise, messmate, an' I didn't like it overmuch myself, d' ye see! That 'ere talk o' yours, Harry, consarnin' dazarts and what not--why, bless me, it's all my eye--this bout, at any rate--seein' as how, if we doesn't have a stiff snuffler out o' that very quarter afore twenty-four hours is over, you call me lubber!' "'Ho, ho! old salt,' chuckled Harry, 'none o' them saws holds good hereaway; if it's the coast of Africay, mate, _two_ watches 'll settle our hash in them longitudes, without going the length o' _six_! Ha'n't I knocked about the bloody coast of it six weeks at a time, myself, let alone livin' as many months in the woods?--so I knows the breedin' of a turn_a_dy a cussed sight too well, not to speak on the way the landblink looms afore you sights it!' "'_Lived_ in them there woods, did ye?' inquired Jack. 'Ay, bo', an' a rum rig it was too, sure enough,' said Harry; 'the very same time I told you on, i' the Bight o' Benin.' 'My eye,' exclaimed the other, 'a man never knows what he may come to. Let's into the rights of it, Harry, can't ye, afore eight bells strikes?' "'Woods!' said Harry, 'I b'lieve ye, ould ship. I see'd enough o' woods, that time, arter all--and 'twan't that long agone, either--I'll not say _how_ long, but it wa'n't _last_ v'yage. A sharp, clinker-built craft of a schooner she wor; I'm not goin' to give ye her right name, but they called her the _Lubberhater_[21]--an' if there wa'n't all sorts on us aboard, it's blaming ye--an' a big double-jinted man-eatin' chap of a Yankee was our skipper, as sly as slush--more by token, he had a wart alongside o' one eye as made him look two ways at ye--Job Price by name--an' arter he'd made his fortin, I heard he's took up a teetotal chapel afloat on the Missishippey. She'd got a strapping long nose, that 'ere schooner, so, my boy, we leaves everything astarn, chase or race, I promise ye; an' as for a blessed ould ten-gun brig what kept a-cruising thereaway, why, we jest got used to her, like, and al'ays lowers our mainsail afore takin' the wind of her, by way o' good-bye, quite perlite. Blowed if it warn't rum, though, for to see the brig's white figger'ed over the swell, rollin' under a cloud o' canvas, stens'ls crowded out alow an' aloft, as she jogged arter us. Then she'd haul her wind an' fire a gun, an' go beating away up in chase of some other craft, as caught the chance for runnin' out whenever they sees the _Lubberhater_ well to sea--why, s' help me Bob, if the traders on the coast didn't pay Job Price half-a-dozen blacks apiece every trip, jist for to play that 'ere dodge. At last, one time, not long after I joined the craft, what does he do but nigh-hand loses her an' her cargo, all owin' to reckonin' over much on this here traverse. Out we comes one night in the tail of a squall, an' as soon as it clears, there sure enough we made out the brig, hard after us, as we thinks--so never a rag more Job claps on, 'cause two of his friends, ye see, was jist outside the bar in the Noon river. Well, very soon the cruiser begins to overhaul us, as one gaff-taups'l wouldn't do, nor yet another, till the flying-jib and bonnets made her walk away from them in right 'arnest--when slap comes a long-shot that that took the fore-topmast out of us in a twinkling. So when the moonlight comed out, lo an' behold, instead o' the brig's two masts stiff and straight against the haze, there was _three_ spanking sticks all ataunto, my boy, in a fine new sloop-o'-war as had fresh come on the station--the _Iris_, they called her--and a fast ship she wor. But all said and done, the schooner had the heels of her in aught short of a reef-taups'l breeze--though, as for the other two, the sloop-o'-war picked off both on 'em in the end.' [21] Query--Liberator? "At this point of the fellow's account, I, Ned Collins, began to prick up my ears, pretty sure it was the dear old _Iris_ he was talking of; and, thought I, 'Oho, my mate, we shall have you directly--listening's all fair with a chap of this breed.' "'Well,' said he, ''twas the next trip after that, we finds the coast clear, as commonly was--for, d' ye see, they couldn't touch us if so be we hadn't a slave aboard--in fact, we heerd as how the cruiser was up by Serry Lony, and left some young leftenant or other on the watch with a sort o' lateen-rigged tender. A precious raw chap he was, by all accounts--and, sure enough, there he kept plying off and on, in-shore, 'stead of out of sight to seaward till the craft would make a bolt; an' as soon as ye dropped an anchor, he'd send a boat aboard with a reefer, to ax if ye'd got slaves in the hold. In course, ye know, Job Price sends back a message, "palm-ile an' iv'ry, an' gould if we can"--h'ists the Portingee colours, brings up his Portingee papers, and makes the Portingee stoo'rd skipper for the spell--but anyhow, bein' no less nor three slavers in the mouth of the Bonny river at the time, why, he meant to show fight if need be, and jest man-handle the young navy sprig to his heart's content. Hows'ever, the second or third night, all on a suddent we found he'd sheered off for a decency's sake, as it might be, an hour or two afore we'd began to raft off the <DW65>s. Well, mate, right in the midst of it there comes sich a fury of a turnady off the land, as we'd to slip cable and run fair out to sea after the other craft what had got sooner full--one on 'em went ashore in sight, an' we not ninety blacks aboard yet, with barely a day's water stowed in. "'The next morning, out o' sight of land, we got the sea-breeze, and stood in again under everything, till we made Fernandy Po ileyand, three leagues off, or thereby, an' the two ebony-brigs beating out in company, so the skipper stands over across their course for to give them a hail, heaves to and pulls aboard the nearest, where he stays a good long spell and drinks a stiff glass, as ye may fancy, afore partin'. Back comes Job Price in high glee, and tould the mate as how that mornin' the brigs had fell foul o' the man-o'-war tender, bottom up, an' a big Newfoundling dog a-howlin' on the keel--no doubt she'd turned the turtle in that 'ere squall--more by token, he brought the dog alongst with him in a present. So away we filled again to go in for the Bonny river, when the breeze fell, and shortly arter there we was all three dead becalmed, a couple o' miles betwixt us, sticking on the water like flies on glass, an' as hot, ye know, as blazes--the very moral o' this here. By sundown we hadn't a drop of water, so the skipper sent to the nearest brig for some; but strike me lucky if they'd part with a bucketful for love, bein' out'ard bound. As the Spanish skipper said, 'twas either hard dollars or a stout <DW65>, and t' other brig said the same. A slight puff o' land-wind we had in the night, though next day 'twas as calm as ever, and the brigs farther off--so by noon, my boy, for two blessed casks, if Job Price hadn't to send six blacks in the boat. Shorter yarn, Jack, but the calm held that night too, and blowed if the brigs would sell another breaker--what we had we couldn't spare to the poor devils under hatches, and the next day, why they died off like rotten sheep, till we hove the last on 'em o'board; and frighterful enough it was, mind ye, for to see about fifty sharks at work all round the schooner at once, as long as it lasted. "'Well, in the arternoon we'd just commenced squabbling aboard amongst ourselves, round the dreg water, or whether to board one o' the brigs and have a fair fight, when off come a bit of a breeze, betwixt the two high peaks on Fernandy Po, both the brigs set stensails, and begins slipping quietly off--our skipper gived orders to brace after them, and clear away the long gun amidships; but all on a suddent we made out a lump of a brig dropping down before it round the ileyand, which we knowed her well enough for a Bristol craft as had lost half her hands up the Callebar, in the gould an' iv'ry trade. Down she comed, wonderful fast for the light breeze, if there hadn't been one o' yer currents besides off the ileyand, till about half-a-mile away she braces up, seemingly to sheer across it and steer clear of us. Out went our boat, an' the skipper bids every man of her crew to shove a short cutlash inside his trousers. Says he, "I guess we'll first speak 'em fair, but if we don't ha' water enough, it'll be 'tarnall queer, that's all," says he--an' Job was a man never swore, but he _looked_ mighty _bad_ that time, I must say; so we outs oars and pulls right aboard the trader, without answerin' ever a hail, when up the side we bundled on deck, one arter the other, mad for a drink, and sees the master with five or six of a crew, all as white as ghostesses, and two or three Kroomen, besides a long-legged young feller a-sittin' and kicking his feet over the kimpanion hatch, with a tumblerful o' grog in his fist, as fresh to all seemin' as a fish, like a supper-cargo or some'at o' the sort, as them craft commonly has. "'"What schooner's that?" axes the master, all abroad like; an' says Job--says he, out o' breath, "Never you mind; I guess you'll let 's have some water, for we wants it mighty keen!" "Well," says the other, shaking his head, "I'm afeared we're short ourselves--anyhow," says he, "we'll give ye a dipper the piece"--and accordingly they fists us along a dozen gulps, hand over hand. "'Twon't do, I guess, mister," says our skipper; "we wants a cask!" Here the master o' the brig shakes his head again, and guv a look to the young long-shore-like chap aft, which sings out as we couldn't have no more for love nor money--an' I see Captin Price commence for to look savitch again, and feel for the handle on his cutlash. "Rather you'd ax iv'ry or gould-dust!" sings out the supper-cargo; "hows'ever," says he, "as ye've tooken sich a fancy to it, short o' water as we is, why a fair exchange ain't no robbery," says he: "you wants water, an' we wants hands; haven't ye a couple o' <DW65>s for to spare us, sir, by way of a barter now?" he says. "Well, mate, I'll be blowed if I ever see a man turn so wicked fur'ous as Job Price turns at this here, an says he, through his teeth, "If ye'd said a <DW65>'s nail-parin', I couldn't done it, so it's no use talkin'." "Oh come, captin," says the young fellow, wonderful angshis-like, "say _one_, jist--it's all on the quiet, ye know. Bless me, captin," says he, "I'd do a deal for a man in a strait, 'tickerly for yerself--an' I think we'd manage with a single hand more. I'll give ye two casks and a bag o' gould dust for _one_ black, and we'll send aboard for him just now, ourselves!" "No!" roars Job Price, walkin' close up to him; "ye've riz me, ye cussed Britisher ye, an' I tell ye we'll _take_ what we wants!" "No jokes though, captin!" says the feller; "what's _one_ to a whole raftful I heerd of ye shipping?" "Go an' ax the sharks, ye beggar!" says the skipper; "here, my lads!" says he, an' makes a grab at the other's throat, when slap comes a jug o' rum in his eye-lights, and the young chap ups fist in quick-sticks, and drops him like a cock, big as he was. By that time, though, in a twinklin' the master was flat on deck, and the brig's crew showed no fight--when, lo an' behold, my boy, up bundles a score o' strapping man-o'-war's-men out of the cabing. One or two on us got a cut about the head, an' my gentleman supper-cargo claps a pistol to my ear from aft, so we knocked under without more to-do. In five minutes' time every man jack of us had a seizing about his wrists and lower pins; and says Job Price, in a giving-up sort o' v'ice, "You're too cust spry for playin' jokes on, I calc'late, squire," he says. "Jokes!" says the young feller, "why, it's no joke--in course you knows me?" "Niver see'd ye atween the eyes afore," says Job, "but don't bear no malice, mister, now." "That's it," says the t'other, lookin' at the schooner again, "no more I does, so jist think a bit; ha'n't you really a <DW65> or so aboard o' ye--if it was jist one?" "Squash the one!" says Job, shakin' his head nellicholly like--an' "Sorry for it," says the chap, "'cause ye see I'm the leftenant belongin' to the _Irish_, an' I carn't titch yer schooner if so be ye ha'n't a slave aboard." "Lawk a'mighty!--no!" sings out Job Price, 'cause, bein' half-blinded he couldn't ha' noted the lot o' man-o'-war's-men sooner. "But I _can_," says the other, "for piratecy, ye see; an' what's more," he says, "there's no help for it now, I'm afeard, mister what-they-call-ye." "'Well, mate, after that ye may fancy our skipper turns terrible down in the mouth; so without a word more they parbuckles us all down below into the cabin--an' what does this here leftenant do but he strips the whole lot, rigs out as many of his men in our duds, hoists out a big cask o' water on the brig's far side, and pulls round for the schooner--hisself togged out like the skipper, and his odd hands laid down in the boat's bottom.' You won't wonder at my being highly amused with the fellow's yarn, since the fact was that it happened to be one of my own adventures in the days of the _Iris_, two or three years before, when we saw a good many scenes together, far more wild and stirring, of course, in the thick of the slave trade; but really the ugly rascal described it wonderfully well. "'Well,' said Harry, 'I gets my chin shoved up in the starn-windy, where I seed the whole thing, and tould the skipper accordently. The schooner's crew looked out for the water like so many oysters in a tub; the leftenant jumps up the side with his men after him, an' not so much as the cross of two cutlashes did we hear afore the onion-jack flew out a-peak over her mains'l. In five minutes more, the schooner fills away before the breeze, and begins to slide off in fine style after the pair o' brigs, as was nigh half-hull down to seaward by this time. There we was, left neck and heel below in the trader, and he hauled up seemin'ly for the land; an' arter a bit, says the skipper to me, "Foster, my lad, I despise this way o' things," says he; "ain't there no way on gettin' clear?" "Never say die, captin!" I says; an' says he, "I calc'late they left considerable few hands aboard?" "None but them sleepy-like scum o' iv'ry men," I says, but be blowed if I see'd what better we was, till down comes a little <DW65> cabin-boy for some'at or other, with a knife in his hand. Job fixes his eye on him--I've heerd he'd a way in his eye with <DW65>s as they couldn't stand--an' says he, soft-sawderin' like, "Come here, will ye, my lad, an' give us a drink," so the black come for'ard with a pannikin, one foot at a time, an' he houlds it out to the skipper's lips--for, d'ye see, all on us had our flippers lashed behind our backs. "Now," says he, "thankee, boy--look in atwixt my legs, and ye'll find a dollar." With that, jest as the boy stoops, Job Price ketches his neck fast betwixt his two knees, an' blowed if he didn't jam them harder, grinning all the time, till down drops the little black throttled on the deck. "That's for thankin' a <DW65>!" says he, lookin' as savitch as a fiend, and got the knife in his teeth, when he turned to and sawed through the seizing round my wrists--an' in course I sets every man clear in quick-sticks. "_Now!_" says Job, looking round, "the quicker the better--that cussed lubber-ratin' hound's got my schooner, but maybe, my lads, this here iv'ry man'll pay expenses: if I'm made out a pirate, I'll arn the name!" "'Well, we squints up the hatchway, and see'd a young midshipman a-standing with his back to us, watching the brig's crew at the braces, an' a pistol in one hand--when all at once our skipper slips off his shoes, runs up the stair as quiet as a cat, an' caught the end of a capstan-bar as lay on the scuttle. With that down he comes crash on the poor fellow's scull from aft, and brained him in a moment. Every man of us got bloody-minded with the sight, so we scarce knowed what we did, ye know, mate, afore all hands o' them was gone--how, I ain't goin' for to say, nor the share as one had in it more nor another. The long an' the short on it was, we run the brig by sundown in amongst the creeks up the Camaroons river, thinkin' to lie stowed away close thereabouts till all wor cold. Hows'ever, they kicked up the devil's delight about a piratecy, and the sloop-o'-war comes back shortly, when night an' day there was that young shark of a leftenant huntin' arter us, as sharp as a marling-spike--we dursn't come down the river nohow, till what with a bad conscience, fogs, and sleepin' every night within stink o' them blasted muddy mangroves an' bulrushes together, why, mate, the whole ten hands died off one arter the other in the fever--leaving ownly me an' the skipper. Job Price was like a madman over the cargo, worth good knows how many thousand dollars, as he couldn't take out; but for my part, I gets the brig's punt one night and sculls myself ashore, and off like a hare into the bush by moonlight. No use, ye know, for to say what rum chances I meets with in the woods, livin' up trees and the like for fear o' illiphants, sarpents, an' high-annies; but, blow me, if I didn't think the farther ye went aloft, the more monkeys an' parrykeets you roused out, jabberin' all night so as a feller couldn't close an eye--an' as for the sky, be blowed if I ever once sighted it. So, d' ye see, it puts all notions o' fruits an' flowers out o' my head, an' all them jimmy-jessamy sort o' happy-go-lucky yarns about barbers' ileyands and shipherdresses what they used for to spell out o' dicshinars at school--all gammon, mate!' "'Lor' love ye, no, surely,' said Jack; 'it's in the Bible!' "'Ay, ay,' said Harry, 'that's arter ye've gone to Davy Jones, no doubt; but I've been in the Southsy ileyands since, myself, an' be blowed if it's much better there! Hows'ever, still anon, I took a new fancy, an' away I makes for the river, in sarch of a <DW65> villache, as they calls 'em; and sure enough it warn't long ere right I plumps in the midst on a lot o' cane huts amongst trees. But sich a shine and a nitty as I kicks up, ye see, bein' half-naked, for all the world like a wild man o' the woods, an' for a full hour I has the town to myself, so I hoists my shirt on a stick over the hut I took, by way of a flag o' truce, an' at last they all begins for to swarm in again. Well, ye see, I knowed the ways o' the natifs thereabouts pretty well, an' what does I do but I'd laid myself flat afore an ugly divvle of a wooden himmache, as stood on the flour, an' I wriggles and twists myself, and groans like a chap in a fit--what they calls _fittish_, thereaway--an' in course, with that they logs me down at once for a rig'lar holy 'possel from Jerusalem. The long an' the short on it was, the fittish-man takes me under charge, and sets me to tell fortins or the like with an ould quadrant they got somewheres--gives me a hut an' two black wives, begad! and there I lives for two or three weeks on end, no doubt, as proud as Tommy; when, one fine morning, what does I see off shore in the river but that confounded man-o'-war tender, all ship-shape an' ataunto again. So, my boy, I gives 'em to understand as how, bein' over vallible at home with the king of England, in course he'd sent for to puckalow me away--an' no sooner said, but the whole town gets in a fluster--the fittish-man, which a knowin' chap he was, takes and rubs me from heel to truck with ile out on a sartin nut as turned me coal-black in half-an-hour, an' as soon as I looks in the creek, mate, be blowed if I'd a knewn myself from a <DW65>, somehow!' "To tell the truth, as _I_ thought to myself, it was no wonder, as Master Harry's nose and lips were by no means in the classic style, and his skin, as it was, didn't appear of the whitest. "'So there, ye know, I sits before a hut grindin' away at maize, with nothink else but a waist-cloth round me, and my two legs stuck out, till such a time as the leftenant an' two boats' crews had sarched the villache, havin' heerd, no doubt, of a white man thereabouts--an' at last off they went. Well, in course, at first this here affair gives the fittish-man a lift in the <DW65>s' eyes, by reason o' havin' turned a white man black--'cause, ye see, them fittish-men has a rig'lar-bred knowledge on plants and sich-like. But hows'ever, in a day or two I begins for to get rayther oneasy, seein' it didn't wash off, an' accordently I made beknown as much to the fittish-man, when, my boy, if he doesn't shake his mop-head, and rubs noses, as much as to say, "We ain't agoin' to part." 'Twas no use, and thinks I, "Ye man-eating scum, be blowed if I don't put your neck out, then!" So I turns too with my knife on a log o' wood, carves a himmache twice as big an' ugly as his'n, and builds a hut over it, where I plays all the conjerin' tricks I could mind on--till, be hanged if the <DW65>s didn't begin to leave the fittish-man pretty fast, and make a blessed sight more o' me. I takes a couple more wives, gets drunk every day on palm-wine and toddy juice--as for the hogs an' the yams they brought me, why I couldn't stow 'em away; an' in place o' wanting myself white again, I rubs myself over and over with that 'ere nut, let alone palm-ile, till the ould fittish-man looks brown alongside o' me. At last the king o' the <DW65>s thereaway--King Chimbey they called him, or some'at o' that sort--he sends for to see me, an' away to his town they takes me, a mile or two up the country, where I see'd him; but I'm blowed, Jack, if he'd got a crown on at all, ownly a ould red marine's coat, an' a pair o' top-boots, what was laid away when he warn't in state. Hows'ever, he gives me two white beans an' a red un in sign o' high favour, and gives me to know as I wor to stay there. But one thing I couldn't make out, why the black king's hut an' the josst-house as they calls it, was all stuck round with bones an' dead men's skulls!--'twan't long, though, ere I finds it out, mate! That 'ere fittish-man, d 'ye see, wor a right-down imp to look at, and wicked enough he eyed me; but still anon I sends over for my wives, turns out a black feller out on his hut, an' slings a hammock in it, when the next day or so I meets the first fittish-man in the woods, an' the poor divvle looks wonderful friendly-like, makin' me all kinds o' woful signs, and seemin'ly as much as to say for to keep a bright look-out on the other one. All on a suddent what does he do, but he runs a bit as far as a tree, picks up a sort of a red mushroom, an' he rubs with it across the back o' my hand, gives a wink, and scuttles off. What it meaned I couldn't make out, till I gets back to the town, when I chanced to look at my flipper, and there I see a clean white streak alongst it! Well, I thinks, liberty's sweet, an' I'm blessed if a man's able to cruise much to windward o' right-down slavery, thinks I, if he's black! Howsomever, thinks I, I'll jest hold on a _bit_ longer. "'Well, next day, the black king had the blue-devils with drinking rum, an' he couldn't sleep nohow, 'cause, as I made out, he'd killed his uncle, they said--I doesn't know but he'd eaten him, too--anyhow, I see'd him eat as much of a fat hog, raw, as ud sarve out half the watch--so the fittish-man tells him there's nought for it but to please the fittish. What that wor, blowed if I knew; but no sooner sundown nor they hauls me out o' my hut, claps me in a stinking hole as dark as pitch, and leaves me till mornin', as I thought. Jist about the end o' the mid-watch, there kicks up a rumpus like close-reef taups'ls in a hurricane--smash goes the sticks over me; I seed the stars, and a whole lot o' strange blacks with long spears, a-fightin', yellin', tramplin', an' twistin' in the midst of the huts--and off I'm hoisted in the gang, on some feller's back or other, at five knots the hour, through the woods--till down we all comes in a drove, plash amongst the very swamps close by the river, where, lo an' behold! I makes out a schooner afloat at her anchor. The next thing I feels a red-hot iron come hiss across my shoulders, so I jumped up and sang out like blazes, in course. But, my flippers bein' all fast, 'twas no use; I got one shove as sent me head-foremost into a long canoe, with thirty or forty <DW65>s stowed away like cattle, and out the men pulls for the schooner. A big bright fire there was ashore, astarn of us, I mind, where they heated the irons, with a chap in a straw hat sarvin' out rum to the wild blacks from a cask; and ye saw the pitch-black woods behind, with the branches shoved out red in the light on it, and a bloody-like patch on the water under a clump o' sooty mangroves. An', Jack, if I didn't feel the life sick in me, that time--for, d' ye see, I hears nothin' spoke round me but cussed French, Portingeese, an' <DW65> tongue--'specially when it jist lighthens on me what sort on a case I were in; an' thinks I, "I'm took for a _slave_, arter all!--an' be hanged, but I left that 'ere 'farnal mushroom a-lying under that there tree yonder!" I begins for to think o' matters an' things, an' about Bristol quay, an' my old mother, an' my sister as was at school--mind ye, mate, all atwixt shovin' off the mangroves an' coming bump agen the schooner's side--an' blow me if I doesn't turn to, an' nigh-hand commences for to blubber--when jist then what does I catch sight on, by the lantern over the side, but that 'ere villain of a fittish-man, an' what's more, King Chimbey hisself, both hauled in the net. And with that I gives a chuckle, as ye may suppose, an' no mistake; for thinks I, so far as consarns myself, this here can't last long, blow me, for sooner or later I'll find some un to speak to, even an I nivver gets rid o' this here outer darkness--be blowed if I han't got a white mind, any ways, an' free I'll be, my boy! But I laughs, in course, when I see'd the fittish-man grin at me--for thinks I, "My cocks, you're logged down for a pretty long spell of it!" "'Well, bo,' somehow I knows no more about it till such time as I sort o' wakes up in pitch-dark, all choke and sweat, an' a feller's dirty big toe in my mouth, with mine in some un else's eye; so out I spits it, an' makes a scramble for my life. By the roll and the splash I knowed I wor down in the schooner's hold; an' be hanged if there warn't twenty or thirty holding on like bees to a open weather-port, where the fresh wind and the spray come a-blowing through--but there, my boy, 'twere no go for to get so much as the tip o' yer nose. Accordently, up I prizes myself with my feet on another poor devil's wool--for d' ye see, by that time I minds a man's face no more nor so much timber--an' I feels for the hatch over me, where by good luck, as I thought, there I finds it not battened down yet, so I shoved my head through on deck like a blacksmith's hammer. "'Well, mate, there was the schooner's deck wet, a swell of a sea on round her, well off the land, no trifle of a morning gale, and the craft heeling to it; a lot o' hands up on her yards, a-reefing at the boom mains'l and fo'taups'l, an' if my heart doesn't jump into my mouth with the sight, for I feels it for all the world like a good glass o' grog, settin' all to rights. Two or three there was walkin' aft the quarter-deck, so out I sings, "Hullo! hullo there, shipmates, give us a hand out o' this!" Two on 'em comes for'ard, one lifts a handspike, but both gives a grin, as much as to say it's some <DW65> tongue or other in place o' good English--for, d' ye see, they'd half their faces black-beard, and rings i' their ears--when up walks another chap like the skipper, an' more the looks of a countryman. "I'm a free-born Briton!" roars I again; with that he lends me a squint, looks to the men, and gives some sort of a sign, when they jams-to the hatch and nips me fast by the neck. "Devil of a deep beggar, this 'ere!" says he; "jist give him the gag, my lads," says he; "the planters often thinks more of a dumby, 'cause he works the more, and a stout piece o' goods this _is_!" says he. Well, mate, what does they do but one pulls out a knife, an' be blowed if they warn't a-goin' for to cut out my tongue; but the men aloft sung out to hoist away the yards; so they left me ready clinched till they'd belay the ropes. Next a hand for'ard, by good luck, hailed "Sail ho!" and they'd some'at else to think o' besides me; for there, my boy, little more nor three miles to wind'ard, I see'd the _Irish_ as she come driving bodily out o' the mist, shakin' out her three to'gallant-sails, an' a white spray flying with her off one surge to another. Rather bad it was, mind ye, for my windpipe, for every time the schooner pitched, away swings my feet clear o' the <DW65>'s heads--'cause, d' ye see, we chanced for to be stowed on the 'tween-decks, an' another tier there was, stuffed in her lower hold--an' there I stuck, mate, so as I couldn't help watchin' the whole chase, till at last the hatch slacks nip a bit, and down I plumps into the dark again. "'Well, bo', the breeze got lighter, an' to all seemin' the cursed schooner held her own; but hows'ever, the sloop-o'-war kept it up all day, and once or twice she tips us a long shot; till by sunset, as I reckoned, we hears no more on her. The whole night long, again, there we stews as thick as peas--I keeps harknin' to the sighs and groans, an' the wash along the side, in a sort of a doze; an' s'help me Bob, I fancies for a moment I'm swinging in my hammock in the foc'sle, an it's no more but the bulkheads and timbers creakin'. Then I thinks it's some un else I dreams on, as is oneasy, like to choke for heat and thirst; and I'm a-chucklin' at him--when up I wakes with the cockroaches swarming over my face. Another groan runs from that end to this, the whole lot on us tries hard, and kicks their neighbours to turn, an' be blowed if I knowed but I was buried in a churchyard, with the horrid worms all a-crawl about me. All on a suddent, nigh-hand to daybreak it was, I hears a gun to wind'ard, so with that I contrives for to scramble up with my eye to the scuttle-port. 'Twas a stiffish breeze, an' I see'd some'at lift on a sea like a albatross's wing, as one may say--though what wor this but the _Irish's_ bit of a tender, standing right across our bows--for the schooner, ye see, changed her course i' the night-time, rig'lar slaver's dodge, thinkin' for to drop the sloop-o'-war, sure enough. But as for the little f'lucca, why they hadn't bargained for her at all, lying-to as she did, with a rag o' sail up, in the troughs of the sea, till the schooner was close on her. "'Well, no sooner does they go about, my boy, but the muskeety of a cruiser lets drive at her off the top of a sea, as we hung broadside to them in stays. Blessed if I ever see sich a mark!--the shot jist takes our fore top fair slap--for the next minute I seed the fore-topmast come over the lee-side, an' astarn we begins to go directly. What's more, mate, I never see a small craft yet handled better in a sea, as that 'ere chap did--nor the same thing done, cleaner at any rate--for they jist comes nigh-hand tip on our bowsprit-end, as the schooner lifted--then up in the wind they went like clockwork, with a starnway on as carried the f'lucca right alongside on us, like a coachman backing up a lane, and _grind_ we both heaved on the swell, with the topmast hamper an' its canvas for a fender atwixt us. Aboard jumps the man-o'-war's-men, in course, cutlash in hand, an' for five minutes some tough work there was on deck, by the tramp, the shots, an' the curses over our heads--when off they shoved the hatches, and I seed a tall young feller in a gold-banded cap look below. Be blowed if I wasn't goin' to sing out again, for, d' ye see, I'm blessed if I took mind on the chap at all, as much by reason o' the blood an' the smoke he'd got on his face as aught else. Hows'ever, I holds a bit meantime, on account o' Job Price an' that 'ere piratecy consarn--till what does I think, a hour or two arter, when I finds as this here were the very leftenant as chased us weeks on end in the Camaroons. So a close stopper, sure enough, I keeps on my jaw; an' as for scentin' me out amongst a couple o' hundred blacks in the hold, why, 'twere fit to 'ppal my own mother herself. "'Well, Jack, by this time bein' near Serry Loney, next day or so we got in--where, what does they do but they _lubberrates_ us all, as they calls it, into a barracoon ashore, till sich time as the slaver ud be condemned--an' off goes the tender down coast again. Arter that, they treats us well enough, but still I dursn't say a word; for one day, as we goed to work makin' our huts, there I twigs a printed bill upon the church-wall, holdin' out a reward, d' ye see, consarnin' the piratecy, with my oun name and my very build logged down--ownly, be hanged if they doesn't tack on to it all, by way of a topgallant ink-jury to a man, these here words--"He's a very ugly feller--looks like a furriner." Well, mate, I ain't a young maiden, sure enough, but, thinks I, afore I fell foul o' that blasted fittish-man an' his nut, cuss me if I looks jist so bad as that 'ere! So ye know this goes more to my heart nor aught else, till there I spells out another confounded lie in the bill, as how Captin Price's men had mutinied again him, and murdered the brig's crew--when, in course, I sees the villain's whole traverse at once. So sayin', I watched my chance one night an' went aboard a Yankee brig as were to sail next day; an' I tells the skipper part o' the story, offerin' for to work my passage across for nothing; which, says he, "It's a hinterestin' narritif"--them was his words; and, says he, "It's a land o' freedom is the States, an' no mistake--ain't there no more on ye in the like case?" he says. "Not as I knows on, sir," I answers; an' says he, "Plenty o' gen'lmen there is yonder, all in silks an' satins; an' I hear," says he, "there's one on 'em has a chance o' bein' President next time--anyhow I'm your friend," says he, quite hearty. "'Well, the long an' short of it was, I stays aboard the brig, works my spell in her, an' takes my trick at the hellum--but I'm blowed, Jack, if the men 'ud let me sleep in the foc'sle, 'cause I was a black, so I slung my hammock aft with the <DW65> stoord. D' ye see, I misgived myself a bit when we sank the coast, for, thinks I, it's in Africay as that 'ere blessed mushroom are to be found, to take the colour off me--hows'ever, I thinks it carn't but wear out in time, now I've got out o' that 'ere confounded mess, where, sure enough, things was against me. So at last the v'yage were up, an' the brig got in to New Orleans. There I walks aft to the skipper for to take leave, when says he, wonderfly friendly like, "Now, my lad," says he, "I'm goin' up river a bit for to see a friend as takes a interest in your kind--an' if ye likes, why I'll pay yer passage that far?" In course I agrees, and up river we goes, till we lands at a fine house, where I'm left in a far-handy, ye know, while the skipper an' his friend has their dinner. All at once the gen'lman shoves his head out of a doure, takes a look at me, an' in again--arter that I hears the chink o' dollars--then the skipper walks out, shuts the doure, and says he to me, "Now," he says, "that's a 'cute sort o' tale ye tould me, my lad, but it's a lie, I guess!" "Lie, sir!" says I, "what d' ye mean?" for ye see that 'ere matter o' the iv'ry brig made me sing small at first. "No slack, Pumpey," says he, liftin' his forefinger like a schoolmaster; "ain't yer name Pumpey?" says he. "Pumpey!" says I, "my name's Jack Brown," for that wor the name I'd gived him afore. "Oh!" says he, "jest say it's Gin'ral Washington, right off. Come," says he, "I guess I'd jest tell ye what tripe you belongs to--you're a Mandigy <DW65>," says he. "It's all very well," he says, "that 'ere yarn, but that's wot they'd all say when they comes, they've been dyed black! Why," says he, "doesn't I see that 'ere brand one night on yer back--there's yer arms all over pagan tattooin'----" "Bless ye, captin," I says, a-holdin' up my arm, "it's crowns an' anchors!" "Crowns!" says he, turnin' up his nose, "what does we know o' crowns hereaway--_we_ ain't barbers yet, I guess"--of what he meant by _barbers_ here, mate, I'm hanged if I knowed. "'Sides," says he, "you speaks broken Aimerricane!" "'Merricain?" I says, "why, I speaks good English! an' good reason, bein' a free-born Briton--as white's yerself, if so be I could ownly clap hands for a minnet on some o' them mushrooms I tould ye on!" "Where does they grow, then?" axes he, screwin' one eye up. "In Africay yonder, sir," I says, "more's the pity I hadn't the chance to lay hands on them again!" "Phoo!" says he, "glad they ain't _here_! An' does you think we 're a-goin' for to send all the way over to Africay for them mushrooms you talks on? Tell ye what, yer free papers 'ud do ye a sight more good _here_!" says he; "it's no use with a black skin for to claim white laws; an' what's more, ye're too tarnation ugly-faced for it, let alone colour, Pumpey, my man," he says. "I tell ye what it is, Captin Edwards," says I, "my frontispiece ain't neither here nor there, but if you calls me Pumpey again, blowed an' I don't pitch inty ye!"--so with that I handles my bones in a way as makes him hop inside the doure--an' says the skipper houldin' it half-shut, "Harkee, lad," he says, "it's no go your tryin' for to run, or they'll make ye think angels o' bo'sun's-mates. But what's more," says he, "nivver you whisper a word o' what ye tells me, about nuts an' mushrooms, or sich like trash--no more will I; for d' ye see, my lad, in that case they'd jest _hush ye up_ for good!" "Who d' ye mean?" I says, all abroad, an' of a shiver like--mindin' on the slave-schooner again. "Why, the planter's people," says he, "as I've sold ye to." An' with that he pints into his mouth, and shuts the doure. "'Well, mate, ye may fancy how I feels! Here I stands, givin' a look round for a fair offing; but there was bulwarks two fadom high all round the house, a big bloodhound lyin' chained, with his muzzle on his two paws, an' nobody seem'd for to mind me. So, I see'd it were all up wonst more; an' at the thou't of a knife in my tongue, I sits right down in the far-handy, rig'lar flabbergasted, when out that 'ere blasted skipper snoots his head again, an' says he, "Pumpey, my lad, good-day," says he; "you knows some'at o' the water, an' as they've boat-work at times hereaway, I don't know but, if you behaves yerself, they'll trust you with an oar now an' then: for I tould yer master jist now," says he, "as how you carn't speak no English!" Well, I gives him a hoath, 'cause by that time I hadn't a word to throw at a dog; and shortly arter, up comes the overseer with his black mate, walks me off to a shed, strips me, and gives me a pair o' cotton drawers and a broad hat--so out I goes the next mornin' for to hoe sugarcane with a gang o' <DW65>s. "'Well, mate, arter that I kept close enough--says no more, but mumbles a lot o' no-man's jargon, as makes 'em all log me down for a sort o' double-Guinea savitch--'cause why, I were hanged afeard for my tongue, seein', if so be I lost it, I'd be a <DW65> for ever, sure enough. So the blacks, for most part being country-bred, they talks nothin' but a blessed jumble, for all the world like babbies at home; an' what does they do but they fancies me a rig'lar African <DW65>, as proud as Tommy, an' a'most ready for to washup me they wor--why, the poor divvles 'ud bring me yams and fish; they kisses my flippers an' toes as I'd been the Pope; an' as for the young girls, I'm blowed if I warn't all the go amongst 'em--though I carn't say the same where both's white, ye know! What with the sun an' the cocoa-nut ile, to my thinkin', I gets blacker an' blacker--blessed if I didn't fancy a feller's very mind turned <DW65>. I larns their confounded lingo, an' I answers to the name o' Pumpey, blast it, till I right-down forgets that I'd ever another. As for runnin', look ye, I knowed 'twas no use thereaway, as long as my skin tould against me, an' as long as Africay wor where it wor. So, my boy, I see'd pretty clear, ye know, as this here world 'ud turn a man into a rig'lar built slave-<DW65> in the long run if he was an angel out o' heaven! "'Well, mate, one day I'm in the woods amongst a gang, chopping firewood for the sugar-mill, when, what does I light on betwixt some big ground-leaves and sich like, but a lot o' them very same red mushrooms as the fittish-man shows me in Africay!--blowed if there warn't a whole sight o' them round about, too! So I pulls enough for ten, ye may be sure, stuffs 'em in my hat, an' that same night, as soon as all's dark, off I goes into the woods, right by the stars, for the nearest town 'twixt there and New Orleans. As soon as I got nigh-hand it, there I sits down below a tree amongst the bushes, hauls off my slops, an' I turns to for to rub myself all over, from heel to truck, till daybreak. So, in course, I watches for the light angshis enough, as ye may suppose, to know what colour I were. Well, strike me lucky, Jack, if I didn't jump near a fadom i' the air, when at last I sees I'm _white_ wonst more!--blessed if I didn't feel myself a new man from stem to starn! I makes right for a creek near by, looks at my face in the water, then up I comes again, an' every yarn o' them cussed slave-togs I pulls to bits, when I shoves 'em under the leaves. Arter that I took fair to the water for about a mile, jist to smooth out my wake, like; then I shins aloft up a tree, where I stowed myself away till noon--'cause, d'ye see, I knowed pretty well what to look for next. An' by this time, mind ye, all them queer haps made a fellow wonderful sharp, so I'd scheme out the whole chart aforehand how to weather on them cussed Yankees. "'Accordently, about noon, what does I hear but that 'ere savitch bloodhound comin' along up creek, with a set o' slave-catchers astarn, for to smell out my track. With that, down I went in the water again, rounds a point into the big river, where I gets abreast of a landin' place, near the town, with craft laying out-stream, boats plyin', an' all alive. D' ye see, bo', I'd got no clothes at all, an' how for to rig myself again, 'blowed if I knows--seein' as how by this time I'd turned as white as the day I were born, an' a naked white man in a town arn't no better than a black <DW65>. So in I swims like a porpus afore a breeze, an' up an' down I ducks in the shallow, for all the world like a chap a-takin' a bath; an' out I hollers to all an' sundry, with a Yankee twang i' my nose, for to know if they had seen my clothes, till a whole lot on 'em crowds on the quay. Hows'ever, I bethinks me on that 'ere blasted brand atwixt my shoulders, an' I makes myself out as modest as a lady, kicks out my legs, and splashes like a whale aground, an' sticks out my starn to 'em for to let 'em see it's white. "Hullo!" I sings out, "han't ye seen my clothes?" "No, stranger," says they, "someun's runned off with 'em, we cal'clates!" With that I tells 'em I'm a Boston skipper new comed up from New Orleans; an' not being used to the heat, why I'd took a bath the first thing; an' I 'scribes the whole o' my togs as if I'd made 'em--"split new," says I, "an' a beaver hat, more by token there's my name inside it; an'," says I, "there's notes for a hundred dollars in my trousers!" "'By this time down comes the slave-catchers, an' says they, hearin' on it, "That 'ere tarnation <DW65>'s gone off with 'em, we'll know 'un by them marks well enough," says they, an' off they goes across river. "Hullo!" I sings out to the folks, "I'm a-gettin' cold here, so I guess I'll come ashore again, slick off!" I twangs out. "Guess ye can't, straunger!" they hails; "not till we gets ye some kiverin's!--we 're considerable proper here, we are!" "Ain't this a free country, then?" I says, givin' a divvle of a splash; an' with that they begs an' axes me for to hould on, an' they'd fix me, as they calls it, in no time. "Well, mate, what does they do but one an' another brings me somethin' as like what I 'scribed as could be, hands 'em along on a pole, an' I puts 'em on then an' there. Arter that, the ladies o' the place bein' blessed modest, an' all of a fright leest I'd a comed out an' gone through the town--why, out o' grannytude, as they says, they gets up a supperscription on a hundred dollars to make up my loss--has a public meetin' logged down for the evenin', when I'm for to indress the citizens, as they says, all about freedom an' top-gallantry, an' sich-like. Hows'ever, I jist sticks my tongue in my cheek, eats a blessed good dinner in a hot-ell, watches my chance, an' off by a track-boat at sundown to New Orleans, where I shipped aboard a English barque, an' gets safe out to sea wonst more. "'Lord love ye, Harry!' exclaimed Jack hereupon, 'the likes o' that now! But I've heerd say, them fittish-men you talks on has wonderful knowledge--why, mayhap it's them as keeps all the <DW65>s black, now?' 'Well, bo',' said Harry, 'I don't doubt but if them 'Merricain slaves jist knowed o' that 'ere red mushroom, why they'd show the Yankees more stripes nor stars! D' ye see, if a Yankee knowed as his own father were a-hoein' his sugar-canes, blowed if he wouldn't make him work up his liberty in dollars! All the stripes, d' ye see, mate, is for the blacks, an' all the stars is for the whites, in them Yankee colours as they brags so much about! But what I says is, it's cussed hard to get through this 'ere world, shipmate, if ye doesn't keep well to the wind'ard of it!' "I was the more amused with this account of the ugly rascal's adventures that I remembered two or three of the occasions he mentioned, and he told them pretty exactly so far as I had to do with them. As for the fetish-man's curious nut, and that extraordinary mushroom of his, why 'ten to one,' thought I, 'but all the while the fellow never once touched a piece of _soap_!' which, no doubt, had as much to do with it as anything besides. Somehow or other, notwithstanding, I had taken almost a fancy to the villain--such a rough sample of mankind he was, with his uncouth grumpy voice, and his huge black beard; and he gave the story in a cool, scornful sort of way that was laughable in itself. 'So, my lad,' I thought, 'it seems you and I have met twice before; but if you play any of your tricks this time, Master Harry, I hope you've found your match'; and certainly, if I had fancied my gentleman was in the slaver's hold that time off the African coast, I'd have 'lubberrated' him with a vengeance. "'I say, mates,' said he again, with a sulky kind of importance, to those of the watch who had gathered round during the last half of his yarn, 'there's three things I hates--an' good reason!' 'What be's they, Harry?' asked the rest. 'One's a Yankee,' said he, 'an' be blowed to him; the second's a slaver; and the third is--I carn't abide a <DW65>, nohow. But d' ye see, there's one thing I _likes_----' Here eight bells struck out, and up tumbled the watch below, with Jacobs' hearty face amongst them: so I made my way aft, and, of course, missed hearing what that said delightful thing might be, which this tarry AEsop approved of so much. CHAPTER XII "While I was listening, I had scarcely noticed, that within the last few minutes a light air had begun to play aloft among the higher canvas, a faint cat's-paw came ruffling here and there a patch of the water, till by this time the Indiaman was answering her wheel again, and moving slowly ahead, as the breeze came down and crept out to the leeches of her sails, with a sluggish lifting of her heavy fore-course. The men were all below at breakfast, forward, and, of course, at that hour the poop above me was quite a Babel of idlers' voices; while I looked into the compass and watched the ship's head falling gradually off from north-east-by-north, near which it had stuck pretty close since daybreak. The sun was brought before her opposite beam, and such a perfect gush of hazy white light shot from that quarter over the larboard bulwarks, that thereaway, in fact, there might have been a fleet of ships, or a knot of islands, and we none the wiser, as you couldn't look into it at all. "The chief mate came handing a wonderfully timid young lady down the poop-ladder with great care, and as soon as they were safe on the quarter-deck, she asked, with a confiding sort of lisp, 'And where are we going _now_ then, Mr Finch?' 'Well, miss,' simpered he, 'wherever _you_ please, I'll be glad to conduct you!' 'Oh, but the ship I mean,' replied she, giggling prettily. 'Why,' said Finch, stooping down to the binnacle, 'she heads due south-east at present, miss.' 'I _am_ so glad you are going on again!' said the young lady; 'but oh! when shall we see dear _land_ once more, Mr Finch?' 'Not for more than a week, I fear,' answered the mate, 'when we arrive at the Cape of Good Hope. But there, miss, your poetic feelings will be gratified, I assure you. The hills there, I might say, Miss Brodie,' he went on, 'not to speak of the woods, are quite dramatic! You mustn't suppose the rough mariner, rude as he seems, Miss Brodie, is entirely devoid of romance in his sentiments, I hope!' and he looked down for the twentieth time that morning at his boots as he handed her down the cabin hatchway, longing to see the Cape, no doubt. 'Much romance, as you call it, there is in ugly Harry yonder!' thought I; and comparing this sort of stuff, aft, with the matter-of-fact notions before the mast, made me the more anxious for what might turn up in a few hours, with this gallant first officer left in full charge, and the captain, as I understood, unable to leave his cot. A good enough seaman the fellow was, so far as your regular deep-sea work went, which those India voyagers had chiefly to do with then; but for aught out of the way, or a sudden pinch, why, the peace had just newly set them free of their leading-strings, and here this young mate brought his new-fangled school navigation, forsooth, to run the _Seringapatam_ into some mess or other; whereas, in a case of the kind, I had no doubt he would prove as helpless as a child. "By this time, for my part, all my wishes for some ticklish adventure were almost gone, when I thought of our feelings at the loss of the boat, as well as the number of innocent young creatures on board, with Lota Hyde herself amongst them; while here had I got myself fairly set down for a raw griffin. Yet neither Westwood nor I, unless it came to the very worst, could venture to make himself openly useful! I was puzzled both what to think of our exact case, and what to do; whereas a pretty short time in these latitudes, as the foremast-man had said, might finish our business altogether; indeed, the whole look of things, somehow or other, at that moment, had a strange unsettled touch about it, out of which one unaccustomed to those parts might be sure some change would come. The air, a little ago, was quite suffocating, the heat got greater; and the breeze, though it seemed to strengthen aloft, at times sank quietly out of her lower canvas like a breath drawn in, and caught it again as quietly ere it fell to the masts. What with the slow huge heave of the water, as it washed glittering past, and what with the blue tropical sky overhead, getting paler and paler at the horizon astern, from fair heat--while the sunlight and the white haze on our larboard beam, made it a complete puzzle to behold--why, I felt just like some fellow in one of those stupid dreams after a heavy supper, with nothing at all in them, when you don't know how long or how often you've dreamt it before. Deuce the hand or foot you can stir, and yet you've a notion of something horrid that's sure to come upon you. "We couldn't be much more than a hundred miles or so to south'ard of St Helena; but we might be two thousand miles off the land, or we might be fifty. I had only been once in my life near the coast thereaway, and certainly my recollections of it weren't the most pleasant. As for the charts, so little was known of it that we couldn't depend upon them; yet there was no doubt the ship had been all night long in a strong set of water toward north-east, right across her course. For my own part, I was as anxious as anyone else to reach the Cape, and get rid of all this cursed nonsense; for since last night, I saw quite well by her look that Violet Hyde would never favour me, if I kept in her wake to the day of judgment. There was I, too, every time I came on deck and saw those round-house doors, my heart leapt into my throat, and I didn't know port from starboard! But what was the odds, that I'd have kissed the very pitch she walked upon, when _she_ wasn't for _me_!--being deep in love don't sharpen the faculties neither, and the more I thought of matters the stupider I seemed to get. 'Green Hand!' thought I, 'as Jacobs and the larboard watch call me, it appears--why, they're right enough! A green hand I came afloat nine years ago, and, by Jove! though I know the sea and what belongs to it, from sheer liking to them, as 'twere--it seems a green hand I'm to stick--seeing I know so blessed little of womankind, not to speak of that whole confounded world ashore! With all one's schemes and one's weather-eye, something new always keeps turning up to show one what an ass he is; and hang me, if I don't begin to suppose I'm only fit for working small traverses upon slavers and jack-nasty-faces, after all! There's Westwood, without troubling himself, seems to weather upon me, with her, like a Baltimore clipper on a Dutch schuyt!' In short, I wanted to leave the _Seringapatam_ as soon as I could, wish them all a good voyage together away for Bombay, sit down under Table Mountain, and then perhaps go and travel amongst the Hottentots by way of a change. "The chief officer came aft towards the binnacle again, with a strut in his gait, and more full of importance than ever, of course. 'This breeze'll hold, I think, Macleod?' said he to the second mate, who was shuffling about in a lounging, unseamanlike way he had, as if he felt uncomfortable on the quarter-deck, and both hands in his jacket pockets. 'Well,' said the Scotchman, 'do ye not think it's too early begun, sir?' and he looked about like an old owl, winking against the glare of light past the mainsheet to larboard; 'I'll not say but it will, though,' continued he, 'but 'odsake, sir, it's terrible warm!' 'Can't be long ere we get into Cape Town now,' said the mate, 'so you'll turn the men on deck as soon as breakfast's over, Mr Macleod, and commence giving her a coat of paint outside, sir.' 'Exactly, Mr Finch,' said the other, 'all hands it'll be, sir? For any sake, Mr Finch, give they lazy scoundrels something to do!' 'Yes, all hands,' said Finch; and he was going below, when the second mate sidled up to him again, as if he had something particular to say. 'The captain'll be quite better by this time, no doubt, Mr Finch?' asked he. '_Well_--d' ye mean?' inquired the mate, rather shortly; 'why no, sir, when the surgeon saw him in the morning watch, he said it was a fever, and the sooner we saw the Cape the better for him.' 'No doubt, no doubt, sir,' said the second mate, thoughtfully, putting his forefinger up his twisted nose, which I noticed he did in such cases, as if the twist had to do with his memory--'no doubt, sir, that's just it! The doctor's a sharp Edinbro' lad--did he see aucht by common about the captain, sir?' 'No,' said Finch, 'except that he wanted to go on deck this morning, and the surgeon took away his clothes and left the door locked.' 'Did he, though?' asked Macleod, shaking his head, and looking a little anxious; 'didna he ask for aucht in particular, sir?' 'Not that I heard of, Mr Macleod,' replied the mate; 'what do you mean?' 'Did he not ask for a green leaf?' replied the second mate. 'Pooh,' said Finch, 'what if he did?' 'Well, sir,' said Macleod, 'neither you nor the doctor's sailed five voyages with the captain, like me. He's a quiet man, Captain Weelumson, an' well he knows his calling; but sometimes warm weather doesn't do with him, more especial siccan warm weather as this, when the moon's full, as it is the night, ye know, Mr Finch. There's something else besides that, though, when he's taken that way.' 'Well, what is it?' asked the mate, carelessly. 'Oo!' said Macleod, 'it can't be _that_ this time, of course, sir--it's when he's near the _land_! The captain knows the smell of it, these times, Mr Finch, as well as a cockroach does--an' it's then he asks for a green leaf, and wants to go straight ashore--I mind he did it the voy'ge before last, sir. He's a quiet man, the captain, as I said, for ord'nar'--but when he's roused, he's a----' 'Why, what was the matter with him?' said Finch, more attentive than before; 'you don't mean to say?--go on, Mr Macleod.' The second mate, however, looked cautious, closed his lips firmly, and twirled his red whiskers, as he glanced with one eye aloft again. 'Hoo!' said he, carelessly, 'hoo, it's nothing, nothing--just, I'm thinking, sir, what they call disgestion ashore--all frae the stommach, Mr Finch. We used just for to lock the state-room door, an' never let on we heard--but at any rate, sir, _this_ is no the thing at all, ye know! Mester Semm,' continued he to the fat midshipman, who came slowly up from the steerage, picking his teeth with a pocket-knife, 'go forrid and get the bo'sun to turn up all hands.' "'Sir,' said I, stepping up to the mate next moment, before the round-house, 'might I use the freedom of asking whereabouts we are at present?' Finch gave me a look of cool indifference, without stirring head or hand; which I saw, however, was put on, as, ever since our boating affair, the man evidently detested me, with all his pretended scorn. 'Oh certainly, sir!' said he, 'of course!--sorry I haven't the ship's log here to show you--but it's two hundred miles or so below St Helena, eight hundred miles odd off the south-west African coast, with a light westerly breeze bound for the Cape of Good Hope--so after that you can look about you, sir!' 'Are you _sure_ of all that, sir?' asked I, seriously. 'Oh no, of course not!' said he, still standing as before, 'not in the least, sir! It's nothing but quadrant, sextant, and chronometer work, after all--which every young gentleman don't believe in!' Then he muttered aloud, as if to himself, 'Well, if the captain _should_ chance to ask for a _green_ leaf, I know where to find it for him!' "I was just on the point of giving him some angry answer or other, and perhaps spoiling all, when I felt a tap on my shoulder, and on turning round saw the Indian judge, who had found me in the way either of his passage or his prospect, on stepping out of the starboard door. 'Eh!' said he, jocularly, as I begged his pardon, 'eh, young sir--I've nothing to do with pardons--always leave that to the governor-general and councillors! Been doing anything wrong, then? Ah, what's this--still calm, or some of your wind again, Mr Officer?' 'A fine breeze like to hold, Sir Charles,' answered the mate, all bows and politeness. 'So!' said Sir Charles; 'but I don't see Captain Williamson at all this morning--where is he?' 'I am sorry to say he is very unwell, Sir Charles,' said Finch. 'Indeed!' exclaimed the judge, with whom the captain stood for all the seamanship aboard, and looking round again rather dissatisfied. 'Don't like that, though. I hope he won't be long unable to attend to things, sir--let me know as soon as he is recovered, if you please.' 'Certainly, Sir Charles,' said the chief officer, touching his cap with some appearance of pique; 'but I hope, sir, I understand my duties in command, Sir Charles.' 'Daresay, sir,' said the judge, '_as_ officer, probably. Commander absent--horrible accidents already,' he muttered, crossly, changing his usual high sharp key to a harsh croak, like a saw going through a heavy spar, 'something sure to go wrong--wish we'd done with this deuced tiresome voyage. Ha, young gentleman,' exclaimed he, turning as he went in, 'd'ye play chess--suppose not--eh?' 'Why yes, sir,' said I, 'I do.' 'Well,' continued he, overhauling me more carefully than he had done before, though latterly I had begun to be somewhat in his good graces when we met by chance, 'after all, you've a _chess_ eye, if you know the game at all. Come in, then, for God's sake, and let's begin. Ever since the poor brigadier _went_, I've had only myself or a girl to play against. 'Gad, sir, there is something, I can't express how horrible to my mind, in being matched against _nobody_--or, what's worse, against a _woman_! But recollect, young gentleman, I can not bear a tyro'; and he glanced at me as we walked into the large poop-cabin as sharply and as cold as a nor'-wester, ere it breaks to windward. "Now I happened to know the game, and to be particularly fond of it; so, restless as I felt otherwise, I gave the old nabob a quiet nod, laid down my griffin-looking straw hat on the sofa, and in two minutes there we were, sitting opposite over a splendid China-made chess-board, with elephants, emperors, mandarins, and Chinamen, all square and ataunto, as if they'd been set ready for days. The dark _kitmagar_ commenced fanning over his master's head with a bright feather punka, the other native servant handed him his twisted hookah and lighted it, after which he folded his arms and stood looking down on the board like a pundit at some campaign of the Great Mogul; while the judge himself waited for my first move, as if it had been some of our plain English fellows in Hindostan commencing against your whole big India hubbub and finery, to get hold of it all in the end. For my part I sat at first all of a tingle and tremble, thinking how near his lovely daughter might be; and there were the breakfast-cups laid out on a round table at the other side, behind me. "However, I made my move, Sir Charles made his, and pitched into the game in a half-impatient, half long-headed sort of way, anxious to get to the thick of it, as it were, once more. Not a word was said, and you only heard the suck of the smoke bubbling through the water-bottle of his pipe, after each move the judge made; till I set myself to the play in right earnest, and, owing to the old gentleman's haste at the beginning, or his over-sharpness, I hooked him into a mess with which I used to catch the old hands at chess in the cockpit, just by fancying what _they_ meant to be at. The judge lifted his head, looked at me, and went on again. 'Your queen is in check, Sir Charles!' said I, next time, by way of a polite hint. '_Check_, though, young gentleman!' said he, chuckling, as he dropped one of his outlandish knights, which I wasn't yet up to the looks of, close to the windward of my blessed old Turk of a king; so the skirmish was just getting to be a fair set-to, when I chanced to lift my eyes, and saw the door from the after-cabin open, with Miss Hyde coming through. 'Now, papa,' exclaimed she on the moment, 'you must come to breakfast'--when all of a sudden, at seeing another man in the cabin, she stopped short. Being not so loud and griffin-like in my toggery that morning, and my hat off, the young lady didn't recognise me at first--though the next minute, I saw by her colour and her astonished look, she not only did that, but something else--no doubt remembering at last where she had seen me ashore. 'Well, child,' said the judge, 'make haste with it, then!--Recollect where we are, now, young gentleman--and come to breakfast.' She had a pink muslin morning-dress on, with her brown hair done up like the Virgin Mary in a picture, and the sea had taken almost all the paleness off her cheek that it had in the ball-room at Epsom, a month or two ago--and, by Jove! when I saw her begin to pour out the tea out of the silver teapot, I didn't know _where_ I was! 'Oh, I forgot,' said the judge, waving his hand from me to her, in a hurry, 'Mr Robins, Violet! ho, _kitmagar_, curry l'ao!' 'Oh,' said she, stiffly, with a cold turn of her pretty lip, 'I have met Mr--Mr----' 'Collins, ma'am,' said I. 'I have met this gentleman by accident _before_.' 'So you have--so you have,' said her father; 'but you play chess well, Mr--a--a--what's his name?--ah! Colly. Gad, you play _well_, sir--we must have it out!' "The young lady glanced at me again with a sort of astonishment; at last she said, no doubt for form's sake, though as indifferently as possible: 'You have known your friend the missionary gentleman long, I believe, sir?--the Reverend Mr Thomas--I think that is his name?' 'Oh no, ma'am!' said I hastily, for the judge was the last man I wished should join Westwood and me together, 'only since we crossed the Line, or so.' 'Why, I thought he said you were at school together!' said she, in surprise. 'Why--hem--certainly not, ma'am--a--a--I--a--a--I don't remember the gentleman there,' I blundered out. 'Eh, what?--check to your queen, young gentleman, surely?' asked Sir Charles. 'What's this, though! Always like to hear a mystery explained, so'--and he gave me one of his sharp glances. 'Why, why--surely, young man, now I think of it in that way, I've seen you before in some peculiar circumstances or other--on land, too. Why, where was it--let me see now?' putting his finger to his forehead to think; while I sat pretty uneasy, like a small pawn that had been trying to get to the head of the board, and turn into a knight or a bishop, when it falls foul of a grand figured-out king and queen. However, the queen is the only piece you need mind at a distance, and blessed hard it is to escape from _her_, of course. Accordingly, I cared little enough for the old nabob finding out I had gone in chase of them; but there sat his charming little daughter, with her eyes on her tea-cup; and whether the turn of her face meant coolness, or malice, or amusement, I didn't know--though she seemed a little anxious too, I thought, lest her father should recollect me. "'It wasn't _before_ me, young man?' asked he, looking up of a sudden: 'no, that must have been in India--_must_ have been in England, when I was last there--let me see.' And I couldn't help fancying what a man's feelings must be, tried for his life, as I caught a side-view of his temples working, dead in my wake, as it were. The thing was laughable enough, and for a moment I met Lota's eye as he mentioned England--'twas too short a glimpse, though, to make out; and, thought I, 'he'll be down on Surrey directly, and then Croydon--last of all, the back of his garden-wall, I suppose!' 'Check' it was, and what I was going to say I couldn't exactly conceive, unless I patched up some false place or other, with matters to match, and mentioned it to the old fellow, though small chance of its answering with such a devil of a lawyer--when all at once I thought I heard a hail from aloft; then the second mate's voice roared close outside, 'Hullo!--aloft there!' The next moment I started up, and looked at Miss Hyde, as I heard plainly enough the cry, 'On deck there--land O!' I turned round at once, and walked out of the round-house to the quarter-deck, where, two minutes after, the whole of the passengers were crowding from below, the judge and his daughter already on the poop. Far aloft, upon the fore-to'-gallant-yard, in the hot glare of the sun, a sailor was standing with his hand over his eyes, and looking to the horizon, as the Indiaman stood quietly before the light breeze. 'Where-away-ay?' was the next hail from the deck. 'Broad on our larboard bow, sir,' was the answer." CHAPTER XIII "Well, ma'am," continued the naval man, on again resuming his narrative, "as I told you, the sudden hail of 'Land!' brought us all on deck in a twinkling, in the midst of my ticklish conversation with the judge. 'Hallo! you aloft!' shouted the chief officer himself, 'd'ye hear, sirrah! use your eyes before hailing the deck!' 'Land, sir!' came falling down again out of the sunlight; 'land it is, sir--broad away on our larboard bow, sir.' "By this time it was about half-past nine, or ten o'clock, of the morning. Heading nearly due south-east, as we now were, the Indiaman's bowsprit ran up into the full white blaze of light, in which her flying jib-boom seemed to quiver and writhe far away from her like an eel in water; while the spread of her sails against it loomed twice as large as ordinary from the sort of hazy double-edged look they had, with a twinkling thread of sun drawing all round them like a frame, as if one saw through a wrong-screwed glass. You'd have thought by the glance under the fore-course, over the ship's head-gratings, she was travelling off quietly into some no-man's-land or other, where it would be so bright we should have to wear blue spectacles: the light breeze being almost direct from nor'-west, and so fairly in her favour, with the help of her studding-sails she was making wonderful progress for such a mere breath--about four knots to the hour, as I reckoned. The air aloft appeared in the meantime to be steadying and _sucking_ though the water kept smooth, and her bows scarce made a noise in it: the wide soft swells of the sea just floated up of a pale blue, and lifted her on, till she went seething gently down into it again; only, if you put your head over the starboard side, and listened, you thought you heard a sort of dull poppling ripple coming along the bends from round her counter. As for the line of horizon on one bow or the other, 'twas hardly to be made out at all, with a streaky white haze overlying it, up in the sky as it were, on both sides, behind the dazzle of light. However, the passengers were fancying all kinds of fine tropical matters lay hidden thereaway; and in fact, what with the notion of land after a long voyage, and what with the faint specks of bright cloud that seemed to be melting far off in the glare--to anyone last from Gravesend, that had never seen anything stranger than Richmond Hill of a Sunday, the whole thing ahead of the ship would have rather an enchanted sort of a look. At length the third mate was seen to shove his spy-glass together in the top-gallant cross-trees, and came slowly down the rigging. 'Well, Mr Rickett,' said the chief officer, meeting him, as he landed on deck. 'Well, sir,' said Rickett, 'it is land after all, Mr Finch!' The mate rapped out an oath, and took another turn: Macleod screwed his mouth as if he were going to whistle, then pulled his red whiskers instead, and looked queer at Rickett; while Rickett stood peering into his spy-glass as he would have done into his hat, had he still been a foremast-man. The mate's eye met his, then turned to the passengers leaning over the poop-railing; and they all three walked to the capstan, where they began to overhaul the charts, and laid their heads together out of earshot. "Now, whether this said land just made out on the north-east trended away back to south-east, as the clearer look of the horizon to starboard made one think, it was hard to say--though in _that_ way of it, there were _seemingly_ two plans for widening her distance. Either Finch might think it better to keep hold of a fair wind, and just edge her off enough to drop the point on her weather quarter--when, of course, if things stood as they were, we should soon set a good stretch of water betwixt us and the coast; or else they might brace direct round on the other tack, and head right south-west'ard, out to sea again; though if we were still in it, the current would set us every bit as much in its own direction as ever. Accordingly, I sidled nearer to the capstan, and watched anxiously for what the third mate had to propose, after humming and hawing a little, and scratching his head under his cap for half a minute. 'At any rate, Mr Finch, sir,' said he, 'more especially the captain being off charge, I may say, why, I'd advise ye, sir, to----' Here he dropped his voice; but Finch apparently agreed to what he said. "'Ready about ship, there!' said the second mate aloud to the boatswain forward; and in ten minutes afterwards the _Seringapatam_ was fairly round, as I had expected, heading at a right-angle to her former course, with the breeze before her starboard beam, and the sun blazing on the other. I walked forward to the bows, and actually started to hear how loud and clear the ripple had got under them of a sudden; meeting her with a plash, as if she were making six or seven knots headway, while the canvas seemed to draw so much stiffer aloft, you'd have supposed the breeze had freshened as soon as the helm was put down. The mates looked over the side and aloft, rubbing their hands and smiling to each other, as much as to say how fast she was hauling off the bad neighbourhood she was in, though the heat was as great as ever, and you didn't feel a breath more air below, nor see the water ruffle. To _my_ notion, in fact, it was just the set of the current against her that seemingly freshened her way, the ship being now direct in its teeth; so that, of course, it would keep bearing her up all the time away north-eastward, with _her_ own leeway to help it; and the less could anyone notice the difference betwixt the water going past her side, and her passing the water. This tack of hers, which Rickett, no doubt, thought such a safe plan, might be the very one to put her in a really dangerous way yet: for when they did discover this under-tow, how were they to take her out of it, after all? Probably by trying to stand fair across the stream of it to southward, which, without three times the wind we had, would at best take us out many miles nearer the land it set upon, or leave us perhaps becalmed in the midst of it. "The truth was, that although I hadn't seen what like the land was, and couldn't have said, by the chart, _where_ we were, I began to have a faint notion of whereabouts we possibly soon might be, from what I remembered hearing an old quartermaster in the _Iris_ say, a couple of years before, regarding a particular spot on the south-west coast, where the currents at some seasons, as he phrased it, made a regular racecourse meeting. The old fellow gave me also, at the time, some bearings of the nearest coast, with the landmarks at the mouth of a river a little farther north--which, he said, he would know if you set him down there of a dark night, though he had been in his bed at Gosport the minute before, if there was just a bright streak of sky to the eastward--namely, a big black rock like two steps, and a block at the foot of them, somewhat the shape of a chipped holystone, running down on one side out of a high headland, like an admiral's cocked hat, with six mop-headed trees upon the root of the rock, for all the world like hairs on a wart. Here I recollected how my worthy authority pointed modestly for example to a case of the kind on his own nose. The opposite shore of its mouth was flat, with a heavy white surf; but it shut in so far upon the other, he said, that, steering from the south'ard, one would never know there was a river there at all. The Bambar he called it; but if he meant the Bembarooghe, we could scarcely be near _it_, or that much toward being abreast of St Helena. For all I saw, indeed, we might have nothing to eastward of us save a hard coast, or else the sandy coast farther down, shoaling out of sight of land. At any rate, I knew we must have got into the tail of the great sea-stream from round the Cape of Good Hope, which would, no doubt, split out at sea on Viana's Bank, and turn partly to north-eastward thereabouts; so that it wasn't a very bad guess to suppose we were getting up somewhere near Cape Frio, the likeliest place in the world to find old Bob Martin's 'Maze,' which we used to joke about so in the _Iris_. "What was done, though, required to be done quickly, and I looked about for Tom Westwood, till I saw him on the poop amongst the rest, talking again to Miss Hyde, as they all crowded towards the lee-quarter to watch the land-haze seemingly dropping astern. My heart swelled as it were into my throat, however, at such an appearance of good understanding betwixt the two--whereas there was _she_, an hour ago that very morning, would scarce favour me with a look or a word!--and, for the life of me, I couldn't have spoken to Westwood at the time, much less gone hand in hand; for that matter he didn't seem to be suspecting aught wrong to trouble himself about. What to say or do, either, I couldn't think; since the more he cut me out, and the less friendly I felt to him, the less could I risk the chance of showing us both up for what we _were_--which, of course, would bring him in for the worst of it; as if _I_, by Jove, were going to serve him some low trick for the sake of shoving _him_ out with the young lady. "Meantime I kept fidgeting about, as if the deck were too hot for me, snatching a glance now and then, in spite of myself, at Violet Hyde's fairy-like figure; so different from the rest of them, as she stretched eagerly from below the awning over the ship's quarter-gallery, trying to make out where the land lay--now putting her little hand over her eyes to see better, then covering them altogether from the dazzle, as she drew in her head again and shook her bright brown hair in the shadow, answering Westwood--confound him! The Indian servant each time carefully poking out the red and yellow punkah-fringe for a cover over her, while the passengers were one and all ready to cry at not seeing the land, and leaving it behind. The judge himself was the only man that seemed to have a dim notion of something queer in the whole case; for every few minutes he walked quietly to the break of the poop, where I noticed him cast a doubtful look down upon the 'chief officer'; and when the surgeon came up, he asked anxiously how Captain Williamson was, and if he couldn't be seen below. However, the surgeon told him the captain had just fallen for the first time into a good sleep, and there was no admittance, but he was likely to be much better soon. "By this time there was no standing out from under the awnings, and the quarter-deck and poop had to be well swabbed to keep them at all cool, the steam of it rising inside with a pitchy, hempen sort of smell you never feel save in the Tropics; the _Seringapatam_ still feeling the breeze aloft, and lifting on the water with a ripple forward, although her big courses went lapping fore and aft every time she swung. The long white haze on the horizon began to melt as the sun heightened, clearing from under the wake of the light, till now you could fairly see the sky to eastward. Near noon, in fact, we had almost dropped the haze altogether on the ship's quarter; and at first I was glad to see how much way she had made in the two hours, when on second thoughts, and by noticing some marks in the loom of it, I had no doubt but though she might be farther off, why it was only while she set more up to north-eastward, so that we were actually, so to speak, leaving it by getting nearer! However, as the men were at dinner, and most of the passengers gone off the poop, down to 'tiffin,' I made up my mind to try what I could do in a quiet way, towards making the mate think of it more seriously. "'Ah,' said I, in a would-be brisk and confidential kind of way, 'glad we're leaving that--a--you know, that land, Mr Finch.' 'Indeed, sir,' said he indifferently. 'Oh, you know,' said I, 'it's all very well for the _passengers_ there to talk fine about land--land--but you and I, Mr Finch, don't need to be told that it's always dangerous at sea, you know.' The mate lifted his head and eyed me for a moment or two between the disgust a sailor feels at seeing a fellow pretend to aught like seamanship, and a particular sort of spite toward me which I'd noticed growing in him for the last few days--though I daresay my breakfasting that morning in Sir Charles's cabin might have brought it to a height. "'Land dangerous, sir!' answered he carelessly, as he went on wiping his quadrant again; 'who put _that_ into your head?' 'Oh, well,' returned I, just as carelessly, 'if it's to leeward of course--or with a current taking you towards it--only then. But I've no doubt, Mr Finch, if this wind _were_ to--ah--you know, heave more abaft, that's to say get stronger, the craft would at least stand still, till you got her.' 'What on earth _are_ you talking about, Mr Ford--Collins, I mean?' asked he sharply. 'Really, sir, I've got something more to attend to at present, than such trash about a current, and the devil knows what else!' 'How, why, Mr Finch,' said I, seemingly surprised in my turn, '_are_ we not in a current just now, then?' 'Current!' replied Finch, almost laughing outright, 'what _does_ the man mean?' 'Why, every one thinks so, in the cuddy,' said I, as if rather taken aback, and venturing what you fair ladies call a 'fib,' 'ever since we picked up the bottle last night.' This, by-the-by, had got spread through some of the men to the passengers, though, of course, nobody knew what had been in it yet. '_There_, I declare now,' continued I, pointing to our lee-bow, where I'd had my eyes fixed during the five minutes we spoke, 'we can try it again. Do you see that bird yonder on the water?' The mate turned his head impatiently, and 'Look, watch him, sir,' said I. "This was a tired man-o'-war bird afloat about twenty fathoms off, with its sharp white wings stretched just clear of the water, and its black eye sparkling in the sunlight, as it came dipping on the long, smooth, hot-blue swell into the lee of the ship's lofty hull, till you saw its very shadow in the glitter below it. The Indiaman seemed to pass him as if he rode there at anchor; only the curious thing was, that the bird apparently neared her up from leeward, crossing her larboard quarter within a fathom or two, when all of a sudden he got becalmed, as it were, in the wake right astern, and by the time either of us could walk to the ship's taffrail, she was close over him; as if, whenever her hull was end-on, it took his surface-drift away from him, and, what was more, as if the _ship_ kept hold of it--her eighteen feet or so to his little inch of a draught--for it couldn't be owing to the wind. "However, the man-o'-war bird took offer of the next swell to get air in his wings, and rose off the heave of it with a sharp bit of a scream, away after some black boobies diving for fish, which no doubt he would catch, as they dropped them at sight of him. "The mate upon this started and looked round, then aloft. 'Confound it!' said he to himself, 'if this breeze would only freshen! There _is_ a sort of set on the surface just now,' continued he to me, coolly enough, 'though how you idlers happened to have an idea of it puzzles me, unless because you've nothing else to do but watch the water. Currents are pretty frequent hereabouts, however.' 'Dear me!' said I, 'but if we should----' 'Stuff, sir!' said he, quickly, 'the coast here must be steep-to enough, I should think, since if it weren't for the haze, we'd have sighted it thirty miles off! What we want is wind--wind, to let's cross it.' 'But then a calm, Mr Finch,' I said; 'I'm hanged afraid of those calms!' 'Well, well, sir,' said he, not liking just to shake me off at once, after my proving less of a ninny in sea matters than he had supposed, 'these long currents never set right ashore; even if we lose the wind, as we may soon, why, she'll take off into the eddy seaward, sir, if you _must_ know--the dead-water in-shore, and the ebb-tide, always give it a safe turn!' "All this, of course, was as much to satisfy himself as me. 'Well, that's delightful,' said I, as if quite contented, and Mr Finch walked away hastily down one of the poop-ladders, no doubt glad to get rid of me in a decent manner, though I saw him next minute glancing in at the compass-boxes. "'Keep her up to her course, sirrah; luff, d'ye hear,' said he to Jacobs, who was, perhaps, the best helmsman aboard. 'She falls off tremendous bad, sir,' answered Jacobs, with another whirl of the spokes; her want of actual headway making the Indiaman _sag_ dead away to leeward, as she shoved into the force of the sea-stream, running more and more direct upon her starboard bow. One minute the courses would sink in with a long sighing fall to the lower-masts, the next her topsails would flutter almost aback, and the heat even in the shadow of her awnings was extreme, yet she still seemed to have a breeze through the white glare aloft. I was determined to bring things to a point somehow or other, so I followed the mate down the steps. 'Oh, by-the-by, Mr Finch!' said I eagerly, 'suppose one of those dreadful--what do you call 'em?--ah, tornadoes--were to come on! I understand this is just the way, near Africa--baffling breeze--heat suffocating--hazy atmosphere--long swell--and current rising to the surface!' "At this Finch stood up in a perfect fury. 'What the devil d'ye mean, sir,' said he, 'by dodging me about the decks in this fashion, with these infernally foolish questions of yours?' 'Oh, my fine fellow,' thought I, 'you shall settle with me for that.' 'Tornadoes never blow hereabouts, except off-shore, if you _must_ know, sir!' he rapped out, sticking his hands in his jacket-pockets as he said so, and taking a turn on the quarter-deck. 'That's quite a mistake, I assure you, sir!' said I, carried away with the spirit of the thing; 'I've seen the contrary fifty times over, and, from the look of the sky aloft just now, I'd bet----' Here I stopped, recollected myself, put the top of my cane in my mouth, and peered under the awning at the sea with my eyes half-shut, as sleepily as usual with my messmates the cadets. The chief officer, however, stepped back in surprise, eyed me sharply, and seemed struck with a sudden thought. 'Why, sir,' said he, rather anxiously, 'who may--what can _you_ know of the matter?' 'Pooh!' replied I, seeing some of the passengers were coming on deck, 'I'm only of an inquiring turn of mind! You seafaring persons, Mr Finch, think we can't get any of that kind of knowledge on land; but if you look into Johnson's Dictionary, why, you'll find the whole thing under the word Tornado: 'twas one of the pieces I'd to get by heart before they'd admit me into our yacht-club--along with Falconer's _Shipwreck_, you know!' 'Indeed!' said the mate, slowly, with a curl of his lip, and overhauling me from head to foot and up again; 'ah, indeed! That was the way, was it, sir?' I saw 'twas no use. I daresay he caught the twinkle in my eye; while Jacobs' face, behind him, was like the knocker on a door with trying to screw it tight over his quid, and stuffing the knot of his neckerchief in his mouth. "'Of course, sir,' answered I, letting my voice fall; 'and the long and the short of it is, Mr Finch, the sooner you get your ship out of this current the better! And what's more, sir, I daresay I could tell you _how_!' "Whether he was waiting for what I'd to say, or thinking of something just occurred to him, was doubtful: he still gazed steadily at me, without saying a word; so I went on. 'You must know I had an old uncle who was long in His Majesty's Royal Navy, and if there was one point he was crazy upon, 'twas just this very matter of currents--though, for my part, Mr Finch, I really never understood what he meant till I made a voyage. He used to tell my mother, poor woman--who always fancied they had somewhat to do with puddings--that he'd seen no less than half-a-dozen ships go on shore, owing to currents. Now, Jane, he'd say, when you're fairly in a current, never you try to cross out of it, as folks often do, _against_ the run of it, for in that case, unless the wind's strong enough, why, instead of striking the eddy to take your craft right off-shore, it'll just set you over and over to the _inside_. You'll cross, in the end, no doubt--but ten to one it's exactly where the water begins to shoal; whereas, the right plan's as simple as daylight, and that's why so few know it! Look ye, he'd say, always you cross _with_ the stream--no matter though your head seems to make landward; why, the fact is, it'll just set you outside of itself, clear into its own bight, when you can run off to seaward with the eddy, if ye choose. _That's_ the way to cross a current, my uncle used to say, provided you've but a light wind for handling her with! Now, Mr Finch,' added I, coolly, and still mouthing my stick as before--for I couldn't help wishing to give the conceited fellow a rub, while I lent him a hint--'for my own part, I can't know much of these things, but it _does_ seem to me as if my uncle's notions pretty well suited the case in hand!' "Finch was too much of a fair seaman not to catch my drift at once, but in too great a passion to own it at the time. 'D'ye think, sir,' said he, with a face like fire, 'so much sense as there is in this long rigmarole of yours, that I'm such a--that's to say, that I didn't know it before, sir? But what I've got to do with _you_, Mr Collinson, or whatever your name may be--you may have been at sea twenty years, for aught I care--but I'd like to know _why_ you come aboard here, and give yourself out for as raw a greenhorn as ever touched ropes with a kid glove?' 'Well, Mr Finch,' said I, 'and what's that to you, if I choose to be as green as the North Sea whaling-ground?' 'Why, sir,' said Finch, working himself up, 'you're devilish cunning, no doubt, but perhaps you're not aware that a passenger under a false rig, in an Indiaman, may be clapped in limbo, if the captain thinks fit? Who and what are you, I ask?--some runaway master's mate, I suppose, unless you've got something deeper in hand! Perhaps,' ended he, with a sneer, 'a pickpocket in disguise?' 'Sir,' said I, getting up off the bulwark I'd been leaning upon, 'at _present_ I choose to be a cadet, but at any rate, you shall make an apology for what you said just now, sir!' 'Apology!' said the mate turning on his heel, 'I shan't do anything of the sort! You may be thankful, in the meantime, if I don't have you locked up below, that's all! Perhaps, by-the-by, sir, all you wanted was to show off your seamanship before the young lady in the round-house there?' Here the glance the fellow gave me was enough to show he knew pretty well, all the while, what we were matched against each other for. "I could stand this no longer, of course; but, seeing that one or two of the passengers were noticing us from the poop, I looked as polite as is possible to do when you've lost your temper; and, in fact, the whole disappointment of this hair-brained cruise of mine--not to speak of a few things one had to stand--carried me away at the moment. There was no scheme I wouldn't rather have been suspected of, by this time, than the real one--namely, having gone in chase of Violet Hyde. I took a card out of my pocket and handed it quietly to Mr Finch. 'You don't seem able to name me, sir,' said I. 'However, I give you my word, you may trust that bit of pasteboard for it; and as I take you to be a gentleman by your place in this ship, why, I shall expect the satisfaction one gentleman should give another, the first time we get ashore, although it _should_ be to-morrow morning! And, by Jove!' thought I, 'I hope I'm done with the most foolish trick ever a fellow played himself! The man that ventures to call me _green_ again, or look at me as if he wanted to cool his eyes, hang me if he shan't answer for it! As for a woman,' thought I, but, oh, those two blue eyes yonder--confound it! as I caught sight of a white muslin skirt in the shade of the poop-awning above. "I must say, for Finch, he took my last move coolly enough, turning round to give me another look, after glancing at the card. 'Indeed!' said he, as if rather surprised; 'well, sir, I'm your man for _that_, though it can't be just as soon as to-morrow morning! A Company's officer may meet a lieutenant in the Navy any time--ay, and take his ship off the land too, I hope, sir!' and with that he walked off forward. 'Lieutenant!' said I to myself; 'how did he give me my commission so pat, I wonder?' and I pulled out another card, when I found, to my great annoyance, that in my hurry that morning I had happened to put on a coat of Westwood's by mistake, and instead of plain 'Mr Collins,' they were all 'Lieutenant Westwood, R.N.' 'Here's another confounded mess!' thought I, 'and all will be blown in the end!' However, on second thoughts, the notion struck me, that, by sticking to the name, as I must do _now_ at any rate, why, I should keep Westwood clear of all scrapes, which, in _his_ case, might be disagreeable enough; whereas, at present, he was known only as the Reverend Mr Thomas--and, as for _his_ either shamming the griffin, or giving hints how to work the ship, he was one of those men you'd scarce know for a sailor, by aught in his manner, at least: and, indeed, Tom Westwood always seemed to need a whole frigate's ways about him, with perhaps somewhat of a stir, to show what he really was. "Five minutes or so after this, it didn't certainly surprise me much to see the Indiaman laid on the opposite tack, with her head actually north-by-east, or within a few points of where the light haze faded into the sky: the mate seeming by this time to see the matter clearly, and quietly making his own of it. The ship began to stand over towards the outer set of the current, which could now be seen rippling along here and there to the surface, as the breeze fell slowly: you heard nothing save the faint plash of it astern under one counter, the wafting and rustling of her large main-course above the awnings, for she was covered over like a caravan--the slight flap of her jibs far ahead on the bowsprit startled you now and then as distinctly as if you got a fillip on your own nose; the stunsail, high up beside the weather-leech of her fore-topsail, hung slack over the boom, and one felt each useless jolt of the wheel like a foot-slip in loose sand when you want to run--all betwixt the lazy, listless voices of the passengers, dropping and dropping as separate as the last sands in an hour-glass. Still, every minute of air aloft helped her nearer to where you saw the water winding about the horizon in long swathes, as it were, bluer than the rest, and swelling brimful, so to speak, out of a line of light; with the long dents and bits of ripple here and there creeping towards it, till the whole round of the surface, as far as you could see, came out into the smooth, like the wrinkles on a nutmeg. "Four bells of the afternoon watch had struck--two o'clock, that is--when Rickett, the third mate, and one or two men, went out to the arm of the spritsail-yard across the bowsprit, where they lowered away a heavy pitch-pot with a long strip of yellow bunting made fast to it, and weighted a little at the loose end, to mark the _set_ of the current; and as the pot sank away out on her larboard bow, one could see the bright- rag deep down through the clear blue water, streaming almost fairly _north_. She appeared to be nearing the turn of the eddy, and the chief officer's spirits began to rise. Rickett screwed one eye close, and looked out under his horny palm with the other, doubtful, as he said, that we should 'sight the land off-deck before that. As for this trifle of an air aloft, sir,' said he, 'I'm afraid we won't----' 'Hoot, Mr Reckett,' put in Macleod, stepping one of his long trouserlegs down from over the quarter-deck awning, like an ostrich that had been aloft, 'ye're aye afraid; but it's not easy to see aloft, Mr Fench, sir.' 'How does the land lie _now_, Mr Macleod?' asked the first officer. 'Well, I wouldn't wonder but we soon dropped it, sir--that's to _east'ard_, I mean,' replied he; 'though it's what we call a bit mountainous, in Scotland--not that unlike the Grampians, Mr Fench, ye know!' 'Hang your Grampians, man!--what's _ahead_ of us, eh?' said the mate hastily. 'Why, sir,' said the Scotchman, 'there _is_ some more of it on the nor'-east, lower a good deal--its just flush with the water from here, at present, Mr Fench--with a peak or two, trending away too'ard north; but the light yonder on our starboard bow makes them hard for to see, I may say.' "In fact, some of the men forward were making it out already on the starboard bow, where you could see the faint ragged shape of a headland coming out, as it were, of the dazzle beyond the water, which lay nickering and heaving between, from deep-blue far away into pale; while almost at the same time, on her starboard quarter, where there was less of the light, another outline was to be seen looming like pretty high land, though still fainter than the first. As for the space betwixt them, for aught one could distinguish as yet, there might be nothing _there_ except air and water over against the ship's side. "'Well,' said the mate briskly, after a little, 'we're pretty sure, _now_, to have the land-breeze to give us sea-room, before two or three hours are over--by which time, I hope we'll be in the eddy of this infernal current, at any rate!' However, I was scarce sure he didn't begin to doubt the plan I'd given him; whereas had he known the whole case in time, and done the thing _then_, it was certain enough--and the best thing he could do, even as it was: but what troubled me now, why, suppose anything happened to the ship, mightn't he turn the tables on me after all, and say I had some bad design in it? I loitered about with my arms folded, saying never a word, but watching the whole affair keener than I ever did one of Shakspeare's plays in the theatre after a dull cruise; not a thing in sea, sky, or Indiaman, from the ripples far off on the water to ugly Harry hauling taut the jib-sheet with his chums, but somehow or other they seemed all to sink _into_ me at the time, as if they'd all got to come _out_ again strong. You hardly knew _when_ the ship lost the last breath of air aloft, till, from stealing through the smooth water, she came apparently to a standstill, everything spread broad out, not even a flap in the canvas almost, it had fallen a dead calm so gradually. "However, _my_ troubles weren't seemingly over yet, for just then up came the judge's dark kitmagar to the gangway where I was, and, from the sly impudence of the fellow's manner, I at once fancied there was something particular in the wind, as if he'd been seeking me about-decks. 'S'laam, mistree!' said he, with but a slight duck of his flat brown turban, 'Judge sahib i-send Culley Mistree his chupprass'--_message_, forsooth!--'sah'b inquire the flavour of gentlyman's Ees-Inchee Coompanee, two-three moment!' 'The flavour of my East-India Company, you rascal!' said I, laughing, yet inclined to kick him aft again for his impertinent look; 'speak for yourself, if you please!' "In fact, the whiff of cocoa-nut oil, and other dark perfumes about him, came out in a hot calm at sea, when everything sickens one, as to need no inquiry about the matter; however, I walked straight aft to the round-house, and in at the open door, through which Sir Charles was to be seen pacing from one side of his cabin to the other, like a Bengal tiger in a cage. 'Harkye, young man,' said he sternly, turning as soon as I came in, with my hat in my hand, 'since I had the honour of your company here this morning, I have recollected--indeed, I find that one of my servants had done the same--that you are the person who molested my family by various annoyances beside my garden at Croydon, sir!' 'Indeed, Sir Charles!' said I coolly, for the bitter feeling I had made me cool: 'they must have been unintentional then, sir! But I was certainly at Croydon, seeing my mother's house happens to be there.' 'You must have had some design in entering this vessel, sir!' continued the judge, in a passion: ''gad, sir, the coincidence is too curious! Tell me what it is at once, or by----' 'My design was to go to India, sir,' answered I, as quietly as before. 'In what capacity?--who are you?--what--who--what do you want _there_, eh?' rapped out the judge. 'I'm not aware, sir,' said I, 'what right you've got to question me; but I--in fact, I'll tell _so_ much to any man--why, I'm an officer in the Navy.' "Sir Charles brought short up in his pacing and stamping, and stared at me. 'An officer in the Navy!' repeated he; 'but yes--why, now I think, I do remember something in your dress, sir--though it was the _face_ that struck me! In short then, sir, this makes the case worse: you are here on false pretences--affecting the very reverse, sir--setting yourself up for a model of simplicity,--a laughing-stock indeed!' 'I had reasons for not wishing my profession to be known, Sir Charles,' said I; 'most special reasons. They're now over, however, and I don't care _who_ knows it!' 'May I ask what these were?' said the judge. '_That_ I'll never tell to any man breathing!' I said determinedly. "The judge walked two or three times fore and aft; then a thought seemed to strike him--he looked out as if at the decks and through below the awnings, then shut the door and came back to me again. 'By-the-way,' said he seriously, and changing his tone, 'since this extraordinary acknowledgment of yours, sir, something occurs to me which makes me almost think your presence in the vessel in one sense opportune. I have reason to entertain a high opinion of naval officers as technical men, professionally educated in His Majesty's regular service, and--you look rather a _young_ man--but have you had much experience, may I ask?' 'I have been nine or ten years at sea, sir,' replied I, a little taken aback, 'in various parts of the world!' 'I have some suspicion lately,' he went on, 'that this vessel is not navigated in a--in short, that at present, probably, we may be in some danger--do _you_ think so, sir?' 'No, Sir Charles,' said I, 'I don't think she _is_, as matters stand--only in a troublesome sort of quarter, which the sooner she's out of the better.' 'The commander is, I find, dangerously unwell,' continued he, 'and of the young man who seems to have the chief care of the vessel, I have no very high--well--_that_, of course I----Now, sir,' said he, looking intently at me, 'are _you_ capable of--in short, of managing this Company's vessel, should any emergency arise? I have seen such, myself--and in the circumstances I feel considerable alarm--uneasiness, at least--Eh, sir?' 'Depend upon it, Sir Charles,' I said, stepping toward the door, 'in any matter of the kind I'll do my best for this ship! But none knows so well as a seaman, there are cases enough where your very best can't do much!' "The judge seemed rather startled by my manner--for I _did_ feel a little misgiving, from something in the weather on the whole; at any rate I fancied there was a cold-bloodedness in every sharp corner of his face, bilious though his temper was, that would have let him see _me_ go to the bottom a thousand times over, had I even had a chance with his daughter herself, ere he'd have yielded me the tip of her little finger: accordingly 'twas a satisfaction to me, at the moment, just to make him see he wasn't altogether in his nabob's chair in Bengal yet, on an elephant's back. "'Ah, though!' said he, raising his voice to call me back, 'to return for an instant--there is one thing I must positively require, sir--which you will see, in the circumstances, to be unavoidable. As a mere simple cadet, observe, sir, there was nothing to be objected to in a slight passing acquaintance--but, especially in the--in short, equivocal--sir, I must request of you that you will on no account attempt to hold any communication with my daughter, Miss Hyde--beyond a mere bow, of course! 'Twill be disagreeable, I assure you. Indeed, I shall----' 'Sir,' said I, all the blood in my body going to my face, 'of all things in the world, _that_ is the very thing where your views and mine happen to square!' and I bowed. "The man's coolness disgusted me, sticking such a thing in my teeth, after just reckoning on my services with the very same breath--and all when it wasn't required, too! And by Heaven! thought I, had _she_ shown me favour, all the old nabobs in Christendom, and the whole world to boot, shouldn't hinder me from speaking to her! What I said apparently puzzled him, but he gave me a grand bow in his turn, and I had my hand on the door, when he said, 'I suppose, sir, as a naval officer, you have no objection to give me your name and rank. I forget what----' Here I remembered my mistake with the mate, and on the whole I saw I must stick by it till I was clear of the whole concern; as for _saying_ my name was Westwood, that I couldn't have done at the time for worlds; but I quietly handed him another card, meaning, of course, to give Westwood the cue as shortly as possible, for his own safety. The judge started on seeing the card, gave me one of his sharp glances, and made a sudden step towards me. 'Have you any relation in India, Mr Westwood?' said he, slowly, to which I gave only a nod. 'What is he, if I may inquire?' asked he again. 'A councillor or something, I believe,' said I, carelessly. '_Thomas_ Westwood?' said Sir Charles. 'Ah,' said I, wearied of the thing, and anxious to go. 'An uncle, probably, from the age?' he still put in. 'Exactly, that's it!' I said. 'Why--what!--why did you not mention this at first?' he broke out suddenly, coming close up; 'why, Councillor Westwood is my very oldest friend in India, my dear sir! This alters the matter. I should have welcomed a nephew of his in my house, to the utmost! Why, how strange, Mr Westwood, that the fact should emerge in this curious manner!' and with that he held out his hand. 'Of course,' said he, 'no such restriction as I mentioned could for a moment apply to a nephew of Councillor Westwood!' "I stared at him for a moment, and then--'Sir,' said I, coolly, 'it seems the whole matter goes by names; but if my name were the devil or the Apostle Paul, I don't see how it can make a bit of difference in _me_: what's more, sir,' said I, setting my teeth, 'what_ever_ my name may be, depend upon it, I shall never claim acquaintance either with you or--or--Miss Hyde!' With that I flung straight out of the cabin, leaving the old gentleman bolt upright on the floor, and as dumb as a stock-fish, whether with rage or amazement I never stopped to think. "I went right forward on the Indiaman's forecastle, clear of all the awnings, dropped over her head out of sight of the men, and sat with my legs amongst the open woodwork beneath the bowsprit, looking at the calm--nobody in sight but the Hindoo figure, who seemed to be doing the same. _Westwood!_ thought I, bitterly; then in a short time, when the mistake's found out, and he got safe past the Cape, perhaps--it'll be nothing but Westwood! He'll have a clear stage, and all favour; but at any rate, how_ever_ it may be, _I_'ll not be here, by Heaven, to see it. That cursed councillor of his, I suppose, is another nabob--and no doubt he'll marry her, all smooth! Uncles--I little thought, by Jove! when I knocked off that yarn to the mate about _my_ uncle--but, after all, it's strange how often a fellow's paid back in his own coin! "The heat at the time was unbearable--_heat_, indeed! 'twasn't only heat--but a heavy, close, stifling sort of feeling, like in a hot-house, as if you'd got a weight on your head and every other bit of you: the water one time so dead-blue and glassy between the windings of it, that the sky seemed to vanish, and the ship looked floating up into where _it_ was--then again you scarce knew sea from air, except by the wrinkles and eddies running across each other between, toward a sullen blue ring at the horizon--like seeing through a big twisted sieve, or into a round looking-glass all over cracks. I heard them clue up everything aloft, except the topsails--and _they_ fell slapping back and forward to the masts, every now and then with a _thud_ like a thousand spades clapped down at once over a hollow bit of ground--till all seemed as still between as if they'd buried something. I wished to Heaven it were what I _felt_ at the time, and the thought of Violet Hyde, that I might be as if I never had seen her--when on glancing up betwixt the figure-head and the ship's stern, it struck me to notice how much the land on her starboard bow and beam seemed to have risen, even during the last hour, and that without wind; partly on account of its clearing in that quarter, perhaps; but the nearest points looked here and there almost as if you could see into them, roughening barer out through the hue of the distance, like purple blotches spreading in it. Whereas, far away astern of us, when I crossed over her headworks, there were two or three thin white streaks of haze to be seen just on the horizon, one upon another, above which you made out somewhat like a dim range of peaked land, trending one couldn't say how far back--all showing how fairly the coast was shutting her in upon the south-east, as she set farther in-shore, even while the run of the current bade fair to take her well clear of it ahead; which was, of course, all we need care for at present. Her want of steerage-way, however, let the Indiaman sheer hither and thither, till at times one was apt to get confused, and suppose her more in with the landloom than she really was. Accordingly the mate proved his good judgment by having a couple of boats lowered with a tow-line, to keep her at least stem-on to the current, although the trouble of getting out the launch would have more served his purpose, and the deeper loaded the better, since in fact there were _two_ favourable drifts instead of one, between every stroke of the oars. The men pulled away rather sulkily, their straw hats over their noses, the dip of the hawser scarce tautening at each strain, as they squinted up at the _Seringapatam's_ idle figure-head. For my part I had thought it better to leave him by himself, and go below. CHAPTER XIV "When I went into the cuddy, more for relief's sake than to dine, the passengers were chattering and talking away round the tables, hot and choking though it was, in high glee because the land was in sight from the starboard port-window, and they fancied the officers had changed their minds as to 'touching' there. Every now and then a cadet or two would start up, with their silver forks in their hands, and put their heads out; some asked whether the anchor had been seen getting ready or not; others disputed about the colour of tropical trees, if they were actually green like English ones, or perhaps all over blossoms and fruit together--the whole of them evidently expecting bands of <DW64>s to line the shore as we came in. "One young fellow had taken a particular fancy to have an earthworm, with earth enough to feed it all the rest of the voyage, otherwise he couldn't stand it; and little Tommy's mother almost went into hysterics again when she said, if she could just eat a lettuce salad once more, she'd die contented; the missionary looking up through his spectacles, in surprise that she wasn't _more_ interested about the slave-trade, whereof he'd been talking to her. As for Westwood, he joined quietly in the fun, with a glance now and then across to me; however, I pretended to be too busy with the salt beef, and was merely looking up again for a moment, when my eye chanced to catch on the swinging barometer that hung in the raised skylight, right over the midst of our noise. By George! ma'am, what was my horror when I saw the quicksilver had sunk so far below the mark, probably fixed there that morning, as to be almost shrunk in the ball! Whatever the merchant service might know about the instrument in those days, the African coast was the place to teach its right use to us in the old _Iris_. I laid down my knife and fork as carelessly as I could, and went straight on deck. "Here I sought out the mate, who was forward, watching the land--and at once took him aside to tell him the fact. 'Well, sir,' said he coolly, 'and what of that? A sign of wind, certainly, before very long; but in the meantime we're _sure_ to have it off the land.' 'That's one of the very reasons,' said I, 'for thinking _this_ will be from seaward--since towards evening the land'll have plenty of air without it! But more than that, sir,' said I, 'I tell you, Mr Finch, I know the west coast of Africa pretty well--and so far south as this, the glass falling so low as _twenty-seven_, is always the sign of a nor'-westerly blow! If you're a wise man, sir, you'll not only get your upper spars down on deck, but you'll see your anchors clear!' Finch had plainly got furious at my meddling again, and said he, 'Instead of that, sir, I shall hold on _everything_ aloft, to stand out when I get the breeze!' 'D' ye really think, then,' said I, pointing to the farthest-off streak of land, trending away by this time astern of us, faint as it was, '_do_ you think you could ever weather that point, with anything like a strong nor'-wester, besides a current heading you in, as you got fair hold of it again?' 'Perhaps not,' said he, wincing a little as he glanced at it; 'but you happen always to suppose what there's a thousand to one against, sir. Why, sir, you might as well take the command at once. But, sir, if it _did_ come to that, I'd rather--I'd rather see the ship _lost_--I'd rather go to the bottom with all in her, after handling her as I know well how, than I'd see the chance given to _you_!' The young fellow fairly shouted this last word into my very ear--he was in a regular furious passion. 'You'd _better_ let me alone, that's all I've got to say to you, sir!' growled he as he turned away; so I thought it no use to say more, and leant over the bulwarks, resolved to see it out. "The fact was, the farther we got off the land _now_, the worse, seeing that if what I dreaded should prove true, why, we were probably in thirty or forty fathoms of water, where no anchor could hold for ten minutes' time--if it ever caught ground. My way would have been to get every boat out at once, and tow in till you could see the colour of some shoal or other from aloft, then take my chance there to ride out whatever might come, to the last cable aboard of us. Accordingly I wasn't sorry to see that by this time the whole bight of the coast was slowly rising off our beam betwixt the high land far astern and the broad bluffs upon her starboard bow; which last came out already of a sandy reddish tint, and the lower part of a clear blue, as the sun got westward on our other side. What struck me was, that the face of the water, which was all over wrinkles and winding lines, with here and there a quick ripple, when I went below, had got on a sudden quite smooth as far as you could see, as if they'd sunk down like so many eels; a long uneasy ground-swell was beginning to heave in from seaward, on which the ship rose; once or twice I fancied I could observe the colour different away towards the land, like the muddy chocolate spreading out near a river-mouth at ebb-tide--then again it was green, rather; and as for the look of the coast, I had no knowledge of it. I thought again, certainly, of the old quartermaster's account in the _Iris_, but there was neither anything like it to be seen, nor any sign of a break in the coast at all, though high headlands enough. "The ship might have been about twelve or fourteen miles from the north-east point upon her starboard bow, a high rocky range of bluffs--and rather less from the nearest of what lay away off her beam; but after this you could mark nothing more, except it were that she edged farther from the point, by the way its bearings shifted or got blurred together: either she stood still, or she'd caught some eddy or under-rift, and the mate walked about quite lively once more. The matter was how to breathe, or bear your clothes--when all of a sudden I heard the second mate sing out from the forecastle 'Stand by the braces, there! Look out for the topes'l hawl-yairds!' "He came shuffling aft next moment as fast as his foundered old shanks could carry him, and told Mr Finch there was a squall coming off the land. The mate sprang up on the bulwarks, and so did I--catching a glance from him as much as to say--There's your gale from seaward, you pretentious lubber! The lowest streak of coast bore at present before our starboard quarter, betwixt east and south-east'ard, with some pretty high land running away up from it, and a sort of dim blue haze hanging beyond, as 'twere. Just as Macleod spoke, I could see a dusky dark vapour thickening and spreading in the haze, till it rose black along the flat, out of the sky behind it; whitened and then darkened again, like a heavy smoke floating up into the air. All was confusion on deck for a minute or two--off went all the awnings--and every hand was ready at his station, fisting the ropes; when I looked again at the cloud, then at the mates. '_By_ George!' said I, noticing a pale wreath of it go curling on the pale clear sky over it, as if to a puff of air, 'it _is_ smoke! Some <DW65>s, as they often do, burning the bush!' "So it was; and as soon as Finch gave in, all hands quietly coiled up the ropes. It was scarce five minutes after, that Jacobs, who was coiling up a rope beside me, gave me a quiet touch with one finger. 'Mr Collins, sir,' said he in a low voice, looking almost right up, high over toward the ship's larboard bow, which he couldn't have done before, for the awnings so lately above us, 'look, sir--there's an _ox-eye_!' I followed his gaze, but it wasn't for a few seconds that I found what it pointed to, in the hot far-off-like blue dimness of the sky overhead, compared with the white glare of which to westward our canvas aloft was but dirty grey and yellow. "'Twas what none but a seaman would have observed, and many a seaman wouldn't have done so--but a man-o'-war's-man is used to look out at all hours, in all latitudes--and to a man that knew its meaning, _this_ would have been no joke, even out of sight of land; as it was, the thing gave me a perfect thrill of dread. High aloft in the heavens northward, where they were freest from the sun--now standing over the open horizon amidst a wide bright pool of light--you managed to discern a small silvery speck, growing slowly, as it were, out of the faint blue hollow, like a star in the daytime, till you felt as if it _looked_ at you, from God knows what distance away. One eye after another amongst the mates and crew joined Jacobs' and mine, with the same sort of dumb fellowship to be seen when a man in London streets watches the top of a steeple; and however hard to make out at first, ere long none of them could miss seeing it, as it got slowly larger, sinking by degrees till the sky close about it seemed to thicken like a dusky ring round the white, and the sunlight upon our seaward quarter blazed out doubly strong--as if it came dazzling off a brass bell, with the bright tongue swinging in it far off to one side, where the hush made you think of a stroke back upon us, with some terrific sound to boot. "The glassy water by this time was beginning to rise under the ship with a struggling kind of unequal heave, as if a giant you couldn't see kept shoving it down here and there with both hands, and it came swelling up elsewhere. "To north-westward or thereabouts, betwixt the sun and this ill-boding token aloft, the far line of open sea still lay shining motionless and smooth; next time you looked, it had got even brighter than before, seeming to leave the horizon visibly; then the streak of air just above it had grown grey, and a long hedge of hazy vapour was creeping as it were over from beyond--the white speck all the while travelling down towards it slantwise from nor'ard, and spreading its dark ring slowly out into a circle of cloud, till the keen eye of it at last sank in, and below, as well as aloft, the whole north-western quarter got blurred together in one gloomy mass. If there was a question at first whether the wind mightn't come from so far nor'ard as to give her a chance of running out to sea before it, there was none now--our sole recourse lay either in getting nearer the land meanwhile, to let go our anchors ere it came on, with her head _to_ it--or we might make a desperate trial to weather the lee-point now far astern. The fact was, we were going to have a regular tornado, and that of the worst kind, which wouldn't soon blow itself out; though near an hour's notice would probably pass ere it was on. "The three mates laid their heads gravely together over the capstan for a minute or two, after which Finch seemed to perceive that the first of the two ways was the safer; though, of course, the nearer we should get to the land, the less chance there was of clearing it afterwards, should her cables part, or the anchors drag. The two boats still alongside, and two others dropped from the davits, were manned at once and set to towing the Indiaman ahead, in-shore; while the bower and sheet anchors were got out to the cat-heads ready for letting go, cables overhauled, ranged, and clinched as quickly as possible, and the deep-sea lead passed along to take soundings every few minutes. "On we crept, slow as death, and almost as still, except the jerk of the oars from the heaving water at her bows, and the loud flap of the big topsails now and then, everything aloft save them and the brailed foresail being already close furled; the clouds all the while rising away along our larboard beam nor'-west and north, over the grey bank on the horizon, till once more you could scarce say which point the wind would come from, unless by the huge purple heap of vapour in the midst. The sun had got low, and he shivered his dazzling spokes of light behind one edge of it, as if 'twere a mountain you saw over some coast or other; indeed, you'd have thought the ship almost shut in by land on both sides of her, which was what seemed to terrify the passengers most, as they gathered about the poop-stairs and watched it--_which_ was the true land and which the clouds, 'twas hard to say--and the sea gloomed writhing between them like a huge lake in the mountains. "I saw Sir Charles Hyde walk out of the round-house and in again, glancing uneasily about; his daughter was standing with another young lady, gazing at the land; and at sight of her sweet, curious face, I'd have given worlds to be able to do something that might save it from the chance, possibly, of being that very night dashed amongst the breakers on a lee-shore in the dark--or at best, suppose the Almighty favoured any of us so far, perhaps landed in the wilds of Africa. Had there been aught man could do more, why, though I never should get a smile for it, I'd have compassed it, mate or no mate; but all was done that could be done, and I had nothing to say. Westwood came near her, too, apparently seeing our bad case at last to some extent, and both trying to break it to her and to assure her mind; so I folded my arms again, and kept my eyes hard fixed upon the bank of cloud, as some new weather-mark stole out in it, and the sea stretched breathless away below, like new melted lead. "The air was like to choke you--or rather there was none--as if water, sky, and everything else wanted _life_, and one would fain have caught the first rush of the tornado into his mouth--the men emptying the dipper on deck from the cask, from sheer loathing. As for the land, it seemed to draw nearer of itself, till every point and wrinkle in the headland off our bow came out in a red coppery gleam--one saw the white line of surf round it, and some blue country beyond like indigo; then back it darkened again, and all aloft was getting livid-like over the bare royal mast-heads. "Suddenly, a faint air was felt to flutter from landward; it half lifted the topsails, and a heavy earthy smell came into your nostrils--the first of the land-breeze, at last; but by this time it was no more than a sort of mockery, while a minute after you might catch a low, sullen, moaning sound far off through the emptiness, from the strong surf the Atlantic sends in upon the west coast before a squall. If ever landsmen found out what land on the wrong side is, the passengers of the _Seringapatam_ did, that moment; the shudder of the topsails aloft seemed to pass into everyone's shoulders, and a few quietly walked below, as if they were safe in their cabins. I saw Violet Hyde look round and round with a startled expression, and from one face to another, till her eye lighted on me, and I fancied for a moment it was like putting some question to me. I couldn't bear it!--'twas the first time I'd felt powerless to offer anything; though the thought ran through me again till I almost felt myself buffeting among the breakers with her in my arms. I looked to the land, where the smoke we had seen three-quarters of an hour ago, rose again with the puff of air, a slight flicker of flame in it, as it wreathed off the low ground toward the higher point--when all at once I gave a start, for something in the shape of the whole struck me as if I'd seen it before. "Next moment I was thinking of old Bob Martin's particular landmarks at the river-mouth he spoke of, and the notion of its possibly being hereabouts glanced on me like a godsend. In the unsure dusky sight I had of it, certainly, it wore somewhat of that look, and it lay fair to leeward of the weather; while, as for the dead shut-in appearance of it, old Bob had specially said you'd never think it was a river; but then again it was more like a desperate fancy owing to our hard case, and to run the ship straight for it would be the trick of a Bedlamite. At any rate, a quick cry from aft turned me round, and I saw a blue flare of lightning streak out betwixt the bank of grey haze and the cloud that hung over it--then another, and the clouds were beginning to rise slowly in the midst, leaving a white glare between, as if you could see through it towards what was coming. The men could pull no longer, but ahead of the ship there was now only about eight or ten fathoms water, with a soft bottom. The boats were hoisted in, and the men had begun to clue up and hand the topsails, which were lowered on the caps, when, just in the midst of the hubbub and confusion, as I stood listening to every order the mate gave, the steward came up hastily from below to tell him that the captain had woke up, and, being much better, wanted to see him immediately. Mr Finch looked surprised, but he turned at once, and hurried down the hatchway. "The sight which all of us who weren't busy gazed upon, over the larboard bulwarks, was terrible to see: 'twas half dark, though the sun dropping behind the haze-bank, made it glimmer and redden. The dark heap of clouds had first lengthened out blacker and blacker, and was rising slowly in the sky like a mighty arch, till you saw their white edges below, and a ghastly white space behind, out of which the mist and scud began to fly. Next minute a long sigh came into her jib and foresail, then the black bow of cloud partly sank again, and a blaze of lightning came out all round her, showing you every face on deck, the inside of the round-house aft, with the Indian judge standing in it, his hand to his eyes--and the land far away, to the very swell rolling into it. Then the thunder broke overhead in the gloom, in one fearful sudden crack, that you seemed to hear through every corner of cabins and forecastle below--and the wet back-fins of twenty sharks or so, that had risen out of the inky surface, vanished as suddenly. "The Indiaman had sheered almost broadside on to the clouds, her jib was still up, and I knew the next time the clouds _rose_ we should fairly have it. Flash after flash came, and clap after clap of thunder, _such_ as you hear before a tornado--yet the chief officer wasn't to be seen, and the others seemed uncertain what to do first; while everyone began to wonder and pass along questions where he could be. In fact, he had disappeared. For my part, I thought it very strange he stayed so long; but there wasn't a moment to lose. I jumped down off the poop-stairs, walked forward on the quarter-deck, and said coolly to the men nearest me,'Run and haul down that jib yonder--set the spanker here, aft. You'll have her taken slap on her beam: quick, my lads!' The men did so at once. Macleod was calling out anxiously for Mr Finch. 'Stand by the anchors there!' I sang out, 'to let go the starboard one, the _moment_ she swings head to wind!' The Scotch mate turned his head; but Rickett's face, by the next flash, showed he saw the good of it, and there was no leisure for arguing, especially as I spoke in a way to be heard. I walked to the wheel, and got hold of Jacobs to take the weather helm. "We were all standing ready, at the pitch of expecting it. Westwood, too, having appeared again by this time beside me, I whispered to him to run forward and look after the anchors--when someone came hastily up the after-hatchway, with a glazed hat and pilot-coat on, stepped straight to the binnacle, looked in behind me, then at the black bank of cloud, then aloft. Of course I supposed it was the mate again, but didn't trouble myself to glance at him further--when 'Hold on with the anchors!' he sang out in a loud voice--'hold on there for your lives!' Heavens! it was the captain himself! "At this, of course, I stood aside at once; and he shouted again,'Hoist the jib and fore-topmast-staysail--stand by to set fore-course!' By Jove! this was the way to pay the ship _head_ off, instead of stern off, from the blast when it came--and to let her drive before it at no trifle of a rate, wherever _that_ might take her! '_Down_ with that spanker, Mr Macleod, d' ye hear?' roared Captain Williamson again; and, certainly, I did wonder what he meant to do with the ship. But his manner was so decided, and 'twas so natural for the captain to strain a point to come on deck in the circumstances, that I saw he must have some trick of seamanship above _me_, or some special knowledge of the coast--and I waited in a state of the greatest excitement for the first stroke of the tornado. He waved the second and third mates forward to their posts--the Indiaman sheering and backing, like a frightened horse, to the long slight swell and the faint flaw of the land-air. The black arch to windward began to rise again, showing a terrible white stare reaching deep in, and a blue dart of lightning actually ran zigzag down before our glaring fore-to'gallant-mast. Suddenly, the captain had looked at me, and we faced each other by the gleam; and, quiet, easy-going man as he was commonly, it just flashed across me there was something extraordinarily wild and _raised_ in his pale visage, strange as the air about us made everyone appear. He gave a stride towards me, shouting, 'Who are----' when the thunder-clap took the words out of his tongue, and next moment the tornado burst upon us, fierce as the wind from a cannon's mouth. "For one minute the _Seringapatam_ heeled over to her starboard streak, almost broadside on, and her spars towards the land--all on her beam was a long ragged white gush of light and mist pouring out under the black brow of the clouds, with a trampling eddying roar up into the sky. The swell plunged over her weather-side like the first break of a dam, and as we scrambled up to the bulwarks, to hold on for bare life, you saw a roller fit to swamp us, coming on out of the sheet of foam--when crash went mizzen-topmast and main-to'gallant-mast; the ship payed swiftly off by help of her headsails, and, with a leap like a harpooned whale, off she drove fair before the tremendous sweep of the blast. "The least yaw in her course, and she'd have never risen, unless every stick went out of her. I laid my shoulder to the wheel with Jacobs, and Captain Williamson screamed through his trumpet into the men's ears, and waved his hands to ride down the fore-sheets as far as they'd go; which kept her right before it, though the sail could be but half set, and she rather flew than ran--the sea one breadth of white foam back to the gushes of mist, not having power to rise higher yet. Had the foresail been stretched, 'twould have blown off like a cloud. I looked at the captain: he was standing in the lee of the round-house, straight upright, though now and then peering eagerly forward, his lips firm, one hand on a belaying-pin, the other in his breast--nothing but determination in his manner: yet once or twice he started, and glanced fiercely to the after-hatchway near, as if something from below might chance to thwart him. I can't express my contrary feelings, betwixt a sort of hope and sheer horror. We were driving right towards the land, at thirteen or fourteen knots to the hour--yet _could_ there actually be some harbourage hereaway, or that said river the quartermaster of the _Iris_ mentioned, and Captain Williamson know of it? "Something struck me as wonderfully strange in the whole matter, and puzzling to desperation--still, I trusted to the captain's experience. The coast was scarce to be seen ahead of us, lying black against an uneven streak of glimmer, as she rushed like fury before the deafening howl of wind; and right away before our lee-beam I could see the light blowing, as it were, across beyond the headland I had noticed, where the smoke in the bush seemed to be still curling, half-smothered, along the flat in the lee of the hills, as if in green wood, or sheltered as yet from seaward, though once or twice a quick flicker burst up in it. "All at once the gust of the tornado was seen to pour on it like a long blast from some huge bellows, and up it flashed--the yellow flame blazed into the smoke, spread away behind the point, and the ruddy brown smoke blew whitening over it:--when, Almighty power! what did I see as it lengthened in, but part after part of old Bob's landmarks creep out ink-black before the flare and the streak of sky together--first the low line of ground, then the notch in the block, the two rocks like steps, and the sugar-loaf shape of the headland, to the very mop-headed knot of trees on its rise! No doubt Captain Williamson was steering for it; but it was far too much on our starboard bow--and in half-an-hour at this rate we should drive right into the surf you saw running along to the coast ahead--so I signed to Jacobs for God's sake to edge her off as nicely as was possible. "Captain Williamson caught my motion. 'Port! port, sirrah!' he sang out sternly; '_back_ with the helm, d' ye hear!' and pulling out a pistol, he levelled it at me with one hand, while he held a second in the other. 'Land!--land!' shouted he, and from the lee of the round-house it came more like a shriek than a shout--'I'll be there though a thousand mutineers----' His eye was like a wild beast's. That moment the truth glanced across me--this was the _green leaf_, no doubt, the Scotch mate talked so mysteriously of. The man was mad! The land-fever was upon him, as I'd seen it before in men long off the African coast; and he stood eyeing me with one foot hard stamped before him. 'Twas no use trying to be heard, and the desperation of the moment gave me a thought of the sole thing to do. I took off my hat in the light of the binnacle, bowed, and looked him straight in the face with a smile--when his eye wavered, he slowly lowered his pistol, then _laughed_, waving his hand towards the land to leeward, as if, but for the gale, you'd have heard him cheer. At the instant I sprang behind him with the slack of a rope, and grappled his arms fast, though he'd got the furious power of a madman, and, during half-a-minute, 'twas wrestle for life with me. But the line was round him, arm and leg, and I made it fast, throwing him heavily on the deck, just as one of the mates, with some of the crew, were struggling aft, by help of the belaying-pins, against the hurricane, having caught a glimpse of the thing by the binnacle-light. They looked from me to the captain. The ugly topman made a sign, as much as to say, Knock the fellow down; but the whole lot hung back before the couple of pistol-barrels I handled. The Scotch mate seemed awfully puzzled; and others of the men, who knew from Jacobs what I was, came shoving along, evidently aware what a case we were in. "A word to Jacobs served to keep him steering her anxiously, so as to head two or three points more south-east in the _end_, furiously as the wheel jolted. So there we stood, the tornado sweeping sharp as a knife from astern over the poop-deck, with a force that threw anyone back if he left go his hold to get near me, and going up like thunder aloft in the sky. Now and then a weaker flare of lightning glittered across the scud; and, black as it was overhead, the horizon to windward was but one jagged white glare, gushing full of broad shifting streaks through the drift of foam and the spray that strove to rise. Our fore-course still held: and I took the helm from Jacobs, that he might go and manage to get a pull taken on the starboard brace, which would not only _slant_ the sail more to the blasts, but give her the better chance to make the sole point of salvation, by helping her steerage when most needed. Jacobs and Westwood together got this done; and all the time I was keeping my eyes fixed anxiously, as man can fancy, on the last gleams of the fire ashore, as her head made a fairer line with it; but, by little and little, it went quite out, and all was black--though I had taken its bearings by the compass--and I kept her to that for bare life, trembling at every shiver in the foresail's edge, lest either it or the mast should go. "Suddenly, we began to get into a fearful swell--the Indiaman plunged and shook in every spar left her. I could see nothing ahead, from the wheel, and in the dark; we were getting close in with the land, and the time was coming; but still I held south-east-by-east to the mark of her head in the compass-box, as nearly as might and main could do it, for the heaves that made me think once or twice she was to strike next moment. "If she went ashore in my hands! why, it was like to drive one mad with fear; and I waited for Jacobs to come back, with a brain ready to turn, almost as if I'd have left the wheel to the other helmsman, and run forward into the bows to look out. The captain lay raving and shouting behind me, though no one else could either have heard or seen him; and where the chief officer was all this time surprised me, unless the madman had made away with him, or locked him in his own cabin, in return for being shut up himself--which, in fact, proved to be the case, cunning as it was to send for him so quietly. At length Jacobs struggled aft to me again, and charging him, for Heaven's sake, to steer exactly the course I gave, I drove before the full strength of the squall along decks to the bowsprit, where I held on and peered out. Dead ahead of us was the high line of coast in the dark--not a mile of swell between the ship and it. By this time the low boom of the surf came under the wind, and you saw the breakers lifting all along--not a single opening in them! I had lost sight of my landmarks, and my heart gulped into my mouth--what I felt 'twould be vain to say--till I thought I _did_ make out one short patch of sheer black in the range of foam, scarce so far on our bow as I'd reckoned the fire to have been; indeed, instead of that, it was rather on her weather than her lee bow; and the more I watched it, and the nearer we drove in that five minutes, the broader it was. 'By all that's good!' thought I, 'if a river there is, that must be the mouth of it!' But, by Heavens! on our present course the ship would run just right upon the point--and, to strike the clear water, her foreyard would require to be braced up, able or not, though the force of the tornado would come fearfully on her quarter, then. There was the chance of taking all the masts out of her; but let them stand ten minutes, and the thing was done, when we opened into the lee of the points--otherwise all was over. I sprang to the fore-braces and besought the men near me, for God's sake, to drag upon the lee one--and that as if their life hung upon it--when Westwood caught me by the arm. I merely shouted through my hands into his ear to go aft to Jacobs and tell him to keep her head a _single point_ up, whatever might happen, to the last--then I pulled with the men at the brace till it was fast, and scrambled up again to the bowsprit heel. Jove! how she surged to it: the little canvas we had strained like to burst; the masts trembled, and the spars aloft bent like whip-shafts, everything below groaning again; while the swell and the blast together made you dizzy, as you watched the white eddies rising and boiling out of the dark--her cutwater shearing through it and the foam, as if you were going under it. The sound of the hurricane and the surf seemed to be growing together into one awful roar--my very brain began to turn with the pitch I was wrought up to--and it appeared next moment we should heave far up into the savage hubbub of breakers. I was wearying for the crash and the wild confusion that would follow--when all of a sudden, still catching the fierce rush of the gale athwart her quarter into the fore-course, which steadied her though she shuddered to it--all of a sudden, the dark mass of the land seemed as it were parting ahead of her, and a gleam of pale sky opened below the dusk into my very face. I no more knew what I was doing, by this time, nor where we were, than the spar before me--till again, the light broadened, glimmering low betwixt the high land and a lump of rising level on the other bow. "I hurried aft past the confused knots of men holding on to the lee of the bulwarks, and seized a spoke of the wheel. 'Tom,' shouted I to Westwood, 'run and let free the spanker on the poop! Down with the helm--down with it, Jacobs, my lad!' I sang out; 'never mind spars or canvas!' Down went the helm--the spanker helped to luff her to the strength of the gust--and away she went up to port, the heavy swells rolling her in, while the rush into her staysail and fore-course came in one terrible flash of roaring wind--tearing first one and then the other clear out of the bolt-ropes, though the loose spanker abaft was in less danger, and the way she had from both was enough to take her careening round the point into its lee. By Heavens! there were the streaks of soft haze low over the rising moon, under the broken clouds, beyond a far line of dim fringy woods, she herself just tipping the hollow behind, big and red--when right down from over the cloud above us came a spout of rain, then a sheet of it lifting to the blast as it howled across the point. 'Stand by to let go the larboard anchor!' I sang out through the trumpet; and Jacobs put the helm fully down at the moment, till she was coming head to wind, when I made forward to the mates and men. 'Let--go!' I shouted; not a look turned against me, and away thundered the cable through the hawse-hole; she shook to it, sheered astern, and brought up with her anchor fast. By that time the rain was plashing down in a perfect deluge--you couldn't see a yard from you--all was one white pour of it; although it soon began to drive again over the headland, as the tornado gathered new food out of it. Another anchor was let go, cable paid out, and the ship soon began to swing the other way to the tide, pitching all the while on the short swell. "The gale still whistled her spars for two or three hours, during which it began by degrees to lull. About eleven o'clock it was clear moonlight to leeward, the air fresh and cool: a delicious watch it was, too. I was walking the poop by myself, two or three men lounging sleepily about the forecastle, and Rickett below on the quarter-deck, when I saw the chief officer himself rush up from below, staring wildly round him, as if he thought we were in some dream or other. I fancied at first the mate would have struck Rickett, from the way he went on, but I kept aft where I was. The eddies ran past the Indiaman's side, and you heard the fast ebb of the tide rushing and rippling sweetly on her taut cables ahead, plashing about the bows and bends. We were in old Bob Martin's river, whatever that might be. CHAPTER XV "Well," continued the commander, his voice making use of the breeze as he stood aft of the group, "I could not have slept more than three or four hours on a stretch, when I was woke by a fellow shoving his lantern in my face, and saying it wasn't me he wanted; for which I gave him a hearty objurgation, and turned over a swing of the cot to go asleep again. The sailor grumbled something about the parson being wanted for the captain; and all at once it flashed on my mind where we were, with the whole of last night's ticklish work--seeing that, hard rub as it was, it had clean left me for a time. 'Try the aftermost berth, then,' said I, slipping out in the dark to put on my trousers. "The fact was, on going below to our state-room, I had found my own cot taken up by someone in the confusion; and as every door stood open at night in that latitude, I e'en made free with the nearest, which I knew was the missionary's. In a minute or two I heard Westwood meet the mate, who said he thought the captain would like to see him, and hoped they hadn't 'disturbed the other gentleman.' 'Oh no, I daresay not,' said Westwood, rather nervously, guessing, I daresay, what he was wanted for; while Finch slipped quietly past to listen at the state-room door, where both he and I might hear the 'other gentleman,' whoever he was, snoring pretty plain. "When the first officer shut the door to, however, turned the key, and put it in his pocket, I nearly gave vent to a whistle. 'I see!' thought I; 'but, my fine fellow, it seemed you never were meant for a good jailer, anyhow!' He was no sooner gone than I walked forward toward the captain's cabin, near the after-hatchway, anxious enough to see how the poor man was, since I had had such a share in bringing him to a point, one way or another. Westwood was standing against the light out of the open door, and I looked in along with him, at the cot slung high to the beams like a lump of shadow, the lamp striking across below it on all the captain's little affairs--his glazed hat and his wet coat, the names of two or three old books even hanging in shelves against the bulkhead--and into the little state-room off the cabin, where the surgeon was stooping to mix a draught. "The hard-featured Scotch mate stood holding the captain's wrist with one clumsy flipper, as if trying to feel his pulse, fumbling about his own face with the other, and looking more concerned than I'd thought possible for him. 'Well, I've slept--a good deal,' said the captain, in a weak voice, putting up his hand slowly to rub his eyes, but seemingly quite composed, and knowing nothing of what had happened--which rid me of the horrid notion I could scarce help before, that he had known what he was about. His head was close shaved, and the look of a sailor clean gone off his face with the bluff, honest oak-colour it commonly had, till you'd have wished him decently in his bed thousands of miles off, with women slipping out and in; only the blood from his arm hanging down on the sheet, with the sharp point of his nose and the shape of his knees coming up off the shadow, kept it all in one with the wild affair on deck a few hours gone. "'She's on her course, you say?' added he, listlessly. 'Must be a _very_ light breeze though, Mr Macleod.' 'So it is, sir; so it is, no doubt!' replied the second mate, soothing him; 'did ye say we'll _pent_ the ship, sir?' 'Ay, before we go into port, Mr Macleod, to be sure,' said Captain Williamson, trying to put a cheerful tone into his voice; 'she's had a good deal of buffeting, but we mustn't let 'em see it, you know! Didn't you lose a mizzen-topmast somehow, though, Mr Macleod?' ''Deed ay, sir,' said Macleod, hastily, afraid he was getting upon the scent of what had happened; 'the first officer's watch it was, sir--will _I_ tell Mr Finch ye're wanting to speak to him about it, Captain Williamson?' and he began to shuffle towards the door. "'Finch? Finch?' said the sick man, passing his finger over his eyes again; 'what voyage _is_ this, Mr Macleod?' 'Why--why,' said the Scotchman, starting, and rather puzzled himself. 'Oo, it's just _this_ voyage, ye know, sir! Mr Finch, ye mind, sir?' 'No, no; don't let him leave the deck for a moment, Macleod!' said the captain, anxiously: 'harkye, James, I'm afraid I've trusted overmuch to the young man all along! I'll tell ye, Mr Macleod, I don't know whether I was asleep or not, but I _heard_ him somewhere wishing he had the command of this ship! I shouldn't like him to take her off my hands! Have you seen the Scilly lights yet, Mr Macleod?' The mate shook his head; he had contrived to persuade the poor man we were far homeward bound. 'If you'd only get the pilot aboard, Mr Macleod,' the captain went on, 'I'd die contented; but mind the charts--mind the charts--I've got the charts to mind for another sort of voyage myself, James!' 'Hoot, hoot, captain!' said the Scotchman, 'what sets ye for to talk after that fashion--you'll be up an' about decks directly, sir! What were ye saying about top-m'sts now, sir?' Captain Williamson gave the second mate a glance that looked into him, and he held down his head, for the man evidently believed fully, as none of us could help doing, that there was death on the captain's face. "'James, James!' said the captain, slowly, 'you've no notion how some things weigh on the mind at a pass of this kind! Other things one don't remember--but there's one in particular, almost as it were yesterday--why, surely you were with me that voyage, Mr Macleod! when I let some o' the passengers take a boat in a calm, and all----' Here he stopped, seemingly overcome. 'There was one young creature amongst 'em,' he went on, 'the age of my own girl, Macleod--my own little Nan, you know--and now--now I miss _her_--and, and----' The poor man gave a great gulp, clutching the mate's arm, and gazing him in the face. 'Wasn't it a long time ago?' said he, very anxiously; 'if it wasn't, I would go mad! They were all drowned--drowned--I _see_ that black squall coming down on the swell _now_, man, and the brig, and all of us looking out to the wind'ard!' 'I mind something about it,' replied Macleod, stoutly, though he looked away: ''twas none o' your fault, though, Captain Williamson--they were just _fey_, sir; and more than that, if ye mind, sir, they took the boat again' all orders--on the sly, I may say.' "Westwood was on the point of starting forward to make known how the case stood, on the strength of our finding the paper in the bottle, when I pressed his arm, and whispered that it could only make things worse, and cheat the sick man of a notion more likely to do him good than otherwise. 'It's a heavy charge, Mr Macleod, a heavy charge!' said he, falling back again; 'and one Mr Brown needn't envy.' 'Mr _Finch_, sir, ye mind,' put in the second mate, setting him right; 'but keep up your heart, sir, for any sake!' 'I feel I'll last over the time o' next full tide,' said the captain, solemnly. 'I don't want to know how far we're off, only if there's any chance at all, Macleod, you won't spare canvas to carry her in.' "The Scotchman rubbed one of his hard cheek-bones after the other, and grumbled something or other in his throat by way of agreement. The whole thing was melancholy to see, after last night's stir, with the dim lamp or two twinkling along the gloom of the steerage, the dead quietness of the ship, and the smothered sort of glare under the captain's cot bringing out the mere litter on the floor, to the very cockroaches putting their ugly feelers out of one of his shoes in a corner; he shut his eyes, and lay for a minute or two seemingly asleep, only murmuring something about a breeze, and then asking them to shove out the port, 'twas so close. The second mate looked to the surgeon, who signed to him to do it, as if it didn't much matter by this time; while he gave him the draught of physic he was mixing, however. "The Indiaman was beginning to swing slowly before the first of the flood, stern off at her anchors; and whenever the port was opened, 'twas so still otherwise that you heard the tide clearly in the cabin, rippling along the timbers to the copper upon her bows--plash, plash, and lap, lip, lap, like no other earthly sound that a man can hear--and you even began to note it on something else a good bit off, though it seemed to be all quite dark out-board. The captain's eyes opened by degrees, till we saw them looking at us out of the shadow of the cot, and the second mate started as if to mend his mistake; only 'twas plain enough, by that time, the captain _knew_ the sound, half raising himself up and listening. A few early mosquitoes came in, and, after dancing about to refresh themselves in the light and warmth under the cot, began to bite savagely; everyone of us had a distant horn sounding in his ear, and each was rubbing it or his nose, except the sick man; but not one of them settled on him. As the starboard port slued gradually opposite to the nearest shore, a low, deep hum was carried in over the water, ebbing and flowing, and full of dim, creeping noises, like things stirring in their sleep, as if the little cabin had been an ear to the ship. At times the tree-frogs broke out in a loud clicking chirrup; then, between the fits of it, when all seemed still again for a moment or two, you heard a low, half-smothered, small sound, deeper down, as it were, fill up the break with its throbbing and trill-trilling, as if just _one_ land-cricket or a grasshopper did it, till it came out as clear as though it were a child's rattle close by, and all of a sudden stopped; when back floated the huge whispering hum again, with a damp smell of leaves on a cold breath of the land-air, that died away as quickly as it reached us. The bewilderment on Captain Williamson's white face for that minute's time was cruel to witness, and Macleod would certainly have closed the port, but for the captain's seizing his arm again, with a wild, questioning sort of a look into the second mate's eyes. 'Oh, good God!' faltered out the captain, 'it's--it's _land_!----where--where----?' 'For goodsake, sir,' said Macleod, 'don't ask me the now--take a bit of sleep, sir.' "We could hear one another breathing, when ting-tang went four bells on deck. You heard it going across to the shore, as it were; and a few moments after, out of the humming far and wide along the land, back came the sound of another bell, toll upon toll, like some clock striking the hour a long way off. Then a third one followed on it, from a different direction, ringing clearer in the air; while the murmur and the rush seemed to swell up the more all round, and the plashing of the tide made the ship heave at her anchors. The mate shivered, Westwood and I started, but some extraordinary notion or other gleamed over the captain's face as he sat up. He was quite in his senses, too, apparently, though it seemed to be neither more nor less than sheer joy that overcame him, for he let out a long breath, and his eyes were glistening as if the tears stood in them. 'James--James Macleod!' said he quickly, with a husky voice,' you oughn't to've deceived one you've sailed so long with; but you meant me a good surprise, and 'twas kindly done of you! _I_ know the very run o' the clocks off Greenwich Reach, man; d'ye think one could mistake the sound of Lon'on town, fidgeting when it wakes, either?--we 're--we're _home_ already!' "And he fell back in the cot, with the drops running down his cheek, smiling happily all the time at Macleod in a way that went to one's heart; while the Scotchman stared helplessly to the surgeon, who slipped to the port and closed it. 'I know by your way, James,' continued the poor man, 'you wanted to send up to Virginia Row for 'em _all_; but don't send for an hour yet; better go up yourself and break it to 'em--_break_ it to 'em, be sure of that, James; I shouldn't wonder but I pulled up, after all. Ah--that first one we heard was Greenwich Hospital--t'other is Dicksons' brewery or Redriff----' Here his eyelids began to drop, owing to the sleeping-draught he had got, when suddenly they opened wide again. "'Ha!' said he, listening, and putting up a finger, 'but I haven't heard St Paul's strike six yet; it's seldom so long after; ought to be heard from here of a morning; let's----' By little and little, however, the sick man's eyes closed, and you heard him murmuring, as his finger sank down, 'Macleod, say--to her--say--luff, luff, my lad, keep her her course--' till his shrunk face was as quiet on the pillow as if he'd been really at home the first night after a voyage. "'Oh man, doctor!' said the second mate, heaving a breath, 'isn't it terrible! Good forgive me for a lee to a dying man! Take an old seaman's word for it, Dr Small, yon clock ashore was no mortal soond, sir; ye may keep your drogues for them they'll do good to. 'Twas neither more or less than the captain's _dregy_!' 'Phoo!' answered the Scotch surgeon, who was one of your sceptical chaps, as I heard say, 'some other vessels here, of course, that's all.' The sailor gave him only a smile of pity for not being able to distinguish the sound of a ship's bell. 'There can't be a town hereabouts, Collins?' whispered Westwood. 'A town--no!' said I; 'it's the best wilderness sign you can have--the African bell-bird!'[22] 'Ah, ah!' said the surgeon, laughing, 'there now, Macleod--of course it can be explained naturally, like other things.' The second mate gave me a doubtful scowl; but seeing Westwood, whom he had always seemed to think rather in the way before, his eye softened. [22] _Sc._--The South African and South American _campanero_, or bell-bird, whose peculiar note may be heard two or three miles off, chiefly in the loneliest parts of the Brazilian or Benguela forest. "'You'll be wanting to see the captain as soon as he wakes up, sir,' said he. 'I'm terrified to face him--but if ye'd just slip in when he comes to himself, sir, I'm thinking, reverend sir, ye might wile him off yon terrible notion o' his.' Westwood shook his head, seriously, not knowing what to say. 'Ay, ay, sir,' continued Macleod, as he half closed the door, 'no doubt a man ought to be upon better things; but it's hard for him, when he's got a wife and weans six thousand miles away, and wants them alongside in a couple of hours--uncommon hard, sir! She's a douce, careful body, too, Mistress Williamson, like the captain's self; and I heard her fleech sore with the captain before we sailed, for to bide quietly ashore this time, for good. Poor woman! if she didn't e'en go the length o' pairtin' in anger the last morning, wae's me! till the very moment when (he telt me himself, sir), she out with her arms round his neck, crying like to choke! An' all to--but if the captain had a fault, 'twas the love o'--good forgive me, though, when it was but studying his faim'ly, Mr Thomas! If it was only an auld tarry deevil like me, now, with neither kith or kin!' 'Except cousins, Mr Macleod,' said the surgeon, as he wiped his lancet on his coat-tail--'plenty of them in the High----' But he caught Westwood's eye, and was ashamed to finish his heartless joke, though the rough second mate was too full of his feeling to hear it; when Westwood said something about our all thinking too little of these things beforehand, but how the captain was plainly a man that had done his duty carefully, which no doubt would ease his mind. The mate looked up, and eyed him sideways for a moment: 'Eh? what?' said he bluntly; 'it's not so little I mind o' what I used to hear at the kirk langsyne, as not to know that's not the right doctrine. D'ye think, sir, _that's_ what'll put him over, when he finds out this is not Greenwich Reach? There's the Methody minister with the glasses, though!' he broke out, when again a look of despair came over his broad hard-favoured countenance. 'They're always upon works, too, I've heard!' said he, turning and murmuring to himself; 'oh, if I could but hoist out a bit screed o' the truth myself to comfort the poor fellow with! Lord, how didn't I think of the Shorter Carritch--let's see how't went--"What is the chief end of"--no, it's "What is faith in--faith in the only rule to direct us"--no, no--"Baptism is a sacrament--where--whereby"'--and he was still overhauling some old catechism in this fashion, twisting himself all the time as if he were twisting a stiff rope the wrong way, with a look of misery none of us could have had the heart to laugh at, when a middy's voice came squeaking down the dark after-hatchway: 'Mr Macleod, sir, the chief officer wants you on deck.' "Westwood slipped quietly off, and the young surgeon was beginning to talk easily, to rid his mind of something, perhaps, till I asked if there wasn't any chance. 'Oh, the captain, you mean?' said he; 'don't think there is--he's a bad subject! If we were out at sea now, Mr Collins, the _calenture_ would make him think the waves all grass, or something as green as--as the cawdets used to call----' I looked at the fellow sternly, and he changed his key, though with a surprised air. "'You're blessed early up, though, you two!' said he. 'I suppose that cursed squall kept you idlers awake; but how they managed without the first mate I can't think. Clever fellow, Finch! but wasn't it a curious trick of the poor skipper to box him up below here? I fancy he'd a guess we would all soon be under the mate's command! It's a queer thing the brain, isn't it, Mr Collins? For exaumple, now, there's the captain, it makes him think something or other a clock near London, with everything accordingly! Macleod fancies it a soopernatural knell, and twaddles about some Calvinist stuff he learned at school. Then you and me, you know, imaugines it's a bird--now, which is it after all? _Nothing_--maybe, eh?' The fellow capped all with a sneer, as much as to say I was a fool, which I had stood from him several times before; though now I could have kicked him, more for his heartless way than aught else. 'I tell you, Mr Small,' said I, 'what I think _you_--you're neither more nor less than a----' but I turned on my heel. 'I'm off, however,' said he, 'to turn in again.' "Through the half-closed door one could see the sick man's face sleeping so quiet in the shadow from the lamp, you heard not a breath. I looked up the after-hatchway. It seemed still quite dark; and a patch of the deep dark-blue sky showed high over the square opening, with two or three keen sparks of stars, green ones and blue ones--you'd have thought the ladder, short as it was, went up to somewhere clean above the world. But the moment I got on deck, I saw it was really lighter--the heavy fog creeping slowly astern of the ship on both hands; the white mist rolling faster over it before the sea-breeze against her bows, which had swung seaward by this time from the tide, that rushed like a mill-stream upon both her tight cables; while the muddy river-water, bubbling, eddying, and fronting away past, spread far up in the middle, into the dusk astern. _Such_ a jabbering, croaking, hissing, shrieking, and yelling, too, as burst into one's ears out of the dark, as if whole legions of monkeys, bull-frogs, parrots, paroquets, and what not, were coming together full upon us from both sides, one band nearer than the other; till the heavy boom of the surf round the point, and the roar of the tide coming in over the shallows about the river-mouth, pretty well drowned it. "The sudden change was a good relief, Babel though it seemed after the closeness below, with what had been going on; and I looked ahead towards the sea, which lay away out off our larboard bow, round the headland, and over the opposite point; a cold watery streak of light showing it from where the breakers rose plunging and scattering along the sandy bar, to the steady grey line of horizon, clipped by one of the two brown chops we had got into. It looked dreary enough as yet, the mouth of it being wider than I'd fancied it from seaward at night; though even with full water over the long spit of sand in the middle, there was no draught at all for the Indiaman except by the channel betwixt it and the bold point to our right; and pretty narrow it appeared from our present berth, heaving, as it did, with the green swell that set in, while meantime the mist scudding across the face of the headland let us see but the hard lump of bare black rock underneath. "In less time than I've taken to speak, however, the full space of sky aloft was turning clear, the sea far away suddenly shone out blue, with the surges tipped white; you saw a sparkling star high over it sink slowly in, and the fog spread off the water near us, till here and there you caught the muffled-up shape of a big tree or two looming through, not half-a-mile off our starboard quarter; the mist creeping over the headland till the sharp peak of it stood out against its shadow on the shoulder of a hill beyond, and old Bob Martin's single clump of cocoas on the rise waving in landward from the brisk sea-breeze. "One passenger after another came peeping sleepily out of the companion-hatch at the men clearing away the wreck of the spars, and swabbing the quarter-deck down; but scarce had Smith, one of the young writers, reached the poop, when he gave a shout that covered both poop-ladders in no time, with people scrambling over each other to get up. Next minute you'd have fancied them a knot of flamingoes with their wings out, as the bright red daybreak brought out the edge of the woods far astern, through a hazy lane in the purple mist, topped so with stray cocoa-nut trees and cabbage-palms, dabbled like brushes in the colour, that they scarce knew them to be woods at all, and not a whole lot of wild savages fresh from other business of the kind, coming down with all sorts of queer tools upon us; more especially when one heard such a chorus of unaccountable cries, whistling and screaming, as seemed to struggle with the sound of the sea ahead of us, and the plash alongside. "The huge round sun struck hot crimson along the far turn of the reach, with all manner of twisted blots upon _him_, as it were, and the very grass and long reeds seemingly rustling into his face, so one didn't for the moment know him either; while the muddy chocolate- eddies, sweeping and closing beyond the ship's rudder, glittered and frothed up like blood; and every here and there, along the streak of light, the head of a log or a long branch came dipping up terribly plain--no wonder the old _Seringapatam_ had apparently turned tail to it all, ready to bolt if she could. "Almost as soon as you took your hands off your eyes, though, and could see without a red ball or two before them--_there_ was the nearest shore growing out toward our starboard bulwark all along, crowded with wet green woods, up into steaming high ground--all to eastward a dazzle of light, with two or three faint mountain-peaks shooting up far off in it, and a woody blue hill or so between; while here and there a broad bright hazy spoke of the sun's great wheel came cutting down into the forest, that brought out a patch full of long big leaves, ten times greener than the rest, and let you look off the deck into the heart of it amongst the stems over the bank. The jabber in the woods had passed off all at once with the dusk, the water deepening over the bar, and the tide running slower, so that everyone's confused face turned breathless with delight as it grew stiller and stiller. "The whole breadth of the river shone out by this time, full and smooth, to the opposite shore three times as far away, where the wood and bulrushes seemed to grow out of the water; a long thick range of low muddy-looking mangroves, with a cover of dark green, rounding from the farthest point one saw, down to some sandy hummocks near the mouth, and a ridge of the same drifted up by the wind off the beach. Beyond that side there was nothing, apparently, but a rolling sweep of long coarse grass, with a few straggling cocoa-nut trees and baobabs, like big swollen logs on end, and taken to sprouting at top: a dun- heave of land in the distance, too, that came out, as it got hotter, in a long desert-like, redbrick-dust sort of a glare. The sole living things to be seen as yet were some small birds rising up out of the long grass, and the turkey-buzzards sailing high over all across, as if on the look-out. "The air was so cool and clear, however, from the tornado overnight--not a cloud in the sky, and the strange scent of the land reaching us as the dew rose off it--you could see far and wide, with a delicious feeling of it all, that kept everyone standing fixed on the spot where he first gained the deck, even the men looking over their shoulders with the ropes in their fists, and the fresh morning breeze lifting one's hair. Surprised as the passengers were, nobody spoke a word, except the three or four children shouting, dancing, and pointing together, without being noticed, till, all at once, the whole poopful burst into one confusion of questions and exclamations, running hither and thither, shaking hands and jostling each other like distracted people. "I had a spy-glass at my eye, making out the other shore, when, turning round in the middle of it, the first thing I saw was Violet Hyde's face, as she stood with one little foot on the stair-head behind me, holding the rail with one hand, her eyes sparkling, and her parted lips murmuring like one in a dream: 'Oh, Mr Collins!' exclaimed she, breathless; 'what is this? Where are we--is it Fairyland? A _river_!' 'Yes, in Africa,' I said; 'but whether it's the Bembarooghe or the----' 'That fearful, fearful evening!' continued she, shuddering: 'I saw the frightful sky, and heard the storm--and now!--_Were_ we not in some very great danger, sir?' 'Yes, ma'am, we were,' replied I, as stiffly as I could; 'but, happily, it's over now!' And I gave my cap a lift to move off, uneasy as I was, every moment, lest Sir Charles should catch me speaking again to his daughter. However, Miss Hyde was gazing eagerly at the land, and I had to wait. 'What lovely, lovely green!' she half whispered: 'oh, if one could only tread upon it!--so un-English those strange tall trees look! are they not cocoa-nut trees and--and----' Suddenly, her voice faltered, and she turned round with her bright blue eyes swimming in tears--'How--how thankful we should be that we are not--like our poor, poor friends, who were lost!' exclaimed she. I thought of the poor captain below in his cot, but next moment I was explaining, to her sheer amazement, how the real truth of the matter stood, though, if possible, it seemed to horrify her still more. 'I can't think what they may be,' I rapped out; 'but if I had the command of this ship, I'd up anchor this very hour, and go out--at least as soon as the tide ebbed; but, at any rate, at the Cape I mean to get hold of some schooner or other, and if it were to China, why, I'll cruise after 'em till I----' 'Then you think,' began she, and an arch inquisitive sort of look danced in both her eyes as she turned away to watch the shore again, saying slowly, 'You _are_ a--a naval gentleman then, Mr West--Mr Collins?' I tried to stammer out something by way of an explanation, but it wouldn't do, and I said, 'At any rate, I'm no better, by this time, than an idler aboard _here_, ma'am!' "All at once, I caught a side-look from her eyes, that wasn't meant for me, as she glanced over the poop-netting. Half provoking and half sweet it was, though, and it made my brain somehow or other seem to spin round, till a little after, before I well knew what I was about, I was holding the long spy-glass for her to see the bank of the river--her warm breath coming on my ear as I stooped before her, near enough to have kissed the muslin on her shoulder, while her rosy mouth changed with every new spot that the glass brought near; and she had to hold one taper forefinger on the other eyelid to keep it shut, so that I could dwell on her face as if she'd been asleep. 'There, there!' exclaimed she, 'are actually flowers--with such immense leaves! And now--an enormous tree, with roots hanging from the branches, and other stems growing up into them. Why, yes!--is not that a banyan-tree, Mr----?' and she looked away at _me_, when of course the tree was vanished, and instead of that, the rather undeniable expression of a fellow in love, two or three inches off, bent fair upon her. Violet Hyde a little, and looked in again. 'And, I think,' continued she, 'I see--oh, two such beautiful creatures--deer, I think, coming out to drink from the river!' All this time, the ecstasies of the rest kept up the noise and confusion; the young lady's-maid was gaping open-mouthed at the shore, not even noticing her young mistress's straw bonnet fall off, and I had just picked it up with one hand, to put it quietly over that matchless nut-brown hair of hers, shining suddenly in the sun, like silk, when the judge's voice rang out sharp from the other stair, 'Violet, child, you'll have a sunstroke. Kitmagar, you scoundrel, _beebee sahib punkah lao_, sirrah!' I held on to the telescope like grim death, while that eternal punkah was hoisted over us both, the judge eyeing me somewhat coolly for the first moment. 'Well, well, Mr Westwood,' said he, however, 'you've got rid of that proud freak of yours; such behaviour as yours yesterday, I assure you, I shouldn't have endured from anyone else, young man! But, my dear boy,' added he, suddenly, 'from what I can gather, indeed, saw myself last night, I am convinced we owe you a very great deal--even, I suspect, the safety of the entire vessel!' Miss Hyde had left off using the glass, and, as I stood up, she gave me a quick glance of amazement. 'Mere chance, sir,' I stammered. 'Why,' said Sir Charles, 'I saw you at the steerage in the middle of the hurricane, when I believe the actual officers of the ship had left it in dismay. I tell you what, Mr Westwood, you're a bold fellow; and your uncle and I must see in India if we can't reward you in some way, my dear boy!' All this fondling style of thing, and for little more than a piece of luck, would have disgusted me if I hadn't been more taken up with watching the side of Violet Hyde's face, as she listened for sounds in the woods ashore. 'Strange, wasn't it, Violet, my dear,' continued he to his daughter, 'that my friend the Councillor's nephew should have gone out in the same Indiaman, so fortunately--though, of course, after all, it _was_ the first this season.' 'Ah!' said she, starting, 'I beg pardon, papa--what did you--weren't you talking of the river?' 'Don't you hear, child,' said the judge, 'I said it was a curious coincidence, Mr Westwood's going in this vessel.' 'Oh yes, indeed!' answered she, and couldn't help looking down a little confounded. But the lady's-maid was putting on her tiny slipper, which had come off, while her father mentioned that of course I'd had practical reasons for not owning my profession hitherto; meaning, I suppose, that I didn't speak for fear of having to work, like the monkeys--though the sharp old lawyer must have had a better guess by this time, and queer enough it must have been to see her face, listening to him as he explained it all. I stood biting my lips, meanwhile--two or three times on the point of telling him it was all nonsense about my being a nephew of any hanged old nabob whatever; when Sir Charles said carelessly he should leave the _Seringapatam_, if possible, at the Cape of Good Hope, as he couldn't trust safely to the present officers. "Just then up got the merry chant of the men running round with the capstan-bars, to get up anchor; the chief officer wishing, as it was found, to carry her farther into the river with the breeze--for the sake of filling our water-casks the easier, according to him, but more likely out of sheer spite at what had been done without him. What with eagerness in the cuddy to get on shore and see the woods, the breakfast below was a rare scene, no one minding what he did, even to rushing slap into a couple of ladies' berths for his boots, or laying a couple of loaded Joe Mantons into somebody's bed, swallowing biscuit and butter on the way. "Suddenly, we heard the splash of paddles in the water, with a hail in some foreign tongue or other, and hurried on deck in a body; where we found the ship tiding it slowly up, under jibs and fore-topsail, and beginning to open a longer reach where the river seemed to narrow in. A black-eyed, black-bearded fellow, with a tallow, yellow, sweaty sort of complexion, in a dirty jacket, drawers, and short boots, and an immense grass hat, shouting Portuguese louder and louder into the first mate's ear, till he actually put both hands together, and roared through them, pointing to himself now and then, as if surprised he wasn't known. "All at once, evidently quite disgusted, he turned and looked over the side, saying something to one of the ugliest and most ill-looking mulattoes I ever saw, who sat in the stern of a long rough canoe, hollowed out of some tree, with two naked black rowers, less of the real <DW65> than himself, as they leant grinning up at the bulwarks with their sharp teeth, that appeared as if they'd been filed to a point. The mulatto gloomed, but he gave no answer, and as one of the cadets and I knew a little Portuguese, we managed together to get something out of the fellow on deck, though, at noticing him for the first time that morning, I saw Finch turn red with surprise. "We understood the man to ask if we wanted nothing particular in the river, the meaning of which I saw better on bethinking me of the fire along the bush inside the headland, that had let me see the marks of it--no doubt a signal to some craft they had taken us for. However, so soon as he heard we needed no more than water and spars, after musing a minute, and speaking again to Rodriguez, as he called the mulatto, he said he would pilot us to a convenient berth himself, for two or three dollars; notwithstanding his title was, as he said, Don Jose Jeronimo Santa somebody, commandant of the Portuguese fort something else. The river, we found, was the Nouries or the Cuanene, where they had a settlement called Caconda, a good way up; a remarkably bad country he gave us to know, and not worth staying in, from the number of flies, and the elephants having got into a cursed way of burying their tusks--except, he hinted, for the plenty of blacks, all anxious to be sold and to see foreign countries; but the trade was nothing yet--absolutely nothing, said he, blowing his nose without a pocket-handkerchief, and suiting the act to the word, as he mentioned his notion of throwing it up and going farther north-west. "By this time we had stood over to the lowest shore, till you could see the thick coffee- mud in among the roots and suckers of the dark-green mangroves, with their red pods bursting under their rank-looking leaves--and over them, through the tall coarse guinea-grass, to the knots of feathery cocoas behind, swarming with insects; when he gave the sign to go about, one of his blacks heaving a lead, and grunting out the depth of water, as the ship made a long stretch across towards the woody side again, and Don Jose all the time taking it as easy as if the quarter-deck were his own, while he asked for a cigar and lighted it. Joke though he did, yet I couldn't like the fellow at all; however, as soon as she got pretty near the shore, about a quarter of a mile from what seemed a wide creek, glittering up between a high fringe of cane and bamboo clumps, he had the sails clued up, a single anchor let go in four or five fathoms, and our Portuguese friend got his money and bundled over the side, pulling quietly ashore. CHAPTER XVI "The tide by this time was quite still, and the breeze sank almost at once, as we were shut in from the sea, when we were surprised to see the striped Portuguese flag, rise off a tall bamboo stick, among the bushes on the open shore, nearly abreast of us, where a low muddy-like wall was to be made out, with something of a thatched roof or two, and a sort of rude wooden jetty running before it into the water. Shortly after, Don Jose came paddling out again, and got on board, this time with an old cocked hat on, excusing himself for not having fired a gun--which was to save us expense, he remarked, being particular friends--seeing that he'd got to demand twelve dollars of harbour dues and duties, whereas, if he saluted, he must have charged fourteen. The cool impudence of this brought the chief officer from the capstan; but the steady face of the fellow, and the glance he took round the deck when the cadet told him he'd better be off at once, made me think he had something or other to back him. Mr Finch, as usual, fumed up into a passion, and told the men to fling him over into his canoe, which they accordingly did, without the least nicety about it; the Portuguese next minute picking himself up, and standing straight, with the look of a perfect devil, as he shook his fist at the whole ship, while the canoe slid off to the shore. "Budge even so much as a single fathom, at present, we could not; and most of us were too much in the spirit of fun and venture to care a fig for having made an enemy of Don Jose So-on, as the cadet called him; indeed, it seemed rather to set a finer point on people's admiration of the green jungly-looking shore next to us, with its big aloes and agaves growing before the bush, and all sorts of cocoas, palms, monkey-bread, and tall white-flaked cotton trees, rising in every way out from over the rest. For my part, I thought more of the Portuguese _interest_, after all, than his hatred--which proved correct, by his soon sending out a sulky message by the mulatto, offering to sell us fowls and a bullock, at no ordinary price. However, all hands from the cabin were mad already to get ashore somewhere, and the cadets, bristling with fowling-pieces and rifles, each singing out that he was ready to supply the whole ship with fresh meat; so the mulatto had to sheer off, with a boat nearly lowered over his head. "From where we lay at the time, what with the large creek off one bow, and the broad river ahead of us, spreading brimful along to the light, the water had the look of a huge lake, fringed in by a confused hazy bluish outline steeping in the heat, where the distance clipped behind the lumps of keen verdure, showering over a dark mangrove-covered point. Before the two large quarter-boats could be got ready for the ladies and the rest of us, in fact, we heard the gigful of writers and cadets beginning to pop away at everything they saw alive, out of sight of the ship, till at last we were afloat, too, pulling slowly into the middle of the stream, and the men eyeing us lazily as they turned-to about the rigging, to send up new spars in place of those lost. The old Indiaman's big bows stood looming up broad astern of us on the sluggish eddies round her cable, with her tall, steady forespars and furled yards rising white against the low line of marshy shore in the distance, and wavering in her shadow below, till the thick green branches of the next point shut her out, and the glare off the face of the creek shot level over all of us in the two cutters, wild with every kind of feeling that India passengers could have after two months' voyage. "For my own part, I should have had rather a suspicion how absurd it was to go a-pleasuring in an African river we knew nothing about, especially when I saw that a day or two so long after the rains might suck it up, during ebb, into a pretty narrow mid-channel; all I thought of was, however, that I was steering the boat with Violet Hyde in it, the kitmagar holding his gaudy punkah over her before me, while the judge, with his gun in his hands, was looking out as eagerly, for the time, as the four griffins were pulling furiously, in spite of the heat that made the sweat run into their eyes. "The other party were soon off ahead of us up the main river, under care of the Scotch surgeon, laughing, talking, and halloing in chase of the cadets who had first left. However, Sir Charles thought there was more likelihood of game along the creek, and the ladies fancied it something new, so I steered right into it; the fat midshipman, Simm, watching me critically as I handled the yoke-lines, which he had given up to me in a patronising way, and the sailor in the bow regarding the exertions of the griffins with a knowingly serious expression, while he dabbled his flipper at ease in the water. "As the tide steadied, this said creek proved to be a smaller river, apparently from the hilly country I had noticed beyond the woods, by the clearness of its current, that showed the pale yellow reflection of the close bamboo-brake on one side, deep down into the light--the huge, sharp, green notched aloe-leaves and fern showing here and there out of it--the close, rank, stifling smell of rotten weeds and fungi giving place to the strange wild scent of the flowers, trailing and twisting in thick snaky coils up the stems on our opposite hand, and across from branch to branch, with showers of crimson and pink blossoms and white stars; still, eager as the ladies were to put foot on land, 'twas no use looking as yet for a spot of room, let alone going farther in. "The cadets were not long in being blown, either; when the midshipman, the bowman, and I, had to relieve them. However, _then_ I could look straight toward Violet Hyde's face, the shade of the scarlet punkah hanging over it, and her soft little straight nose and forehead catching a flickering burst from the leaves as we sheered at times under cover of the bank; while her eyelids, drooping from the glare, gave her bright eyes a half-sleepy sort of violet look, and it was only her lips that let you see how excited she felt. The griffin who had the tiller steering with the judgment of a tailor's 'prentice on a picnic to Twickenham, we came two or three times crash into the twigs of some half-sunk tree; then a blue bird like a heron would rise direct ahead of us, with its tall wet spindle legs and spurs glistening like steel behind it into the light, and a young snake in its sharp bill; or a grey crane rustled out of the cane from overhead, its long wings creaking in the air out of sight. Suddenly, you heard a long chirruping croak from a tree-frog, and the ground ones gave full chorus from farther in, whining and cackling and peep-peep-peeping in one complete rush that died as suddenly away again, like thousands of young turkeys. Then out in the midst of the quiet would come a loud clear wheetle-wheetling note from some curious fowl in an opening, with another of the same to match, dimmer amongst the thick of the bush. However, everything of the kind seemed to sink down with the heat at noon, the very buzz of flies round every dark feather of the cocoas, and the mosquito-hum along the bank, getting fainter; till one _heard_ the heat, as it were, creeping and thrilling down through the woods, with the green light that steeped into both edges of the long creek; every reed, cane, leaf, and twig, seemingly, at last giving it back again with a whispering, hushing crackle, and the broad fans of the palms tingling in it with rays from them, as they trembled before you in the glare, back into the high bundles of knotted and jointed bamboo, with their spiky-tufted crowns. "'Can you not almost _feel_ the forest grow!' exclaimed Miss Hyde; while the boat floated quietly to one side, and her charming young face shining out from the punkah, before Master Gopaul's deucedly ugly one, coolly staring past his snub nose, made one think of a white English rose and a black puff-ball growing together under a toadstool; plenty of which, as red as soldiers' coats, and as big as targets, looked here and there out of the bank. It put new spirit into me to see her, but still we could do little more than shove across from one side to the other--till something all at once roused us up in the shape of a long scaly-like log, seemingly lying along in the sun, which tumbled off the edge with a loud splash, and two of the young fellows let drive from their fowling-pieces, just after the alligator had sunk to the bottom. Rather uncomfortable it was to come sheering right over him next moment, and catch a glimpse of his round red eyes and his yellow throat, as the mud and weeds rose over him. "The other ladies shrieked, but Violet Hyde only caught hold of her father's arm and started back; though her blue eye and the clear cut of her pretty nostril opened out, too, for the moment her lips closed. Five minutes after, when a couple of large guinea-fowl sprang up, Sir Charles proved himself a better shot than the cadets, by dropping one of them over the water ahead of us, which was laid hold of by the reefer of the Indiaman, and stowed away fluttering into the stern-locker--Simm observing coolly that it was a scavengering carrion sort of bird, but perhaps one of his messmates might like to take it home stuffed to his sister. The judge merely smiled and patted the mid on the shoulder, remarking in great good-humour that he, Simm, would make a good attorney; and on we held, soaking to our shirts and panting, until the bowman hooked down the stem of a young plantain, with a huge bunch of full ripe yellow bananas under the long flapping leaves at its head, right into the midst of us, out of a whole clump of them, where the smooth face of the cove showed you their scarlet clusters of flowers and green round pods hanging over it, hidden as they were from above. Every man of us made a clutch, and the stem almost lifted Simm out of the boat with it, as it sprang back into the brake, rousing out a shower of gaudy- butterflies, and a cloud of mosquitoes, and making the parroquets scream inside; while the cadets' mouths were so full they couldn't speak, the reefer making a gulp with the juice seeming to come out at his eyes, the sailor spitting out his quid and stuffing in a banana, and the ladies hoping they were safe to eat, as I peeled the soft yellow rind off, and handed one to Violet Hyde, which she tasted at once. But if ever one enters into the heart of things in the tropics, I'd say 'tis when that same delicious taste melts through and through and all over you, after chewing salt-junk for a space. I remember one foremast man, who was always so drunk ashore he used to remember nothing in India but '_scoffing_[23] one juicy benanny,' as he called it; 'but hows'ever, Jack,' he'd say, ''twas blessed good, ye know, and I'm on the look-out for a berth again, jist for to go and have another.' One of us looked to the other, and Miss Hyde laughed and a bit when I offered her a second, while her father said, full five minutes after, ''Gad, Violet, it almost made me think I saw Garden Reach in the Hooghly, and the Baboo's Ghaut!' [23] _Anglice_, eating. "This whole time we couldn't have got more than three-quarters of a mile from where the ship lay, when, all at once, the close growth on our left hand began to break into low bush, and at length a spot offered where we might get ashore tolerably, with two or three big red ant-hills heaped up out of the close prickly-pear plant, and the black ants streaming over the bank, as well as up the trunk of a large tree. The monkeys were keeping up a chattering stir everywhere about; and two or three bright green little lizards, changing into purple and back again, as they lay gleaming in the sun on the sides of the ant-heaps, darted their long tongues out like silver bodkins at the ants coming past. In we shoved with a cheer, and had scarce moored to the tree ere the ladies were being handed out and tripping over the ground-leaves to the ankles, starting on again at every rustle and prick, for fear of snakes; till the bowman in charge was left in the boat by himself, and, there being seven of us with guns over our arms, the next notion of the griffins was to get a sight of some 'natives.' "In fact, there was a sort of a half-track leading off near the bank, through among the long coarse grass and the ferny sprouts of young cocoas, and a wide stretch of open country seen beyond it, dotted all over with low clumps of trees and bush rounded off in the gush of light, that gave it all a straw- tint up to where a bare reddish-looking ridge of hill looked over a long swell of wild forest, off a hot, pale, cloudless sky. Here and there you saw the shadow of one bluff lying purple on the side of another, and a faint blue peak between, letting north'ard into some pass through the hills, but no signs of life save a few dun big-headed buffaloes feeding about a swampy spot not very far off, and rather too shaggy, by all appearance, to make pleasant company. Accordingly, we held for a few yards under the shade, where the fat mid, thinking to show off his knowingness by getting cocoa-nuts for the ladies, began to shy balls of mud from the creek-sides at the monkeys in the trees. "However, he brought us rather more than he bargained for, till the whole blessed jungle seemed to be gathering between us and the boat to pelt us to death with nuts as big as eighteen-pound shot, husks and all; so off we had to hurry into the glare again, Sir Charles half-carrying his daughter through guinea-grass up to the waist--when somebody felt the smell of smoke, and next minute we broke out near it, wreathing up white from inside a high bamboo fence, propped up and tied all along with cocoa-nut husk. 'What the devil!' shouted the foremost cadet, as soon as he found the opening, 'they're cannibals!--roasting a black child, by heaven!' and in he dashed, being no chicken of a fellow _ashore_ at any rate, the others after him, while the judge, Simm, and I kept outside with the ladies, who were all of a shudder of course, what with the thought, and what with the queer scent of roast meat that came to us. 'Ha, ha!' laughed the cadet next moment, 'it's only a monkey, after all!--come in, though, Sir Charles, if you please, sir--nobody here, ladies.' "There, accordingly, was the little skinned object twirling slowly between two bamboo sticks, over a fire beneath two or three immense green leaves on a frame, with its knees up not to let its legs burn; about a dozen half-open sheds and huts, like little corn-stacks, thatched close with reeds, and hung with wattled mats of split bamboo, giving the place more the look of a farmyard than a village; as there was a big tree spreading in the middle, a few plantains, yams, and long maize-stalks flowering out of the coarse guinea-grass which the <DW65>s hadn't taken the trouble to tread down all round inside of the fence. "However, we weren't long of perceiving an old grey-headed black sitting on his hams against the post of a hut, watching us all the time; and a villainously ugly old thief he looked, with a string of Aggry beads about his head, and a greegree charm-bag hung round his shrivelled neck, which was stuck through a hole in some striped piece of stuff that fell over to his knees, as he sat mumbling and croaking to himself, and leering out of the yellows of his eyes, though too helpless to stir. Something out of the way attracted my notice, glittering in front of the hut over his head; but, on stepping up to it, I wasn't a little surprised to find it the stern-board of some small vessel or other, with the tarnished gilt ornament all round, and the name in large white letters--'_Martha Cobb_'--the port, Boston, still to be made out, smaller, below. This I didn't think so much of in itself, as the craft might have been lost; till, on noticing that the old fellow's robe was neither more nor less than a torn American ensign, in spite of his growls and croaks I walked past him into the hut, where there was a whole lot of marling-spikes, keys, and such like odds and ends, carefully stored up in a bag, marked with the same name, besides a stewpan with some ostrich feathers stuck where the handle had been, as if this rascally black sinner wore it on his head on state occasions, being probably the head man and a justice of the peace. "What struck me most, though, was a pocket-book with a letter inside it, in a woman's hand, addressed to the master of the brig _Martha Cobb_; dated a dozen years before, yellow and fusty, and with tarry finger-marks on it, as if the poor skipper, God knows, had read it over and over in his cabin many a fresh breeze betwixt there and Boston. I put it in my pocket, with a curse to the old black devil, as he croaked out and fell on his face trying to bite me with his filed teeth when I passed out, to follow the rest out of the bamboo-pen; wondering, of course, where all the other <DW64>s could be, unless they were dodging about the river shore to watch the Indiaman--little chance as there was of their trying the same joke with the _Seringapatam_ as with the _Martha Cobb_. "As for the women, however, I had scarce joined our party going out, when we met a half-naked black hag with a bunch of cocoa-nuts and husk. The moment she saw us she gave a squeal like an old hen, and fell flat, while several younger ones, jogging along with their naked black piccaninnies on their backs, turned tail and were off with a scream. Next minute we were almost as startled as they could be when three plump young jetty damsels dropped down right into the bushes alongside of us, off as many tall cocoas which they'd been climbing by a band round them, for the nuts. 'Mercy on us!' said the eldest of our lady passengers; and it _was_ rather queer, since they had nothing earthly upon them save very very short pet----I beg your pardon, ma'am, but I didn't know any other word. However, off they scampered for the woods, Simm and one of the cadets hard after them, and we turning away to smother our laughter, especially as the griffin had forgot his mother being with us. The middy being first started, he was a good way ahead, when all at once the sternmost of the black girls tripped in the band she had over her shoulder, Simm giving a cheer as he made prize of his chase; but scarce before the whole three of the dark beauties had him smothered up amongst them, laughing yelling, and squalling as they hauled him about; till I saw the dirk Simm sported glitter in one of their hands, and I made towards the spot in the notion of their finishing him in right earnest. "The black damsels ran off together as the unlucky reefer picked himself up, coming to us with his hair rubbed up like a brush, his cap out of shape in his hand, and the gold band off it, his red face shining, and all the gilt anchor-buttons off his jacket, besides being minus his dirk. 'Simm, Simm, my fine fellow!' said his friend the cadet, like to die with laughing, 'what--what did they do to you?--why, your head looks like a chimney-sweep's mop!' Simm knocked his cap against a tree to set it right, without a word, and we followed the others to the boat, where he swore, however, that he'd kissed 'em all three, at which Mrs Atkins fairly took him a slap on the side of the head, saying he was a nasty, improper boy, and she was glad _his_ poor mother couldn't see him run after creatures of that kind in African woods. 'Natives, indeed!' said she, 'I have heard so often of native modesty, too, in books; but, after all, there's nothing like experience, I think, Sir Charles?' 'Certainly not, ma'am,' replied the judge, humouring her, as she hadn't often had the chance of speaking to him before; ''tis almost as bad in India, though, you know.' 'Oh, _there_, Sir Charles,' said the lady, 'I never happened to go out, of course, except in the carriage!' 'Ah,' said the judge, coolly, 'you should try an elephant, sometimes, ma'am.' "After this, as Sir Charles was bent on getting a shot at something better, with a glass or two of Madeira to refresh us, we pulled farther still up the small river, passing the mouth of a deep marshy inlet, where I noticed a few long canoes belonging to the Congo village we had seen; the close, heavy heat of the woods getting, if possible, worse; and the rank green growth topping up round us as flat as before; when the sound of a loud rush of water up-stream broke upon us through the bush to northward, the surface rippling, and a slight cool breath seeming to flutter across it now and then, the very noise putting fresh soul into you. Suddenly we opened out on a broad bend, where it was hard work to force her round, and next moment a low fall was gleaming before us, where a hill-stream came washing and plashing over one wide rocky step above another in the turn, then sweeping out of a deep pool to both hands, and running away ahead, in between the spread of trees, seemingly to a sort of a lagoon, where you saw the light in the middle glancing bright down upon its face. A broad blue burst of air and light struck down along the hollow the stream rushed out of, off the roots of a regular mountain, leaning back to the sky, with its big tufted knolls and its shady rifts thrown out blue beyond one or two thick scaly-stemmed date-trees, waving their long, feathery, fringe-like leaves to the least bit of a breeze, on as many rough points near at hand; the _whole_ shape of the mountain you couldn't see for the huge mahogany-trees, teak, and African oak, rising up over one shoulder into a lump of green forest. In five minutes more we were through into the lagoon, which very possibly took round into the main river again, only the opposite end, to our surprise, was all afloat with logs of big timber choking it up, so that there we must stick or go back upon our wake. "However, the lagoon itself being broad enough and round enough in all conscience, with a deep hollow opening up out of it on the high ground, the judge and the cadets thought a better place couldn't have been chosen for landing after a little sport, while we left the fair ladies to rest in the cool, and look at the lotus-lilies spread all over one cove of it, floating white on their large leaves. The green edge of scum ran about the black shadow on the rest of it, gathering round where a big branch or two had fallen in, with the hot white sky looking bluer out through the broad leaves coming together aloft, and the showers of little sharp ones in the tamarind twigs, mangoes, ironwood, sumach, and all sorts, while here and there a knot of crimson blossoms looked out from under the boughs in the dark, humming with small flies. Beautiful spot as it was every way, especially after the heat, yet I didn't much like the idea of letting the ladies stay by themselves, except the sailor and the kitmagar. Nothing particular had turned up to trouble us, certainly, but I daresay 'twas because there was _one_ of them I never looked at without her soft fairy-like air making me think of something that might happen to her, life-like though she seemed. When I saw a big branch over her head, I kept fancying what it would do if it fell--and now, the thumping slabs and stones we scrambled over up into the gully toward the mountain, seemed to have come tumbling down off it to the very water's edge, covered with nets of thick creeping plants and trails of flat, fingery-leaved flowers, such as you see in hot-houses at home. A few yards higher, too, where the ground broke away into a slanting hollow out of the bush, 'twas all trampled and crushed, half-withering together in the heat of the sun, the young trees twisted and broken, and two or three good-sized ones lying out from the roots, which I set to the score of the timbers rolling down their logs, for some craft that evidently got their cargoes hereaway. "After all, the thought of a slap at some wild game was tempting enough, the judge appearing to consider anyone but a sportsman nobody at all; so up we went behind him out of the gully till we were all blowing like so many porpoises on the head of it, Sir Charles raising his finger as we peeped across a grassy <DW72> right under us, where a whole drove of small slender-legged antelopes were feeding. We had just time to rest, getting a breath of air off the heights, when one of the foremost lifted its head, listening the opposite way from us; next moment the entire scatter of them came sweeping direct over to leeward in a string--we could almost catch their bright black eyes through the grass, when the crack of our seven barrels turned them bolt off at a corner, and they were gone like wind on water. All of us had missed save Sir Charles Hyde, but his rifle-bullet had sent one of the antelopes springing up in the air ten feet or so, rolling over and over into the grass again, where we found it lying with its tongue out, and its large eye glazing amidst the blades and dust--a pair of huge turkey buzzards falling, as it were, out of two specks in the sun above us, already, and rising with an ugly flap while we got round the dead creature. "Hallo!' said the mid suddenly, looking back over toward the hollow we'd come out of, 'what's that?' "From where we stood we could just see through the wild cane to the mouth of the gully, half-a-mile down or more, leading upon the trees by the lagoon. I thought I could hear a dull heavy sound now and then going thump thump down the hollow and along it, the stones rumbling from one spot to another at the root of the hill; but noticing a light smoke rising farther into the course of the creek, with a faint echo of axes at work somewhere in the woods below, I wasn't sorry to find the timberers were still in the river, showing we weren't the only civilised folks that thought it fit to visit. Perhaps it might have been a quarter of an hour or more, however, and we were all looking out sharp for birds of any kind to pop at, happening to turn my head, I saw the long reeds were moving about the banks below and the trees twisting about furiously, and no sooner had I made a few paces than good heavens!--right in the break of the trees at the landing-place--_there_ was a huge brute of some sort coming slowly up out of the water; then another, and another, glistening wet in the bright light as the shadow of the branches slipped behind them. A blindness came over my eyes, and I had scarce time to make out the big block-like heads and moving trunks of five or six black African elephants, ere the whole case flashed upon me, and away I dashed full-speed down the <DW72>. The big beasts were turning quietly off into the hollow, and two or three of their calves trotted after them out of the bushes, munching the young cane-stalks as they lifted their pillars of legs and their tufty little tails, when I passed a fire of sticks blazing under a slab of rock, with the judge's guinea-fowl plucked and roasting before it from a string, the bowman's tarpaulin and his pipe lying near by--a sight that doubled the horror in me, to know he had left the boat at all; and no doubt, as I thought, taken fright and run off, man-o'war's-man though he was. I made three springs over the stones down to the water, terrified to look in, hearing it, as I did, splash and wash about the sides, up among the leaves of the trees, while a couple of monstrous brutes were to be seen by the light in the midst of it, still wallowing about, and seeming to enjoy sending the whole pool in wide rings and waves as far as it would go, with the noise besides; the one-half swimming and the biggest standing aground as he poured the water out of his long trunk all over his back, then broke off a branch and waved it to and fro like a fan round his flapping leathery ears. "Such a moment I hope never to know again--not the least sign of the boat could I see in the green black blink of the place, after the glare above, and I stood like a madman at the thought of what the herd of monsters had _done_ when they came suddenly down upon it; then I gave a wild cry, and levelled my ship's musket at the big elephant's head as he brought his small cunning eye slowly to bear upon me, dropped the branch, and began to swing his forehead, all the time looking at me, and wading out to the shallow--by Jove! my flesh creeps at it _just now_--though I couldn't have stirred for worlds till he was close enough for me to fire into that devilish eye of his. 'Twas no more than the matter of half-a-minute--till you may fancy what I felt to catch sight, all at once, of the cutter splashing up and down in the gloom below the branches, the ladies and the Hindoo crouching down terrified together, except Violet Hyde, who stood straight, holding the boat firm in by a bough, her white face fixed through the shadow, and her hair floating out of her straw bonnet each time her head went up among the leaves, with her glittering eyes on the two elephants. "Suddenly some heavy black figure dropped almost right over her into the boat, and she let go with a low cry, and sank down with her hands over her eyes; when they went sheering out towards the creek, the foretopman handling his boat-hook in her bow, without his tarpaulin. As for the wild elephants, I had just time to come to myself before the foremost had his feet on the stones below me, getting cautiously out of the pool; these awkward antics of theirs being possibly signs of too much satisfaction in a bathe for them to show aught like fury, if you didn't rouse them; so I was slipping quietly round the nearest tree when I heard the cadets halloing up the hill. The old bull elephant seemed a dangerous customer to meet, and I was hurrying over the dead grass and branches to give warning, just as Sir Charles Hyde could be seen coming down before the rest, his rifle over his shoulder. "However, he brought up the moment I sang out to stop: both the elephants were stalking off lower down into the hollow, and I dropped behind the slab where Tom Wilkes had been roasting his bird, when some fool of a cadet let drive at the bull elephant from above, hitting him fair on the front. You heard the rifle-bullet hit slap against it as if on an anvil: the she elephant made off at a fast trot, but the big brute himself turned round on the moment, lifting up his trunk straight aloft with a sharp trumpeting scream through it, and looked round till his small red eye lighted on the judge, who seemed quite out of breath from his sport. 'The fire! that fire, for God's sake, Mr Westwood, else I am lost!' called out Sir Charles, in a calm distinct key from where he stood with his eye fixed on the elephant, and could see me, too--a moment or two before the huge round-backed lump of a brute came running round into the track, stumbling heavily up the dead branches of the fallen trees and the dry guinea-grass, with a savage roar between his two white tusks--and I saw what the judge meant just in time to throw over the whole heap of flaming cocoa-tree husk among the withered grass and stuff a few yards before the monster, as dry as tinder, while the light air coming down the gully of the mountain, drove it spreading across his course up through the twigs, and sweeping in one sudden gust of fire up to the very end of his trunk. I saw it lift over the smoke like a black serpent, then another scream from the brute, and away he was charging into the hollow again, the flame licking up among the grass astern of him, and darting from one bough to another towards the cane-brake below. I had scarce drawn a long breath and remembered the devil's own thought that had come into my head, when the judge called to me, ere he slapped me on the shoulder. "'You did nobly there, my dear boy,' said Sir Charles; 'managed it well! 'Gad, it was a crisis, though, Mr Westwood!' 'I'm afraid, however, sir,' said I, eyeing the crackling bushes, smoking and whitening to a dead smoulder in the sunlight, then flashing farther down as the hill-breeze rustled off, 'I'm afraid we shall have the woods burning about our ears!' "Down we hurried accordingly, and hailed the cutter, where, scarce had we leisure to pass a few quick words and tumble in, before I heard a shout beyond the other turn of the creek, through the end of the lagoon; then something like the cheep of ropes through blocks, with the bustle of men's feet on a deck, and next minute a perfect hubbub of cries, whether Dutch, Portuguese, English, or all together, I couldn't say--only it wasn't likely the _last_ would kick up such a bother for nothing. Four or five Kroomen came leaping round and along the float of logs at the far end, their large straw hats shining in the light over their jet faces, as they peered across into the lagoon. The minute after they vanished we saw the white upper spars of a schooner slide above the farthest of the wood, and her bowsprit shoved past the turn just enough to show her sharp lead- bow, with the mouth of a gun out of a port, and a fellow blowing the red end of his match behind it. All at once the chorus of shouts and cries ceased, and a single voice sang out along the water, clear, stern, and startling, in bad Portuguese, '_Queren siete?_ who are you?' Still we gave no answer, quietly shoving off as fast as we could, the flicker of the fire in the brake behind the trees beginning to show itself through the black shade of the lagoon. '_Queren siete?_' sang out the voice, louder than before, in a threatening way, and the logs were knocking and plashing before the schooner as the Kroomen hauled at them to make an opening. 'Amigos! Amigos!' hailed we in turn; 'Ingleses, gentlemen!' shouted the cadet who knew Portuguese, calling to them not to fire, for heaven's sake, else they would do us some harm. With this, the hubbub was worse than before; they plainly had some design on us, from the confusion that got up; but by that time we were pulling hard into the narrow of the river, and took the fair current of it as soon as the boat was past the falling stream we had seen before, till we were round into the next reach. "In fact, the rate we all bent our backs at this time was pretty different from coming up: the cadets seemed hardly to feel the heat, fierce and close though it was, at thought of those that might be in our wake, and nobody spoke a word at ease till at last, after an hour's hard work, taking it in turns, we came full in sight of the Indiaman at her anchor on the broad current. The ladies blessed the very ropes hanging from her bowsprit, and we got safe aboard, where we found the two other boats had come back long before; and every one of us turned in directly after sundown, as tired as dogs. "Well, I didn't suppose I had slept an hour, dreaming terribly wild sort of dreams about Violet Hyde and elephants, then that I'd saved her myself, and was stooping to kiss her rosy lips, when a sudden noise on deck startled me. I shoved myself into my clothes, and rushed on the quarter-deck. She had gone aground at her stern in swinging in the water the Portuguese rascal gave her, canted a little over to starboard, away from the shore; and till morning flood nothing could be done to haul her off. The fog was rolling down with the land-breeze, and the jabber in the woods again thickened the confusion, when all at once a dim flash off the shore glimmered in the white fog, and a round-shot whistled just astern, pretty well aimed for her bilge, which would have cost us some work if it had hit. After that, however, there was no more of it, the fellow probably having spent either all his powder or his balls. As for his fort, I heard the chief officer swearing he would knock it about his ears next day--a thing that couldn't have done him much harm, certainly, unless mud were dear. "No sooner had the men gone below, leaving the ordinary anchor-watch, than Mr Finch, to my great surprise, walked up to me, and gave me a strange suspicious look, hinting that he began to have a good guess of what I really was, but if anything new of the kind turned up, said he, he should know better what to say to me. 'Mr Finch,' said I, starting, 'this won't do, sir--you'll either speak your mind before cabin and cuddy, or to-morrow morning, by Jove! you'll go quietly ashore with me, sir--as I think, now you remind me of it, we settled to do, already!' The mate's face whitened, and he eyed me with a glare of malice, as I turned on my heel and began to walk the quarter-deck till he went below. "However, the thought of the thing stuck to me, and I kept walking in the dark to get rid of it: the four or five men of the anchor-watch shuffling lazily about, and all thick save ahead up the river, where the land-breeze blew pretty strong, bringing now and then a faint gleam out of the mist. I was leaning against the fore-chains, listening to the ebb-time, and thinking, when I saw one of the men creeping in from the bowsprit, which you just saw, where it ran up thick into the dusk, with scarce a glimpse of the jib-boom and flying-jib-boom beyond. "The sailor came up, touching his hat to me, and said he thought he saw something queer off the boom-end. 'Well,' said I gruffly, 'go and tell your mate, then.' I didn't know the fellow's voice, though it had a particular twang in it, and he wasn't in Jacobs' watch, I knew. 'Why, your honour,' he persisted, 'I knows pretty well what you air--asking your pardon, sir--but I think you'd make more out of it nor any of the mates! It's some'at rather skeary, sir,' added he. Accordingly I took hold of the man-ropes and swung myself up the bowsprit, and had my feet on the foot-rope below the jib-boom, when I heard his breath, following behind me. 'Never you trouble yourself, my man,' said I; 'one at a time!' and back he went in board again--for something curious in his way struck me; but I wanted to see what he meant. I had just got near the flying-jib, half-stowed in as it was on the boom, and I fancied, with a creep of my blood in me, I made out a man's head over the sail; but next moment a hand like a vice caught me by the throat, and some one growled out, 'Now ye infernal man-o'-war hound, I have ye--and down you goes for it!' "The instant I _felt_ it, my coolness came back; as for grappling, I couldn't, and the ebb current ran below to her bows at a rate fit to carry one out to sea in half-an-hour. I saw the whole plot in a twinkling, and never moved; instead of that I gave a sort of laugh, and followed the husky twang of the other man to a tee. 'He won't come, Harry, my lad!' said I, and my ugly friend let go before he had time to think twice. 'He be blowed!' said Harry, scornfully; 'an' why won't he, mate?' He had scarce the words out of his mouth, though, ere I took him a twist that doubled him over the spar, and down he slipped, hanging by a clutch of the sail. 'I suppose, my fine fellow,' said I, 'you forgot Fernando Po, and those <DW65> adventures of yours--eh?' and I went in without more ado. "I hadn't been ten minutes on deck, however, when I heard both of them swearing something or other to the first mate. A little after Finch came forward to me, with a ship's lantern, and three or four of the men behind. 'Mr Collins, or whatever's your name, sir,' said he aloud, 'I believe you've been seen just now at the bowsprit-end, making signals or something to the shore! You're in arrest at once, sir, and no more about it!' 'What the deuce!' said I, my blood up, and pulling out a pair of pocket-pistols I had had in the boat, 'let me see the man to----' At the moment a blow of a handspike from near the mast laid me senseless on the deck, and I knew nothing more.--But I see 'tis too far gone in the night to carry out the yarn, ladies!" CHAPTER XVII "Well, ma'am," resumed the commander, "I came to myself again at last, but when, how, or where, I really did not know, nor even what had been the matter with me; except that I lay on my back upon something or other softer than the planks, my head aching like to split, and so stupid, I couldn't take the trouble to choose amongst the strange notions that came creeping over me. 'Twas pitch-dark, too, and choking hot. The sole wish I had was for a drop of water; but there I stuck in the same helpless plight, more like a nightmare than aught else; and as for _time_, if it went by what I felt, why, I might have lain, then and before, long enough for one of the Seven Sleepers. First one fancy, and then another, came looming up from over my brain, like a sail on the horizon, till my head was full of it. That ugly rascal's story got hold of me, and I thought I was stowed away below in some abominable slaver; then I was the sick captain lying in my cot dreaming, with all as still and dark as death. As my wits cleared, however, I began to hear plenty of sounds, as it were, buzzing and rustling and booming in my very ears, then far away again. Confused though I was, a horrid idea struck me as I tried to listen--that Finch and his understrappers had put me ashore in the woods or handed me over to some of those villainous blacks with the filed teeth; and the _Seringapatam_ must be gone, Heaven knew how long! "Suddenly, as if to clinch my notion, I started for a moment at the loud cry of a bell-bird, as I thought at first; but, the next instant, a sort of a thick crust seemed to clear off my hearing, and I knew it was 'two bells' going on deck, so that I was still on board; after which a regular bustle got up of a sudden overhead. I heard people running up the nearest ladder from below; cadets shouting and clattering, apparently with muskets and cutlasses; the creak of the davit-blocks letting down the boats, and the chief officer's voice alongside. What with my broken head, though, and the want of air and water, I felt too sick to give them a thought. It wasn't long, either, before the whole Indiaman seemed to be as quiet as a church, except one heavy pair of feet on the quarter-deck above; then that stopped as well, and I heard nothing but the dull sound of the tide through her thick outer-timbers, gurgling up and poppling along, like to make me mad for thirst. I put up my hand to my head, and found my hair on one side all sticky, and covered with cockroaches; but though the very touch of their bristly feelers made my blood creep, and the wretches began to dig with their pincers into the wound, I was too weak to keep brushing them away as fast as they swarmed about it. "It must have been rather some sort of swoon than a doze that I woke out of again, when I heard a man's voice not far off, through the stillness of the 'tween-decks, reading aloud, which I soon made out to be Mr Knowles's, the missionary's; and, from the key of it, it was evidently the Bible he was reading. In a little while he gave up, and another voice came in, that I knew still better. It was Violet Hyde's--low enough, but so clear at times, that it seemed to come into the dark where I lay half-senseless, and afterwards I could even call back some of the very words; then it came to a stand, and I heard her two or three times apparently answering someone I couldn't hear. All at once, the missionary struck up the first note of a psalm-tune, and her lovely voice slid into it, till there was nothing in the whole ship, as it were, but _that_--singing the old Evening Hymn--alone--such music, I thought, never was on sea or land--when down from some opening above, out of heaven, you might have fancied, fell a chorus like the sound of angels and cherubs joining in at the end, once and again; catching up the air out of her sweet tongue, and drowning it in a way to ravish one's soul, till it sank into a hush in which you could hear the missionary's voice rise, as he prayed aloud, over the whispers of the ladies and children stealing away from round the skylight--with the slight creak of the rudder, now and then, in its case abaft, and the tide bumping and tapping outside, from the deadwood at her counter to the hollow planking amidships. "As for me, at first blush I thought it all part of my queer visions, till somehow or other I began to revive a bit, and felt for the door of the place they had boxed me up into. However, it was fast enough, and as soon as I tried to stand upright, something over my head gave me a shove down again--it being evidently one of the steward's store-rooms abaft of the cuddy, full of bags and such like lumber, where the best I could do was to stretch myself on the heap of old canvas again, groaning from sheer weakness and desperation. Just then I heard a light step coming close past the door, out of the large cabin, and I gave another groan. A dress rustled, and the foot started to the other side of the passage. "'For God's sake open the door!' said I, in a faint voice. 'What--who--is there?' exclaimed Miss Hyde, anxiously; but my mouth was so dry I couldn't answer her. Next moment she was trying the handle, though to no purpose; for a little after I caught the sound of her footsteps hastening off, and once more my senses left me. It couldn't have been more than a minute or two, however, for I heard the missionary's voice still praying beside Captain Williamson's cot, when a gush of air suddenly revived me, and I sat up winking at a glare of light, in which Violet Hyde's face seemed to be hovering brighter than the lamp she had in her two hands, as she stood and gazed at me between wonder and dismay; while the steward held the door only half open behind her, peeping in at me with one eye like a fellow watching a hyena in a cage. 'Miss!--miss!' said he, trying to shove the door to again, 'take care--he's a pirate, ma'am, he is! The chief officer'll blow me up for it, your ladyship!' 'Mr Westwood!' exclaimed she, pushing it wide in spite of him, 'what--what is this!--you are all over blood, Mr Westwood! Oh, are you wounded?--what can be--run, run for something,' said she to the steward--'where is the surgeon?' 'The doctor's gone with the rest of 'em, miss,' said he. With this I took hold of something to scramble up, bringing down a bag of cabin-biscuit over me, and got on my legs in the midst of the dust; but grim enough I must have looked, with my face like a North American Indian's, and the cockroaches sticking in my hair, as I stumbled out of the corner. The little Cockney of a steward seemed to think me dangerous, for all I saw of him next moment was his striped gingham jacket vanishing round a bulkhead aft. 'Oh,' stammered I, leaning against the doorpost, 'it's--it's nothing, after all--only--a little water!' The truth was, my brain felt so confused still, that I really was not quite sure how the case stood--whether I hadn't in fact bowsed up my jib too taut that night, and tumbled on my head, or kicked up some row or other; so I suppose I must have looked rather ashamed, which the young lady appeared to notice, by the expression of her face as she moved towards the cuddy, and slipped quietly through one of the folding-doors. 'Hush!' said she, gravely, holding up her finger, as she came out again and closed it, carrying a couple of decanters and a glass; 'poor Captain Williamson seems asleep--he was removed there this evening for air.' As I drank one tumbler of water after another, I fancied the young lady watched me curiously; however, I had scarce quenched my thirst when my own ideas got clear enough, as well as my tongue, to give an offhand account of what had happened. Violet Hyde started, and her voice faltered, as she said, 'Then--then you must have been shut up here all day--oh, how cruel of them! so hot, too! Oh, what a wonder you were not actually----' 'All day!' said I--'what day is it, then, Miss Hyde?' 'It is Sunday evening!' answered she, the tears rushing somehow or other into her eyes. 'Oh, how glad I am that I happened to pass! But your head--what a dreadful wound you must have got, Mr Westwood!' continued she; 'something must be done to it, _indeed_!' "What the sweet young creature hesitated and blushed about for the first time, I never guessed; but I can't help thinking that anything short of an angel would have laughed at the ridiculous figure I must have cut, with powdered biscuit added to the blood, the hair, and the cockroaches--although my worthy friend's handspike from behind the foremast had laid the bone bare, so that the bleeding saved it from a lump. I hardly know how it came about, but, five minutes after, there I was sitting on the planks of the 'tween-decks, while the charming girl herself stooped over me with a basin in one hand and a sponge in the other--the muslin sleeves tucked half up off her two round white arms, as she began to wash the blood carefully off the place. I couldn't stand it a minute, however. To feel her fairy fingers soiling themselves in such dirty work, for such a fellow as me, Ned Collins, made me shiver all over; so bolt upright I started, carrying away the sponge in the neck of my coat, and squeezing a teacupful of water down my back at every wriggle--while my lovely sick-nurse stood with one pretty little wrist out, betwixt alarm lest she had hurt me, and surprise at my life-like condition. After giving my face a wipe, however, and swallowing a glass or two of wine, with some of the biscuit I had knocked down, I felt wonderfully well, except for an ache at the top of my head. The next thing that occurred to me, of course, was to have my friend the mate made aware of his mistake; but as for the curious quietness of the Indiaman at that hour, even of a Sunday evening, I couldn't understand it, and I looked for a cap to go on deck with immediately. The young lady seemed to be looking up the after-hatchway, and listening, I thought, and the lady passengers could be heard talking about the poop; but when Violet Hyde turned round, and our eyes met again, I caught an anxious expression in them that puzzled me. 'Do you think it will be long before we shall hear them?' said she, next moment. 'Who?--whom?' asked I, hastily. 'Oh!' said she, starting,'you could not have known they had gone, Mr Westwood. Tell me, Mr Westwood,' said she, coming nearer to me, putting her hand lightly on my arm, and glancing into my face, 'tell me, did you not know that that vessel was in the river?' 'Vessel, Miss Hyde?' I said, looking at her steadily in turn. 'It's all one riddle to me--what vessel do you mean, madam?' 'The--the pirate!' exclaimed she, breathlessly; and turning towards the hatchway again, while I stood eyeing her stupidly, all abroad, so to speak. 'For heaven's sake, tell me what you mean, Miss Hyde!' said I, putting my hand to my head. 'Ah, but you look so white--you are not well yet, sir,' said she, softly. 'To think how all the passengers were amused, and even papa too, when they heard this morning of your being arrested as a--a----But nobody could know you were so hurt, Mr Westwood. Then when some of the sailors came back, and said they had seen the French ship in disguise----' 'By Jupiter! the _brig_ they meant?' I broke out. 'Then, good heavens! they must have painted her lead-colour, and turned her back into a schooner! _That_ was she, for a thousand!' 'And, you know, yesterday morning, sir,' continued the young lady, '_you_ told me you knew our friends were there, instead of being lost, as we thought!' "'Yes, yes!' said I, 'there must be some bad scheme at the bottom; but by morning we'll have a slap at them, for certain. For my part I feel----' 'Why,' said Miss Hyde, turning anxiously to me, 'almost everybody in the ship has gone _already_. Whenever the truth was discovered, there was such a confusion amongst the gentlemen and the officers that they could not think of anything else; and, as soon as the sun had set, they all crowded into the boats and went away together, to surprise the pirates in the dark.' 'Good God!' exclaimed I, in sheer amazement, and making toward the hatchway. 'Miss Hyde! _do_ you say so!--How many were there then, ma'am?' I asked. 'Oh,' said she, quickly, 'I am so glad there was such a number--five boats quite full, I believe. Not a single gentleman would stay, except little Tommy's father, who is upstairs--and papa was one of the first to get down into a boat with his rifle. But do you not think,' added she, with somewhat of a tremble in her voice, 'do you not think the people in the French ship will yield, or at least give our friends up?' "'I hope to goodness they may!' said I, turning away from the eagerness those soft eyes of hers glittered with, as she leant out before the faint glimmer through the cuddy-door, the light of the lamp in her hand shining bright over her hair and her shoulders; while the gloomy stillness of the whole ship, below, made me think of the voice that had hailed us through the lagoon, and the same man's face--as I had no doubt now it was--when I saw it aboard the brig at sea, before the thunder-squall came on. I almost fancied I saw Finch and _him_ meeting at the present moment, with the mate's awkward look as the Frenchman's sword flashed across him--my fingers gripped together for the handle of a cutlass, to go tumbling up amongst the men over the schooner's bulwarks in the creek--when all at once another notion darted into my head, to remind me where we were in the meantime; I ran to the companion and sprang up the stair on to the quarter-deck. "It was a hot, still night; but the change from the closeness below to the deck seemed to make quite a new man of one in an instant. I jumped on the nearest carronade-slide, and looked round to see how the land lay, which at first was difficult enough to do. They had got the Indiaman fair afloat again, I found, a little more off the shore, and farther down--the starboard gun I stood upon being, as I guessed by the shape of the trees, about opposite the mud fort, which Finch had probably been peppering at as he threatened, since the port was open, and two or three shot lying in the scuppers beside it. 'Twas somewhere nigh-hand eight o'clock of the evening, I think, and quite black on the nearest bank--you couldn't even make out the top of the woods against the sky; but another cable-length would have served to open the lower reach of the river, where it came brimming up full round the point with the night flow, sending a floating sort of a glimmer along in the dusk over against us. One could even pitch upon a line where it ran side by side with the heavy shadow that took in the ship, going across to the swampy-looking shore off our larboard side, and blackening away up-stream, while the dim bubbles and eddies swept out of the one into the other. I could just catch the low, deep roar of the sea more than a mile off, muffled by the trees and mangroves on both sides between it and us; and, the tide having come almost to a standstill, you heard the ripple against her bows get gentler and gentler, with a weak plash here and there in the dark among the grass and sedge alongshore, which seemed to wake up a chirping mutter in the bushes--and at times you'd have thought something came wading out from the edge; till in a few minutes both river and forest had sunk, as it were, into a sleep. The quieter they got, however, the more uneasy I began to feel at the state I saw things in upon deck; absolutely not a soul to be seen from wheel to bowsprit, except one man walking back and forward by himself on the forecastle, and giving a look now and then carefully enough over at the cable; Mr Brown being on the poop with his family and the knot of ladies, talking under their breath; while the old Scotch mate could be seen through the cabin skylight, leaning his bald crown over his two hands, under the lamp near the captain's cot, to listen to the missionary, as he sat gravely whispering and looking at him through his spectacles. "For my part, I hadn't a doubt but the ship had been watched from shore all along; and there was no saying at present _who_ might be keeping an eye upon her, even if this affair of the French brig weren't to catch us in some deep trick or other. If it were really she, and lying where we caught a glimpse of her the day before, 'twould take three or four hours, at night, even to pull there and back again; but as for her being an ordinary pirate, I had a strong notion she was no such thing, and the stranger I thought the whole matter throughout. "As I peered over the bulwarks into the thick of the tall jungle, the showers of fireflies came here and there flickering out from under the big leaves, lighting up the green of them for a moment, and dancing across a black mouth in the bank nearest us, like emerald sparks. By this time, too, the starlight was growing large out over the dusk, till the whole height of the sky had heaved itself above our upper spars, clear as crystal, and sprinkled full of soft silver points, that gathered and got brighter as you looked. One could see the whole breadth of the river floating slowly between, with lazy brown swirls of current twisting and curling round the point, and the eddies rising in the middle, to where the water glistened among the dark wet mangrove stems, or some oily swell near the edge went lipping in with the gleam of a star lengthened upon it. Hot and close though the night still was, while the rank smell of the mud came at times into our nostrils from one side, and of growing leaves from the other, yet it was pleasant enough after being shut up for ever so many hours in a dark hole below. "Neither did I think there was any fear of trouble from the natives while this lasted; but the haze that seemed to be oozing out over the mass of woods, with now and then a cool breath of air from up-river, showed what a fog we might expect as soon as the land-wind began to blow strong from inland. Sometimes I fancied I heard cries in the distance among the woods, over the croaking of the frogs which seemed to get up as one listened; then again I could make out the hollow booming of the African tree-drum, with a chorus of horns and savage-like shouts, apparently filling up every break in the hum that rose off the ground--far enough away, however, to satisfy me the blacks were only making merry before turning in. "As for Tom Westwood, he had plainly gone with the boats, clerical though he was, which didn't go to set my mind greatly at rest, knowing him to be one of your slap-dash fellows when roused; and, either way, it couldn't do much good to a man hailing for a parson to be particularly active on boat-service. But you may easily conceive what a pitch one's anxiety for the upshot rose to, at every whisper and hush of the woods, and every glimmer of the water far astern, where the upper reach could just be seen brimming pale out of the shadow, against a thick fringe of misty cane-clumps, topped with tall palms and cocoas--their stems wavering in the thin haze, and their dark crowns seemingly floating off above it like heads coming away from the bodies, as the heavy blue land-fog began to gather like smoke away behind. "The flow of tide having of course set the Indiaman's stern up-stream, the ladies on the poop could be seen clustered across the taffrail, with the careful married gentleman in the middle of them, more dignified than ordinary, as they one and all strained their eyes into the dusk before them; when one of the men came down the poop-stairs behind me, and, on turning, I saw to my surprise that it was Jacobs, he being still more astonished to see me on deck. I soon found, to my great relief too, that, what with the anchor-watch and some lads, there were still seven or eight of the crew aboard, whom I advised him to get on deck and make them keep a bright look-out--more especially as he was one of the boatswain's mates, and had charge of the watch at the moment; for, to tell the truth, seriously speaking, I had more real fear, all along, of some attack from the <DW64>s and Don Jose, than of the French craft they _would_ fancy a pirate, whatever might be her reason for stowing away Rollock and his companions--although I told Jacobs I had no doubt now but it _was_ actually she. 'Ay, ay, sir,' said Jacobs in a low voice, giving his trousers an uneasy hitch up, 'not a doubt on it, Mr Collins. Black Harry and his mates clapped eyes on her this forenoon, when they went up for water--so they said, anyway!' 'What, Bob?' said I, starting--'was it _that_ scoundrel? Did they not see her then?' 'Well, sir,' replied Jacobs, 'as I gather, 'twas rather one of her boats they fell ath'art of. You'll mind Harry was in the cutter that time you boarded the brig at sea, Mr Collins, a week or two 'gone--so, you see, he knowed one or two o' the crew at once; and in course, sir, comin' across one another hereaway, they'd make shift to have a talk, but none on 'em ever guessed about our passengers bein' aboard of her, till----' 'Did the fellow himself think they were pirates, then?' asked I, more anxiously than before--a shivering dread of I didn't know what beginning to creep on me, as I turned suddenly round to eye the river glooming away up from the starlight, through into the blue heaps of hazy forest. 'Why, sir,' answered Jacobs hastily, 'he's a desperate sort, is that 'ere Foster, if it was only what I've heard him _say_, swinging sound asleep in 's hammock. I wouldn't tell as much otherways; but I tell ye what it is, sir, my mind misgived me o' this here overnight boat-business! It's my sober notion, Leftenant Collins,' gravely added he, seeing I still looked anxiously to him--'it's my notion, if that craft's aught of a pirate, Harry Foster and more nor half of his watch 'ud think no more o' joining her, on a chance, than _one_ on 'em did o' taking you that clip with a handspike this morning, sir! As for this here brig, Master Ned, your honour,' continued he, 'what did she do, but, to my fancy, she's keeped a eye on us ever since we first fell foul of her?' "'Jacobs! Jacobs!' I broke out directly, 'get every hand up on the foc'sle at once, with everything like arms you can find--for God's sake look sharp, and then bear a hand here to have the carronades fore and aft run in, and stuffed full of some old iron or other, as we can't have grape!' Hurried as it was, I saw the whole thing--a regular deep-laid plot it seemed, too--and the first time I had seen light as to what the strange brig could be after. Here had she dodged us, no doubt, for weeks; got hold of our friends by accident, which would give her a clue how to find us anywhere during the rest of our voyage, as we were too strong-handed for her _then_. 'Twas very likely they thought we should suspect something, and follow wherever they could manage to lure the Indiaman--or else possibly they had run into the river the very same day we did, and perhaps seen us out of the haze which hid the land from us that morning; and _now_, if they had studied it for years, they couldn't have contrived a cleverer trap than this that Finch and the passengers had run their heads into, with more than a dozen mutinous dogs, at least, in their company. A prize like an East-Indiaman was worth taking some trouble about, of course; while such villains as Foster and his messmates, I knew, would fancy a Bengal nabob carried untold treasures with him, and it was plain to me they had something like an understanding with the stranger's crew. 'Ay, ay, sir,' said Jacobs, in answer to me; 'hows'ever, the first mate left word with Mr Macleod he'd send up a rocket and a blue-light in case o' a good success, or else come back with the boats.' 'Heaven help them, Jacobs!' said I, taking a hasty turn or two, 'for _we_ can't. But there _is_ something more horrid in the matter than I fancied--only all we can do is to look to ourselves and the ship! Harkye, though, Bob,' added I, following him; 'bring up the beef-kid, will ye? I feel terribly sharp-set, notwithstanding.' "I came back and looked from the quarter-deck down the skylight, where the second mate still sat with his elbows on the table, apparently listening to the missionary; when the good man suddenly took off his spectacles and peered under Macleod's broad fists, as an undeniable snore broke out between them; then he glanced toward the captain, who seemed dozing in his cot, raised his mild eyes for a moment through the opening up to the blue starry sky swimming out above, put on his spectacles again, and taking up the Bible, he leant back in his chair to read, as if there were neither pirates, savages, nor aught a man need dread, in the world. "'Strange!' I thought. 'Yet, after all isn't there a soul below there, ere a few hours, will go higher aloft than the smallest star that twinkles over the main-truck yonder? And who knows how many of us may----' However, I saw Jacobs hurrying aft again, and the rest coming up out of the fore-peak; so hard to work we set for the best part of an hour, which it took us to get the guns on deck made serviceable, and to find powder enough. Not a cutlass or pistol was left on board, so we had only two or three axes and pikes, with a rusty musket or two, and handspikes, certainly, to spare. "As soon as we had taken breath, 'Now, Jacobs, my man,' said I, 'send out the boys to loose the jibs and fore-topsail--let's hoist the yard, too, with the sail clued up--all ready for slipping her cable at five minutes' warning! It can't do any harm--and I've no more doubt,' said I, 'than if I saw it, we shall have that schooner coming down with the ebb upon us!' 'Tide'll turn in little better nor an hour, sir,' said Jacobs, when we had got this quietly done. 'And by that time the breeze will be blowing with it,' said I, 'bringing down the fog too, however--but keep a bright look-out aloft for the signal, Jacobs! If you see _it_, or the boats, good and well. But I tell you what it is, Jacobs,' added I, firmly, 'should it be the schooner instead, that instant we must cut and run for it! I shall carry the ship out to sea, if I can, as I brought her in--where we may have a better chance with her in the morning, or get clear off, perhaps!' "There being no more we could do, and having instructed Jacobs to go down and rouse Mr Macleod himself if he saw the signal, I kept stealing back and forward on one side of the quarter-deck alone. The river was still as a mill-pond, except where it trembled in long streaky gleams from the sky, else I should at once have slipped cable and begun to go down, leaving the boats to come after us, if they did come, as they best could. There wasn't a breath of air yet, either, save what seemed now and then to waft out of the thick woods, and to bring the whole whispering buzz of them stifled together along the face of the water, with the heavy scent of the aloes and trailers on the bank, meeting the warm steam that crept across from the mangroves on the opposite shore. A hundred notions ran through my head, as I walked, of what might happen: whether the boats would miss the schooner altogether, and she drop down upon us in the meantime, either by the creek or the river--or whether Foster and his crew of Wapping blackguards would carry out what I'd no doubt they had at heart. "But at any rate, as for a set of passengers and merchant sailors catching an armed schooner asleep, with one like that Frenchman in her, I had his fierce dark face too much before me whenever I thought of him to fancy the thing for a moment. That _that_ man was in command of the stranger craft, and had some scheme in hand he would stir heaven and earth to carry out, unless you ground his head to powder, was an idea that came shivering sharp into me as I kept watching the dark mouth of the creek astern, and the glimmering reach beyond--looking almost to see the schooner's bowsprit shoot out of one of them, tide or wind though there was none. Frigate to frigate in a breeze, in fact, I should have minded my weather-gage pretty cautiously with _him_, if a seaman he was; but if he were bent on having the old _Seringapatam_ at present, by heaven! what I feared was worse than either plunder or walking the plank--seeing there was a prize the judge had left on board, for which I felt a free-cruising captain would give all the treasures that fellows like Foster might think an Indian nabob had in his portmanteau. "In fact, I saw Violet Hyde moving restlessly, two or three times, near the break of the poop, as she watched the dim opening astern, while her lady's maid kept close behind her, afraid to stay below; and waiting, idle as I was, I almost began for the time to forget everything else that might be going on, at thought of _her_ being only a few feet off, with no one by but the servant-maid. The touch of her soft hand about my head an hour ago came back on me, and the drowsy creeping kind of hush of the tropical night seemed to bewilder my senses at every rustle of her dress--I shan't even deny that the notion seized me for half-a-minute, were the schooner to make prisoners of the boats' crews, how I might carry the Indiaman out to sea, and go Lord knows where with her. Then the idea of defending her, and saving her, made one wild with excitement--I felt as if I had the strength of twenty in me, almost longing to see the pirates' faces, especially the dark Frenchman's, and to wait till they came close on, when we could let drive into them, expecting to find us helpless. I made up my mind that Mr Brown there, and the missionary too, should work at a gun as soon as they were wanted--when, trip, trip, I heard her footstep coming down the poop-stair behind me, and stood trembling and tingling to my very finger-ends. "'Mr Westwood,' said her low sweet voice, and I turned round. 'Yes, madam,' I answered, gulping down my breath. 'Have you heard--do you see anything?' 'They've scarce had time yet,' said I; 'of course the more cautious they are the better!' 'Oh!' continued she, her hands clasping together, and the shawl falling half off her head to one shoulder--'oh, if there should really be bloodshed at this moment--the river looks so fearfully gloomy and silent! How is it possible to bear this suspense any longer, sir? If we could _only_ think they were not pirates after all!' 'Miss Hyde,' replied I seriously, as she seemed to wish me to speak, 'I can't have any doubt in my own mind what they are!' 'How! _what?_ for mercy's sake!' exclaimed she, gazing earnestly at me. 'You musn't suppose all pirates to be bloody murdering ruffians, Miss Hyde,' said I hastily. 'There's one man belonging to that craft yonder, _I'm_ sure, if he saw--if he stood where I stand just now, so near an angel----' The young lady shrank back with a startled look; but I wasn't master of myself longer, and out I broke: 'For God's sake forgive me, but I--I'd serve you like a slave--_dearest_ Miss Hyde. I'll stand up to the last drop of my blood before----' 'Mr West--wood!' was the answer, hanging betwixt surprise and terror. But I burst out with, 'Confound that name!--my name is _not_ Westwood, madam, and I'm no relation at all to the gentleman in India. I never said so, but your father mistook----' 'Who then--what are you--what design have you?' was her broken question; and she put one hand on the bulwarks as if for support, looking round from me to the woods, the river, and back to the ship and me again, so pale and terrified-like, that I could have cursed myself for my stupidity. "'Good heaven, Miss Hyde!' said I, lowering my voice, 'I do believe you take _me_ for one of the stranger's crew?' 'No--no!' faltered Violet; 'I--I--but the suspicions I heard to-day--you--you frightened me, sir!' 'Surely,' said I, ready to kneel at her feet, '_you_ must have known the truth of the matter, Miss Hyde. Why, here have I come afloat at a day's warning, bound for the East Indies--and all because I saw _you_ that evening at the garden-door! Oh, for kindness' sake, Miss Hyde, pardon my boldness--but I couldn't let slip the only chance of telling you--it took me unawares, in fact! I'm not such a fool as to fancy that such a fellow as I can have the least hope in the world; but--but----' She stood quite still, not uttering a word, with her face turned from me, but I could notice the colour was all come back to her cheek, and more--and saw the shining falls of her loose hair heaving on the bosom of her white muslin dress, as it rose and fell gently. I leant over the bulwarks and ventured to look half-round; when, oh heavens! how did my heart quicken in me to see the least bit of a smile come over her lips, though her eyes were dropped toward the gun close by. I can't say what I might have been bold enough to do, in the whirl of the moment--when suddenly she started, drew the shawl up from her shoulders again, and seemed to recollect the whole case of the boats with a shudder, as she glanced wildly again up the reach astern of us, bringing me to myself, too, at the same time; and I stood looking with her, intent to mark the first turn of the tide. CHAPTER XVIII "The night was warm enough, however, in all conscience; and, if one had been fit to eye it calmly, a glorious scene to see was the sky that rose above our heads, glowing dark as indigo-blue through the rigging aloft, as the ship's tall spars stood up into it, from one rope-ladder to another; her main-truck like a white button against the midmost depth, with every line running distinct to its place across knots of stars, and single bright ones piercing sharp through the black squares of the shrouds; while all round from her it widened away, glittering and seething with lights, that brought the woods looming out bigger and blacker along the nearest shore, making the dirty brown river look dirtier and drearier than before, as the steam spread over the close mangrove bank on the other side, and began to creep low out upon the water like fleeces of wool, with the stars here and there sparkling from the far horizon through the straggling fringe of cocoas beyond, and the huge bloated baobabs that twisted up out of the tall guinea-grass, as if their roots were in the air. The next glance I caught from Violet Hyde showed nothing but the distress she was in; and I walked forward to hail Jacobs on the fore-to'-gallant-yard, asking if he saw the signal yet. 'No, no, sir,' answered he, 'not a sign on it up to this time.' "So back again I went, gloomy enough myself, but trying to keep up my countenance, and saying I was sure we should see the boats come down with the tide when it turned. "'Have you noticed the stars aloft, Miss Hyde?' said I, in a cheerful way, to take off her thoughts till the upshot came; 'they never saw these in Europe, nor a night like this!' She looked up, and for a moment or two the soft blue dark of the hollow seemed to sweep round both of us, catching you up into it; the Milky Way falling over to westward, like a track astern of the great star-ship down in the south; and Orion's figure to be made out overhead, with the belt about him, stretching off west out of the Milky Way--the Serpent streaming far up to his foot; then Magellan's two shining bits of cloud, and the dim one, seaward. There were patches to be seen blacker than ink, too, where you seemed to look _through_ the sky, while every now and then a meteor shot far across it and fell, leaving a trail like a silver thread. 'Twas terrible, though, to see up into it, far away as they stood, and as steady as if we weren't there, when heaven only knew _what_ might come down river next half-hour. I felt her shoulder touch me as she leant back--the starlight glistening in her blue eyes, and nothing but it between her lovely young face and the stars; and I don't know how, but it appears to me I thought during that half-minute as I never thought before, and as if I looked off the other side of the world for the first time--yet you couldn't expect a fellow's brain to breed such notions in a merchantman's forecastle, or a frigate's steerage or gun-room, as it did beside an Indiaman's bulwarks, entering for a moment or two into the very feelings of a creature like the judge's daughter, when her warm breath almost lighted on his cheek! "Next minute I noticed over my shoulder, low down in the deep blue swell of the south, where the five bright stars of the Southern Cross were gleaming nearly upright over the top of a cocoa-clump on the opposite bank, for all the world like some diamond ornament; and I pointed it out to her, though I knew by the bearings of it how far the night was gone toward the middle. Its top and bottom stars flashed out of the pure face of heaven like jewels, each fit to buy the Great Mogul ten times over. The dark fringes of her two eyes showed brown over the light in them, while it looked like the hearts in violet flowers, as she turned. 'At sea,' said I, 'we mids used to know by it when eight-bells would come, to let us go below and turn in. Soon after you lose sight of the Pole-star you rise the Southern Cross--and the men had a notion it was a brooch the Virgin Mary lost from her breast, in the daylight, when she went up to heaven! 'Twas her son gave it her, they fancied, but 'twas always to be _found_ in the dark--though, meanwhile, 'tis a sign to the Flying Dutchman, as he tries to weather the Cape, that he'll be forgiven at the day of judgment--so that's the reason it has the power of showing what's o'clock until _then_, and why the Cape is the Cape of Good Hope!' 'Yes, yes!' said she; 'in Paul and Virginia, I remember, when they were so unwilling to part, _it_----' But she stopped with a blush, as her eye met mine; and we were both so confused that, before I knew, I found myself beginning to stammer out all manner of tender words, I daresay, and to whisper her first name near her ear, she scarce seeming to mark the difference--in fact _one_ bewildered sort of look was all she gave me at the moment, as if she were listening more to the hum rising out of the woods than to me. "Once or twice the still shine of the lamp up through the open skylight-frame drew my eye to it in spite of me--it was the only light burning in the ship, and you saw the gleam of it from the starboard port-window of the cuddy, drawn in as it was for air, thrown on the dusky water, not many fathoms, apparently, off the jungly bank nearest the ship. I can't tell you how, but somehow or other the appearance of it there, like a yellow break in the misty shadow, letting one see the very froth floating over it, and the muddy tint of the river on its edges--with the hush below us in the cabin--awed me more than aught besides; and whether it was from mixing the thing with what happened afterwards, or how--perhaps the missionary moved inside--but when I noticed the gleam on the water quiver and darken for a moment, then shine out again, I felt I _knew_ it was then the captain's spirit passed away. I slipped with a thrill of my blood to the skylight, and saw Macleod still asleep, the missionary settling his spectacles on his nose to read again, as if _he_ had looked up too when I did; while the cot and bedclothes were hanging white in the shade as before, except that the knees were drawn up, and the head turned away. He might be dozing, though it came into my head I had heard the captain say he should last till the _turn of the tide_; and in fact all the sick men I ever knew die, unless there was something uncommon, died as the ebb came on. As I stepped back to the young lady's side, I could mark the Southern Cross by the after-edge of the mainmast, sparkling fairly upright above the cocoa-nut trees, and Orion high up nor'-westward seemed farther away--it was midnight. The thought flashed through me how something in the sky could draw up a man's soul, as the shot at his hammock-foot would sink his body down deep through blue water at sea--but the first light plash of the ebb alongside brought me back to the case in hand, and I gave Jacobs a quiet sign to look out sharp aloft. "'Hark!' whispered Violet Hyde, suddenly, glancing sideways to me with her ear eagerly toward the shore, and putting back her hair with one hand to listen--'what is _that_?' I thought at first I could see a stir along the thick aloe-bushes, and make out the rustle of leaves; but the land-breeze was sighing in puffs through them already, and the fog beginning to creep out from over the bank, as if to meet the muddy stream from the other side; till next minute I heard what she meant, like wild cries from human creatures half choked, or out of breath, sounding along deep in the woods; then free out it rose in a clear chorus of savage screams and yells, and then seemed smothered up again. 'Twas only a pack of jackals hunting from thick bush to opening, but Violet pressed closer to me as the devilish noise drew nearer the river; and suddenly my hand met hers--to say what I felt, passes me--but the very next moment I had it fast clasped in my own, though I hadn't time enough to say what the thing was, before the entire pack of throats seemed to break out right upon the bank a little higher up than the ship, barking and yelping like the very hounds of Satan. ''Tis only the chase has taken to the water!' continued I, in a low voice, as the infernal uproar stopped at once. "However, _then_, the sweet girl was trembling like a leaf; and, by Jove! madam, take it as you will, the man who wouldn't have had one arm round her before that, could have been no sailor--that's all. 'For God's sake, dear, dear Miss Hyde,' whispered I--'dearest Violet, let me take you under shelter--we may have dangerous work before long!' "I started up from the bulwarks, in fact, for the river by this time was all aplash alongshore in the haze, and under the ship's bends, beginning to run past her side seaward, as the branches and loose stuff came floating out with the current off a point; the sedge and bulrushes opposite us moaning and clattering, as the breeze rushed through them, bringing the fog rolling down stream. The mist was closing overhead from both sides already, though the stars sparkled through the middle yet; and I knew the moon must be rising, fit to show us anything that came out of the upper reach. 'No--no!' faltered out Violet, in tears, as she slid herself quickly out of my hold, drawing the shawl over her with a shudder; 'I cannot go inside till we see them come back--my dear, dear father, I must see that he is safe!' 'By heaven! though,' exclaimed I, jumping upon the carronade to look out, 'those brutes are swimming after the deer, and the stream is bringing them down on our stern!' The Indiaman was swinging her stern down to the ebb, and through the dusk I fancied I just saw their black heads tipping here and there out of the water, amongst the driftwood and froth, where the light from the cabin port swung slowly into the mist, with the ship. However, they went past; and she hadn't got her bow fair to the current, when a man from the bow sung out, 'Hurrah! here's the boats now!' "'Where, where?' said I, springing forward to the fore-chains, while the young lady stood as if her life hung on the next word. 'There, sir, right ahead almost as she swings,' said the sailor; and thick as the blue fog was close to us, the cream- haze filling up the reach of the river beyond, was lighting up like white gauze with the moon, in which I saw two or three black objects come dropping out as if from the creek, their oar-blades flashing in it. But I thought they crowded together awkwardly, like maimed craft, and the weight seemed to keep them down, unless, as I hoped, they were waiting for the others. 'No, no, Mr Collins!' whispered Jacobs, suddenly sliding down a topmast backstay to my side, 'they're canoes, sir!' 'By the Lord! so they are,' said I, seeing a flourish of the paddles that betrayed them. 'They're hanging on yet, though, to catch us napping--keep cool, Bob, my man,' continued I, for my spirits rose, to find my fears mistaken as yet about our boats. 'But the cable--the cable!' added I hastily--'by George, they'll try to cut it, as sure as fate! Ready there--don't fire a shot till they're close--nothing but stupid <DW65> heathens after all, my lads! Quick, a couple of you,' said I, 'bowse up the jib at once, and down fore-topsail sheets--brace the yard sharp up, to cast her head down if they do cut! If we go aground, Jacobs, we're gone!' "'Twas vain to think of hindering them, few as we were, and scarce able to see what they did for the fog; but the land-breeze already blew pretty fresh, and the ebb rushing on her bows made the Indiaman heave to it as her jib rose from the boom. I had no time to stand upon ceremony--to think of the pilotage again--with the savages, the narrow channel in the dusk, and the breakers together, was quite enough. "In the very nick of such a breathless moment, I had just fancied I caught the stroke of their paddles coming on--when all at once, out of the open cabin-skylight aft, rose a sound, the like of which I never heard in my life--between a yell and a cry; but the mouth of the skylight seemed to send it up higher than the mast-heads, loud and long, into the slit of starlight between the fog. For a single second the marrow curdled in my bones, and I lost all thought even of the canoes ahead, 'twas so unearthly; till, catching a glimpse of Violet's white figure crouching in terror to the round-house door, I rushed aft, and looked down at the cuddy. It was all black as midnight below, the stink of the swinging lamp coming out; but by the horrible tumbling, staggering, struggling sound inside, you'd have thought it full of some awful thing, doing God knows what in the place--then a thump and a groan. I scarce believe I could have mustered heart to go down the companion and see--till next moment the Scotch mate's bare head and his shoulders came thrusting up out of the stair, wrestling wildly with three or four pitch-black naked figures--the narrow booby-hatch hindering them from sticking together to him, except one that leapt out almost on his back, aiming a fierce stroke with a club at his skull. Quick as thought, however, my coolness had come back to me, and I just sent the bullet from the ship's musket I had snatched up fair flash through his lungs, the blood spouting out of his mouth almost over us, as he spun round with his club in the air, and fell back--while smash after smash I brought the stock of my piece down on the crowns of the others, trying to get on deck too thick together; and Macleod was doing the same like a man, at the skylight, where they were catching at the edge of the frame. The shrieks of the ladies came off the poop above; and as for the men, they were dodging under the forecastle bulwarks as they fired at the canoes ahead, from the spears and arrows that came whistling over, and quivering into the planks near me. What else the fiendish wretches might be doing I didn't know, but I had no sooner managed to shove the scuttle over the booby-hatch, the second mate loading as fast as he could, and blazing away down into the skylight like a perfect devil, lighting up the black faces and sharp teeth of the savages below at every shot, rushing back, than I felt the Indiaman was broadside on to the tide and current, sweeping down to open the next reach with her jib and topsail full to the land-breeze. I sprang back to seize the wheel, near which Violet Hyde stood cowering with her two hands over her eyes, when, in the midst of it all, you may fancy my horror to catch a glimpse of one hideous black stealing round towards her in the shadow of the round-house, with a hatchet gleaming in one hand, and the other stretched out to clutch her. 'Twas the work of a second. I made one leap, and barely caught the blow on my gun-stock, as he took hold of her dress; then over he and I rolled on the deck, first one uppermost, then the other, till I found his strength was too much for me, breathless as I was. "The fellow had his huge hand round my throat, choking me, and ready to spring up with the hatchet in his other fist--'twas the mulatto that had been with the Portuguese--when I saw Violet Hyde dart forward between me and the stars, throwing her large shawl round his head and arm from behind him, and holding it tight, her face turned away white as death. The mulatto loosened his grasp and jumped up, throwing her reeling back to the door; but I was on my feet as soon as he, twisting his hatchet from his grip, and sent the edge of it with all my force clean down into his brain, through cashmere and everything. Ere he had time to pull it off, he was stretched, breast and knees up, over the carronade-slide at my feet. "The dear girl had fainted. I lifted her, and hurried with her to the sofa in the round-house, my heart swelling toward her in a way no man can tell, though there was not a moment to stay, for when I reached the wheel again, a sight broke upon me that showed the fearful danger we were in. The savages in the cuddy could be heard plunging out of the port to swim ashore; and though the ebb-tide was taking the ship apparently clear round the woody turn, she had no sooner opened the wide reach, where the fog was scattering before the breeze, than we began to see a stretch of the nearest bank, off our starboard bow, glimmering out to a huge fire on the edge, that lighted up the thick white haze like sulphur--throwing a bloody red glow on the eddies in-shore, with two or three black canoes dipping up and down in them; a crowd of dark naked <DW64>s rushing round the fire, bringing logs and branches to throw in, till up it blazed again; the sparks flying into the smoke, the feathery black jungle sinking back behind, and the banyan branches shooting out into it, as if they were alive, licking the crimson gleams with their sharp leaves; while a horrible noise of tree-drums beating and buffalo-horns blowing floated off to us. "The wretches seemed to expect we were coming straight in to them, and they waited for us. And no wonder; for it wasn't till Jacobs came running aft, to tell the mate and me, that, to our horror, we found the canoes had got the rest of the cable fastened somehow or other low down to her cutwater, and were coolly towing us in by it. We could neither cut it nor dispose of them, as at every shot there were plenty more to fill places; while the helm was only enough to steer her, had she been free. "'Jacobs,' said I, 'for heaven's sake bear a hand with two or three of these heavy shot in a hammock--let's sling it out to the flying-jibboom end, and I'll stand by to drop it fair over them--quick!' Three of us ran out from the bowsprit, with the end of the line, swinging out the weight and hauling it up, till we were nearly over their heads in the foggy gleam from the blaze ashore. The cable tautened fair under us as the blacks gave a stroke ahead together with their paddles, and 'Watch!' I sung out above them, in a voice that made them huddle all three canoes in a lump, peering up at us. 'Let go, my lads,' whispered I, and down went the weight of shot full slap upon them, crash through their gunwales, leaving no more than the bits, with the woolly heads bobbing about in the stream. The second mate whirled round the spokes of the wheel, on deck, and her jib and topsail drawing the breeze right again, she began to stand out toward the middle once more. I watched the glare of the fire sinking back into the blue fog, while the hubbub of wild cries showed that they had taken the alarm, and were pushing off as fast as possible in their canoes from the bank in chase. "The next thing I saw, two or three minutes after, was the flash of a large gun away on our starboard quarter, flaring out in the mist round the strange schooner herself, as she came swiftly down astern of us, under her two boom-sails and flying-jib, the froth whitening up from her forefoot, and she crushing through amongst the canoes, letting drive at them right and left, flash after flash, and roar after roar--her deck crowded with men, too, amongst whom I thought I could make out the dark Frenchman's broad-leafed Manilla hat. However, the wreaths of thick smoke blew curling from her towards us; and directly after nothing was to be heard but the ripple under our bows, as we went surging toward the river's mouth, with the clear plash upon her copper coming nearer. "Jacobs and I, as well as the other hand, hung over the boom together for a little to loose the flying-jib, then out of pure weariness, till I sent Jacobs to take the wheel and steer by my signals; for the Indiaman had the full force of current and breeze astern of her, carrying her fast toward the bar, as I guessed; while the second mate let her yaw dreadfully, from fear of going wrong. As for the schooner, we could make out her lights through the fog, the wind bringing us the sound of her cutwater--though probably they couldn't know whereabouts we were; so I hoped she might perhaps go past us in the dark, if she were actually in chase of the Indiaman, as I feared. "However, the moment the cheep of our flying-jib hanks on the stay was heard as the sail was hoisted, a sharp hail came along the water. '_Hola!_' sang out the creaking voice of the little French skipper, who had bamboozled me so at sea. None of us answered, and I ran down the spar to be ready for what might happen, when '_Hola! ou etes-vous?_' shouted he again. 'Hullo! the _Seringapatam_, ahoy!' roared our chief officer himself; to which no sooner had Macleod replied, than we caught three hearty English cheers, and next minute the schooner's canvas was looming up from the yellow glimmer of her lanterns a few fathoms on our starboard quarter--the foam hissing off her sharp bright bows, while she raced up with us. Everyone of us started at the jovial sound of old Rollock the planter's voice, shouting, 'All's right, my boys!' as if he had risen from the dead out of the sea--the schooner slipping easily by, abreast of our high bulwarks; and the crowd of heads from stem to stern, English, French, and Kroomen, gliding past below, for all the world like a dream to most of us, with the light from the lanterns flaring up red under hats, caps, and tarpaulins, and the black shadow of their figures and small-arms thrown high in two clusters on the broad glare over her fore and main boom-sails. 'Have ye actually taken the blackguards, sir?' hailed the Scotch mate; at which a shout of laughter ran from one end of her to the other; while one of the cadets seemingly half-drunk, could be seen staggering aft to the stern as she forged swiftly ahead, just in order to call out, 'Macleod, my old cock, _comment vous portez-vous_?' The little French master jumped up on the schooner's taffrail, waving his hand politely: '_J'aurai l'honneur pour vous conduire en debouchant, Messieurs!_' shouted he; 'follow de light een my starn!' "In fact, by this time we were already in the suck of the channel, so that longer speaking was out of the question, as the boom of the surf could be heard wide ahead of the ship. Suddenly a broad gleam of light off the sea struck over our starboard bow, beyond the tumbling water upon the bar, and to starboard the rocky headland broke through the fog rolling out with the breeze: the schooner's stern lifted glimmering before our figure-head, and we lost sight of her again, till we had swept safe round the point. Five minutes more, and both Indiaman and schooner were heaving on the waves from the shadow of the high land, the dark-blue swells cresting up all round against a bank of cloud on the horizon, and the long _send_ of the sea to be felt once more under you--the moon rising out of the river, while a fresh breeze blew in the offing, and promised to get a good deal stronger. "The schooner soon hove to, and before we could have beaten up to her, being to leeward, we saw one boat after another dropped astern or off the side, till the whole five could be made out pulling for the ship; but the minute after they were alongside, she filled away again, standing almost right before the breeze up to north-westward. "Well, you can fancy the confusion on board of us for a short time, what with questions and explainings, and what with seeing worthy old Rollock again, Ford, Winterton, the Brigadier, and Mrs Brady, after being parted for a number of days in such a way. The young lady Miss Fortescue's meeting with her mother was touching enough to witness, though of course the gentleman had got it all over before; and in fact they seemed to have made pretty merry aboard the French craft, while we were fighting for fair life with those infernal Congo savages. The dead blacks on deck and below had been thrown overboard already, and the Indiaman crowding sail on her course; but I saw the judge for a minute before the round-house door was shut, with his daughter sobbing on his neck; and as soon as the rest met below in the cuddy, a scene was to be found there which one doesn't easily forget--the steward lying in one doorway, dead, with his head smashed by a club; the missionary under the table, still bleeding, though he was alive, and not very much hurt after all. Neither he nor Macleod could tell very well how the thing happened, plain as it was now to me; but the strangest part of it to see, horrid as it seemed at first, was the body of Captain Williamson. His cot had been knocked to the deck, some of the devilish wretches had given his forehead one gash, and his breast another, each fit to kill a man. There was little or no blood, however; his face had a peaceful look on it, almost smiling, you'd have said, by comparison with the poor steward's; and as soon as his eyelids were down, the old seaman appeared to be sleeping yet. For my part, I felt as sure as if I'd seen it, that when the savages struck _that_ body, they might as well have struck at the stars we had seen over the deck. "Still, when all was cleared away, and the passengers gone tired out to their berths, I couldn't turn in without a walk on the poop beside the planter, to hear something from him--the ship all the time rising on the brisk seas, every stitch of canvas spread, the African coast beginning to drop in the moonshine, and the schooner a dim speck to north-west through the long gleam on the horizon. I found to my great surprise, there was no reason he could think of for the French craft's detaining them, except that the Brigadier had sworn at Bonaparte in the brig's cabin, or else Mrs Brady's having said she would give the world to see him just now at St Helena; in fact she would go through fire and water only to kiss the hand of such a great hero--such an enemy to all Saxons and tyrants, she vowed. But in fact they had been sitting below at the time our boat came aboard, and knew nothing about it; the French master swore to Rollock, and to the chief officer afterwards, he had mistaken _my_ meaning--because I spoke bad French, no doubt; after which the gale came on, and they never saw the Indiaman again till to-night. As for their going into the river, and changing her rig, the little Frenchman said he found a brig's rig didn't suit a schooner's hull. For my part, however, I didn't see how their course for the Isle of France could be _north-west_. 'By-the-by, though,' added Rollock, 'Mrs Brady made some mystery about the whole affair. She seemed to have a few private discourses with that strange dark-faced passenger of theirs, who, I suspect, had more to do with the vessel than he pretended. But I daresay, Collins, my boy,' said he, laughing, 'she wanted to make us think the foreigner had taken a fancy to her.' "As we were both going below, I said, 'By-the-way, where is Mr Daniel Snout?--I haven't seen _him_ yet.' 'Ah!' said the planter, turning round, 'where is Daniel, after all! _I_ haven't seen him either, since we left the schooner's deck--no, by Jove! sir, he really hasn't come on board, now I think of it! I recollect we were the last boat, and he wasn't in it, although he was behind me just before I got down.' 'What can the man mean?' said I; and we both stood at the top of the hatchway ladder, looking toward the horizon, at the speck of a schooner. 'By jingo, Collins!' exclaimed the planter, chuckling, 'the Yankee is gone to be a pirate!'" CHAPTER XIX "More than once that night," resumed Captain Collins, "I woke up with a start, at thought of our late adventures in the river Nouries--fancying I was still waiting for the turn of tide to bring down the boats or the schooner, and had gone to sleep, when that horrible sound through the cabin skylight seemed full in my ears again. However, the weltering wash of the water under the ship's timbers below one's head was proof enough we were well to sea; and, being dog-tired, I turned over each time with a new gusto--not to speak of the happy sort of feeling that ran all through me, I scarce knew why; though no doubt one might have dreamt plenty of delightful dreams without remembering them, more especially after such a perfect seventh heaven as I had found myself in for a moment or two, when Violet Hyde's hand first touched mine, and when I carried her in after she had actually saved my life. "The broad daylight through our quarter-gallery window roused me at last altogether; and on starting up I saw Tom Westwood, half-dressed, shaving himself by an inch or two of broken looking-glass in regular nautical style--that's to say, watching for the rise of the ship--as she had the wind evidently on her opposite beam, and there appeared to be pretty much of a long swell afloat, with a breeze brisk enough to make her heel to it; while the clear horizon, seen shining through the port to north-westward, over the dark-blue heave of water, showed it was far on in the morning. 'Well, Ned,' said Westwood, turning round, 'you seemed to be enjoying it, in spite of the warm work you must have had last night on board here. Why, I thought you had been with us in the boats, after all, till I found, by the good joke the cadets made of it, that that puppy of a mate had left you still locked up, on account of some fancy he had got into his head of your being in partnership with the schooner! For heaven's sake, though, my dear fellow, wash your face and shave--you look fearfully suspicious just now!' "'No wonder!' said I: and I gave him an account of the matter, leaving out most of what regarded the young lady; Westwood telling me, in his turn, so much about their boat expedition as I didn't know before from the planter. Everything went to certify what I believed all along, till this sudden affair in the river. The schooner's people had plainly some cue in keeping hold of our passengers, but hadn't expected to see us so soon again, or perhaps at all--as was shown by their hailing the boats at once in a pretended friendly way, whenever they came in sight up the creek; while Ford and the rest shouted with delight, off her bulwarks, at sound of the mate's voice. "'I tell you what, Collins,' continued Westwood, 'this may be all very well for _you_, who are continually getting into scrapes and out of them, and don't seem to care much whether you ship on board an Indiaman or a corn-brig--you can always find something to do--but to me the service is _everything_!' 'Well, well,' said I, hastily, 'I'm much mistaken if we don't find something to do in India, Tom--only wait, and that uncle of yours will make all right; for all we know, there may be news from Europe to meet us, and I must say I don't like the notion of being born too late for turning out an admiral. I'm sure, for my part, I wish old Nap well out of that stone cage of his!' 'No, no, Ned,' said Westwood, 'I ought to clear myself at home first; and sorry I am that I gave in to you by leaving England, when I should have faced the consequences, whatever they were. Running only made matters worse, Collins!' 'No doubt,' I said; 'and as it was my fault, why, deuce take me, Tom, if I don't manage to carry you out scot-free! Depend on it, Captain Duncombe's friends would have you strung up like a dog, with the interest he had and sharp as discipline is just now.' Westwood shuddered at the thought. 'I fear it would go hard with me, Ned,' said he, 'and I shan't deny that these few weeks have brought me back a taste for life. But, in spite of all, I'd deliver myself up to the first king's ship we speak, or go home in some Indiaman from the Cape--but for one thing, Collins!' 'Ah!' said I, 'what's that?' Westwood gave me a curious half-look, and said, 'One _person_ I mean, Ned--and I shouldn't like _her_ to hear of me being----' 'Yes, yes,' said I, stiffly, 'I know.' 'It must have been by guess, then!' answered he. 'Often as we've talked of her during the voyage, I thought you didn't know we had met frequently in London before you came home, and--and--the fact is, I wasn't sure you would like _me_ to----' 'Westwood,' said I, quickly, 'Tom Westwood--what I have to ask is--do you love her?' 'If ever a man loved a woman, Ned,' was his answer, 'I do _her_; but if _you_----' 'Have you any chance, then?' I broke out. 'Ay, true--true enough, you have the best of chances--your way is as clear as could be, Westwood, if you knew it! Only I _must_ know if she is willing--does she----' 'I got leave to write to her in London,' answered Westwood, 'and I did so pretty often, you may be sure; but I only had one short little note in answer to the last, I think it was--which I had in my breast that morning on Southsea beach, when I expected the bullet would come through it!' "Here Westwood stooped down to his trunk, and took out a rose- note wrapped in a bit of paper; I standing the while fixed to the deck, not able to speak, till he was handing it to me. 'No, no!' said I, turning from him angrily, and like to choke; 'that's too much, Mr Westwood--pray keep your own love-letters for your own reading!' 'There's nothing particular in it, Ned,' answered he, flushing a little, 'only there's a few words in it I'd like you to see--don't look at it just now, but tell me afterwards what you think. You ought to see it, as the matter seems to depend on you, Ned; and if _you_ object, you may be sure, so far as I'm concerned, 'tis all over!' "Somehow or other, the look of the little folded piece of paper, with the touch and the scent of it, as Westwood slipped it into my hand, made it stick to me. I caught one glance of the address on the back, written as if fairy fingers had done it, and I suppose I slipped it into my coat as I went out of the berth, meaning to go aloft in the foretop and sicken over the thought at my leisure, of Violet Hyde's having ever favoured another man so far, and that man Tom Westwood. The strangeness of the whole affair, as I took it, never once struck me; all that I minded was the wretched feeling I had in me, as I wished I could put the Atlantic betwixt me and them all; in fact, a hundred things before we sailed, and during the passage, seemed all at once to agree with what I'd just heard; and I'd have given thousands that moment it had been someone else than Westwood, just that I might wait the voyage out coolly, for the satisfaction of meeting him at twelve paces the first morning ashore. "On the larboard side of the berth-gangway, opposite our door, I saw the old planter's standing half open, and Mr Rollock himself with his shirt and trousers on, taking in his boots. 'Hallo, Collins, my boy,' he sang out, eagerly, 'come here a moment, I've got something to show you!--Look,' said he, standing on tiptoe to see better through the half-port, 'there's something new been put in my picture-frame here overnight, I think--ha! ha!' "The first thing that caught my eye, accordingly, was the gleam of a sail rising from over the swell to windward, far away off our larboard quarter, seemingly rolling before the south-easter; while the Indiaman hove her big side steadily out of water, with her head across the other's course, and gave us a sight of the strange sail swinging to the fair wind, every time we rose on the surge. 'What is it, eh?' said the planter, turning to me, 'back or face, Collins? for, bless me, if I can distinguish tub from bucket, with all this bobbing about--great deal of capital indigo wasted hereabouts, my dear fellow!' 'Why, you may make out the two breasts of her royals,' said I--'a brig, I think, sir.' 'Not that abominable schooner in her first shape again, I hope!' exclaimed he; 'perhaps bringing back the Yankee.' 'Too square-shouldered for that, Mr Rollock,' I said; 'in fact, she seems to be signalling us; yes, by Jove! there's the long pennant at her fore-royal mast-head--she's a brig of war. They're surely asleep on deck, and we shall have a shot directly, if they don't look sharp!' 'You'd better say nothing about the Yankee's absence, Collins,' put in the planter, 'till we're fairly away. For my part, I really have no notion of waiting for anyone--particularly a fellow who _must_ have some go-ahead scheme in his noddle, which we Indians don't want. Quietly speaking, my dear fellow, I shall be glad if we're rid of him!' "On my mentioning what sort of 'notions' were found in Mr Snout's berth, and the drowning of his heathen images, the worthy planter went into perfect convulsions, till I thought I should have to slap him on the back to give him breath. 'What the deuce!' said he at last; 'Daniel must really have something worth his while to expect before he'd fail to look after such a treasure!' 'Ah,' said I, not attending to him, as I heard a stir on deck, 'there we go at last, cluing up the topsails, I suppose.' 'Seriously, now,' continued Mr Rollock, 'I can _not_ fathom that vessel and her designs; but I bless my stars at getting clear off from the company of that tall Frenchman with his moustache--can't bear a moustache, Collins--always reminds me of those cursed Mahrattas that burnt my factory once. Couldn't the man shave like a Christian, I wonder? I defy you to enjoy mulligatawny soup and not make a beast of yourself, with ever so much hair over your mouth. By-the-way, Collins,' added he, eyeing me, 'since I saw you last, you've let your whiskers grow, and look more like one of your nauticals than Ford himself!--should scarce have known you! Any of it owing to the fair one up yonder, eh?' And the jolly old chap, whose own huge white whiskers gave him the cut of a royal Bengal tiger, pointed with his thumb over his shoulder towards the round-house above, with a wink of his funny round eye, that looked at you like a bird's. 'What do you suppose the Frenchman to be then, sir?' asked I, gloomily. 'Oh, either a madman, a spy, or something worse! Just guess what he asked me suddenly one morning--why, if I weren't a distinguished _savant_, and wouldn't like to study the botany of some island! "No, monsieur, not at all," replied I, in fearfully bad French. "The geology, then?" persisted he, with a curious gleam in his fierce black eyes--"does the research of monsieur lie in that direction?" "Why, no," I answered, carelessly, "I don't care a _sacre_ about stones, or anything of the kind, indeed; indigo is _my_ particular line, which may be called botany, in a way--I'm perhaps prejudiced in favour of it, monsieur!" The Frenchman leant his tufted chin on his hand,' continued Mr Rollock, 'meditated a bit, then glanced at me again, as if he didn't care though I were studying seaweed in the depths of the ocean rolling round us, and stalked downstairs. Then he took to Mrs Brady again, and lastly to the Yankee, whose conversations with him, I fancy, had a twang of both commerce and politics.' 'What do you think of it all, Mr Rollock?' inquired I, rather listlessly. 'It didn't strike me at the time,' said the planter, 'but now I just ask you, Collins, if there ain't a certain great personage studying geology at present in a certain island, not very far away, I suppose, where there's plenty of it, and deuced little botany, too, I imagine?' To this question of the old gentleman's I gave nothing but a half-stupid sort of stare, thinking as I was at the same time of something else I cared more about. "By Jupiter! though,' cried I, on a sudden, 'instead of heaving the ship to, I do believe we've set topmast-stu'nsails, judging from the way she pitches into the water; there's the brig nearing the wind a point or two in chase, too; why, the fellow that has charge of the deck must be mad, sir!' Next minute the fire out of one of her bowchasers flashed out behind the blue back of a swell, and the sudden _thud_ of it came rolling down to leeward over the space betwixt us, angrily, so to speak; as the brig's fore-course mounted with a wave, the sun shining clear on the seams and reef-points, till you caught sight of the anchor hanging from one bow, and the men running in her lee stun'sail-booms upon the yard-arms. The planter and I went on deck at once, where we found a fine breeze blowing, far out of sight of land, the Indiaman rushing ahead stately enough; while our young fourth officer appeared to have just woke up, and the watch were still rubbing their eyes, as if every man had been 'caulking it,' after last night's work. Even Mr Finch, when he came hastily up, seemed rather doubtful what to do, till the salt old third-mate assured him the brig was a British sloop-of-war, as anyone accustomed to reckoning sticks and canvas at sea could tell by this time; upon which our topsails were clued up, stu'nsails boom-ended, and the ship hove into the wind to wait for the brig. "When the brig's main-yard swung aback within fifty fathoms of our weather-quarter, hailing us as she brought to, I had plenty to think of, for my part. There she was, as square-countered and flat-breasted a ten-gun model as ever ran her nose under salt water, or turned the turtle in a Bahama squall; though pleasant enough she looked, dipping as we rose, and prancing up opposite us again with a curtsey, the brine dripping from her bright copper sheathing, the epaulets and gold bands glancing above her black bulwarks, topped by the white hammock-cloth; marines in her waist, the men clustering forward to see us, and squinting sharp up at our top-hamper. It made one ashamed, to take in the taut, lightsome set her spars had, tall and white, with a rake in them, and every rope running clean to its place; not a spot about her, hull or rig, but all English and ship-shape, to the very gather of her courses and topgallant-sails in the lines, and the snowy hollow her two broad topsails made for the wind, as they brought it in betwixt them to keep her steady on the spot. "'His Britannic Majesty's sloop _Podargus_!' came back in exchange for our mate's answer; and though 'twas curious to me to think of meeting the uniform again in five minutes, I saw plainly this was one of the nice points that Westwood and I might have to weather. Your brig-cruisers are the very sharpest fellows alive, so far as regards boarding a merchant craft; if they find the least smell of a rat, they'll overhaul your hold to the very dunnage about the keelson; and I knew that, if they made out Westwood, they'd be sure to have me too; so you may fancy that, during the short time her boat took to drop and pull under our quarter, I was making up my mind as to the course. In fact, I was almost resolved to leave the ship at any rate, feeling as I did after what I'd heard; but while most of the passengers were running about and calling below for their shoes and what not, the judge and his daughter came out of the round-house, and I caught a single glance from her for a moment, as she turned to look at the brig, that held me at the instant like an anchor in a strong tideway. "I kept my breath as the lieutenant's hand laid hold of the man-rope at the head of the side-ladder, expecting his first question; while he swung himself actively on deck, looking round for a second, and followed by another; the wide-awake looking young middy in the boat folding his arms, and squinting up sideways at the ladies with an air as knowing as if he'd lived fifty years in the world, instead of perhaps thirteen. "The younger of the lieutenants took off his cap most politely, eyeing the fair passengers with as much respect as he gave cool indifference to the cadets; the other, who was a careful-like working first-luff, said directly to Mr Finch, 'Well, sir, you seem inclined to lead us a bit of a chase; but I don't think,' added he, smiling from the Indiaman to the brig, 'you'd have cost us much trouble after all!' Here Finch hurried out his explanation, in a half-sulky way, when the naval man cut him short by saying that 'Captain Wallis desired to know' if we had touched at St Helena. 'May I ask, sir,' went on the officer, finding we had preferred the Cape, 'if _you_ command this vessel--or is the master not on deck--Captain--Captain Wilson, I think you said?' The mate said something in a lower voice, and the lieutenant bared his head more respectfully than before, seeing the Company's ensign, which had been lowered half-apeak while the boat was under our side; after which Finch drew him to the capstan, telling him, as I guessed, the whole affair of the schooner, by way of a great exploit, with hints of her being a pirate or such-like. "The brig's officer, however, was evidently too busy a man, and seemingly in too great a hurry to get back, for listening much to such a rigmarole, as he no doubt thought it; they had been at the Cape, and were bound for St Helena again where she was one of the cruisers on guard; so that what with Finch's story, and what with the crowd round the second lieutenant, all anxious to get the news, I saw it wouldn't cost Westwood and me great pains to keep clear of notice. "There were some riots in London, and three men hanged for a horrid murder, the Duke of Northumberland's death, not to speak of a child born with two heads, or something--all since we left England. Then there was Lord Exmouth come home from Algiers; and Fort Hattrass, I think it was, taken in India, which made every cadet prick up his ears; Admiral Plampin was arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, too, in the _Conqueror_, seventy-four, and on his way steering for St Helena, to take Sir Pulteney Malcolm's place. All of a sudden, I heard the young luff begin to mention a captain of a frigate's having been shot two months ago, by his own first lieutenant, on Southsea beach, and the lieutenant being supposed to have gone off in some outward-bound ship. 'By-the-by,' said the officer to Mr Rollock, 'you must have left about that time--did you touch at Portsmouth?' 'Why, yes,' answered the planter, 'we did. What were the parties' names?' I edged over to Westwood near the head of the companion, and whispered to him to go below to our berth, in case of their happening to attend to us more particularly; and the farther apart we two kept the better, I thought. The officer at once gave Captain Duncombe's name, but didn't remember the other; on which he turned to his first lieutenant with, 'I say, Mr Aldridge, d'you recollect the man's name that shot the captain of the _N'Oreste_, as they called her?' 'What, that bad business?' said the other; 'no, Mr Moore, I really don't--I hope he's far enough off by this time!' My breath came again at this, for it had just come into my mind that Finch, who was close by, had got hold of the name, although he fancied it mine. "I was sauntering down the stair, thinking how much may hang at times on a man's good memory, when I heard the first lieutenant say, 'By-the-by, though, now I recollect, wasn't it Westwood?' 'Yes, yes, Westwood it was!' said the other. Then came an exclamation from Finch, and shortly after he and the first lieutenant stepped down together, talking privately of the matter, I suppose, to the cuddy, where I had gone myself. The lieutenant looked up at me seriously once or twice, then went on deck, and a few minutes afterwards the brig's boat was pulling towards her again, while the passengers flocked below to breakfast. I saw the thing was settled; the mate could scarcely keep in his triumph, as he eyed me betwixt surprise and dislike, though rather more respectfully than before. As for Westwood, he sat down with the rest, quite ignorant of what had turned up; notwithstanding he threw an uneasy look or two through the cuddy port at the brig, still curveting to windward of us, with her main-yard aback; for my part, I made up my mind, in the meanwhile, to bear the brunt of it. "'Twas no matter to me _now_ where I went; whereas, with Westwood, it was but a toss-up betwixt a rope and a prison, if they sent him back to England. No fear of _my_ being tried in his place, of course; but if there had been, why, to get away both from him and _her_, I'd have to run the chance! There was a bitter sort of a pleasure, even, in the thought of taking oneself out of the way--to some purpose, too, if I saved a fellow like my old schoolmate from a court-martial sentence, and a man far worthier to win the heart of such a creature than myself: while the worst of it was, I was afraid I'd have come to hate Tom Westwood if we had stayed near each other much longer. "Accordingly, I no sooner heard the dip of the gig's oars coming alongside again, than one of the stewards brought me a quiet message from Mr Finch, that he wanted to see me on deck; upon which I rose off my chair just as quietly, and walked up the companion. The fact was--as the fellow could scarce have ventured to look his passengers in the face again after a low piece of work like this--'twas his cue to keep all underhand, and probably lay it to the score of my actions aboard, or something; however, he couldn't throw any dust of the kind in the second lieutenant's eyes, who gave him a cold glance as he stepped on deck, and, picking me out at once where I stood, inquired if I were the person. The first mate nodded, whereupon the brig's officer walked towards me, with a gentlemanly enough bow, and, 'I regret to have to state, sir,' said he, 'that Captain Wallis desires to see you, _particularly_, aboard the brig.' 'Indeed, sir,' answered I, showing very little surprise, I daresay, gloomy as I felt; 'then the sooner the better, I suppose.' 'Why, yes,' said the lieutenant, seemingly confused lest he should meet my eye, 'we're anxious to make use of this breeze, you--you know, sir.' 'Hadn't Mr Collins--this gentleman--better take his traps with him, Lieutenant Moore?' said Finch, free and easy wise. 'No, sir,' said the young officer sternly, 'we can spare time to send for them, if necessary; of course you will keep the Indiaman in the wind, sir, till the brig squares her main-yard.' I gave Finch a single look of sheer contempt, and swung myself down by the man-ropes from the gangway into the boat; the lieutenant followed me, and next minute we were pulling for the brig's quarter. The moment I found myself out of the _Seringapatam_, however, my heart nigh-hand failed me, more especially at sight of the quarter-gallery window I had seen the light from, on the smooth of the swell, that first night we got to sea. I even began to think if there weren't some way of passing myself clear off, without hauling in Westwood; but it wouldn't do. Before I well knew, we were on board, and the lieutenant showing me down the after-hatchway to the captain's cabin. CHAPTER XX "The captain was sitting with one foot upon the carronade in his outer-cabin, looking through the port at the heavy Indiaman, as she slued about and plunged in the blue surge, with all sorts of ugly ropes hanging from her bows, dirty pairs of trousers towing clear of the water when she lifted, and rusty stains at her hawse-holes. A stout-built, hard-featured man he was, with bushy black eyebrows, and grizzled black hair and whiskers, not to speak of a queer, anxious, uneasy look in the keen of his eyes when he turned to me. However, he got half up on my coming in, and I saw he was lame a little of one foot, while he overhauled me all over with his eye. 'I'm sorry to have to send for you in this way, sir,' said he, rather surprised at my rig, apparently--'very sorry, sir, and no more about it; but I can't help it, confound me--_must_ do my duty.' 'Certainly, sir,' I said. 'In fact,' said Captain Wallis, 'the Admiral ordered us to see after you--_him_, that's to say--at the Cape, you know.' 'Ay, ay, sir,' said I, watching the Indiaman's poop-nettings through the port over his head, as he sat down. 'Pooh, pooh,' continued he, 'you can't be the man--just say you don't belong to the service--confound it, I'll pass you!' 'Why, sir,' said I, 'I can't exactly say _that_.' 'I hear you're Westwood of the _Orestes_, though,' said he; 'now I don't ask you to say _no_, sir; but everybody knew the _Orestes_, and I don't like the thing, I must say: so perhaps you're able to swear _he_ is not aboard the Indiaman--just now, you know, sir--_just now_, eh?' "This tack of his rather dumfoundered me, seeing the captain of the brig meant it well; but deuced unlucky kindness it was, since I couldn't swear to the very thing he fancied so safe, and his glance was as quick as lightning, so he caught the sense of my blank look in a moment--as I fancied, at least. 'The fact is, sir,' added he,'the surgeon told me just now he knows Lieutenant Westwood well enough by sight so they locked him up! You see we could have made you out at any rate, sir--however, we'll let the doctor stay till we're clear of the Indiaman, I think.' 'Then you take me for the gentleman you speak of, Captain Wallis?' asked I, faintly; for at the same moment I could see a light- dress and a white ribbon fluttering on the _Seringapatam's_ poop, the look of which sent the blood about my heart. 'Twas hard to settle betwixt a feeling of the kind, and fear for Westwood; it struck me Captain Wallis wasn't very eager in the affair, and 'twas on my lips to assure him I wasn't the man. 'Hark'ee,' broke in he, with almost a wink, and a smile ready to break out on his mouth, 'the short and the long of it is, I'll take _you_! We must have somebody to show in the case; though now I remember, there was someone else said to've gone off with you--but we won't trouble _him_! If we've brought away the wrong man, why, hang it, so much the better! If you're Westwood, I can tell you, they'll run ye up to a yardarm, sir! Much more comfortable than ten years or so in a jail, too, as--as no one knows better than _I_ do myself.' "Here the captain's face darkened, his eye gleamed, and he rose with a limp to ring a hand-bell on the table. 'White,' said he to the marine that put his head in at the door, with his hand up to it, 'desire the first lieutenant, from me, to send a boat aboard for this gentleman's things.' 'I'm afraid, sir,' continued he gravely to me, 'you'll have to reckon yourself under arrest--but you'll find the gentlemen in the gun-room good company, I hope, for a day or two, till we make St Helena.' I saw the captain's mind was made up, and for the life of me I didn't know what to say against it; but speak I could not, so with a stiff bow and a sick sort of a smile I turned out of the door, and walked along to the gun-room, which was empty. I could see the boat soon after under the ship's side, dipping and rising as they handed down my couple of portmanteaus to the man-o'-war's men; the young reefer came down again as nimble as a monkey, with some letters in his hand, took off his cap to some ladies above, and sang out to give way; five or six flashing feathers of the oars in the sunlight, and they were coming round the brig's stern. "The brig was just squaring away her main-yard at the whistle from the boatswain's mates, when the whole run of the Indiaman's bulwarks was crowded with the passengers' and men's faces, watching the brig gather way to pass ahead; I could hear the officers on deck hail the India mates, wishing them a good voyage, the ladies bowing and waving their handkerchiefs to the British Union-Jack. Some sort of confusion seemed to get up, however, about the ship's taffrail, where Rollock, Ford, and some others were standing together; the planter jumped up all at once on the quarter-mouldings nearest the brig, then jumped down again, and his straw hat could be seen hurrying towards the quarter-deck. "Next I caught a bright glimpse of Violet Hyde's face, as the sun shot on it free of the awnings--her eyes wandering with the brig's motion, I fancied, along the deck above me, till suddenly she seemed to start, and Westwood appeared behind her. The next thing I saw was the black-faced figure-head of the _Seringapatam_ rising below her bowsprit, about sixty yards from the gun-room port where I was, and down she went again with a heavy plash, as Tom Westwood himself leapt up between the knight-heads at the bow, hailing the brig's deck with a voice like a trumpet. 'Ahoy! the _Podargus_ ahoy! For mercy's sake, heave to again, sir!' he sung out. 'I'm the man you want!' 'The Indiaman ahoy!' I heard Captain Wallis himself hail back. 'What d'ye say?' The creak of our yards, with the flap of the jib, and the men's feet, drowned Westwood's second hail, as it came sharp up to windward; the sailors in the Indiaman's bows were grinning at him behind, while the first lieutenant of the brig shouted gruffly that she had no time to wait for more letters; and I heard the gun-room steward say to the marine, on going out with the dirty breakfast-cloth, he wondered if 'that parson cove thought the _Pedarkis_ wanted a chapling,' or was only 'vun of these fellers that's so troublesome to see the French Hemperor.' "'Well,' said the marine, ''twas pretty queer if he took the _Pedarkis_ for the ship to carry him there. I don't think the captain would let a rat into the island if he could help it' 'Not he,' said the steward; 'plenty on 'em in already, Vite, my man--I do think they used to swim off on board here, by the way our cheese vent.' All this time I never stirred from the port, watching with my chin on the muzzle of the gun till the Indiaman was half-a-mile to windward of us, her big hull still rising and falling on the same swells, topped with clusters of heads; her topsails lowered in honour of the flag, the ensign blowing out half-mast high for the death of Captain Williamson; a long wash of the water ran outside the brig's timbers, surge after surge, and the plunge at her bows showed how fast she began to run nor'-westward before the wind. You may well fancy my state, after all I'd done for weeks; in fact, one scarce knew the extent of what he'd felt, what he'd looked forward to, till he found himself fairly adrift from it; 'twould even have been nothing, after all, could I just have thought of Violet Hyde as I'd done two hours ago, on waking with last night in the river on my mind. "As it was, 'twould have taken little to make me jump out of the port into the sweep of blue water swelling toward the brig's counter; the _Seringapatam_ being by this time astern. I couldn't even see her, or aught save the horizon, to windward; but at this moment the young second lieutenant came below, and, seeing me, he began in a polite enough way, with a kindly manner about it, trying to raise my spirits. 'I suppose, sir,' said I, rather sulkily I daresay, 'I can have a berth just now?' 'Oh, certainly,' said he, 'the steward has orders to see to it at once. Will you come on deck a minute or two in the meantime, sir?' "I looked back from the ship astern to the brig-of-war's clean white decks, flush fore and aft, with the men all forward at their stations, neatly dressed in regular man-o'-war style, everyone alike--a sight that would have done me good at another time, small as she was by comparison; but the very thought of the Indiaman's lumbering poop and galleries was too much for me--'twas as if you'd knocked out those two round-house doors of hers, and let in a gush of bare sky instead. The ship-shape man-o'-war cut of things was nothing, I fancied, to the snug spot under those top-gallant bulwarks of hers, and the breezy poop all a-flutter with muslin of an evening, where you found books and little basket affairs stuck into the coils of rope. I thought the old _Seringapatam_ never looked so well, as she commenced trimming sail on a wind, beginning to go drive ahead, with a white foam at her bows, and her whole length broadside-on to us. All at once we saw her clue up courses and to'-gallant sails, till she was standing slowly off under the three topsails and jib; the two lieutenants couldn't understand what she was about, and the captain put the glass to his eye, after which he said something to the second lieutenant, who went forward directly. "The next thing I saw was the Indiaman coming up in the wind again for about a minute; she had her stern nearly to us, when the moment after, as she rose upon a long sea, you saw something flash white off her lee gangway in the sunlight, that dropped against it into the hollow of a wave. The next minute she fell off again with her topsails full, and the first shower of spray was rising across her forefoot, when the flash of a gun broke out of her side, and the sound came down to us; then a second and a third. The brig gave her the same number in answer, and as soon as the smoke betwixt us had cleared away, the ship could be seen under full sail to the south-westward by west. '_That_'s her poor skippers hammock dropped alongside, gentlemen,' said Captain Wallis to his officers; 'God be with him.' 'Amen,' said the first lieutenant, and we put our caps on again. 'Set stu'nsails, Mr Aldridge,' said the captain, limping down the hatchway; as for me, I leant I don't know how long over the brig's taffrail, watching the ship's canvas grow in one, through the width of air betwixt us; my heart full, as may be supposed, not to say what notions came into my head of what might happen to her under Finch's charge, ere she reached Bombay. No one belonging to the brig spoke to me, out of kindness, no doubt; and the ship was hull-down on the horizon, to my fancy with somewhat of a figure like _hers_, when she stood with the cashmere shawl over her head in the dusk. Then I went gloomily down to my berth, where I kept close by myself till I fell asleep, though the gun-room steward was sent to me more than once to join the officers. "It wasn't till the next day, in fact, when I went on the quarter-deck at noon, wearied for a fresher gulp of air, that I saw any of them; and the breeze having fallen lighter that morning, they were too busy trimming sail and humouring her to give me much notice. I must say I had seldom seen a commander seem more impatient about the sailing of his craft, in time of peace, than the captain of the _Podargus_ appeared to be; walking the starboard side as fast as the halt in his gait would let him, and the anxious turn of his eyes plainer than before, while he looked from the brig's spread of stu'nsails to the horizon, through the glass, which, I may say, he never once laid down. From where the brig spoke the Indiaman, to St Helena, would be about two or three days' sail with a fair wind, at the ordinary strength of the south-east trade; though, at this rate, it might cost us twice the time. I noticed the men on the forecastle look to each other now and then knowingly, at some fresh sign of the captain's impatience; and the second lieutenant told me in a low voice, with his head over the side near mine, Captain Wallis had been out of sorts ever since they lost sight of the island. 'You'd suppose, sir,' said he, laughing, 'that old _Nap_ was his sweetheart, by the way he watches over him; and now, I fancy, he's afraid St Helena may be sunk in blue water while we were away! In fact, Mr Westwood,' added he, 'it looks devilish like as if it had come up from Davy Jones, all standing; so I don't see why it shouldn't go down to him again some day; I can tell you it's tiresome work cruising to windward there, though, and we aren't idle at all!' "'Did you ever see the French Emperor yourself, sir?' asked I--for I must say the thought of nearing the prison such a man was in made me a little curious. 'Never, sir, except at a mile's distance,' said the second lieutenant; 'indeed, it's hard to get a pass, unless you know the governor. But I've a notion,' continued he, 'the governor's carefulness is nothing to our skipper's! Indeed, they tell a queer story of how Sir Hudson Lowe was gulled for months together, when he was governor of Capri island, in the Mediterranean. As for the captain, again, you'd seek a long time ere you found a better seaman--he's as wide awake, too, as Nelson himself; while the curious thing is, I believe, he never once clapped eyes on Bonaparte in his life! But good cause he has to hate him, you know, Mr Westwood!' 'Indeed,' said I, taking a moment's interest in the thing; and I was just going to ask the reason, when the first lieutenant came over to say Captain Wallis would be glad if I would dine with him in the cabin. "At dinner-time, accordingly, I put on a coat, for the first time, less like those the cadets in the _Seringapatam_ wore, and went aft, where I found the first lieutenant and a midshipman with the captain. He did his best to soften my case, as I saw by his whole manner during dinner; after which, no sooner had the reefer had his one glass of wine, than he was sent on deck to look out to windward. 'Well, sir,' said Captain Wallis thereupon, turning from his first luff to me, 'I'm sorry for this disagreeable business! I believe you deny being the person at all, though?' 'Why, sir,' said I, 'I am certainly no more the first lieutenant of the _Orestes_ than yourself, Captain Wallis! 'Twas all owing to a mistake of that India mate, who owed me a grudge.' 'Oh, oh, I see!' replied he, beginning to smile, 'the whole matter's as plain as a handspike, Mr Aldridge! But I couldn't do less, on the information.' 'However, sir,' put in the first lieutenant, 'there's no doubt the real man must have been in the ship, or the mistake could not have happened, sir!' 'Well--you look at things too square, Aldridge,' said the captain. 'All _you_'ve got to do, I hope, sir, is just to prove you're not Westwood; and if you want still to go out to the East Indies, why, I daresay you won't be long of finding some outward-bound ship or other off Jamestown. Only, I'd advise you, sir, to have your case over with Sir Pulteney, before Admiral Plampin comes in--as I fear he would send you to England.' 'It matters little to me, sir,' I answered; 'seeing the reason I had for going out happens to be done with.' Here I couldn't help the blood rising in my face; while Captain Wallis's steady eye turned off me, and I heard him say in a lower key to the lieutenant, he didn't think it was a matter for a court-martial at all. 'Pooh, Aldridge!' said he, 'some pretty girl amongst the passengers in the case, I wager!' 'Why,' returned Aldridge, carelessly, 'I heard Mr Moore say some of the ladies were pretty enough, especially one--some India judge or other's young daughter--I believe he was in raptures about, sir.' This sort of thing, as you may suppose, was like touching one on the raw with a marling-spike; when the captain asked me--partly to smooth it over, maybe--'By-the-by, sir, Mr Aldridge tells me there was something about a pirate schooner, or slaver, or some craft of the kind, that frightened your mates--that's all stuff, I daresay--but what I want to know is, in what quarter you lost sight of her, if you recollect?' 'About nor'-west by north from where we were at the time, sir,' said I. 'A fast-looking craft was she?' asked he. 'A thorough-built smooth-going clipper, if ever there was one,' I said. At this the captain mused for a little, till at last he said to his lieutenant: 'They daren't risk it; I don't think there's the Frenchman born, man enough to try such a thing by water, Aldridge?' 'Help _him_ out, you mean, sir?' said the luff; 'why, if he ever got as far as the water's edge, I'd believe in witchcraft, sir!' 'Give a man time, Mr Aldridge,' answered the captain, 'and he'll get out of anything where soldiers are concerned--every year he's boxed up sharpens him till his very mind turns like a knife, man! It makes one mad on every point besides, I tell you, sir--whereas after he's free, perhaps, it's just on _that only_ his brain has a twist in it!' 'No doubt, Captain Wallis,' said Aldridge, glancing over to me, as his commander got up and began walking about the cabin, spite of his halt. 'D'ye know,' continued he, 'I've thought at times what I should like best would be to have _him_ ahead of the brig, in some craft or other, and we hard in chase--I'd go after that man to the North Pole, sir, and bring him back! Without once going aboard to know he was there, I'd send word it was Jack Wallis had him in tow!' 'What is Bonaparte like, then, after all, sir?' I asked, just to fill up the break. 'I never saw him, nor he me,' replied Captain Wallis, stopping in his walk; 'but every day he may have a sight of the brig cruising to windward; and as for the island, we see plenty of _it_, I think, Aldridge?' 'Ay, ay, sir,' said Aldridge, 'that we do! For my part, I can't get the ugly stone steeples of it out of my head!' 'Well,' continued the captain, 'at times, when we're beating round St Helena of a night, I'll be hanged if I haven't thought it began to loom as if the French Emperor stood on the top of it, like a shadow looking out to sea the other way--and I've gone below lest he'd turn round till I saw his face. I've a notion Mr Aldridge, if I once saw his face, I'd lose what I feel against him, just as I used always to fancy, the first five years in the _Temple_, if he were only to see _me_, he would let me out! But they say he's got a wonderful way of coming over everyone, if he likes!' After this, Captain Wallis sat down and passed the decanters, the first lieutenant observing, he supposed Bonaparte was a great man in his way, but nothing to Nelson. 'Don't tack them together, Aldridge!' said his commander quickly; 'Nelson was a man all over, he'd got the feelings of a man and his faults; but I call _him_, yonder, a perfect demon let loose upon the world! To my mind all the blood those republicans shed, with their murdered king's at bottom of it, got somehow into him, till he thought no more of human beings, or aught concerning 'em, than I do of so many cockroaches! But the terrible thing was, sir, his infernal schemes, and his cunning: why, he'd twist you one country against another, and get hold of both, like a man bending stu'nsail halliards; there were men grew up round him quick as mushrooms, fit to carry out everything he wanted; so one couldn't wonder at him enough, Mr Aldridge, if it was only natural! I can't tell you anything like what I felt,' he went on, 'when I was in Sir Sydney Smith's ship, cruising down Channel, and we used to see the gun-boats and flat-bottoms he got together for crossing the straits; or one night with poor Captain Wright, that we stood in near enough to get a shot sent at us off the heights--the whole shore about Boulogne was one twinkle of lights and camp-fires, and you heard the sound of the hammers on planks and iron, with the carts and gun-carriages creaking--not to speak of a hum from soldiers enough, you'd have thought, to eat Old England up! And where are they now?' 'I don't know, sir, indeed,' said the first lieutenant gravely, supposing by the captain's look, no doubt, that it was a question. 'What, Captain Wallis!' exclaimed I, 'were you with Captain Wright, then, sir?' Of course, like everyone in the service, I had heard Captain Wright's story often, with ever so many versions; there was a mystery about his sad fate that made me curious to hear more of what gave the whole navy, I may say, a hatred to Bonaparte not at all the same you regard a fair enemy with. "'_With_ him, say you, sir?' repeated the captain of the _Podargus_, 'ay was I! I was his first lieutenant, and good cause I had to feel for the end he came to, as I'll let you hear. One night Captain Wright went ashore, as he'd often done, into the town of Beville, dressed like a smuggler; for the fact was the French winked at smuggling, only I must say _we_ used to land men instead of goods. I didn't like the thing that night, and advised him not to go, as they'd begun to suspect something of late! However, the captain by that time was foolhardy, owing to having run so many risks, and he was bent on going in before we left the coast; though, after all, I believe it was only to get a letter that any fisherman could have brought off. The boat was lying off and on behind a rocky point, and we waited and waited, hearing nothing but the sound of the tide making about the big weedy stones, in the shadow from the lights of the town; when at last the French landlord of the little tavern he put up at came down upon the shingle and whistled to us. He gave me a message from Captain Wright, with the private word we had between us, saying he wanted me to come up to the town on a particular business. Accordingly I told the men to shove out again, and away I went with the fellow. "'No sooner did I open the door of the room, however, than three or four gendarmes had hold of me, and I was a prisoner: as for Captain Wright, I never saw him more. The morning broke as they brought me up on horseback in the middle of them, along the road to Paris, from whence I could make out the cutter heeling to the breeze a mile or two off the land, with two or three gun-boats hard in chase. "'Well, sir, at Paris they clapped me into a long gloomy-like piece of masonwork called the _Temple_, close alongside of the river, where plenty of our countrymen were; Captain Wright and Sir Sydney Smith himself among the rest, as I found out afterwards. The treatment wasn't so bad at first; but when you climbed up to the windows, there was nothing to be seen but the top of a wall and roofs of houses all round, save where you'd a glimpse of the dirty river and some pig-trough of a boat. One day I got a letter from Captain Wright--how they let me have it I don't well know--saying he was allowed a good deal of comfort in the meantime, but he suspected some devilish scheme in it, to make him betray the British Government, or something of the kind; that he'd heard one of the French royalist generals had choked himself in his prison, but never to believe he'd do the same thing, though every night he woke up thinking he heard the key turn in the door. The next thing I heard of was that Captain Wright had made away with himself, sir!' "Here Captain Wallis got up again, walking across the cabin, seemingly much moved. 'Well, after that I slept with the dinner-knife in my breast, till the jailer took it away; for I thought at the time that poor Wright had been murdered, though I found cause to change my mind when I knew what loneliness does with a man, not to speak of the notion being put before him to take his own life. For a while, too, Captain Shaw was in the same cell; by which time we had such bad food, and so little of it, that one day when a pigeon lighted on the window, which used to come there for a crumb or two every afternoon, right along with the gold gleam of the sun as it shot over the dark houses to that window, I jumped up and caught it. Shaw and I actually tore it in bits, and ate it raw on the spot; though 'twas long ere I could get rid of the notion of the poor bird fluttering and cooing against the bars, and looking at me with its round little soft eye as it pecked off the slab. But what was that to the thought of my old father that had hurt himself to keep me in the navy, and me able now to make his last days comfortable? or the innocent young girl I had married the moment I got my commission of first lieutenant, expecting to be flush of prize-money? It even came into my head often, when I sat by myself in the cell they afterwards put me into, alone, how that little blue pigeon might have carried a letter to England for me; at any rate it was the only thing like a chance, or a friend, I ever saw the whole time I was there; and foolish as the notion may look, why the window was too high in a smooth wall for me once to reach it. "'I heard all Paris humming round the thick of the stone every day, and sometimes the sound of thousands of soldiers tramping past below, over the next bridge, with music and such like--no doubt when the First Consul, as they called him, went off to some campaign or other: then I'd dream I felt the deck under me in a fresh breeze at night, till the soul sickened in me to wake up and find the stones as still as before, and now and then hear the sentries challenging on their rounds. "'Well, one day, a fellow in a cloak, with a slouch hat over his forehead, was let in to try, as I thought, if there was anything to be got out of me, as they tried two or three times at first; some spy he was, belonging to that police devil Fouche. What did he offer me, d'ye think, after beating about the bush for half-an-hour, but the command of a French seventy-four under the Emperor, as he was by that time, and, if I would take it, I was free! On this I pretended to be thinking of it, when the police fellow sidled near me, to show a commission signed with the Emperor's name at the foot. "'In place of taking hold of it, however, I jumped up and seized the villain's nose and chin before he saw my purpose, stuffed the parchment into his mouth by way of a gag, and made him dance round the cell, with his cloak over his head and his sword dangling alongside of him, to keep his stern clear of my foot; till the turnkey heard the noise, and he made bolt out as soon as the door was opened. You'd wonder how long that small matter served me to laugh over, for my spirit wasn't broken yet, you see; but even then, in the very midst of it, I would all of a sudden turn sick at heart, and sit wondering when the exchange of prisoners would be made that I looked for. The worst of it was, at times a horrid notion would come into my head of the French seventy-four being at sea at the moment, and me almost wishing they'd give me the offer over again--I fancied I felt the very creak of her straining in the trough of a sea, and saw the canvas of her topsails over me, standing on her poop with a glass in my hand, till she rose on a crest, and there were the _Agamemnon's_ lighted ports bearing down to leeward upon us, till I heard Nelson's terrible voice sing out, "Give it to 'em, my lads!" when the flash of her broadside showed me his white face under the cocked hat, and it came whizzing over like a thirty-two-pound shot right into my breast, as I sunk to the bottom, and found myself awake in the prison. "'I don't know how long it was after, but they moved me to another berth, where a man had shot himself through the head, for we actually met his body being carried along the passage; and more than that, sir, they hadn't taken the trouble to wash his brains off the wall they were scattered on. There I sat one day after another, watching the spot marked by them turn dry, guessing at everything that had gone through them as long as he was alive in the place, till my own got perfectly stupid; I was as helpless as a child, and used to cry at other times when the jailer didn't bring me my food in time. I fancied they'd forget all about me in England; and as for time, I never counted it, except by the notion I had been two or three years in. "'At last the turnkey got so used to me, thinking me no doubt such a harmless sort of a poor man, that he would sit by and talk to me, giving accounts of the Emperor's battles and victories, and such matters. I must say I began to feel as if he was some sort of a god upon earth there was no use to strive against, just as the turnkey seemed to do, more especially when I heard of Nelson's death; so when he told me one time it wouldn't do for Fouche or the Emperor to let me out yet, I said nothing more. "Will the Emperor not let me out _now_?" asked I, a long time after. "_Diable!_" said the man, "do you think His Majesty has time to think of such a poor fellow as you, among such great matters? No, no, _pauvr' homme_!" continued he; "you're comfortable here, and wouldn't know what to do if you were out! No fear of your doing as your Capitaine _Ourite_ did, since you've lived here so long, monsieur." "How long is it now, good Pierre?" asked I, with a sigh, as he was going out at the door; and the turnkey counted on his fingers. "Ulm--Austerlitz--Jena," said he slowly; "_oui, oui_--I scarcely thought it so much--it wants only six or seven months of ten years!" and he shut-to the door. I sprang up off the bed I was sitting on, wild at the thought--I may say, for a day or two I was mad--ten years! ten years!--and all this time where was my poor innocent Mary, and the child she expected to bear when I left Exeter--where was my old father? But I couldn't bear to dwell on it. Yes, Aldridge, by the God above, they had kept me actually _ten years_ there, in that cursed Temple while _he_ was going on all the time with his victories, and his shows, and his high-flown bulletins! Yet he wasn't too high, it seems, to stoop to give out, through his tools, how Wright and I had both killed ourselves for fear of bringing in the British Government--not to offer me a seventy-four in a dungeon--_me_, a man used to wind and water, that loved a breeze at sea like life. 'Twas the very devil's temptation, sir; but I'll tell you what, both Captain Wright and myself had been with Sir Sidney Smith at Acre, when _he_ was baffled for the first time in his days--_that_ was the thing, I believe from my soul, that he hated us for. _I_ had a right to be exchanged ten times over, though he might have called Wright a spy; but what was my poor wife and her new-born baby, or my old father's gray hairs to _him_, and his great ambition to make everything his own--and when the very thought of me in my hole at the Temple would strike him in the midst of his victories, where he hadn't time, forsooth, to trouble himself about a poor man like me. The fact was, I could tell how he offered a British seaman, that had had a finger in nettling him, the command of one of his seventy-fours, which he had nobody fit to manage--and that in a prison where I'd be glad even of fresh air. "''Twas then, in fact, the purpose rose firmer and firmer in me, out of the fury that was like to drive me mad, how I'd get out of his clutches, and spend my life against the very pitch of his power I knew so well about. Till that time I used to look through the bars of the window at the Seine, without ever fancying escape, low down as it was, compared with my last cell. There was a mark in the stone floor with my walking back and forward since they put me in; and by this time I had the cunning of a beast, let alone its strength, in regard of anything I took into my head; often I used to think I saw the end of my finger, or the corner of a stone, more like the way a fly sees them, than a man. The turnkey, Pierre, would never let me have a knife to eat my food with, lest I should do as he said all we English were apt to do--kill myself--which, by-the-way, is a lie; and I think that fiend of an Emperor yonder must have taught them to blame us with their own crime. However, latterly he let me have a fork for half-an-hour at dinner; and for a quarter of an hour every day, except those when he stayed to talk to me as I ate it, did I climb up and work with that fork at the top and bottom of one of the window-bars, taking care not to break the fork, and jumping down always in time to finish the meal. It took me four whole months, sir, to loosen them! Such deadly fear as I was in, too, lest he'd find it out, or lest they moved me to another cell--you'd have thought I was fond of the walls round the place, where hundreds of men before me had scrawled their last words; and the one that shot himself had written, "_Liberte--aneantissement!_ "Liberty--annihilation!" just over where the spatter of his brains had stuck when he laid his head to the spot! If Pierre had noticed what I'd been about, my mind was made up to kill him, and then make the trial before they missed him; but _that_ I had a horror of, after all, seeing the man had taken a sort of liking to me, and I knew he had a wife. "'Well, at last, one day I had the thing finished; when midnight came I trembled like a leaf, till I began to fear I couldn't carry it through. I tore my shirt and the blanket in strips, to twist into a line, got out the bar by main force, squeezed through, and let myself down. The line was just long enough to let me swing against the cold wall, over a sentry's head going round the parapet below; as soon as he was past, I dropped on the edge of the wall, and fell along it, my fingers scraping the smooth stone to no purpose, till I was sliding off into the dark, with the river I didn't know how far below me, though I heard it lapping against some boats at the other side. "'For a few moments I was quite senseless from the fall into the water. The splash roused the sentinels, and three or four bullets whizzed into it about me, as I struck out for the shore. Still the night was thick enough to help me clear off among the dark lanes in the city; and the upshot of it was that I found out some royalists, who supplied me with a pedlar's dress; till, in the end, after I can't tell you how many ticklish chances, where my luck hung upon a hair, I reached the coast, and was taken off to a British frigate. At home, sir--at home, I found I'd been given up long ago for a dead man in Bonaparte's prisons, and--and--the old man had been buried seven years, Aldridge--but not so long as my--wife. The news of my taking my own life in the Temple saved her the rest--'twas too much for her at the time, Aldridge--both she and her little one had lain in the mould nine years, when I stood looking at the grass under Exeter Cathedral. I was a young man almost, still; but my hair was as grizzled when I got out of the Temple in 1813, as you see it now, and I'll never walk the deck fairly again. Aldridge,' added the captain of the _Podargus_, turning round and standing still, with a low sort of a deep whisper, ''tis a strange thing, the Almighty's way of working--but I never thought--in the Temple yonder, longing for a heave of the water under me--I I little thought John Wallis would ever come to keep guard over his Majesty, the Emperor Napoleon!' "When Captain Wallis stopped, the long send of the sea lifting the brig below us, with a wild, yearning kind of ripple from her bows back to her counter, and weltering away astern--one felt it, I may say, somewhat like an answer to him, for the breeze had begun to freshen: it had got all of a sudden nearly quite dark, too, as is the case inside the tropics, without the moon. 'Let's go on deck, gentlemen,' said the captain, coming to himself; 'now clap on those other topmost stu'nsails, Mr Aldridge, and make her walk, sir'--'No saying,' I heard him mutter, as he let us go up before him--'no saying what the want of the _Podargus_ might do, off the island, these dark nights--with water alongside, one can't be sure. I warrant me if _that man's_ dreams came true, as mine did, he would be at the head of his thousands again, ruining the whole world, with men rotting out of sight in dungeons while the wind blows! Ay, dreams, young gentleman!' said he to me as we stood on deck; 'I'll never get rid of that prison, in my head, nor the way that dead man's brain seemed to come into mine, off the wall! But for my part, off St Helena, 'tis Napoleon Bonaparte's dreams that enter into my head. If you'll believe it, sir, I've _heard_ them as it were creeping and tingling round the black heights of the island at dead of night, like men in millions ready to break out in war-music, as I used to hear them go over the bridge near the Temple--or in shrieks and groans; we all the time forging slowly ahead, and the surf breaking in at the foot of the rocks. I know then _who's_ asleep at the time up in Longwood!' "The brig-of-war was taking long sweeps and plunges before the wind; the Southern Cross right away on her larboard quarter, and the very same stars spread all out aloft, that I watched a couple of nights before, close by Violet Hyde. The whole of what I'd just heard was nothing to me in a single minute, matched with the notion of never seeing her more. Everything I'd thought of since we left England was gone, even one's heart for the service; and what to do now, I didn't know. I scarce noticed it commence to rain, till a bit of a squall had come on, and they were hauling down stu'nsails: the dark swells only to be seen rising with the foam on them, and a heavier cover of dull cloud risen off the brig's beam, as well as ahead; so that you merely saw her canvas lift before you against the thick of the sky, and dive into it again. 'Twas just cleared pretty bright off the stars astern of us, however, wind rather lighter than before the squall, when the captain thought he made out a sail near about the starboard beam, where the clouds came on the water-line; a minute or two after she was plain enough in the clear, though looming nearly end-on, so that one couldn't well know her rig. Thinking at first sight it might be the schooner, Captain Wallis was for bracing up, to stand in chase and overhaul her; but shortly after she seemed either to yaw a little, or fall off again before the wind like ourselves, at any rate showing three sticks on the horizon, with square canvas spread, and evidently a small _ship_. "'Some homeward-bound craft meaning to touch at the island,' said Captain Wallis, telling the first lieutenant to keep all fast; by which time she was lost in the dusk again, and I wasn't long of going below. A fancy had got hold of me for the moment, I can't deny, of its being the _Seringapatam_ after us on Westwood's owning himself; whereupon I persuaded myself Captain Wallis might perhaps take the risk on him of letting us both go. For my part, I felt by this time as if I'd rather be in the same ship with _her_, hopeless though it was, than steer this way for the other side of the line; and I went down with a chill at my heart like the air about an iceberg. "Not being asleep, however, a sudden stir on deck, an hour or two after that, brought me out of my cot, to look through the scuttle in the side. The brig had hauled her wind from aft on to her starboard quarter, making less way than _before_ it, of course; I heard the captain's voice near the after-hatchway, too; so accordingly I slipped on my clothes, and went quietly up. The _Podargus_ was running through the long broad swells usual thereabouts, with her head somewhere toward north-east; the officers all up, the whole of the crew in both watches clustered beyond the brig's fore-course, and the captain evidently roused, as well as impatient; though I couldn't at first make out the reason of her being off her course. As soon as she fell off a little, however, to my great horror I could see a light far ahead of us, right in the gloom of the clouds, which for a moment you'd have supposed was the moon rising red and bloody, till the heave of the sea betwixt us and it showed how both of us were dipping: and now and then it gave a flaring glimmer fair out from the breast of the fog-bank, while the breeze was sending a brown puff of smoke from it now and then to leeward against the clouds; through which you made a spar or two licking up the flame, and a rag of canvas fluttering across on the yard. "Twas neither more nor less than a ship on fire--no doubt the vessel seen abeam of us that evening--a sight at which Captain Wallis seemingly forgot his hurry to make St Helena, in the eagerness shown by all aboard to save the poor fellows. Suddenly there was another wild gleam from the burning craft, and we thought it was over altogether, when up shot a wreath of fire and smoke again, then a fierce flash with a blue burst of flame, full of sparks, and all sorts of black spots and broken things, as if she had blown up while she heaved the last time on the swell. Everything was pitch dark next minute in her place, as if a big blot of ink had come instead; the brig-of-war herself rolling with a flap of her headsails up against the long heavy bank of cloud that blocked the horizon. 'Keep her away, sirrah!' shouted Captain Wallis, and the _Podargus_ surged ahead as before, all of us standing too breathless to speak, but counting the heads of the waves as they flickered past her weather-beam. 'God's sake!' exclaimed the captain at last, 'this is terrible, Aldridge. If I had only overhauled her, as I meant at first, we might have helped them in time; for no doubt the fire must have been commenced when we noticed her yawing yonder a couple of hours ago, sir.' 'I think not, sir,' said his lieutenant; '_we_ were against the clear; and if they'd been in danger _then_, she'd have fired a distress-gun. There couldn't have been much powder aboard, sir--more likely rum, I think!' 'For Heaven's sake!' continued the captain, 'let's look about--she must surely have had boats out, or something, Mr Aldridge! The best thing we can do is to fire a few times as we bear down--see that bow-gun cleared away, Mr Moore, and do it!' "We might have been about a mile, as was guessed, from where she was last seen, when the brig fired a gun to windward, still standing on under everything. At the second flash that lighted up the belly of the clouds, with the black glitter of the swells below them, I fancied I caught a moment's glimpse of something two or three miles away. It was too short to say, however; and soon after the twinkle of a light, seemingly hoisted on a spar, was seen little more than half-a-mile upon the brig's lee-bow, dipping and going out of sight at times, but plain enough when it rose. Down went the _Podargus_ for the spot, sending the foam off her cutwater; and it was no long time before a wild hail from several voices could be made out almost close aboard. Ten minutes after she was brought to the wind, heaving a rope to the men on a loose raft of casks and spars, as it pitched alongside of her, with the sail hauled down on a spar they had stuck up, and a lantern at the head of it; after which the raft was cast off, and the poor fellows were safe on board. "Two of them seemed to be half-drowned, the one wrapped up in a wet pilot-coat, his face looking white and frightened enough by the glimmer of the lanterns: the other darker a good deal, so far as I could make him out for the crowd about him, and he didn't seem able to speak; accordingly both of them were taken at once below to the surgeon. The rest were four half-naked blacks, and a little chap with earrings and a seaman's dress who was the spokesman on the quarter-deck to the captain's questions--plainly American by his snuffling sort of drawl. "'Are there no more of you afloat?' was the first thing asked, to which the Yankee sailor shook his head. She was an American bark, he said, from a voyage of discovery round the two Capes; and he was mate himself, and the skipper, being addicted to his cups, had set a cask of rum on fire; so finding they couldn't get it under besides being wearied at the pumps, on account of an old leak, the men broke into the spirit-room, and got dead drunk. He and the blacks had patched up a raft in a hurry for bare life, barely saving the passenger and his servant who had jumped overboard; the passenger was a learned sort of a man, and his servant was a Mexican. Most of this I found next day, from the gun-room officers; however, I heard the mate of the burnt barque inquire of the captain whereabouts they were, as the skipper was the only man who could use a chronometer or quadrant, and the last gale had driven them out of their reckonings a long way. 'Somewhere south of the Line, I guess?' said he; but, on being told, the fellow gave a bewildered glance round him, seemingly, and a cunning kind of squint after it, as I fancied. 'Well,' said he, 'I guess we're considerable unlucky; but I consider to turn in, if agreeable!' The man had a way, in fact, half free-and-easy, half awkward that struck me; especially when he said, as he went below, he supposed 'this was a war-brig,' and hoped there 'wasn't war between the States and the old country?' 'No, my man,' said the captain, 'you may set your mind at ease on that point; but I'm afraid, nevertheless, we'll have to land you at St Helena!' "'What, mister?' said the American, starting, 'that's where you've got Boneyparty locked up? Well now, if you give me a good berth for a few, mister, I guess I'll rayther ship aboard you, till I get a better! What's your wage just now, if I may ask, captain?' 'Well, well,' said the captain, laughing, 'we'll see to-morrow, my man!'--and the American went below. 'Set stu'nsails again, Mr Aldridge,' continued Captain Wallis, 'and square yards. Why, rather than have such a fellow in the ship's company, Aldridge, I'd land him without Sir Hudson's leave!' "For my own part, next day, I should have given more notice to our new shipmates while the brig steered fair before the wind--the blacks and the mate leaning about her forecastle, and the other two being expected by the surgeon to come pretty well round before night, though the captain had gone to see them below; but a thing turned up all at once that threw me once more full into the thought of Violet Hyde, till I was perfectly beside myself with the helpless case I was in. The note Tom Westwood had shown me was still in the pocket of my griffin's coat, though I hadn't observed it till now; and what did I feel at finding out, that, instead of one from her to Westwood, it was a few words from my own sister, little Jane, saying in a pretty, bashful sort of way, that her brother Ned must come home before she could engage to anything! You may fancy how I cursed myself for being so blind; but a fellow never thinks his own sister charming at all--and what else could I have done at any rate? All I hoped for, was to get aboard of some Indiaman at St Helena, and there was nothing else I wearied to see the island again for. I may say I walked the brig's lee quarter-deck till daybreak; but anyhow the look-out from the foreyard had scarce sung out 'St Helena on the weather-bow!' when I was up, making out the round blue cloud in the midst of the horizon, with a white streak across it, like a bird afloat in the hazy blue, with the clear gleam from eastward off our starboard quarter running round to it. CHAPTER XXI "As soon as you near St Helena by a few miles, the trade-wind falls light, and making the rock, as you do from the South Atlantic, a good deal to leeward of the harbour, 'twould be pretty slow work beating round to north-east, but for the breeze always coming off the height, with the help of which one can coast easy enough along. Captain Wallis said no more than to bid the first lieutenant make the brig's number at her mast-head, while she still bore in direct upon the breast of the land, as much out of soundings as the day before; the smooth heavy swell seeming to float the island up in one huge lump ahead of us, till you saw it rolling into the very foot, with a line of surf, as if it all rose sheer out of the bottom of the sea; as grim and hard as a block of iron, too, and a good deal the same colour. By noon it hung fairly, as it were, over our mast-heads, the brig looking by comparison as tiny and as ticklish as a craft made of glass, she coasting away round, with yards braced first one way then another, and opening point after point from three hundred to two thousand feet high; while at times she would go stealing in with a faint ripple at her bows, near enough to hear the deep sound of the sea plunging slowly to the face of the rock, where the surf rose white against it without a break. "There wasn't so much as a weed to be seen, the rocks getting redder and more coppery, sending out the light like metal, till you'd have thought they tingled all over with the heat. Then as you opened another bulge in the line, the sharp sugar-loaf hills, far away up, with the ragged cliffs and crags, shot over against the bare white sky in all sort of shapes; and after a good long spell of the sea, there was little fancy needed to give one the notion that they were changing into these, as we passed ahead, to mock you. There was one peak for all the world like the top of St Paul's, and no end of church spires and steeples, all lengths and ways; then big bells and trumpets, mixed with wild beasts' heads, grinning at each other across some split in the blue beyond, and soldiers' helmets--not to speak of one huge block, like a <DW65>'s face with a cowl behind it, hanging far out over the water. Save for the colour of it all, in fact, St Helena reminds one more of a tremendous iceberg than an island, and not the less that it looks ready in some parts to topple over and show a new face; while the sea working round it, surging into the hollows below water-mark, and making the air groan inside of them, keeps up a noise the like of which you wouldn't wish to cruise alongside of every day. The strangest thing about it, however, was that now and then, as you came abreast of some deep gully running up inland, a sudden blast of wind would rush out of it, sufficient to make the _Podargus_ reel--with a savage thundering roar, too, like the howl out of a lion's mouth; while you looked far up a narrow, bare, black glen, closing into a hubbub of red rocks, or losing itself up a grey hillside in a white thread of a water-course; then the rough shell of the island shut in again, as still as before, save the light breeze and the deep hum of the surf along its foot. Curiously enough in a latitude like St Helena's, the island seems, as it were, a perfect bag of air. What with the heat of the rock, its hollow inside, the high peaks of it catching the clouds, and the narrow outlets it has, 'tis always brewing wind, you may say, to ventilate that part of the tropics--just as one may keep up cold draughts through and through a wet heap of loose stones, no matter how hot the weather is, as long as he pleases. As for a landing-place, though, there wasn't one of the gullies that didn't yawn over without falling to the sea; and, not to mention the surf underneath, where the dark swell came in unbroken from deep water without a shoal to soften it, why, watching it from the brig's side, I shouldn't have said a cat could scramble up or down the steep <DW72>s and the wreck of stones, from the water's edge to the jaws of the easiest gully you saw. "Once or twice, standing farther off, we caught sight of Diana's Peak over the shoulder of a hill, with the light haze melting about it; at last you noticed a large gun mounted against the sky on a lofty peak, where it looked like a huge telescope; and on clearing another headland, a beautiful frigate came in between us and the burst of light to seaward, cruising to windward under easy sail. She bore up and stood towards the brig-of-war, just as the line of wall was to be seen winding round the middle of Sugarloaf Point, where the sentry's bayonet glittered near his watch-box, and the soldiers' red coats could be seen moving through the covered passage to the batteries. Five minutes after, the _Podargus_ swept round the breast of Rupert's Hill into the bay, in sight of Jamestown and the ships lying off the harbour; clewing up her sails and ready to drop anchor, as the frigate hove to not far astern. "You can fancy land heaving in sight after thrice as many weeks as you've been at sea, ladies; or the view of a ship to a man that's been long laid up in bed ashore; or a gulp of fresh water in a sandy desert--but I question if any of them matches your first glimpse of Jamestown from the roadstead, like a bright piece of fairy-work in the mouth of the narrow brown valley, after seeing desolation enough to make you wish for a clear horizon again. More especially this time, when all the while one couldn't help bringing to mind one's notion of the French Emperor, how, not long ago, the sight of the French coast, or a strange frigate over the Channel swell, used to make us think of him far ashore, with half the earth for his own, and millions of soldiers. We reefers down in the cockpit would save our grog to drink confusion to Napoleon, and in a rough night near a lee-shore, it was look alive aloft, or choose betwixt cold brine and the clutch of a gendarme hauling you to land. I do believe we looked upon him as a sort of god, as Captain Wallis did in the Temple; every ship or gunboat we saw taken, or had a hand in the mauling of, why, 'twas for the sheer sake of the thing, and scarce by way of harm to Boney; while nothing like danger, from breakers on the lee-bow to a November gale, but had seemingly a taste of him. None of us any more thought of bringing him to this, than we did of his marching into London, or of a French frigate being able to rake our old _Pandora_ in a set-to on green water or blue, with us to handle her. "But _there_ was the neat little cluster of houses, white, yellow, and green, spreading down close together in the bottom of the valley, and out along the sea's edge; the rough brown cliffs sloping up on each side, with the ladder-like way to the fort on the right, mounting, as it were, out of the very street, to the flagstaff on the top, and dotted with red-coats going up and down; a bright line of a pier and a wall before the whole, the Government House dazzling through a row of spreading trees, and a little square church-tower to be seen beyond. 'Twas more like a scene in a play, than aught else; what with the suddenness of it all, the tiny look of it betwixt the huge rocks, the greenness of the trees and bushes, and patches of garden struggling up as far as they could go into the stone, and the gay little toys of cottages, with scarce flat enough to stand upon; save for the blue swell of the sea plunging lazily in through the bit of a bay, and the streak of air behind, that let you in high over the head of the hollow, up above one height and another, to a flat-headed blue rise in the distance, where Longwood could be seen from the maincross-trees I had gone to as the sails were furled. "The sunlight, striking from both the red sides of the ravine, made the little village of a place, trees and all, glitter in a lump together, out of it, like no spot in the rest of the world; while elsewhere there wasn't so much as a weed to be seen hanging from the rock, nor the sign of another human habitation, saving the bare batteries on each hand, with a few sheds and warehouses over the beach along the landing-place. Once or twice the same sudden gust as before would come slap down through the valley into the brig's bare rigging, hot as the air was, with a howling kind of a sigh you took some time to get accustomed to, lest there was a hurricane to follow: in fact, one didn't well know whether it was the wild look of it outside, or the lovely spot in its grim mouth of a landing-place, but the whole island gave you the notion of a thing you couldn't be long sure of, without fancying it would give a shake some day or other again; or else spout fire, as no doubt it had done before, if there wasn't more fear of Napoleon getting back somehow to France, and wreaking bloody vengeance on the kings that shut him up in St Helena. "There was apparently a busy scene ashore, however, both in the little town, which has scarce more than a single street, and along the quay, full of residents, as well as passengers from two Indiamen lying in-shore of us, while the Government esplanade seemed to be crowded with ladies, listening to the regimental band under the trees. The _Newcastle_ frigate, with Sir Dudley Aldcombe's flag hoisted at her mizzen, was at anchor out abreast at Ladder Hill; and our first lieutenant had scarce pulled aboard of the _Hebe_, which was hove-to off the brig's quarter, before I noticed the Admiral's barge lying alongside the _Hebe_. "Seeing Mr Aldridge on his way back shortly after, I came down the rigging, more anxious than ever to have my own matter settled; indeed, Captain Wallis no sooner caught sight of my face, uncomfortable as I daresay it looked, than he told me he was going to wait on the Admiral aboard the _Hebe_, and would take me with him at once, if I chose. For my part, I needed nothing but the leave, and in ten minutes' time I found myself, no small mark of curiosity, betwixt the waist and the quarter-deck of the _Hebe_, where the officers eyed me with as little appearance of rudeness as they could help, and I overhauled the spars and rigging aloft as coolly as I could, waiting to be sent for below. The _Hebe_, in fact, was the very beauty of a twenty-eight; taking the shine, and the wind, too, clean out of everything even at Plymouth, where I had seen her once a year or two before; our poor dear old _Iris_ herself had scarce such a pattern of a hull, falling in, as it did, from the round swell of her bilge, to just under the plank-sheer, and spreading out again with her bright black top-sides, till where the figure-head shot over the cutwater, and out of her full pair of bows, like a swan's neck out of its breast. As for the _Iris_, our boatswain himself one day privately confessed to me, almost with tears in his eyes, that she tumbled home a thought too much just in front of the fore-chains, and he'd tried to get it softened off with dead planking and paint, but it wouldn't do; everybody saw through them. The truth was, to feel this fine ship under one, with her loose topsails hanging high against the gloom of the red gully towards Longwood, and the gay little town peeping just over her larboard bow, a mile away, it somehow or other cleared one's mind of a load. "I was thinking already how, if one had the command of such a craft, to do something with her at sea--hang it! but surely that old judge couldn't be too proud to give him a fair hearing. By Jove! thought I--had one only wild enough weather, off the Cape, say--if I wouldn't undertake to bother even a seventy-four a whole voyage through, till she struck her flag; in which case a fellow might really venture to hold his head up and speak his mind, lovely as Violet Hyde would be in Calcutta. But then, again, _there_ was St Helena towering red and rough over the ships, with the grand French Emperor hidden in it hard and fast, and all the work he used to give us at an end! "Just at the moment, happening to catch sight of the American mate's sallow black visage over the brig-of-war's hammock-cloths, peering as he did from the cliffs to the lofty spars of the frigate, while his <DW64> shipmates were to be made out nearer the bows--somehow or other the whole affair of their being burnt out and picked up started into my mind again, along with our late queer adventures in the Indiaman. Not to mention Captain Wallis's story, it flashed upon me all at once, for the first time, that the strange schooner was after some scheme as regarded the island; and a man more likely to try something uncommon than the Frenchman I never had seen yet. The truth was, but for my thoughts being otherwise taken up, I'd have wondered at my own confounded stupidity in not fathoming the thing sooner; whereas now I'm not going to deny it, I half began actually to wish him good success, or else a close miss of it, where either way one couldn't well fail having a share in the squall. "At any rate, I saw it was cunningly enough gone about; this same burnt barque of the Yankee's, I perceived in a moment, was part of the plot; though as for meddling in it till I saw more, 'twas likely to spoil the whole; let alone making an ass of oneself in case of mistake. I was eyeing the shipwrecked mate, indeed, when one of the lieutenants told me politely the Admiral wanted to see me in the cabin below. "Not being much accustomed to admirals' society, as a little white-haired fellow-reefer of mine once said at a tea-party ashore, I came in at the door with rather an awkward bow, no doubt; for Sir Dudley, who was sitting on the sofa with his cocked hat and sword beside him, talking to Captain Wallis, turned his head at the captain's word, as if he were trying to keep in a smile. A tall, fine-looking man he was, and few seamen equal to him for handling a large fleet, as I knew, though his manners were finished enough to have made him easy in a king's court. As for the captain of the _Hebe_, he was leaning out of an open stern-window, seemingly a young man; but who he might be I didn't know at the moment. The Admiral had only a question or two to put, before he looked back to Captain Wallis again, remarking it was clear he had brought away the wrong man. 'I didn't think you were so dull in the _Podargus_,' said he, smiling, 'as to let an Indiaman play off such a trick on you--eh, Captain Wallis!' "Captain Wallis glanced round the cabin, and then sideways down at Sir Dudley's cocked hat, in a funny enough way, as much as to say he took all the blame on himself; and it struck me more than ever what a kind heart the man had in him--if you only set aside his hatred to Bonaparte, which in fact was nothing else but a twisted sort of proof of the same thing. 'Pooh, pooh, Wallis,' continued Sir Dudley, 'we can't do anything in the matter; though, if the service were better than it really is at present, I should certainly incline to question a smart young fellow like this, that has held His Majesty's commission, for idling in an Indiaman after the lady passengers! I am afraid, sir,' said he to me, 'you've lost your passage, though--unless the captain of the _Hebe_ will give you his second berth here, to make amends. You need not be afraid, Lord Frederick!' added he, looking toward the captain of the frigate, and raising his voice; 'you do not know him, after all, I suppose!' The captain drew in his head, saying he had been doubtful about one of the pivots of the rudder, then turned full round and looked uneasily at me, on which his face brightened immediately, and he said, 'No, Sir Dudley, I do not!' I was still in ignorance for a moment or so, myself, who this titled young post-captain might be, though I had certainly seen him before; till all at once I recollected him, with a start as pleasant to me as his seemed to him at _not_ knowing me. Both Westwood and I had been midshipmen together for a while in the _Orion_, fifty-gun ship, where _he_ was second lieutenant, several years before. As for me, I was too fond of a frigate to stay longer in her than I could help; but I remembered my being a pest to the second lieutenant, and Tom's being a favourite of his, so that he stayed behind me, and got master's-mate as soon as he was 'passed.' "The Honourable Frederick Bury he was then, and the handsomest young fellow in the squadron, as well as the best-natured aboard; I don't believe he knew how to splice in a dead-eye, and any of the masters'-mates could take charge of the ship better in a rough night, I daresay; but for a gallant affair in the way of hard knocks, with management to boot, there wasn't his match. He never was known to fail when he took a thing in hand; lost fewer men, too, than anyone else did; and whenever there turned up anything ticklish for the boats, it was always 'Mr Bury will lead.' 'The Honourable Bury,' we used to call him, and 'Fighting Free-the-deck.' Westwood was one of his school, whereas _I_ had learnt from Jacobs in a merchantman's forecastle; and many a time did we play off such tricks on the second lieutenant as coming gravely aft to him during the watch, three or four of us together, me carrying a bit of rope where a 'Turk's-head' or a 'mouse' was to be worked, while I asked him innocently to show us the way. Or else it was some dispute we contrived beforehand, as to the best plan of sending up new topmasts at sea, or running out of a 'round' gale in the Indian Ocean, on which the men forward would be all ready to break out laughing; and the second lieutenant, after thinking a moment, would quietly pitch upon me to go aloft, and study the point for two hours at the mast-head. "'What is _your_ name then, young man?' inquired Sir Dudley Aldcombe of me. The instant I told him, Lord Frederick Bury gave me another look, then a smile. 'What?' said he, 'Collins that was in the _Orion_?' 'Yes, Lord Frederick,' said I, 'the same; I was third in the _Iris_ off the West African coast since then.' 'Why,' said he, 'I recollect you quite well, Mr Collins, although you have grown a foot, I think, sir--but your eye reminds me of sundry pranks you used to play on board! What nickname was it your messmates called you, by-the-by?' 'Something foolish enough, I suppose, my lord,' replied I, biting my lip; 'but I remember clearly having the honour to steer the second cutter in-shore one dark night near Dunkirk, when your lordship carried the Dutch brig and the two French chasse-marees----' "'Faith,' broke in the captain of the _Hebe_, 'you've a better memory than I have--I do not recollect any chasse-marees at all that time, Mr Collins!' 'Why,' said I, 'I got a knock on the head from a fellow in a red shirt--that always kept me in mind.' 'Oh,' remarked the Admiral to Captain Wallis, laughing, 'Lord Frederick Bury must have had so many little parties of the kind that his memory can't be expected to be very nice! However, I shall go ashore at present, gentlemen, leaving the _Hebe_ and you to dispose of this runaway lieutenant in some way or other. Only you'd better settle it before Admiral Plampin arrives!' 'Have you seen the--the--Longwood lately, Sir Dudley?' asked the captain of the _Podargus_ carelessly. 'Yes, not many days ago I had an interview,' said the Admiral gravely; 'proud as ever, and evidently resolved not to flinch from his condition. 'Tis wonderful the command that man has over himself, Wallis--he speaks of the whole world and its affairs like one that sees into them, and had them still nearly under his foot! All saving those miserable squabbles with Plantation House, which--but, next time I shall take my leave, and wash my hands of the whole concern, I am glad to think!' "Lord Frederick was talking to me meanwhile at the other end of the cabin, but I was listening in spite of myself to Sir Dudley Aldcombe, and noticed that Captain Wallis made no answer. 'By-the-way, Wallis,' continued the Admiral, ''tis curious that he seemed anxious more than once to know what you think of him--I believe he would like to see you!' 'To see _me_!' said the commander of the _Podargus_, suddenly. 'At last, does he! No, Sir Dudley, he and I never _will_ meet; he ought to have thought of it twelve years sooner! God knows,' he went on, 'the commander of a ten-gun brig is too small a man to see the Emperor Napoleon a prisoner; but in ten years of war, Sir Dudley, what mightn't one have been, instead of being remembered after as only plain John Wallis, whom Bonaparte kept all that time in prison, and who was sent in course of time, to cruise off St Helena?' Here the Admiral said something about a British sailor not keeping malice, and Captain Wallis looked up at him gravely. 'No,' replied he; 'no, Sir Dudley, I shouldn't have _chosen_ the thing; but in the meantime I'm only doing my duty. There's a gloomy turn in my mind by this time, no doubt; but you've no idea, Sir Dudley, how the thought of other people comes into one's head when he's years shut up--so _I_ may stand for many a one Bonaparte will never see more than myself, that'll ring him round surer than those rocks there, though they're dead and in their graves, Sir Dudley!' The Admiral shook his head, observing that Napoleon was no common man, and oughtn't to be judged as such. 'Too many victories in that eye of his, I suspect, Captain Wallis,' said he, 'for either Plantation House or his own conscience to break his spirit!' "Ay, ay, sir,' answered the captain respectfully, 'excuse me, Sir Dudley, but there it is--so long as he's got his victories to fall back upon, he can't see how, if he'd regarded common men more, with all belonging to them, he wouldn't have been here! Why did Providence shut him up in a dead volcano, with blue water round it, Sir Dudley, if it wasn't to learn somehow or other he was a man after all?' Sir Dudley Aldcombe shrugged his shoulders and looked to Lord Frederick, upon which he rose, and the two captains followed him out of the cabin; in five minutes I heard the side piped for the Admiral's leaving, and soon after the captain of the _Hebe_ came below again. "'This is a disagreeable affair of your old messmate's, Mr Collins,' said he seriously. 'You are, perhaps, not aware that Captain Duncombe was a relative of my own, and the fact of his property having fallen by will to myself, rendered my position the more peculiarly disagreeable, had I been obliged not only to recognise Lieutenant Westwood here, but afterwards to urge proceedings against him, even if he were let off by court-martial. I cannot tell you how the sight of a stranger, as I thought, relieved me, sir!' 'Indeed, Lord Frederick!' replied I, too much confused in the circumstances to say more. However, his lordship's manner soon set me at my ease, the old good-humoured smile coming over his fine features again, while he went on to offer me the place of his second lieutenant, who was going home very ill by one of the homeward-bound Indiamen; adding, that Sir Dudley would confirm the appointment; indeed, he could scarce help himself, he said, as there was nobody else he could get at present. "'You must be a thorough good sailor by this time, Collins,' continued he, 'if you have gone on at the rate you used to do. I remember how fond you were of having charge for a minute or two of the old _Orion_, or when I let you put her about in my watch. Why they called you "Young Green" I never could understand, unless it was _ut lucus a non lucendo_, as we used to say at Eton, you know. Well, what do you say?' Now, as you may suppose, the idea of boxing about St Helena, for Heaven knew how long, didn't at all suit my liking--with the thought of the _Seringapatam_ steering away from Bombay the whole time, and a hundred notions of Violet Hyde in India--'twould have driven me madder than the Temple did Captain Wallis: but it was only the _first_ part of my mind I gave Lord Frederick. 'What!' exclaimed he, with a flush over his face, and drawing up his tall figure, 'you didn't suppose, _I_ should remain here? Why, the _Hebe_ is on her way for Calcutta and Canton, and will sail as soon as the _Conqueror_ arrives at Jamestown with Admiral Plampin.' 'Your lordship is very kind,' said I, looking down to cover my delight; 'and if I am not worthy of the post it shan't be my fault, Lord Frederick.' 'Ah, very good!' said he smiling; ''tis an opportunity you oughtn't to let slip, Collins, let me tell you! For my own part, I should just as soon cut out a pirate in the Straits of Malacca as a French brig in the Channel; and there are plenty of them, I hear, there. As for a chase, sir, I flatter myself you won't easily see a finer thing than the _Hebe_ spreading her cloth after one of those fast proas will be--I think you are just the fellow to make her walk, too, Mr Collins--pah! to compare a day on the Derby turf with _that_, would be a sin! You have no idea, sir, how one longs for a fair horizon again, and brisk breezes, when so ineffably tired out of all those ball-rooms, and such things as you see about town just now--only I fear I shall wish to be second lieutenant again, eh?' "The noble captain of the _Hebe_ turned to look out through the stern window to seaward, his face losing the weary sort of half-melancholy cast it had shown for the last minute, while his eye glistened; and it struck me how well matched the _Hebe_ and her commander were; you'd have said both had good blood in them, both being models to look at of their kind, and the frigate lifting under you at the moment, from the keel upward, with a check aloft in her main-topsail, that lifted her stem to the surge. A small telescope rolled off the sofa on to the cabin deck, and as I picked it up, another gust could be heard coming down St James Valley from inside the island; through the gun-port one saw the trees wave over the hot white houses in the bright- little town, while the ship's canvas gave another flutter above-decks. Lord Frederick laughed, and said, 'Then I suppose we need say no more about it, Mr Collins, except referring once for all to Sir Dudley?' I bowed, and the upshot was, that, an hour or two after, I had my acting commission sent me from the Admiral, the same boat having called at the _Podargus_ for my things; upon which Lord Frederick introduced me to the first lieutenant, and I found myself once more doing duty in the service--the _Hebe_ standing out to leeward with the last light, just as the _Podargus_ was tripping anchor to beat round again the other way. As for our friends from the burnt vessel, I must say I had forgot them already, for the time at least. "Every block, crag, and knot in the huge crust of the rock shone terribly bright for a minute or two, aloft from over the yard-ends, as she stood suddenly out into the fiery gleam of the sun going down many a mile in the Atlantic. Then up leapt the light keener and keener to the very topmost peak, till you'd have thought it went in like a living thing behind a telegraph, that stood out against a black cleft betwixt two cliffs. We saw the evening gun off Ladder Hill flash upon the deep blue of the sky, seemingly throwing up the peak and flagstaff a dozen feet higher; and the boom of the gun sounding in among the wild hills and hollows within the island, as if one heard it going up to Longwood door. Scarce was it lost, ere a star or two were to be seen in the shadow on the other side, and you listened almost, in the hush following upon the gunfire, for an echo to it, or something stranger; in place of which the _Hebe_ was already forging ahead in the dark to get well clear of the land, every wave bringing its own blackness with it up toward her fore-chains, then sparkling back to her waist in the seeth of foam as she felt the breeze; while St Helena lay towering along to larboard, with its ragged top blotting against the deep dark blue of the sky, all filling as it was with the stars. "I had the middle watch that night, the ship being under short canvas, and slowly edging down to make the most leewardly point of the island, from which she was to beat up again at her leisure by the morning. All we had to do was to keep a good look-out, on the one hand, into the streak of starlight to seaward, and on the other along the foot of the rocks, as well as holding her well in hand, in case of some sudden squall through the valleys from inside. "However, I shan't easily forget the thoughts that ran in my mind, walking the quarter-deck with the frigate under charge, the first time I noticed Orion and the Serpent begin to wheel glittering away from over Diana's Peak--the others stealing quietly into sight after them, past the leech of our main-topsail; scarce an English star to be seen for the height of the island off our quarter; some of the men on one side of the booms humming a song about Napoleon's dream, which you'll hear to this day in ships' forecastles; another yarning solemnly, on the other side, about some old sweetheart of his--but all of them ready to jump at my own least word. In the morning, however, there we were, stretching back by degrees to go round the lee side of the island again, the haze melting off Diana's Peak as before, and the sea rolling in swells as blue as indigo, to the huge red lumps of bare crag; while the bright surges leapt out of them all along the frigate's side, and the spray rose at times to her figure-head. "During the day we cruised farther out, and the _Hebe_ had enough to do in seeing off one Indiaman for home, and speaking another outward-bound craft, that passed forty miles off or so, without touching; the Governor's telegraphs were eternally at work on the heights, bothering her for the least trifle, and making out a sail sixty miles off, it was said. For my part, I was pretty well tired of it already, sincerely wishing for the _Conqueror_, with Admiral Plampin, to heave in sight; but glad enough all aboard the _Hebe_ were, when, after an entire week of the thing, it came to her turn, with the _Newcastle_ and _Podargus_, to lie at anchor off Jamestown, where half the ship's company at a time had their liberty ashore. "For my part, I had to see after the frigate's water-tanks, and a gang at the rigging, till the afternoon, when Lord Frederick took the first lieutenant and myself ashore with him in his gig; and no joke it was landing even there, where the swell of the surf nigh-hand hove her right up on the quay, while you had to look sharp, in case the next wave washed you back again off your feet. The whole place was hot as could be from the sun's rays off the rocks, slanting bare red to the cloudless sky, on both sides of the neat little gaudy houses crowded in the mouth of the valley, which narrowed away beyond the rise of the street, till you didn't see how you'd get farther. But for the air of the sea, indeed, with now and then a breath down out of the hills, 'twas for all the world like a half-kindled oven; except under the broad trees along the Government esplanade, where one couldn't have stood for people. What with blacks, lascars, Chinamen, and native 'Yamstocks,' together with liberty-men from the men-of-war and Indiamen, as well as reefers trotting about on ponies and donkeys, the very soldiers could scarce get down the foot of the road up Ladder Hill; as for the little town holding one half of them, it was out of the question, but the noise and kick-up were beyond aught else of the kind, save in a Calcutta bazaar. Accordingly, it was pleasant enough at last to come within a shady walk of thick green fig-trees, growing almost out of the rock near the main battery, above the small sound of the water far below; the very sea looking bluer through the leaves, while some birds no bigger than wrens hopped, chirruping, about the branches. "Here we met Sir Dudley Aldcombe coming down from the batteries along with some Company's officers from India, and he stopped to speak to Lord Frederick, giving the first lieutenant and me a bow in return, as we lifted our hats and waited behind. The Admiral proposed to get Lord Frederick a pass to visit Napoleon along with himself next day, as the _Conqueror_ would probably arrive very soon. 'You will oblige me greatly, Sir Dudley,' said the captain of the _Hebe_. 'He seems as fond of seeing a true sailor,' said the Admiral, 'as if we'd never done him harm. Things will be worse after I go. By-the-way,' added he suddenly, ''tis curious enough, but there's one person in the island at present has made wonderful progress in Sir Hudson's good graces, for the short time--that American botanist, or whatever he calls himself, that Captain Wallis took off the burnt vessel on his way here. Your new lieutenant was aboard at the time, you know, Lord Frederick.' 'You saw him, sir, of course?' said the Admiral looking to me. 'Only for a minute that night, Sir Dudley,' said I; 'and afterwards both he and his servant were under the surgeon's charge below.' 'Well,' continued Sir Dudley to the captain, 'they seem quite recovered now; for I saw them to-day up at Plantation House, where the philosopher was in close discourse with the Governor about plants and such things; while her ladyship was as much engaged with the assistant, who can only speak Spanish. A remarkable looking man the latter is, too; a Mexican, I understand, with Indian blood in him, apparently--whereas his principal has a strong Yankee twang; and queer enough it was to hear him snuffling away as solemnly as possible about _buttany_ and such things--besides his hinting at some great discovery likely to be made in the island, which Sir Hudson seemed rather anxious to keep quiet from _me_.' "What Sir Dudley said made me prick up my ears, as you may fancy. I could scarce believe the thing; 'twas so thoroughly rich and so confoundedly cool at once, to risk striking at the very heart of things this way with the Governor himself; but the whole scheme, so far, flashed upon me in a moment, evidently carried on, as it had been all along, by some one bold enough for anything earthly, and with no small cunning besides. All that he needed, no doubt, was _somebody else_ with the devil's own impudence and plenty of talk; nor, if I'd thought for a day together, could one have pitched easily upon a customer as plausible as our friend Daniel, who hadn't a spark of fear in him, I knew, just owing to his want of respect for aught in the entire creation. Still, I couldn't, for the life of me, see what the end of their plan was to be, unless the strange Frenchman might have been some general or other under Bonaparte, and just wanted to see his old commander once more; which, thought I, I'll be hanged if I don't think fair enough, much pains as he had put himself to for the thing. "'How!' asked Lord Frederick, 'a discovery did you say, Sir Dudley?' 'Oh, nothing of the kind _we_ should care about, after all,' said the Admiral; 'from what I could gather, 'twas only scientific, though the American called it "_a_ pretty importaint fact." This Mr Mathewson Brown, I believe, was sent by the States Government as botanist in an expedition to southward, and has leave from Sir Hudson to use his opportunity before the next Indiaman sails, for examining part of the island, and to-day he thought he found the same plants in St Helena as he did in Gough's Island and Tristan d'Acunha, twelve hundred miles off, near the Cape, showing, as he said, how once on a time there must have been land between them, perhaps as far as Ascension!' 'Why,' put in Lord Frederick,' that would have made a pretty good empire, even for Napoleon!' 'So it would, my lord,' said Sir Dudley, 'much better than Elba; but the strangest part of it is, this Mr Brown was just telling his Excellency, as I entered the room, that some of the ancient philosophers wrote about this said country existing in the Atlantic before the Flood--how rich it was, with the kings it had, and the wars carried on there; till, on account of their doings, no doubt, what with an earthquake, a volcano, and the ocean together, they all sunk to the bottom except the tops of the mountains! Now, I must say,' continued the Admiral, 'all this learning seemed to one to come rather too much by rote out of this gentleman's mouth, and the American style of his talk made it somewhat ludicrous, though he evidently believed in what may be all very true--particularly in mentioning the treasures that must lie under water for leagues round, or even in nooks about the St Helena rocks; I thought his very teeth watered. As for Sir Hudson, he had caught at the idea altogether, but rather in view of an historical work on the island, from the earliest times till now--and I believe he means to accompany the two botanists himself over toward Longwood to-morrow, where we may very likely get sight of them.' "'O--h!' thought I, and Lord Frederick Bury smiled. 'Rather a novelty, indeed!' said he; and the first lieutenant looked significantly enough to me, as we leant over the battery-wall, watching the hot horizon through the spars of the ships before Jamestown. 'What amused me,' Sir Dudley said again, 'was the American botanist's utter indifference, when I asked if he had seen anything of "The General" in the distance. The Governor started, glancing sharp at Mr Brown, and I noticed his dark companion give a sudden side-look from the midst of his talk with her ladyship; whereupon the botanist merely pointed with his thumb to the floor, asking coolly 'what it was to science?' 'At this,' added Sir Dudley to the captain, 'His Excellency seemed much relieved; and after having got leave for myself and your lordship to-morrow, I left them still in the spirit of it. It certainly struck me that, in the United States themselves, educated men in general couldn't have such a vulgar manner about them--in fact, I thought the Mexican attendant more the gentleman of the two--his face was turned half from me most of the time, but still it struck me as remarkably intelligent.' 'Ah,' said Lord Frederick carelessly, 'all the Spaniards have naturally a noble sort of air, you know, Sir Dudley--they'll never make republicans!' 'And I must say,' added the Admiral, as they strolled out of the shade up the battery-steps, 'little as I know of Latin, what this Mr Brown used _did_ seem to me fearfully bad!' "'And no wonder!' thought I, from a Yankee schoolmaster as I had found my late shipmate was, before he thought of travelling; but the valuable Daniel turning his hand to help out some communication or other, no doubt, with Napoleon Bonaparte in St Helena, took me at first as so queer an affair, that I didn't know whether to laugh at him or admire his Yankee coolness, when he ran such risks. As for the feasibleness of actually getting the prisoner clear out of the island, our cruising on guard was enough to show me it would be little short of a miracle; yet I couldn't help thinking they meant to try it; and in case of a dark night, which the south-easter was very likely to bring, if it shifted or freshened a little, why, I knew you needn't call anything impossible that a cool head and a bold heart had to do with, provided only they could get their plans laid inside and out so as to tally. The more eager I got for next day, when it would be easy enough for any of us to go up inland after Lord Frederick, as far as Hut's Gate at least. Meantime, the first lieutenant and I walked up together to where the little town broke into a sort of suburb of fancy cottages, with verandahs and green venetians in bungalow style, scattered to both sides of the rock amongst little grass-plots and garden patches--every foot of ground made use of. And a perfect gush of flowers and leaves it was, clustering over the tiles of the low roofs, while you saw through a thicket of poplars and plantains right into the back of the gully, with a ridge of black rock closing it fair up, and Side Path, as they call the road to windward, winding overhead along the crag behind the houses, out of sight round a mass of cliffs. Every here and there, a runlet of water came trickling down from above the trees to water their roots; you saw the mice in hundreds scampering in and out of holes in the dry stone, with now and then a big ugly rat that turned round to face you, being no doubt fine game to the St Helena people, ill off as they all seemed for something to do--except the Chinese with their huge hats, hoeing away under almost every tree one saw, and the Yamstock fishermen to be seen bobbing for mullet outside the ships, in a blaze of light sufficient to bake any heads but their own. Every cottage had seven or eight parrots in it, apparently; a cockatoo on a stand by the door, or a monkey up in a box--not to speak of canaries in the window, and white goats feeding about with bells round their necks: so you may suppose what a jabbering, screaming, whistling, and tinkling there was up the whole hollow, added to no end of children and young ladies making the most of the shade as it got near nightfall--and all that were out of doors came flocking down Side Path. "Both of us having leave ashore that night, for a ball in one of these same little bungalows near the head of the valley, 'twas no use to think of a bed, and as little to expect getting off to the ship, which none could do after gunfire. For that matter, I daresay there might be twenty such parties, full of young reefers and homeward-bound old East Indians, keeping it up as long as might be, because they had nowhere to sleep. The young lady of the house we were in was one of the St Helena beauties, called 'The Rosebud,' from her colour. A lovely creature she was, certainly, as it was plain our _Hebe's_ first lieutenant thought, with several more to boot: every sight of her figure gliding about through the rest, the white muslin floating round her like haze, different as her face was, made one think of the _Seringapatam's_ deck at sea, with the men walking the forecastle in the middle watch, and the poop quiet over the judge's cabins. "Two or three times I had fancied for a moment that, if one had somewhat stirring to busy himself with, why, he might so far forget what was no doubt likely to interfere pretty much with a profession like my own; and so it might have been, perhaps, had I only seen her ashore; whereas now, whether it was ashore or afloat, by Jove! everything called her somehow to mind. The truth is, I defy you to get rid very easily of the thought about one you've sailed in the same ship with, be it girl or woman: the same bottom betwixt you and the water, the same breeze blowing your pilot-coat in the watch on deck that ripples past her ear below, and the self-same dangers to strive against! At a break in the dance I went out of the dancing-room into the verandah, where the cool of the air among the honeysuckle-flowers and creepers was delightful to feel; though it was quite dark in the valley, and you couldn't make out anything but the solemn black-blue of the sky full of stars above you, between the two cliffs; or right out, where the stretch of sea, widening to the horizon, looked almost white through the mouth of the valley over the house-roofs below; one heard the small surf plashing low and slow into the little bay, with the boats dipping at their moorings, but I never saw sea look so lonely. Then up at the head of the gully one could mark the steep black crag that shut it up, glooming quiet and large against a gleam from one of the clusters of stars; the sight of it was awful, I didn't know well why, unless by comparison with the lively scene inside, not to say with one's own whole life afloat, as well as the wishes one had at heart. 'Twas pretty late, but I heard the music strike up again in the room, and was going back again, when all of a sudden I thought the strangest sound that ever came to one's ears went sweeping round and round far above the island, more like the flutter of a sail miles wide than aught else I can fancy; then a rush of something like those same blasts of wind I was pretty well used to by this time--but wind it was not--growing in half-a-minute to a rumbling clatter, and then to a smothered roar, as if something more than mortal shot from inland down through the valley, and passed out by its mouth into the open sea at once. I scarce felt the ground heave under me, though I thought I saw the black head of the ravine lift against the stars--one terrible plunge of the sea down at the quays and batteries, then everything was still again; but the whole dancing-party came rushing out in confusion at my back, the ladies shrieking, the men looking up into the sky, or at the cliffs on both sides; the British flag, over the fort on Ladder Hill, blowing out steadily to a stiff breeze aloft. It wasn't for some time, in fact, that they picked up courage again to say it had been an earthquake. However, the ball was over, and, as soon as matters could be set to rights, it was nothing but questions whether it had aught to do with _him_ up at Longwood, or hadn't been an attempt to blow up the island--some of the officers being so much taken aback at first, that they fancied the French had come. "At last, however, we, who had nothing else for it, got stowed away on sofas or otherwise about the dancing-room; for my part, I woke up just early enough to see the high head of the valley coming out as clearly as before against the morning light, and the water glancing blue out miles away beyond the knot of ships in the opening. The news was only that Napoleon was safe, having been in his bed at the time, where he lay thinking one of the frigates had blown up, they said. Not a word of his that got wind but the people in Jamestown made it their day's text--in the want of which they'd even gossip about the coat he wore that morning; till you'd have said the whole nest of them, soldiers and all, lay under his shadow as the town did at the foot of the cliffs, just ready to vanish as soon as he went down. The Longwood doctor had told someone in the Jew Solomon's toy-shop, by the forenoon, that Bonaparte couldn't sleep that night for making some calculations about a great battle he had fought, when he counted three separate shocks of the thing, and noticed it was luckily right up and down, or else Jamestown would have been buried under tons of rock. The doctor had mentioned besides that there was twice an earthquake before in the island, in former times; but it didn't need some of the townspeople's looks to tell you they'd be afraid many a night after, lest the French Emperor should wake up thinking of his battles; while, as for myself, I must say the notion stuck to me some time, along with my own ideas at that exact moment; at any rate, not for worlds would I have lived long ashore in St Helena. CHAPTER XXII "Mr Newland (the first lieutenant) and I set out early in the day, accordingly, with a couple of the _Hebe's_ midshipmen, mounted on as many of the little island ponies, to go up inland for a cruise about the hills. You take Side Path along the crags, with a wall betwixt the hard track and the gulf below, till you lose sight of Jamestown like a cluster of children's toy-houses under you, and turn up above a sloping hollow full of green trees and tropical-like flowering shrubs, round a pretty cottage called The Briars--where one begins to have a notion, however, of the bare blocks, the red bluffs, and the sharp peaks standing up higher and higher round the shell of the island. Then you had another rise of it to climb, on which you caught sight of Jamestown and the harbour again, even smaller than before, and saw nothing before your beast's head but a desert of stony ground, running hither and thither into wild staring clefts, grim ravines, and rocks of every size tumbled over each other like figures of ogres and giants in hard fight. After two or three miles of all this, we came in view of Longwood Hill, lying green on a level to north and east, and clipping to windward against the sea beyond; all round it elsewhere was the thick red crust of the island, rising in ragged points and sharp spires--the greenish sugar-loaf of Diana's Peak shooting in the middle over the high ridge that hid the Plantation House side of St Helena to leeward. "Between the spot where we were and Longwood is a huge fearful-looking black hollow, called the Devil's Punch-bowl, as round and deep as a pitch-pot for caulking all the ships in the world--except on a <DW72> into one corner of it, where you saw a couple of yellow cottages with gardens about them; while every here and there a patch of grass began to appear, a clump of wild weeds and flowers hanging off the fronts of the rocks, or the head of some valley widening away out of sight, with the glimpse of a house amongst trees, where some stream of water came leaping down off the heights and vanished in the boggy piece of green below. From here over the brow of the track it was all like seeing into an immense stone basin half-hewn out, with all the lumps and wrinkles left rising in it and twisting every way about--the black Devil's Punch-bowl for a hole in the middle, where some infernal liquor or other had run through; the soft bottoms of the valleys just bringing the whole of it up distincter to the green over Longwood Hill; while the ragged heights ran round on every side like a rim with notches in it, and Diana's Peak for a sort of a handle that the clouds could take hold of. All this time we had strained ourselves to get as fast up as possible, except once near the Alarm House, where there was a telegraph signal-post, with a little guard-hut for the soldiers; but _there_ each turned round in his saddle, letting out a long breath the next thing to a cry, and heaving-to directly, at sight of the prospect behind. The Atlantic lay wide away round to the horizon from the roads, glittering faint over the ragged edge of the crags we had mounted near at hand; only the high back of the island shut out the other side--save here and there through a deep-notched gully or two--and accordingly you saw the sea blotched out in that quarter to the two sharp bright ends, clasping the dark- lump between them, like a mighty pair of arms lifting it high to carry it off. Soon after, however, the two mids took it into their wise heads the best thing was to go and climb Diana's Peak, where they meant to cut their names at the very top; on which the first lieutenant, who was a careful middle-aged man, thought needful to go with them, lest they got into mischief; for my part, I preferred the chance of coming across the mysterious Yankee and his comrade, as I fancied not unlikely, or, what was less to be looked for, a sight of Bonaparte himself. "Accordingly, we had parted company, and I was holding single-handed round one side of the Devil's Punch-bowl, when I heard a clatter of horse-hoofs on the road, and saw the Admiral and Lord Frederick riding quickly past on the opposite side, on their way to Longwood--which, curiously enough, was half-covered with mist at the time, driving down from the higher hills, apparently before a regular gale, or rather some kind of a whirlwind. In fact, I learned after, that such was often the case, the climate up there being quite different from below, where they never feel a gale from one year's end to the other. In the next hollow I got into, it was hot and still as it would have been in India, the blackberry trailers and wild aloes growing quite thick, mixed with prickly-pear bushes, willows, gumwood, and an African palm or two; though from the look of the sea, I could notice the southeast trade had freshened below, promising to blow a good deal stronger that night than ordinary, and to shift a little round. "Suddenly the fog began to clear by degrees from over Longwood, till it was fairly before me, nearer than I thought; and just as I rode up a rising ground, out came the roof of a house on the <DW72> amongst some trees, glittering wet as if the sun laid a finger on it; with a low bluish- stretch of wood farther off, bringing out the white tents of the soldiers' camp pitched about the edge of it. Nearly to windward there was one sail in sight on the horizon, over an opening in the rocks beyond Longwood House, that seemingly let down toward the coast; however, I just glanced back to notice the telegraph on the signal-post at work, signalling to the _Podargus_ in the offing, and next minute Hut's Gate was right ahead of me, not a quarter of a mile off--a long-shaped bungalow of a cottage, inside of a wall with a gate in it, where I knew I needn't try farther, unless I wanted the sentries to take me under arrest. Betwixt me and it, however, in the low ground, was a party of man-o'war's-men under charge of a midshipman, carrying some timber and house-furniture for Longwood, as I remembered, from seeing them come ashore from the _Podargus_ that morning; so I stood over to give my late shipmates a hail. But the moment I got up with them, it struck me not a little, as things stood, to find three of the four blacks we had taken aboard from that said burnt barque of the American mate's trudging patiently enough under the heaviest loads of the gang. Jetty-black, savage-looking fellows they were, as strong as horses, and reminded me more of our wild friends in the Nouries River, than of States <DW65>s; still, what caught my notice most wasn't so much their being there at all, as the want of the fourth one, and where _he_ might be. I don't know yet how this trifling bit of a puzzle got hold on me, but it was the sole thing that kept me from what might have turned a scrape to myself--namely, passing myself in as officer of the party; which was easy enough at the time, and the tars would have entered into the frolic as soon as I started it. On second thoughts, nevertheless, I bade them good-day, steering my animal away round the slant of the ground, to see after a good perch as near as possible; and I daresay I was getting within the bounds before I knew it when another sentry sung out to me off the heights to keep lower down, first bringing his musket to salute for my uniform's sake, then letting it fall level with a ringing slap of his palm, as much as to say it was all the distinction I'd get over plain clothes. "At this, of course, I gave it up, with a blessing to all lobster-backs, and made sail down to leeward again as far as the next rise, from which there was a full view of the sea, at any rate, though the face of a rough crag over behind me shut out Longwood House altogether. Here I had to get fairly off the saddle--rather sore, I must say, with riding up St Helena roads after so many weeks at sea--and flung myself down on the grass, with little enough fear of the hungry little beast getting far adrift. This said crag, by-the-way, drew my eye to it by the queer colours it showed, white, blue, grey, and bright red in the hot sunlight; and being too far off to make out clearly, I slung off the ship's glass I had across my back, just to overhaul it better. The hue of it was to be seen running all down the deep rift between, that seemingly wound away into some glen toward the coast; while the lot of plants and trailers half covering the steep front of it, would no doubt, I thought, have delighted my old friend the Yankee, if he _was_ the botanising gentleman in question. "By this time it was a lovely afternoon far and wide to Diana's Peak, the sky glowing clearer deep-blue at that height than you'd have thought sky could do, even in the tropics--the very peaks of bare red rock being softened into a purple tint, far off round you. One saw into the rough bottom of the huge Devil's Punch-bowl, and far through without a shadow down the green patches in the little valleys, and over Deadwood Camp--there was _nothing_, as it were, between the grass, the ground, the stones, and leaves, and the empty hollow of the air; while the sea spread far round underneath, of a softer blue than the sky over you. You'd have thought all the world was shrunk into St Helena, with the Atlantic lying three-quarters round it in one's sight, like the horns of the bright new moon round the dim old one; which St Helena pretty much resembled, if what the star-gazers say of its surface be true, all peaks and dry hollows--if, indeed, you weren't lifting up out of the world, so to speak, when one looked through his fingers right into the keen blue overhead! "If I lived a thousand years, I couldn't tell half what I felt lying there; but, as you may imagine, it had somewhat in it of the late European war by land and sea. Not that I could have said so at the time, but rather a sort of half-doze, such as I've known one have when a schoolboy, lying on the green grass the same way, with one's face turned up into the hot summer heavens; half of it flying glimpses, as it were, of the French Revolution, the battles we used to hear of when we were children--then the fears about the invasion, with the Channel full of British fleets, and Dover Cliffs--Trafalgar and Nelson's death, and the battle of Waterloo, just after we heard _he_ had got out of Elba. In the terrible flash of the thing altogether, one almost fancied them all gone like smoke; and for a moment I thought I was falling away off, _down_ into the wide sky, so up I started to sit. From that, suddenly I took to guessing and puzzling closely again how I should go to work myself, if I were the strange Frenchman I saw in the brig at sea, and wanted to manage Napoleon's escape out of St Helena. And first, there was how to get into the island and put _him_ up to the scheme--why, sure enough, I couldn't have laid it down better than they seemed to have done all along: what could one do but just dodge about that latitude under all sorts of false rig, then catch hold of somebody fit to cover one's landing? No Englishman _would_ do it, and no foreigner but would set Sir Hudson Lowe on his guard in a moment. Next we should have to get put on the island--and really a neat enough plan it was to dog one of the very cruisers themselves, knock up a mess of planks and spars in the night-time, set them all ablaze with tar, and pretend we were fresh from a craft on fire; when even Captain Wallis of the _Podargus_, as it happened, was too much of a British seaman not to carry us straight to St Helena! Again, I must say it was a touch beyond me; but to hit the Governor's notions of a hobby, and go picking up plants round Longwood, was a likely enough way to get speech of the prisoner, or at least let him see one was there! "How should I set about carrying him off to the coast, though? That was the prime matter. Seeing that even if the schooner--which was no doubt hovering out of sight--were to make a bold dash for the land with the trade-wind, in a night eleven hours long--there were sentries close round Longwood from sunset, the starlight shining mostly always in the want of a moon; and at any rate there was rock and gully enough, betwixt here and the coast, to try the surest foot aboard the _Hebe_, let alone an emperor. With plenty of woods for a cover, one might steal up close to Longwood, but the bare rocks showed you off to be made a mark of. Whew! but why were those same blacks on the island? I thought; just strip them stark-naked, and let them lie in the Devil's Punch-bowl, or somewhere, beyond military hours, when I warrant me they might slip up, gully by gully, to the very sentries' backs! Their colour wouldn't show them, and savages as they seemed, couldn't they settle as many sentries as they needed, creep into the very bed-chamber where Bonaparte slept, and man-handle him bodily away down through some of the nearest hollows, before anyone was the wiser? The point that still bothered me was, why the fourth of the blacks was wanting at present, unless he had his part to play elsewhere. If it was chance, then the _whole_ might be a notion of mine, which I knew I was apt to have sometimes. If I could only make out the fourth black, so as to tally with the scheme, on the other hand, then I thought it was all sure; but of course this quite checked me, and I gave it up, to work out my fancy case by providing signals betwixt us plotters inside and the schooner out of sight from the telegraphs. "There was no use for her to run in and take the risk, without good luck having turned up on the island; yet any sign she could profit by must be both sufficient to reach sixty miles or so, and hidden enough not to alarm the telegraphs or the cruisers. Here was a worse puzzle than all, and I only guessed at it for my own satisfaction--as a fellow can't help doing when he hears a question he can't answer--till my eye lighted on Diana's Peak, near three thousand feet above the sea. There it was, by Jove! 'Twas quite clear at the time; but by nightfall there was always more or less cloud near the top; and if you set a fire on the very peak, 'twould only be seen leagues off: a notion that brought to mind a similar thing which I told you saved the Indiaman from a lee-shore one night on the African coast--and again, by George! I saw _that_ must have been meant at first by the <DW64>s as a smoke to help the French brig easier in! Putting that and that together, why it struck me at once what the fourth black's errand might be--namely, to watch for the schooner, and kindle his signal as soon as he couldn't see the island for mist, I was sure of it; and as for a dark night coming on at sea, the freshening of the breeze there promised nothing more likely; a bright white haze was softening out the horizon already, and here and there the egg of a cloud could be seen to break off the sky to windward, all of which would be better known afloat than here. "The truth was, I was on the point of tripping my anchor to hurry down and get aboard again, but, on standing up, the head of a peak fell below the sail I had noticed in the distance, and, seeing she loomed large on the stretch of water, I pretty soon found she must be a ship of the line. The telegraph over the Alarm House was hard at work again, so I e'en took down my glass and cleaned it to have a better view, during which I caught sight, for a minute, of some soldier-officer or other on horseback, with a mounted red-coat behind him, riding hastily up the gully a good bit from my back, till they were round the red piece of crag, turning at times as if to watch the vessel. Though I couldn't have a better spy at him for want of my glass, I had no doubt he was the Governor himself, for the sentries in the distance took no note of him. "There was nobody else visible at the time, and the said cliff stood fair up like a look-out place, so as to shut them out as they went higher. Once or twice after, I fancied I made out a man's head or two lower down the gully than the cliff was, which, it occurred to me, might possibly be the botanists, as they called themselves, busy finding out how long St Helena had been an island; however, I soon turned the glass before me upon the ship, by this time right opposite the ragged opening of Prosperous Bay, and heading well up about fourteen miles or so off the coast, as I reckoned, to make Jamestown harbour. The moment I had the sight of the glass right for her--though you'd have thought she stood still on the smooth soft blue water--I could see her whole beam rise off the swells before me, from the dark side and white band, checkered with a double row of ports, to the hamper of her lofty spars, and the sails braced slant to the breeze, the foam gleaming under her high bows, and her wake running aft in the heave of the sea. She was evidently a seventy-four; I fancied I could make out her men's faces peering over the yards toward the island, as they thought of 'Boneypart'; a white rear-admiral's flag was at the mizzen-royal-mast-head, leaving no doubt she was the _Conqueror_ at last, with Admiral Plampin, and, in a day or two at farthest, the _Hebe_ would be bound for India. "I had just looked over my shoulder toward Longwood, letting the _Conqueror_ sink back again into a thing no bigger than a model on a mantelpiece, when, all at once, I saw someone standing near the brow of the cliff I mentioned, apparently watching the vessel, with a long glass at his eye, like myself. 'Twas farther than I could see to make out anything, save so much; and, ere I had screwed the glass for such a near sight, there were seven or eight figures more appearing half over the <DW72> behind; while my hand shook so much with holding the glass so long, that at first I brought it to bear full on the cracks and blocks in the front of the crag, with the large green leaves and trailers on it flickering idly with the sunlight against my eyes, till I could have seen the spiders inside, I daresay. Next I held it too high, where the Admiral and Lord Frederick were standing by their horses, a good way back; the Governor, as I supposed, sitting on his, and two or three others along the rise. At length, what with kneeling down to rest it on one knee, I had the glass steadily fixed on the brow of the rocks, where I plainly saw a tall dark-whiskered man, in a rich French uniform, gazing to seaward--I knew him I sought too well by pictures, however, not to be sadly galled. "Suddenly a figure came slowly down from before the rest, with his hands behind his back, and his head a little drooped. The officer at once lowered the telescope and held it to him, stepping upward, as if to leave him alone--what dress he had on I scarce noticed; but there he was standing, single, in the round bright field of the glass I had hold of like a vice--his head raised, his hands hiding his face, as he kept the telescope fixed fair in front of me--only I saw the smooth, broad round of his chin. I knew, as if I'd seen him in the Tuileries at Paris, or known him by sight since I was a boy--I _knew_ it was Napoleon! "During that minute the rest of them were out of sight, so far as the glass went--you'd have supposed there was no one there but himself, as still as a figure in iron, watching the same thing, no doubt, as I'd done myself five minutes before, where the noble seventy-four was beating slowly to windward. When I _did_ glance to the knot of officers twenty yards back, 'twas as if one saw a ring of his generals waiting respectfully while he eyed some field of battle or other, with his army at the back of the hill; but next moment the telescope fell in his hands, and his face, as pale as death, with his lip firm under it, seemed near enough for me to touch it--his eyes shot stern into me from below his wide white forehead, and I started, dropping my glass in turn. That instant the whole wild lump of St Helena, with its ragged brim, the clear blue sky and the sea, swung round about the dwindled figures above the crag, till they were nothing but so many people together against the <DW72> beyond. "'Twas a strange scene to witness, let me tell you; never can I forget the sightless, thinking sort of gaze from that head of his, after the telescope sank from his eye, when the _Conqueror_ must have shot back with all her stately hamper into the floor of the Atlantic again! "Once more I brought my spy-glass to bear on the place where he had been, and was almost on the point of calling out to warn him off the edge of the cliff, forgetting the distance I was away. Napoleon had stepped, with one foot before him, on the very brink, his two hands hanging loose by his side, with the glass in one of them, till the shadow of his small black cocked hat covered the hollows of his eyes, and he stood, as it were, looking down past the face of the precipice. What he thought of, no mortal tongue can say, whether he was master at the time over a wilder battle than any he'd ever fought--but just then, what was the surprise it gave me to see the head of a man, with a red tasselled cap on it, raised through amongst the ivy from below, while he seemed to have his feet on the cracks and juts of the rock, hoisting himself by one hand round the tangled roots, till no doubt he must have looked right aloft into the French Emperor's face; and perhaps he whispered something--though, for my part, it was all dumb show to me, where I knelt peering into the glass. I saw even _him_ start at the suddenness of the thing--he raised his head upright, still glancing down over the front of the crag, with the spread hand lifted, and the side of his face half-turned toward the party within earshot behind, where the Governor and the rest apparently kept together out of respect, no doubt watching both Napoleon's back and the ship of war far beyond. The keen sunlight on the spot brought out every motion of the two in front--the _one_ so full in my view, that I could mark his look settle again on the other below, his firm lips parting and his hand out before him, like a man seeing a spirit he knew; while a bunch of leaves on the end of a wand came stealing up from the stranger's post to Napoleon's very fingers. "The head of the man on the cliff turned round seaward for one moment, ticklish as his footing must have been; then he looked back, pointing with his loose hand to the horizon--there was one minute between them without a motion, seemingly--the captive Emperor's chin was sunk on his breast, though you'd have said his eyes glanced up out of the shadow of his forehead; and the stranger's red cap hung like a bit of the bright- cliff, under his two hands, holding amongst the leaves. Then I saw Napoleon lift his hand calmly, he gave a sign with it--it might have been refusing, it might have been agreeing, or it might be farewell, I never expect to know; but he folded his arms across his breast, with the bunch of leaves in his fingers, and stepped slowly back from the brink towards the officers. I was watching the stranger below it, as he swung there for a second or two, in a way like to let him go dash to the bottom; his face sluing wildly seaward again. Short though the glance I had of him was--his features set hard in some bitter feeling or other, his dress different, too, besides the moustache being off, and his complexion no doubt purposely darkened--it served to prove what I'd suspected: he was no other than the Frenchman I had seen in the brig, and, mad or sensible, the very look I caught was more like that he faced the thunder squall with than aught besides. Directly after, he was letting himself carefully down with his back to my glass; the party above were moving off over the brow of the crags, and the Governor riding round apparently to come once more down the hollow between us. "In fact, the seventy-four had stood by this time so far in, that the peaks in the distance shut her out; but I ran the glass carefully along the whole horizon in my view, for signs of the schooner. The haze was too bright, however, to make sure either way; though, dead to windward, there were some streaks of cloud risen with the breeze, where I once or twice fancied I could catch the gleam of a speck in it. The _Podargus_ was to be seen through a notch in the rocks, too, beating out in a different direction, as if the telegraph had signalled her elsewhere; after which you heard the dull rumble of the forts saluting the _Conqueror_ down at Jamestown as she came in; and being late in the afternoon, it was high time for me to crowd sail downward, to fall in with my shipmates. "I was just getting near the turn into Side Path, accordingly, after a couple of mortal hours' hard riding, and once more in sight of the harbour beneath, when the three of them overtook me, having managed to reach the top of Diana's Peak, as they meant. The first lieutenant was full of the grand views on the way, with the prospect of the peak, where one saw the sea all round St Helena like a ring, and the sky over you as blue as blue water. 'But what do you think we saw on the top, Mr Collins?' asked one of the urchins of me--a mischievous imp he was himself, too, pock-marked, with hair like a brush, and squinted like a ship's two hawse-holes. 'Why, Mister Snelling,' said I, gruffly--for I knew him pretty well already, and he was rather a favourite with me for his sharpness, though you may suppose I was thinking of no trifles at the moment--'why, the devil, perhaps.' 'I must say I thought at first it was him, sir,' said the reefer, grinning; ''twas a black <DW65>, though, sir, sitting right on the very truck of it, with his hands on his two knees, and we'd got to shove him off before we could dig our knives into it!' '_By_ the Lord Harry!' I rapped out, 'the very thing that----' ''Twas really the case, though, Mr Collins,' said the first lieutenant; 'and I thought it curious; but there are so many <DW64>s in the island.' 'If you please, sir,' put in the least of the mids, 'perhaps they haven't all of 'em room to meditate, sir!' 'Or sent to the mast-head, eh, Roscoe?' said Snelling. 'Which you'll be, sirrah,' broke in the first lieutenant, 'the moment I get aboard, if you don't keep a small helm.' We were clattering down over Jamestown by this time, the sun blazing red off the horizon, into it and the doors of the houses, and the huge hull and spars of the _Conqueror_ almost blocking up the harbour, as she lay anchored outside the Indiaman. The evening gun fired as we pulled aboard the _Hebe_, which immediately got under weigh by order, although Lord Frederick was not come down yet; but it fell to her turn that night to supply a guard-boat to windward, and she stood up under full sail round Sugarloaf Point, just as the dusk fell like a shadow over the island. "The _Newcastle's_ boat was on the leeward coast that night, and one of our cutters was getting ready to lower, nearly off Prosperous Bay, to windward, while the frigate herself would hold farther out to sea. One of the master's mates should have taken the cutter; but after giving the first lieutenant a few hints as far as I liked to go, I proposed to go in charge of her that time, myself--which was laid to the score of my freshness on the station; and the mate being happy to get rid of a tiresome duty, I got leave at once. "The sharp midshipman, Snelling, took it into his ugly head to keep me company, and away we pulled into hearing of the surf. The moment things took the shape of fair work, in fact, I lost all thoughts of a late kind. In place of seeing the ragged heights against the sky, and musing all sorts of notions about the French Emperor, there was nothing but the broad bulk of the island high over us, the swell below, and the sea glimmering wide from our gunwale to the stars; so no sooner did we lose sight of the _Hebe_ slowly melting into the gloom, than I lit a cheroot, gave the tiller to the mid, and sat stirring to the heart at the thought of something to come, I scarce knew what. As for Bonaparte, with all that belonged to him, 'twas little to me in that mood, in spite of what I'd seen during the day, compared with a snatch of old Channel times; the truth was, next morning I'd feel for him again. "The night for a good while was pretty tolerably starlit, and in a sort of way you could make out a good distance. One time we pulled right round betwixt the two points, though slowly enough; then again the men lay on their oars, letting her float in with the long swells, till the surf could be heard too loud for a safe berth. Farther on in the night, however, it got to be dark--below at least--the breeze holding steady, and bringing it thicker and thicker; at last it was so black all round that on one side you just _knew_ the rocks over you, with the help of a faint twinkle of stars right aloft. On the other side there was only, at times, the two lights swinging at the mast-head of the _Podargus_ and _Hebe_, far apart, and one farther to sea than the other; or now and then their stern-window and a port, when the heave of the water lifted them, or the ships yawed a little. One hour after another, it was wearisome enough waiting for nothing at all, especially in the key one was in at the time, and with a long tropical night before you. "All of a sudden, fairly between the brig and the frigate, I fancied I caught a glimpse for one moment of another twinkle; then it was out again, and I had given it up, when I was certain I saw it plainly once more, as well as a third time, for as short a space as before. We were off a cove in the coast, inside Prosperous Bay, where a bight in the rocks softened the force of the surf, not far from the steep break where one of these same narrow gullies came out--a good deal short of the shore, indeed; but I knew by this time it led up somewhere toward the Longwood side. Accordingly the idea struck me of a plan to set agoing, whether I hit upon the right place or not; if it _was_ the schooner, she would be coming down right from windward, on the look-out for a signal, as well as for the spot to aim at; the thing was to lure her boat ashore there before their time, seize her crew, and take the schooner herself by surprise, as if we were coming back all right; since signal the ships we couldn't, and the schooner would be wary as a dolphin. "No sooner said than done. I steered cautiously for the cove, fearfully though the swell bore in, breaking over the rocks outside of it; and the reefer and I had to spring one after the other for our lives, just as the bowman prized her off into the back-wash. "As for the cutter, it would spoil all to keep her off thereabouts; and I knew, if a boat did come in of the kind I guessed, why she wouldn't lay herself out for strength of crew. Snelling and I were well armed enough to manage half-a-dozen, if they fancied us friends; so I ordered the men to pull clear off for an hour, at least leaving fair water. In fact there were sentries about the heights, I was aware, if they could have heard or seen us; but the din of the surf, the dark, and the expectation of the thing, set us both upon our mettle; while I showed the boat's lantern every now and then, like the light I had noticed, such as the Channel smugglers use every thick night on our own coast. I suppose we might have waited five or ten minutes when the same twinkle was to be caught, dipping dark down into the swell again, about opposite the cove; next we had half-an-hour more, every now and then giving them a flash of the lantern, when suddenly the reefer said he saw oars glisten over a swell, which he knew weren't man-o'-war's strokes, or else the fellows ought to have their grog stopped. I had the lantern in my hand, slipping the shade once more, and the other to feel for my cutlass-hilt, when the mid gave a cry behind me, and I turned just in time to see the dark figure of a black spring off the stones at our backs. One after another three or four more came leaping past me out of the gloom--the Frenchman's red cap and his dark fierce face glared on me by the light of the lantern; and next moment it was down, with him and me in a deadly struggle over it in the thick black of the night. Suddenly I felt myself lose hold of him in the heave of the swell, washing away back off the rock; then something else trying to clutch me, when down I swept with the sea bubbling into my mouth and ears. "I came up above water again by the sheer force of the swell, as it seemed to me, plunging into the shore; with the choice, I thought, of either being drowned in the dark, or knocked to a jelly on the rocks; but out I struck, naturally enough, rising on the huge scud of the sea, and trying to breast it, though I felt it sweep me backwards at every stroke, and just saw the wide glimmer of it heave far and wide for a moment against the gloom of the cliffs behind. All at once, in the trough, I heard the panting of someone's breath near alongside of me, and directly after I was caught hold of by the hair of the head, somebody else grabbing at the same time for my shoulder. We weren't half-a-dozen fathoms from the stranger's boat, the blacks who had fallen foul of me swimming manfully together, and the boat lifting bow-on to the run of the sea, as her crew looked about for us by the light of their lantern. I had just got my senses enough about me to notice so much, when they were hauling me aboard; all four of the <DW64>s holding on with one hand by the boat's gunnel, and helping their way with the other; while the oars began to make for the light, which was still to be caught by fits, right betwixt those of the two cruisers, as the space widened slowly in the midst of them, standing out to sea. Scarce had I time to feel some one beside me as wet as myself, whether the reefer or the Frenchman I didn't know, when crash came another boat with her bows fairly down upon our gunwale, out of the dark. "The spray splashed up betwixt us, I saw the glitter of the oar-blades, and heard Snelling's shrill voice singing out to 'sink the villains, my lads--down with 'em--remember the second lieutenant!' The lantern in the French boat flared, floating out for a single instant amongst a wreck of staves and heads, bobbing wildly together on the side of a wave. One of my own men from the cutter pulled me by the cuff of the neck off the crest of it with his boat-hook, as it rose swelling away past, till I had fast grip of her quarter; the blacks could be seen struggling in the hollow, to keep up their master's body, with his hands spread helplessly hither and thither above water. The poor devils' wet black faces turned so wistfully, in their desperation, towards the cutter, that I gasped out to save him. They kept making towards us, in fact, and the bowman managed to hook him at last, though not a moment too soon, for the next heave broke the unlucky wretches apart, and we lost sight of them; the cutter hanging on her oars till they had both him and me stowed into the stern-sheets, where the Frenchman lay seemingly dead or senseless, and I spitting out the salt water like a cockney after a bathe. "'Why, Mr Snelling,' said I, as soon as I came fully to myself, 'I can't at all understand how I got into the water.' 'Nor I either, sir,' said he; 'I'll be hanged, sir, if I didn't think it was a whirlwind of <DW65>s off the top of Diana's Peak, seeing I made out the very one we found there this afternoon--the four of them took you and this other gentleman up in their arms in a lump, as you were floundering about together, and took to the water like so many seals, sir!' I looked down into the Frenchman's face, where he lay stretched with his head back and his hair dripping. 'Is he gone?' said I. 'Well, sir,' said the mid, who had contrived to light the lantern again, 'I'm afraid he's pretty near it. Is he a friend of yours, sir?--I thought as much, by-the-way, you caught him the moment you clapped eyes on each other, sir.' 'Silence, sirrah!' said I. 'D'ye see anything of the light to seaward?' "For a minute or two we peered over the swells into the dark, to catch the twinkle of the signal again, but to no purpose; and I began to think the bird was flown. All of a sudden, however, there it was once more, dipping as before beyond the heave of the sea, and between the backs of it, sliding across the open space, with the blind side to the cruisers. 'Hallo, my lads!' said I, quickly, and giving myself another shake as I seized the tiller, 'give way seaward--stretch your backs for ten minutes, and we have her!' We were pulling right for the spot, when the light vanished, but a show of our lantern brought it gleaming fairly out again, till I could even catch a glimpse by it of some craft or other's hull, and the iron of one boom-end, rising over the swells. 'Bow-oar, there!' whispered I. 'Stand by, my lad, and look sharp!' 'Hola!' came a short, sharp hail over the swells, '_d'ou venez-vous?_' '_Oui, oui!_' I sang out boldly, through my hand, to cover the difference as much as possible; then a thought occurred to me, recollecting the French surgeon's words on board this very craft the first time we saw her--'De la cage de l'_Aigle_,' I hailed; 'bonne fortune, mes amis!' 'C'est possible! c'est possible, mon capitaine!' shouted several of the schooner's crew, jumping upon her bulwarks, 'que vous apportez _lui-meme_?' "We are pulling for her side as lubberly as possible, all the time--a man ran up on her quarter with a coil of line ready to heave--but still the main boom of the schooner was already jibbing, her helm up, and she under way; they seemed half doubtful of us, and another moment might turn the scales. 'Vite, vite!' roared I, choosing my French at hap hazard. 'Oui, oui, jettez votre corde--venez au lof, mes amis!'--luff, that was to say. I heard somebody aboard say it was the American--the schooner came up in the wind, the line whizzing off her quarter into our bows, and we came sheering down close by her lee-quarter, grinding against her bends in the surge, twenty eager faces peering over at us in the confusion; when I sung out hoarsely to run for brandy and hot blankets, as he was half-drowned. 'Promptement--promptement, mes amis!' shouted I, and as quickly there was a rush from her bulwarks to bring what was wanted, while Snelling and I made dash up her side, followed by the men, cutlass in hand. Three minutes of hubbub, and as many strokes betwixt us, when we had driven the few that stood in our way pell-mell down the nearest hatchway. The schooner was completely our own. "We hoisted up the cutter, with the French captain still stretched in the stern-sheet--hauled aft the schooner's headsheets, let her large mainsail swing full again, and were soon standing swiftly out toward the light at the frigate's mast-head. "When the _Hebe_ first caught sight of us, or rather heard the sound of the schooner's sharp bows rushing through the water, she naturally enough didn't know what to make of us. I noticed our first luff's sudden order to clear away the foremost weather-gun, with the rush of the men for it; but my hail set all to rights. We hove-to off her weather quarter, and I was directly after on board, explaining, as simply as possible, how we had come to get a hold of a French craft thereabouts in such a strange fashion. "Accordingly, you may fancy the surprise at Jamestown in the morning, to see the _Hebe_ standing in with her prize, let alone the Governor's perfect astonishment at suspecting some scheme to carry off Napoleon, apparently, so far brought to a head. The upshot of it was, to cut this bit of my story short, he and the military folks would have it, at last, that there was nothing of the kind, but only some slaver from the African coast wanting to land a cargo, especially as there were so many blacks aboard of her; and the Frenchman at once took the cue, the little Monsieur of a mate swearing he had been employed by several of the islanders some months before to bring them slaves. For my own part, all things considered, I had nothing to say, and after some likelihood of a shine being kicked up about it at first, the matter was hushed up. However, the schooner was of course condemned in the meantime, as the _Hebe's_ fair prize, till such time as the Admiralty Court at the Cape should settle it on our outward-bound voyage. "As the _Hebe_ was to sail at once for India, the Governor took the opportunity to send two or three supernumeraries out in the vessel along with us to the Cape of Good Hope, amongst whom was the Yankee botanist; and though being in the frigate I didn't see him, I made as sure as if I had, it was my old shipmate Daniel. "Well, the morning came, when we weighed anchor from St James's Bay for sea, in company with the prize. It wasn't more than ten or eleven days since we had arrived in the _Podargus_, but I was as weary with the sight of St Helena as if I'd lived there a year. The frigate's lovely hull, and her taut spars, spreading the square stretch of her white canvas sideways to the Trade, put new life into me. Slowly as we dropped the peaks of the island on our lee-quarter, 'twas something to feel yourself travelling the same road as the Indiaman once more, with the odds of a mail coach, too, to a French diligence. What chance might turn up to bring us together, I certainly didn't see; but that night, when we and the schooner were the only things in the horizon, both fast plunging, close-hauled, on a fresh breeze, at the distance of a mile, I set my mind, for the first time, more at ease. 'Luck and the anchors stowed!' thought I, 'and hang all forethoughts!' I walked the weather quarter-deck in my watch as pleasantly as might be, with now and then a glance forward at Snelling, as he yarned at the fife-rail beside a groggy old mate, and at times a glimmer of the schooner's hull on our lee-beam, rising wet out of the dusk, under charge of our third lieutenant. "It was about a week afterwards, and we began to have rough touches of Cape weather, pitching away on cross seas, and handing our gallant-sails oftener of a night, that Lord Frederick said to me one evening, before going down to his cabin, 'Mr Collins, I really hope we shall not find your Indiaman at Cape Town, after all!' 'Indeed, Lord Frederick!' said I respectfully enough; but it was the very thing I hoped myself. 'Yes, sir,' continued he; 'as I received strict injunctions by Admiral Plampin to arrest Lieutenant Westwood if we fell in with her there, and otherwise, to send the schooner in her track, even if it were to Bombay.' 'The deuce!' I thought, 'are we never to be done with this infernal affair?' ''Tis excessively disagreeable,' continued the captain, swinging his gold eyeglass round his finger by the chain, as was his custom when bothered, and looking with one eye all the while at the schooner. 'A beautiful craft, by-the-way, Mr Collins,' said he, 'even within sight of the _Hebe_.' 'She is so, my lord,' said I; 'if she had only had a sensible boatswain, even, to put the sticks aloft in her.' 'I say, Mr Collins,' went on his lordship, musingly, 'I think I have it, though--the way to get rid of this scrape!' "I waited and waited, however, for Lord Frederick to mention this; and to no purpose, apparently, as he went below without saying a word more about it." CHAPTER XXIII "Well, ma'am," continued our narrator, addressing himself, as usual, to his matronly relative in the chair, and with the accustomed catch-word, which was like the knotting together of his interrupted yarn: "well--it was between a fortnight and three weeks after losing sight of St Helena, that, being at last fairly in the latitude of the Cape, the frigate and schooner tacked in company, and stood close-hauled on a wind to the eastward. By the middle watch that night, when the moon set, we could make out the long flat top of Table Mountain heaving in sight off the horizon over against her. Next day, in fact, we were both of us quietly at anchor outside of the shipping in Table Bay; Cape Town glittering along on the green flat amongst the trees to southward, with the hills on each side of it like some big African lion lying on guard close by; while Table Mountain hove up, square-shouldered, blue to the left, four thousand feet high, as bare and steep as a wall, with the rocks and trees creeping up from the foot, and the wreaths of light cloud resting halfway, like nothing else but the very breakwater of the world's end. The sea stretched broad off to north and west, and a whole fleet of craft lay betwixt us and the land--half of them Indiamen--amongst which, you may be sure, I kept a pretty sharp look-out with the glass, to see if the _Seringapatam_ were there still. "I was soon saved further pains on this head, however, when shortly afterwards the frigate was beset by a whole squadron of bumboats, shoving against each other, and squabbling in all sorts of <DW65> tongues, who should be first: the chief of them being in evident command of a fat old Dutch Vrouw, with an immense blue umbrella over her, two greasy-looking Hottentot rowers in blankets, and a round-faced Dutch boy, the picture of herself, steering the boat; as the old lady made a clear berth for herself, by laying about her with her blue umbrella, till she was close under our quarter, sitting all the while with the broad round stern of her bright- gown spread over a couple of beer-barrels, like a peacock's train. In two minutes more the little fellow was up the side, flourishing a bundle of papers under the first lieutenant's very nose, and asking the ship's custom, even whilst the sentries were ordering them all off. A midshipman took this youth by the cuff of the neck, and was handing him rather roughly along to the care of the purser's steward, when I stepped betwixt them; and a bumboat being the best directory on the point, of course, I soon found the old lady had had dealings with the _Seringapatam_, which her bluff-built little progeny described as a very good ship indeed, all having paid their bills, except one young officer, who had left a balance standing, for which he had given a letter to his brother in a ship that was to come after. As for the Indiaman herself, the Dutch boy said she had sailed about a week before our arrival, along with two others; and he was anxious to know if we were the vessel in question. I accordingly unfolded the open letter, which was addressed: 'Thomas Spoonbill Simm, Esquire, of His Britannic Majesty's ship _Nincompoop_ (or otherwise)'; and it ran somehow thus:--'_Hon. East India Company's ship_ Seringapatam, _Table Bay, September 1, 1816_.--My dear Brother,--This is to certify that I have eaten four dozen and a half of eggs, supplied by the worthy Vrouw Dulcken, the bearer of this, whom I can recommend as an old screw, and am due her for the same the sum of nine shillings and sixpence sterling, which you will kindly pay her, taking her receipt or mark, unless you are willing to forfeit our family watch, herewith deposited by me in the hands of said Mother Dulcken. I may add that, in justice to the worthy Vrouw, three of the above-mentioned eggs ought to be charged as _fowls_, which, by-the-way, I did not consume; and, with love to all at home, remain your affectionate brother, JOHN SIMM, H.E.I.C.S.--_P.S._ The watch I have discovered to be pinchbeck, and it does not go; so that a sad trick must have been originally played upon our venerated uncle, from whom it descended.--J. S.' "This precious epistle was, without doubt, a joke of the fat mid Simm, who used to come such rigs over Ford the cadet, and that jumped overboard one night by mistake out of the Indiaman's quarter-boat, during the voyage. As for the existence of his brother Thomas, or the chance of his touching at that port, I set them down with the coming home of Vanderdecken; though the thought of this young scamp of a sea-lawyer breakfasting for a fortnight so comfortably, only a few feet distant from my charmer's state-room, sent me all abroad again, and right into the Indiaman's decks, by this time far out of sight of land. Piece of impudent roguery though it was, I was actually loath to part with the scrawl, which the reefer had fisted, no doubt, on the lid of his chest--probably with a pipe in his mouth at the time, it smelt so of tobacco--only seven days before: I could even see the grin on his fat face as he wrote it below in the steerage, with his chin up, and his eyes looking down past his pipe; while the little Dutch boy's round flat frontispiece glistened as he peered up at me, in the evident notion of my being the brother expected. "In fact, ma'am, I was so soft as to intend paying the nine-and-sixpence myself, and keeping the letter, when I was startled to see the old lady herself had contrived to be hoisted on board amongst her cabbages; and having got wind of the thing, seemingly, she came waddling towards me to hand over Simm's watch to boot. In another half-minute the letter was being read aloud in the midst of the whole gun-room officers, amongst roars of laughter; the honest old Dutchwoman holding aloft the precious article, and floundering through to find out the rightful owner, as everyone claimed it and offered the nine-and-sixpence; while for my part I tried first to get down one hatchway, then another; and Lord Frederick himself came up on the starboard side of the quarter-deck in the height of the scene. Indeed, I believe it was a joke for months after in the _Hebe_, of a night, to say it was 'the second lieutenant's watch'; the sole revenge I had being to leave Mother Dulcken and her boy to expect the 'ship that was coming after.' "A Government boat came aboard in the afternoon; and as soon as it left us Lord Frederick took his gig and steered for a frigate lying some distance off, which had the harbour-flag hoisted at her main, being the only man-o'-war besides ourselves, and commanded by a senior captain. "Till it got dark I could see the crews of the nearest merchantmen looking over their bulwarks at us and our prize, apparently comparing the schooner with the frigate, and speculating on her character, as she lay a few fathoms off the _Hebe's_ quarter, both of us rising and falling in turn on the long heave of the Cape swell from seaward. 'Twas hard to say, in fact, so far as their hulls went, which was the most beautiful sample of its kind; though the schooner's French-fashioned sticks and offhand sort of rigging, showed rather like jury-gear beside the tall regular sticks aloft of the _Hebe's_ decks, with all her hamper perfect to a tee. The _Hebe's_ men very naturally considered their own ship a model for everything that floated--a sort of a Solomon's temple, in short; and to hear the merciless way they ran down the Indiamen all round would have raised the whole homeward-bound fleet against us; whereas the schooner was our own, at any rate, and she was spoken of much in the manner one mentions an unfortunate orphan, as good as already christened by the name of the _Young Hebe_. "This our learned chaplain said was quite improper, and he gave another name in place of it--the _Aniceta_--which meant, as he observed, the _Hebe's_ youngest daughter; so the _Aniceta_ she was called, happening to be a title that went, according to the boatswain, full as sweetly through the sheave-hole. "Next day the schooner had landed not only her passengers from St Helena, but the prisoners also, as we still understood the French and their Kroomen to be. Not long after that Lord Frederick came back from Cape Town, looking grave, and went straight down to his cabin, or 'cabins,' as his lordship preferred to have it said. The first lieutenant dined that day with the captain; but they could scarcely have finished when the 'young gentlemen,' who had been as usual from the reefer's mess, came up with a message from the captain, that his lordship would be glad if I would join the first lieutenant and himself in a glass of wine. I found them sitting at the side of the table nearest the open port, with the decanters between them, and the broad bright bay in full sight to the shore and the foot of Table Mountain, which rose up blocking the port with the top of it beyond view; the sounds of the merchantmen clicking at their heavy windlasses, and hoisting in water-casks, floated slowly in from every side, while the schooner had hauled on her cable more abreast of the frigate, leaving the sight clear over the eddy round her low counter. "'A lovely piece of workmanship, certainly!' observed Lord Frederick thoughtfully, as he leant back swinging his eyeglass round his finger, with the other hand in the breast of his waistcoat, and looking out at what was seen of the schooner. 'And how one might have improved her spars, too!' said Mr Hall, wistfully. 'I should have recommended longer lower-masts altogether, Lord Frederick, and a thorough overhaul, I may say, from the combings upwards!' 'I would not have her hull touched for the world, Mr Hall!' said the captain; ''tis too----excessively provoking, at least! But pass the bottles to Mr Collins, if you please.' I had taken a chair, and quietly filled my glass, wondering what could be the matter, when his lordship turned to me and said, 'Do you know, Mr Collins, this schooner of ours is likely to be laid up in Chancery, heaven knows how long. The Admiralty Court ashore are doubtful of condemning her, apparently, and she must either be sent home or to Monte Video, or somewhere, where the master of her claims to belong!' 'Indeed, my lord,' said I, setting down my glass, 'that is curious.' 'Curious, indeed, sir!' replied he, biting his lips, 'though, after all, we really can scarce say what she is to be condemned for--only in the meantime I sail to-morrow for India.' 'She's French to the backbone, that I'll swear, Lord Frederick!' I said; 'and what's more, she was----' 'Ah,' broke in the captain, 'I know, I know; but the less we say of that, in present circumstances, the better! Once get her entangled with politics, and we may give her up altogether.' Lord Frederick twisted his eyeglass round his forefinger faster than before, still watching the schooner; the first lieutenant held up his claret betwixt himself and the light, and I sipped mine. 'I tell you what, gentlemen,' exclaimed his lordship, suddenly, 'I _must_ have that schooner at any cost!--What is to be done, Mr Hall?' 'She'd be of great service in the China seas, my lord, certainly,' said the first lieutenant, looking thoughtfully into his empty glass; 'a perfect treasure for light service, especially if new sparred and----' I noticed Lord Frederick glancing sideways at me, as I thought, with a slight gleam in his eye; and accordingly I suggested that he might buy her from the Frenchman himself; a very poor idea, no doubt, as both the captain and first luff seemed to think, and we all three kept eyeing her doubtfully through the port, without a word. "At this time the schooner's counter had been slowly sheering towards the frigate's beam, owing to the ebb-tide, and her holding only by a single cable, till her stern began to show right opposite the cabin, I should say not twenty feet off. Lord Frederick put his glass to his eye, and was peering through it, when he remarked that they had brought up rather too near, leaving scarce room for the schooner to swing as she did, earlier than we, so that she would be in danger in getting foul of the frigate's cables. 'The worst of it is, Lord Frederick,' said I, 'that in case of a gale from seaward here, she might have to slip and run upon very short warning, whereas the _Hebe_ has plenty of ground-tackle to let her ride it out. Considering it was Table Bay, at this season, he ought to have kept her a clearer berth for herself, or else have gone well outside!' 'Ah!' said Lord Frederick quickly, meeting my eye for half-a-minute, till the gleam came into his again; and somehow or other mine must have caught it, though I must say the notion that struck me then all at once wasn't in my head before. 'Do you know, that's well thought of, Collins!' said his lordship. 'You've weathered the Cape before, by-the-by?' 'A dozen times, Lord Frederick,' said I; when a regularly jovial roar of laughter broke fair through the port into the cabin from the schooner's taffrail, as she sheered end-on to the frigate's quarter, and Lord Frederick leant forward with the glass screwed into his right eye to see along their decks, which were covered aft with an awning like the open gable of a tent at a fair. 'Singular!' said he; 'by the Lord Harry, who or what can that be Mr Hammond has got there?' Dangling over the French schooner's taffrail were to be seen the soles of two immense boots, with calves and knees to match, and a pair of tightish striped trousers worked up more than halfway, till you saw the tops of the stockings; just beyond the knees was the face leaning back in the shade of the awning and a straw hat together, out of which a huge green cabbage-leaf hung like a flap over one eye, while the other kept gazing in a half-closed sleepy sort of way at the sky, and the red end of a cigar winked and glowed in the midst of the puffs of smoke lower down. The first lieutenant started up shocked at the sight, the noble captain of the _Hebe_ sat with his eyeglass fixed, between amusement and wonder; for my own part, when the voice of this same prodigy broke all of a sudden on us out of the awning, in a mixture of stuttering, hiccuping, Yankee drawling, and puffs at the cigar, 'twas all I could do to hold on, with the knowledge of where I was. 'Wall now, general,' said the American, as if he were talking to someone aloft or in the sky, 'ye-you're qui-quite wrong--I ki-kick-calc'late I've fit a deal more be-be-battles than you have--I re-respect you, Ge-Ge-General Washington; but I ho-ho-hope you know who--hic--who I am!' Here Mr Daniel Snout, who was in a state of beastly intoxication, swayed himself up bodily into the schooner's taffrail, and sat with his arms folded, his long legs swinging over the stern, and his head trying to keep steady, as he scowled solemnly aloft over the frigate's mizzenroyal-mast-head; while the third lieutenant, Mr Hammond, and the master's mate he had aboard with him, could be heard laughing at his back, as if they had gone mad--Hammond being a wild sprig of an Irishman, who would go any length for a piece of fun. "Just then the American's one eye lighted on the side of the frigate, till it settled lazily on the port of the captain's cabin: first he seemed to notice Lord Frederick Bury, and then myself, the first lieutenant having just recovered himself enough to rush toward the door to get on deck. Daniel himself surveyed me scornfully for a moment, then with a sort of doubtful frown, and a gravity that passes me to describe, unless by the look of an old cock a-drinking--evidently trying to recollect me. 'Hallo, mister!' shouted he suddenly, 'you haven't touched those _notions_ of mine, I hope.' With that he made a spring off where he sat, as if to come towards us--no doubt thinking of the _Seringapatam_, and the valuables he had left aboard, without seeing the water between; and a pretty deep dive Mr Snout would have made of it, into an ebb-tide that would have swept him under the frigate's bottom, if Mr Hammond and the midshipman hadn't both sprung forward in time to catch him by the neck of the coat. There, accordingly, was the Yankee hanging like a spread eagle over the schooner's taffrail, yelling and turning round at the same time like a fowl on a spit--the third lieutenant's and the mate's faces two pictures of dismay, as they held on, at finding for the first time where the schooner had shied them round to, with their two pairs of eyes fair in front of the captain's eyeglass--while Mr Hall was singing out like thunder from the deck above us, 'The schooner ahoy!--d'ye see where you've got to, sir? Haul ahead on that cable, d'ye hear, you lubbers, and keep clear of the ship!' "'Mr Collins,' said his lordship quietly to me, as soon as he could keep his countenance, and looking the sterner for the trouble he was put to in doing it, 'you will get your things and go aboard the schooner directly--take her in charge, sir, and send Mr Hammond back here.' 'Very well, my lord,' said I, waiting in the doorway for something more, which, from something in Lord Frederick's look, I had reason to expect, knowing it of old. 'I can only spare you a dozen of the men she has,' added he; 'but if you choose, you can send ashore at once to pick up a few makeshifts, or anything you find!' 'Ay, ay, my lord,' said I; 'the best hand for that would be Mr Snelling, if I may take him, Lord Frederick?' 'Oh, certainly,' was the answer; 'and harkye, Collins, you had better shift your berth a few cable-lengths farther off, or more, if you please.' 'One thing, my lord,' said I, stooping down to see through the port, 'I don't much like the heavy ground-swell that begins to meet the ebb, and I fancy it won't be long ere Table Mountain spreads its supper-cloth--in which case I'd consider it necessary to slip cable and run out at once, though I mightn't get in again so easily. Am I to find the frigate here again, Lord Frederick?' 'Deuce take it, man--no!' said his lordship. He turned his back to hide the evident twinkle of his eye. 'Should we part company, of course you make for the Bay of Bengal! You can't be sure of the _Hebe_, short of the Sandheads--and if not there, then opposite Fort William, at Calcutta.' 'Very good, my lord,' said I, and had made my bow to go on deck, when Lord Frederick called me back. 'By-the-by,' said he hastily, 'about that Indiaman of yours, Collins--she is here no doubt?' 'No, Lord Frederick,' answered I, 'I believe she sailed a week ago.' 'Dear me, the deuce!' exclaimed he; 'why, I meant to have sent to-morrow to have your friend Westwood arrested and brought aboard!' I started at this, on which his lordship explained that if Westwood got to Bombay, whither the _Seringapatam_ was bound, the authorities there would have news of the thing by this time, and could send him overland at once to England, which would be far worse for him than being carried to Calcutta, where his uncle the Councillor's interest might do something for him. 'The best thing you can do, Collins,' added Lord Frederick, 'if you are obliged to run out to sea, is to look after that Indiaman! With such a neat thing of a sea-boat under you, you might do anything you please; so cruise to windward or leeward in chase, find her out and take out Westwood bodily--lose him afterwards in the Hoogley, if you like--carry away those old spars of hers, and send up new ones--only don't lose the schooner, I beg; so good-bye to you, my dear fellow, lest we should not meet on this side the line again!' 'Good-bye, my lord!' said I cheerfully, and hurried on deck, understanding all he wanted as well as if I'd been ordered to set her jib that moment and heave up anchor. In ten minutes I was over the frigate's side, and in ten more Hammond was back in her, with the men who were to leave; while I sent my baggage below, set the hands to work shifting the schooner's berth, and by sundown we were lying beyond hail of the ship, opposite the custom-house, and a long line of a main street in Cape Town, where we could see the people, the carriages, and the Dutch bullock-carts passing up and down; while Table Mountain hove away up off the steep Devil's Hill and the Lion's Rump, to the long level line a-top as blue and bare as an iron monument, and throwing a shadow to the right over the peaks near at hand. "Our friend from the United States being by this time in quite an oblivious condition, the first thing I did was to have him put quietly into the boat with which Mr Snelling was to go ashore for fresh hands, and I instructed the reefer to get clear of him anyhow he liked, if it was only above tide-mark. When they were gone I walked the schooner's little quarter-deck in the dusk by myself, till the half-moon rose with a ghostly copper-like glare over the hollow in the Lion's Rump, streaking across the high face of Table Mountain, and bringing out all its rifts and wrinkles again. The land-breeze began to blow steadily with a long sighing sweep from the north-east, meeting the heavy swell that set into the broad bay; and the schooner, being a light crank little craft, got rather uneasy; whereas you could see the lights of the frigate heaving and settling leisurely, less than half-a-mile off. I had only six or seven good hands aboard altogether at the time, which, with those the midshipman had, were barely sufficient to work her in such seas; so with all I had to do, with the difficulty of getting men in the circumstances, a long voyage before us, and things that might turn up, as I hoped, to require a touch of the regular service, why the very pleasure of having a command made me a good deal anxious. Even of that I didn't feel sure; and I kept watching Table Mountain, eager for the least bit of haze to come across the top of it, as well as sorry I had sent Snelling ashore. 'I'd give a hundred pounds at this moment,' thought I, 'to have had Bob Jacobs here!' "As the moon got higher, I could see the swell washing up between the different merchantmen in sight, into their shadows, and heavy enough some of them seemed to roll round their cables, betwixt a breeze and a swell running the contrary ways; first one let go a second anchor, and then another, to help their heads shoreward; but still there was no danger, as things went. It wasn't long before I made out two boats coming from toward the town, round the stern of one of the ships, the frigate lying betwixt her and us, so that they took her by the way, and a good deal of hailing seemed to pass between them. I could even see epaulets glisten over the _Hebe's_ quarter, as if there was a stir made aboard; after which the boats were plainly pulling for the schooner. What all this might mean I couldn't very well conceive, unless it were either Snelling come back already, or else some hands Lord Frederick himself had provided before this, as I saw both boats were full of people. 'Forward there!' I sung out, 'hail those boats.' 'Ay, ay, the schooner ahoy!' was the answer in a sharp voice from the headmost of them, 'from the shore--all right! Stand by to heave us a line, will ye?' Next came a hail from Snelling, in our own gig; so I at once gave orders to heave them a rope and have both boats brought under the gangway, naturally supposing the sharp little fellow had come some marvellous good speed in shipping hands. As soon as he jumped on deck, I accordingly inquired how many men he had brought, when to my great surprise he informed me there was only one, 'a scuffy sort of a swab,' as he expressed it, 'who would do for cook!' 'The devil he will! you young rascal,' I broke out. "'Hush, sir, for heaven's sake,' said he, making some extraordinary sign, which I didn't understand; 'it'll all be right in the end, Mr Collins. Now then, sir,' to someone in the boat alongside, as he carefully handed him the accommodation-ropes, 'here you are--hold on, sir--so-o!' This was a rather youngish fellow in a huge pilot-coat and a glazed cap, with some kind of uniform inside, and a large breastpin in his shirt, who handed me a paper the moment he stood firm on deck, without speaking a word; though, by the light of the deck-lantern, I didn't much like the look of his foxy sort of face, with the whiskers on it coming forward from both cheeks to his mouth, nor the glance he gave round the schooner with his pair of quick sharp little eyes. 'Much more like a custom-house officer than a cook!' thought I, 'unless we mean to have a French one'; but what was my astonishment, on opening the paper, to find him called 'Gilbert Webb, harbour master's assistant, hereby authorised by the Admiralty Court, sitting in Cape Town, to take charge of the doubtful vessel described in her papers as the _Ludovico_, belonging to Monte Video--from the officer commanding the prize crew of his Brittanic Majesty's ship _Hebe_.' My first thought was to have Mr Gilbert Webb pitched over into his boat again, when Lord Frederick's own signature met my eye at the bottom of the paper, addressed below to 'Lieutenant Collins of His Majesty's schooner _Aniceta at sea_.' "A wonderfully mysterious squint from Snelling, behind the officer, was sufficient to clinch the matter in my own mind, showing that the reefer was as sharp as a needle; and I handed back the document to the harbour gentleman, with a 'Very well, sir, that will do.' 'I suppose I'd better have my men up, Lieutenant Collins?' said he, with a quick pert kind of accent, which made me set him down at once for a Londoner, while at the same time he seemed impatient, as I thought, to get the management. 'Why, sir,' said I, 'I suppose you had.' "Hereupon up mounted four or five decent enough looking _stevedores_[24]--one or two of whom had rather the air of sailors, the rest being broad-beamed, short-legged Dutchmen, with trousers like pillow-slips--followed by a whole string of fourteen or fifteen Indian Lascars, their bundles in their hands, and an ugly old _serdug_ at their head; while a lame, broken-down, debauched-like fellow of a man-o'-war's-man, that Snelling had found sitting on a timberhead ashore, got aboard with our own boat's crew. Our gangway was choke-full, to my fresh dismay, for, to get rid of such a tagrag-and-bobtail, in case of running to sea, was impossible; even if they weren't odds against us, here was it likely to get a thick night, the swell growing under the schooner till she began to jerk at her anchor, head to wind, like a young filly at a manger; so that dropping them back into their boat when needful, as I intended at first, was out of the question for the present. I found from the harbour officer that the number of hands would all be required with the morning tide, when his orders were to have the schooner towed in opposite the Battery Dock, especially as there was much chance of the wind blowing strong from seaward next day. The swell on the water, he said, was such that, after putting off, he thought of going back again till the tide began to turn; if he had not been encouraged to stick to it and keep on by the midshipman, whom he fell in with near the quay. This piece of news was the finish to the rage I felt brewing in me, vexed as I naturally was to give up the notion of a free cruise, in command of a craft like the schooner; and as soon as Mr Webb was comfortable in the cabin, over a tumbler of stiff grog and some cold beef, I sent for Snelling to my own cupboard of a state-room. [24] Men employed in the stowing of ship's cargoes. "'You cursed unlucky little imp, you!' I burst out, the moment he made his appearance, 'what's the meaning of this, sirrah, eh?' 'What is it, if you please, sir?' said Snelling, pretending to hold down his shock-head like a frightened schoolboy, and looking up all the time both at me and the lamp at once, while he swayed with the uneasy heave of the deck in such a way as made me grip him by the arm in a perfect fury, fancying he had got drunk ashore. 'You young blackguard, you!' said I, shaking him, 'didn't I tell you to get hands--didn't you know I meant to--to----' 'Oh yes, Mr Collins,' gasped the reefer, 'I did indeed--you meant to cut and run--I saw it by your eye, sir, and--don't shake me any more, sir, or you'll spoil my hair--and I don't deserve it--it's--all right!' And on my letting him go, the ugly little scamp sunk down on a chair with his eyes starting from his head, and a leer like a perfect demon incarnate: but so perfectly laughable it was, not to mention the air of complete confidence between us that he threw into it, that I sat down myself, ready to grin at my bad luck. 'Well, Mister Snelling,' said I quietly, 'you _are_ a touch beyond me! Let's have the joke, at least--out with it, man, else another shake may be----' "The reefer pointed with his thumb over his shoulder to the cabin, shoved his chin forward, and whispered, 'Why, sir, I'm only doubtful whether you could make him third officer--but at any rate, he'll always be useful at a rope, Mr Collins--won't he, sir?' I gave Snelling one look, meant to be as grave as an Old Bailey chaplain's, but it wouldn't do--my conscience wouldn't stand it--in fact the very self-same notion seemed to me to have been creeping into my mind. 'You--young--rascal!' was all I could manage to say, before making bolt to go on deck. 'By-the-by, Mister Snelling,' said I, turning and looking down from the hatchway, 'you must want a glass of grog--tell the boy to let you have some--and go and keep the officer company, sir.' "By this time it was raining hard, the half-moon coming out at moments and shining through it with a sudden sharp gleam, in some gust of the wind off the land--showing the swell in as far as the wet white custom-house and the bare quays, the ships with their hazy lights all hither and thither, while Table Mountain was to be seen now and then peering half over the mist, first one corner and then another, of a colour like dead ashes. One time I looked down toward the dusky little cabin, where the midshipman, quite in his element, was sitting with the harbour officer, the lamp jerking and making wild swings betwixt them, while Snelling evidently egged on his companion to drink; then I gave a glance seaward, where there was nothing but a glimmer of rain and spray along the dark hollows of the water. "I couldn't make up my mind, all I could do--it was too barefaced a thing to slip from the roadstead with a breeze blowing off-shore; but the worst of it was, that I didn't feel easy at the idea of parting with an anchor in the circumstances, not to say carrying off the Government people, unless forced to it. I accordingly went below to mix myself a stiffener, and found the officer a cool head, for, in spite of all Snelling could do, the reefer himself had got provoked, whereas the sharp Mr Webb was only a little brisker than before. 'A rough sort of night,' said I, nodding to him, as I knocked the water out of my cap. 'Well, it seems,' said he, free and easy. 'S'pose I go on deck then, gentlemen--I've refreshed, I assure you, so you needn't trouble about this 'ere schooner no farther--glad to get quit of it and turn in, I desay lieutenant?' 'No trouble in the world, Mr Webb,' said I, going on with my mixture, 'far from it; but sit down a minute, pray, sir--Mr Snelling here will take charge of the deck for us in the meantime'; and Snelling vanished at once, Mr Webb apparently flattered at my wishing his company. 'Will that cable of yours hold, think ye, Lieutenant Collins?' asked he, filling up another glass. 'Why,' said I, almost laughing, 'to tell you the truth, I begin to feel rather doubtful of it.' 'What!' broke out the harbour officer, starting up, 'then I must 'ave another put down immediately: why, what's the effect, sir--we'll be carried out to sea!' 'You said it exactly, Mr Webb,' I said: ''twould have been much worse, I suppose, if we were driven ashore, though! Now look you, if I were to let go a second anchor at present, I couldn't light upon a better plan either to break her back or lose both anchors in the end, from the difference of strain on the two cables with this ground-swell. The fact is, my good fellow, you're evidently not fit to take charge at present.' "'What, lieutenant!' said he, looking fierce and foolish at the same time, 'here's strange lang'age to a Gov'ment officer, sir; I hask the meanin' of it _at once_, mister!' 'But I depend a good deal on your knowledge of Table Bay weather,' I continued, leaning back with my weather eye screwed to bear upon him. 'D'ye think this wind likely to moderate soon, sir? come now.' 'No,' replied he sulkily, 'I'm sure it won't; and to-morrow it's certain to blow back ten times worse.' 'Then, Mr Webb,' said I, rising, 'you oughtn't to have come aboard to-night; as the short and the long of it is, I shall get the schooner an offing the first possible moment!' The officer stared at me in a bewildered manner; and as for the schooner, she seemed to be bolting and pitching in a way worse than before, with now and then a plunge of the swell on her broadside, as if she had been under weigh. Suddenly Snelling lifted the skylight-frame and screamed down into the cabin: 'Mr Collins, Mr Collins! she's been dragging her anchor for the last ten minutes, sir!' "I sprang on deck at two bounds; the schooner had somehow or other got her anchor out of hold at the time, with the cable as taut as a fiddle-string. It was quite dark aloft, and not a vestige of Table Mountain to be seen, though the moonshine, low down to westward, brought out two or three tracks of light along the stretch of water, and you saw the lights in the ships slowly sweeping past. Where we happened to be, it blew two ways at once, as is often the case in Table Bay, round the bluffs of the mountain, and as soon as she brought up again with a surge at the windlass, the heave of a long swell took her right on the quarter, lifting her in to her anchor again with a slack of the hawser, at which every second man sung out to 'hold on!' Over she went to port, a sea washing up the starboard side, and throwing a few dozen bucketfuls at once fair into the companion, where our friend the harbour officer was sticking at the time; so down plumped Mr Webb along with it, and the booby hatch was shoved close after him, while the poor devils of Lascars were huddled together as wet as swabs in the lee of the caboose forward. 'A hand to the wheel!' shouted I, as soon as I recovered myself; when to my great surprise I saw Snelling's new hand, poor creature as I'd thought him, standing with a spoke in each fist, as cool and steady as possible, and his eye fixed on me in the true knowing way which I felt could be trusted to. 'Jib there!' I sung out, 'see all clear to run up a few hanks of the jib--stand by to cut the cable at the bitts!' 'Ay, ay, sir,' answered Snelling, who was working away with the harbour men, his bare head soaked, and altogether more like an imp than a young gentleman of the navy--'all's clear, sir.' "Five minutes I daresay we stood, everyone in the same position, while I waited for a good moment in the run of the swell looking into the binnacle; till she hung slack, as it were, in a wide seething trough of the sea, when I signed to the man behind me to put the helm gradually to starboard. I glanced at the fellow again, caught his sharp weatherly eye once more--then putting both hands to my mouth I sung out to bowse on the jib-halliards. 'Now--cut--the cable!' shouted I, springing forward in my anxiety. "The schooner rose away from her anchor on the heavy roll of the sea; I saw two quick strokes of the axe on the instant, and she was spinning head off from the wind, heeling over betwixt the force of it and the ground-swell together, while the mass of black water was washing bodily away with us; the new helmsman showing down below me he as leant to the wheel, like somebody at the foot of a slide. If he had'nt helped her at the moment with a back turn of the spokes to port, 'twould have been all up with us. As it was, the schooner fell off gallantly in his hands, with a sliding surge into the lee of the next swell, that buried her sharp bows in the green sea till it foamed about our very shoulders as we hung on like grim death to the weather bulwark. She was just shaking herself free, and rising like a buoy over the broad tops of the waves, when Snelling, myself, and two or three of the men staggered down to her mainmast to swing up the throat-halliards, letting her feel a little of the boom mainsail; and we had scarce belayed, as the last glimpse of the frigate's lights was caught astern of us, heaving and setting, as she rode with her two bower anchors down; we had driven past close enough to have heard the creak of her hamper aloft. After that I had the fore-staysail set on her, then the reefed mainsail, and the lively schooner yielded to the long rolling seas so well, as very soon to make her own weather of it, especially since--clear of the high land about Table Bay--it was blowing only a strong breeze; and the more I began to feel master of her, the more inclined I was to let her show her good qualities. "Such a craft I never had had the full management of before in my life; and you may easily fancy how I felt at dividing the hands into the two watches, giving little Snelling command of one, as first mate, and picking out our men in turn. I looked round amongst mine, rather at a loss for one to make a second mate for the cruise, though there were three prime enough man-o'-war's-men, and I had chosen one of the Government officer's gang for his activity. As for the Lascars, we slumped in half of the number to each of us, for make-weights--when Snelling's fresh hand, who had fallen to my share, caught my eye again as he stood at the wheel. Every half-spoke he gave the schooner told; she was topping the heavy seas as they rose, and taking them just where they melted one to the other, with a long floating cleave that carried her counter fairly free of the after-run, though nearly right before the wind: the main-boom had been guyed over to the lee-quarter, till a third of the sail hung clear of her hull, and the breeze swept into the hollow of it, thick with spray. The light from the little binnacle shone up distinctly on the man's face, and with all the desperate, used-up, marbled sort of look of it, like one getting the better of a long spree ashore, I thought there was something uncommonly promising about him, not to say greatly above the run of foremast men. The wet, the wind, and the work he was at took off the seediness of his clothes; even the old rag of a handkerchief round his hairy neck had got a gloss to it, and he stood handling the wheel with a strange mixture of recklessness and care, as he glanced from the compass to the gaff of the mainsail against the scud, and down again. "The very contrast between the man's manner and his outward rig was sufficient to strike one, though plenty of seamen are to be found in the like state ashore; but what fixed me to him above all was the expression in those two keen, searching, _living_ eyes of his, when they once or twice met mine on their way from aloft to the compass-boxes. 'Twas as if they'd woke up since he came aboard out of a sleepy, maudlin condition, with the 'blue-devils,' or scarce fully out of 'em; like a sick man's in the lull of a fever, suddenly seen watching you out of the dusk of the bed, when one happens to glance up from the nurse's seat. "'What's your name, my man?' asked I, stepping aft to the binnacle. 'My name is Jones, sir,' said he readily. 'And your first name?' I said. 'Jack,' was the answer in an offhand way, with a hitch of one shoulder, and a weather-spoke to the wheel; spoken in an accent you'd have expected more in a West-End drawing-room than from a common sailor. 'Ah,' said I sharply. 'Jack Jones? I wonder how many Jack Joneses there are afloat! An able seaman, I think, Jones?' 'Why, sir,' replied the man, 'I never rate myself, sir--'tis all one to me, able, ordinary, landsman, or boy--I carry no papers, and leave my betters to rate me.' 'Where were you last, my man?' I asked; whereupon I met such a cool, steady, deep look out of the fellow's strange light- eyes, bloodshot as they were with drinking, that I felt almost our very two souls jostle in it; as much as to say: To all eternity fathom me if you can! 'Well, I forget where, sir,' said he, lowering his look to the compass-box again; 'always the way with me after a trip, a cruise, a voyage, or whatever it may be. I've got--ha!' and he yielded his body coolly to a jerk of the schooner's wheel. 'A sweet craft this, sir, but a little ticklish!' 'You've got what?' said I, not unwilling to wear out the time. 'I've got--no memory!' "Still there was somewhat so gloomy and mournful in the next glance aloft, I don't know how it was, but I felt inclined to offer him a mate's place on trial, and so I hinted, if he knew half as well how to handle a craft as he did of steering her. To my own surprise, Jones's wonder didn't seem to be roused at the notion, except that he gave me another quick glance, from head to foot, with a queer smile that struck me as if I were being questioned, instead of _him_; then he looked down over his own outfit, judging by which you'd have said he'd been shipwrecked. 'Well,' said I, 'I daresay you've been hard put to it, somehow, Jones--so as soon as you leave the wheel, you can go below to the steward, and get a seagoing suit of my own, till we see Calcutta, when your mate's wages will set you all right again.' The man touched his battered old straw hat; but I noticed his eyes gleam for a moment by the binnacle light, and a strange twitch run round his mouth at the mention of the mate's wages, the only way I could account for it at the time being his late hard-up condition; and nothing to my mind was more deucedly pitiable than to see the thought of a few paltry additional rupees light up a head like that, with the glistening sort of expression of a miser as I fancied. "The man had a head on him, in fact, when you eyed him, fit for a gentleman's shoulders, or more--his hair and his whiskers curly and dark, draggled though they were with the rain, not to say Cape Town mud--while the wearing away of the hair about the temples, and the red grog-streaks in the veins of his face, made him, no doubt, a dozen years older to appearance than he was. For my part I was quite convinced already, this same Jack Jones hadn't been sent out a cabin boy; there was not only a touch of high blood in him at bottom, but I'd have sworn he had been some time or other in the place of a gentleman, afloat or ashore, though plainly now 'going to the devil.' "Meanwhile the breaking look of the clouds away on our larboard bow showed it wasn't far off dawn; so, sending another hand to the wheel, and finding a snug spot under a stern-grating for a snooze on deck, I told Jones to begin with taking charge of the deck for me. 'One thing, sir,' said he, touching his hat again, as I lay down, 'I've only shipped for the outward voyage, and leave at the first port.' 'Why, what!' said I, lifting my head; 'what do you mean to do there, eh?' 'I--I want to go ashore,' answered he, eagerly; 'ay, if we're years on the cruise, so much the better, sir, but so soon as she drops anchor off Calcutta, I'm my own master?' 'Have your own way, then,' said I; 'at any rate I'll try you in the meantime--so Mister Jones, let's see how you mind the schooner till eight bells!' Whereupon I turned myself over to sleep, and it was as broad daylight as we had any likelihood of about the Cape, when I woke. CHAPTER XXIV "It still blew a stiff breeze, but the waves rose with a length and a breadth in them you find in no other sea; deep-blue sparkling hills of water, with green gleams about the crests, of which every single wave had a hundred or so; and a long seething, simmering, glassy hollow of a still valley between, where the flecks of foam slid away glittering out of the shadow. But, oh! it was glorious to feel the schooner rising quietly in the trough, with the mount of a wave, to the very ridge of it; then with a creak of all her timbers and bulkheads below, a slight shake to windward, and a jerk at her bows, lean over to leeward again, and go hissing through the breast of a huge sea, till you thought she'd go down into it; while there she was, however, lifting head up, with a swift flash of her cutwater, on the cross half-wave that joined every first and third one--'billow' and 'sea,' as you may say. The breeze having drawn more easterly toward morning, Jones had braced her more upon a wind, with reefed main and foresails, and fore-staysail set, which brought out the _Aniceta's_ weatherly qualities to a marvel, as, notwithstanding almost a head-wind and a swelling sea, she went nearly as fast as the frigate would have done before the breeze, and not a sign of the land was to be seen from her cross-trees. "It was not till the afternoon, when the midshipman and I had both been busy together seeing various things done about the rigging, as well as having preventer-braces and guys clapped on the booms and gaffs, that we had time to look about us; the schooner still driving along with the breeze strong abeam, and a floating plunge from one wide dark-blue sea to another, as if they handed her onward. "Jones had got himself made decent below, as I told him, till what with different clothes, and a shave together, besides refreshment from sea weather, he was quite a different man to look at. Even Snelling owned to his sailor-like appearance, though rather surprised at my notion of making him a mate; while as for the men, they didn't know but he had come aboard as such, and to tell the truth, he was having the main-staysail got up and ready to bend at the time, like one accustomed to give orders. By this time I remembered the harbour officer, Webb, whom we'd carried off so unceremoniously, and found he was still in his 'bunk' below, half-sulky and half-sick, consoling himself with brandy and water till we should get into Table Bay again, as he said. 'Only put him into my watch, Mr Collins,' said Snelling gravely, 'and I'll work him up, sir.' The reefer himself, in fact, had all of a sudden turned out in a laughingly dignified style, to meet his new post--in full midshipman's rig, dirk and all, with his cocked hat which I sent him down immediately to change; but he had brushed up his mop of hair, and begun to cultivate the down on his upper lip; while being a deep-shouldered, square-built, short-armed little fellow, as muscular as a monkey, you'd have thought from the back of his coat he was a man cut shorter, and for his face, he had contrived to put such a sour effect into it--meant for great experience, no doubt--that it was only by his eyes one saw he was a boy of sixteen or so; and _they_ were brimful of wild glee, as he jumped about wherever he was needed, doing the work of a couple of ordinary men, and actually delighted when a spray came over the weather bulwarks on top of him, seeing that, instead of the frigate, she was 'our schooner' that did it. "'I think she walks, Mr Collins!' observed Snelling, holding up his head stiffly, and looking aloft as we went aft, after shaking ourselves from one of these same sprays. 'No denying that, Mr Snelling,' said I as gravely; 'I only wish your fond parents could see you just now, first mate of such a smart craft, Mr Snelling!' His father was a country baronet, who had sent him off to sea with an allowance--I daresay because his looks were no ornament, and there were plenty more coming, though Snelling always pretended his worthy progenitor was an old man. 'Fond, be blowed!' said he, starting; 'I just see him at this moment at the foot of that blessed old mahogany, proposing my health before the ladies go, and----' Here the schooner rose on a sharp, short wave, making a plunge through it that sent the helmsman swinging to the lee-side of the wheel, while a sea washed up over her forecastle, and away aft with the tubs, buckets, and spars, knocking everybody right and left. Snelling and I held on by the weather main-rigging with our feet in a bath, till she lifted bodily through it, careering to her lee-gun'ale. "'By George, though!' broke out the reefer, smacking his lips as we drew breath, 'I wish he _did_ see me--wouldn't it cheer his declining years, when I got to hand the governor carefully below! And such a rough night as we're going to have of it, too, sir!' 'You unfilial young dog,' said I; 'but so I'm afraid we shall--and no joke either!' Jones was standing near us, watching the looks of the weather, with evident uneasiness, and I asked him what he thought of it. 'In my opinion, sir,' said he, 'you'll have some pretty sudden shift of wind ere long, of a kind I have seen more than once off the Cape before--and that as furious as a south-easter ordinarily is hereabouts. Look away yonder, sir!' "It had got to a clear, dry north-easterly gale that shook our canvas every time she lifted, singing through the ropes, and bitter cold. Long and heavy as the roll of the sea was, the sky was as keen and clear as glass all round about and aloft, save the mist kicked up by the spray off a wave here and there. If a rag of white cloud appeared, it was blown away, and you saw the black wrinkled side of one wave at a time, a mile wide, you'd have said, freckled all over with spots of foam, and its ridge heaving against the eye of the blast. The waves had begun to break shorter. The schooner, buoyant as she was, and sharp as a dolphin, pitched and rolled at times like mad, and the men forward were standing by to let go the fore-halliards, throat and peak, to ease her a little; when Jones pointed out the bank of gray cloud ahead of us, scarce to be seen through the troughs of the water, except when she lifted well upon a swell of sea. The sun going down in a wild red glare to leeward of us, threw a terrible glitter across the huge slant of one single wave, that rose stretching away far and wide from her very bow, then brought out the sulky wrinkled blue in it; the hissing green crests curled over to the very sunset, as it were, while we sank slowly into the long dark lulling trough, and saw the broken shaft of a rainbow stand glimmering for a moment or two into a black hollow right ahead, when the gale drove it back upon us like an arrow, as the schooner surged through the breast of the next wave. I looked from Snelling to the new mate, who still held on by a belaying-pin and watched the clouds, giving me back a glance that showed he thought the matter more serious than ordinary. 'The sooner we strip her to the storm-staysails,' said I quickly, as we fell into the trough again, 'the better, I think. If it blows harder, we must lie-to with her at once.' My eye was anxiously fixed on Jones, for large as the schooner was, between two and three hundred tons, yet no craft in the world is so nice to bring to the wind in a gale with a heavy sea running. Scudding before it might have done for the frigate, with her full bows, and spars high enough to keep her main-topsail full in spite of the troughs; but even that would have taken us out of our course after the Indiaman. Besides that, to tell the truth, I didn't sufficiently understand fore-and-aft rigged craft in all weathers yet, to be quite sure of what I did at a pinch like the present. 'Yes, yes, sir,' answered he; 'but if you'll take an older man's advice, before that you'll wear her round on the other tack to it. We've the worst to come, or else I'm mistaken, sir.' 'You're accustomed to schooners?' asked I firmly, and gazing him in the face. I saw his lips open in the sweep of the wind through our after-rigging, and he made a sign with his hand, while a gnawing sort of spasm, as it were, shot through the muscles of his jaw, and for a moment he gave me a fierce, keen glance, almost a glare, from under his strong straight eyebrows--then turned away. 'Take the trumpet then, Mr Jones,' said I, singing out into his ear; 'I'll leave her to you, sir. Mr Snelling, let's see the hatches all fast!' And we scrambled along by the belaying-pins. "'Are you all ready fore and aft?' came Jones's voice like thunder in the next dip she made, and he leapt up bareheaded on the breech of one of the small carronades aft, holding on with one hand by the weather mainshrouds, and watching the run of the waves as they glimmered off our lee-beam into the dusk, for full five minutes. I had hold of a rope near him, and his eye was as steady as if he were picking out hills in a view. I had full confidence in the man; but I must say it was a nervous moment to me, when I saw him lift the trumpet to his mouth--and furiously as the wind shook the schooner, you heard his hoarse cry, 'Put your helm up--slack off the mainsheet--brail up the mainsail--ease down the weather boom-guy--main-staysail sheet.' And the rest was lost in the wild shriek of the north-east gale. We were hard at it, however, staggering as we hauled and held on, even to the poor half-drowned, terrified Lascars, whom the midshipman had roused out of the caboose and long-boat, shoving the ropes into their leathery hands. But I knew little else till I saw the schooner had payed off before the wind, shearing with a hiss like red-hot iron right through the ridge, betwixt two tremendous combing waves. It swelled green over her larboard bulwark as she heeled over, and she gave a heavy dead lurch with it, as if she would let the next sea break aboard. "'Now! now!' shouted Jones, at a pitch of voice like no earthly sound; 'aft the mainsheet, for your lives!' He jumped to the wheel himself, at a single bound. We were in two floundering heaps, as we dragged at the main-boom aft, and the headsheets on the forecastle, while she came trembling up in the long bight of the sea, and took the gale steadily before her other beam. It was blowing harder than ever; and the awful 'scud' of the sea rolled her bodily away, as she met it with her weather-bow, washing white over the head-rail, with spray from cathead to bowsprit; the gale heaving her down on the lee-beam till she plunged to the brim on that side, at every forward pitch, so that all hands on deck had to keep crowded together aft. Still it was keen starlight overhead, the gale dry, though it was bitter cold, and the seas long and pretty regular. The schooner behaved wonderfully, being as tight as a bottle; and at the same time we were not only lying our course either for the Mozambique or Indian Ocean, but instead of running farther into the gale, as before, and getting more into the wild Cape latitudes, why at present she tended to clear out of them. I accordingly agreed with Jones to hold on with everything as long as possible, in spite of the way she was sometimes flung off with the crest of a wave, as it were, making a clear dive with her nose under water through a white seething sea that seemed to swell round the whole horizon; the black bank of cloud off our weather-beam towered like icebergs against the cold green sky to south-east, the stars glittering and twinkling over it, with little hazy rings round them, after a fashion that one of us liked no more than the other. "About midnight, we had got everything off her to the two small storm-staysails, main and fore, the wind blowing great guns, and the half-moon shining right over the long bank, as if the back of it were dead white; while betwixt it and the washing glimmer of moonlight halfway you'd have thought the black heave of the ridges vanished into a bulk of shadow ten times blacker, save for the heads of spray tossing dimly over in it here and there. All at once, in the very height of the gale, as the black floating clouds from the bank began to cross over the gray scud flying fast aloft, a blue flash of lightning shot zigzag into the very comb of a wave ahead of us, then came the clap of thunder, loud enough to be heard above the wind, and in half-a-minute there was a sudden lull. You saw the fleecy rags of scud actually settling together under the dark vapour moving above them, and heard nothing but the vast washing welter of the billows rising and seething for miles round, as if the world were water, while the schooner rolled helplessly away, with her storm-staysails flapping, into the trough. The midshipman almost gasped as he looked to me--not from fear, but as much as to say, 'What next?' Our strange mate stood against the fife-rail of the mainmast, apparently too intent on the sky and sea for speaking. For my own part, I let go my belaying-pin, and half-tumbled to the wheel, almost knocking the sailor down in my haste to put the helm hard up--for I saw how the blast was to come, fairly before the beam, upon us. 'Hard a-starboard with it!' shouted I; 'haul down the main-staysail there--let her fall as she rises.' "The last words were never heard, for next moment there was another flash of lightning, this time a blaze all round into the troughs of the sea; I saw a body of mist coming down upon us from south-east, through which the gale struck her on the starboard beam, having suddenly shifted eight points or so. The heavy rolling swell from north-east was close aboard, and as soon as I knew what I was about, here she was leaning over to the full tremendous force of the storm, without power to surge ahead, though struggling to rise like a carthorse down on his knees with a load uphill of him. 'Twas by instinct, as they say, I found myself scrambling along to her weather main-channels, where I managed to get out on the side, slippery as it was, and drenched with the blinding showers of spray. I had got my knife at work, cutting the lanyards of the shrouds to let the mainmast go, when I saw Snelling creep after me, like a fearless little fellow as he was, dirk in hand; although what was come of Jones I couldn't see, unless he had lost heart and skulked. All at once, to my great joy, the main-staysail blew inway to leeward out of the bolt-ropes, like a scrap of paper, the main-topmast crashed at the cap and went alongside, when the schooner righted to her keel, with a wild bolt forward through the whole width of an immense wave--one of the 'third waves' it was, commonly the last and the hugest in a single roll of the sea off the Cape, before you sink into a long gliding valley, with a sort of a lull in it. The scene was so terrible at the moment, though we bore up for full half-a-minute to the fair steady stroke of the awful gale, nothing but a yeast of mist, scud, and darkness ahead, the spray torn off the ridge of the wave and flying with us, while the triple run of the heavy seas astern was in danger of sweeping her decks from over the poop--that I felt we must try lying-to with her at once. "Indeed, Snelling and I hardly knew whether we were holding on or not, as we were half washed in-board and half crawled round the rigging; but Jones had already seized the exact point--when she sank in the hollow--to have the helm eased down to leeward. Meanwhile he had got the reefed foresail balanced and set, with the sheet hauled aft beforehand--a tackle hooked on to the clue, and bowsed amidships--everything else was off her; and with this sail she came slowly up close to the wind on the slant of the next wave, lying-to nearly head toward the force of the sea, as her helm was kept fast two or three points to leeward. I never had seen a craft, of the kind hove-to in a gale before, and a very nice matter it is, too. We drew breath, scarce able to credit our eyes, while the schooner rode apparently safe on a sea rolling mountain-high; rising and falling off from the breasts to the sides of the waves, so far as leeway went, and forging ahead a little at the same time through the fierce spray that showered out of the dark over her weather-bow. "Cape weather as bad I had seen before, but always in good-sized ships; and I owned to Snelling I would rather have handled any one of them, even with a lee-shore near, ten times over, than this schooner of ours in the present case. However, none of us were in any mood for speaking at the time, let alone the waste of breath it was. The best thing we had to do, after getting somewhat satisfied of her weathering it this way, was to have the grog served out to the men, swig off a stiff pannikin oneself, and make oneself as comfortable as possible with his pea-coat in the lee of something. "The sight of the sea ridging up with a dim glimmer against the dark, kept your eye fixed to it; first you thought it would burst right aboard, crash down upon the decks; then she lifted with it, swelling broad under her, while the long steady sweep of the gale drove just over the bulwarks with a deep moan; for half-a-minute, perhaps, a shivering lull, when you heard the bulkheads and timbers creak and strain below from stem to stern, and the bilge-water yearning, as it were, to the water outside. Then, again, it was a howl and a shriek, a wide plunge of sea bore up her weather-bow, and the moment ere she came fairly to, one felt as if the schooner were going to pitch God knows where. Her whole bulwarks shook and shivered, the wind found out every chink in them, whistling round every different rope it split upon, while all the time the loose, wet, dreary spars behind the long-boat kept slatting and clattering against each other in the lashings, like planks in a woodyard of a November night. This was the way we stuck till the morning watch showed it all in a drizzling, struggling sort of half-light, blowing as hard as ever, the Cape seas rolling and heaving mountain-high, of a pale yeasty hue, far and wide to the scud; the spray drifting from the crests, and washing over her bare forecastle, with now and then the white wings of a huge albatross to be seen aslant to windward, riding on the breast of a long wave down into the trough. "Well, the whole blessed day did this sort of thing continue, only varied by now and then a huger sea than ordinary lifting close aboard of us, and we being hove up to get a glimpse of the long glaring streak of horizon through the troughs of the waves; sometimes an unluckier splash than usual over the bow and through the fore-chains, that made us look sharp lest the canvas of the foresail should go, or the schooner broach end-on to the sea. Otherwise, all we had to do was to watch the binnacle, hold on with one hand to a rope, and with the other to our caps; or turn out and in with each other down the booby-hatch for a snatch of sleep, and a bit of biscuit and cold beef, with a glass of grog. Mr Webb, the harbour officer, was to be seen below in his berth all this time, lying as peaceable as a child; whether he was dead sick or only confoundedly afraid I didn't know; but I must say I felt for the poor fellow when I heard him ask Snelling in a weak voice, if he would get somebody to stand off the bull's-eye in the deck over his berth, as it always made him think there was a new hurricane coming on. 'You low, skulking hound!' said the reefer, who had wonderfully little pity in his make, 'it can't be worse--what d'ye want light for, eh?' 'Only to see the opposite wall,' said Webb meekly; 'do, sir--oh now!' 'Oh, you lubber, ye!' said Snelling, 'don't you know a bulkhead from a wall yet? If you'd come on deck to bear a hand like others, you wouldn't need light; and _I_ thought you might do for a mate aboard, too--pah, you scum!' "'Mr Snelling,' said I sharply, as he came through the cabin, 'a worm will turn when it's trod upon, and so you may find yet, sir!' 'Well, Mr Collins,' said he, as confidently as if I hadn't meant to give him a set-down, 'I don't like the fellow's eye. I'll look after him, sir!' "Not to mention the young rogue's power of face, which was beyond brass, he had a way of seeing you in two places at once with that upward squint of his, as if his eyes were the points of a pair of compasses, that made the officers of the _Hebe_ always send him to the mast-head directly, for fear it should take the frown out of them. In fact, when Snelling's twinkling weather-eye lighted on one's neck, without the other, you almost felt it tickle you, and as usual I turned away with a 'Pshaw!' "On the second morning, the gale at last began to break, shifting southward; on which, as soon as the sea ran a little easier, I had the helm cautiously put up at a favourable moment, the reefed mainsail, fore-topmast-staysail, and square fore-topsail set as she got before the wind, and away the schooner went; rising on the wide deep-blue swells with a long roll in them, then shearing ahead through their breasts, wrinkled and seething pale-green, till she sank with the fall of the wave--the stump of her aftermast standing, and the fore one shortened by the to'gallant-mast. You may easily believe there was no one aboard more eager to get clear of this weather than myself; as in ordinary circumstances, with a craft like this, in two or three days more we might have been in a high enough latitude to begin looking out for the Indiaman. For my part, I can't deny that the wish for having Tom Westwood safe out of harm's way, and with me in the schooner, strong as it was, played second to the notion of seeing sweet Violet Hyde in any way again, if it was only the last time before she went out of reach altogether; for her getting amongst East India ways of doing, high-flying civilians and soldiers, shows, and sights, either in Calcutta or up-country, was equal to anything else, in my mind. Still, we had six or seven days longer of the heavy seas and hard gales, before north-easting enough could be made to take us beyond the Cape winter, just then coming on, and which the _Seringapatam_ had very likely escaped by two or three days, so that she would have a considerable start of us. "By this time we were standing well up for the Mozambique Channel, which I had heard the Indiaman intended to take in company; a piece of information that made me the more anxious to overtake the _Seringapatam_, at latest, by the time they reached open water again, where, being the only ship for Bombay, she would no doubt part from her consorts. We had a cruiser that year, as I knew, in the Mozambique, where there were some rumours of pirates after the war, so that in case of her happening to speak the _Seringapatam_ close, and having got any word of Westwood's affair, he ran a chance of being picked off. However, that wasn't by any means the thing that troubled me most; somehow or other, whenever the picture of Violet's face brought the Indiaman's decks clear into my mind, with all about her, I couldn't get rid of the notion that some ill-luck would come across that ship before she got into port. If any pirate craft were to dodge the whole bevy of Indiamen up the head of the channel, as was pretty sure to be the case, he would probably wait for some signs of separating, and be down upon a single one not long after she cleared the Leychelles Islands, where a lonely enough stretch of the Indian Ocean spreads in. The more I entered upon the thought of it, the more unsufferable it got; especially one day in the mouth of the Mozambique, when it fell a dead calm with a heavy up-and-down swell, fit to roll the sticks out of her; the high blue land of Madagascar being in sight, sometimes to starboard, sometimes to port, then astern, and the clear horizon lying away north-west, dark with a breeze from round the coast. As the hot sun blazed out above us, and the blue water came plunge up over the rail, blazing and flashing, first one side dipped, then the other, I could fancy the passengers on the Indiaman's poop in a light breeze with a suspicious lateen-rigged sail creeping up on her quarter. I thought I saw Violet Hyde's eyes sparkle against the glare of light, and her lips parting to speak--till I actually stamped on the deck, my fists clenched, and I made three strides to the very taffrail of the schooner. All at once I met my second mate's eye coolly fixed on me, which brought me to my senses in a moment, the more so as there was something about this man Jones I couldn't make out, and I had made up my mind to keep a sharp eye on him; though the fact was, it annoyed me most to feel him seeing into _me_, as it were, without troubling himself. 'We shall have the breeze before long, sir, round Cape Mary yonder,' said he, stepping forward. 'So I expect myself, Mr Jones,' said I, 'though you evidently know the coast better than I do.' With that I gave him a careless side-look, but to all appearance there was nothing particular in his, as he told me he had seen it two or three times before. CHAPTER XXV "With the evening we were once more running sharp on a wind up channel; and when she did get her own way in a good breeze, the schooner's qualities came out. 'Twas a perfect luxury to look over the side and see the bubbles pass, her sharp bows sliding through it like a knife, she eating into the wind all the time, in a way none but a fore-and-aft clipper could hope to do, with a glassy blue ripple sent back from her weather-bow as far as the fore-chains; then to wake of a morning and feel her bounding under you with a roll up to windward, while the water gushed through and through below the keel, and ran yearning and toppling away back along the outer timbers into her boiling wake, working with the moving rudder. And our man-o'-war's-men were quite delighted with the Young _Hebe_, as they still called her. Snelling was in his element while we were having the new spars sent up aloft--a set of longer sticks than before--till she had twice the air, as well as a knowing rake aft. Next thing was to get the long brass nine-pounder amidships from under the boat, where the Frenchmen had kept it, besides which we found another in her hold; so that, added to six small carronades already on deck, we made a pretty show. Meanwhile, for my own part, I kept cracking on with every stitch of canvas that could be clapped upon the spars, including studding-sails. Jones himself didn't know better than I did by this time how to handle the craft, schooner though she was, in the way of making her use what weather we had to the best purpose. Variable as it proved, too, I was aware the Indiamen would have pretty much the same now as we had; so that, on going aloft with the glass, as I did every watch in the day, I soon began each time expecting one or other of them to heave in sight. "As for the five hands from Cape Town, they seemed to have fallen in cheerfully enough with our own, and as soon as the fine weather came, the gang of Lascars were set to duty like the rest. Snelling would have them even trained to work the guns, although, if it blew at all hard, not one could be got to go aloft, except their old _serang_ and the _tindal_, his mate. What surprised me most was the harbour officer himself at last asking, as Mr Snelling told me, to be put in a watch; but as the midshipman said there was no doubt Webb had made a voyage or two before, somewhere or other, I agreed to it at once. 'I'm not sure, sir,' added the midshipman, with one of his doubtful double looks, 'but the gentleman may have seen blue water the first time at Government expense, and not in the service either--he don't look fore and aft enough, Mr Collins, harbour officer though he be; but, never mind, sir, I'll see after him!' 'Pooh,' said I, laughing; 'if he does turn to, Mr Snelling, it shan't be in the watch _you_ have to do with! Hand him over to Mr Jones.' By this time I had changed the mid into my own watch, and given Jones charge of the other--so to him the harbour officer went. "The main character aboard of us, to me at anyrate, was this Jones himself. The fact was, at first I had my doubts of him altogether, partly owing to the queer way we got hold of him, partly on account of his getting the upper hand so much through chance, in the tremendous weather we had at the outset, till I wasn't sure but it might come into the fellow's head of itself, to be upon some drift or other that might cost me trouble, as things stood. However, I no sooner felt where I was, and got the craft under my own spoke, than I came to set him down for nothing but one of those strange hands you fall in with at sea sometimes, always sailing with a 'purser's name,' a regular wonder of a shipmate, and serving to quote every voyage after, by way of a clincher on all hard points, not to say an oracle one can't get beyond, and can't flow sky-high enough. To tell the truth, though, Jones was as thorough a seaman as ever I met with--never at a loss, never wanting on any hand; whether it was the little niceties we stood in need of for setting the schooner's rigging all right again, which none but a blue-water long-voyage sailor can touch, or, what comes to be still better in tropical latitudes, a cool head and a quick hold, with full experience for all sorts of weather, 'twas much the same to him. He was all over like iron, too, never seeming to stand in need of sleep, and seeing like a hawk. At any hour I came on deck in his watch, there was Jones, all awake and ready, till hearing him walk the planks over my head of a fine night made me at times keep my eyes open, listening to it and the wash of the water together. I fancied there was something restless in it, like the sea, with now and then an uneven sort of a start; and at last it would come to full stop, that gave me the notion of how he was standing quiet in the same spot; whether he was looking aloft, or thinking, or leaning over the side, or what he was going to do, troubled me wonderfully. The only want in his seamanship I noticed, he evidently wasn't used to handle a large ship; but craft of some kind I was pretty sure he had commanded in the course of his life. As for taking observations, he could do it better than I could then, while the knowledge he had on different heads, that came out by chance, made you think more of a Cambridge graduate than a common sailor, such as he had shipped for with us. The strangest part of all about him, though, was what I couldn't well name, not to this day; 'twas more grained in with his manner, and the ring of his voice at particular moments, as well as his walk, though these were the smart seaman's no less; but one couldn't help thinking of a man that had known the world ashore some time or other, in a different enough station from now--ay, and in a way to bring out softer lines in his face than reefing topsails or seeing the main-tack ridden down would do. The nearest I could come to calling it, far apart as the two men stood, was to fancy he reminded me of Lord Frederick Bury himself; especially when he looked all of a sudden to the horizon in that wide, vacant kind of fashion, as if he expected it farther off than it was; only Jones's face was twice the age, like a man's that had had double the passions in it at the outset, and given them full swing since then; with a sleeping devil in his eye yet, besides, as I thought, which only wanted somewhat to rouse it. Only for that, I had a sort of leaning to Jones myself; but, as it was, I caught myself wishing, over and over, for something to make us fall regularly foul of each other, and get rid of this confounded doubtful state. One hitch of a word to take hold of, and, by Jove! I felt all the blood in my body would boil out in me to find how we stood, and show it; but nothing of the kind did Jones let pass--and as close as the sea itself he was in regard to his past life. As for the men from the frigate, at least, they seemingly looked on him with no great fondness, and a good deal of respect, in spite of themselves, for his seamanship; whereas, if he had been left in the fore-peak in place of the cabin, I've no doubt in a short time it would have been no man but Jones. You light now and then upon a man afloat, indeed, that his shipmates hold off from, as healthy dogs do from a mad one; and you saw they had some sort of an inkling of the gloomy close nature Jones had in him by the way they obeyed his orders. Webb's three Cape Dutchmen seemed to have a notion he was some being with mysterious powers, while the Lascars ran crouching at his very word--some of them being, as I found, Malays, and the rest Mussulmans from Chittagong; but Jones could send them about in their own language, Dutchmen and all--a part of the matter which did not tend to keep me less careful over him. Still I observed, since his coming aboard, that Jones never once touched liquor, which had plainly enough been his ruin ashore; whether on account of meaning to pull up once for all and mend, or only to have a wider bout at next port, or else to keep himself steady for aught that might turn up, I couldn't settle in my own mind. Though deucedly doubtful of its being the first, the very idea of it made one feel for the man; and, in case of his doing well, I had no small hopes of something in the upshot to save a real sailor like him from going to the devil altogether, as he seemed doing. "Now, after our getting clear of the rough Cape weather, and the dead-lights being taken out of the stern-windows, I had given a look, for the first time, into the schooner's after-cabins, which were pretty much as the people she belonged to before had left them, except for the rough work the gale had played. There were two of them, one opening into the other; and I must say it was a melancholy sight to meet the bright sunlight streaming into them from off the water astern, with all the little matters either just as if the owners were still inside, or else tumbled about at sixes and sevens. One drawer, in particular, had come out of a table, scattering what was in it on the deck: there was a half-open letter, in a woman's hand, all French, and showing a lock of hair, with a broken diamond cross of the French Legion of Honour, besides a sort of paper-book full of writing and two printed ones bound in morocco. I picked up the letter and the cross, put them in again, and shoved the drawer back to its place, though I brought the books away with me to have a glance over. What struck me most, though, was a plaster figure of the French Emperor himself, standing fastened on a shelf, with one hand in the breast of his greatcoat, and looking calmly out of the white sightless eyes; while right opposite hung a sort of curtain which you'd have thought they were fixed upon. When I hauled it aside, I stared--there on a shelf to match the other, was a beautiful smiling child's head to the shoulders, of pure white marble, as if it leant off the bulkhead like a cherub out of the clouds. "Spite of all, however, the touch of likeness it had to the head I got such a glimpse of at Longwood, even when the hot sunlight showed it in my spy-glass so pale and terrible, was sufficient to tell me what _this_ was--Napoleon's own little son, in fact, who was made King of Rome, as I remembered hearing at the time. The thought of the schooner's strange French captain and his desperate scheme came back on me so strong, joined to what I saw he had an eye to in fitting out his cabins, that, for my own part, I hadn't the heart to use them myself, and at first sight ordered the dead-lights to be shipped again, and the door locked. "'Twas a good many days after this, of course, and we had made a pretty fast run up the Mozambique, in spite of the sharp navigation required, sighting nothing larger than the native and Arab craft to be seen thereabouts; we were beginning to clear out from amongst the clusters of islands and shoals at the channel-head, when two large sail were made in open water to nor'-eastward. Next morning by daybreak we were to windward of the weathermost--a fine large Indiaman she was, crowding a perfect tower of canvas. Shortly after, however, the schooner was within hail, slipping easily down upon her quarter, which seemed to give them a little uneasiness, plenty of troops as she seemed to have on board, and looming like a frigate. After some show of keeping on, and apparently putting faith in the man-of-war pennant I hoisted, she hove into the wind, when we found she was the Company's ship _Warringford_, and the other the something _Castle_, I forget which, both for Calcutta. The next thing, as soon as they found we were tender to His Majesty's frigate _Hebe_, was to ask after the _Seringapatam_; on which I was told she was three or four days' sail ahead with the _Mandarin_, bound to China, neither of them having put in at Johanna Island to refresh. "I was just ready to put our helm up again and bid good-bye, when the tiffin-gong could be heard sounding on the Indiaman's quarter-deck, and the old white-haired captain politely asked me if I wouldn't come aboard with one or two of my officers to lunch. Mr Snelling gave me a wistful glance--there were a dozen pretty faces admiring our schooner out of the long white awnings; but even if the notion of bringing up Snelling himself as my first officer hadn't been too much for me, not to speak of either Jones or Webb, why the very thoughts that everything I saw recalled to me, made me the more eager to get in sight of the _Seringapatam_. 'Thank you, sir,' answered I. 'No--I must be off after the Bombay ship.' 'Ah,' hailed the old captain, 'some of your Admiral's post-bags, I suppose. Well, keep as much northing as you can, sir, and I daresay you'll find her parted company. She's got a jury fore-topmast up, for one she lost a week ago; so you can't mistake her for the _Mandarin_, with a good glass.' 'Have you noticed any suspicious craft lately, sir?' asked I. 'Why, to tell you the truth, lieutenant,' sang out he, looking down off the high bulwarks at our long nine-pounders and the knot of Lascars, 'none more so than we thought _you_, at first, sir!' The cadets on the poop roared with laughter, and an old lady with two daughters seemed to eye Snelling doubtfully, through an opera-glass as the reefer ogled both of them at once. "'By-the-by,' sang out the captain of the Indiaman to me again, 'I fancy the passengers in that ship must have got somehow uncomfortable--one of our Bengal grandees aboard of her wanted a berth to Calcutta with us, t'other day in the Mozambique; but we're too full already!' 'Indeed, sir?' said I; but the schooner's main-boom was jibbing over, and with two or three more hails, wishing them a good voyage, and so on, away we slipped past their weather-bow. The _Warringford_ got under weigh at her leisure, and in an hour or two her topsails were down to leeward of us. On I cracked with square and studding-sails to the quartering breeze, till the schooner's light hull jumped to it, and aloft she was all hung out of a side, like a dairyman's daughter carrying milk; with the pace she went at, I could almost say to an hour when we should overhaul the chase. "Still, after two or three days of the trade-wind, well out in the Indian Ocean, and not a spot to be seen, we had got so far up the Line as to make me sure we had overrun her. Accordingly, the schooner was hauled sharp on a wind to cruise slowly down across what must be the Indiaman's track, judging as we could to a nicety, with a knowledge of the weather we had had. For my part, I was so certain of sighting her soon, that I ordered the after-cabins to be set to rights, seeing a notion had taken hold of me of actually offering them to Sir Charles Hyde for the voyage to Calcutta--fancy the thought! 'Twas too good to be likely; but Violet herself actually being in that little after-cabin and sleeping in it--the lively schooner heading away alone for India, and they and Westwood the sole passengers aboard--why, the very idea of it was fit to drive me crazy with impatience. "Well, one fine night, after being on deck all day, and the whole night before, almost, I had turned into my cot to sleep. From where I lay I could see the moonshine off the water through the stern-light in that after-cabin, by the half-open door. I felt the schooner going easily through the water, with a rise and fall from the heave of the long Line-swell; so close my eyes I couldn't, especially as the midshipman could be heard snoring on the other side like the very deuce. Accordingly I turned out into the after-cabin, and got hold of one of the Frenchman's volumes to read, when, lo, and behold! I found it was neither more nor less than Greek, all I knew being the sight of it. Next I commenced overhauling the bundle of handwriting, which I took at first for a French log of the schooner's voyage, and sat down on the locker to have a spell at it. So much as I could make out, in spite of the queer outlandish turn the letters had, and the quirks of the unnatural sort of language, it was curious enough--a regular story, in fact, about his own life, the war, and Bonaparte himself. "At another time I'd have given a good deal to go through with it at odd hours--and a strange affair I found it was some time afterwards; but meanwhile I had only seen at the beginning that his name was _Le Comte Victor l'Allemand, Capitaine, de la Marine Francais_, and made out at the end how there was some scheme of his beyond what I knew before, to be carried out in India--when it struck me there was no one on the quarter-deck above. I listened for a minute through the stern-window, and thought I heard someone speaking, over the schooners lee-quarter, as she surged along; so slipping on jacket and cap, I went on deck at once. "It was middle-watch at the time; but as soon as I came up I saw all was quiet--Webb near the gangway talking to the old Lascar serang, and breaking the English wonderfully betwixt them; while the Lascars of the watch were sitting like tailors in a ring on the forecastle planks, each waiting for his turn of one cocoa-nut hookah, that kept hubble-bubbling away gravely under the smoker's nose, as he took a long suck at it, while the red cinder in the bowl lighted up his leathery Hindoo face and moustache like a firefly in the root of a banyan, till he handed it, without even a wipe, to his neighbour. These fellows had begun to get much livelier as we made the tropics; and this same serang of theirs had put out his horns once or twice to Snelling lately, though he drew them in again the moment he saw me--a sulky old knotty-faced, yellow-eyed devil I thought him at any rate, while his dish-cloth of a turban, his long blue gown and red trousers, reminded you at sea in a gale of a dancing dervish. The day we spoke the Indiaman, in fact, I noticed there was something in the wind for a minute or two with him and his gang, which put in my head at first to offer them to the captain for a couple of good English hands; and as I passed him and Webb this time the serang stopped his talk and sidled off. "However, a beautiful night it was, as ever eye looked upon even in the blue Indian Ocean: the heavens cloudless, the full round moon shining high off our weather-beam again, the stars drawn up into her bright light, as it were, trembling through the films of it like dewdrops in gossamer of a summer morning: you saw the sea meet the sky on every hand, without a speck on the clear line of horizon, through the squares of our ratlins and betwixt the schooner's too long fore-and-aft booms. A pretty strongish breeze we had too, blowing from east to west with a sweep through the emptiness aloft, and a wrinkling ripple over the long gentle swells as deep in the hue as if fresh dye came from the bottom, and crisping into a small sparkle of foam wherever they caught it full. Something pleasant, one could not say what, was in the air; and every sheet being hauled taut to hold wind, the slant gush of it before her beam drove her slipping ahead toward the quarter it came from, with a dip down and a saucy lift of her jibs again, as if she were half balanced amidships, but little noise about it. I took a squint aloft and an overhaul all round, and nothing was to be seen. The size of the sky through the moonlight looked awful, as it were, and the strength of the breeze seemed to send a heavenly blue deep into the western quarter till you saw a star in it The night was so lovely, in fact, it somehow made one think of one's mother, and old times, when you used to say your prayers. Still I couldn't see the mate of the watch on the weather quarter-deck, which surprised me the more in Jones's case, since he was always ready for me when I came up; and, to tell the truth, I shouldn't have been sorry to catch him napping for once, only to show he was like men in common. I walked aft by the weather-side of the large mainsail, accordingly, till I saw him leaning with his head over the lee-bulwark, and heard him again, as I thought, apparently speaking to someone down the schooner's side; upon which I stepped across. "Jones's back was to me as I looked over too; but owing to what he was busy with, I suppose, and the wash of the water which was louder there than in-board, while you heard the plash from her bows every time she forged he evidently didn't hear me. You may fancy my wonder to find he was reading aloud out to himself from the other of the Frenchman's volumes, which I had no doubt left in the dining-cabin--the book open in both hands, he giving it forth in long staves, with a break between--and regular Greek it was too. You'd have thought he timed them to the plash alongside; and I must say, as every string of long-tailed words flowed together like one, in Jones's deep voice, and the swell rose once or twice with its foam-bells near his very hands, I almost fancied I made a meaning of them--each like a wave, as it were, sweeping to a crest, and breaking. The gusto the man showed in it you can't conceive, and, what was more, I had no doubt he understood the sense of it, for all of a sudden, after twenty staves or so of the kind he stopped. 'There!' said he, 'there, old Homer--women, wine, and adventure--what could the devil ask more, blind old prater, with a sound in you like the sea? Ay, wash, wash, wash away, lying old blue-water, you can't wash _it_ out--and wine--no, not the strongest rum in Cape Town--can wash _you_ out!' With that Jones laid his head on his arms, with the book still in one hand, muttering to himself, and I listened in spite of me. 'Still, it rouses the old times in me!' said he. 'Here comes this book across me, too. Ay, ay, and the rector fancied, sitting teaching me Greek out of old wild Homer all weekday--and--and his girl slipping out and in--'twould do to don the cassock of a Sunday and preach out of the pulpit against the world, the devil, and the flesh--then warn me against the sea--ha!' "The laugh that came from him at that moment was more like a dog than a human being; but on he went muttering 'Women, wine, and adventures, said ye, old Greek, and a goddess too; still he _was_ a good old man, the rector--no guile nor evil in him, with his books in the cases yonder, and the church-spire seen through the window over the garden, and his wife with--ah, the less of that the better.--Twas in me, though, and all our blood--and in _her_ dark eyes, too, Mary though she was!' He broke out again, after a bit, as if he'd been arguing it with something under the side: 'I didn't take her the first time I came home--nor the second--but-but--ay, I came _back_! Oh that parting-stile in sight of the sea--and that packet-ship--but O God! that night--that night with the schooner forging ahead through the blue--blue----' And he stopped with a groan that shook him as he leant over. 'Hellish!' he said, suddenly standing upright and looking straight aloft with his bare head and face to the wide empty sky, and the moonlight tipping the hair on his forehead, from over the high shadow on the lee-side of the mainsail, where it glistened along the gaff. 'She was pure to the last!' I heard him say, though I had walked to the other side of the boom; 'ay, though I rot to perdition for it!--Down, old fiend!' as he lifted his one hand with the book, and drove it alongside, seemingly watching it settle away astern. "Now I had heard nothing from Jones that I couldn't have fancied before, and there was even a humour to my mind in the notion of clapping it all on old Homer, if Homer it was, and heaving him overboard with such a confoundedly complimentary burial-service. But some of the words that dropped from him shot through one's veins like icicles; and now there was something fearful in the sight of him standing straight again, with a look right into the heavens, as if he'd have searched them up and up--in that lovely night too, spread far and wide--the very rays of the moonlight sparkled down the weather-side of the sail I was on, trembling on the leech-ropes and brails as they swayed, and into the hollows they made in the belly of the taut canvas; the long shining spot of it wavered and settled on the same two planks of the quarter-deck, beyond the shadow of the bulwark from the moon's eye, fast as the schooner moved through the water, and it was like a hand laid upon her, with the air and wind stretching between. Of a sudden I saw Jones wheel slowly round where he stood, like a man turned about by main strength, with his eyes fixed aloft, and his one arm raising from the shoulder till his forefinger pointed to something, as I thought, about the fore-to'gallantsail. His face was like ashes, his eye glaring, and I sprang across to him under the main-boom. 'See!' said he, never turning his head, and the words hissed betwixt his teeth, 'look at that!' "'For Heaven's sake, _what_, Mr Jones?' said I. '_Her--her_,' was his answer, 'coming against the wind--dead fore-and-aft in the shade of the sails!' On the lee-sides of them the high boom-sails made a sort of a thin shadow against the moonshine off the other beam, which came glimpsing through between them out of a world of air to the south-east, with a double of it flickering alongside on the water as it heaved past to leeward; and whether it was fancy, or whether it was but the reflection aloft from below, I thought as I followed Jones's finger, I saw something like the shape of a woman's dress floating close in with the bonnet of the fore-topmaststaysail, from the dusk it made to the breast of the fore-topsail, and even across the gush of white light under the yard--long and straight, as it were, like a thing lifted dripping out of water, and going, as he said, right against the schooner's course. 'Now in the foresail!' whispered Jones, his eye moving as on a pivot, and a thrill ran through me at the notion; for I made out one single moment what I thought a face against the sky at the gaff-end, white as death, shooting aft towards the mainsail--though next instant I saw it was but a block silvered by the moon as the schooner lifted. 'Now the mainsail!' said he, huskily, 'and now--now by the heavens--rising--rising to the gaff-topsail--away! O Lord! _Mary!_' "He was leaning aft toward the width of the sky, with both hands clutched together before him, shuddering all over. For the first minute my own blood crept, I must say; but directly after I touched him on the shoulder. 'This is strange, Mr Jones,' said I; 'what's the matter?' 'Once in the Bermudas!' said he, still wildly, 'once in the Pacific--and now! Does the sea give up its dead, though, think ye?' 'You've a strong fancy, Mr Jones, that's all,' I said sternly. 'Fancy!' said he, though beginning to get the better of himself; 'did ye ever fancy a face looking down--down at you in the utterest scorn--down sideways off the shoulder of the garment, as it sticks wet into every outline like life? All the time gliding on the other way, too, and the eyes like two stars a thousand miles away beyond, as kind as angels'--neither wind nor sea can stop it, till suddenly it rises to the very cope of heaven--still looking scornfully down at you!--No, sir, fancy it _you_ couldn't!' "The glance he gave me was somehow or other such as I couldn't altogether stomach from the fellow, and he was turning to the side when I said quietly, 'No, nor Homer either, I daresay!' Jones started and made a step towards me. 'You heard me a little ago!' rapped out he, eyeing me. 'Yes,' I said; 'by Jove! who could help being curious to hear a sailor spout Greek as you were doing, Mr Jones?' 'The fact is, Mr Collins,' answered he, changing his tone, 'I was well brought up--the more shame to me for bringing myself to what you saw me. I had a sister drowned, too, on her passage to America one voyage, when I was mate of the ship myself. No wonder it keeps my nerves shaking sometimes, when I've had too long about shore.' 'Well, well, Jones,' said I, rather softening, 'you've proved yourself a first-rate seaman, and I've got nothing to complain of; but I tell you fairly I had my doubts of you! So you'll remember you're under the Articles of War aboard here, sir,' added I, 'which, as long as I have this schooner under hand, I'll be hanged if I don't carry out!' All at once the thought struck me, a little inconveniently, of my carrying off Webb, and his people, and I fancied Jones's quick eye wandered to the Lascars forward. 'I know it, sir,' said he, looking me steadily in the face; 'and what's more, Mr Collins, at any rate I couldn't forget you picked me out, confounded low as I looked, to come aft here. 'Tis not every captain afloat that has such a good eye for a seaman, as _I_ know!' 'Oh, well, no more about it,' I said, walking forward on the weather-side, and leaving him on the lee one as distinctly as Lord Frederick Bury could have done to myself in the frigate. Jones no doubt thought I didn't notice the slight wrinkle that gathered round his lee eye when he gave me this touch of butter at the end; but I put it down for nothing more, gammon though it was. "It was near the end of the watch, the moon beginning to set, while it still wanted three hours of daybreak in those latitudes, when the look-out on the topgallant-yard, who was stationed there in man-o'-war cruising fashion, reported a sail to windward. Just then the midshipman came on deck to his watch, wonderfully early for him indeed, and on my remarking it was probably the Indiaman at last, Jones himself went aloft with the night-glass to make her out. 'Mr Snelling,' said I, 'see the hands on deck ready for going about.' Next minute I saw him rousing up the rest of the Lascars, who slept watch and watch on the forecastle. Only five or six of the _Hebe's_ men were up, and all of them, save the man at the wheel, ran aloft to rig out stunsail-booms to windward, as soon as the schooner was fairly on the starboard tack, standing to nor'-eastward. Suddenly I saw a scuffle between the midshipman and the tindal,[25] a stout, dark-faced young Bengalee, with a jaunty skull-cap and frock, whom Snelling had probably helped along with a touch of a rope's end, and in a moment two or three more of them were upon him, while the reefer drew his dirk, and sung out to me, scarce before I was with him, the Lascars rolling into the lee-scuppers at two kicks of my foot. [25] Lascar boatswain's mate. "Webb and three of the men from Cape Town were hoisting a stunsail at the time, the smart man-o'-war's-men aloft singing out to them to bear a hand. What with the noise of the sail flapping, and its being betwixt my own men and the deck, they could know nothing of the matter; and the Lascars let go the halliards in a body, making a rush at Snelling and myself with everything they could pick up in the shape of a spar. "This would have been nothing, as in two or three minutes more the men would have been down, and the cocoa-faced rascals dodged every way from the handspike I got hold of; but I just caught a glimpse on one side of the sly old serang shoving on the fire-scuttle to keep down the watch below; and on the other, of Webb looking round him, evidently to see how matters stood. Two Dutchmen seized the first sailor that came down the rigging, by the legs, and I saw the affair must be finished at once, it had so much the look of a regular plot on Webb's part, if Jones wasn't concerned in it too. I made one spring upon my Cape Town gentleman, and took him by the throat with one hand, while I hit the biggest Dutchman full behind the ear, felling him to the deck, on which the man-o'-war's-man grappled his watch-mate, and Webb was struggling with me sufficiently to keep both my hands full, when I had a pleasant inkling of a Malay Lascar slipping toward my back with a bare kreese in his fist. "I just looked over my shoulder at his black eyes twinkling devilishly before he sprang, when someone came sliding fair down from the fore-topmast-head by a back-stay, and pitched in a twinkling on top of his head--a thing enough to break the neck of a monument. Directly after, I saw Jones himself hitting right and left with his night-glass, from the moonlight to the shadow of the foresail, while Snelling tumbled over a Lascar at every slap, standing up in boxer-style. By the time the rest of the men came down all was settled--the Dutchmen sulking against the bulwarks, and Webb gasping after I let him go. 'Boatswain,' said I to one of the sailors,' clap that man in irons below. Mr Snelling, see the watch called, sir.' 'I 'ad the law with me,' said Webb, gloomily. 'You plotted it, then, Mr Webb?' I said. 'Didn't you carry us off illegally?' said he. 'I only meant to recover the vessel--upon my honour, nothing more, sir; and if you're 'ard with me, you'll have to answer for it, I assure you!' Here he looked round to Jones in a strange way, as I fancied, for a moment; but Jones turned on his heel with a sneer. 'Why, Mr Webb,' answered I, 'you lost that tack by offering yourself in a watch, which makes the thing neither more nor less than mutiny--so take him below, do ye hear, bo'sun!' And down he went. "'Now, Mr Jones,' said I, as soon as all hands were on deck, 'you'll be so good as have half of these Lascars seized to the rigging here, one after the other, and see a good dozen given to each of their backs; then these two Dutchmen, each three dozen--then pipe down the watch, sir.' "Jones glanced at me, then at the fellows, then at me again. I thought he hung aback for an instant; but do it I was determined he should, for a reason I had; and I gave him back the look steady as stone. 'Ay, ay, sir,' said he, at last, touching his hat. I walked aft to the capstan, and stood there till every mother's son of them had got his share, the Lascars wriggling and howling on the deck after it, and the Dutchmen twisting their backs as they walked off. 'Twas the first time I did that part of duty in command, and I felt, in the circumstances, I was in for carrying it out with a taut hand. "By this time the moon was setting, and in the dusk we lost sight of the sail to windward; but as we were heading well up to weather upon her, and going at least ten knots, I turned in below for a little, leaving the midshipman. Accordingly, it wasn't very long before Snelling called me in broad daylight 'She's a large ship, Mr Collins,' said he, 'standing under all sail on a wind. I hope to goodness, sir, it's that confounded Indiaman at last!' I hurried on deck, took the glass aloft, and soon made out the jury fore-topmast shorter than the main, as the old captain mentioned. Accordingly, it was with somewhat of a flutter in me I came down again, watching the schooner's trim below and aloft, to see if I couldn't take an hour or so off the time betwixt that and once more setting eyes on the judge's daughter. CHAPTER XXVI "After breakfast-time the breeze freshened again, and the ship had evidently perceived us, as well as the fact of our having hauled on a wind to make up with her course; for we could see her hoisting out one stunsail after another to the lee-side, and keeping off in order to give them full play. This was what I was afraid of, in fact, that our looking her way in the circumstances would make her show her heels; and being hull down, almost dead to windward of us, with her spread of sail to such a breeze as the present, it was like to be a troublesome matter ere we got within signalling distance; especially if she had kept hold of her wind a little more, instead of falling off before it as she did, which tended the schooner always steadily to weather upon her, the sharper we kept her nose to the sun in the spray. Indeed, the wind during the forenoon came gradually round more in our favour, till it stood south-east by east or so; by which time, however, we had dropped her topsails from the deck, then her to'gallant-sails, to a white speck far down on the lee-bow. We weathered fast upon her, and I fancied I made out the yellow India patches in her canvas; when, on turning about, I caught Jones's glance at me, as if he couldn't understand my eagerness, or else had got curious what the schooner wanted with the ship at all. 'She loses, I think, sir,' said he looking off to her again. 'Little doubt of that, Mr Jones,' said I. 'I know that Indiaman's sailing to a tee--but we shan't overhaul her at this rate an hour too soon, before she might have a chance of dropping us in the dark, or our running to leeward of her again.' 'Why, yes,' said Jones, carelessly, 'if they knew how to do it, sir.' 'By George! Mr Collins,' exclaimed Snelling, 'I see her stern-gallery sparkling in the run of the surges.' "In a little while we could notice her canvas darken slowly from the courses to the to'gallant-sails, leaving the royals and studding-sails whiter than before: they were wetting her sails. 'She must take us for something bad, Lieutenant Collins!' remarked Jones, as if the thing were at all doubtful. 'A pirate, in fact,' added the reefer, with a grin. 'Why, sir,' said he, 'these Company's men seem to think the sea swarms with pirates, though I'm blessed if we've been so lucky as to sight even the tail-feather of one--my eye! though, how the griffins must be skipping about just now!' "The truth was, the nearer we got, the more it struck me that, altered as the schooner was aloft, our red streak and lead- sides were just as the first time I saw them; which wouldn't do much toward settling the Indiaman's doubts of us, for they couldn't fail to remember her the moment our hull came in sight; and as for my own character all along aboard the _Seringapatam_, why, neither first nor last did it seem to stand in good odour. 'Mr Jones,' said I, as we slipped quietly through the water, 'have you got any old canvas at hand, sir?--be so good as have it ripped up in lengths, and fast clapped outside from stem to stern along that red streak of ours, up as far as the plank sheer, missing the ports--give her a good broad white stripe, sir, instead!' 'Ay, ay, sir!' answered he, with a gleam in his eye as he turned off, half knowing, half in surprise. 'And, Mr Snelling,' continued I, 'hark ye, see all the hammocks stowed over the bulwarks in her waist--and run both those long-guns forward, chock in to the eyes of her, to bring her down by the head a little--keep the men on the foc'sle too--she looks rather rakish at present, I must confess!' "All this the young gentleman seemed to do with as rueful a look as if he were putting knee-breeches and gaiters in place of white ducks, on his own lower timbers; and presently he came aft to ask if he mightn't stick a shot into each of the guns. 'What for?' said I. 'Oh,' said the midshipman, 'won't she show fight at all, sir, then?' Just then the white range of the Indiaman's heavy quarter-gallery came into view, then the bulge of her big hulking body half on to us, with a port-lid or two raised in the white band: we were to windward of her already, stealing up on her quarter. 'My eye!' said Snelling, 'she could blow us out of water, if she choose, Mr Collins, and only had pluck enough.' 'Why, that's all you know about it, Mr Snelling,' said I, with a laugh, 'since she don't carry long muzzles in her side, and in a light breeze like this we could--however, as we happen to be friends, that's of no moment, Mr Snelling.' 'After all, though,' I added, 'you _may_ load once, and stand by to fire across her course, if required; but, for the life of you, Snelling,' said I, seriously, 'in any case, if I give the word to fire, don't let anything in the shape of iron go near that ship's hull! By Jove! sir, I'd let her blow us out of the water first, or else show her our heels, myself!' "Well, about four in the afternoon, there we were coming down actually on the ship's quarter, from windward; when we took in our flying-kites, clued up gaff and fore-topsails, and to'gallant-sail, leaving St George's flag fluttering bright at the main-peak, and our long coach-whip streaming from the mast-head, while she kept gliding easily ahead under nothing but the two boom-sails and large jib. Still the Indiaman gave no other sign except showing the British ensign, then her striped Company's flag under it, at the mizzen-peak: she went jogging steadily on, as I was afraid she would, like a fellow giving you the go-by in the street. 'Nothing else for it, after all, Mr Snelling,' said I, walking forward, as we got within long range. 'The confounded fools!' I couldn't help saying, 'do they think a piratical craft would give herself the trouble of hoisting all the flags in Christendom one after the other, and she, of course, with a long-Tom on a pivot amidships? Mr Jones, oblige me by pitching a shot right across her forefoot?' Jones stepped forward, had the gun slued, and blew the match. 'Are you ready?' said I--'now mind your eye--fire!' and the ball went spinning from the top of one swell to another beyond the Indiaman's bows, rather wide of the mark, as I thought: when, all at once, the smoke had scarce cleared away betwixt us ere I saw her jib-sheets fly, and the Indiaman luffing up in the wind. Jones started, as almost next moment we could see the spritsail-yard hanging in two across the spars--I must say, rather to my own surprise, in spite of a good deal of old cruising practice. "'A good aim, sir!' remarked he, turning round. 'There goes her main-yard, now!' said Snelling; and she seemed to be heaving-to, when the mainsail filled again, and on she stood as before; then actually broached-to, all aback, and gathering stern-way with her bows fairly facing us; while the black figure-head under the bowsprit showed me his turban again once more, like a fellow leaning over a horse he couldn't manage. 'What the mischief _are_ the lubbers about!' I said, 'can't they heave-to at once and be done with it, now that I fancy they see their mistake?' "Here Jones, who had got aft and stood up on the taffrail, jumped down again all at once, and met me at the capstan. 'Lieutenant Collins,' said he in a low voice, and looking me straight in the face with a very queer expression, 'the ship has _struck_!' 'Struck!' repeated I, starting; and he, Snelling, and I sprang to the taffrail together. There was the Indiaman, in fact, at length heaving into the wind, about three-quarters of a mile off our lee-beam, with her two ensigns hauled down, and something flying instead of them at the gaff-end, which I couldn't make out. Our helm was put up, and the schooner edged swiftly down to her, slipping along in sight of her stretch of bulwarks till we had hove-to abreast of her starboard bow. 'What ship is that?' hailed I from abaft, as we ran past in the shadow of her sails; and I saw my gentleman 'first officer,' Finch, standing up in her mizzen-chains with the trumpet, more dashing than ever, as he had poor Captain Williamson's uniform coat and hat on, apparently, and a sword by his side: her whole quarter-bulwark bristling with spy-glasses and gun-barrels turned upon the schooner, though not another head could be seen. 'The Honourable East In----' began Finch; but that moment there was a perfect hubbub of cries and cheers, as a dozen faces I knew well showed themselves popping up from the quarter-deck: Old Rollock in a huge straw hat and his shirt-sleeves, with a ship's musket in his fists; Ford, Winterton, and the cadets--the long-faced Scotch surgeon, and Macleod's screwed nose and red whiskers--every eye fixed on me, as I fancied, not to say three or four rusty barrels. Their confusion and bewilderment was rare to witness; and being forty hands of us--the Lascars' outlandish physiognomies and all--why, the schooner must have looked rather respectable as she still slid ahead. "In the meantime, the look of our smart _Hebe's_ men, with the frigate's name shining in front of their regular-built hats, and everything about us, not to say the reefer's naval uniform and mine, seemed to have set the Indiaman's people more at their ease; till, when our gig's crew was ready to lower away, there was even a glimpse of ladies to be seen along toward her poop. Every moment I expected the sight of a certain face to flash on me from over the black rail, as the ship rolled and plunged in the heave of water opposite us, showing her broad white band, with the drips of rust across it from her chain-plates. 'We made somewhat of an awkward mistake, sir!' hailed Finch, eyeing me queerly enough, and trying to appear at his ease. 'So I supposed, sir,' said I; 'I shall send a boat aboard of you directly'; and I turned to the midshipman, who stood surveying the ship from stem to stern with his nose turned away from her, and his hands in the tails of his coat, speaking all the time to Mr Jones, though the latter was apparently the least interested of the two, for he had his eye seaward. "'Mr Snelling,' said I, 'd'ye see that gentleman yonder near the main-rigging, with the black hat on? You'll go aboard in the gig, sir, give your commanding-officer's compliments to the captain of the Indiaman, and mention to him that that gentleman is wanted here--Westwood his name is.' "To tell you the truth, my head was in a perfect whirl at knowing that, if I chose, five minutes could set me within speaking distance of Violet--yet you'd scarce believe I actually almost made up my mind not to go on deck again till our sheets were hauled aft, and we leaving the ship astern. Bless your heart! I wasn't aware till that minute _what_ I felt for her; everything about the voyage from Portsmouth came back so fresh on me, at sight of the different parts about the old _Seringapatam's_ bulwarks, to the very odds-and-ends of ropes hanging alongside that blessed lumbering coach-house of hers amidships, and the live-stock cackling and bleating in it between times! And there was I glancing aft into our little stern-cabins, which I fancied two or three days ago might serve for _their_ passage. But now, though I had a pretty sharp guess these same cabins were meant originally for neither more nor less than an emperor himself, why, I saw the very notion was too ridiculous to mention! 'Mr Jones,' said I, speaking up the skylight, 'as soon as you see that passenger is in the boat, have the head sheets hauled aft, sir, and the helm put up to make sail.' 'Ay, ay, sir,' said he; but directly after, he added in a low voice, 'I believe though, sir, we are not likely to part company from this ship so soon!' 'How, sir!' exclaimed I sharply, and starting up off the chair to see him, for something in the cool, collected tone of his voice jarred on me the more on account of the state I was in myself--'what do you mean by that?' I had merely to catch sight of my mate's broad throat and hairy chin, however, as he stood with his full chest thrown back, and one hand in his waistcoat, looking aloft by the skylight, when, following his eye to our main-gaff, it was easy to know the last fanning of the wind; which, taken together with the schooner's yerking motion abaft, was sufficient to give you word of a calm. 'We have lost the breeze for to-night, at any rate, sir,' said Jones, letting his eyes suddenly fall upon me, and meeting the flicker of pleasure I couldn't help showing on my face. 'Confound the thing! you don't say so, Mr Jones!' rejoined I quickly. 'Then as long as she has a foot's steerage-way, sir, let her slip off the Indiaman's bow at once--else the two of us will be grinding together ere daylight like a couple of mill-stones without corn!' "On deck there were twenty things worth noticing, that struck one at the same time. The schooner's light spars and white canvas seen sharp against the white glare of light in the west, as she settled round on the ship's other bow; while the light air high aloft in the Indiaman's royals still kept steadying her with her lee-side to the sunset, where it made a red trough along the horizon down through a golden cloud or two, that looked like bright-winged things whirling off and about the sun. "Our gig was holding off by the boat-hook from her lee-quarter, the oars up-ended, and two or three sailors, with their heads shoved out under a port-lid on the main deck, talking to the boat's crew, while a few of the men hung over the high black top-sides, peering aft at the gig; the rest being gathered in the ship's bows, with their eyes fixed on the schooner. The huge round of the sun went down astern like the mouth of a furnace, sending a broad stream of red light across the face of the water with every wet streak and wrinkle shown heaving in it, right up to the Indiaman's white band and her pitch-black bulwarks. Her quarter-galleries lashed out, and you saw the passengers' heads aft through the red arch under the wide mainsail-foot, till every face shone crimson-bright out of the awning below; and I could see the midshipman's gold band glisten as he took his cap off to some ladies coming down the poop-stair, amidst a hubbub of cadets turning round to eye the schooner. For half-a-minute the smooth sea all astern of the ship seemed to wash to her water-line in a flood of light and blood almost, as if the horizon vanished; then the tip of the sun went down like a burning ruby, the blue heave of water sank away from the copper at the Indiaman's bows, giving us an easy lift at the other side of the swell, and the whole compass of the sea appeared to slide round cool and clear against the soft flush of all possible tints in the west; till the deep indigo hue of the calm spread melting off from both of us. "What I gave most heed to was the knots of men's faces on the _Seringapatam's_ forecastle, as the golden gleam of light and the red glare struck across them with all sorts of queer touches, that brought back every one of them clearly to mind at once; and, stepping forward where Mr Jones's figure was to be seen dark against the pale glow in the west, I could easily make out ugly Harry's big buffalo head, as he leant his chin on his two hands, and surveyed us up and down, with his dirty tarpaulin on the back of his head as usual, and his shaggy black hair like thatch over his forehead, almost down to the meeting of his thick eyebrows. The moment I appeared, Mister Harry Foster shifted himself with a start, looked aloft to his own ship, and began to whistle as if for wind; the same moment Jones turned and noticed me, too, and the difference of the two men's faces struck me the more, that I couldn't help thinking extremes met. 'That fellow there seems to like us so well, Mr Jones,' said I, laughing, 'that I've half a mind to bring him aboard, as I _could_!' 'Who--which, sir?' said the mate, looking to every part of the Indiaman but the right one. 'Why, that misbegotten-like rascal you were looking at,' said I; 'I know a little of him, and a more thorough blackguard doesn't walk planks!' 'There's the boat, though, Lieutenant Collins!' said Jones suddenly: the boat-hook struck our mizzen-chains on the other side in the dusk, and next minute Tom Westwood swung himself on board, with the midshipman and Old Rollock the planter following in his wake; the last, to my surprise, carrying two hat-boxes and an umbrella. "'Why, Ned Collins!' broke out Westwood, 'what is the meaning of all this--what wind has blown you here?' 'My _dear_ fellow!' shouted the planter, almost jumping on top of me, 'I never in my life saw the like of you--the very same infernal schooner, too! Come, let's hear--have you taken 'em all then, head and tail--have you----' "'For Heaven's sake, Mr Rollock,' said I, sheering out of his way as well as I could, 'come below, sir, if I must answer all these questions!' 'So you are actually in command?' said Westwood; and hereupon I gave him the bearings of his own affair, with the fact of my falling in with Lord Frederick Bury, of course; and of all men in the world, I believe, the 'Honourable Bury' was the one Westwood could feel comfortable under, as his face showed at the time. 'Whether I _lose_ you or not in the Hooghly, Tom,' said I, 'I daresay you'll find yourself in the end aboard the _Hebe_, in some shape or other! and meantime I shall be glad of you here for a first mate.' 'Well, well,' put in the planter again, impatiently, after having kept questioning me every now and then for the last ten minutes, which I answered without well knowing what he said--'then you hung him, of course?' 'Hung whom?' asked I, obliged to attend by Mr Rollock's perseverance. 'Why, El Americano, to be sure--the Yankee--Snout!' said he, trying to lengthen his face for the news. 'Hung him--no!' said I, laughing; 'when I saw him on deck there, last, he was lively enough, and anxious to get those images of his out of the _Seringapatam_.' The planter's rosy gills turned a shade or two paler, and he started off his seat. 'God bless me!' said he, in a low voice, and looking over his shoulder, 'you don't mean to say you've brought the man back on me. I declare to you I lost a few pounds of my weight here before, by his actually conceiving a friendship for me!' Old Rollock's dismay was so comical that I could scarce find in my heart to ease his mind, as I did. "'Why, my dear fellow,' said Westwood, with a smile, 'I assure you that disappearance of yours took me by surprise. Indeed, I only guessed, from something Captain Finch let drop afterwards, how it came about; and till the very moment the brig-of-war got under way, I fancied you had some other plan in view, or else you never would have carried it out. The fact was, Ned, if your heart was bound for India, mine was ashore in old England, and I'd rather have run the risk to go back!' Here Tom caught my glance, and looked shyly into one waistcoat pocket, then into another, fidgeting on his chair, poor fellow! in a way that brought my sister Jane's grey eyes, and her demure little arch face, distinctly before me, thousands of miles as there were between us and Croydon. The thought of the _Seringapatam_ being so near, on the other hand, somehow rushed on me at the same time, and I felt wonderfully mild toward Tom. 'Hang it, Tom!' said I, 'never mind thinking of it--mix your grog, man, and confound all care to the bottom of the sea. You're well off! For my part,' said I, 'I had no notion at all how _that_ case stood, so I made a cursed mistake in the matter--but here's luck!' "'However,' said he, 'I saw _your_ drift by that time; and the young lady herself was in the fore-cabin when I told her father the whole story, not long after you went off. 'Twas no use with Sir Charles, though, to say you were only carrying out the joke to screen me, and amuse yourself at the same time--he was sure you were after some scheme; and all the while Miss Hyde sat sewing on the sofa behind us, as quiet and careless as if she didn't hear a word, or trouble herself about the matter. When I came upon your vanishing so suddenly in the brig, however, and said I was sure, by that time, you did so in order to let me clear off, I had my eye on the looking-glass opposite the young lady; and whatever you may make of it, Ned, I can tell you she started and glanced up at that point.' 'Well, and what of that?' I asked. But Westwood went on--'It was all one to Sir Charles, nevertheless, whatever way I turned it. According to him, this was just of a piece with the rest of your doings, which showed the bad effects of the naval service. 'Twas no use my standing up for you, saying how fast you had risen, and would rise, if you had the right thing to do--for the old gentleman allowed everything, adding it was so much the worse for such fellows to be set loose. "I tell you what, Mr Westwood," said he, looking round sharply, as if he were speaking _at_ somebody else, "there is a soul of mischief in that young man that nothing will root out, unfitting him for everything else, however admirably it may be suited to maritime pursuits or to savage warfare. In short," added the judge, drawing himself up, "it is my conviction he will either be drowned or knocked on the head----"' 'The precious old curmudgeon!' I rapped out, betwixt laughter and rage at the thought of _her_ hearing all this pretty character of me. '"And I must say, my young friend," said the judge, "I felt much relieved at finding Councillor Westwood's nephew so different an individual--exceedingly relieved! Besides that, you cannot, of course, continue in the navy!" Just at this moment,' continued Westwood, 'I saw the young lady gather up her work behind us with a sparkle in her eye, rise off the sofa, and walk straight aft through the cabin-door.' "'Was _that_ all?' said I, biting my lip. '_All_, you heathen!' answered Tom, laughing. 'Why, what would you have? I'll be bound the judge didn't mean all that for my use, my dear fellow. But the worst of it was, that next day, when I met her with the Brigadier's lady on the poop, the young beauty passed me with as scornful an air as possible; and for a week or so, whenever the judge happened to ask me into the round-house cabins, either she wasn't there, or took an opportunity of walking out--the most I got was a bow or a "good-morning"; so you see the real Simon Pure didn't prosper half so well as the false one!' 'Pooh!' said I, gloomily, thinking of the little ground I had made myself, 'all contradiction--the fact is, you're too simple for women's ways, Westwood.' Westwood looked down and gave a queer smile--as much as to say, I suppose, the case stood just the contrary; and I must own, it struck me _he_ must be rather a knowing fellow that could fathom my sister, seeing that, for my part, I understood her no more than my mother's housemaid did, with her high-flown music and poetry, and all that sort of thing. "'However,' said Westwood, 'I contrived by degrees to get over all this, and for the last week or two we were as good acquaintances as before--in fact, the judge was evidently bent on it. And I tell you what it is, Ned, as charming a girl, in her way, as Violet Hyde I can't well fancy--but one more hopeless to deal with, for a fellow that hasn't got hold of her heart, I believe doesn't breathe! Why, young as she is, you'd feel her playing you round her pretty forefinger as a woman would, looking at you all the time under her soft eyelids with those bright eyes of hers, as if you could fancy her falling in love in a moment with someone else, but never with yourself!' 'By Jove, yes!' said I, feeling as dismal as I daresay I looked. 'Do you know,' Westwood went on, 'her figure and walk always remind me of a Hindoo girl's, all over English as her face and hair are, with a touch of the tropical, you can't say where, about it--owing to her being born in India, as I believe she was; and altogether, Ned, I'm glad to----' Here Westwood shrugged his shoulders, and I poured myself out another glass of grog in pure despair. "'The truth is,' said I, 'I wish I had never _seen_ that confounded _Seringapatam_! Didn't she say any--didn't you--in fact, Tom, what do you think of the matter, plump and plain, stem and stern?' said I manfully. 'Why,' said Tom, in a thoughtful way, 'not to set you at all wrong on either side, the thing that strikes me is, I don't think she ever once mentioned you, Ned, except in passing. But to my mind, in the circumstances, that's not so much against you. The young lady can say little when she pleases, I assure you; for only last night, in that fine moonlight, we happened to touch on that affair in the river--you know?' 'Yes,' I said, for it wasn't easy to forget. 'Now I always thought that night a turning-point with you,' Westwood said; 'and it was the last night you were aboard; so I spoke of you a good deal, and never a word did Miss Violet utter, save "Yes" and "No," while her face being in the shadow, I couldn't see it. Oh, by-the-by, though,' continued he, 'she _did_ say one thing!' "'For Heaven's sake, what was it?' I broke out eagerly. 'Well, then, Ned,' answered he, leaning back on the two back legs of his chair, and eyeing me with a comical air, which surprised me a little; 'do you consider yourself good-looking?' I started up. 'What do you mean by that, Tom?' said I; but next moment I sat down again with a sulky 'No, I'll be hanged if I do! so----' 'No more does your lady-love, then,' said Westwood, 'for she made the remark very coolly, and even without my asking her--but don't be down-hearted at that, my dear Ned, for I think more of that little sentence, in the way it was said, than of all she did _not_ say!' 'The greater the difference between us, I suppose,' said I savagely. 'Why,' replied Tom, ''tis my conviction you never hear a woman say the man she likes is handsome--and from a perverse young gipsy like----' 'Well, by Jove! Westwood,' said I, losing my temper altogether, and giving the table a slap with my fist that sent my glass crash to the deck, 'you beat everything! I suppose if she'd called me a fool and a blessed lubber, you'd turn it to my favour. But the truth is, I don't understand your niceties--I want something broad and above-board, that a fellow can lay hold of--and the short and the long of it is----' With that I laid my face on my arms down in the spilt grog on the table, and fairly groaned. My head reeled till I scarce knew it was myself that was sitting there, as all of a sudden one thought after another crowded on me. Somehow I seemed for a single moment to be out and out in the open sea, the different faces I'd seen along the ship's bulwarks rushing past me, with Jones's face, and the look of the Indiaman in the sunset; through all sorts of weather, too, in that confounded moment. "Then, I can't say why, but my hair crept as I came back to the thought of the Indiaman and the schooner in the calm at the time, and I almost fancied I heard a whisper at my ear. I looked up, and saw Tom Westwood sitting opposite me, with a musing air, and rather melancholy. The sight of my wild stare, with the grog I suppose trickling down my forehead, and dripping off my nose, appeared to startle him, and our eyes met queerly enough for half-a-minute--till all at once the notion seemed to strike both of us, of the absurdity of two fellows hobnobbing and lackadaisying away this fashion in a hole of a schooner's cabin, thousands of miles from land; and I'm blessed if we didn't both burst at the same moment into regular roars of laughter--first one broadside, then 'bout ship, as it were, to deliver the other, gun after gun. By George! though, I felt it do me good, as if something deadly went off with it. 'Hallo!' sung out the planter, blocking up the moonlight that shone misty-white down the steps of the companion, to a blue glimmer at the foot of them; 'both surviving _yet_, I declare'; and we felt the scent of his cheroot in the hot calm as he walked aft again. "'Well, Ned,' said Westwood, still laughing, 'there's one thing more I _did_ contrive to get out, and it is certainly broad enough to lay hold of, as you say. Do you know, from some hints the judge let drop in course of the passage, after he got to know me, I have a rather sharp suspicion he has someone in view for his daughter already!' At this I gasped once more. 'Whether she knows it herself or not, I'm not sure,' added Tom; 'but, very naturally, the gentleman I mean was often enough mentioned in Sir Charles's cabins--for who do you imagine, of all persons in the world, it is?' "I made no trial at a guess, but sat eyeing Westwood in perfect silence, and he went on--'Who but--don't look so fierce, my dear fellow--just this--this said nabob of an uncle of mine, the Bengal Councillor! Why, you've no conception,' said Westwood, 'what presents of pearl necklaces, fans, cashmere shawls, and China ivory work-boxes, and so on, the Councillor must have sent home to her at different times, for the _Seringapatam_ to bring back again. I didn't see her wear any of them; but every now and then Sir Charles would point to something that lay about, telling me it came from my uncle! He is a bachelor, you know, not so old as Sir Charles himself, who isn't so old as he looks, and they seem to be sworn friends!' 'Tuts, man!' said I, brightening a bit, 'can't you see he wants to adopt her?' 'So I should have imagined,' answered Westwood; 'but the fact is, two or three times, as I told you, Sir Charles Hyde hinted as much as that it was an idea of long standing between himself and his friend the Councillor, so----' 'The old villain!' I roared. 'Begging your pardon, Westwood--but I must say you are the pattern of a Job's comforter, and no mistake!' 'Well,' answered he, 'if you had heard the way in which the young lady mentioned my uncle to me, you wouldn't be much afraid of your rival, Ned. Why, she said she thought she remembered him when she was a little girl, bringing her Indian sweetmeats from the bazaar in his carriage--she actually supposed he must be older than her father, when the judge set her right eagerly enough--but, you must know, he no more seems able to say a sharp word to _her_, than Jacobs yonder would. So what did she say next, after apparently thinking a little, but that, now she recollected, my uncle used to have gray hair and white whiskers, like Mr Rollock, which for my part I knew no more about than the table, when her father broke out describing him as warmly as possible; and suddenly Miss Hyde looked at him with a little turn of her pretty lip, and a twinkle in her eye, that sent the old gentleman fiddling about his coffee-cup, and stopped him in a moment as if she had been a little witch!' "'What's to be done, Tom?' I faltered out, after a long stop. 'I'm sure I don't know, Ned,' said he gravely; 'let's go on deck at any rate, for it's too hot here to sleep.' The moment the sight of the calm burst upon us, however, with the two vessels together in the midst of it, in the hazy sort of moonlight, the same notion seemed to strike both of us in a different way. 'I'll tell you what, Collins,' said Westwood, half-jokingly, half in earnest, 'uncle though he be, if you can contrive to cut out the Councillor anyhow, I'll forgive you, for one!' 'How, though--_how_, by Jove!' replied I--'if they go to Bombay in the Indiaman, by the time they reach Calcutta, I shall be in the Pacific!' ''Tis a difficult case,' said Westwood, 'no doubt. And even suppose you had the opportunity, 'twould be hard to manage an elopement ashore in India, travelling "dauk" in two palanquins. Seriously speaking, Ned, I see nothing for it but to wait till you come _back_ from the Pacific.' "I looked hopelessly round: the calm and heat together gave one a helpless feeling, and every notion of an active sort appeared desperate. A perfect calm it was, too: there was some filmy scum of a haze aloft, that served to spread the moonlight all over, shutting out the shape of the sky, and softening off the horizon; with the moon standing slant up in it, like a brighter spot, and a few stars low down in the east. But for the long wide tremble of the water, in fact, as it glanced up with a blue flicker, you'd have fancied we mightn't be far from land; while the big Indiaman lay off the schooner's bow, without the least motion one could see; the moonshine edging round her spars and ropes from the other side, and her sails hanging shadowy against it, except below, under her brailed-up courses, where the masts, the thick of the rigging, and the tops of her deck-lumber, glistened as if they were newly wet. Half of her watch were on the bowsprit, sending out a 'fished' spritsail-yard, the same we had set dangling about their ears that afternoon, and we could hear them speaking plain enough; every time they sang out at a haul, it went far away on all sides--ho-ho-ho-he-ho-ho-o--till you lost it in the dead calm, as if somebody had gone there. Now and then the _Seringapatam_ made a slight plunge by the head, as the wide soft swell floated up with her; and the glossy black shadow, that seemingly gave her hull the height of a tower, came wavering in quicksilver circles to our very cutwater, while the lights from her after-windows went twisting away round her heavy counter to the moonshine, like yellow snakes; the schooner all the time lying as quiet as if she were on a pond, except that by little and little she kept shifting her bearings to the Indiaman, and things were confoundedly like our both sticking together in course of the morning, if the calm held. I went forward to the forecastle and desired Jones to get all hands down into the boats, and have her towed off to safe distance, seeing that the worst of it would be sure to fall to our share. "This was doing, and we drew slowly off the ship's bow, where her men coolly knocked off working to watch ours, and pass jokes on our gang of Lascars, as they handled the oars in awkward style; in fact, by the way the Indiaman's watch carried on, most of them seemed to have passed the grog-can pretty freely, being Saturday night, which we could hear they were still keeping up below in the forecastle, when our quarter came abreast of her larboard bow. 'Hurrah!' said one, waving his tarpaulin; and 'Pull, you beggars!' roared another; when my old customer, ugly Harry, all at once leant out of her fore-chains, and sung out to Jones, who was next him in the stern-sheets of our gig: 'I say, mate, so ye're clearing off, are ye? The better for that 'ere nutshell of a schooner o' yours, I reckon!' Jones made no answer, and the fellow added; 'Come aboard when you've got a safe berth, anyhow, and drink "sweethearts and wives," will ye?' I saw Jones start, and turn his face fiercely into the shadow of the ship's main-course on the water, rising half-up with one fist clenched, but he said nothing. 'Oh, you're blasted proud!' Foster called out: 'you forgets a man, blow me! D'ye think I doesn't know a fellow I got glorious with myself, in old Van Stinkoff's, at Cape Town? Sink me, mates,' said he, as loud as before, turning round on the rail of the bulwarks to the rest, 'I picked him out o' the street scuppers, under the sign of the Flying Dutchman, an' I'm blowed if I didn't think it beneath me at the time!' Here the end of our main-boom opened us in sight of the ugly ruffian, and he was sinking down in-board, when I hailed the Indiaman's quarter-deck, where the Scotch mate was to be seen. 'Ay, ay, the schooner ahoay!' sung out he, coming to the gangway. 'Did you hear that man's impertinence, sir,' said I sternly, 'to my officer on duty there? I expect you to see him punished, sir.' The Scotchman said he'd inquire into it; but shortly after he came back, saying he 'doubted' he couldn't be sure of the man; and, at any rate, he could have 'meant no ill.' The boats had towed us by this time almost out of fair hearing, but Harry Foster was to be seen coolly eyeing us from the midst of his watchmates, as he slung a couple of blocks over his shoulder; when he turned away with as much indifference as if we had been a Thames collier, growling some two or three words or other that brought a loud laugh from the Indiaman's forecastle to her bowsprit, where the men were turning lazily to their business again. "Being now clear off the ship, with the rake of her hull in our command if I chose, and free of her broadside at the same time, I hailed the boats to leave off towing and come aboard. As Jones came on deck, I saw that in his face to make me think he took the thing to heart, seeing he met my first look with his lips set together and a steady gleam of his eyes. The truth was, I never in my life came across a man that struck me so much with the notion of his having a devil in him, seeking to get the better of what was good. "'I think we shall do, Mr Jones?' I said. 'Quite safe, sir,' said he, quietly; at that moment, standing as we did out of earshot, with the setting moon in sight past the Indiaman, shining in a rusty yellow glare to her hanging sails, 'twas strange how the odds of our different stations passed off. We were foot to foot, in fact; I was fully aware, if never before, what an enemy Jones would make--he had great daring and knowingness in him, and all on the wrong side of the hedge for me at the time, seeing I had such a ticklish part to play with the Indiaman. I caught myself, on the instant, measuring youth and activity, not to say regular breeding to the service, and a clear conscience besides, against him and his thews and sinews; but as for turning and twisting with the man before me, I saw it was the tack likely to throw him to windward of me. My voice changed, and I lowered it as I said: 'Mr Jones, I happened to sail half the voyage as a passenger in that ship, and I've no common reason to be anxious about her getting safe into port. There's one single being in her at this moment I'd willingly lose my life to save from anything like what one could fancy--ay, so help me God, suppose I'd no chance of ever setting eyes on her again!' Jones never stirred a feature, but looked past me into the gleam of the moon over my shoulder. "'Well, Mr Jones,' I said, 'I'll acknowledge to you frankly, as from one seaman to another, the question is, Are you for me--or _not_?' 'We speak as man with man, it seems, Mr Collins!' said Jones quietly; 'then I am--_for_ you!' and he struck his hand all at once into mine; 'here's a hand that never lied, whatever the tongue may have done--bad or good; I am for you, sir, and no more of it! I knew as well as if you'd told me, Mr Collins, by the looks of the passengers, that you had sailed aboard that ship in some way or other--and what's more, sir, I _saw_----' here he stopped, looking at me with his back to the sinking gleam of light beyond the ship's hull, from the moon as she touched the water, and I saw nothing but the shape of his head under the straw hat, with a shadow blurring his face together, though I felt him eyeing me out of it all the time--'what some would think more worth while than if you were a Spanish plate-ship,' he went on; and he lowered his voice nearly to a whisper as he added, 'I tell you what, Mr Collins, 'tis my conviction that, _if you chose_, you might do what you liked in the end with that Indiaman and _all_ aboard her!' I stepped back with a shiver through me, as the sudden setting of the moon blended everything black in with Jones's shoulders, leaving his head instead of her against a glimmer of light, till for a moment it seemed peering at me off the horizon with the whole lump of shadow betwixt the two craft for a body; and I must say I thought of old stories about the Tempter in human form. 'Devil!' said I hoarsely, while the last gleam to westward went out, and it got so dark I could have fancied Jones had vanished from the bulwarks without stirring a foot; in fact, on my moving to the place I touched the cool planks with my hand--he was actually gone! Nothing was visible beyond our own decks, save a slight glimmer such as one would make in sculling with a single oar; and I saw at once he had taken the small boat alongside to go aboard the Indiaman! All the rest was that thick heavy darkness only to be found in a calm in the Indian Ocean, towards morning: you may not only say you see it, but could stir it, as it were, with a stick. "A horrid notion of Jones's purpose crept through my mind at first; but on second thoughts I easily saw this wasn't the occasion for him to choose, if he had really meant ill, and accordingly there was more the reason to trust him. Indeed, as I stood listening and watching, after Westwood and the planter went below, the Indiaman's binnacle lamp seemed to go slowly out, while at the same time the sound of her watch speaking on the forecastle apparently got distincter, till I could hear them clear of the ship's hull and rigging, like low voices muttering in the air betwixt her and us. 'Twas only her having sheered gradually bow-on to the schooner again, however, as a calm near the equator has always something like a _pulse_ in it--but it struck me there were men out on her jib-boom, which being of course the very privatest part of any in a ship for talk--why, to find more than one going out there, of a dark night, and with no work to do, never looks otherwise than suspicious. Nothing of this kind surprised me at present in the _Seringapatam_, with the opinion I had of her; but the curious thing was, that the fellows must have supposed it the farthest point they could get out of sight of us, as well as from their own decks, she having had her beam to the schooner when the moon set. "The desperate feelings that steal upon a man in such a case, and the fearful notions that breed in his head, with the quickness of his senses and the way he holds on by a single rope, you can scarcely conceive, though if a cry had come from the Indiaman at that moment I daresay I should have sprung in head foremost to get to her, when all at once, from up in the air again, I thought I heard the smart click of a flint and steel; at any rate, I saw the sparks showering from it in the midst of the black space before me--even the pair of fists as they knocked together, then a mouth blowing the match, till there was a light in a lantern between four heads leaning towards each other over the spar. Queer enough it would have been to see, in ordinary circumstances, but you'll readily fancy what a thing it looked all of a sudden, right out in the midst of the pitch-black night, one didn't know how or where--in fact, two of them faced each other in the stream of light from one side of the lantern, like the two edges of a rent in the dark, and another was like a sprawling blot in the centre--you just saw they were faces and heads, with a foot or two of the thick round boom slanting up betwixt them; but as for their bodies, they were all of a piece with the perfect blackness beyond. I could see one of them hold up the lantern and pass it round the three others' faces, bringing out their chins and noses, as if to be sure who they were--a piece of caution which served almost equally well for me, for I remembered each of them by headmark amongst the crew, only I didn't see the said fellow himself, even when he drew out some paper or other in one hand, seemingly unfolded it with the help of his teeth, and spread it over the jib-boom under the lantern, whereupon the whole four of the heads drew close together in a black lump round the light, peering down upon the paper, and muttering away as much at their ease, no doubt, as if they'd been in a tap-room. All I wished for was a good rifle-barrel in my hand at the time, to have knocked the light out from the midst of them, and sent the bullet by accident through the tarpaulin hat behind it--especially when a glaring red flipper was shoved out on the white paper, and the thumb planted steadily on a particular spot. All at once, however, the light was put out in the lantern, and I heard them going in-board, as the noise of the morning watch being called, at four o'clock, got up round the forehatchway. CHAPTER XXVII "In about half-an-hour the faint glimmer of Jones's oar in the water showed how hard it was to find the schooner again; however, he managed to get aboard at last, by which time I was walking carelessly past the binnacle in the dark, and as soon as he sought me out and began to speak, I saw it was all right. Mr Snelling came on deck to his watch, blowing up the men for letting out the only light aboard, as he didn't know fore-and-aft from 'thwart-ships, nor north from south. The cabin lamp under the skylight had gone out too for want of oil, without being noticed as long as the moon shone, and not even the planter's cheroot was to be seen. From the snatches of their conversation he had time to gather, I agreed with Jones that, whatever the four fellows on the jib-boom might have intended beforehand, their present cue wasn't at all to try seizing the ship; in fact, the schooner's sudden appearance in this latitude, with what they knew of her before, had naturally enough brought out a number of the crew in different colours to what they'd stick to after getting a fright and finding their mistake--though by this time I had no doubt in my own mind that the villain who bent on his silk neckerchief to the signal halliards in that hurry the afternoon before actually meant it for the _black flag_, while the absurdity of an Indiaman _striking_ at all to a cruiser that wanted her just to heave-to, was a sign how most of the crew's minds went, as long as they fancied us pirates. However, Jones had seen sufficient of the lantern affair on the boom to explain it to my great relief; the ringleader of them, no other I was sure than ugly Harry himself, seemed to scrub trousers ordinarily for one of the quarter-deck officers, and had got hold of an old chart in his berth that same evening, which the four had come out there to get a private overhaul of. All Jones could get room to see was that it was a chart of some islands, with a particular mark at one of them, on which the fellow with the lantern put his thumb, when another asked if there weren't any trees on it. 'Trees, ay, trees enough to hang all the blasted lubbers afloat!' said the first, as Jones listened. 'I'd as soon think of sailing in a craft without spars as aboard a dazart ileyand without trees!' One was tired of the Indiaman, another sick of the world, and a third, with Jack down on the bowsprit, wanted to chase buffaloes and shoot birds. As for the rest, the head of the gang assured his mates there were plenty of other islands not far off, and natives in them; whereupon the light was put out, and, in short, they made it up amongst them to take one of the ship's boats quietly some night as soon as she got in the latitude of the Maldives, and steer for this said island; although, in case of their being dogged about by the schooner, of which the chief scoundrel seemed, by Jones's account, to have a wholesome fear, it wouldn't be so easy a matter. Indeed the last words he was heard to say, as they crept inward down the boom, were to the effect that he thought there were _some aboard_ as anxious to drop the cruiser as they were. ''Faith, Mr Jones,' said I, glad to find this was what they wanted, 'if that's all, I shan't stand in their way--so as soon as the breeze springs up, we'd better clear off altogether. The smoothest way is to let them take themselves quietly off and I've no fear of the ship--only, before fairly shaping our own course for Bengal, we must manage to have another sight of her under full sail for Bombay!' "Neither of us thought of turning in, for by the next half-hour, in fact, the Indiaman's hull and canvas began to blacken out of the gloom on one side--the blue of the water spread round till it glittered against the ring of light kindling and kindling on the horizon, till it rose seemingly in a perfect fire at one spot in the rim of it, blazing up toward the cool blue aloft; then the sun was out. As long as we had to stick to your niceties and fine manners, in fact, I felt as much afraid of meeting Violet herself as a country booby would--I'll be hanged if I wasn't in doubt of her cutting me dead, suppose I met her, and I shouldn't have had a word to say; whereas with a spice of the rough work I thought of all night, or even a chance of something desperate behind, why, a fellow needn't to mind much how he went about it--seeing that in the midst of a hubbub the words come into your mouth of themselves, and you're not expected to stand upon ceremony. "The Scotch mate, being now first officer, had the side-ropes handed us civilly enough, having just seen the decks washed down in his own thorough manner, carronades, ropes, and all; but as the captain wasn't turned out yet, I went up the poop, where a couple of boys were still swabbing up the wet. The moment I reached it, the sight of the only two passengers that were out so early, rather took me aback, one of them being the last I cared to meet--namely, the Irish Brigadier's lady, who was walking the deck in pattens, the boys evidently keeping clear of her with their swabs; and the stout red-faced Brigadier himself, buttoned up to the throat, while he stalked dismally fore-and-aft with her on his arm. At the first glimpse of me, General Brady stopped short and stared--I daresay he was doubtful whether to call me out or not. 'Glad to _say_ you again, sir!' said he. 'Well, now,' said his lady, 'you're the very man I wanted to see!' I still looked at her, unable to say the like of herself, but terrified to speak a wrong word, with the knowledge of her confounded temper: the Brigadier had planted himself betwixt me and the poop-stairs, and never having fairly come across her since the affair about her dog and the shark, why, absurd as it was, I didn't know what the woman might make of my connection with the same craft that carried her off so soon after. "'Yes, indeed, and 'twas foolish of me not to see it in ye at first!' she went on, shaking her parasol at me in a knowing way, and eyeing the schooner again. 'Howiver, _I heard_ of you!' said she, with another look that set me all alive, 'and a mighty bold sort of admirer you are!' 'Faith, sir,' said the Brigadier, 'if I'd commanded the batthery down there last night, I'd have waited till ye got nearer, and blown you out of the wather.' ''Tis only a lieutenant you are?' said his lady, speaking without scruple in the midst of his words, and frowning him quiet. 'Nothing more, ma'am,' I said. 'Well, now, Mister Lieutenant,' said the lady suddenly, 'what d'ye mean to do? You didn't find us out here, I suppose, and actually take these cowardly ship-people of ours by _say_ge-like a bold fellow, for nothing?' After a few words more, Mrs Brady all of a sudden vanished down the little quarter-gallery stair near the ship's taffrail; though I had scarce missed her ere she appeared again, making me a signal. 'Hush, now!' said she in a whisper out of the stairway, 'and step after me like a cat amongst broken b_h_ottles, for he's shaving yonder just now on the opposite side--I saw his kitmagar taking in the hot water.' Next moment I had followed her into the small state-room in the larboard quarter, where she opened an inner door and left me. By Jove! I could have hugged that Irishwoman on the spot, vixen as she was--no matter though the very ship might be out of sight in a few hours, and I never set eyes on her again; I thought no more of it at the moment than I did of her skipper waiting for me--everything was lost in the notion of seeing Violet Hyde's face come out of that door. All the time there was a whispering, a rustling, and a confusion in the berth, as if she were taken by surprise, naturally enough--then I caught a word or two of the young lady's own, that made me think it was all up. "The door-handle turned, and the door half opened, then it shut to again, and I heard Mrs Brady's voice in a coaxing sort of strain, till at last she opened the door wide and said: 'Then you won't, my dear? So Mister Lieutenant what's-his-name,' added she, 'you may be off to your vessel, and----' Suddenly I saw Violet's figure shrinking back, as it were, behind the Brigadier's lady, into the berth; but all at once she walked straight out to the state-room, half frowning and half laughing, with an angry kind of blush all over her face. Her hair was only looped up on the side, and braided on the other, as if it weren't rightly ship-shape yet for the day; while as for her dress, I remember nothing except its being some brown cloak or other wrapped so close about her that one couldn't even see her hands, like the picture of a nun. 'Mrs Brady seems so astonished to see you here again, Mr Collins,' said she, rather sharply, as I thought, 'that she cannot rest without all the passengers meeting you, I suppose, before you go?' With that she looked back, but Mrs Brady had walked out, though I heard the young lady's waiting-girl moving about inside the berth yet. ''Twas all an accident, my happening to come on board just now, Miss Hyde,' said I, anxiously, 'or, indeed, my having orders to speak the Indiaman at all!' 'Ah!' she answered--'and it was so strange of Mrs Brady to--to persist!' The lovely girl had scarce condescended to look at me yet, but here she glanced past me through the quarter-gallery window at the schooner, where there was nothing betwixt her and the gay little state-room save the blue heaving water and the light--then her eye seemed to pass from the epaulet on my shoulder to the other that had none, till it lighted for the first time on my face, with a smile. "'How beautiful your schooner looks just now, Mr Collins!' said she, turning hastily again; 'it is the--the same that--that we saw before?' Now there was something in those blue eyes of hers, with the dark lashes over them and under them, that made me lose sight at the moment of everything in the way of my success, fear and all--a sort of a flying glance it was, that I couldn't help turning to my favour. 'For God's sake, Miss Hyde,' said I, 'let me have something one way or other to know my fate by--it's no use telling my mind after all that's come and gone; but as I mayn't see you again--and the breeze will be up directly--why----' Violet stood all the while gazing down on the state-room carpet, making no answer: there was a dead stop, and I heard the first ripple of the breeze work against the ship's rudder below--by Jove! I could have hanged myself at that moment--when I saw her shoulder tremble as she looked down, her soft eyelids just lifted till I caught the blue of her eye, and the smile came over her lip. How I got hold of her hand--for that confounded cloak, or whatever it was, I really don't know; but so it was, and out I came with the words, 'Violet--I love you to the last drop of my blood, that's all!' I said; 'and I only wish I had the chance of showing it!' Violet Hyde drew her hand gently out of mine, and looked me straight in the face for a moment with a merry sort of a quizzical air, as if I meant some other adventure--and 'Oh no! I hope not!' added she, with a shudder, and then a blush, no doubt thinking of the African river. 'But Violet, Violet!' said I, eagerly, as she made a move toward the nearest door, 'won't you say, then--_something_, for Heaven's sake, to keep one in hope?' 'Why, what would you have, sir?' said she, quickly, still turning away--but bless me! I don't exactly remember what followed, in the desperation I felt--nor how near she was to me when I heard her begging me to 'go, go, if I really loved her!' 'Dearest girl!' I said, 'I shall be far enough off in a short time!' 'Do you actually sail so soon, then?' said Violet, in a low voice. 'Why, they're bracing round the ship's yards already, I hear,' answered I; 'but indeed I think the schooner might keep near for a few days, too----' 'No--no!' said she anxiously, 'go altogether, else my father will be still more set against--against----Perhaps,' she added, 'we may see you in Calcutta, when--you are'--and her eye glanced from one shoulder of my uniform to the other. 'When I've got my epaulet shifted to the right shoulder?'[26] asked I, eagerly; '_then_ may I see you?' '_See_--yes,' was the whisper I caught--and 'Dearest, _dearest_ Violet,' said I, almost going down on the deck before her, 'suppose I manage to ship them on _both_, in this confounded peace, will you----' Hush!' said Violet, listening, and all in a flutter, 'indeed you must go, else _I_ must!' 'For God's sake, Violet,' I went on, keeping hold of her hand as she tried to get away, 'will you wait a year or two and give me the chance of a war in China--or up the Mediterranean--or----' But here the wild notions I had for a moment left me. [26] At that period the distinguishing mark of a commander, as the epaulet on the _left_ shoulder, of a lieutenant, and the epaulet on _both_, of a post-captain. "Somehow or other at that instant a terrible glimpse, as it were, of Bonaparte standing up on the crag in St Helena flashed across me; and as the folly of the thing, let alone the impudence of it, struck me, I nigh-hand groaned, while Violet Hyde's fingers slipped out of mine. Just then she turned full round with a soft look of her eyes, and was going to say something, as I thought; but the handle of the aftermost door turned, and the Brigadier's lady hastened in. As I glanced round, something or other dropped lightly into the palm of my hand, and next moment Violet was gone. 'Twas only a little knot of white ribbon I'd got, though the scent and the warm touch of it together were enough to startle one--I almost thought she'd changed into it; and to this day, ma'am, I'll be hanged if I know what _that_ was the scent of--unless it was sandal wood! "'Quick!' said Mrs Brady, in a hurry, 'what d'ye stand staring there for, man alive? Sir Charles is upstairs, and you can't go this way; so through the cabins with ye, lieutenant, and out on the quarther-dheck!' Before I well knew what I was doing, accordingly, we were in the judge's main-cabin, where the ship's masts and the men gathering about the ropes could be seen through the round-house doors as they stood open. 'Mrs Brady,' said I, suddenly stepping back to her, 'you're an angel, ma'am, and----' 'You unprincipled young villain ye!' said she, springing aft with her fingers spread, and begining to raise her voice, 'what would ye do! Brigadier.--D'ye think 'tis deaf I was in the stair yonder, you promiscuous young----' However, I gave her one bewildered look, and heard no more of it, bolting as I did through the nearest door right against the man coming to the wheel; while the midshipman was on the look-out for me everywhere to say that the captain of the Indiaman was waiting for me below in his cabin. "Indeed she was moving slowly through the water already, as the light cat's-paws ruffled it here and there, and drew aloft into her royals; our own little craft beginning to slip gently along to leeward of the ship, with the dark Lascars' faces under the foot of her white fore-topmast-staysail, giving her a doubtful enough air, I must own. I had nothing particular to say to Finch, in fact; but, captain as he was of the Indiaman for the time, 'twas the least I could do to see him; besides that somehow or other, I had a sort of feeling as I came on board half-an-hour before, I couldn't exactly say why, that made one anxious for a near sight of him. If he suspected anything wrong amongst his crew, why at any rate he would have an opportunity of mentioning it ere we parted company; but, awkward as our meeting each other again was, of course, and both being on such different footing from before, while my own mind was naturally full of what had just happened, it turned out much as might be expected. Finch was evidently not the same man he had been a few weeks before, except in his puppy fine gentleman manners and way of dress, which were twice as high-flown; with his hair curled, a white handkerchief hanging half out of his breast-pocket, a regular East India uniform, and everything showing the tiptop skipper. The thing that set me less at my ease with him was, that I was sure, by one glance of his eye, he had a pretty fair guess of where I had been last, and saw it in my manner--which made me the more careful, as matters stood, to give no signs of more meddling with the Indiaman. However, I threw in a hint or two, when Finch out and told me quite frankly, there _had_ been a little disorderly conduct on board after they left the Cape, but he had thoroughly put it down, without letting the passengers know anything about it, as he said: only, the very day before, at the time when the schooner fired, there were a few of the men, he told me, that seemed inclined to disobey orders--fellows he wished he could get rid of. "'Now, Captain Finch,' said I, as I looked over my shoulder at them from the capstan, 'will you point out the men you spoke of, sir, that showed themselves mutinous?' Finch drew back at this, however, and hummed and hawed at the word. 'Yes, _mutinous_,' repeated I; 'there's no use mincing the matter, I suppose. Just be so good as let me see the fellows, and I'll rid you of them at once!' Finch's glance followed mine as it lighted on Harry Foster's shaggy head watching us with the eye of a buffalo, past a knot of slouching, hulking, foremast-men of his own kidney. The moment I caught sight of Jacobs' broad, hearty, brown face, standing apart a bit with his friends, Tom, Bill, the red-haired Irish topman, and three other honest-like man-o'-war's-men, I took my cue for the meantime. 'My lads,' said I, walking quietly forward, 'I want a few hands for the _Hebe_ frigate--you know her, I daresay--and that's enough; for a model like the _Hebe_ doesn't float the water--now, I can't press any of you!' Here a general laugh ran along both rows, and I heard a growling chuckle from ugly Foster. 'But,' added I, laughing too, 'you can _volunteer_!' "There was a dead silence, in the midst of which Tom, the fore-topman, the most dashing fellow in the ship, stepped aft with his hat in his hand, then Jacobs, then Bill, and my acquaintance the 'Savage,' then the three others. In place of grumbling, in fact, there began to be a hurrah amongst the rest, except some of Foster's chums; a few more seemed inclined to follow, and as for my gentleman captain, he appeared not to know what to do. 'Now, my man,' said I, stepping straight up to ugly Harry, and eyeing him right in the face as he stood, 'you're a fine seaman-like fellow--true-blue, I'm sure--I've taken a particular fancy to ye--won't you ship for the _Hebe_--eh?' Foster didn't know where to look, twisting himself round, hitching up his trousers, and altogether taken fairly aback; every eye was on him, and I'll be hanged if I don't think he turned it in his mind to agree. 'Come, Foster,' said I, in a low voice, 'I know you, my man, but if you ship I'll look over the whole!' All at once Captain Finch walked up to me, saying, 'If you persist in taking these men, sir, you'll have to answer for it, I can tell you!' 'I know my own meaning, sir,' said I firmly; 'I am in the regular course, and answer for it I will! Say the word, my man, and ship?' said I again. 'Blowed if I do!' said Harry, turning on his heel with a grim scowl; 'none o' yer frigates for me!' and he walked off. Jacobs and the others came on the gangway with their bags, however, and pitched them to the men in the boat, without anyone offering to interfere; indeed, Finch had seemingly given it up sooner than I expected. "'Now, Captain Finch,' said I, before stepping over the side after Mr Snelling and the men, 'I'd much rather we could have hit upon the right men; however, the more need for my keeping in sight of you to windward, as I shall do at least till we steer for the Bay of Bengal. I couldn't do less, you see,' added I, on getting no answer, 'than make myself strong enough to help you if needful!' 'I shall report to the Admiral at Bombay, sir!' said he fiercely. 'You may do that, Captain Finch,' I said, 'as soon as possible; but, in the meantime, you can't be sure of what may turn up of a dark night, and a couple of lights at your main-yardarm, or anywhere, will bring the schooner down in half-an-hour or so if there's a breeze. As for a calm,' said I, turning round--but such a strange white look had come over Finch's face as he glanced after me, that, thinking he was beside himself with rage, I went down the side without another word. 'Take your own way!' I fancied I heard him mutter betwixt his teeth; but next moment we were pulling off. "Well, the breeze ere this time was steady, though light, and we drew gradually to windward of the Indiaman, till by the afternoon the white band on her hull was just awash with the water, and there I kept her, with a little variety, pretty near the whole night, and most of the following day. "The next night came almost as dark as it had been that night of the calm; but the breeze freshened again pretty strong, and accordingly I kept the schooner down to get nearer the ship, which we had seen in the first dog-watch dead to leeward. I was rather uneasy for a while at not being able to make out her lights, and we slipped fast through the water, when all at once both Jones and Westwood called out from forward that they saw them, and I walked to the bows. "'All right,' said I, 'but, no, by heaven! That's the signal I named to the captain! Set stunsails, Mr Jones, and make her walk, for God's sake!' _Two_ lights it was aloft in the gloom, right to leeward as before: there was something wrong, or else she wanted to speak us; so away we flew before the wind, under everything that could be set. I looked and looked, when a thought struck me; not another light was to be seen below, and they weren't high enough from the heave of the sea for even a ship's lower mast. "Yes, by George!' said I hurriedly to Westwood and Jones, 'that's a _trick_! The fellow means to give us the slip. Clap the helm down, Mr Snelling, and haul aft the sheets there--luff, luff!' We were losing our weather-gage; in fact, the Indiaman must actually be to windward of us ere then, and if the breeze freshened we might lose them altogether. The thing that troubled me most was, that I couldn't believe the man had thought of such a plan himself; and if he once took a hint from any of the scoundrels I knew were aboard, why, there was no saying what might be the upshot in the end. Finch was a common enough character at bottom; but with such notions as I was sure were working in his head about Miss Hyde, one step might lead him on to another, till any chance occasion might make a desperate villain of him, especially if he suspected myself of aught like good fortune with the young lady. It wasn't much past midnight, the air was wonderfully heavy and sweltering, and the swell going down, when we heard a murmur amongst the men on the forecastle, and saw a red fire-ball pass high over to nor'ard for half-a-minute, leaving a trail in the dark sky beyond the headsails. "A queer ghastly sort of ruddy gray streak opened out in the black of the horizon, where some of them thought they made out the ship; but soon after we could hear a low hollow kind of a hum, rushing as it were from east to west, till it grew almost like the sound of waves on a beach; which made us begin to look to ourselves. There was a bright line of light directly in the opposite quarter, and the sea far away seemed getting on fire, with a noise and hubbub coming along below, that nobody appeared to know the meaning of; while aloft it was as still as a church. For a moment I saw the _Seringapatam_ quite plainly several miles off; but from the confusion, I never could say whether it was north or east; in fact, we kept watching the canvas, expecting to have a hurricane into it next minute. Suddenly the sea came gleam-gleaming and flickering on, as it were, with a washing bubble and a hissing smother of foam, till it splashed right against our larboard bulwarks, heaping up like perfect fire upon the schooner's side, and running past both stern and bows, away with a long rolling flash to the other horizon. All was pitch-dark again after that, and a whisper went about our decks and round the binnacle lamp of 'The _ripples_!--It's the ripples!'[27] 'Nothing more, sir!' said Jones, even he seemingly taken by surprise at first. Twice again we had it, though each time fainter, right out of the midst of the gloom; after which it was as calm as before. 'Thank God!' said I, breathing hard, 'we'll have that Indiaman in the morning, at any rate!' 'Why, sir,' answered Jones, thoughtfully, 'after this we are likely to have the south-west monsoon upon us ere long--'tis just the place and the season for it.' [27] The "Ripples"--a marine phenomenon peculiar, apparently, to the Indian Ocean. "And so it was. Instead of sighting the _Seringapatam_ at daybreak, I had a strong suspicion she had gone to eastward; but of course the faster the schooner was, why if it were the wrong way we should only get from her the farther, and miss her altogether, without ever knowing how matters went, even if she got quietly into port; so, being the best plan I could think of for the meantime, away we drove north-westward, sweeping the horizon with the glass every morning. We had run so far, indeed, without success, that I was sure she couldn't be ahead; when one day I asked Mr Jones to bring me up the chart for those parts, as we took the latitude. We were a long way to westward of our own course at the time, and Jones's finger went along eastward till it stopped right upon the Maldive islands, while he looked up with a sudden sharp glance. 'By heaven,' said I, 'yes!--I forgot that story altogether--be so good as to send that man there, Jacobs, to me. Jacobs,' said I, 'which of the officers' clothes did that fellow Foster use to scrub lately, in the Indiaman?' Jacobs gave his hair a rub, recollected a moment, and answered, 'Why, sir, the captain's own.' 'Oh!' I said, 'well, that'll do, Jacobs'--and Jacobs walked forward again. 'Mr Jones,' said I, quickly, '_that_ chart belonged to the captain!--I'll have a look at that said desert island, sir!' We found something answering to it on the chart; and in a few minutes the schooner was bowling before the dregs of the monsoon to eastward. "'At all events,' added I, 'we'll see if these vagabonds mean to keep their word and turn hermits--either we catch them there, Mr Jones, or else we must find that Indiaman, though she were in sight of Colibah[28] lighthouse!' Jones's eye lighted, and he turned his nostrils to the monsoon as if he snuffed it in; in fact, he was that sort of man that needed somewhat out of the common way to keep him right." [28] Outside the harbour of Bombay. CHAPTER XXVIII "'No, Westwood,' said I, 'it can't be the right one--nor any of these, indeed!' And on looking at the chart, which was one not meant for anything but navigation in open water, with the channels laid down clearly enough, but evidently rather offhand as to the islands, Jones himself seemed to get uncertain about the matter; partly owing to the short glimpse he'd had of the other chart, and partly to its being, as he thought, an old one made for a purpose, by a hand that knew the islands well. After two or three days' sail, we were getting into the thick of the Maldives, where the reefs and sandbanks stretching out on every side, and beginning to lap in upon each other, made it more and more dangerous work; but at any rate the islands we saw were either very small, or else low and muddy-like, with a few scrubby-looking cocoas upon them, like bulrushes growing out of a marsh. No runaway sailors would ever think of taking up their quarters hereabouts, even if we hadn't caught sight of a smoke now and then, and once of some native craft with a couple of brown mat-sails, and an out-rigger, that showed the clusters hereaway to have people about them. Besides, there was no pretext any Indiaman could have for steering near enough to such a jungle of mud and water, to give a boat the chance of making towards it with any certainty. "I saw at once that the spot in question must lie tolerably for the course of a ship to Western India, otherwise they wouldn't have appeared so sure of their mark as Jones said they did. All this, at the same time, kept me the more bent on searching the matter out ere I did aught else, seeing that in fact the Indiaman's attempt to get rid of the schooner was the very thing likely to bring her on this track; fancying, as she would, that we were either in chase of her toward Bombay, or off on our own course again. Now, on the one hand, nothing could fit better for the said runaway scheme of Harry Foster's; and on the other hand, nothing would have pleased me more, and greatly eased my mind too, than to catch him and his chums on their spree ashore. The worst of it was, that I began to have my doubts of Jones again. He was the only man that could put us on the right scent; yet he seemed either to have lost it, or to have something creeping on his mind that made him unwilling to carry it out. "'Mr Jones,' said I, as the schooner was hove-to, and he stood musing gloomily by the binnacle, with a glance now and then in at the compass, and out at the chart again, 'if you're at a loss now, sir, just say--and I shall try my own hand for want of a better!' "'No, Lieutenant Collins!' answered he suddenly, in a husky voice--'no, sir, that's not it, but--God help me! no, there's no use standing against fate, I see. Whatever it costs me, Mr Collins,' he went on firmly, 'I'm with you to the end of it; but--there _is_ something horrible about all this!' 'How! what do you mean?' said I, startled by the difference in his manner, and the quiver of his lip. 'Oh,' said he, 'as for the present matter, there may be nothing more in it than what I heard on the ship's boom yonder. The truth is, I didn't know at first but this cluster here might have been the one--though I see now there is only _one_ island in the whole chain that can answer the description, and that is not here.' With that he pointed to another piece of the chart, showing no more than a few spots upon the paper, not to speak of shades in it standing for reefs and shoals, towards the 'Head' of the Maldives; one spot lying away from the rest, with the single name of Minicoy for them all. I asked him hastily enough what it was called, and all about it, for the whole affair made me more and more uneasy; but on this point Jones seemed inclined to keep close, plainly not liking the topic, except that I found it went by several names, one of which I had heard before myself--White-water Island. "About the time I was a boy in a merchantman's forecastle, 'twas a sort of floating yarn amongst some seamen, this White-water Island, I remembered; but I never met with a man that had seen it, every one having had it from a shipmate last voyage, though a terrible place it had been, by all accounts, without one's knowing exactly where it was. One craft of some kind had gone to find out a treasure that was buried in it, and she never was heard of more; a man took a fancy to live ashore in it, like Robinson Crusoe, and he went mad, while the reason there were no 'natives' was owing to the dreadful nature of it, though at the same time it was as beautiful as a garden. The right name, however, according to Jones, was Incoo. 'There's no good in blinding one's self to it, Mr Collins,' he went on; 'that's the island the men meant, only their chart set me wrong owing to the greater size of it--you had better beat out of this at once, and keep up for the eight-degrees channel there.' "We were in open sea again, out of sight of land from the mast-head, steering for somewhere about north-north-east, with a very light breeze from nearly the monsoon quarter, and sometimes a flying squall, sometimes no more than a black pour of rain, that left it hotter than before. The clear, deep blue of the Indian Ocean got to a sickly heavy sort of dead colour towards noon, like the bottoms of old bottles, and still we were standing on without signs of land, when, almost all at once, I noticed the water in the shadow of the schooner had a brown, coffee-like tint I had never exactly seen hitherto; indeed, by the afternoon, it was the same hue to the very horizon, with a clean seaboard on all sides. I had the deep-sea lead-line hove at length, and found no soundings with a hundred and fifty fathoms; there was neither land nor river, I knew, for hundreds and hundreds of miles to the coast of Arabia; as for current, no trial I could think of showed any; and there were now and then patches of small glittering sea-jellies and sea-lice to be seen amongst a stalk or two of weed on the soft heave of the water, going the way of the breeze. A dozen or so of Portuguese men-of-war, as they call them, held across our bows one time; little pink blubbers, with their long, shining roots seen hanging down in the clear of the surface, and their little blue gauze sails with the light through them, ribbed like leaves of trees, as they kept before the wind. Westwood and I both fancied we could feel a queer sulphury smell as we leant over the side, when a surge came along the bends. Not a single fish was to be seen about us, either, except the long big black-fish that rose one after the other at a distance, as the wind got lighter. One while you heard them groaning and gasping in the half-calm, as if it were the breathing of the sea far and wide every time it swelled; another, one saw them in a cluster of black points against the bright sky-line, like so many different shaped rocks with the foam round them, or a lot of long-boats floating bottom up, with their back-horns for humps on the keel. As for Jones, he looked graver and graver, till all of a sudden we saw him go below; but after a little he came up with an almanack in his hand, and his finger fixed where the time of the next new moon was given, as I found when I took it from him, for he seemed not inclined to speak. 'Why, what has that to do with the thing?' I said. 'We are heading fair for the Minicoy cluster, I think.' 'Yes, sir,' said he; 'if one needed anything to prove that, he has only to look at the sea; at this season, I _knew_ how it would turn out.' 'Well, that's what I can't understand, Mr Jones,' said I; 'the water seems as deep as St Paul's Cathedral thrice over!' "'Do you not know then, sir, why that island is called--what it is?' was the answer. 'But, wait--wait--till _night_!' And with that Jones turned round to the bulwarks, leaning his arms on the rail. In the meantime Jacobs and some of the men had drawn a bucket of water, which we noticed them tasting. A pannikin full of it was handed along to the quarter-deck, and the taste struck you at once, owing to the want of the well-known briny twang of real blue water, and instead of that a smack as it were of iron, though it was as clear as crystal. Everyone had a trial of it but Jones himself; indeed, he never once looked round, till it had occurred to me to pour the tin of water into a glass, and hold it with my hand over it inside the shade of the binnacle, when I thought I made out little specks and sparks shooting and twisting about in it, as if the water had a motion of itself; then it seemed to sink to the bottom, and all was quiet. Just then I looked up and caught Jones's scared, restless sort of glance, as if he were uneasy. There was a strange life in that man's brain, I felt, that none could see into; but owing as it plainly was to something far away from the present matter, I knew it was best to let him alone. In fact, his doing as he did showed well enough he meant fair by ourselves. Nothing on earth ever gave me more the notion of a wreck in a man than the kind of gaze out of Jones's two eyes when he'd turn to the light and look at you, half-keen, half-shrinking, like a man that both felt himself above you, and yet, somehow or other, you'd got him under you. "I'm blessed if I didn't trust him more because he had been too desperate a character in his deeds beforehand to turn his mind to little ones now, than for anything good in him; being one of those fellows that work their way from one port to another in ships' forecastles, and get drunk ashore, though, all the time, you'd say there wasn't one aboard with them, from the skipper to the chaplain, knew as much or had flown as high some time. Some day at sea the hands are piped round the grating, hats off, and the prayer-book rigged--down goes 'Jack Jones' with a plash and a bubble to his namesake, old 'Davy,' and you hear no more of him! "Well, just after sundown, as the dusk came on, Westwood and I left the deck to go down to supper with the planter, the midshipman being in charge. There was nothing in sight, sail or land; indeed, the queer dark-brown tint of the horizon showed strongly against the sky, as if it had been the mahogany of the capstan-head inside its brass rim; the night was cloudy, with a light breeze, and though the stars came out, I expected it to get pretty dark. As I went down the companion, I heard nothing but the light wash of the water from her bows, and the look-out stepping slowly about betwixt her knight-heads on the forecastle; while it struck me the smooth face of the sea seemed to show wonderfully distinct into the dusk, the completer it got, as if a sort of light rose up from off it. Down below we felt her stealing pleasantly through all, and Tom and I sat for I didn't know how long, trying to settle our differences on the main point--about the _Seringapatam_, of course, and which way she was likely to be gone. Tom plumed himself mightily on his common-sense view of a thing, and having by this time got back a good deal of his cheerfulness, he and Mr Rollock almost laughed me over to his line of thinking. "We then agreed that the ship must be at present edging up on one side or other of the Maldives, but both of them thought the less we had to say to her the better. 'I say, though,' exclaimed the planter, whose face was turned the opposite way to ours, 'I'd no idea it was moonlight!' 'Moonlight! there's no moon till morning,' I said. 'Look into the stern-cabin there, then!' said Rollock; and I turned round, seeing into the door of the after-cabin, where, to my no small surprise, there was a bright white glare through the little square stern-light, gleaming on the rim of the sill, and seemingly off both the air and the water beyond. Quite confounded, as well as wondering what Snelling could be about, I hurried up the companion, the planter and Westwood hard at my heels. "For so long as I had kept at sea, and a good many different latitudes I had been into, yet I must say I never in my life before saw such a strange sight as broke on us the instant we put our heads out of the booby-hatch, fresh from the lamp-light in the cabin. Indeed, I can't but own to my first feeling being fright; for what it was I couldn't understand, unless we were got into a quarter of the world where things weren't natural. There were a few stray clouds in the sky, scattered away ahead, and clearing eastward to settle along before the breeze; all aloft of us, high over the sharp dark edge of the sails and gaffs, the air seemed to open away out, pale and glimmering like a reflection in the ice; all round you caught a glimpse of the stars weakening and weakening toward the horizon. "But the water itself--that was the sight that bewildered one! On every side the whole sea lay spread out smooth, and as white as snow--you couldn't fancy how wide it might stretch away astern on our lee-beam, for not a mark of horizon was to be seen, save on the north-west, where you made it out, owing to the sky there being actually darker than the sea--but all the time the wide face of it was of a dead ghastly paleness, washing with a swell like milk to our black counter as we forged ahead. It wasn't that it shone in the least like blue water at night in the ordinary tropics--by Jove! that would have been a comfort--but you'd have thought there was a winding-sheet laid over all, or we were standing across a level country covered with snow--only when I stood up, and watched the bows, there was a faint hissing sparkle to be seen in the ripple's edge that first brought me to myself. The Lascars had woke up where they lay about the caboose, and were cowering together for sheer terror; the men standing, each one in his place, and looking; while Jones, who had relieved the midshipman, leant by himself with his head on the capstan, as if to keep out the sight of it all; the schooner's whole dusky length, in fact, with every black figure on her decks, and her shape up to the lightest stick or rope of her aloft, appearing strange enough, in the midst of the broad white glare, to daunt anyone that wasn't acquainted with the thing. 'Mr Jones,' said I quickly, on going up to him, 'what the devil is this?' I'll be hanged if I didn't begin to believe in witchcraft or something. 'Where are we getting to?' 'Nothing, nothing, sir,' said he, lifting his head; ''tis natural enough; only the milk-sea, as they call it--the white-water, sir, that comes down twice a year hereabouts from God knows where--you only see it so at--at _night_!' "'Oh, then, according to that,' I said, 'we shan't be long of sighting your island, I suppose?' 'No,' said he; 'if the breeze freshens at all, keeping our present course, the mast-head ought to hail it in two or three hours; but, God knows, Lieutenant Collins, natural though the sight is, there's something a man can't get rid of, especially if----' He stood up, walked to the side, and kept facing the whole breadth of the awful-looking sea, as it were, till it seemed to blind him. 'I tell you what, sir,' said he, slowly, 'if that water had any use, a priest would say 'twas sent to wash that same island clean of what's been done on it; but it couldn't, Mr Collins, it couldn't till the day of judgment!' He leant over till his dark face and his shoulders, to my notion, made the milk-white surge that stole up to the schooner's bends take a whiter look. 'If that water could wash _me_ now,' muttered he, 'ay, if it could only take the soul out of me, but I'd go down, down this moment to the bottom!' With that he gave a sudden move that made me catch him by the arm. 'No, no, Mr Collins,' said he, turning round; 'the truth is, I mean to go through with it; I'll let it carry me where I am bound for! Wasn't I born without asking my leave, and I'll kick the bucket the same way, if it was on a blasted dunghill!' 'Come, come, Mr Jones,' said I, in a soothing sort of a way, 'go below for a little, and sleep; when we hail the land I'll have you called.' 'I'd rather not, sir,' said Jones, quietly; 'the truth is, it strikes me there's something strange in my happening to be aboard here, at this particular season, too; and see that same island, _now_, I must! It's fate, Lieutenant Collins,' added he; 'and I must say, I think it's the more likely something may turn out there. Either you'll see that ship, or the men, or else _I'll_ be there myself, in some way or other!' "Now there was something in all this that began at moments quite to bewilder one, the more excited the state was it put you in. There was nothing for it but to push on, and see what might come of it. Indeed, the weather favoured us better on our present course than on any other; and I felt, if I didn't keep active, I should go distracted. 'Twas almost as if what Jones said had a truth in it, and a sort of a power beyond one were drawing the schooner the way she steered; while at the same time there was every little while somewhat new in the extraordinary looks of things to hold you anxious. Even a flying touch of a squall we had about midnight didn't the least do away with the whiteness of the water all around; on the contrary, as the dark cloud crept down upon us, widening on both sides like smoke, the face of the sea seemed to whiten and whiten, casting up a ghastly gleam across the cloud, with its ripples frothing and creaming; till, not knowing _how_ things might go hereabouts, you almost expected the first rush of the wind to send it all in a flame to our mast-heads. "Then up she rose on a surge like a snowdrift, and off we drove heeling over to it, gaffs lowered and canvas down, everything lost sight of, save the white sea heaving up against the mist; while the clear- plash of it through our weather bulwarks showed it was water sure enough. The squall went off to leeward, however, the rain hissing like ink into the swell it left, and spotting it all over till the last drops seemed to sink in millions of separate sparkles as far as you could see. The schooner rose from one heave to another to an even keel on the smooth length of it, hoisting her spanking gaffs, hauling aft the sheets, and slipping ahead once more to a breeze fed by the rain. As the sky cleared, the dead white glare the water sent up into it was such you didn't know the one from the other toward the horizon; and in the midst there was only the smooth faint service, brushing whiter with the breeze, as if it was nothing else kept it from going out of sight; with a few streaky clouds turning themselves out like wool in a confused rift of the air aloft; the schooner walking in it without ever a glimpse of a shadow on one side or another; while, as for seeing a sail on the horizon, you might as well have looked for a shred of paper. It wasn't light, neither nor was it haze; nothing but a dead colour off the very sea's face--for the schooner rose and plunged without letting you see a hair's-breath of her draught below the water-line. Every man rubbed his eyes, as if it were all some kind of a dream, and none the less when suddenly we were right upon a long patch of black stripes winding away through the white, like so many sea-serpents come up to breathe, with both ends of them lost in the faintness. Nobody stirred, or said, 'Look-out'; stripe after stripe she went slipping through them as if they'd been ghosts, without a word or an extra turn of the wheel. I daresay, if we had commenced to rise in the air, every man would have held on like grim death, but he wouldn't have wondered much; 'twas just, 'whatever might happen to please them as had the managing of it,' which was Jacobs' observation when we talked of it after. "Mr Snelling was the only one that ventured to pass a joke; when Jones, who I thought was out of hearing, looked at the reefer with such a fierce glance, and so scornful at the same time, that I couldn't help connecting what happened the very next moment with it--for without the slightest warning, both of us were flung to leeward, and Snelling pitched into the scuppers, as a huge rolling ridge of the white water came down upon our beam; while the schooner broached-to in the wind, floundering on the swell with her sails aback. Had the breeze been stronger, I think it would have fairly swamped us with the stern-way she had; and heave after heave swelled, glaring and weltering out of the pale blind sky, till our decks swam with light in the dusk under the bulwarks, and about the dark mouths of the hatchways. Just as suddenly the rollers seemed to sink in the smooth of the sea, and at last we payed off with the breeze as before, at the cost of a good fright and a famous ducking. Two or three times in the course of the middle watch did this happen, except that we were taken less by surprise, and had the hatches closed, with every rope ready to let go; the breeze strengthening all the time, and the same sort of look continuing all round and aloft.[29] [29] The description of this peculiar phenomenon of the Indian Ocean, as given by Captain Collins, surprised us as much as the reality seems to have done him. However, on consulting a seafaring old gentleman of much experience in all parts of the world, we are informed that such an appearance is periodically to be met with for some distance between the Laccadive and Maldive Islands, as he had reason to know. The old Dutch Captain Stavorinus also furnishes an account substantially similar, having particularly attended to the cause of it in his voyage to the East Indies. It reaches also to some of the south-eastern islands at a great distance from India, near Java--or at all events appears there. In the Atlantic, Humboldt says there is a part of the sea always milky, although very deep, in about 57 degrees W. longitude, and the parallel of the island of Dominica. Of the same nature, probably, are the immense olive-green spaces and stripes seen in blue water by Captain Scoresby and others, toward the ice of the north polar regions. The pale sea alluded to is supposed either to move from the shores of Arabia Felix, and the gulfs in that coast, or, by some to arise, from sulphureous marine exhalations--appearing to rot the bottoms of vessels, and to frighten the fish. Both at the Laccadives and near Java it is seen twice a year, often with a heavy rolling of the sea and bad weather. The first time, at the new moon in June, it is called by the Dutch the "little white-water"; again, at the new moon in August, the great "white-water"; by English seamen, generally, the milk-sea, or the "blink." "About four o'clock or so, the appearance of the sky near where the horizon ought to be, right ahead, struck Westwood and me as stranger than ever; owing to a long lump of shadow, as it were, lying northward like the shape of a bow or the round back of a fish miles long, though it softened off at one end into the hollow of the air, and the gleam of the white water broke past the other like the streaks of the northern lights on a frosty night toward the Pole, save for the thin, shadowy tint of it, and the stars shining plainly through. I'd have fancied it was high land; when suddenly the half-moon was seen to ooze like a yellow spot out of the shapeless sort of steam to eastward, like a thing nobody knew, shedding a faint brown glimmer far below where you hadn't seen there was water at all. "The bank of shadow softened away towards her, till in little more than five minutes the dark rippling line of the sea was made out, drawn across the dusk as if it had been the wide mouth of a frith in the polar ice, opening far on our weather-bow. A soft blue shimmering tint stole out on it by contrast, leaving the milk-white glare still spread everywhere else, astern, ahead, and on our lee-beam, into the sightless sky: 'twas the old blue water we caught sight of once more, with the natural night and the stars hanging over it; and the look-out aloft reported blue water stretching wide off to the nor'ard. There was one full hurrah from the seamen in the bows, and they ran of themselves naturally enough to the ropes, standing by to haul the schooner on a wind--to head up for the old salt sea, no doubt. "'Lieutenant Collins,' said Jones in a low voice, 'do you mean to steer for that island, sir?' 'Yes,' I said, 'certainly, Mr Jones--I shall see this matter out, whatever the upshot may be!' 'Then keep on, sir,' said he firmly, 'keep in the white water--'tis your only plan to near it safely, sir!' This I didn't well understand; but, by Jove! there was so much out of the common way hereabouts, that I had made up my mind to follow his advice. Another hail from aloft, at length--'Something black on our lee-bows, sir--right in the eye of the white it is, sir!' We were now running fast down in the direction where there was least possibility of seeing ahead at all, although, in fact, the little moonshine we had, evidently began to make this puzzling hue of the surface less distinct--turning it of a queer ashy drab, more and more like the brown we noticed by daytime; while the light seemed as it were to scoop out the hollow of the sky aloft, when a dark spot or two could be observed from the deck, dotting the milky space over one bow--you couldn't say whether in the air or the water, as they hung blackening and growing together before us through below the foot of the jib. "Larger and larger it loomed as we stood before the breeze, till there was no doubt we had the bulk of a small low island not far to windward of us, a couple of points or thereabouts on our larboard bow when she fell off a little--lying with the ragged outline of it rising to a top near one end, its shape stretched black and distinct in the midst of the pale sea; while the white water was to be seen taking close along the edge of the island, showing every rock and point of it in the shadow from the moon, till it seemed to turn away all of a sudden like a current into the broad, dreamy glimmer that still lay south-eastward. On the other side of the island you saw the dark sea-ripples flickering to the faint moonlight, and some two or three more patches of flat land just tipping the horizon, with the thin cocoa-nut trees on them like reeds against the stars and the dusk; while the one nearest us was sufficiently marked out to have saved me the trouble even of the look I gave Jones, which he answered by another. 'You have seven or eight fathoms water here, sir,' added he; 'and as soon as she rounds the point yonder, we can shoal it by degrees to any anchorage you like, as long as we keep in the white water--but we must hold to _it_!' It was accordingly found so with the lead, and ere long, having kept past the point, the same milky hue could be noticed as it were jagging off through the darker water, and winding away hither and thither all round the other side, till you lost it. "However, here we brailed up and hauled down everything, letting go an anchor little more than half-a-mile from a small sloping beach, where the strange water actually surged up through the shadow of the land in one glittering sheet, like new-fallen snow, while the back-wash seethed down into it all along the edge in perfect fire. Nothing stirred on it, apparently; not a sound came from it, save the low wash of the surf on that lonely bare beach; and you only made out that part of the island was covered with trees, with the ground rising to a flat-topped hummock toward one end. So being pretty wearied by this time, impatient though I was for a clearer view of matters, most of us turned in, leaving the deck to a strong anchor-watch, in charge of Jones--especially as it was towards morning, and the breeze blowing fresh over the island through our ropes. But if ever a man walked the deck overhead in a fashion to keep you awake, it was Jones that morning: faster and faster he went, till you'd have thought he ran; then there was a stop, when you felt him _thinking_, and off he posted again. No wonder, by George! I had ugly dreams! CHAPTER XXIX "I could scarce believe it wasn't a dream still, when, having been called half-an-hour after daybreak, I first saw the change in the appearance of things all about us. The horizon lay round as clear as heart could wish--not a speck in sight save the little dingy islets at a distance; the broad blue ocean sparkling far away on one side, and the water to windward, in the direction we had come, showing the same brownish tint we had seen the day before, while it took the island before us in its bight, and turned off eastward with the breeze till it spread against the open sky. The top of the land was high enough to shut out the sea-line, and being low water at the time, it was plain enough now why Jones wished to keep the white streaks overnight; for, where the dingy- ripples melted on the other side towards the blue, you could see by the spots of foam, and the greenish breaks here and there in the surface, that all that coast of the island was one network of shoals and reefs, stretching out you didn't know how wide. White-water Island, in fact, was merely the head of them--the milky stream that had so startled us just washing round the deep end of it, and edging fair along the side of the reefs, with a few creeks sent in amongst them, as it were, like feelers, ere it flowed the other way: we couldn't otherwise have got so near as we were. But the island itself was the sight to fasten you, as the lovely green of it shone out in the morning sun, covering the most part of it close over, and tipping up beyond the bare break where it was steepest, with a clump of tall cocoas shooting every here and there out of the thick bush; indeed, there was apparently a sort of split lengthways through the midst, where, upon only walking to the schooner's bow, one could see the bright greenwood sinking down to a hollow out of sight, under the clear gush of the breeze off a dark blue patch of the sea that hung beyond it like a wedge. "As the tide made over the long reefs, till the last line of surf on them vanished, it went up the little sandy cove opposite us with a plash on the beach that you could hear; the place was just what a sailor may have had a notion of all his life, without exactly seeing it till then; and though as yet one had but a rough guess of its size, why, it couldn't be less than a couple of miles from end to end, with more than that breadth, perhaps, at the low side toward the reefs. Not a soul amongst the man-o'-war's men, I daresay, as they pressed together in the schooner's bows to see into it, but would have taken his traps that moment, if I'd told him, and gone ashore on the chance of passing his days there; so it wasn't hard to conceive, from the state it seemed to put their rough sunburnt faces in, honest as they looked, how a similar fancy would work with Master Harry Foster, even if it tried his virtue a little. "I had no more doubt in my mind, by this time, of its being the fellow's intended 'hermitage,' than I had of its being the same White-water Island I had heard of myself, or the spot which Jones seemed to know so well; 'twas likely the foremast-man had got an inkling of it somewhat in the way I did; and, lying, as it happened to do, between no less than three channels which the Indiaman might take, after dodging us in this fashion round the long cluster of the Maldives, she couldn't make north-westward again for the open sea without setting Foster and his mates pretty well upon their trip. "Indeed, if she were to eastward of the chain at present, as I was greatly inclined to believe, the course of the breeze made it impossible for her to do otherwise; but there was one thing always kept lurking about my mind, like a cover to something far worse that I didn't venture to dwell upon--namely, that Captain Finch might get wind of their purpose, and drive them on another tack by knocking it on the head, either at the time or beforehand, without the courage to settle _them_. Nothing in the world would have pleased me better than to pounce upon ugly Harry at his first breakfast ashore here; but the bare horizon, and the quiet look of the island since ever we hove in sight of it, showed this wasn't to be. At any rate, however, I was bent on seeing how the land lay, and what sort of a place it was; so, accordingly, as soon as the hands had got breakfast, Westwood and I at once pulled ashore, with a boat's-crew well armed, to overhaul it. We found the sandy beach covered, for a good way up, with a frothy slime that no doubt came from the water on that side, with ever so many different kinds of blubber, sea-jelly, starfish, and shell, while the rocky edge round to windward was hung with weed that made the blocks below it seem to rise out of every surge, like green-headed, white-bearded mermen bathing. Glad enough we were to get out of the queer sulphury smell all this stuff gave out in the heat, letting the men take every one his own way into the bushes, which they enjoyed like so many schoolboys, and making ourselves right for the highest point. Here we saw over, through the cocoa-nut trees and wild trailing-plants below, down upon a broad bushy level towards the reefs. "It was far the widest way of the island; indeed making it apparently several miles to go round to the different points; and as the men were to hold right to windward, and meet again after beating the entire ground, Westwood and I struck fair through amongst the tangle of wood, to see the flat below. "We roused out a good many small birds and paraquets, and several goats could be noticed looking at us off the grassy bits of crag above the trees, though they didn't seem to know what we were. As for most of the wood, it was mainly such bushes and brush as thrive without water, with a bright green flush of grass and plants after the rain at the monsoon, the prickly pear creeping over the sandy parts, till we came on a track where some spring or other apparently oozed down from the height, soaking in little rank spots amongst the ground leaves, with here and there a small rusty plash about the grass-blades, as if there were tar or iron in it. Here there were taller trees of different kinds on both sides, dwindling off into the lower bush, while, to my surprise, some of them were such as you'd never have expected to meet with on an island of the size, so far off the land--bananas, mangoes, a shaddock or two, and a few more, common enough in India; though here they must evidently have been planted, the cocoas being the only sort natural to the place, and of them there were plenty below. Suddenly it led down into a shady hollow, out of sight of the sea altogether, where we came on what seemed to have been a perfect garden some time or other; there were two or three large broad-leaved shaddock-trees, and one or two others, with a heap of rubbish in the midst of the wild Indian corn and long grass, some broken bamboo-stakes standing, besides a piece of plank scattered here and there about the bushes. "Right under the shade of the trees was a hole like the mouth of a draw-well, more than brimful at the time with the water from the spring, for, owing to the late rains, it made a pool close by the side, and went trickling away down amongst the brushwood. Every twig and leaf grew straight up or out, save in a narrow track toward the rising ground--no doubt made by the goats, as we noticed the prints of their hoofs on the wet mud. 'Twas evident no human being had been there for heaven knew how long, since, by the care that had been taken with the place, it was probably the only spring in the island--perhaps for leagues and leagues round indeed. Trees, branches, green grass, and all--they had such a still, moveless air under the heat and light, in the lee of the high ground, with just a blue spot or two of the sea seen high up through the sharp shaddock-leaves, and the cool-looking plash of water below them, that Westwood and I sat down to wait till we heard the men. Still, there was a terribly distinct, particular cast about the whole spot, which, taken together with the ruin and confusion, as well as the notion of Foster and his shipmates actually plotting to come there, gave one almost an idea of the whole story beforehand, dim as that was--the longer you looked the more horrid it seemed. Neither natives nor a single man could have brought the different trees to the island, or contrived a tank-well of the kind, seeing it was apparently deep enough to supply a ship's casks, while at the same time I couldn't help thinking someone had lived there since it was made, or perhaps much used. "By the space taken up with the hut that had been there, and the little change in the wild state of things, most likely it was by himself he had been, and for no short time. It looked, however, as if he had been carried off in the end, otherwise his bones would have been hereabouts; probably savages, as Westwood and I concluded from the scatter they had made of his premises. For my own part, I wondered whether Jones mightn't have been the man, in which case most of that disturbed mind he showed lately might come of remembering the dreary desolate feeling one must have, living long on a desert island. No doubt they had 'marooned' him for something or other, such as not being a bloody enough captain; and I could as easily fancy one having a spice of madness in him, after years ashore here, as in Captain Wallis after a French prison. Still it startled one to see one's face in the black of the well; and we couldn't make up our minds to drink out of it. Even the pool at its side had a queer taste, I thought--but that may have been all a notion. All at once, by the edge of this same pool, Westwood pointed out two or three marks that surprised us both, being quite different from what the goats could have made; and on observing closer, they were made out to be more like the paws of a wild beast stamped in the mud. 'By Jove!' I said, 'no wolves on the island, surely!' 'All of them seem to stick to the pool in preference to the well, at any rate,' said Tom; 'they appear to have the same crotchet with ourselves, Ned!' 'Strange!' said I, 'what the devil can it be?' "Westwood eyed the prints over and over. 'What do you think of--a _dog_?' he asked. 'Good heavens!' exclaimed I, looking down--'yes!' and there we sat gazing at the thing, and musing over it, with somehow or other a curious creeping of the blood, for my part, that I can't describe the reason of. At last we heard the men hallooing to each other on the level beneath, when we hurried down, and coasted round till we came upon the boat again, where the coxswain was amusing himself gathering shells for home--and we pulled back to the schooner. "My first resolve after this was to keep before the breeze again, try to get sight of the ship, and tell Finch out and out, as I ought to have done at once, what was afoot amongst his crew; or else to let Sir Charles Hyde know of it, and make him a bold offer of a passage to Calcutta. However, I soon saw this wouldn't do; and a regular puzzle I found myself in, betwixt inclining to stick to the island and catch Foster if he came, and wishing to know how the Indiaman stood on her course if he didn't. Jones must have read my thoughts as I leant upon the capstan, looking from White-water Island to the horizon and back again; for he stepped aft, and said in a low voice, 'Lieutenant Collins, there's one thing I didn't tell you about that island before, because, as I said, I wasn't at first sure it was the one the men meant; it may help to decide you, sir,' said he gravely. 'Ah?' I said. 'In that island,' he went on, his ordinarily dark face as pale as death, 'there is enough gold, at this moment, to buy half an English county--ay, and better than gold, seeing that only one man knows the spot where it is, and _he_ would rather sail round the world without a shirt to his back than touch one filing of the--hell's dross!' "I looked at Jones in perfect amaze as he added, 'You may fancy now, Mr Collins, whether if a man of the kind happened to get wind of this, he would not stir heaven and earth to reach the place? But, rather than that gold should come into living hands,' said he fiercely, 'I would _wait for them_ by myself--ay, alone--alone'; and a shudder seemed to run through him again as he gave another glance to the island. For my part, I drew a long breath. What he mentioned had all at once relieved my mind wonderfully; for if this was Master Foster's cue, as I now saw it must have been the whole voyage over, why, he would be just as sure not to spread the thing widely, as he would be to get here some time, if he could. On second thoughts, it wasn't so plain how the rest of the crew might work with it, on the least inkling; but inclined as I naturally was to look upon the best side of the matter, you needn't wonder at my making up my mind as I did. The short and the long of it was that, in an hour more, Jones and myself, with Jacobs and four other good hands--and, somewhat to my annoyance, Mr Rollock, who persisted in coming--were pulling back for the island; while the schooner, under care of Westwood and Snelling, was hauled on a wind to stand up across the Nine Degrees Channel, which the Indiaman would no doubt take as the safest course for Western India, if all went well, and supposing I had reckoned correctly why we missed her so long. In that case, three or four days at most couldn't fail to bring her up; and on first sighting her at the horizon, they could easily enough strip the schooner to her sticks, keeping her stern on so as to let the ship pass without noticing the loom of so small a craft; whereas if they didn't see her at all, in that time, they were to bear up before the wind again for the island. Of all things, and every circumstance being considered, I agreed with Westwood it was best not to come across her again, if we could help it. "For our own part, in the boat, we were fully provisioned and armed for all the time we could need, not to speak of what the island itself afforded; and after watching the schooner stand heeling off to sea, round the deep end of it, we cruised close along, not for the beach this time, but seeking for a cove in the rocks where the boat could be hauled up out of sight, and safe from the surf at high water. This we weren't very long of finding behind some blocks that broke the force of the surge, where the wild green trailers from above crept almost down to the seaweed; and after helping them a little to hide her perfectly, the whole of us scrambled ashore. The first thing was to post a look-out on the highest point, the sharp little peak next to the reef-side, overlooking the spring and the level ground between; on the other side of the long green valley, full of bush in the midst, was the flat-topped rise towards the brown water, from which I and the planter watched the schooner softening for an hour or two, till she reached the blue sea-gleam, and lessened to a speck. By that time, the men had pitched a little canvas tent on the <DW72> opposite to us, over the hollow--Jones evidently being anxious to keep clear of the spot, which somebody else had picked out beforehand; in fact the highest ground was betwixt us and it; and on coming down through the thicket to our quarters, after a stroll in which Rollock shot a couple of rose- paroquets, declaring them to be splendid eating, we found Jones had had to send over the other way for water. CHAPTER XXX "I woke up in the tent perhaps an hour before midnight, as I judged on looking through the opening at the stars that shone in the dark sky through the north-east end of the valley above the sea. At the other end, being higher, you just saw the scattered heads of the bushes against a pale floating glimmer of air, with a pale streak of horizon. Behind us was the height where we had the look-out, and in front the flat top of the crag drawn somehow or other as distinct as possible upon the faint starlight in that quarter, roughening away down on both sides into the brushwood and dwarf cocoa-nut trees. With the stillness of the place all round, the bare sight of that particular point gave me a dreamy, desolate, ghastly sort of feeling, beyond aught I ever saw in my life before: it was choking hot and heavy inside, and seemingly throughout the hollow, though a good deal of dew began to fall, glistening on the dark-green bushes nearest us, and standing in drops on the fern-like cocoa-leaves which Jacobs and the other men had roofed themselves with. They were sound asleep; and the glimpse of the soles of their shoes and their knees, sticking out of the shadow you saw their rough faces in, with the sight of their cutlass-hilts, served to give one a still wilder notion of the place. One felt scarce sure of being able to wake them, in case of anything turning up; and, at any rate, a dread came over you of its being possibly somewhat unnatural enough to make the thing useless. "On the other hand, the planter kept up such a confounded snoring inside the canvas close by me, that although there was no doubt of his being alive, the sound of it put stranger thoughts into your head. Sometimes his breath would be jogging on like that of a tolerably ordinary mortal, then get by degrees perfectly quiet; and then all of a sudden go rising and rising, faster and faster, as if some terrible dream had hold of him, or there was some devilish monster hard in chase of his soul, till out it broke into a fearful snort that made your very heart jump--whereupon he'd lie as if he were finished, then go through the whole story again. I can't tell you how that cursed noise troubled me; 'twas no use shoving and speaking to him, and all the time the old boy was evidently quite comfortable, by something he said at last about 'indigo being up.' The best I could do was to get out and leave him to himself; in fact, where Jones had gone at the time I didn't know, till suddenly I caught sight of his dark figure standing on the rise at the back of our post, and went up to him. Jones was certainly a strange mixture, for here had he been all round the low side of the island by himself, yet I found him leaning bareheaded on the barrel of his musket, listening like a deer. He assured me solemnly he thought he had heard voices for the last hour on the other side, where he hadn't been, and asked me if I would go with him to see. Then down came our look-out from the peak, rolling through the bushes like a sea-crow, to report his not having seen anything, and to say they'd forgot to relieve him aloft; so rousing up Jacobs, I sent them both back together, while Jones and I held the opposite way for the other height. "The moment we had got to it, _there_ was the same faint blotted-out horizon as we had had all astern of us the night before, the same strange unnatural paleness cast off the face of the sea, making it look black by contrast to north-eastward and east, against the blue shadow with the bright stars in it, where the sea rippled as usual; while the keenest glare in the middle seemed to stream right to the breast of the island, like the reflection of daylight down a long break in the ice--only it was dead and ghastly to behold. The white water washed round under the black edge of the rocks before us, to the bare sloping beach, where it came up fairly like a wide plash of milk, glimmering and sparkling back amongst the little sea-creatures you fancied you saw moving and crawling out or in: till it ran along by where the reefs were, and turned off to the dim sky again. Everything else was still, and Jones drew a breath like one relieved: 'Nothing after all, I think, sir!' said he. But to my mind there was something a long sight more awful in the look of that unaccountable white water bearing down like snow upon the island, as it were, with the wrinkles and eddies to be seen faintly in it here and there back toward the glaring breadth of it, and the floating streaks in the sky above; especially when he told me he thought it was owing to millions upon millions of living things in it, that made the same show there at two different seasons in the year, for a week or so at a time--the appearance of it getting less distinct every night. "However, I had begun to grow uneasy again about the Indiaman, and the schooner too, as well as doubtful of the fellows coming to the island at all; on the contrary, as I said to Jones, if they saw the schooner, and Westwood didn't manage as I told him, why both she, the ship, and ourselves might possibly get the finishing-stroke altogether. 'The more I think of it,' said I, 'the more foolish it seems to be here instead of aboard!' 'Why it is, Mr Collins, I don't know,' replied Jones, 'yet I feel as sure these men will land here as if I heard them in the woods; and if I wasn't aware how one crime breeds another, for my part I shouldn't be here at present, sir. Many a night afloat has the thought of this place weighed on me, lest there was something new doing in it; but what's buried here I'm resolved no man shall stir up, if I can help it, sir!' A little after, as we got up and went down to the beach, all of a sudden--like a thing he couldn't avoid--Jones began to give me some snatches of what had happened here some years before, which, according to him, he had got from a shipmate of his that died; and I must say it made the blood creep in me to listen to it. "'At the beginning of the war,' he said, 'the island had been a nest of regular pirates, who had taken pains to make it, from a mere muddy head of a reef with some cocoas upon it, probably into a resort on occasions--especially as even the wild Maldive natives to southward had somehow a dislike to it. The whole gang being taken by some cruiser or other at sea, however, too far off to leave any clue to their harbourage hereabouts, they were all hanged, and the place lost sight of, till, a good many years after, a country Arab craft, bound for Dacca up the Ganges, was driven in a gale upon the reefs some way off, without seeing the island at all till the sea went down, and she was going to pieces. "'There were only two Europeans aboard, both having turned Mussulmans, and the youngest of them was mate. There was a passenger, a native Indian merchant, and his servants, with, as was believed, his harem below in the after-cabins, for nobody ever had seen them; but the Arab _rais_ of the vessel and several more being washed off when she struck, the other Mussulmans took to the only boat they had, and got ashore, leaving the two Englishmen with the passenger. Next day the two men had contrived a raft of the spars, whereupon the Hindoo at last brought up his three women, veiled from head to foot, and the whole got safe to the island. Here all the Mahometans herded together amongst themselves, forcing the two Englishmen to keep on the other side of the island, as they had no firearms, while the old Hindoo merchant and his native servant got a tent pitched on the highest point for the women, where they were no more seen than before, and a flag hoisted on a stick all the time for a signal to ships--poor simple devil!' as Jones said with a laugh. 'Every day he offered the Arab crew more of the gold and jewels he had with him, to make for India and get him brought of, till at last some of the Arabs came round to the mate and his companion, wanting them to take the boat and go instead, otherwise they would kill both of them at once. The two men accordingly had provisions given them, and hoisted sail on the boat before the breeze to eastward; they had almost dropped the island, when all at once the one in the boat's bows stepped aft to him that had the tiller, and said it struck him the Arabs couldn't mean well to the Hindoo and his wives, in trying to get clear of others. "'All his companion did,' Jones said, 'was to ask if he was man enough to go back, face them boldly, and offer to take the passenger and his harem too, when some craft or other might come back for the Arabs, since they weren't seamen enough to venture first in the boat. "I tell you what," said the first, '"try the two largest breakers of water there!" The water for use next after the open one was tasted, and it was _salt_. '"Will you stand by me?" the second man said, after awhile. The other had a dog with him of his own, that had swam ashore from the vessel after the raft he landed upon, and it was sleeping in the boat's bow at the moment, near him; the dog lifted its head as they spoke, eyed the two, and lay down again with a low sort of growl. "Ay," answered the other, "to the last I will--as long as you stick by _me_!" They hauled over the sheet, laid the boat sharp on a wind, and as soon as it was dusk began to pull back toward the island, where they got ashore in the dark before morning.' "Here Jones stopped, turned suddenly round to the glare of the white water plashing upon the beach, and said no more. 'Why, Jones,' said I, 'is that all you've to tell? What came of them? For God's sake, yes--what was the upshot?' ''Tis enough to show how one bad thing breeds another, as I said, sir,' answered he. 'Probably in the end, though--at any rate I only fancy the rest--'tis a horrible dream to me, for a--a--squall came on when that shipmate of mine got so far, and we had to reef topsails. He went overboard off the yard that very night,' said Jones wildly. "'The man must have been _there_,' said I, in a pointed way, 'to give all the particulars--_he_ was the mate himself, Mr Jones!' He made no answer, but kept gazing out to sea. 'And how long was this ago?' I asked. 'Oh,' answered he, 'years enough ago, no doubt, sir, for both of us to be children, if _you_ were born, Mr Collins'--and he turned his face to me as ghastly as the water toward the horizon he was looking at before--'at least I hope to God it was so--the man was a poor creature, sir, bless you, and old, as it seems to me--twice my own age at the time, Lieutenant Collins! At all events, though,' he went on, rambling in a strange way that made me think he was going out of his mind, 'he remembered well enough the first time he saw the white water coming down upon the island. He was hunting--_hunting_--through the bushes and up and down, and came up upon the crag.' 'Hunting?' I said. 'Yes, you didn't know how it lived, or where it kept, but every night it was on the look-out there. There was no one else, save the girl sleeping over beyond in the hut, and the man almost fancied the water of the sea was coming down to the rocks and the beach, like the Almighty himself, to show He was clear of all that had happened--if he could but have finished that brute, testifying like the very devil, he'd have been happy, he felt! Harkye,' said he, sinking his voice to a whisper, 'when he went back at daylight the woman was dying--she had borne a--what was as innocent as she was, poor, sweet, young heathen!' "And if I hadn't guessed pretty well before that Jones was the man he'd been speaking of, his glittering eye and his stride from the beach would have shown it; apparently he forgot everything besides at that moment, till you'd have thought his mind gloated on this piece of his history. 'The woman!' I couldn't help saying, 'what woman? Had the rest left you in the boat, then?' "Jones looked upon me fiercely, then turned away; when all of a sudden such a long unearthly quaver of a cry came down through the stillness, from somewhere aloft in the island, that at first I didn't know what to think, unless one of our look-out men had met with an accident, and tumbled down. 'Twas so dark where they were, however, there was no seeing them. Without looking for himself, Jones faced me, shivering all over. 'What is that, Mr Collins?' whispered he, catching my arm with a clutch like death; '_is_ there anything yonder--behind--behind--sir?' On the flat head of the crag north-westward, black against the pale glimmer over the very spot where we had stood half-an-hour before, to my utter horror, there was some creature or other sitting as if it looked toward the sea; and just then another wild, quivering, eddying sound came evidently enough from it, like a thing that would never end. It wasn't a human voice, that! my brain spun with it, as I glanced to Jones. 'Good heavens!' I said, '_what_? But, by Jove! now I think of it; yes--'tis the howl of a _dog_--nothing else!' 'Eight--ten years!' said Jones, hoarsely, 'without food, too, and enough in that well to have poisoned whole gangs of men for twenty years--_can_ it be an earthly being, sir?' The stare he gave me at the moment was more frightful than aught else, but I mentioned what Westwood and I had observed the day before. "Before I well knew what he meant, Jones was stealing swiftly up the rising ground to the shoulder of it. I saw him get suddenly on a level with the creature, his musket aiming for it--there was a flash and a shot that left the height as bare as before--and next minute, with a short whimpering howl, the animal flew down the hill, while I heard Jones crashing through the bushes after it, till he was lost in the dark. Such a terrible notion it gave me of his strange story being true, whereas before I had almost fancied it partly a craze of his, from having lived here alone--that for a moment or two it seemed to my mind we were still in the midst of it. I hurried back to our post, and close upon morning Jones came over and lay down by himself, without a word, haggard and covered with sweat. "All next day the horizon on every side was clear of a single speck; no signs either of ship or schooner, till I began to wish we were out of it, hoping the _Seringapatam_ had, after all, kept the old course for Bombay, in spite of us. I found Jones had warned the men not to get our water out of the tank; it being poisoned in a way fit to last for years, as the pirates knew how to do. For our parts, we had to amuse ourselves the best way we could, waiting for the schooner to come down again for us, which was the only thing I looked for now. That night the white appearance of the water to north and windward seemed a good deal gone, save where it hung like a haze in the direction it took off the island: the stars shone out, and in two or three nights more I found from Jones there would be nothing of it, which I hoped I should have to take on his word. "At daybreak, however, our look-out could all of a sudden be seen hoisting the signal for a sail in sight, and waving his hat for us to come. No sooner had we hurried up, accordingly, than a sail could be made out in the south-east, hull down; and the schooner not being likely thereaway, a certain flutter in me at once set it down for the Indiaman at last, on her way far past the island for the open channel. Being broad daylight, too, with a fresh breeze blowing, we saw that Foster and his party, if they carried out their scheme, would have to wait till she was a long way to windward at night-time, in order to get clear off. In fact, I had everyone kept down off the height, lest the ship's glasses might possibly notice something; while, at the same time, we hadn't even a fire kindled to cook our victuals. I was watching her over the brow of the hill, through the telescope, when she evidently stood round on the other tack to get up to windward, which brought her gradually nearer. She was a large ship, under full canvas; and at last she rose her hull to the white streak below the bulwarks, till I began to think they intended passing the island to eastward to make the channel. I went down for Jones, and asked him how far the reefs actually ran out, when he told me there would probably be signs enough of them in such a strong breeze; besides, as he reminded me, if she was the Indiaman, it was the captain himself that had a chart of them; in which, from the particular nature of it--being an old buccaneering chart, as he thought--they would be laid down quite plainly. "Indeed, when we both returned to the height, there were lines of surf to be noticed here and there, more than three miles out; and seeing her by that time so distinctly, a new uneasiness began to enter my head. There were no signals we could make, even if they didn't serve the other way; and, to tell the truth, I didn't much like the idea of being found there. Still, it was terrible to see her getting nearer and nearer, without the power of doing the least thing to warn her off; spreading and heightening before you, till you counted her sails, and saw the light betwixt them, with the breeze always strengthening off that side the island, and of course making it the safer for her to pass it to leeward. The blue surges rose longer to the foam at their crests, till one's eye got confused between them and the spots of surf rippling greenish over the tongues of reef; in fact, it wasn't far off being low-water at the time, and the whole was to be seen better from the height than elsewhere, stretched out like a floor that the breeze was sweeping across, raising a white dust where the blue melted into the light-brown tint of the sea to leeward. The breeze came so fresh that she even hauled down her sky-sails and fore-royal, railing off to go to leeward of the island. At the same moment, I made out with the glass that she was actually the _Seringapatam_, and also that she'd got a leadsman at work in the chains. Five minutes more, and she'd have gone time enough into the distinct brown- swells to stand past the deep end: without help from the glass, I saw the sun sparkle in the spray from her black bows; she made a sliding forge ahead with her whole beam on to us; when, next moment, as if she had taken a sudden yaw and broached-to in the wind, she came fairly end on, showing the three piles of canvas in one. A wild boding of the truth crept on me as I sprang on the peak, waving my arms and stamping like a lunatic, as if they could hear me. "The next instant she had fallen a little over, her foretopmast and main-to'gallantmast gone out of their places at the shock, and the heavy blue swells running to her highest side in a perfect heap of foam; while the spray rose in white jets across her weather bulwarks at every burst of them. The Indiaman had struck on a rib of reef, or else a spit of sand, near the very edge of the whole bank: had it been only high-water--as I had reason to believe afterwards--she'd have gone clear over it. As soon as the first horror of the thing was a little past, I looked, without a word, to Jones, and he to me. 'The fellows have come at last, certainly!' said he, in a serious enough tone. 'Mr Collins,' he added, 'the moment I set foot on ground here, I felt sure something would come out of it!' 'Get the men down at once, sir,' I said, 'and let's pull out to the ship!' 'Why, sir,' answered he, 'the breeze is likely to keep for some time as it is, and if she's completely gone, they'll be able to bring all hands safe ashore. If you take my advice, Mr Collins, you'll hold all fast, and show no signs of our being here at all, in case of having something or other to manage yet that may cost us harder!' It didn't need much thought to see this, in fact; and in place of going down, ten minutes after we were all close amongst the bushes on the <DW72>, watching the wreck. What was at the bottom of all this I didn't know; whether Captain Finch had really got wind of Foster's scheme, and been playing with some hellish notion his heart failed him to carry out, or how it was; but what he was to make of _this_ was the question. "Well, toward afternoon, the wreck seemed pretty much in the same state, though by that time they had evidently given her up, for the boats were beginning to be hoisted out to leeward. We couldn't see what went on there, till one of them suddenly appeared, pulling out for the island, about three miles off; then the large launch after it. There were ladies' dresses to be made out in both, their cloaks and shawls fluttering bright to the breeze as the boats dipped in the short swells; and they were full an hour ere they got out of our sight, near the broad beach, on the level side, where the tide was ebbing fast again, making it a hard matter to pull the distance. Two more boats came off the ship, filled full of casks and other matters, save the crews; the rest of the passengers and men no doubt waiting for the launch and jolly-boat to go back and take them ashore--for, soon after, they both could be seen rounding the point on their way out. On coming within hail of the fresh boats, however, they apparently gave in, since we could see the two of them, to our great surprise, strike round, and make for the beach again with their shipmates, spite of signals from the wreck, and shots even fired after them. The breeze by that time flagged, leaving less of a sea against the ship's hull in the dead water from the other reefs, and she had fallen over again to leeward--a proof of her sticking fast where she struck, without much fear of parting very soon in such weather; but the sun was going down, and this being the first sign of foul play we had observed, it was plain at all events we should have to look sharp about us. We kept close up the height, bolted our cold junk and biscuit, washing down with a stiff caulker, and looked every man to his tools. "To my great satisfaction, the planter, who had watched everything seemingly in pure bewilderment, woke up out of it when he knew how matters stood, and handled his double-barrel as cool as a cucumber, putting in two bullets above the small shot he had got for the birds, and ramming down with the air of a man summing up a couple of bills against a rascally debtor. For my own part, I must say I was longer of coming to feel it wasn't some sort of a dream, owing to Jones's broken story; till the thought of _who_ was to all likelihood on the very island below, with the rest of the ladies, amongst a set of all sorts of foremast-men thrown loose from command--half of them probably ruffians, with some hand in the matter--it came on me like fire at one's vitals. Meantime we sat there patiently enough for want of knowing what was to do first, or which way we had best keep to avoid bringing matters to a head, worse than they yet were. CHAPTER XXXI "The night came out of the dusk a fine starlight to seaward, beyond the reefs where the Indiaman lay, the high side of the island glooming back against the deep blue glistening sky, till you didn't see how large it might be; while the white water hung glimmering off to leeward from the rocks. The ship's crew had kindled a fire on the long strand near the boats, and we heard their noise getting louder and louder above the sound of the sea plashing upon it--evidently through their making free with liquor. Jones, being no doubt well acquainted with every part of the ground, proposed to go over and see how things stood, and where the passengers might be; at the same time, as Mr Rollock was more likely to come conveniently to speech of them, both for explaining our being here and putting them on their guard, he agreed to go too. "One or other of them was to hurry back as quickly as possible, while the men and myself waited in readiness for whatever might turn up. Hour after hour passed, however, till I was quite out of patience, not to say uneasy beyond description. All was still, save below toward the water's edge--the seamen's voices at times mixing with the washing hum of the surge on the sand, then rising over it in the chorus of a forecastle song, or a sudden bit of a quarrelsome uproar; notwithstanding which they began apparently to settle down to sleep. "At last the planter came skirting round the hill through the trees, quite out of breath, to say they had discovered the spot where the ladies had no doubt been taken by their friends, as Captain Finch himself, with one of the ship's officers, and two or three cadets, were walking about on the watch, all of them armed. To judge by this, and the fact of the other gentlemen being still apparently on the wreck, Finch mistrusted his men. However, the planter thought it better not to risk a hasty shot through him by going nearer; and, to tell the truth, I thought it better myself to wait till daylight, when we should see if the rest got ashore; or possibly, as I wished to Heaven were the case, the schooner might heave in sight. 'Where is Mr Jones, though?' asked I; on which I found he had gone over for the first time towards the well for some water, as he told Mr Rollock. Indeed, the passengers were settled near the thick of the wood on this side of the watering-place, none of the Indiaman's people seeming to know as yet there was such a thing on the island. "We each of us held our breath, and listened to hear Jones come back. I was just on the point of leading my party that way, when I caught the sound of some one panting, as it were up the ridge from the shore, and next moment saw, to my great surprise, it was the creature Jones had such a horror of--the dog that had run wild on the island, sniffing with his nose to the ground as if he were in chase of something; while the straw hats and tarpaulins of half-a-dozen fellows with ship's muskets and cutlasses followed him over the hill, not thirty paces above us. "I signed to Jacobs to keep quiet, as they halted together, looking at the dog; and, from what I could catch of their words, they had noticed it ever since sundown, sitting at the foot of the hill watching what went on, till the animal ran toward them as if they were friends, every now and then turning and making for the heights with a bark and a whimper, as it did at present. One of the men was Foster. 'I tell ye what it is,' said he, 'there's some fellow on the island already, mates. If we ketch him, why, we'll have it out of him--then down with it quietly to the shore, and go off in the long-boat, seeing as how this blasted fool of a skipper of ours has spoiled our pleasure!' The dog turned again, wagged his tail, and put his nose to the ground. I thought at first he'd bring them right upon us, when suddenly he broke off with a yelp exactly into the track Jones had taken with Mr Rollock on leaving us. The sailors kept away in his wake, down through the bushes into the thick dusk of the trees; upon which the planter and I started to our feet at once, and held cautiously after them, the five man-o'-war's-men following at our heels, Indian file. "Jones, however, had either heard the dog, or got an inkling of the thing, and he had taken a long round so as to join us from behind: the Indiaman's men keeping on for a quarter of an hour or so, when they brought up again, seemingly doubtful whether to follow the creature or not; and we dropped like one man into the shadow, till they made sail once more. Soon after, the planter pointed to the trees where the passengers were, and, on a sign from me, the whole of us edged down to the spot, till we were standing within sight of the half-finished fire, where the Judge's kitmagar was sitting asleep, tailor-fashion, with his flat turban sunk to his breast. One of the cadets stood down the <DW72> a little, betwixt that and the beach where the crew were, leaning sleepily on his gun, and nodding, while in the midst was a sort of shed, run up with branches and cocoa-nut leaves, where you could see a glimpse of the different ladies' dresses, young and old, asleep on the ground. "The starlight fell right down into the opening, and showed the glistening edges of the leaves, with the sea broad out beyond the cocoas at the foot of the rising ground; so bidding Jones look out sharp, I stepped carefully through. My eye lighted at once on Sir Charles Hyde lying in one nook of the shelter, wrapped up in his pilot-coat--the first time in the old gentleman's life for a good while, I daresay, that he had passed his night on the ground, especially with such a lot of berths taken up beside him. Still, he was sound enough at the time, to judge by his breathing, trifle as it was to the planter's; and close by him was his daughter, with her cloak drawn half over her head in the shadow--her hair confused about her cheek as it pressed white into the bundle of red bunting she had for a pillow, and one hand keeping the cloak fast at the neck, as if she dreamt of a stiff breeze. The sight went to my heart, and so did the notion of waking her; but I heard sounds below on the beach, as if the rest of the crew missed their shipmates, probably getting jealous after their booze, and not unlikely to seek them up the island, so the more it struck me there was no time to be lost in coming to an understanding. Accordingly, I stooped down quietly, and touched her on the shoulder. "Violet Hyde opened her eyes at once, and looked at me; but whether it was the starlight showing my uniform, or her fancying it was still the Indiaman in the Atlantic, in place of crying out, why, there was almost a smile on her lips as she saw me from the ground. Next moment, however, she drew her hand across her eyelids, sat up with the help of the other arm, and gazed on me in a bewildered way, naming me at the same time below her breath. 'Yes, Miss Hyde!' I said hastily; and a few words served to give her a notion of the case as well as to advise her to wake up the Judge, with the rest of the ladies, and be ready to move the moment we came back. My first thought was to take Foster's own plan, and secure the long-boat, if we could only get betwixt the Indiaman's crew and the water; or even try our own, or the opposite side of the island, and carry off the other boats to the wreck; after which we might keep off till the schooner appeared, as she couldn't be long of doing in this weather. "I had just stolen back to the men and Mr Rollock, when all at once there was a wild cry, not twenty yards off, among the brushwood. A heavy blow and a struggle, in the midst of which three shots, one after the other, were heard from the cadets; next minute, with oaths and curses to the mast-head, and a crash through amongst the branches in the dark, Foster and his shipmates came making for the opening. Something horrible flashed through my mind as I fancied I had caught Finch's voice, whether one way or the other I couldn't say, for I had no thought at the time excepting for Violet. Shriek upon shriek broke from the ladies ere I well knew I had big Harry himself by the hairy throat of him, as he was aiming a left-handed stroke of his cutlass at the Judge, who had sprung betwixt him and his daughter. The strength of that ruffian was wonderful, for he flung me off and levelled Sir Charles Hyde at the same moment, the Judge's body tripping me. "Jones and my own men, as well as the planter, were hard at work with the other five desperate villains, while the cadets and the second officer of the _Seringapatam_ rushed in from the trees--all of it passing in half-a-minute. As I started to my feet, Foster had lifted Violet Hyde in his arms, and was dashing through the darkest of the wood with her toward the hollow, when, just as I was hard upon him, doubly to my horror, above all the screams of the ladies I could hear the wild drunken shouts of the crew below coming up from the beach like so many devils. Foster had got as far as the next opening where the rubbish of the hut was, and, no doubt catching the sound as well as myself, all at once he dropped the young lady on the grass--in a faint as she was, and her white dress stained with blood, as I thought from _herself_. 'Now, ye----' shouted he, turning bolt round till her moveless figure lay betwixt us, with a flourish of his cutlass, which I fancied was bloody too, 'who are _you_? You'll have a dozen on ye directly, but what's meat for the skipper's meat for the passenger, so----' 'Devil!' said I, through my teeth, as I edged round; and Foster was in the very act of rushing at me, whether he trod on her or not, when my voice or dress seemed to strike him in the dusk. 'How the bloody comfort did _you_----' said he, shrinking back for a moment; 'so much the better,' and he sprang forward again right upon me, with a swinging boarder's blow at my head, which flashed off my blade with a force enough to have shivered it, had it not been a first-rate old cut-and-thrust I had tried pretty stiffly before. If I hadn't been in such a fury of rage and a hurry at once, 'twould have been Harry's last hit; but, at the third he made, I caught him fair under it, the point going through and through his body, as I thrust him back stride by stride--his cutlass waving fiercely all the time in the air clear of my head, for the stroke came under his arm. The moment he fell, though I knew nothing before that of where we were, there was a heavy plunge; I had nearly followed on top of him, as he went head-foremost down the tank-well under the trees; but next moment, without a thought more to him in the heat of the struggle, I was lifting Violet off the grass. What I did or what I said, to see if she would revive, I don't really know; but I remember as well as if it were last night the very sound of her voice as she told me she wasn't hurt. The affair in the wood below us had suddenly ceased during these five or ten minutes--indeed, as I found afterwards, Jones and my party had settled every one of the five, either altogether or for the time; but the uproar of more than twenty fierce voices could be heard beyond them, cursing and yelling as they came stumbling and crashing up amongst the brushwood in a body; while the ladies and their companions struggled up from all sides toward the height, wild with terror. I met Sir Charles Hyde hurrying to seek his daughter, however; and the moment he had her in his arms, I rushed down, pistol in hand, to join my men, who were standing firm below, as the mutineers burst into the opening, no doubt with the notion they had only the cadets to do with. "'Here, my lads!' I sang out; 'make every man of them prisoner--down with 'em to the schooner!' And as I broke suddenly through in the starlight in the midst of them, Jones, Jacobs, the planter, and the other four man-o'-war's-men sprang after me, one by one--taking the cue, and shouting as if to ever so many behind us, 'Here they are, shipmates--this way--settle the blackguards!' In fact, the moment I appeared, the gang of half-drunken fellows were taken aback. One of them roared as if he saw the very devil; and giving them no time to think, we drove them scattering down toward the beach. One of Foster's party, however, being only stunned, had contrived to get down amongst them; and in a little while, seeing we didn't follow, the whole lot of them appeared to get an inkling of the truth, on which they rallied. It wasn't long ere I saw they had got desperate, and were planning to divide, and come somewhere over upon us round the heights; so that, in the dark, with our small party, not knowing their numbers, the best we could do was to gather up toward the peak, and secure the ladies. Accordingly, we passed an uncomfortable enough time during the rest of the night, till daybreak, when still no signs of the schooner, as we saw in the clear to north-eastward. Frightful notions came into my head of something having happened to her; the mutineers below were on both sides of the island, and they held the watering-place. We hadn't provisions for a single breakfast to half the party of us--and the fellows being now fairly in for it, they could starve us out if they chose. You may conceive, accordingly, what a joyful sight met my eyes, when, on the dusk lifting off to northward, we could see the lovely craft under all sail not six miles off, bearing down before a fresh breeze for the deep end of the island! "The wind had headed her off on her way back; and, knowing nothing of the wreck, Westwood might have landed at the mercy of the villains in the bush. But the minute we saw his boat out, the whole of us, save the Judge and the planter, made a clean charge down upon them--the schooner's men joining us with the oars and boat-stretchers; and in half-an-hour the whole gang, having lost heart, were taken and lashed fast by the wrists on the beach, to a single man. "On searching the watering-place during the day, we found someone had covered the mouth of the tank with sticks and leaves, through which Harry Foster had gone when he fell. The stuff had fallen in over him; and the well being evidently made deep into the rock, to hold water the longer, with the roots of the trees growing out into it, his body never came up. Somehow or other, no one liked to sound it to the bottom; but the thing that horrified all of us the most was to find Captain Finch himself lying quite dead amongst the brushwood near where the passengers had pitched their quarters, with a cut through his skull enough to have killed an ox. It was supposed Foster had suddenly come upon him, as he and his shipmates looked out for the hoard they thought the pirates had in the island, while Finch was on guard over the ladies. Whether the fellow took a new notion at the moment, or what it was, the whole gang of them made their rush upon the second mate and the cadets, the minute after the captain met his death. "As for Jones, he told me he had noticed the dog watching the seamen below, and the idea got into his head of what might happen. There was that about the animal to give one a dread you couldn't describe. How it had lived all this time, and how the customs came back on it, after growing perfectly wild, of carrying on like what it did that night, was a mystery; but Jones said he hadn't heard it bark before, neither had the man he knew of, since the time he was first left _alone_ on White-water Island. In fact, the whole of us might have hunted it down before we left. But 'No!' Jones said; 'there's a perfect fiend in the brute, I do believe--yet it strikes me by this time, the creature belongs to--to the Almighty, sir!' The men and passengers had been taken off the Indiaman's wreck, which there was no chance of getting off the reef; so, taking out the best of her stores and the passengers' property, we had every soul aboard the schooner, and at last set sail to the south-east, meaning to go in at Madras, where a sloop might be sent to recover more from the ship. 'Twas with no ordinary state of things, from stem to stern, that we dropped White-water Island astern. CHAPTER XXXII "Well, ma'am, the rest you may easily fancy. We made Madras Roads, and there I expected to lose sight of the Judge and his daughter again, as we did of most of the other passengers; but to my perfect delight Sir Charles preferred carrying out the voyage on to Calcutta in the schooner, where they had the after-cabins to themselves. The Indiaman's crew I kept, prisoners and all, till we should meet the frigate off the Sunderbunds. "Just conceive standing up the hot Bay of Bengal with flagging south-westerly breezes, shifting at times to a brisk south-easter, or a squall, as we've done ourselves this week. The moon wasn't at the full then, of course, so we only had it like a reaper's sickle in the dog-watches; but it was fine weather, and you may imagine one sometimes contrived, betwixt Westwood and myself, to have Violet on the quarter-deck of an evening without the Judge. Tom would step forward suddenly to see a small pull taken on a sheet, and Snelling knew pretty well not to walk aft of the capstan; so I could lean over the taffrail near her, and look at the schooner's wake glimmering and sparkling up in the bubbles astern. "Then, to save trouble, you need but picture to yourselves some such sort of a daybreak as we had this morning; a cool blue cloudless sky all aloft, dappled to eastward with a mighty arch, as it were, of small white spots and flakes, as a perfect sea of light flows up into it before the sun under the horizon, and a pale slanting shaft of it seems to hang grey in the yellow above him.[30] [30] The zodiacal light, seen at sunrise and sunset. "The sea heaves deep-blue and deeper blue under the schooner; the wide flock of small clouds burn from gold to fire; the slanting streak of light fades and vanishes, and the sun comes up like a gush of flame--sending a stream of glittering radiance along the water to our starboard bow, while it shows a long flat line of land far on the other beam. The planter is smoking his first cheroot for the day at the stern gratings, when we make out three or four faint points over the streak of land shining like gold in the dawn; while at the same time three hazy pillars, as it were, are seen standing up betwixt sea and sky, beyond the rippling blue in the north-eastern board. 'Tis the spires of Juggernaut pagoda on one side; and as the brisk morning breeze drives the water into short surges, till the schooner rises the ship upon the other, all of a sudden she looms square and white upon our starboard bow. As the hull lifted higher and higher under her canvas, there was less doubt every few minutes of her being a frigate; and by the time Violet and her father were standing together on the quarter-deck, the glorious old _Hebe_ was signalling us from her fore-royal-mast-head, as she kept close on a wind to cross our course. "We spoke the pilot-brig that evening, took out the pilot, and stood up into the mouth of the Hooghly with the night-tide in the moonlight--dropping the _Hebe_ at Diamond Harbour next day; while Lord Frederick, and a Government gentleman he had with him from St Helena, went up to Calcutta with us in the schooner. The whole of the Indiaman's late crew and officers were left in the frigate till further notice, notwithstanding which we were pretty well crowded on our way up; Westwood and I were glad of a couple of hammocks in the half-deck; and, in fact, I saw little more of Violet Hyde till they went ashore opposite Fort William. "In half-an-hour we were lying at anchor in the midst of the crowd of Indiamen, country ships, Arab craft, and all sorts of craft besides, stretching far up to the next reach; the long front of flat-topped buildings, with their green venetians and balustrades, shining white over the row of trees on the right bank, like a string of palaces spreading back through the huge mass of the city to the pale, hot eastern sky--a tall cocoa-nut tree or a sharp spire breaking it here and there; while the pile of Government House was to be seen dotted with adjutant-birds; and the opposite shore showed far off in a line of green jungle, faced by a few gay-looking spots of bungalows. All the rest of the day Jones busied himself seeing all made regular and ship-shape below and aloft, till I began to think he had taken a fancy to the schooner, and meant to go with her and the frigate to the China seas. Next morning, however, as soon as breakfast was over in the cabin, he came to me and said that, as there was nothing more to be done at present aboard, according to our agreement he would bid us good-bye. Nothing I could say was of the least use, so at last I had to give it up. Having little money about me, however, except in bills, and intending to go ashore myself, I told him I should pay him his mate's wages at once at a banker's in the town. By the time I came on deck, Jones had hailed a dingey, and the native boatman paddled us to the ghaut below the Sailors' Home together. "I had shaken hands with him, and stood watching him from the bank verandah, as his manly figure, in the blue jacket, white duck trousers, and straw hat, passed away down Flag Street, stepping like a seaman fresh from blue water through a stream of Hindoos in white muslin, Mussulman servants, tall-capped Armenians, Danes, Frenchmen, Chinamen, Arabs, and Parsees. Three or four Coolies with painted umbrellas were shouting and scrambling in his way, mentioning their names, salaaming, and s'ahbing him to the nines; a couple of naked black boys were trying to brush his shoes in the dust; a tray of native sweetmeats seemed to be shoved every now and then under his nose; and two or three children with heads as big as pumpkins were stuck before him, their mothers begging for 'Buckshish! buckshish!' Jones held on like a man accustomed to every sort of foreign scenes in the world; and, out of curiosity to see where he would go, I followed him for a little towards the thick of the noise and crowd, through Tank Square, where the water-carriers were sprinkling the ground from the sheep-skins on their backs as they walked, serpent-charmers and jugglers exhibiting, and a dirty Fakir rolling at the corner in seeming agony, with a crowd of liberty-men in Sunday toggery all round him. "Jones looked up at the church steeping in the white heat, and across the glare of light to the city beyond, standing like a man that didn't know what to do, or hadn't seen Calcutta before; then passed carelessly by the half-slued sailors, who hailed him as if he were a ship. At length he got to the turn of a street running into the native town, where you caught a glimpse of it swarming this way and that with turbans in the close overhanging bazaars. Some Hindoo procession or other was coming along with tom-toms, gongs, tambourines, and punkahs, sweeping on through a babel of heathenish cries and songs; a knot of dancing-girls, with red flowers in their sleek black hair, could be seen in a hackery drawn by two hump-backed bullocks; and a white Brahmin bull was poking its head amongst the heaps of fruit at a stall; whilst you heard a whole ship's crew hurrahing and laughing amongst the confusion, as they drove along. Suddenly, I saw Jones hail a palanquin near him, and get in. The four mud- bearers took the pole of it on their shoulders, fore and aft--greasy-looking fellows, with ochre-marks on their noses and foreheads, a tuft of hair tied back on their heads like women, and as naked as they were born, save the cloth round their middle--and next moment away they trotted, grunting and swinging the palanquin, till I lost sight of them in the hubbub. 'Twas the last I saw of Jones." * * * * * Here the captain stopped; the _Gloucester's_ crew were getting the anchors off her forecastle to her bows for next day, when the light-ship off the Sandheads was expected to be seen; and, from his manner and his silence together, he evidently considered the yarn at an end. "That's all then?" carelessly asked the surgeon, who was a chess-player, and had heard only this part of the Captain's adventures, and the first two, so that he appeared to perceive a slight want of connection. "All?" was the unanimous voice of the lady passengers, most of whom had been faithful listeners--the younger ones were obviously disappointed at something. "Why, yes," said Captain Collins, with a look which might be interpreted either as modest or "close"--"the fact is, I fancied the affair might serve to while away a single evening or so, and here have I been yarning different nights all this time! 'Tis owing to my want of practice, no doubt, ma'am." "Come, come," said the matron of the party, "you must really give us some idea of a _denouement_. These girls of mine won't be satisfied without it, Captain Collins; they will think it no story at all, otherwise!" "An end to it, you mean?" answered he. "Why, ma'am, if there were an _end_ to it, it couldn't be a 'short' yarn at all--that would be to finish and 'whip' it, as we say, before it's long enough for the purpose: whereas, luckily, my life hasn't got to a close yet." "Oh!" said the lady, "no sea casuistry for _us_; besides, _I_ am aware of the sequel, you know!" "Why, ma'am," answered the Captain, looking up innocently, "it wasn't for two years and a half afterwards that I--I settled, you know! Do you mean me to tell you all that happened in that time, about the Frenchman, and what befell the schooner in the China seas? 'twould last the voyage home; but if you'll go _back_ with me, I've no particular objection, now I've got into the way." "No, no, my dear Captain," said the lady, "we have had enough for the present of your nautical details--I beg pardon--but tell us how you succeeded in----" "Well," interrupted the narrator, rather hastily, "'twas somewhat thus: I was at home at Croydon, being by that time first lieutenant of the _Hebe_; but she was just paid off. One morning, at breakfast, the letter-bag from the village was brought in as usual, my mother taking them out, reading off all the addresses through her spectacles, while Jane made the coffee. My mother handed Jane a ship-letter, which she put somewhere in her dress, with a blush, so that I knew in a moment it must be from Tom Westwood, who was in the Company's civil service in India, up-country. 'None for me, mother?' asked I eagerly; for the fact was, I had got one or two at different times, at Canton and the Cape of Good Hope, during the two years. 'Yes, Ned,' said my mother, eyeing it again and again, anxiously enough, as I thought; 'there is--but I fear it is some horrid thing from those Admirals'--the Admiralty, she meant--'and they will be sending you off immediately--or a war, or something. Oh dear me, Ned,' exclaimed the good woman, quite distressed, 'won't you do as I wish you, and stay altogether!' By the Lord Harry! when I opened it, 'twas a letter from Lord Frederick Bury, who had succeeded to his eldest brother's title while we were out, saying he had the promise of a commandership for me, as soon as a new brig for the West-India station was ready. 'I shan't have to go for six or seven months at any rate, mother,' said I, 'by which time I shall be confounded tired of the land, _I_ know!' She wanted me to buy a small estate near Croydon, shoot, fish, and dig, I suppose; while Jane said I ought to marry, especially as she had a girl with money in her eye for me. Still, they saw it was no use, and began to give it up. "Why I never heard at all from a certain quarter, I couldn't think. Till that time, in fact, I had been as sure of her proving true as I was of breezes blowing; but now I couldn't help fancying all sorts of tyranny on the Judge's part and her mother's, not to speak of Tom's uncle, the Councillor. I went down the lane for the twentieth time, past the end of the house they had lived in, where the windows had been shuttered up and the gates close ever since I came. All of a sudden, this time, I saw there were workmen about the place, the windows open, and two servants washing down the yellow wheels of a travelling-carriage. I made straight back for our house, went up to Jane, who was at her piano in the drawing-room, and asked, quite out of breath, _who_ was come to the house over the park behind us. 'Did you not know that old Nabob was coming back from India?' said Jane. 'His face was getting too yellow, I suppose; and, besides, his wife is dead--from his crossness, no doubt. But the young lady is an heiress, Ned, and as I meant to tell you, from good authority'--here the sly creature looked away into her music--'passionately fond of the sea, which means, you know, of naval officers.' 'The devil she is, Jane!' I broke out; 'what did Westwood mean by that?--but _when_ are they coming, for Heaven's sake?' 'Why,' said Jane, 'I believe, from what I heard our gardener say, they arrived last night.' 'Then, by Jove, my dear girl!' said I, 'I'll tell you a secret--and mind, I count on you!' "My little sister was all alive in a moment, ran to the door and shut it, then settled herself on the sofa to hear what I had to say, as eagerly as you please. So I told her what the whole matter was, with the state of things when we left Calcutta. Jane seemed to reckon the affair as clear as a die; and you've no notion what a lot of new ropes she put me up to in a concern of the kind, as well as ways to carry it out ship-shape to the end, in spite of the Judge--or else to smooth him over. "The long and short of it was, I didn't leave till about seven months after, when the _Ferret_ was put in commission; but by that time it was all smooth sailing before me. The Judge had got wonderfully softened; and you may be sure, I continued to see Violet Hyde pretty often before I went to sea. You'd scarce believe it, but, after that twelve months' cruise, I actually didn't leave the land for two years, which I did owing to the chance I had of seeing sharp service in the Burmese war, up the rivers, while General Campbell had tough work with them inland. So that's all I can say, ma'am!" * * * * * "Very good, sir!" was the surgeon's cool remark. "And, in fact, sir, I fancy if every one of us were to commence telling his whole life over, with everything that happened to him and his friends, he must stop short somewhere--however long it might be!" The Captain smiled; they sat on the poop talking for awhile, sometimes saying nothing, but watching the last night at sea. The pilot-brig is spoken to windward next morning, even while the deep-sea lead-line is being hove to sound the bottom. Falling sudden from the foreyard, the weight takes the long line from hand after hand back to the gangway, till it trembles against the ground. 'Tis drawn up slowly, the wet coil secured, and the bottom of the lead showing its little hollow filled with signs of earth--"Grey sand and shells!" They stand on till the pilot is on board, the low land lifts and lengthens before the ship; but the flow of the tide has yet to come, and take them safely up amongst the winding shoals into the Indian river's mouth. A new land, and the thoughts of strange new life, the gorgeous sights and fantastic realities of the mighty country of the Mogul and Rajahs, crowd before them after the wide solitary sea. The story is already all but forgotten.--AND THE ANCHOR IS LET GO! THE END. +BOOKS+ PUBLISHED BY ALEXANDER GARDNER, PAISLEY. Publisher & Bookseller by Special Appointment [Illustration] To Her late Majesty Queen Victoria. A LIST OF BOOKS PUBLISHED BY ALEX. 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Dainty Dishes for Dinners, Luncheons, and Suppers. Dishes of Fishes: How to Prepare Them. Sauces, Seasonings, and Salads. The Art of Preparing Puddings, Tarts, Jellies, etc. The Art of Preparing Soups, Stews, Hashes, and Ragouts. The Complete Art of Dinner-Giving. [Illustration] End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Green Hand, by George Cupples ***	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaBook" }	5,816
Funded by the Office of Low Emission Vehicles, Hammersmith Grove was a ground breaking project that acted as a response to the single minded goal of making the surrounding area the greenest borough in the country. The scheme explored the possibility of 'light touch' streetscapes being introduced to transform the character and use of the town centre's urban space. To this end, parklets were introduced at frequent intervals to a relatively small area, which maximized the sense of an overnight transformation in such a substantial central location. In addition, the project also included new EV charging points and kerb alignment changes which help endorse a sustainable and safe environment. We provided a wide range of services including but not limited to: project management, public realm design, transport design and highways engineering. These were crucial for the successful delivery of this complex and aspirational scheme. • Limit access to the section of Hammersmith Grove to zero emission capable vehicles only. • Provide suitable infrastructure that supports a range of electric vehicles including private, car share, taxis and buses. • Address the serious use of air quality and pollutant levels by creating a more sustainable and cleaner Hammersmith. • Set the president for enforcing access based on emissions, improving localized emissions and designing a street that can act as a template UK wide. • Create a new public space by extending Lyric Square northwards. The concluding idea, to successfully achieve all these aspects, was the instillation you see today. Inspired by the concept of origami, we proposed an area complete with planting areas, spaces to relax and aesthetically pleasing designs. As such, it provides better facilities for cyclists, and makes it more pleasant to be out on foot in the town centers. Through this the parklets are helping to improve air quality. It also supports part of a borough-wide plan to support and encourage biodiversity as increased flora can help with air quality. It was interesting to consider all the moving parts of this project. It was essential that we build a comprehensive understanding of Hammersmith and its grove area so that this ambitious project was well informed and placed with care. As such, we honed our critical thinking skills to astutely comprehend all facets of the project and deliver it to our best ability. Since it's completion, beyond the positive feedback from Hammersmith residents, we have observed a marked increase in utilization of the area by pedestrians and cyclists alike. It is now a vibrant area that is consistently filled with citizens enjoying themselves, alone or with company, in this wonderful addition to the soon to be greenest borough.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	50
(4076) Dörffel es un asteroide perteneciente al cinturón de asteroides, descubierto el 19 de octubre de 1982 por Freimut Börngen desde el Observatorio Karl Schwarzschild, en Tautenburg, Alemania. Designación y nombre Designado provisionalmente como 1982 UF4. Fue nombrado Dörffel en honor al astrónomo alemán Georg Samuel Dörffel. Véase también Lista de asteroides del (4001) al (4100) Cuerpo menor del sistema solar Referencias Asteroides del cinturón principal Objetos astronómicos descubiertos por Freimut Börngen Objetos astronómicos descubiertos desde el Observatorio Karl Schwarzschild Objetos astronómicos descubiertos en 1982 Wikiproyecto:Asteroides/Artículos de asteroides	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia" }	5,884
The insurance company: Insurance companies must follow state laws but may also set standards of their own. State laws: A car must have a specific percentage of damage before it is considered a total loss. The car's condition: If a car cannot be repaired safely, adjustors may also consider it a total loss. If your car is considered a total loss, your car insurance company will ask for the car's title, license plate, keys and lienholder's contact information, if there is one. Once the car is collected, the insurance company will work on determining the actual cash value of the car. The actual cash value of a vehicle is the current value after depreciation. Policyholders may receive a full settlement or a partial payment. In a full settlement, the owner hands over the car to the insurance company. In a partial settlement, owners have the option to salvage the car, sell the totaled car, donate the car to a charity or use it as a tax write-off. If an owner chooses to salvage the car, they must obtain a salvage title to register and operate the car. Not all insurance companies will provide insurance coverage for salvaged cars. Do you need more information on total losses? Our agents and customer service representatives are here to help. Call us today at 1-888-949-6289 or visit your nearest Insurance Navy location. For your convenience, Insurance Navy is open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. CST, 7 days a week. *Please review your own policy carefully for details on total losses. Total losses vary by insurance company.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	8,596
# Moving Hadoop to the Cloud Harnessing Cloud Features and Flexibility for Hadoop Clusters Bill Havanki # Moving Hadoop to the Cloud by Bill Havanki Copyright © 2017 Bill Havanki Jr. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472. O'Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also available for most titles (<http://oreilly.com/safari>). For more information, contact our corporate/institutional sales department: 800-998-9938 or _corporate@oreilly.com_. Editor: Marie Beaugureau \| Production Editor: Colleen Cole ---\|--- Copyeditor: Kim Cofer \| Proofreader: Christina Edwards Indexer: WordCo Indexing Services, Inc. \| Interior Designer: David Futato Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery \| Illustrator: Rebecca Demarest * July 2017: First Edition # Revision History for the First Edition * 2017-07-05: First Release See <http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781491959633> for release details. The O'Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O'Reilly Media, Inc. _Moving Hadoop to the Cloud_ , the cover image, and related trade dress are trademarks of O'Reilly Media, Inc. While the publisher and the author have used good faith efforts to ensure that the information and instructions contained in this work are accurate, the publisher and the author disclaim all responsibility for errors or omissions, including without limitation responsibility for damages resulting from the use of or reliance on this work. Use of the information and instructions contained in this work is at your own risk. If any code samples or other technology this work contains or describes is subject to open source licenses or the intellectual property rights of others, it is your responsibility to ensure that your use thereof complies with such licenses and/or rights. 978-1-491-95963-3 [LSI] # Foreword Apache Hadoop as software is a simple framework that allows for distributed processing of data across many machines. As a technology, Hadoop and the surrounding ecosystem have changed the way we think about data processing at scale. No longer does our data need to fit in the memory of a single machine, nor are we limited by the I/O of a single machine's disks. These are powerful tenets. So too has cloud computing changed our way of thinking. While the notion of colocating machines in a faraway data center isn't new, allowing users to provision machines on-demand is, and it's changed everything. No longer are developers or architects limited by the processing power installed in on-premise data centers, nor do we need to host small web farms under our desks or in that old storage closet. The pay-as-you-go model has been a boon for ad hoc testing and proof-of-concept efforts, eliminating time spent in purchasing, installation, and setup. Both Hadoop and cloud computing represent major paradigm shifts, not just in enterprise computing, but affecting many other industries. Much has been written about how these technologies have been used to make advances in retail, public sector, manufacturing, energy, and healthcare, just to name a few. Entire businesses have sprung up as a result, dedicated to the care, feeding, integration, and optimization of these new systems. It was inevitable that Hadoop workloads would be run on cloud computing providers' infrastructure. The cloud offers incredible flexibility to users, often complementing on-premise solutions, enabling them to use Hadoop in ways simply not possible previously. Ever the conscientious software engineer, author Bill Havanki has a strong penchant for documenting. He's able to break down complex concepts and explain them in simple terms, without making you feel foolish. Bill writes the kind of documentation that you actually enjoy, the kind you find yourself reading long after you've discovered the solution to your original problem. Hadoop and cloud computing are powerful and valuable tools, but aren't simple technologies by any means. This stuff is hard. Both have a multitude of configuration options and it's very easy to become overwhelmed. All major cloud providers offer similar services like virtual machines, network attached storage, relational databases, and object storage—all of which can be utilized by Hadoop—but each provider uses different naming conventions and has different capabilities and limitations. For example, some providers require that resource provisioning occurs in a specific order. Some providers create isolated virtual networks for your machines automatically while others require manual creation and assignment. It can be confusing. Whether you're working with Hadoop for the first time or a veteran installing on a cloud provider you've never used before, knowing about the specifics of each environment will save you a lot of time and pain. Cloud computing appeals to a dizzying array of users running a wide variety of workloads. Most cloud providers' official documentation isn't specific to any particular application (such as Hadoop). Using Hadoop on cloud infrastructure introduces additional architectural issues that need to be considered and addressed. It helps to have a guide to demystify the options specific to Hadoop deployments and to ease you through the setup process on a variety of cloud providers, step by step, providing tips and best practices along the way. This book does precisely that, in a way that I wish had been available when I started working in the cloud computing world. Whether code or expository prose, Bill's creations are approachable, sensible, and easy to consume. With this book and its author, you're in capable hands for your first foray into moving Hadoop to the Cloud. Alex Moundalexis, May 2017 # Preface It's late 2015, and I'm staring at a page of mine on my employer's wiki, trying to think of an OKR. An OKR is something like a performance objective, a goal to accomplish paired with a way to measure if it's been accomplished. While my management chain defines OKRs for the company as a whole and major organizations in it, individuals define their own. We grade ourselves on them, but they do not determine how well we performed because they are meant to be aspirational, not necessary. If you meet all your OKRs, they weren't ambitious enough. My coworkers had already been impressed with writing that I'd done as part of my job, both in product documentation and in internal presentations, so focusing on a writing task made sense. How aspirational could I get? So I set this down. "Begin writing a technical book! On something! That is, begin working on one myself, or assist someone else in writing one." Outright ridiculous, I thought, but why not? How's _that_ for aspirational. Well, I have an excellent manager who is willing to entertain the ridiculous, and so she encouraged me to float the idea to someone else in our company who dealt with things like employees writing books, and he responded. "Here's an idea: there is no book out there about Running Hadoop in the Cloud. Would you have enough material at this point?" I work on a product that aims to make the use of Hadoop clusters in the cloud easier, so it was admittedly an extremely good fit. It didn't take long at all for this ember of an idea to catch, and the end result is the book you are reading right now. # Who This Book Is For Between the twin subjects of Hadoop and the cloud, there is more than enough to write about. Since there are already plenty of good Hadoop books out there, this book doesn't try to duplicate them, and so you should already be familiar with running Hadoop. The details of configuring Hadoop clusters are only covered as needed to get clusters up and running. You can apply your prior Hadoop knowledge with great effectiveness to clusters in the cloud, and much of what other Hadoop books cover still applies. It is not assumed, however, that you are familiar with the cloud. Perhaps you've dabbled in it, spun up an instance or two, read some documentation from a provider. Perhaps you haven't even tried it at all, or don't know where to begin. Readers with next to no knowledge of the cloud will find what they need to get rolling with their Hadoop clusters. Often, someone is tasked by their organization with "moving stuff to the cloud," and neither the tasker nor the tasked truly understands what that means. If this describes you, this book is for you. DevOps engineers, system administrators, and system architects will get the most out of this book, since it focuses on constructing clusters in a cloud provider and interfacing with the provider's services. Software developers should also benefit from it; even if they do not build clusters themselves, they should understand how clusters work in the cloud so they know what to ask for and how to design their jobs. # What You Should Already Know Besides having a good grasp of Hadoop concepts, you should have a working knowledge of the Java programming language and the Bash shell, or similar languages. At least being able to read them should suffice, although the Bash scripts do not shy away from advanced shell features. Code examples are constrained to only those languages. Before working on your clusters, you will need credentials for a cloud provider. The first two parts of the book do not require a cloud account to follow along, but the later hands-on parts do. Your organization may already have an account with a provider, and if so, you can seek your own account within that to work with. If you are on your own, you can sign up for a free trial with any of the cloud providers this book covers in detail. # What This Book Leaves Out As stated previously, this book does not delve into Hadoop details more than necessary. A seasoned Hadoop administrator may notice that configurations are not necessarily optimal, and that clusters are not tuned for maximum efficiency. This information is left out for brevity, so as not to duplicate content in books that focus only on Hadoop. Many of the principles for Hadoop maintenance apply to cloud clusters just as well as ordinary ones. The core Hadoop components of HDFS and YARN are covered here, along with other important components such as ZooKeeper, Hive, and Spark. This doesn't imply at all that other components won't work in the cloud; there are simply so many components that, due to space considerations, not all could be included. A limited set of popular cloud providers is covered in this book: Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. There are other cloud providers, both publicly available and deployed privately, but they are not included. The ones that were chosen are the most popular, and you should find that their concepts transfer over rather directly to those in other providers. Even so, each provider does things a little, or a lot, differently from its peers. When getting you up and running, all of them are covered equally, but beyond that, only Amazon Web Services is fully considered, since it is the dominant choice at this time. Brief summaries of equivalent procedures in the other providers are given to get you started with them. Overall, between Hadoop and the cloud, there is just so much to write about. What's more, cloud providers introduce new services and revamp older services all the time, and it can be challenging to keep up even when you work in the cloud every day. This book attempts to stick with the most vital, core Hadoop components and cloud services to be as relevant as possible in this fast-changing world. Understanding them will serve you well when integrating new features into your clusters in the future. # How This Book Works Part I starts off this book by asking why you would host Hadoop clusters in a cloud provider, and briefly introduces the providers this book looks at. Part II describes the common concepts of cloud providers, like instances and virtual networks. If you are already familiar with a cloud provider or two, you might skim or skip these parts. Part III begins the hands-on portion of this book, where you build out a Hadoop cluster in one of the cloud providers. There is a chapter for the unique steps needed by each provider, and a common chapter for bringing up a cluster and seeing it in action. Later parts of the book use this first cluster as a launching point for more. If you are interested in making an even more capable cluster, Part IV can help you. It covers adding high availability and installing Hive and Spark. You can try any combination of the enhancements, and learn even more about the ramifications of running in a cloud provider. Finally, Part V looks at patterns and practices for running cloud clusters well, from designing for price and security to dealing with maintenance. Those first starting out in the cloud may not need the guidance in this part, but as usage ramps up, it becomes much more important. # Which Software Versions This Book Uses Here are the versions of Hadoop components used in this book. All are distributed through Apache: * Apache Hadoop 2.7.2 * Apache ZooKeeper 3.4.8 * Apache Hive 2.1.0 * Apache Spark 1.6.3 and 2.0.2 Code examples require: * Java 8 * Bash 4 Cloud providers update their services continually, and so determining the exact "versions" used for them is not possible. Most of the work in the book was performed during 2016 with the services as they existed at that time. Since then, service web interfaces may have changed and workflows may have been altered. # Conventions Used in This Book The following typographical conventions are used in this book: _Italic_ Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, and file extensions. `Constant width` Used for program listings, as well as within paragraphs to refer to program elements such as variable or function names, databases, data types, environment variables, statements, and keywords. `Constant width bold` Shows commands or other text that should be typed literally by the user. _`Constant width italic`_ Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied values or by values determined by context. ###### Tip This element signifies a tip or suggestion. ###### Note This element signifies a general note. ###### Warning This element indicates a warning or caution. ## IP Addresses Many of the examples throughout this book include IP addresses, usually for cluster nodes. The example IP addresses are drawn from reserved address ranges as specified in RFC 5737. They should never resolve to an actual IP address anywhere on the internet or within private networks. Change them as needed when using the examples in your work. # Using Code Examples Supplemental material (code examples, exercises, etc.) is available for download at _https://github.com/bhavanki/moving-hadoop-to-the-cloud_. This book is here to help you get your job done. In general, if example code is offered with this book, you may use it in your programs and documentation. You do not need to contact us for permission unless you're reproducing a significant portion of the code. For example, writing a program that uses several chunks of code from this book does not require permission. Selling or distributing a CD-ROM of examples from O'Reilly books does require permission. Answering a question by citing this book and quoting example code does not require permission. Incorporating a significant amount of example code from this book into your product's documentation does require permission. We appreciate, but do not require, attribution. An attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and ISBN. For example: " _Moving Hadoop to the Cloud_ by Bill Havanki (O'Reilly). Copyright 2017 Bill Havanki Jr., 978-1-491-95963-3." If you feel your use of code examples falls outside fair use or the permission given above, feel free to contact us at _permissions@oreilly.com_. # O'Reilly Safari ###### Note _Safari_ (formerly Safari Books Online) is a membership-based training and reference platform for enterprise, government, educators, and individuals. Members have access to thousands of books, training videos, Learning Paths, interactive tutorials, and curated playlists from over 250 publishers, including O'Reilly Media, Harvard Business Review, Prentice Hall Professional, Addison-Wesley Professional, Microsoft Press, Sams, Que, Peachpit Press, Adobe, Focal Press, Cisco Press, John Wiley & Sons, Syngress, Morgan Kaufmann, IBM Redbooks, Packt, Adobe Press, FT Press, Apress, Manning, New Riders, McGraw-Hill, Jones & Bartlett, and Course Technology, among others. For more information, please visit _http://oreilly.com/safari_. # How to Contact Us Please address comments and questions concerning this book to the publisher: * O'Reilly Media, Inc. * 1005 Gravenstein Highway North * Sebastopol, CA 95472 * 800-998-9938 (in the United States or Canada) * 707-829-0515 (international or local) * 707-829-0104 (fax) We have a web page for this book, where we list errata, examples, and any additional information. You can access this page at _http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/0636920051459_. To comment or ask technical questions about this book, send email to _bookquestions@oreilly.com_. For more information about our books, courses, conferences, and news, see our website at _http://www.oreilly.com_. Find us on Facebook: _http://facebook.com/oreilly_ Follow us on Twitter: _http://twitter.com/oreillymedia_ Watch us on YouTube: _http://www.youtube.com/oreillymedia_ # Acknowledgments I'm well aware that barely anyone reads the acknowledgments in a book, especially a technical one like this. So, for those few of you who are reading this right now, well, first, I'd like to thank you for your diligence, not to mention your attention and support in the first place. Truly, thanks for spending time and/or money on what I've written here, and I hope it helps you. Thank you to everyone who's helped to build up the amazing Apache Hadoop ecosystem, from its founders to its committers to its contributors to its users, for showing us a new way of computing. Thank you also to everyone who's built and maintained the amazing cloud provider services, for showing us another new way of computing and empowering the rest of us to use it. This book would be worse off without its reviewers: Jesse Anderson, Jenny Kim, Don Miner, Alex Moundalexis, and those who went unnamed or whom I've forgotten. They each applied their expertise, experience, and attention to detail to their feedback, filling in where I left important information out and correcting what I got wrong. I also owe thanks to Misha Brukman and the Google Cloud Platform team for looking over Chapter 7. My editors, Marie Beaugureau and Colleen Toporek, did a wonderful job of shepherding the writing process and giving feedback on organization, formatting, writing flow, and lots of other details. Finally, extra thanks is due to Alex Moundalexis for writing the foreword. One of my favorite aphorisms is by Laozi: "A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving." I've arrived at the destination of authoring a book, but no one observing my travel, including me, could have guessed that I'd have gotten here. The road has wound through a career with a few different employers and with a few more projects, and I was privileged to walk alongside a truly wonderful collection of coworkers and friends along the way. I owe them all my gratitude for their company, and their roles in my journey. I owe special thanks, of course, to my current employer, Cloudera, for the opportunity to create this book and the endorsement of the effort. I specifically want to thank Vinithra Varadharajan, my manager for the past few years, for her unwavering faith in and promotion of my writing effort; and also Justin Kestelyn, who got the ball rolling between me, my employer, and O'Reilly. My teammates past and present on my current project have all played a part in helping me learn about the cloud and have contributed their thoughts and opinions, for which I'm grateful: John Adair, Asif Arman, Cagdas Bayram, Jayita Bhojwani, Michael Cudahy, Xiaohua Guo, David Han, Joe Heyming, Ying Li, Andrei Savu, Fahd Siddiqui, and Michael Wilson. Finally, I must thank my family, including my parents and in-laws for their encouragement, my daughters Samantha and Lydia, and especially my wife Kathy. They have been constantly supportive of me during the long effort it's taken to write this book, and excited for it to be one of my accomplishments. I love them all very much. _Te amo et semper amabo._ # Part I. Introduction to the Cloud The purpose of the first part of this book is to orient you. First, the exact meaning of "the cloud" when it comes to working with Hadoop clusters is explored, so that it is clear what the benefits and drawbacks are. Then, overviews of three major public cloud providers are provided, including a little of their history as well as their approaches to doing business. # Chapter 1. Why Hadoop in the Cloud? Before embarking on a new technical effort, it's important to understand what problems you're trying to solve with it. Hot new technologies come and go in the span of a few years, and it should take more than popularity to make one worth trying. The short span of computing history is littered with ideas and technologies that were once considered the future of their domains, but just didn't work out. Apache Hadoop is a technology that has survived its initial rush of popularity by proving itself as an effective and powerful framework for tackling big data applications. It broke from many of its predecessors in the "computing at scale" space by being designed to run in a distributed fashion across large amounts of commodity hardware instead of a few, expensive computers. Many organizations have come to rely on Hadoop for dealing with the ever-increasing quantities of data that they gather. Today, it is clear what problems Hadoop can solve. Cloud computing, on the other hand, is still a newcomer as of this writing. The term itself, "cloud," currently has a somewhat mystical connotation, often meaning different things to different people. What is the cloud made of? Where is it? What does it do? Most importantly, why would you use it? # What Is the Cloud? A definition for what "the cloud" means for this book can be built up from a few underlying concepts and ideas. First, a cloud is made up of computing resources, which encompasses everything from computers themselves (or _instances_ in cloud terminology) to networks to storage and everything in between and around them. All that you would normally need to put together the equivalent of a server room, or even a full-blown data center, is in place and ready to be claimed, configured, and run. The entity providing these computing resources is called a _cloud provider_. The most famous ones are companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, and this book focuses on the clouds offered by these three. Their clouds can be called _public clouds_ because they are available to the general public; you use computing resources that are shared, in secure ways, with many other people. In contrast, _private clouds_ are run internally by (usually large) organizations. ###### Note While private clouds can work much like public ones, they are not explicitly covered in this book. You will find, though, that the basic concepts are mostly the same across cloud providers, whether public or private. The resources that are available to you in the cloud are not just for you to use, but also to control. This means that you can start and stop instances when you want, and connect the instances together and to the outside world how you want. You can use just a small amount of resources or a huge amount, or anywhere in between. Advanced features from the provider are at your command for managing storage, performance, availability, and more. The cloud provider gives you the building blocks, but it is up to you to know how to arrange them for your needs. Finally, you are free to use cloud provider resources for whatever you wish, within some limitations. There are quotas applied to cloud provider accounts, although these can be negotiated over time. There are also large, hard limits based on the capacity of the provider itself that you can run into. Beyond these somewhat "physical" limitations, there are legal and data security requirements, which can come from your own organization as well as the cloud provider. In general, as long as you are not abusing the cloud provider's offerings, you can do what you want. In this book, that means installing and running Hadoop clusters. Having covered some underlying concepts, here is a definition for "the cloud" that this book builds from: _"The cloud" is a large set of computing resources made available by a cloud provider for customers to use and control for general purposes._ # What Does Hadoop in the Cloud Mean? Now that the term "cloud" has been defined, it's easy to understand what the jargony phrase "Hadoop in the cloud" means: it is running Hadoop clusters on resources offered by a cloud provider. This practice is normally compared with running Hadoop clusters on your own hardware, called _on-premises_ clusters or "on-prem." If you are already familiar with running Hadoop clusters on-prem, you will find that a lot of your knowledge and practices carry over to the cloud. After all, a cloud instance is supposed to act almost exactly like an ordinary server you connect to remotely, with root access, and some number of CPU cores, and some amount of disk space, and so on. Once instances are networked together properly and made accessible, you can imagine that they are running in a regular data center, as opposed to a cloud provider's own data center. This illusion is intentional, so that working in a cloud provider feels familiar, and your skills still apply. That doesn't mean there's nothing new to learn, or that the abstraction is complete. A cloud provider does not do everything for you; there are many choices and a variety of provider features to understand and consider, so that you can build not only a functioning system, but a functioning system of Hadoop clusters. Cloud providers also include features that go beyond what you can do on-prem, and Hadoop clusters can benefit from those as well. Mature Hadoop clusters rarely run in isolation. Supporting resources around them manage data flow in and out and host specialized tools, applications backed by the clusters, and non-Hadoop servers, among other things. The supporting cast can also run in the cloud, or else dedicated networking features can help to bring them close. # Reasons to Run Hadoop in the Cloud Many concepts have been defined so far, but the core question has not yet been answered: Why run Hadoop clusters in the cloud at all? Here are just a few reasons: Lack of space Your organization may need Hadoop clusters, but you don't have anywhere to keep racks of physical servers, along with the necessary power and cooling. Flexibility Without physical servers to rack up or cables to run, it is much easier to reorganize instances, or expand or contract your footprint, for changing business needs. Everything is controlled through cloud provider APIs and web consoles. Changes can be scripted and put into effect manually or even automatically and dynamically based on current conditions. New usage patterns The flexibility of making changes in the cloud leads to new usage patterns that are otherwise impractical. For example, individuals can have their own instances, clusters, and even networks, without much managerial overhead. The overall budget for CPU cores in your cloud provider account can be concentrated in a set of large instances, a larger set of smaller instances, or some mixture, and can even change over time. Speed of change It is much faster to launch new cloud instances or allocate new database servers than to purchase, unpack, rack, and configure physical computers. Similarly, unused resources in the cloud can be torn down swiftly, whereas unused hardware tends to linger wastefully. Lower risk How much on-prem hardware should you buy? If you don't have enough, the entire business slows down. If you buy too much, you've wasted money and have idle hardware that continues to waste money. In the cloud, you can quickly and easily change how many resources you use, so there is little risk of undercommitment or overcommitment. What's more, if some resource malfunctions, you don't need to fix it; you can discard it and allocate a new one. Focus An organization using a cloud provider to rent resources, instead of spending time and effort on the logistics of purchasing and maintaining its own physical hardware and networks, is free to focus on its core competencies, like using Hadoop clusters to carry out its business. This is a compelling advantage for a tech startup, for example. Worldwide availability The largest cloud providers have data centers around the world, ready for you from the start. You can use resources close to where you work, or close to where your customers are, for the best performance. You can set up redundant clusters, or even entire computing environments, in multiple data centers, so that if local problems occur in one data center, you can shift to working elsewhere. Data storage requirements If you have data that is required by law to be stored within specific geographic areas, you can keep it in clusters that are hosted in data centers in those areas. Cloud provider features Each major cloud provider offers an ecosystem of features to support the core functions of computing, networking, and storage. To use those features most effectively, your clusters should run in the cloud provider as well. Capacity Few customers tax the infrastructure of a major cloud provider. You can establish large systems in the cloud that are not nearly as easy to put together, not to mention maintain, on-prem. # Reasons to Not Run Hadoop in the Cloud As long as you are considering why you would run Hadoop clusters in the cloud, you should also consider reasons not to. If you have any of the following reasons as goals, then running in the cloud may disappoint you: Simplicity Cloud providers start you off with reasonable defaults, but then it is up to you to figure out how all of their features work and when they are appropriate. It takes a lot of experience to become proficient at picking the right types of instances and arranging networks properly. High levels of control Beyond the general geographic locations of cloud provider data centers and the hardware specifications that providers reveal for their resources, it is not possible to have exacting, precise control over your cloud architecture. You cannot tell exactly where the physical devices sit, or what the devices near them are doing, or how data across them shares the same physical network. When the cloud provider has internal problems that extend beyond backup and replication strategies already in place, there's not much you can do but wait. Unique hardware needs You cannot have cloud providers attach specialized peripherals or dongles to their hardware for you. If your application requires resources that exceed what a cloud provider offers, you will need to host that part on-prem away from your Hadoop clusters. Saving money For one thing, you are still paying for the resources you use. The hope is that the economy of scale that a cloud provider can achieve makes it more economical for you to pay to "rent" their hardware than to run your own. You will also still need a staff that understands system administration and networking to take care of your cloud infrastructure. Inefficient architectures, especially those that leave resources running idly, can cost a lot of money in storage and data transfer costs. ## What About Security? The idea of sharing resources with many other, unknown parties is sure to raise questions about whether using a public cloud provider can possibly be secure. Could other tenants somehow gain access to your instances, or snoop on the shared network infrastructure? How safe is data stashed away in cloud services? Is security a reason to avoid using public cloud providers? There are valid arguments on both sides of this question, and the answer for you varies depending on your needs and tolerance for risk. Public cloud providers are certainly cognizant of security requirements, and as you'll see throughout this book, they use many different mechanisms to keep your resources private to you and give you control over who can see and do what. When you use a cloud provider, you gain their expertise in building and maintaining secure systems, including backup management, replication, availability, encryption support, and network management. So, it is reasonable to expect that clusters running in the cloud can be secure. Still, there may be overriding reasons why some data simply cannot be put up into the cloud, for any reason, or why it's too risky to move data to, from, and around the cloud. In these situations, limited use of the cloud may still be possible. # Hybrid Clouds Running Hadoop clusters in the cloud has compelling advantages, but the disadvantages may restrict you from completely abandoning an on-prem infrastructure. In a situation like that, a _hybrid cloud_ architecture may be helpful. Instead of running your clusters and associated applications completely in the cloud or completely on-prem, the overall system is split between the two. Data channels are established between the cloud and on-prem worlds to connect the components needed to perform work. "Cloud-Only or Hybrid?" explores the pattern of hybrid clouds, including some examples for when they are appropriate or even necessary. Creating a hybrid cloud architecture is more challenging than running only on-prem or only in the cloud, but you are still able to benefit from some advantages of the cloud that you otherwise couldn't. # Hadoop Solutions from Cloud Providers There are ways to take advantage of Hadoop technologies without doing the work of creating your own Hadoop clusters. Cloud providers offer prepackaged compute services that use Hadoop under the hood, but manage most of the cluster management work themselves. You simply point the services to your data and provide them with the jobs to run, and they handle the rest, delivering results back to you. You still pay for the resources used, as well as the use of the service, but save on all of the administrative work. So, why ever roll your own clusters when these services exist? There are some good reasons: * Prepackaged services aim to cover the most common uses of Hadoop, such as individual MapReduce or Spark jobs. Their features may not be sufficient for more complex requirements, and may not offer Hadoop components that you already rely on or wish to employ. * The services obviously only work on the cloud provider offering them. Some organizations are worried about being "locked in" to a single provider, unable to take advantage of competition between the providers. * Useful applications that run on top of Hadoop clusters may not be compatible with a prepackaged provider service. * It may not be possible to satisfy data security or tracking requirements with a prepackaged service, since you lack direct control over the resources. Despite the downsides, you should investigate Hadoop-based provider solutions before rushing into running your own clusters. They can be useful and powerful, save you a lot of work, and get you running in the cloud more quickly. You can use them for prototyping work, and you may decide to keep them around for support tasks even while using your own clusters for the rest. Here are some of the provider solutions that exist as of this writing. Keep an eye out for new ones as well. ## Elastic MapReduce Elastic MapReduce, or EMR, is Amazon Web Services' solution for managing prepackaged Hadoop clusters and running jobs on them. You can work with regular MapReduce jobs or Apache Spark jobs, and can use Apache Hive, Apache Pig, Apache HBase, and some third-party applications. Scripting hooks enable the installation of additional services. Data is typically stored in Amazon S3 or Amazon DynamoDB. The normal mode of operation for EMR is to define the parameters for a cluster, such as its size, location, Hadoop version, and variety of services, point to where data should be read from and written to, and define steps to execute such as MapReduce or Spark jobs. EMR launches a cluster, performs the steps to generate the output data, and then tears the cluster down. However, you can leave clusters running for further use, and even resize them for greater capacity or a smaller footprint. EMR provides an API so that you can automate the launching and management of Hadoop clusters. ## Google Cloud Dataproc Google Cloud Dataproc is similar to EMR, but runs within Google Cloud Platform. It offers Hadoop, Spark, Hive, and Pig, working on data that is usually stored in Google Cloud Storage. Like EMR, it supports both transient and long-running clusters, cluster resizing, and scripts for installing additional services. It can also be controlled through an API. ## HDInsight Microsoft Azure's prepackaged solution, called HDInsight, is built on top of the Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP). The service defines cluster types for Hadoop, Spark, Apache Storm, and HBase; other components like Hive and Pig are included as well. Clusters can be integrated with other tools like Microsoft R Server and Apache Solr through scripted installation and configuration. HDInsight clusters work with Azure Blob Storage and Azure Data Lake Store for reading and writing data used in jobs. You control whether clusters are torn down after their work is done or left running, and clusters can be resized. Apache Ambari is included in clusters for management through its API. ## Hadoop-Like Services The solutions just listed are explicitly based on Hadoop. Cloud providers also offer other services, based on different technologies, for managing and analyzing large amounts of data. Some offer SQL-like query capabilities similar to Hive or Apache Impala, and others offer processing pipelines like Apache Oozie. It may be possible to use those services to augment Hadoop clusters, managed either directly or through the cloud provider's own prepackaged solution, depending on where and how data is stored. Of course, these tools share the same disadvantages as the Hadoop-based solutions in terms of moving further away from the open source world and its interoperability benefits. Since they are not based on Hadoop, there is a separate learning curve for them, and the effort could be wasted if they are ever discarded in favor of something that works on Hadoop, or on a different cloud provider, or even on-prem. Their ready availability and ease of use, however, can be attractive. ## A Spectrum of Choices It's perhaps ironic that much of this chapter describes how you can avoid running Hadoop clusters in the cloud, either by sticking with on-prem clusters (either partially or completely), by using cloud provider services that take away the management work, or by using tools that do away with Hadoop completely. There is a spectrum of choices, where at one end you work with your data at a conceptual level using high-level tools, and at the other end you build workflows, analyses, and query systems from the ground up. The breadth of this spectrum may be daunting. However, one fact remains true: _Hadoop works everywhere_. When you focus on the core components in the Hadoop ecosystem, you have the freedom and power to work however you like, wherever you like. When you stick to the common components of Hadoop, you can carry your expertise with them to wherever your code runs and your data lives. Cloud providers are eager for you to use their resources. They offer services to take over Hadoop cluster administration for you, but they are just as happy to let you run things yourself. Running your own clusters does not require you to forgo all of the benefits of a cloud provider, and Hadoop components that you deploy and run can still make effective use of cloud services. This book, in fact, explores how. # Getting Started Have you figured out why you want to run Hadoop in the cloud? Ready to get started? If you already know which cloud provider you'll use, skip ahead to Part II for a primer on the major concepts of cloud instances, networking, and storage. Otherwise, continue to the next chapter for an overview of the major cloud providers so that you can understand the landscape. An exception: some cloud providers have infrastructure dedicated to US government use where stricter controls are in place. If there weren't, this book would not be very useful! # Chapter 2. Overview and Comparison of Cloud Providers This short chapter provides a brief background and history of the three major public cloud providers that are covered in this book. If you aren't sure which one to use, this information may help you decide. # Amazon Web Services _Amazon Web Services_ (AWS) is, at the time of this writing, perhaps the dominant public cloud provider. It may be surprising to learn that its earliest services were launched in 2006, well before cloud computing grew popular: * Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), a service for provisioning computing resources on demand * Simple Storage Service (S3), online storage for opaque data The original primary intent of AWS was to resolve scalability issues within Amazon itself, but even in its initial proposal in 2003 it was recognized that the new infrastructure could also be offered to customers. The next prominent services to be added to the AWS suite included: * Elastic Block Store (EBS), persistent disk-like storage for EC2 instances, in 2008 * Elastic MapReduce (EMR), a service providing Hadoop-like clusters for running MapReduce (and later Apache Hive and Apache Pig) jobs, in 2009 * Relational Database Service (RDS), a service for managing relational database server instances running in AWS, also in 2009 In 2012, new AWS services focused on data storage; in that year alone the Redshift massive-scale data warehouse, the DynamoDB NoSQL database, and the Glacier data archival service were introduced. More recent key developments include the Aurora cloud-optimized relational database and the Lambda function-as-a-service component, both in 2014. Major companies rely heavily on AWS for their computing and storage needs, not least of which is Amazon itself, which migrated its shopping services to it back in 2010. The US federal government has access to its own computing region, called GovCloud, for highly secured government applications. By being a first mover in cloud providers, AWS was able to define the terminology and practices that many other cloud providers use, with their own variations. It continues to be highly active, experiencing more demand than even its originators had anticipated. While all of the major cloud providers do a good job of evolving their systems according to customer demand, Amazon usually makes the biggest impact when it unveils its latest offerings, and it remains the provider against which all others are compared. ## References * Timeline of Amazon Web Services * The myth about how Amazon's web service started just won't die # Google Cloud Platform As the originator and popularizer of early Hadoop technologies like MapReduce, it is natural to consider _Google Cloud Platform_ as a home for your own Hadoop clusters. Services such as BigQuery and BigTable provide direct access to big data systems based on those original technologies, but you can also host your own Hadoop clusters using other services. Google Cloud Platform started out in 2008 as the Google App Engine service, a development environment backed by Google's infrastructure for needs such as persistent storage, CPU cycles, and user authentication. It was, and still is, focused on general web application development, although today it also focuses on hosting backends for mobile services. The next separate service, Google Storage for Developers, was introduced in 2010; it is now called Google Cloud Storage, and works in a manner similar to AWS S3. The BigQuery service for performing SQL-like queries on massive amounts of data followed in 2012. Perhaps surprisingly, it was not until late 2013 that Google Compute Engine, Google Cloud Platform's answer to AWS EC2, was made available for general use. Google Cloud SQL followed quickly in early 2014, supporting cloud deployments of MySQL. Google Dataproc, unveiled in 2016, is a versatile service supporting Hadoop and Spark workloads. The infrastructure supporting Google Cloud Platform is the same that powers Google's own services, most notably its internet search capability. Many major companies use Google Cloud Platform to run their own architectures. There is a smaller variety of services under the Google Cloud Platform umbrella than under AWS, although they do cover the requirements for fielding Hadoop clusters. You may find that you must assemble some pieces of your system "by hand" at times, whereas in AWS there is a service or service feature that fills the gap. Despite that, Google Cloud Platform is under active development just as the other cloud provider systems are, and the generally cleaner design of Google Cloud Platform compared to AWS may be attractive to some. Fundamentally, though, the concepts used in AWS and Google Cloud Platform are quite compatible, and being familiar with one makes it easier to get going with the other. ## References * Google Cloud Platform blog * Google Developers blog # Microsoft Azure Microsoft's cloud provider offering, today called _Microsoft Azure_ , started its life in 2008 as Windows Azure, a service for running .NET and other services on Windows inside Microsoft's infrastructure. Storage services for tables and general "blobs" were included, along with a service bus for queuing data between applications. Windows Azure became generally available in 2010. Also made available in 2010, although announced a year earlier, was Azure SQL Database, a distributed database service based on Microsoft SQL Server. The services in Azure continued to grow and advance, and finally in 2012 the ability to run images of Windows and Linux on persistent virtual machines was delivered. By 2014, given Azure's continuing expansion and shifting focus from being a platform-as-a-service to infrastructure-as-a-service, the provider was renamed to Microsoft Azure. The mode of working with Azure has changed over time, and today one of its distinguishing features is its portal, a highly customizable and dynamic web interface to the large variety of Azure services. The current portal was made available in 2015. Like AWS and Google Cloud Platform, Azure hosts its company's own large internet services, such as Microsoft Office 365, Bing, and OneDrive. Microsoft's long history of supporting large enterprises has led to many of them using Azure as their cloud provider. Azure also has excellent security accreditations and meets requirements for EU data protections, HIPAA, and US government FedRAMP. Among the major cloud providers, Azure has the widest geographic footprint. Azure has similar services to both AWS and Google Cloud Platform when considering them at a high level, but its conceptual framework varies significantly, such that it is more difficult to translate ideas and designs from Azure to the other providers, or back again. Organizations that have innate familiarity with the Microsoft ecosystem may be drawn naturally to Azure. While it originally leaned heavily on Microsoft technologies such as Windows, SQL Server, and .NET, today it works just as well as a cloud provider for Linux-based architectures, which are paramount for Hadoop cluster support. ## References * Microsoft launches Windows Azure * A Brief History of Azure * Windows Azure's spring fling: Linux comes to Microsoft's cloud * Upcoming Name Change for Windows Azure * Announcing Azure Portal General Availability # Which One Should You Use? This chapter is indeed only a short overview of these three cloud providers, and you should take the time to learn about them through their own marketing and technical materials as well as trade articles and blog posts. War stories abound about how using cloud provider capabilities saved the day, and large and successful customers openly share how they are able to run their businesses in the cloud. All of the providers offer free trials or credits in some form, so another important task in evaluating them is to try them out. While you will be limited in the scope of what you can field, hands-on experience tells you about how the providers work in ways that no web page can. Tasks you should try out to get a feel for a provider include: * Allocating a new computing resource, or _instance_ (see Chapter 3), and logging in to it * Moving data from your local system to a cloud instance and back * Downloading software to an instance and running it * Navigating the provider's web console * Saving data to and retrieving data from the provider's object storage service (see Chapter 5) Pricing plays a huge role in selecting a cloud provider. Your organization may already have a business relationship with a cloud provider (Microsoft is most common here) that can be parlayed into discounts. The providers themselves are in robust competition with each other as well, so since Hadoop clusters can be deployed on any of them quite effectively, you can easily pit them against each other. Since the cloud providers evolve and change so quickly, and to be fair to all of them, it is not possible to come up with a simple recipe for finding one that is best for you. Still, since your goal is to spin up Hadoop clusters, a suggestion that can be given here is to use this book as your guide, and take them each for a test drive. Here are some of the questions you'll want to find answers for: * How easy is it to understand what the services do? * Are the web interfaces easy to use? * Is essential information easy to find? * Does the provider make it simple to do tasks that are important to the organization? * When there are problems, are they easy to fix? How capable is the provider support? * Are the prices fair? * Does the provider infrastructure meet security requirements? If you are just starting out and need to get a basic understanding of cloud provider concepts in order to answer these questions and more, then continue on to Chapter 3, which starts you off with what an instance is. Otherwise, if you are ready to jump in and build a cluster, head to Part III, where you can get rolling on the cloud provider of your choice. # Part II. Cloud Primer This part provides an introduction to cloud provider concepts, including compute capabilities, networking, and storage. If you are already familiar with using a cloud provider, you may wish to skim the chapters in this part. Cloud providers can use different terminology to refer to the same concept, or even offer different features that support the same concept. In these cases, the descriptions here begin by using the terminology for Amazon Web Services (AWS). Differences in other cloud providers are called out after the basic concept is described. # Chapter 3. Instances The core of a cloud provider's offerings is the ability to provision instances. An _instance_ is similar in concept to a virtual machine, which is an emulation of a particular computer system. While historically virtual machines were thought of as running on a specific piece of hardware—perhaps a server in a company's machine room—a cloud instance is thought of as running somewhere unspecified within the cloud provider's vast infrastructure. Precisely where and how an instance is provisioned is often not revealed to you as a customer, although you do have some coarse-grained control (see "Regions and Availability Zones" for one example). All that matters to you is that you ask for an instance, and the cloud provider brings it to life. ###### Note Instances running in Azure are called "virtual machines." The features of an instance, beyond its precise physical location, are up to you. You can choose from a variety of combinations of CPU power and memory, any of several operating systems, and different storage options, just to start with. Once the instance has been provisioned, you can access it over SSH through the networking capabilities of the cloud provider. From that point on, it acts and feels just like a real, physical machine. You have root access, so you can install applications, perform additional upgrades, start web servers or Hadoop daemons, and so on. Your cloud provider account has limits that affect the number and size of instances you can provision. Those limits, along with the cost of running instances, influence how you design your cloud architecture. Given those limits, often the first step in the design process is determining which instance types to use. # Instance Types Cloud providers offer instances in a multitude of combinations of features. These combinations usually differentiate themselves in terms of compute power, memory, storage capacity, and performance. To make selecting a combination easier, and also to enable the cloud provider to fit all its customers' instances together efficiently on its infrastructure, a cloud provider offers a set of fixed feature combinations, like a menu. Each of these _instance types_ is defined for a purpose: heavy compute capability, vast storage, economy, or simply general-purpose use. ###### Note Azure refers to instance types as "instance sizes." While you are free to always select a top-of-the-line instance type with lots of everything, it will be among the most expensive of your options, and most of the time you will not need all of that power all the time. It is much more efficient, and cheaper, to pick instance types that focus on what you need the instances for. Since a cloud provider makes it easy to provision new instances, you have the option of allocating more, cheaper instances, instead of staying with a smaller number of ultrapowerful ones. Cluster technologies like Hadoop can flourish in this sort of environment. As your needs change over time, you can scale up or scale down the number of daemons you run for different components without worrying about the physical hardware. Moreover, Hadoop components do not require top-of-the-line instance specifications to work; they can perform well on mid-range instance types. Still, you should pick instance types that focus on the features that the components need. Advice for selecting instance types for Hadoop clusters is provided in "Picking Instance Types". In short, roles are defined for instances in a cluster, and then the needs for each role are discussed. Cloud providers offer many different instance types, so it can be tricky to decide on which ones to use. It is somewhat easier, though, to choose where the instances will run. # Regions and Availability Zones An advantage of using a cloud provider is geographic distribution. A major cloud provider's infrastructure spans time zones and continents, running 24 hours a day. A data center can be constructed anywhere that has space, electricity, network connectivity, and people to maintain it. This enables you to set up your own systems in a distributed fashion, reaping all of the associated availability and performance benefits. A cloud provider infrastructure is exposed as a set of divided, geographic areas called _regions_. For example, a cloud provider could define three regions in the continental United States (say, west, central, and east) along with two more in Europe and two in Southeast Asia. The number and coverage areas of cloud provider regions changes over time. A busy geographic area may be covered by multiple regions. When you provision new instances, you select the region where they live. You may decide to pick the region you work in, so that network performance between you and the instance is quickest. Or, you may be setting up a failover system and decide to choose a region farther away. If you know that most of the traffic to your instance will be from customers, you may choose a region close to them. You may pick a region to satisfy legal requirements that apply to where your data may be stored. Regions are one of the key factors in designing a large Hadoop cluster. While spreading a cluster far and wide across the world sounds attractive for availability, it takes much longer, and will cost more, for instances in different regions to communicate with each other. So, it's important to plan carefully to minimize cross-region communication while still getting the availability you need. To help provide both availability and performance, a cloud provider defines one or more _availability zones_ within a region. Availability zones are themselves independent within a region, but they have faster interconnections. This lets you set up a distributed architecture that sits within a single region and has good performance, yet has some measure of availability. While it is rare for an entire availability zone to fail, it is far rarer for an entire region to fail. ###### Note Azure does not support the concept of availability zones, but instead lets you define _availability sets_. An availability set contains instances that are spread out among multiple _fault domains_ , each of which has separate power and network connections and therefore are housed in different hosts and racks. So, rather than managing availability zones yourself for each individual instance in your architecture, you can group them into availability sets based on their roles. Communication between instances in different availability zones generally costs more than between instances in the same availability zone, and this is one factor that will influence your cluster architecture. In general, you would not spread a Hadoop cluster across availability zones except to achieve high availability. Chapter 10 is dedicated to exploring high availability, and discusses the pros and cons of availability zones as a factor. As you've seen, you have control over the specifications of an instance through selecting an instance type and some amount of control over where an instance runs. It's time to discuss how you can control an instance's existence once it has been started. # Instance Control Just like a real machine, even when no one is connected to it, an instance still "exists" and keeps running. This makes instances perfectly suited for hosting daemons like those across the Hadoop ecosystem. The cloud provider monitors your instances, and you can set up alerts to be notified if any of your instances become unreachable or, in rare cases, die out. If you know that you will not be using an instance for a while, you can _stop_ it. Stopping an instance works like shutting off a physical machine; processes running on it are terminated normally and the operating system halts. A stopped instance is unreachable until it is started again, which works like turning a physical machine back on. Why stop an instance instead of just leaving it running? One important reason is that your cloud provider charges your account much less, or not at all, for an instance while it is stopped, so it is economical to stop instances you aren't using. In addition, some operations on an instance, like changing its attached storage, can only be performed when the instance is stopped. ###### Note Azure continues to charge for instances that are stopped. You must also "deallocate" instances to suspend charging for instances. This is because Azure retains the compute and memory resources for your instances even when they are stopped. Once an instance has served its purpose, it can be _terminated_ or deleted. A terminated instance cannot be started up again; you need to provision a new instance to replace it. Once an instance is terminated, everything that was on its disks is lost, unless you have backed it up, either on your own or by using other cloud provider capabilities (see Chapter 5). Cloud providers stop charging for instances when they are terminated. ###### Warning Terminating an instance causes a cloud provider to reclaim most or all of the resources associated with that instance, but stopping may also cause the provider to reclaim some resources, such as ephemeral storage (see "Block Storage") or public IP addresses (see "Virtual Networks"). Check your provider's documentation for complete information. It may be the case that even stopping an instance participating in a Hadoop cluster will render it unusable when it is started again. # Temporary Instances By default, once you allocate an instance, it is yours to control until you terminate it yourself; it will not be taken away from you unless some rare problem occurs at the cloud provider, and even then you usually receive a warning and some lead time to react. Under some circumstances, however, you may decide to use a _temporary instance_ , which can disappear after some time. While this seems like a bad idea in the general case, temporary instances can be useful for surging your capacity for a few hours, or for running some process that won't take long. Still, though, why not just use ordinary instances all the time? The main reason is that cloud providers charge significantly less for temporary instances than for ordinary ones. Cloud providers almost always have excess capacity going unused, so temporary instances are a way to earn revenue on it, even at a discount, until the capacity can be allocated to ordinary provisioned instances. In order to use temporary instances effectively, you must have automated means of bootstrapping them and pressing them into service. If you spend too much time getting them set up, they may disappear before you get a chance to do anything with them. Nevertheless, if that does happen, it's straightforward to rerun automation and try again with another temporary instance. This mode of retrying on temporary instances is not suitable for critical pieces of your system, but can save money elsewhere. While it makes good sense to not under-utilize temporary instances, it makes good sense as well not to over-utilize them, especially for the sake of saving money. Temporary instances _will_ disappear on you, sometimes when you least expect or want them to, and a quiet spell of weeks where temporary instances have been reliable and lingered for plenty of time can end surprisingly suddenly. So, use them, but use them wisely. ###### Note Azure does not offer temporary instances at this time. ## Spot Instances AWS calls its temporary instances _spot instances_. There is a market for spot instances within AWS, driven by the price that customers are willing to pay for them. When demand for spot instances is low, the price is low; when demand goes up, so does the price. When you request spot instances, you select a price that you are willing to pay, anywhere from the current market price up to the fixed rate for ordinary instances. The spot market determines not only the price for spot instances, but also how long they last. Once the spot price rises above your chosen price, your spot instances are reclaimed so that their resources can be used by those who bid higher (or for ordinary instances). So, you can choose a higher initial price for a higher probability of keeping your spot instances longer, but you may end up paying "too much" if the market price remains low. Spot instances are particularly prone to overuse, since there is no predetermined time after which they will disappear. They can persist for days or weeks, and lull users into a false sense of stability. Don't be fooled; always treat them as if they could disappear at any moment. ## Preemptible Instances Google Cloud Platform calls its temporary instances _preemptible instances_. Unlike AWS, there is no market determining the price for a preemptible instance; there is a single offered price, which is lower than the price of a standard instance. While market conditions in AWS determine when your spot instances are reclaimed, preemptible instances are _guaranteed_ to be reclaimed within a day (24 hours), if not sooner. This does much to reduce the temptation to over-rely on them and promotes the practices of automating their configuration and keeping your cluster resilient to loss of instances. # Images Besides its instance type, location, and lifecycle, another key feature of an instance is what it's actually running: its operating system type and version, the software packages that are available, and applications that are installed. These considerations are all bundled up into _images_. An image can be thought of as the plan for a virtual drive that your instance runs from. Conceptually it is just like a virtual machine image file: an encapsulated filesystem with a specific operating system and other software installed and ready to go. When you provision an instance, you select the image that it should start from. Larger cloud providers can support hundreds or thousands of different images, some that they fashion themselves, but many more that are created by operating system vendors, vendors of other software, and in some cases even individuals. Cloud providers will propose a small set of stock images to help you get started, but you have the freedom to use any image you like. Most images are free to use, especially those that bundle free operating systems. However, there are some that cost money to use, either as a fixed additional cost or a continual surcharge to running them. In addition, some images may host unlicensed, freshly installed (at the time the image was created) software that will prompt you for license details before your instances will start to fully function. Hadoop can be used on images that include free operating systems like Ubuntu and CentOS, or on those that require licenses, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux. One of the most important things you can do to make using Hadoop on a cloud provider easier is to create your own images. Instead of using a basic image for every instance and installing Hadoop components on them every time, even in an automated fashion, you can instead create a custom image with the components installed where you need them. Chapter 16 goes into detail about this process. # No Instance Is an Island Instances provisioned by a cloud provider aren't of much use if no one can reach them. The next chapter discusses how instances are connected into a network so that you can reach them and they can reach other and other systems outside the cloud provider. During the free trial period for cloud providers, you are usually restricted to only basic instance types with relatively meager specifications. Once you upgrade to a regular account, or after some amount of time, your options open up. Fault domains may still reside in the same data center. AWS documentation capitalizes the word "Spot." This book does not, reflecting how the term is commonly used to describe temporary instances from any cloud provider. # Chapter 4. Networking and Security An essential aspect of working with instances is configuring their network connectivity. While cloud providers start customers off with a basic, working network configuration, it's important to understand the ways to construct different network topologies, so that your clusters can communicate effectively internally, and back and forth with your own systems and with the outside world. Network topology is of primary importance when setting up Hadoop clusters. Worker daemons like datanodes and node managers must be able to work with namenodes and resource managers, and clients must understand where to send jobs to run and where cluster data resides. You will likely spend more time designing and maintaining the network architecture of your clusters than the instances and images that serve as their building blocks. Security considerations are intertwined with network design. Once network connections are made, you need to determine the rules by which they are used. Which parts of the network can talk to which other parts of the network? What can reach out to the internet? What can reach _in_ from the internet? What ports should be exposed, and to whom? This chapter covers a wide range of topics, and is more of an introduction to cloud networks and security than an application of them to Hadoop, although there are some pointers. Chapter 14 goes into much more detail about designing a network and security rules for a Hadoop cluster. # A Drink of CIDR Before diving into the details of cloud provider network services, it's helpful to be familiar with _CIDR_ ( _Classless Inter-Domain Routing_ ) _notation_ , a way of denoting a continuous range of IP addresses. The scopes of network partitions and the rules that apply to activity in them are defined using CIDR notation. In this book, the term "CIDR" or "CIDR block" is used to refer to an IP address range specified in CIDR notation. An IP address range expressed in CIDR notation has two parts: a starting IP address and a decimal number counting the number of leading bits of value 1 in the _network mask_ , which is as long as the IP address itself. An IP address lies within the range if it matches the starting IP address when logically ANDed with the network mask. Here are some examples that illustrate how to interpret CIDRs: * The range 192.168.0.0/24 represents the IP addresses from 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.0.255, for a total of 256 addresses. * The range 172.16.0.0/20 represents the IP addresses from 172.16.0.0 to 172.16.15.255, for a total of 4,096 addresses. Note that the number of 1 bits in the network mask does not need to be a multiple of 4, although it commonly is. * The range 192.168.100.123/32 represents only the single IP address 192.168.100.123. It is common practice to target a single IP address, in a security rule for example, using a /32 block. For more about the role of CIDR in IP routing and allocation, see the Wikipedia article on Classless Inter-Domain Routing. Their usefulness in allocating IP addresses is why CIDR blocks are used to delimit virtual networks in the cloud. # Virtual Networks Cloud providers establish _virtual networks_ as the top-level containers where instances live. Each virtual network is separate from other virtual networks, and instances within a virtual network always communicate with each other more directly than with instances in other virtual networks or outside of the cloud provider. A virtual network is just a basic, coarse-grained concept. To enable finer control of network topology, each virtual network is divided up into subnetworks or _subnets_. A subnet is not just a lower-level instance container; it also covers a range of _private_ IP addresses. There are normally several subnets within a virtual network, each with a distinct range of private IP addresses. ###### Tip RFC 1918 establishes three ranges of private IP addresses. Cloud providers use these ranges to define subnets. Any of these blocks, including just portions of them, can be used for a subnet: * 10.0.0.0–10.255.255.255 (CIDR 10.0.0.0/8) * 172.16.0.0–172.31.255.255 (CIDR 172.16.0.0/12) * 192.168.0.0–192.168.255.255 (CIDR 192.168.0.0/16) ###### Note Amazon Web Services calls its virtual networks Virtual Private Clouds or VPCs. Each VPC has a private IP address range, and the address range for each subnet within a VPC must be a subset of the VPC's range. The subnet ranges do not have to completely cover the VPC range. For example, a single virtual network could be designed to cover the entire 16-bit private IP address block of 192.168.0.0/16. One way to divide the network, as shown in Figure 4-1, is into four subnets, each covering a distinct quarter of the block: 192.168.0.0/18, 192.168.64.0/18, 192.168.128.0/18, and 192.168.192.0/18. ###### Figure 4-1. A virtual network with four subnets After a virtual network is established, subnets must be created within it as homes for instances that will reside in the virtual network. Sometimes the cloud provider establishes one or more default subnets, and sometimes it is up to you to define them. The size of the private IP range of a subnet dictates its capacity for instances: for example, a range like 192.168.123.0/28 only supports 16 instances, while a range like 172.16.0.0/16 supports thousands. Instances that reside in the same subnet can communicate more quickly and easily than those in separate subnets, so sizing subnets appropriately is important for designing efficient clusters. When you provision an instance on a cloud provider, you choose its subnet. The cloud provider assigns the instance an IP address from the remaining unused addresses in the subnet's range, and that IP address sticks with the instance until it is terminated. ###### Note The private IP address for an Azure virtual machine can either be static or dynamic. A dynamic private IP address, which is the default, is dissociated from the virtual machine even when it is stopped, while a static private IP remains across stops until termination. In order to avoid needing to reconfigure your Hadoop cluster after virtual machines are stopped and started, you will want to use static addresses. Most of the time, a Hadoop cluster should reside within a single subnet, itself within one virtual network. Not only is this arrangement simplest, it is the least expensive and has the best performance. Chapter 10 explores other arrangements in terms of establishing high availability. ## Private DNS When an instance is provisioned inside a subnet, it is assigned not only a private IP address, but also a _private_ DNS hostname. The hostname is automatically generated for you and registered with the cloud provider's internal DNS infrastructure. It may simply be a form of the public IP address or some random string, and thus have no meaning. The cloud provider also automatically configures each instance's network settings so that processes running on it can resolve private DNS hostnames successfully, both its own and those of others in the virtual network. A private DNS hostname can be resolved to a private IP address _only_ by instances within the virtual network of the instance it is assigned to. Other instances, including those in other virtual networks of the same cloud provider, must use a public DNS hostname or public IP address, if those are assigned at all. ###### Note In Azure, two virtual networks can be _peered_ , so that instances in them can communicate using private IP addresses. The two networks must have private IP address ranges that do not overlap. In practice, private DNS hostnames have limited usefulness in working with a Hadoop cluster; the private IP addresses work just as well, and are often shorter and therefore easier to work with. Given all the other things to think about when managing virtual networks and how instances are deployed within them, you may find that private DNS can essentially be ignored. ## Public IP Addresses and DNS While an instance is always assigned a private IP address, it may also be assigned a public IP address. The public IP address is not part of the instance's subnet's IP range, but is instead assigned from the block of IP addresses administered by the cloud provider. An instance with a public IP address is therefore addressable from outside the virtual network and, in particular, from the internet. While having a public IP address is a prerequisite for an instance to have connectivity outside the virtual network, it does not mean that the instance _can_ be reached, or itself reach out from the virtual network. That depends on the security rules that govern the instance and routing rules that apply to the subnet. A cloud provider may also assign a public DNS hostname to an instance with a public IP address. The typical public DNS hostname is under the domain of the cloud provider and, like a private DNS hostname, often has no real meaning. Still, the cloud provider does establish resolution of the public DNS hostname to the public IP address for external clients, so it is usable. If you have a DNS domain that you want to use for assigning public DNS hostnames to your instances, you can use the cloud provider's public DNS component to manage assignments (AWS Route 53, Google Cloud DNS, and Azure DNS). In the context of configuring and using Hadoop clusters, however, it's almost always sufficient to work with private DNS hostnames for instances. Save public DNS hostnames for those few gateway instances that host public-facing interfaces to your system. ###### Tip Without a public IP address or public DNS hostname, an instance is not reachable from the internet. It is therefore much more difficult to accidentally expose such an instance through, for example, overly permissive security settings. The private and public addresses for instances in a virtual network provide a logical means for finding where instances are. It is not as obvious how to understand where a virtual network and subnets within it are located. # Virtual Networks and Regions The location of a subnet in a virtual network, or of an entire virtual network, is determined in different ways, depending on the cloud provider. A subnet in AWS and Google Cloud Platform, besides determining the private IP address for an instance, also determines the region where the instance resides. In AWS, each subnet that you define is assigned to an availability zone, so instances in the subnet run in that availability zone, in the zone's region. In Google Cloud, the arrangement is slightly different: each subnet is associated with an entire region, but when you provision a new instance, you can select an availability zone in the subnet's region. The association of regions with subnets in these providers make subnets the means by which you take geography into account when architecting the network topology for your clusters. There is a need to strike a balance between the fast, open communication possible between instances in a single subnet with the availability and reliability benefits of distributing instances across regions and therefore across subnets. Figure 4-2 shows an example virtual network demonstrating subnets in different locations. ###### Figure 4-2. A virtual network spanning two regions and multiple availability zones Region determination works differently in Azure. With this provider, each subnet and, in turn, each virtual network is associated with a resource group, and a resource group specifies the region for all its resources. So, setting up a cluster that spans regions is somewhat more challenging in Azure, since you will need multiple resource groups, which spreads out management. Chapter 10 goes into detail about spanning clusters across availability zones and regions. The general advice is to never span regions, and rarely even span availability zones, due to the impact to performance and the high cost of data transfer, given the large amount of intracluster traffic that Hadoop generates. An architecture that keeps clusters confined to single regions, and even single availability zones, is much more cost effective. # Routing Cloud networking is about much more than placing instances in the right IP address ranges in the right geographic regions. Instances need paths to follow for communication with other instances and with the world outside the cloud provider. These paths are called _routes_. From the point of view of an instance, there are several possibilities for where a route leads. The shortest and simplest path is back to the instance's own subnet. There are also usually routes that lead to other subnets in the instance's virtual network. Some other routes lead outside the network, either to other virtual networks, or completely outside the cloud provider. A route is comprised of an IP address range and a destination. The route declares that a resource whose IP address falls within its range can be reached by communicating with the route's destination. Sometimes the destination is the desired resource itself, a direct route; but sometimes it is a device, specialized instance, or cloud provider feature that handles establishing communication. In general, that sort of intermediary destination is called a _gateway_. Here are some examples of routes, which are also illustrated in Figure 4-3: * For IP addresses in the CIDR range 192.168.128.0/18, the destination is subnet C. * For IP addresses in the CIDR range 10.0.0.0/8, the destination is the corporate VPN gateway. * For any IP address (CIDR 0.0.0.0/0), the destination is the internet gateway. ###### Figure 4-3. Routes leading from a subnet to various destinations A cloud instance has a set of routes to look through, which are arranged into a _route table_ or _routing table_. Given an IP address to communicate with, the route table is consulted, and the best match for the destination IP address is used. Sometimes there is only one route that satisfies the need, but sometimes there are multiple. In that case, generally, the route that most specifically matches the IP address is chosen. Suppose that an instance has an associated route table listing the three example routes as shown in Figure 4-3. When a process on the instance attempts to initiate communication with 10.0.0.126, the instance's networking system consults the route table and looks for the best match. The IP address does not fall within the range for subnet C, so that route is discarded. The VPN route and the internet route both match; however, the VPN route is a better match, so that route is chosen. If there is no match at all, then network communication will fail. That is why it is typical for there to be a catch-all (or default) route for CIDR 0.0.0.0/0 that leads to the internet, the idea being that any IP address not accounted for must be outside the cloud provider. ###### Tip Designing a cloud network architecture can appear daunting. A cloud provider gives you a lot of power and flexibility, but that carries complexity as well. Fortunately, when you create your first virtual network, the cloud provider sets up a reasonable default configuration for networking so you can get started quickly. For exploratory use the configuration is often acceptable, but before long you will want to look at routing and security rules to ensure they are set up for what you need, such as your first Hadoop cluster. Routing is an important factor in building out a functioning Hadoop cluster. The daemons that comprise each service, like HDFS and YARN, need to be able to connect to each other, and the HDFS datanodes in particular need to be available for calls from pieces of other services. If all of a cluster's daemons are confined to a single subnet, then the cloud provider's default routing is enough; some providers can even handle routing across subnets automatically or with their defaults. For reaching out farther, such as across VPNs or to the internet, it usually becomes necessary to define some routes, as the defaults start out restrictive for the sake of security. Each cloud provider provides routing services in a different way. ## Routing in AWS In AWS, a route table is an independent object that is associated with VPCs and subnets. Each VPC has a route table that is used as the default for subnets that do not have their own route tables. The destination for each route is termed a _target_. There are a variety of targets available, some of which are described here: * A "local" target points to the virtual network of the communicating instance. This covers not only that instance's own subnet, but other subnets in the same VPC. * An internet gateway target provides access to the internet, outside the cloud provider. When a subnet has a route to the internet, it is called a _public subnet_ ; without one, it is called a _private subnet_. See "Public and Private Subnets" for more detailed descriptions. * A virtual private gateway links to your corporate network's VPN device, allowing access to resources within that network. To establish this connection, you must define a _customer gateway_ in AWS representing the VPN device, create a virtual private gateway that links to it, and then define the IP address ranges covered by the gateway. * A VPC peering connection allows for communication between VPCs using just private IP addresses. * A network address translation (NAT) gateway provides access to the internet for private subnets. The gateway itself resides in a public subnet. ## Routing in Google Cloud Platform In Google Cloud Platform, each route is associated with a network, so all instances in the network may have use of it. Routes and instances are associated by tags: if a route has a tag, then it is associated with any instance with a matching tag; if a route has no tag, it applies to all instances in the network. All of the routes defined for a network form the network's _route collection_ , while all of the routes that are associated with an instance form that instance's routing table. The destination for each route is termed its _next hop_. There are a variety of destinations available, some of which are described here: * A subnet, or portion of a subnet, can be designated as the next hop by providing a CIDR block for its private IP addresses. * An internet gateway URL for the next hop provides direct access to the internet, as long as the source instance has an external (public) IP address. * The URL or IP address of a single instance can be the next hop. The instance needs to be configured with software that can provide connectivity to the ultimate desired destination. For example, the instance could use Squid as a proxy or perform NAT using iptables to provide internet access. Google Cloud Platform provides a service called Cloud VPN to help manage connectivity between your corporate VPN device and your instances in virtual networks, as well as between virtual networks in Google Cloud Platform itself. A VPN gateway leading to a VPN tunnel is another possible next hop for a route. ## Routing in Azure In Azure, a route table is an independent object that is associated with subnets. A route table may be associated with multiple subnets, but a subnet can have only one route table. Azure provides _system routes_ for common needs, which are usually comprehensive enough that you do not need to define a route table at all. For example, system routes direct network traffic automatically within a subnet, between subnets in a virtual network, and to the internet and VPN gateways. If you define a route table for a subnet, its routes take precedence over system routes. The destination for each route is termed its _next hop_. There are a variety of destinations available, some of which are described here: * The local virtual network can be specified as the next hop for traffic between subnets. * A virtual network gateway or VPN gateway for the next hop allows traffic to flow to other virtual networks or to a VPN. * Naming the internet as the next hop provides direct access to the internet. * A null route or black hole route can be used as the next hop to drop outgoing traffic completely. # Network Security Rules If routing builds the roads for traffic between your instances, then security rules define the laws the traffic must obey. Cloud providers separate the definitions of the connections between instances from the definitions of how data may flow along those connections. In a way, routing is a coarse-grained security measure: if there is no route defined between an instance and some destination, then absolutely no traffic can pass between them. When a route is established, however, then security rules provide a way to allow some kinds of traffic and disallow others. As with routing, each cloud provider provides network security in different ways, but they share common concepts. ## Inbound Versus Outbound _Inbound_ rules control traffic coming to an instance, while _outbound_ rules control traffic leaving an instance. Most of the time, you will find yourself focusing on inbound rules, and allowing unrestricted traffic outbound. The implication is that you trust the activity of the instances that you yourself control, but need to protect them from traffic coming in from outside, particularly the internet. ## Allow Versus Deny An _allow_ rule explicitly permits some form of network traffic, while a _deny_ rule explicitly blocks it. If an allow rule and a deny rule conflict with each other, then usually the deny rule wins out. A common pattern is to establish an allow rule with a broad scope, and then use deny rules to pick out exceptions; for example, you could allow HTTP access from everywhere with one rule, and add deny rules that block IP ranges that are known to exhibit bad behaviors. Some security rule structures do not use deny rules at all. Instead, they start from an initial implicit state of denying all traffic, and you add allow rules for only what you want to permit. ## Network Security Rules in AWS AWS provides two main mechanisms for securing your VPC. ### Security groups The most common mechanism used is _security groups_. A security group provides a set of rules that govern traffic to and from an instance. Each instance can belong to one or several security groups; a VPC also has a default security group that applies to instances that aren't associated with any groups themselves. Each rule in a security group only allows traffic. If none of the security groups for an instance allows a particular kind of traffic, then that traffic is denied by default. A rule in a security group can apply to either inbound traffic or outbound traffic. An inbound rule allows traffic into an instance over a protocol (like TCP or UDP) and port or port range from either another security group or a range of IP addresses. Similarly, an outbound rule allows traffic out from an instance to either another security group or to a range of IP addresses. Here are some examples of typical inbound and outbound security group rules: * If you are running a web server on an instance, an inbound rule for TCP port 80 can allow access from your IP address, or the IP range for your corporate network, or the entire internet (0.0.0.0/0). * To allow SSH access to an instance, an inbound rule should permit access for TCP port 22. It's best to restrict this rule to your own IP address, or those in your network. * If a process running on an instance will need to access a MySQL server elsewhere, an outbound rule over TCP port 3306 will allow it. The destination could be the IP address of the MySQL server or, if the server is running in EC2, the server's security group. Figure 4-4 shows how these rules appear in the AWS console. The image is a composite view of both the Inbound and Outbound tabs for a single security group. ###### Figure 4-4. A security group with some example rules Each VPC comes with a simple, default security group that allows outbound access to anywhere, but inbound access only from other instances in the same security group. This means that you need to set up SSH access from your local network before you can access instances provisioned there. One convenient feature of security groups is that you only need to allow one side of a two-way connection. For example, it is enough to allow TCP port 80 inbound for a web server; since requests are allowed to flow in, AWS automatically permits responses to flow back outbound from the web server. This feature is not true of the other main mechanism for securing VPCs, network ACLs. ### Network ACLs _Network ACLs_ are a secondary means of securing a VPC. Like security groups, they are comprised of a set of rules that govern network traffic. Unlike security groups, a network ACL is associated with a subnet, not individual instances. A subnet may only have one network ACL, or else it falls back to its VPC's default network ACL. A network ACL rule can either allow or deny traffic. While all of the rules in a security group apply to every network access decision, the rules in a network ACL are evaluated in a numbered order, top to bottom, and the first matching rule is enforced. If none of the rules match, then the fixed, final default rule in every network ACL denies the traffic. Each network ACL rule is an inbound rule or outbound rule, as with security group rules. A rule applies to a protocol and port range, but sources and destinations are only specified as IP address ranges, not as security groups. Figure 4-5 lays out a simple network ACL that allows limited inbound SSH access and HTTP access, but no other network traffic. The image is a composite view of both the Inbound Rules and Outbound Rules tabs for the ACL. ###### Figure 4-5. An ACL with some example rules The inbound rules allow only SSH access from one IP address range and HTTP port 80 access from two IP address ranges. Any other inbound network access is blocked by the default final deny rule. The outbound rules allow any traffic over nonprivileged TCP ports. This is necessary to permit outbound traffic for SSH and HTTP connections. Unlike security groups, network ACLs require you to allow both sides of two-way connections. Since it can be unpredictable what port a requesting process may use to connect out from its host, the network ACL rule here permits a wide range of ports. To illustrate, here is an example of an HTTP client outside the virtual network performing an HTTP request to a server running inside the network. The simple ACL defined previously gates both the incoming request and outgoing response. _Inbound request from 10.1.2.3:12345 to port 80_ * rule 100: does not apply (port range) * rule 200: does not apply (source CIDR) * rule 220: applies, so access is allowed _Outbound response from port 80 to 10.1.2.3:12345_ * rule 100: applies, so access is allowed Each VPC comes with a default network ACL that allows all traffic inbound and outbound. So, by default, your VPC does not make use of a network ACL for security, but it is still available for a second line of defense. ## Network Security Rules in Google Cloud Platform Google Cloud Platform supports _firewall rules_ for governing traffic to instances in a network. Firewall rules are associated with the network itself, but they can apply to some or all of the instances in that network. Each firewall rule only allows traffic. If none of the firewall rules for a network allow a particular kind of traffic, then that traffic is denied by default. A firewall rule controls inbound traffic only. You can control outbound traffic from an instance using network utilities installed on the instance itself. You can specify the source a firewall rule applies to as either a range of IP addresses, a subnet in the network, or an instance tag. When a subnet is specified, then the rule applies to all of the instances in that subnet as sources. An instance tag limits the applicability of a firewall rule to just instances with that tag. Each firewall rule names a protocol (like TCP or UDP) and port or port range on the destination instances that it governs. Those instances can be either all of the instances in the network, or just instances with another instance tag, called a target tag. Here are some examples of typical firewall rules. They are shown with some others in Figure 4-6: * If you are running a web server on an instance, a rule for TCP port 80 can allow access from your IP address, or the IP range for your corporate network, or the entire internet (0.0.0.0/0). To narrow down where the firewall rule applies, you can tag the web server instance as, say, "webserver", and provide that tag as the target tag for the rule. * To allow SSH access to an instance, a rule should permit access for TCP port 22. It's best to restrict this rule to your own IP address, or those in your network. ###### Figure 4-6. Some firewall rules (some source IP ranges are obscured) The default network that Google Cloud Platform supplies for you comes with a small set of firewall rules that allow all traffic within the network as well as SSH (TCP port 22), RDP (port 3389), and ICMP from anywhere. This is a reasonable default behavior, although it makes sense to adjust the rules to limit sources to just your own IP address or your own network. Any new networks you create, however, do not start out with any firewall rules, and so absolutely no inbound access is permitted. It is up to you to build out the necessary firewall rules to gain access. One convenient feature of firewall rules is that you only need to allow one side of a two-way connection. For example, it is enough to allow TCP port 80 inbound for a web server; since requests are allowed to flow in, Google Cloud Platform automatically permits responses to flow back outbound from the web server. There are a few automatic firewall rules that are enforced on all networks. Here are some of them: * TCP port 25 (SMTP) is always blocked outbound from your network. * TCP ports 465 and 587 (SMTP over SSL) are also always blocked outbound, except to SMTP relay services hosted on Google Apps. * Network traffic using a protocol besides TCP, UDP, or ICMP is blocked unless the Protocol Forwarding feature of Google Cloud Platform is used to allow it. ###### Tip Check the latest Google Cloud Platform documentation for ways to send email from its instances, such as SMTP relays, that involve third-party email providers. One final security rule deserves mention here. If an instance does not have a external IP address assigned to it, then it is not granted access to the internet. This rule is enforced even if a network route provides a path to an internet gateway URL. To reach the internet from such an instance, it's necessary to go through a gateway, using either NAT or a VPN. ## Network Security Rules in Azure Azure provides _network security groups_ for controlling traffic into and out of either subnets or individual virtual machines through their network interfaces. A virtual machine can be subject to its subnet's network security group as well as its own. A network security group holds a set of rules, each of which controls either inbound traffic or outbound traffic. An inbound rule allows or denies traffic into an instance over a protocol (like TCP or UDP) and port or port range from either a range of IP addresses, a default tag (defined next), or all sources. Similarly, an outbound rule allows or denies traffic out from an instance to either a range of IP addresses, a default tag, or all destinations. A _default tag_ is a symbolic representation for a set of IP addresses. For example, the virtual network tag stands in for the local virtual network and those connected to it. The internet tag represents the internet, outside of Azure's infrastructure and connected VPNs. Here are some examples of typical inbound and outbound security group rules: * If you are running a web server on an instance, an inbound rule for TCP port 80 can allow access from your IP address, or the IP range for your corporate network, or the entire internet using the internet default tag. * To allow SSH access to an instance, an inbound rule should permit access for TCP port 22. It's best to restrict this rule to your own IP address, or those in your network. * If a process running on an instance will need to access a MySQL server elsewhere, an outbound rule over TCP port 3306 will allow it. The destination could be the IP address of the MySQL server. Figure 4-7 shows how these rules appear in the Azure portal. ###### Figure 4-7. A network security group with some example rules Rules are evaluated in priority order to determine which one holds sway. A lower number priority on a rule indicates a higher priority. Every network security group has a default set of rules, which have lower priorities than any user-defined rules. They allow, among other things, all traffic from the same virtual network and all outbound traffic to the internet, but deny inbound traffic from anywhere but the virtual network. The rules can be overridden with user-defined rules. # Putting Networking and Security Together As you have seen, there is a lot to think about when it comes to networking and security in a cloud provider. Getting started with them can feel like jumping into the deep end of a pool, or being dropped into a foreign land without a map. Here are some pointers to getting rolling. Cloud providers do try to start you out with a sensible initial arrangement: a single virtual network with one or a few subnets, and default routing and security rules applied. Of all the concerns, routing tends to require the least amount of attention, as defaults and fallbacks define almost all of the necessary connections. For small-to-medium Hadoop deployments, a single virtual network usually suffices. As described in the beginning of this chapter, it is useful to think of each virtual network as a container for your clusters. With subnets to provide any necessary divisions or regional variations, and ample IP addresses available, you may find you can go a long time before needing to define an entirely new network. Routing and security rules become more important once traffic needs to be sent to or received from outside a virtual network. Keeping Hadoop clusters confined to single subnets or, at worst, single virtual networks eliminates most of the need to define routes and security rules. One important exception is allowing SSH access to some number of instances, which is described in the following chapters about getting started with each cloud provider. Another is opening up ports for applications running alongside clusters, or for web interfaces of Hadoop components. For these exceptions, the process is typically only defining a route if necessary and declaring a security rule that allows access. # What About the Data? The purpose here of creating cloud instances, networking them together, and establishing routes and security rules is to stand up Hadoop clusters, and the purpose of these clusters is to work on data. The data moves through the network between instances, but where is it stored? As you would expect, cloud providers offer ranges of storage options that include disks, databases, general object storage, and other services. Understanding how these storage options can be used is just as important for creating effective clusters as understanding networking and security. See "Cluster Topologies" for a description of gateway instances. # Chapter 5. Storage Hadoop clusters are about working with data, usually lots and lots of data, often orders of magnitude larger than ever before. Cloud providers supply different ways to store that data on their vast infrastructure, to complement the compute capabilities that operate on the data and the networking facilities that move the data around. Each form of storage serves a different purpose in Hadoop architectures. # Block Storage The most common type of storage offered by a cloud provider is the disk-like storage that comes along with each instance that you provision. This storage is usually called _block storage_ , but they are almost always accessed as filesystem mounts. Each unit of block storage is called a _volume_ or simply a _disk_. A unit of storage may not necessarily map to a single physical device, or even to hardware directly connected to an instance's actual host hardware. _Persistent_ volumes survive beyond the lifetime of the initial instances that spawned them. A persistent volume can be detached from an instance and attached to another instance, in a way similar to moving physical hard drives from computer to computer. While you wouldn't usually do that with physical drives, it is much easier to do so in a cloud provider, and it opens up new usage patterns. For example, you could maintain a volume loaded with important data or applications over a long period of time, but only attach it to an instance once in a while to do work on it. Volumes that are limited to the lives of the instances to which they are attached are called _ephemeral_ volumes. Ephemeral storage is often very fast and can be large, but it is guaranteed to be eliminated when an instance is stopped or terminated, at which time its data is permanently lost. In the context of Hadoop clusters, critical cluster-wide information like HDFS namenode data should reside on persistent storage, but information that is normally replicated across the cluster, like HDFS data copied in as the source for a job, _can_ reside on ephemeral storage. A volume is backed up by taking a _snapshot_ , which preserves its exact state at an instant in time. It is common to take snapshots of a volume repeatedly over time, and cloud providers store snapshots in an incremental fashion so that they don't take up unnecessary space. If something goes wrong with a volume, perhaps due to data corruption or a rare hardware failure, then a new volume can be created from a snapshot and attached to an instance to recover. A snapshot can also be used as the basis for a new instance image, in order to generate many new identical volumes over time. For security, the major cloud providers all support encryption at rest for data on persistent volumes. They all also automatically replicate persistent volumes, often across data centers, to avoid data loss from hardware failures. ## Block Storage in AWS The AWS component offering block storage is called Elastic Block Storage (EBS). When you provision an instance in EC2, you select an image for its root device volume, and the image determines whether that volume is a persistent volume in EBS or an ephemeral volume in the EC2 instance store. The root device volume houses the operating system and other files from the image. The physical hardware can use either magnetic or SSD storage. After provisioning an instance, you can attach multiple additional EBS volumes, or you can swap out the EBS root device volume of an instance with another existing one. EBS volumes are resizable, although for older instance types one must be detached before it can be resized. Some EC2 instance types support both EBS and ephemeral volumes, while others only support EBS. Those that support ephemeral volumes do so through drives that are attached to the physical hosts for the instances. Data on those ephemeral drives survive reboots of their associated instances, but not stoppages or termination. Each instance type specifies the maximum number and size of supported ephemeral volumes. ## Block Storage in Google Cloud Platform Persistent block storage for Google Compute Engine (GCE) instances are called persistent disks. When you provision an instance in GCE, a root persistent disk is automatically allocated to house the operating system and other files from the image selected for the instance. After provisioning an instance, you can attach multiple additional persistent disks. Each persistent disk, including the root disk, can use either magnetic or SSD storage. Persistent disks can be resized at any time. Any instance provisioned in GCE can be augmented with local SSDs, which are drives attached to the physical hosts for the instance. These drives are ephemeral storage; while data on them survives reboots of their associated instances, it is discarded when the associated instance stops or terminates. They come in a fixed size and only a limited number may be attached to an instance. Like persistent disks, local SSDs support at-rest encryption. RAM disks are another block storage option for GCE instances. A RAM disk is a virtual drive that occupies instance memory. These are even more ephemeral than local SSDs, as their data does not even survive instance restarts; however, they can be very fast. ## Block Storage in Azure Every Azure virtual machine is automatically granted two _virtual hard disks_ or VHDs: one based on an image hosting the operating system, and a second temporary disk for storing data that can be lost at any time, like swap files. Both of these disks are persistent, but the content of the temporary disk is not preserved if the virtual machine is migrated to different hardware. Additional persistent VHDs can serve as data disks to store data that needs to last; they are either created by mandate from the virtual machine image or can be attached later. The operating system disk and data disks are resizable, but the associated virtual machine must be stopped first. All VHDs are actually stored as _page blobs_ within the storage account associated with your Azure account, and the replication strategy for the storage account determines how widely disk contents are backed up across data centers. See "Object Storage in Azure" for further discussion about storage accounts. Azure File Storage is another block storage service, dedicated to serving file shares over the Server Message Block protocol. A file share works like a mounted disk, but it can be mounted across multiple virtual machines simultaneously. Finally, while not necessarily qualifying as a block storage service, Azure Data Lake Store (ADLS) stores files of arbitrary size in a folder hierarchy. The service is designed to satisfy the requirements of a Hadoop-compatible file system, so cluster services such as Hive and YARN can work with it directly. # Object Storage Disk-like block storage is clearly essential for supporting instances, but there is still the problem of where to keep large amounts of data that should survive beyond the lifetime of instances. You may have a compressed archive of some massive data set that will be referenced across multiple instances, or even from outside the cloud provider. You may have a backup of some important analytic results or critical logs that must be preserved. Sometimes it is possible to dedicate a block storage volume to store these big chunks of data, but there still must be at least one instance running to access it, and often it can be tricky to share that volume across multiple instances. As an alternative, cloud providers offer _object storage_. In object storage, each chunk of data is treated as its own entity, independent of any instance. The contents of each object are opaque to the provider. Instead of accessing a data object through a filesystem mounted on a running instance, you access it through either API operations or through URLs. Cloud providers each offer their own object storage solution, yet they all share many common features. ## Buckets Data objects reside inside containers called _buckets_. A bucket has a name and is associated with one or more regions. ###### Note Azure calls its buckets _containers_. There are restrictions on bucket names, because a bucket's name is used as part of the URLs for accessing objects in the bucket. In general, you should avoid special characters, spaces, and other characters that can be problematic in URLs. A bucket name must be unique to your cloud provider account; the solutions for AWS and Google Cloud Platform also require them to be globally unique. The region or regions associated with a bucket determine where in the world the objects in the bucket are stored. Hadoop clusters benefit in performance and cost by working with buckets that are in the same region as their instances. A bucket can be configured with replication to other regions, through provider-specific mechanisms, to geographically disperse data. This can be a valuable tool for expanding Hadoop architectures across regions; instead of clusters around the world all needing to reach back to a single region to access bucket contents, the bucket can be replicated to the clusters' regions for faster, cheaper local access. A bucket does not have an internal hierarchy for object storage, but object naming can be used to create the appearance of one. ## Data Objects A data object in object storage is a single opaque unit from the cloud provider's point of view. Metadata in the form of key-value pairs can be associated with each object, to use as tags or as guides for searching for, identification of, and tracking of the data within. The name of an object is used to locate it. As with buckets, there are restrictions on object names since they are also used in URLs. Although buckets are flat storage, objects can include forward slashes in their names to create the appearance of a directory-style hierarchy. The APIs, tools, and conventions for object storage interpret object names in a way that supports hierarchical access, often by treating common slash-delimited prefixes of object names as pseudodirectories. An object has a _storage class_ , which determines how quickly it can be accessed and, in part, its storage cost. The standard or default storage classes for cloud providers favor quick access over cost, and these classes tend to be the ones most useful for storing data Hadoop clusters will use. Other storage classes cost less but aim at access frequencies on the order of a few times each month or each year. While Hadoop clusters cannot effectively use objects in those storage classes directly due to their intentionally lower performance, they can be employed in associated archival strategies. Most of the time, a data object is immutable. When an object needs to be updated, it is overwritten with a completely new version of it. Cloud providers are capable of storing past, versioned copies of objects so that they can be restored as necessary in the future. ###### Note AWS and Google Cloud Platform object storage services automatically version each data object as it is updated. Azure's object storage service does not, but permits taking snapshots of data objects. Each data object can have permissions associated with it, in order to restrict who may access it. The permissions scheme folds in with each cloud provider's own authorization systems. ## Object Access There are two main methods for accessing objects in object storage. The most flexible method is through the cloud provider's own API, which provides all of the access and management operations available. An API client can create new objects, update them, and delete them. It can manage access permissions and versioning as well. Jobs running in Hadoop clusters can use APIs to work with objects, either directly or through common libraries. Some libraries provide a filesystem-like view of buckets, enough to allow access in many of the same ways that jobs would work with HDFS. This is a powerful capability, because it lets new clusters start their work right away by reading from durable, reliable object storage, instead of waiting to be primed by getting data copied up to their local HDFS storage. By the same token, clusters can save their final results back to object storage for safekeeping or access by other tools; once that happens, the clusters could be destroyed. So, object storage access enables the use of _transient_ clusters, a pattern that is covered in more detail in Chapter 15. The other main method for object access is through URLs. Each provider's object storage service offers a REST API for working with buckets and objects; perhaps the most salient capability is simply the ability to download an object with an HTTP GET request. Because of URL access, each bucket and object must be named to be compatible with URL syntax. For example, an object named "my-dir/my-object" in a bucket named "my-bucket" could be accessed by the following URLs, depending on the cloud provider. Each provider supports a handful of different URL formats: * AWS: _https://s3.amazonaws.com/my-bucket/my-dir/my-object_ * Google Cloud Platform: _https://storage.cloud.google.com/my-bucket/my-dir/my-object_ * Azure: _https://my-account.blob.core.windows.net/my-bucket/my-dir/my-object_ The following sections get into more detail about the differences in the object storage services offered by major cloud providers. ## Object Storage in AWS The AWS component offering object storage is called Simple Storage Service, or S3. It stores objects in buckets that are each associated with a single region that determines where objects are stored. A bucket can be configured to replicate data to a bucket in a different region for redundancy. S3 offers four storage classes, and a bucket may hold objects in any mix of classes: * The _standard_ storage class is aimed at fast, frequent data access. * The _standard-ia_ or _standard-infrequent access_ storage class carries the same durability guarantees as the standard class. It costs less to store data in this class, but each retrieval has an associated fee. * The _reduced redundancy storage_ or _RRS_ storage class is just as fast as the standard class but has lower durability guarantees. It costs less, and should be used for data that can be regenerated if necessary. * The _Glacier_ storage class is for nonrealtime, long-term, cheap data storage. Data must be "restored" from Glacier before it can be accessed. The storage class for each object is selected when it is first created. Lifecycle configuration rules can be attached to buckets to automatically migrate data from more accessible to less accessible storage classes over time, so that less frequently accessed data can be stored more cheaply. ## Object Storage in Google Cloud Platform Google Cloud Storage is the service offering object storage for Google Cloud Platform. It stores objects in buckets, which are each associated with a location and a default storage class. Google Cloud Storage offers four storage classes, and a bucket may hold objects in several classes: * The _regional_ storage class is aimed at fast, frequent data access, with storage confined to a single region determined by the bucket location. * The _multi-regional_ storage class is similar to ordinary regional storage, but data is replicated across multiple regions, determined by the bucket location. It costs somewhat more than regional storage. * The _nearline_ storage class carries the same durability guarantees as the regional and multi-regional classes. It costs less to store data in this class, but each retrieval has an associated fee. * The _coldline_ storage class is for long-term, cheap data storage. Retrieval for objects in coldline storage costs much more than for nearline storage. The storage class for each object is selected when it is first created, or defaults to that of the bucket. Lifecycle policies can be attached to buckets to automatically migrate data from more accessible to less accessible storage classes over time, so that less frequently accessed data can be stored more inexpensively. ## Object Storage in Azure Azure has a few different forms of data storage. The service that is most pertinent to Hadoop clusters is Azure Blob Storage. Azure Blob Storage stores objects, which are called _blobs_. There are a few types of blobs: * A _block blob_ is an immutable, opaque data object. * An _append blob_ can have additional data appended to it, and can be used to receive a stream of data such as continuously generated logs. * A _page blob_ is used by Azure as the backing storage for disks. Of the three types of blobs, the block blob is the type most useful for Hadoop clusters. Page blobs are used to store virtual machine disks, but it's not necessary to work with them directly. Each blob is stored in a container. Each container, in turn, is associated with a _storage account_ that is part of your Azure account. You can have multiple storage accounts, and each serves as a home for object storage containers and other forms of cloud storage offered by Azure. It is notable that the name for a storage account must be globally unique, but this means that container names only need to be unique within a storage account. There are two kinds of storage accounts: general-purpose and blob. A blob storage account allows for specifying one of two access tiers for the objects stored within it: * The _hot_ access tier is aimed at fast, frequent data access. It has higher storage cost, but lower access and transaction costs. * The _cold_ access tier carries the same durability guarantees as the hot access tier. It costs less to store data in this tier, but it has higher access and transaction costs. The storage account also determines the primary region where objects are stored, as part of the account's replication strategy. There are four replication strategies available: * _Locally redundant storage_ , or LRS, has the highest performance, but the lowest durability and is bound to a single data center in a single region. * _Zone redundant storage_ , or ZRS, goes further than LRS and spreads data out to multiple data centers, either in a single region or a pair of regions. However, it has limitations in when it can be used; in particular, a blob storage account cannot use ZRS. * _Geo-redundant storage_ , or GRS, is similar to ZRS in that it replicates data out to a secondary region. * _Read-access geo-redundant storage_ , or RA-GRS, works like GRS but also allows replicated data to be read from the secondary region. The access tier and replication strategy for each object is determined by the storage account governing the container where the object is created. With some limitations and some costs, the access tier and replication strategy for a storage account can be changed over time. # Cloud Relational Databases Although Hadoop breaks away from the traditional model of storing data in relational databases, some components still need their own databases to work their best. For example, the Apache Hive metastore database is crucial for mapping non-relational data stored in HDFS into a relational model that allows for SQL queries. The Apache Oozie workflow scheduling system also requires a backing database. While these components and others often can work using embedded databases, supported by software like Apache Derby, they are only production-ready when their databases are stored on full-fledged servers. By doing so, those database servers can themselves be maintained, backed up, and even shared across components, as part of an overarching enterprise architecture. It is also helpful in some situations to simply have relational databases store some data that Hadoop clusters use or refer to. Using Hadoop does not require completely abandoning other useful technologies. Analysis jobs can refer to tables in outside databases to find metadata about the information being analyzed, or as lookup or translation mechanisms, or for numerous other helpful purposes. Finally, applications that work with Hadoop clusters may require their own relational databases. Perhaps authentication and authorization information resides in one, or the definitions of data views reside in another. It is perfectly reasonable to use an ordinary cloud instance as the host for a database server. It is a familiar and comfortable arrangement for database administrators, and lets you carry over existing maintenance processes into the cloud. You have direct control over upgrades, downtime, backups, and so on, and additional applications can be installed alongside the server as necessary. There are images available for popular databases to make standing up a database server instance even easier. However, cloud providers also offer native, abstracted services for supporting database servers. With these services, instead of requesting a compute instance, you request a database server instance, specifying the type, version, size, capacity, administrative user credentials, and many other parameters. The cloud provider handles setting up the server and ensuring it is accessible to your virtual networks as you request. You do not have login access to the instance, but can access the database server process using all the usual client tools and libraries in order to define schemas and load and query data. The provider handles backups and ensures availability. Hadoop components can easily use cloud relational databases. The servers have hostnames and ports, and you can define the users, accesses, and schemas each component requires. From the components' points of view, the servers host remote databases like any other. ## Cloud Relational Databases in AWS The AWS component offering cloud relational databases is called Relational Database Service, or RDS. Each _database instance_ hosts a single database server, and is similar in concept to an EC2 instance, having an _instance class_ that determines its compute power and memory capacity. Storage capacity is managed separately, ranging from gigabytes to terabytes. Like ordinary instances, database instances run inside an availability zone associated with a subnet inside a VPC network, and security groups govern access. Moreover, a multi-AZ database instance can continuously replicate its data to another in a separate availability zone. RDS also automatically takes care of performing periodic database backups and minor server software upgrades. It also handles automatically failing over a multi-AZ database instance in case of the loss of the primary database instance, due to an availability zone outage or a hardware failure. RDS supports many popular database types, including MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server. It also offers Aurora, a MySQL-compatible database type that has some additional benefits, including the ability to establish a database cluster. For database types that require licenses, such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server, you have the option of bringing your own license (BYOL) or establishing instances that AWS has already licensed. ## Cloud Relational Databases in Google Cloud Platform Google Cloud SQL is the primary service offering cloud relational databases for Google Cloud Platform. A Cloud SQL instance hosts a database server in a specific region and availability zone, and like an ordinary instance has a _machine type_ determining the number of virtual CPUs and the size of its memory. Storage capacity is specified separately and can be set to grow automatically as needed. Network access to Cloud SQL instances can be granted by whitelisting the IP addresses of GCE instances, but an easier method is to use a Cloud SQL proxy, which provides an encrypted tunnel to a Cloud SQL instance. Client use of a proxy works just like ordinary database access, and the proxy can be configured with a list of Cloud SQL instances to support or perform automatic discovery. A Cloud SQL instance can be set up for high availability, which causes the creation of a second instance serving as a failover replica. If the primary instance becomes unavailable, Google Cloud SQL automatically switches to the replica, redirecting the hostname and IP address accordingly. Google Cloud SQL also handles periodic database backups. Only MySQL is supported by Google Cloud SQL. ##### Google Cloud Spanner In beta at the time of writing, Google Cloud Spanner is another, new cloud relational database service that takes advantage of Google's robust global network to natively provide high availability while enforcing strong consistency. Cloud Spanner automatically maintains replicas across availability zones in the chosen region where an instance resides. What's more, it provides ways to control where related data is located through features like parent-child table relationships and interleaved tables. ## Cloud Relational Databases in Azure The Azure SQL Database service focuses primarily on the creation and maintenance of relational databases, as opposed to the servers that host them. A database belongs to a _service tier_ , which defines the guaranteed amount of compute, memory, storage, and I/O resources available for database access. Each database runs on a server; multiple databases can reside on a single server. A database server belongs to an Azure resource group, which determines the region where the server resides. Firewall rules associated with a database server control which ranges of IP addresses are permissible for client access. The service tier of a database can be updated over time in response to changing needs, but a more powerful approach is to use _elastic pools_. Resource usage is spread across all of the databases belonging to the pool, and administrative tasks can be conveniently performed _en masse_. Azure SQL Database handles performing automatic backups, storing data both local to each database and in a separate data center. Long-term backups can be sent to a vault. You can also set up replication to several additional databases in other regions, any of which can be promoted to serve as a new primary database. Azure SQL Database fully supports Microsoft SQL Server. However, newer services such as Azure Database for MySQL and Azure Database for PostgreSQL, support those open source databases in a similar fashion, including tiered guarantees on size and performance and automatic replication. ##### Azure Cosmos DB Newly introduced at the time of writing, Azure Cosmos DB is a service for managing globally distributed databases that are either relational or nonrelational, using a common data storage model beneath. The service gives you some control over how data is partitioned and automatically scales storage to achieve the desired throughput. You can also choose from one of several consistency models to guide the timeliness of data availability. Behind the scenes, Cosmos DB spreads data globally to fit your desired associations, and you can control whether to focus service interactions on specific regions or across the world. # Cloud NoSQL Databases It is in the same spirit of offering relational database services that cloud providers also offer services that provide nonrelational or "NoSQL" databases. These services are usually pushed to the margins when working with Hadoop clusters, since Hadoop's own data storage technologies take center stage. However, as with relational databases, NoSQL databases can be useful for ancillary applications associated with the cluster. In general, the databases hosted by NoSQL database services are highly scalable both in size and geolocation, and offer high performance. The cloud provider handles administration and availability concerns, much like they do for relational databases. Access control is managed by the cloud provider's own identity and access management systems. The primary drawback of NoSQL database services is that they are much more specific to each cloud provider. While any well-supported relational database supports SQL, each cloud provider's NoSQL database service has a way, or set of ways, of working with data that differs from other services, sometimes even those from the same provider. This can contribute to becoming tied to a single cloud provider, which may be undesirable from a competitive point of view. Also, Hadoop components rarely have use for a NoSQL database beyond whatever storage is set up within their clusters. Still, NoSQL database services are a part of the storage services available from cloud providers, and they can find their place in some architectures. Here is a quick rundown of what is available at the time of writing: * AWS offers the DynamoDB database service. Tables can be accessed through the AWS console or through a variety of client-side libraries. * Google Cloud Platform offers two NoSQL database services. Cloud Datastore works well for frequent transactions and queries and has higher durability, while Bigtable emphasizes speed and supports access through the API for Apache HBase. * Azure's DocumentDB service, now part of Azure Cosmos DB, stores databases containing collections of documents, and can be accessed through a RESTful protocol as well as the MongoDB API. Azure Table Storage, which is associated with storage accounts, works with entity-based data. # Where to Start? This chapter has covered four distinct forms of storage supported by cloud providers: block, object, relational, and NoSQL. Each of these is provided by one or more cloud provider services, and those are just a part of those providers' suites of services. It can be a lot to take in, especially when figuring out how Hadoop clusters fit. The two more important services to think about are block storage and object storage. Block storage is the most crucial, since it provides the disk volumes that instances need to run. Every cluster needs block storage as an underpinning, and fortunately it is reasonably straightforward to work with. Object storage is a powerful addition to your clusters, giving you a place to keep data that survives cluster lifetimes and even supporting direct use by some Hadoop components. Relational database services are handy for supporting the Hadoop components and secondary applications that work with clusters, but are not as important as block and object storage, especially since you can host your own database servers on ordinary instances. NoSQL database services are the least important, being unnecessary for most cluster architectures, but potentially useful in some cases. Understanding the three core concepts of instances, networking, and storage, you are ready to jump in and create clusters in the cloud. The next part of this book begins with individual chapters for three major cloud providers, in which you will prepare instances and virtual networks necessary for a simple cluster. You should focus on your cloud provider of choice, although it is informative to see how similar tasks work in other providers, so you may want to skim the chapters for the other providers: * If you are using AWS, continue with Chapter 6. * If you are using Google Cloud Platform, continue with Chapter 7. * If you are using Azure, continue with Chapter 8. Once you have worked through your cloud provider's chapter, Chapter 9 pushes forward with Hadoop installation, configuration, and testing, which works much the same no matter what provider you use. The choice of region also influences how data may be accessed. See "Configuring the S3 Endpoint" for more information. The term "blob," which simply refers to a large chunk of data, has an interesting etymology. Chapter 11 covers setting up Hive in the cloud. Azure resource groups are described in detail in "Creating a Resource Group". # Part III. A Simple Cluster in the Cloud In this part, you will stand up a simple Hadoop cluster running on the infrastructure of a cloud provider. The first three chapters in this part each focus on a separate cloud provider, so start with the one that you use. The chapters for the other providers can give you a sense of what it's like to use a different one, so they may also be of interest. The cluster that you create will have the same structure, regardless of the provider you choose. The simple cluster built here is used as the basis for further exploration later on in the book. # Chapter 6. Setting Up in AWS In this chapter you'll create a simple Hadoop cluster running in Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), the service in Amazon Web Services (AWS) that enables you to provision instances. The cluster will consist of basic installations of HDFS and YARN, which form the foundation for running MapReduce and other analytic workloads. This chapter assumes you are using a Unix-like operating system on your local computer, such as Linux or macOS. If you are using Windows, some of the steps will vary, particularly those for working with SSH. # Prerequisites Before you start, you will need to have an account already established with AWS. You can register for one for free. Once you are registered, you will be able to log in to the _AWS console_ , a web interface for using all of the different services under the AWS umbrella. When you log in, you are presented with a dashboard for all of those services. It can be overwhelming, but fortunately, for this chapter you only need to use one service: EC2. Find it on the home page in the console, as shown in Figure 6-1. ###### Caution Over time, Amazon will update the arrangement of the console, and so the exact instructions here may become inaccurate. ###### Figure 6-1. EC2 on the AWS console home page Notice at the top of the page a drop-down menu, as shown in Figure 6-2, with a geographic area selected, such as N. Virginia, N. California, or Ireland. This indicates the AWS region where you are currently working. If the selected region is not the one you prefer, go ahead and select a different one using the drop-down. It is generally a good idea to use a region that is close to your location. ###### Figure 6-2. A drop-down menu for the AWS regions # Allocating Instances In this section, you will launch the instances that will comprise a Hadoop cluster. You will also ensure that they have the right networking connections, and that you can connect to them over SSH. ## Generating a Key Pair Before provisioning instances in EC2, you must create a _key pair_. A key pair consists of a public key and a private key, to be used for SSH communication with your instances. If you are already familiar with asymmetric encryption technologies such as SSL/TLS, you will be comfortable with EC2 key pairs. You can have AWS generate the key pair for you and download the private key. As an alternative, you can use a client-side tool like OpenSSL to create the key pair yourself, and then upload the public key to AWS. For now, you'll let AWS do the work. To have AWS generate a key pair, log in to the AWS console and select EC2. A menu will appear on the left side of the page with options for working in EC2. Select Key Pairs in the menu. The main area of the page will show that you have no key pairs for the region yet. Click the Create Key Pair button to start the process of creating a new key pair, and follow the instructions. When you are done, you will receive a PEM file that contains a private key. The phrase "BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY" starts the contents of the file. This is the key file you will use to SSH to your provisioned instances. Save the file in a safe place, using file permissions on your local computer to protect it (e.g., make it readable only by your account). A great place to store it is in the hidden _.ssh_ directory in your home directory, which is normally used by OpenSSH for key storage and other sensitive files: $ mv keyfile.pem ~/.ssh $ chmod 600 ~/.ssh/keyfile.pem ## Launching Instances You're now ready to launch instances. For this simple cluster, you'll launch four instances: one "manager" and three "workers." The manager instance will host the HDFS namenode and the YARN resource manager, while the workers will host the HDFS datanodes and YARN node managers. A minimum of three workers is recommended, since the default HDFS replication factor is three. ### The manager instance Let's start by launching the manager instance. Select Instances from the EC2 menu. (Pick EC2 from the set of AWS services if you need to.) You'll see that you don't have any running instances yet; you'll change that. Click the Launch Instance button to start the process. In the first step, you need to choose an image to base your instance on, as shown in Figure 6-3. In AWS, an image is called an _Amazon Machine Image_ (AMI). A "Quick Start" set of AMIs is presented to you. The AMIs cover popular operating systems and architectures; they are updated periodically as new recommended images are made available. Find an AMI for Ubuntu Linux that uses virtualization type HVM and select it. ###### Figure 6-3. Some AMI choices ##### Free Tier For the first year that you have an AWS account, you are eligible for the free tier, which lets you provision small instances on free operating systems without any cost. The free tier is great for exploring how to use AWS, but the instance types that fall within it are, sadly, too underpowered to host a Hadoop cluster that can do more than trivial work. ###### Note You do not need to use Ubuntu to deploy Hadoop in the cloud. It was chosen for the instructions here because it is popular and widely supported across all cloud providers. The steps for using a different Linux distribution can differ, especially in the system tools available and in package management. Next, select an instance type for the manager. A subset of the available choices is shown in Figure 6-4. A manager instance often needs more powerful specifications than a worker. For this cluster, select an instance type in the General purpose family with at least four vCPUs and at least 8 GB of memory. Over time, EC2 introduces new instance types with faster processing, better or more memory, or better storage capabilities, and these new types are preferred over older ones. Unless you have particular requirements that only an older instance type satisfies, you should favor new instances types. ###### Figure 6-4. Selecting an EC2 instance type Instead of clicking the tempting Review and Launch button, you need to work through the full set of steps for launching an instance to fully configure it. Click the Next: Configure Instance Details button to review networking choices and other information. The form for doing so is shown in Figure 6-5. ###### Figure 6-5. EC2 instance details There is a lot to digest here, but here are some highlights: * The number of instances to launch defaults to one. That is fine for now, because only one manager is necessary for a simple cluster. * A VPC has already been selected. Your AWS account is automatically set up with a VPC upon creation; if you are using a long-standing, shared account, there may be a few VPCs to choose from. * The shutdown behavior defines what happens if you issue a system shutdown within your instance (e.g., `/sbin/shutdown` ). The default of Stop leaves the instance available in your account to be started again, but selecting Terminate causes the instance to instead be destroyed. You should leave Stop selected. * You can enable termination protection on instances so that they cannot be terminated without explicitly disabling the protection via the console as an extra step. Since the cluster will have multiple instances talking to one another, configuration will be easier and performance will be much better if they are all close to each other in the network. So, select a specific subnet from the list of available subnets. A _subnet_ is a segment of the overall address space in a VPC that resides within a single availability zone. Remember the subnet you choose now, so that the worker instances can be provisioned there as well. Click Next: Add Storage to see options, as shown in Figure 6-6, for adding storage to the new instance. ###### Figure 6-6. EC2 instance storage configuration By default, an EC2 instance comes with a modest amount of dedicated storage mounted as its root volume. Increase the amount, if necessary, to at least 30 GB, so that there is ample room for installing what you need for your cluster. Resist the temptation to add more storage than you need: you will be charged per GB provisioned, not per GB utilized. Then click Next: Tag Instance to see the tag entry form as in Figure 6-7. ###### Figure 6-7. Setting EC2 instance tags Tags are simple name-value pairs that are attached to instances. They are useful for organizing instances and noting their name, purpose, owner, or any other basic information. For this instance, enter a tag with key "Name" and value "manager". Click Next: Configure Security Group to set up security for the new instance using the form shown in Figure 6-8. ###### Figure 6-8. The default security group selection for EC2 instances Here, you will define the permissions for network communications to and from the cluster through a security group. Start by selecting the "Create a new security group" radio button, and then entering "basic-security" for the group name. Supply any description you like. The renamed security group is shown in Figure 6-9. The new security group defaults to having one incoming rule, allowing SSH access from any IP address, and is represented by the CIDR 0.0.0.0/0. While this can be acceptable for a case such as this where you are only trying things out, you should instead restrict access to only an appropriate range of IP addresses. To restrict SSH access to your IP address alone, either replace the default CIDR address by selecting Custom IP and enter your IP address, or just select My IP to have your address autodetected. To instead restrict access to a range of IP addresses (e.g., your address may change over time, or you may switch local computers), select Custom IP and enter the appropriate CIDR address. ###### Note If you are on a local network that accesses the internet through a router performing network address translation (NAT), then be sure to use the IP address assigned to the router. The My IP autodetection should select the correct IP address. ###### Figure 6-9. Updated security group configuration for EC2 instances Click the Review and Launch button to see an overview of the instance you are about to launch. The chosen AMI, instance type, security group, and other details are available to look over. When you are satisfied, click the Launch button to complete the last step. Before EC2 proceeds to launch your instance, you will be asked for a key pair to use for SSH access. Since you already created a key pair, select its name and click Launch Instances. Your new instance will start to launch. You can monitor its progress by returning to the AWS console and selecting Instances from the EC2 menu. Once the instance state is shown as "running," you can attempt to connect to it over SSH, using the private key from your chosen key pair to authenticate. The username to use depends on the AMI you have chosen; sometimes "root" will work, but often it will be a different username; for Ubuntu, you can try "ubuntu" as the username. You can use either the public DNS name or public IP address to reach the instance; these can be found in the instance details when you select the manager instance from the list of running instances. ###### Tip The AWS console can help you with your SSH command line for connecting to an instance. Select Instances from the EC2 menu, select the row for the instance you want to connect to, and click the Connect button. A dialog box will suggest an SSH command line, including a username that may work. ### The worker instances Once you can connect to the manager instance, you've completed the first step toward standing up a cluster. Now, repeat the preceding steps to launch the three worker instances. The procedure is almost the same, but there are important changes: * You can choose a less powerful instance type for workers: for example, an instance type with only two vCPUs. * When configuring instance details, change the Number of Instances to 3. * Be sure to select the same subnet as the one hosting the manager instance. As mentioned earlier, this will make configuration of the cluster much easier. * Use the value "worker" for the Name tag. * Instead of creating a new security group, select the same security group that you created for the manager instance. After the worker instances are launched, make sure you can SSH to each of them as well. At this point you have a set of instances that is able to run a Hadoop cluster. # Securing the Instances Some of the work to secure the new instances was done when the security group for them was defined, but there is a little more to do. If you took the recommended step of locking down SSH access in the "basic-security" security group created while allocating instances, then SSH between instances will not work. This is because the security group only allows SSH from your IP address (or IP address range), and nowhere else. So, the security group must be updated to allow wider SSH access. In fact, there will be more than just SSH traffic between instances once the cluster is running, so the best way to allow it all is to open up inbound traffic from anywhere in the security group itself. Start by selecting Security Groups from the EC2 menu. Select the row for the "basic-security" group, and then select the Inbound tab for the group. Click the Edit button, and then Add Rule in the dialog box that appears. For the Type of the new rule, select "All traffic," and enter the security group ID or name in the Source field. Click Save, and the security group will be updated. At this point, it should be possible to SSH between any two instances in the security group. # Next Steps At this point, there are instances destined to host a cluster running in EC2. To pause here, you can stop the new instances by selecting them in the list of running instances and then using the Actions button to select Instance State, and then Stop. You can start them later by using Start in the same menu. Otherwise, proceed to Chapter 9 to install Hadoop and configure it, and then try it out with some basic MapReduce jobs. If you just created your AWS account, you may discover that you are not permitted to use such a powerful instance type right away. If so, go ahead and use a free tier instance type that at least has the minimum memory needed. The cluster will still work for experimentation. # Chapter 7. Setting Up in Google Cloud Platform In this chapter you'll create a simple Hadoop cluster running in Google Compute Engine (GCE), the service in Google Cloud Platform that enables you to provision instances. The cluster will consist of basic installations of HDFS and YARN, which form the foundation for running MapReduce and other analytic workloads. This chapter assumes you are using a Unix-like operating system on your local computer, such as Linux or macOS. If you are using Windows, some of the steps will vary, particularly those for working with SSH. ###### Tip If you just worked through the previous chapter on AWS, you'll find that this chapter covers the same procedures, just under Google Cloud Platform. If you're more interested in using your AWS cluster, skip ahead to Chapter 9. # Prerequisites Before you start, you will need to have an account already established with Google Cloud Platform. You can use your current Google account, or register for a separate account for free. Once you are registered, you will be able to log in to the _Google Cloud Platform console_ , a web interface for using all of the different services under the Google Cloud Platform umbrella. When you log in, you are presented with a dashboard providing a curated view of some of those services; a complete list is available from the "hamburger" menu accessible from the top-left corner. For this chapter, you will be focusing on GCE, whose dashboard tile is shown in Figure 7-1. ###### Figure 7-1. GCE on the Google Cloud Platform dashboard ###### Caution Over time, Google will update the arrangement of the console, and so the exact instructions here may become inaccurate. # Creating a Project Work that you perform in Google Cloud Platform is always done within the context of a _project_. You can define projects yourself and switch between them. Each project defines a scope for instances, billing, security, default metadata, and so on. Perhaps most importantly, a project has a default region and availability zone for instances that are created within it. Google Cloud Platform will select a region that is near your location, but you can choose a different one yourself if you want. To create a new project, use the project drop-down menu next to the search bar across the top of the dashboard to select "Create a project." The menu is shown in Figure 7-2. ###### Figure 7-2. Creating a new project A cluster creation form, as shown in Figure 7-3, appears. This project can be called "My First Cluster". By selecting "Show advanced options," you can select a specific default region for the project. Click the Create button to create the new project. Once the project has been created, the dashboard switches to working within it. Now you have a space for allocating instances. Open the hamburger menu and select Compute Engine. ###### Figure 7-3. The "My First Cluster" project # Allocating Instances In this section, you will launch the instances that will comprise a Hadoop cluster. You will also ensure that they have the right networking connections, and that you can connect to them over SSH. ## SSH Keys Before provisioning instances in Google Cloud Platform, you must provide it an _SSH key_. An SSH key is just the public key that forms half of a public/private key pair used for SSH communication with your instances. If you are already familiar with asymmetric encryption technologies such as SSL/TLS, you will be comfortable with SSH keys. If you already have a key pair that you like to use, you can reuse it for Google Cloud Platform. If not, you can create a new one yourself using a client-side tool like OpenSSL. In either case, you will upload the public key to Google Cloud Platform. Then, the public key can be chosen to be recognized by the default login account on newly provisioned instances, enabling SSH access. To create a new key pair, try using the _ssh-keygen_ utility. You can run it with no arguments to work completely interactively, or use command-line options to supply most of what the utility needs. The following example generates a 2048-bit RSA key, saving the private key to a file named "gcp" and the public key to a file automatically named "gcp.pub" in the hidden _.ssh_ directory, which is normally used by OpenSSH for key storage and other sensitive files: $ ssh-keygen -b 2048 -t rsa -f ~/.ssh/gcp ###### Note When ssh-keygen asks for a passphrase for the new private key, you can enter an empty string (press Enter or Return) to leave the key unprotected. This is a common practice done for convenience, so that the key can be used to connect via SSH without entering a passphrase every time. If you do this, though, be sure to protect the private key file by using file permissions (e.g., make it readable only by your account), so that it is less likely to be compromised. With the key pair generated, you can upload the _public_ key data to Google Cloud Platform. Select Metadata from the Google Cloud Platform menu, and then the SSH Keys tab in the main part of the page. The empty form for adding new keys is shown in Figure 7-4. Click the "Add SSH keys" button to reveal a simple form for adding the data. Copy the contents of your public key file to your clipboard, as demonstrated in Figure 7-5, and paste them into the text area. Then click Save. ###### Warning Use the contents of the _public_ key, not the _private_ key. Google Cloud Platform never needs to know your private key to provide SSH access. If you accidentally paste your private key data into the form, assume that the key has been compromised and generate a new one. ###### Figure 7-4. The SSH Keys tab ###### Figure 7-5. An SSH key ## Creating Instances You're now ready to create instances. For this simple cluster, you'll create four instances: one "manager" and three "workers." The manager instance will host the HDFS namenode and the YARN resource manager, while the workers will host the HDFS datanodes and YARN node managers. A minimum of three workers is recommended, since the default HDFS replication factor is three. ### The manager instance Let's start by creating the manager instance. Select VM instances from the Google Cloud Platform menu. You'll see, like in Figure 7-6, that you don't have any running instances yet; you'll change that. Click the "Create instance" button to start the process. ###### Figure 7-6. The first "Create instance" button ##### Free Trial After signing up for Google Cloud Platform, you are eligible for a limited-time free trial, during which you are granted a fixed amount of credit that can be used to provision instances. The free trial is great for exploring how to use Google Cloud Platform, but during the free trial you are limited in how many cores you can have active at once. This prevents you from getting in over your head, but also disallows creating Hadoop clusters that can do more than trivial work. After the free trial ends, there is a permanent _free tier_ , although resources that run under it are too underpowered for Hadoop. A form appears, covering the basic information needed to create a new instance: * Use the name "manager". * Select an availability zone near your location. It does not need to be within the default region of your project. * A manager instance often needs more powerful specifications than a worker. For this cluster, select an instance type in the standard family with at least four vCPUs and at least 8 GB of memory. * The boot disk hosts the operating system and file storage for the instance. Click the Change button to bring up a secondary form, as shown in Figure 7-7, where you can pick a different image and resize the disk. Select an Ubuntu image from the "Preconfigured image" tab, then increase the size, if necessary, to at least 30 GB, so that there is ample room for installing what you need for your cluster. ###### Figure 7-7. Boot disk options ###### Note You do not need to use Ubuntu to deploy Hadoop in the cloud. It was chosen for the instructions here because it is popular and widely supported across all cloud providers. The steps for using a different Linux distribution can differ, especially in the system tools available and in package management. The instance is ready to be created. While here, though, you can take a look through additional hidden options by selecting "Management, disk, network, SSH keys" near the bottom of the form. All of the defaults in these additional tabs are acceptable for this instance. * You can see that Google Cloud Platform automatically selects a subnet for the instance. When you create a new project, Google Cloud Platform establishes a network for it automatically with a few subnets, one per region. The subnetwork selected here resides in the same region as the availability zone for the instance. If you update the network definition with additional subnets for the region, this form lets you select from those subnets. * You could use the SSH Keys tab here to supply a public key, but since the project already has a default, it isn't necessary here. With the manager instance fully specified as shown in Figure 7-8, click the Create button to start the instance creation process. ###### Figure 7-8. The manager instance Your new instance will start to launch. You can monitor its progress on the Google Cloud Platform console by selecting "VM instances" from the Google Cloud Platform menu. Once the instance state is shown as running via a checkmark, you can attempt to connect to it over SSH, using the private key from your chosen key pair to authenticate. The username matches the username for your Google account. You can use the external IP address to reach the instance, which can be found in the list of instances in the console. ###### Tip The Google Cloud Platform console lets you connect to instances via SSH directly from the browser. Do this by selecting SSH from the Connect column in the list of instances. Google Cloud Platform generates a short-lived SSH key pair and configures a login account on the instance to recognize it, then connects you in a popup terminal window. The account created in this process does have sudo capability, so you can use it to fully explore the instance, including checking on what the standard account for the instance is. ### The worker instances Once you can connect to the manager instance, you've completed the first step toward standing up a cluster. On the VM instances dashboard page, you will see options across the top for creating an instance and an instance group. For efficiency, select Create Instance Group to begin the process of launching three worker instances at once. The procedure here is similar to setting up the single manager instance, but there are important changes. Start off by using the name "worker-group-1" and selecting the same availability zone you selected for the manager. Under "Creation method," leave "Use instance template" selected and select "Create an instance template" from the Instance Template drop-down. An _instance template_ defines the parameters needed to automatically generate several instances at once, and the form that appears for defining a template, shown in Figure 7-9, works just like the similar part of the form for creating a single instance: * Enter a template name "worker-template-1". * If you wish, choose a less powerful instance type for workers: for example, an instance type with only 2 vCPUs. * Select the same OS and root disk size. ###### Figure 7-9. The worker instance template Back on the main form, as shown in Figure 7-10, change the "Number of instances" to 3. Then click Create. ###### Figure 7-10. The worker instances The VM instances dashboard page will show three new instances being provisioned. Figure 7-11 shows a set of provisioned workers along with a manager. The name for each of the workers is automatically determined by Google Cloud Platform, but they are all prefixed with the instance group name. After the instances are running, make sure you can SSH to each of them as well. At this point you have a set of instances that is able to run a Hadoop cluster. ###### Figure 7-11. Instances running in GCE # Securing the Instances You may have noticed that, besides selecting availability zones, no network choices needed to be made for provisioning instances. That is because GCE automatically placed the instances into the default network, which was already populated with subnets and firewall rules. Those firewall rules can be updated to improve the security posture of the cluster. From the VM instances dashboard page, follow the link for the "default" network listed for any of the instances. (Alternatively, select Networking from the hamburger menu, then Networks, and follow the link for the "default" network.) The page for the default network, as shown in Figure 7-12, lists the subnets and firewall rules that are already in place. The firewall rules defined for the default network do limit access from outside the network to only a few ports, but for those ports they allow access from anywhere, as can be seen from the IP range of 0.0.0.0/0 for the relevant rules. Make the following changes to the firewall rules to make the network more secure: * Remove the RDP / port 3389 rule. * Edit the ICMP and SSH / port 22 rules to restrict them to your IP address or organization's IP address range. To edit a rule, follow the link for its name and select Edit from the menu at the top of the page to bring up the rule editing form. ###### Tip The IP range for a single IP address is expressed in CIDR notation by appending "/32" after the IP address, e.g., "203.0.113.123/32". ###### Figure 7-12. Default firewall rules Note the firewall rule that allows traffic on any port from IP addresses in the subnet. This enables unfettered network connectivity between instances in the subnet including SSH and all the other ports used by Hadoop components. That is why an additional allow rule for that traffic isn't required; that helpful, permissive firewall rule takes care of it. After updating the firewall rules, check to make sure that you can still connect to your instances via SSH as before. If you cannot, make sure that you used the correct IP address range in the edited rules. # Next Steps At this point, there are instances destined to host a cluster running in GCE. To pause here, you can stop the new instances by selecting them in the list of instances and then clicking the Stop button in the options across the top of the list. You can start them later by using the Start button. Otherwise, proceed to Chapter 9 to install Hadoop and configure it, and then try it out with some basic MapReduce jobs. At the time of writing, the limit is eight, which is enough for a cluster of four instances with two cores each. Such a powerful instance type may run up against your free trial core limit. Go ahead and use fewer vCPUs if you wish; the cluster will still work for experimentation. # Chapter 8. Setting Up in Azure In this chapter you'll create a simple Hadoop cluster running in Azure. The cluster will consist of basic installations of HDFS and YARN, which form the foundation for running MapReduce and other analytic workloads. This chapter assumes you are using a Unix-like operating system on your local computer, such as Linux or macOS. If you are using Windows, some of the steps will vary, particularly those for working with SSH. ###### Tip If you just worked through a previous chapter on AWS or Google Cloud Platform, you'll find that this chapter covers the same procedures, just under Azure. If you're more interested in using your AWS or Google Cloud Platform cluster, skip ahead to Chapter 9. # Prerequisites Before you start, you will need to have an account already established with Azure. You can use your current Microsoft account, or register for a separate account for free. ##### Free Trial After signing up for Azure, you are eligible for a limited-time free trial, during which you are granted a fixed amount of credit that can be used to provision resources. The free trial allows you to explore Azure, but the limited number of permitted cores per region may be so low that you are unable to field a Hadoop cluster. If so, contact Azure Support to request a limit increase. Once you are registered, you will be able to log in to the _Azure portal_ , a web interface for using all of the different services under the Azure umbrella. A view of the portal is shown in Figure 8-1. When you log in, you are presented with a default portal arrangement with a starter set of tiles; a complete list of services is available from the menu on the left side of the portal. You are free to rearrange the tiles to your liking. ###### Figure 8-1. The default arrangement of the Azure portal ###### Caution Over time, Microsoft will update the default arrangement of the portal, and so the exact instructions here may become inaccurate. Also, as you work in Azure, the contents will change. # Creating a Resource Group Working in Azure is about managing _resources_ , which are things like virtual machines and virtual networks. Resources are grouped into _resource groups_ so that they can share the same lifecycle and be tagged and controlled together. Each resource group is associated with a region, so all of the resources in the group are tied to that region. As a start to building a cluster in Azure, create a resource group for all of the cluster's resources. To begin creating a resource group, select "Resource groups" from the portal menu. This opens a window within the portal, called a _blade_ , which lists the resource groups. As shown in Figure 8-2, there are none at the moment, so click the "+ Add" button in the toolbar to create one. ###### Figure 8-2. A closeup of the Resource groups blade A new blade appears, with a small form, as shown in Figure 8-3, to fill in about the resource group. Give it a name such as "my_first_cluster" and select a region for the "Resource group location." If you have just signed up for Azure, "Free Trial" is the only choice for the subscription; otherwise, pick the correct one. If desired, check the "Pin to dashboard" checkbox so that the resource group appears in the portal as a tile. Finally, click Create to complete the workflow. ###### Figure 8-3. The my_first_cluster resource group Once Azure creates the resource group, a new blade will appear for it, with an empty list of resources. If you close this using the "X" at the upper right, you will see a new tile like the one shown in Figure 8-4 for the resource group in the dashboard, as long as you checked the "Pin to dashboard" checkbox. ###### Figure 8-4. The my_first_cluster resource group in the portal # Creating Resources Now it's time to fill up the resource group with the resources needed for a Hadoop cluster. The resources are: * A virtual network, to house the cluster instances * A storage account, as a home for the disk storage used by the cluster * A network security group, to control network traffic to and from the cluster ###### Note In this chapter, the terms _virtual machine_ and _instance_ are used interchangeably. There is a somewhat standard process for creating any resource: select the resource type from the portal menu to bring up a blade with a list of the resources, click the "+ Add" button to begin the process of creating the resource, and follow the steps provided, ending up back at the resource list. Because Azure creates resources asynchronously, the resource list might not show a new resource immediately, but it can be refreshed. Notifications keep you informed of progress. The portal menu shows "favorite" resource types and other services, but all of them are available by following the "More services" option at the bottom of the menu. The menu contents can be customized by selecting and deselecting favorites, and the menu order can be rearranged by dragging items around. Do feel free to customize the menu for easier use. ###### Note Creating these resources before any virtual machines that will comprise your cluster is one possible workflow. You can instead go ahead and create the first virtual machine, and Azure will generate a virtual network, storage account, and network security group for you. The instructions here show the supporting resources first to highlight how they are configured. Start with creating a virtual network by selecting "Virtual networks" from the portal menu. Following the usual workflow, click the "+ Add" button above the empty list of virtual networks to reveal a form, as shown in Figure 8-5, for beginning the creation process: * Give the virtual network a name such as "cluster_net". * The default IP address space for the network is 10.0.0.0/16, which is more than enough. * Likewise, the first subnet in the network, named "default" with IP address space 10.0.0.0/24, will work fine for a cluster. * Select the same subscription that you used for the resource group. You'll do this for each new resource, so it is not called out again here. * Select the resource group that you just created. This will also populate the location with the resource group's location. Again, this is a common step across resources and won't be repeated in these steps. ###### Figure 8-5. The virtual network End by clicking the Create button. As with the resource group, and with other resources that you will make, you should see notifications that the resource is being created and then is ready. You can refresh the list of virtual networks to see it listed. Next, create a storage account so that you can access Azure Storage services. This provides a home for the disks that will be attached to cluster instances. Start from the "Storage accounts" portal menu item and follow the usual workflow, using the form shown in Figure 8-6: * Give the account a name. This must be globally unique across all Azure storage accounts, so short or obvious names might not be available. * Select "Resource manager" for the deployment model. * The correct account type is "General purpose," since this will be for virtual machine disks, as opposed to only blobs. * Select Premium for performance. This directs the storage account to use SSDs for disks, instead of slower magnetic storage. Some virtual machine images require premium storage. * For replication, select LRS (locally redundant storage) as the cheapest option. It may be the only option available. There are several options for data redundancy, which are discussed in "Object Storage in Azure". * Storage service encryption may be disabled. ###### Figure 8-6. The storage account Now for the network security group, starting from "Network security groups" in the portal menu and using the form shown in Figure 8-7, the only unique piece of information needed is a name, such as "cluster_nsg". ###### Figure 8-7. The network security group With a network security group defined, add an inbound rule that permits SSH access from your local computer, so that you can connect directly to any of the cluster instances. Select the group from the list of network security groups, if necessary, to see a blade like the one shown in Figure 8-8, providing an overview of the group with its empty lists of inbound and outbound rules. ###### Figure 8-8. An overview of the new network security group Select "Inbound security rules" from the blade menu to reveal a list of empty rules. Click the "+ Add" button above the list to create a new rule. Populate the new rule as shown in Figure 8-9: * Give the rule a name such as "cluster_ssh". * Pick a priority. The default of 100 represents the highest possible priority and is fine as a default. * For a source, select "CIDR block," and provide an IP address range that includes your local computer. * Select SSH for the service, and the protocol and port range are filled in automatically. * Pick Allow for the action. ###### Figure 8-9. An inbound rule permitting SSH access # SSH Keys Before provisioning instances in Azure, you need to generate an _SSH key_. An SSH key is just the public key that forms half of a public/private key pair used for SSH communication with your instances. If you are already familiar with asymmetric encryption technologies such as SSL/TLS, you will be comfortable with SSH keys. If you already have a key pair that you like to use, you can reuse it for Azure. If not, you can create a new one yourself using a client-side tool like OpenSSL. In either case, the public key can be provided for the login account on newly provisioned instances, enabling SSH access. To create a new key pair, try using the _ssh-keygen_ utility. You can run it with no arguments to work completely interactively, or use command-line options to supply most of what the utility needs. The following example generates a 2048-bit RSA key, saving the private key to a file named "azure" and the public key to a file automatically named "azure.pub" in the hidden _.ssh_ directory, which is normally used by OpenSSH for key storage and other sensitive files: $ ssh-keygen -b 2048 -t rsa -f ~/.ssh/azure ###### Note When ssh-keygen asks for a passphrase for the new private key, you can enter an empty string (press Enter or Return) to leave the key unprotected. This is a common practice done for convenience, so that the key can be used to connect via SSH without entering a passphrase every time. If you do this, though, be sure to protect the private key file by using file permissions (e.g., make it readable only by your account), so that it is less likely to be compromised. # Creating Virtual Machines With the preliminary work of establishing necessary support resources out of the way, you're now ready to create virtual machines. For this simple cluster, you'll create four instances: one "manager" and three "workers." The manager instance will host the HDFS namenode and the YARN resource manager, while the workers will host the HDFS datanodes and YARN node managers. A minimum of three workers is recommended, since the default HDFS replication factor is three. ## The Manager Instance Let's start by creating the manager instance, following the usual procedure: Select the Virtual machines item in the portal menu and click the "+ Add" button in the currently empty list of virtual machines, as shown in Figure 8-10. ###### Figure 8-10. The initially empty list of virtual machines A blade for the Azure Marketplace appears so you can select an image to base your instance on. Enter "ubuntu" in the search field to look for available Ubuntu images, and select a recent Ubuntu Server image. Remember which one you select, so you can re-use it for other cluster instances. Figure 8-11 shows a couple of options for Ubuntu versions. ###### Figure 8-11. Search results for Ubuntu in the marketplace ###### Note You do not need to use Ubuntu to deploy Hadoop in the cloud. It was chosen for the instructions here because it is popular and widely supported across all cloud providers. The steps for using a different Linux distribution can differ, especially in the system tools available and in package management. The next blade asks for your deployment model, either Resource Manager or Classic. As shown in Figure 8-12, select the newer Resource Manager model, which lets you work with your cluster resource group, and click the Create button. ###### Figure 8-12. Selecting the Resource Manager deployment model Next, a pair of blades appear to work through a wizard-like workflow for creating a new instance. The first step is a form, shown in Figure 8-13, for basic settings: * Use the name "manager". * Provider a username for the default account. These instructions assume the username is "ubuntu". * Select "SSH public key" for the authentication type, and for the next field copy in the _public_ key from your SSH key pair. ###### Warning Use the contents of the _public_ key, not the _private_ key. Azure never needs to know your private key to provide SSH access. If you accidentally paste your private key data into the form, assume that the key has been compromised and generate a new one. * Select the "Use existing" radio button for the resource group and enter the name for your resource group. Click OK to move to the next step. ###### Figure 8-13. The basic settings for the manager instance Now select a size for the manager instance. A manager instance often needs more powerful specifications than a worker. For this cluster, select an instance size with at least four vCPUs and at least 8 GB of memory. Figure 8-14 shows some available instance sizes, along with their monthly costs, at the time of writing. ###### Figure 8-14. Some available instance sizes for a virtual machine The next form, shown in Figure 8-15, is for "optional" settings, but for setting up a Hadoop cluster they are quite important: * Select the storage account, virtual network, default subnet, and network security group that you created earlier. They may be automatically selected in the form. * A new public IP address is suggested. Highlight the automatic selection and a pair of new blades appear, one for choosing a public IP address with the "Create new" option selected, and a second with a small form for defining the public IP address. A public IP address in Azure is a resource like any other, so you can establish one for the manager now. In the public IP address form, enter a name for the public IP address resource and select Static assignment. * Monitoring diagnostics may be disabled. ###### Figure 8-15. Optional settings for the manager instance The last part of the workflow is just a summary, so you can verify your choices before Azure begins to create the virtual machine. An example summary is shown in Figure 8-16. Click OK one last time to start the creation process. ###### Figure 8-16. A summary of the manager instance settings Azure automatically places a tile on the portal for the new virtual machine, which animates as the instance is created. You can select the tile to bring up a blade about the virtual machine and monitor its progress. You may notice that Azure automatically creates yet another resource, a _network interface_. This is analogous to a network adapter card in a physical machine, and links the virtual machine to its public IP address and virtual network. When the virtual machine is created and running, the overview of the virtual machine describes its "Essentials," including the public IP address reserved for it. An example overview is shown in Figure 8-17. You can now attempt to connect to it over SSH, using the username and SSH key provided during the creation process. ###### Figure 8-17. Essential information about the new manager instance ## The Worker Instances Once you can connect to the manager instance, you've completed the first major step toward standing up a cluster. Now, repeat the preceding steps to launch the three worker instances. The procedure is almost the same, but there are a couple of important changes: * Use unique names for the instances, such as "worker1", "worker2", and "worker3". * You can choose a less powerful instance size for workers: e.g., an instance size with only two vCPUs. After the worker instances are launched, make sure you can SSH to each of them as well. At this point you have a set of instances that is able to run a Hadoop cluster. # Next Steps The default rules of the network security group automatically permit connectivity between all of the instances, since they all belong to the same virtual network, and the explicit inbound rule in the group restricts SSH access appropriately, so there are no further steps needed to secure the instances. To pause here, you can stop each new virtual machine; go to the list of virtual machines and select Stop in each one's action menu, which is denoted by an ellipsis (three periods). You can start them later by selecting Start in the same menu. Otherwise, proceed to Chapter 9 to install Hadoop and configure it, and then try it out with some basic MapReduce jobs. A /16 CIDR block such as this covers 65,536 addresses. For more about interpreting CIDR notation, see "A Drink of CIDR". Such a powerful instance size may not be available under a free trial subscription. Go ahead and select an instance size that at least has the minimum memory needed. The cluster will still work for experimentation. # Chapter 9. Standing Up a Cluster Now that you have instances up and running in the cloud provider of your choice, they can be set up to run a Hadoop cluster. If you don't have instances at the ready and want to follow along, then go back to Chapter 6 for AWS, Chapter 7 for Google Cloud Platform, or Chapter 8 for Azure first, and then return here. # The JDK Hadoop requires a Java runtime to work, and so Java must be installed on each of your new instances. A good strategy is to use the operating system package management capability already on the instances, e.g., `yum` on Red Hat Linux, `apt` on Ubuntu. Cloud providers ensure that these capabilities work within their infrastructures, sometimes even providing local mirrors or gateways to help. Table 9-1 suggests packages to install for some operating systems. As new versions of Java are released, the package names will change. Table 9-1. Suggested Java packages OS \| Package names ---\|--- Debian or Ubuntu \| openjdk-8-jdk or openjdk-7-jdk Red Hat or CentOS \| java-1.8.0-openjdk or java-1.7.0-openjdk Instead of using a package available natively for your operating system, you can install an Oracle JDK by downloading an installation package directly from Oracle. Since you have root access to your instances, you are free to use whatever means you prefer to install Java. After you have installed Java, make note of where the Java home directory is (i.e., what the `JAVA_HOME` environment variable should be set to). You will need to know this location later. # Hadoop Accounts While Hadoop can run under the root account, it is better security practice to use nonprivileged accounts. For this simple cluster, create two ordinary user accounts on each instance for running HDFS and YARN. These instructions will assume that the usernames for the account are "hdfs" and "yarn". They will both belong to a new "hadoop" group. For even better security, instead of creating passwords for the new accounts, use an SSH key pair. One option is to copy in the _authorized_keys_ file from the standard login account for the instance; that way, you can use the same private key to connect via SSH from your local computer to any of the accounts on the instances: $ sudo groupadd hadoop $ for u in hdfs yarn; do > sudo useradd -G hadoop -m -s /bin/bash ${u} > sudo mkdir /home/${u}/.ssh > sudo cp ~/.ssh/authorized_keys /home/${u}/.ssh > sudo chmod 700 /home/${u}/.ssh > sudo chown -R ${u} /home/${u}/.ssh > done # Passwordless SSH The Hadoop distribution includes some helpful utility scripts that can connect to each instance in your cluster to start and stop everything for a service at once. To use these scripts, passwordless SSH must be established from the "hdfs" and "yarn" accounts on the manager instance to the same accounts on each of the worker instances, as well as for hopping from the manager instance back to itself. While your cloud provider key pair can be used for passwordless SSH, it's better to keep its private key from being copied too widely. So, instead, generate new default SSH keys on the manager instance under each account, and then transfer the public keys to the corresponding accounts on the worker instances: # on manager: $ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 2048 -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa -N '' $ cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys # on each worker: $ cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys # copy and paste public key contents ^D The preceding commands accomplish transferring the public keys by just copying and pasting their contents through your SSH sessions. Another option, which is automatable, is to copy the public keys using SCP back to your local computer, and then copy them again from there to each worker instance. On a larger system, management tools like Chef or Puppet could be used to automatically distribute keys. Now that the public keys have been distributed, connect via SSH from the "hdfs" and "yarn" accounts on the manager to the same accounts on each instance, including the manager itself, using each instance's private IP address. This is not only a useful check, but also gives you the chance to accept the key fingerprint for each instance and have it recorded in the SSH known hosts files of the manager accounts. Without doing so, automated scripts that use SSH might get stuck waiting for interactive confirmation of a fingerprint. If the connections fail, verify the security rules governing the instances, and make sure to use the private keys generated for each Hadoop account, not the private key set up with the cloud provider. # Hadoop Installation For now, the Hadoop cluster will only contain the basic Hadoop services HDFS and YARN. These instructions are based on the standard cluster setup instructions and use the standard binary distribution from Apache. If you already have a tried-and-true set of steps for Hadoop installation, or if you prefer to use a customized or bundled distribution from a Hadoop vendor, you may be able to adapt these instructions. To start, download a binary Hadoop distribution from _hadoop.apache.org_ to each of your instances, under the standard login account. You can download to your local computer and then use SCP to transfer the distribution to each of your instances, or instead use `curl` or `wget` on each instance to download the distribution directly. Apache uses a mirror system to offer distributions, so the simplest way to find a download URL is to visit the Hadoop download page to have it select a mirror, and then use the chosen mirror URL for your download command line. Since multiple user accounts will be running Hadoop components, install it in a commonly accessible location. For this cluster you'll use _/opt/hadoop_ as that common location: $ curl -O http://mirrorhost/path/to/hadoop-x.y.z.tar.gz $ sudo tar xzfC hadoop-x.y.z.tar.gz /opt $ sudo ln -s /opt/hadoop-x.y.z /opt/hadoop ###### Tip Example commands in this chapter will use the version number `x.y.z` to stand in for the real Hadoop version number. Unless you have a specific need otherwise, you should simply use the latest release. ###### Note About now you may notice how often you need to repeat steps for every instance in your cluster. Once you are creating lots of clusters in the cloud, it's a good idea to use a tool that issues commands over SSH to multiple instances at a time. Chapter 17 discusses some options. Now that Hadoop is installed, its _bin_ directory can be added to the `PATH` environment variable for each of the Hadoop accounts: # as hdfs and as yarn $ echo "export PATH=\"/opt/hadoop/bin:\$PATH\"" >> ~/.profile # HDFS and YARN Configuration Once Hadoop is installed across your cluster, it's time to configure it. The procedure here is much like configuring a Hadoop cluster on "real" hardware. Refer to the Hadoop documentation for all of the details, or consult texts like _Hadoop: The Definitive Guide_ by Tom White (O'Reilly). The instructions here are simple ones, just to get the cluster going. Again, if you are used to configuring Hadoop clusters, go ahead and adapt what you normally do. Many of these configuration steps require you to use `sudo`. The standard login account for your instances should be able to execute commands using `sudo`. ###### Tip To avoid needing to type `sudo` before every command, use `sudo su -` in the standard instance login account to open a shell as root. Be careful, though, since you will have unrestricted access to the machine. Unless otherwise stated, the configuration steps should be performed on every cluster node. Some that are only required on the manager node are called out. ## The Environment Create a script _/etc/profile.d/hadoop.sh_ that sets the `HADOOP_PREFIX` environment variable to point to the Hadoop installation. To have the script take effect, either log out and back in again, or source it in your current shell: # as root % echo "export HADOOP_PREFIX=/opt/hadoop" > /etc/profile.d/hadoop.sh ###### Tip Redirection of a command run under `sudo` happens under the initial account, and not as root. That is why the preceding command requires you to be logged in as root. An alternative is to use the `tee` utility to write the file, but then discard standard output: $ echo "export HADOOP_PREFIX=/opt/hadoop" \| \ > sudo tee /etc/profile.d/hadoop.sh > /dev/null Create a symlink at _/etc/hadoop_ that points to _/opt/hadoop/etc/hadoop_ , since you will be using that directory for the cluster's configuration: $ sudo ln -s /opt/hadoop/etc/hadoop /etc/hadoop Create the directories _/var/log/hadoop_ and _/var/run/hadoop_ for Hadoop logs and process ID files, and make them writable only by the Hadoop accounts: $ for d in /var/log/hadoop /var/run/hadoop; do > sudo mkdir $d > sudo chgrp hadoop $d > sudo chmod g+w $d > done On many Linux distributions, the contents of _/var/run_ are stored on a temporary filesystem and destroyed on reboot, causing the new _/var/run/hadoop_ directory to vanish. There are two options to cope with this. First, you can simply use a different directory for process ID files, such as _/opt/hadoop/pids_ , which resides on a non-temporary filesystem; however, this is a nonstandard approach. The other option is to employ a system initialization script, in accordance with the Linux distribution you are using, that creates _/var/run/hadoop_ on each boot. These instructions assume the latter approach. Here is an example initialization script for Ubuntu and similar distributions, which can be saved as _/etc/init.d/hadoop_ : #!/bin/sh ### BEGIN INIT INFO # Provides: # Required-Start: $remote_fs $syslog # Required-Stop: $remote_fs $syslog # Default-Start: 2 3 4 5 # Default-Stop: 0 1 6 # Short-Description: Create Hadoop directories at boot ### END INIT INFO case "$1" in start) mkdir -p /var/run/hadoop chown root:hadoop /var/run/hadoop chmod 0775 /var/run/hadoop ;; esac The script can be activated through either of the following commands: # activate with fixed start priority of 98 $ update-rc.d hadoop defaults 98 # activate using dependencies in INIT INFO comments $ /usr/lib/lsb/install_initd hadoop Next, edit _/etc/hadoop/hadoop-env.sh_ and make the following changes: * Set the path for `JAVA_HOME`. Where this is depends on how you chose to install Java. If you used your platform's package manager, try seeing where _/usr/bin/java_ or _/etc/alternatives/java_ links to. * Set `HADOOP_LOG_DIR` and `HADOOP_PID_DIR` to point to _/var/log/hadoop_ and _/var/run/hadoop_ , respectively: export JAVA_HOME=/path/to/jdk export HADOOP_LOG_DIR=/var/log/hadoop export HADOOP_PID_DIR=/var/run/hadoop Edit _/etc/hadoop/yarn-env.sh_ and set the paths for `YARN_CONF_DIR` and `YARN_LOG_DIR` to point to _/etc/hadoop_ and `$HADOOP_LOG_DIR`, respectively. Also append a Java option to the `YARN_OPTS` variable so that YARN daemons prefer to listen over IPv4: export YARN_CONF_DIR=/etc/hadoop export YARN_LOG_DIR="$HADOOP_LOG_DIR" YARN_OPTS="$YARN_OPTS -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true" ## XML Configuration Files Edit _/etc/hadoop/core-site.xml_ and configure the `fs.defaultFS` property with the address of your manager instance. Use the private IP address of the manager instance in the URL. You can find the private IP address for an instance by locating it in your cloud provider's console. You can also configure the `hadoop.tmp.dir` property with a different location for Hadoop's temporary file storage. HDFS, for one, uses this location as the basis for where namenode and datanode data is kept. The default value for the directory resides under _/tmp_ , which is cleared out when instances are restarted. If you want to be able to stop and start your cluster, you should change this location. The value `/home/${user.name}/tmp` directs Hadoop to use a temporary directory under each Hadoop account's home directory. You could select other persistent locations as well, perhaps those that map to large persistent disks. "Stopping and Starting Entire Clusters" discusses the practice of stopping and starting Hadoop clusters in more detail. <property> <name>fs.defaultFS</name> <value>hdfs://203.0.113.101:8020</value> </property> <property> <name>hadoop.tmp.dir</name> <value>/home/${user.name}/tmp</value> </property> _For Azure only_ , edit _/etc/hadoop/hdfs-site.xml_ and disable the requirement that datanodes have a resolvable IP address. Azure does not establish reverse DNS lookup for private IP addresses by default: <property> <name>dfs.namenode.datanode.registration.ip-hostname-check</name> <value>false</value> </property> Edit _/etc/hadoop/yarn-site.xml_ and make the following changes: * Configure the `yarn.resourcemanager.hostname` property for your manager instance. Use its private IP address here as well. * Configure the `yarn.nodemanager.aux-services` property with the value "mapreduce_shuffle". This enables YARN node managers to perform the shuffle stage of MapReduce jobs: <property> <description>The hostname of the RM.</description> <name>yarn.resourcemanager.hostname</name> <value>203.0.113.101</value> </property> <property> <name>yarn.nodemanager.aux-services</name> <value>mapreduce_shuffle</value> </property> Create the file _/etc/hadoop/mapred-site.xml_ ; the easiest way is to copy the empty template file for it: $ sudo cp /etc/hadoop/mapred-site.xml.template /etc/hadoop/mapred-site.xml Then, add the `mapreduce.framework.name` property with the value "yarn" so that the cluster will use YARN for executing MapReduce jobs. Also set the `yarn.app.mapreduce.am.staging-dir` property to the _/user_ directory in HDFS; this will allow users running MapReduce jobs to write staging data into their home directories in HDFS, which will have the necessary permissions: <property> <name>mapreduce.framework.name</name> <value>yarn</value> </property> <property> <name>yarn.app.mapreduce.am.staging-dir</name> <value>/user</value> </property> ## Finishing Up Configuration Edit _/etc/hadoop/slaves_ and replace its contents with a list of the private IP addresses for the worker instances. This only needs to be done on the manager instance. This file is used by Hadoop's helper scripts to find each worker. # Startup The cluster is ready to start. Begin by formatting HDFS as usual. Log in to the manager instance as the "hdfs" user for the step: # as hdfs $ hdfs namenode -format mycluster Now start up HDFS and YARN using the helper scripts, also on the manager instance. This uses the passwordless SSH set up earlier to connect to the manager itself and each worker to start the daemons. If you did not try out the connections manually and accept the key fingerprints for each instance, then you will see the interactive prompts emitted by these scripts; just type "yes" for each one you see and they should continue executing: # as hdfs $ $HADOOP_PREFIX/sbin/start-dfs.sh # as yarn $ $HADOOP_PREFIX/sbin/start-yarn.sh ###### Note For brevity, configuration and startup of the MapReduce Job History Server is omitted; the cluster will function without it. To set it up, establish a "mapred" user in the "hadoop" group, just like the "hdfs" and "yarn" users, and follow the standard instructions to configure and start the server. # SSH Tunneling Now that all of the daemons are started, you can check their statuses through their web interfaces. However, connecting directly will not work, because the security rules governing the instances block access from outside to the necessary ports. You can open up access to those ports from your IP address by adding new rules, but a better option is to use _SSH tunneling_ , which maps a local port on your computer to a remote port on another computer through SSH. Using SSH tunnels lets you leave only the SSH port open to anything outside the security group, and encrypts the traffic as a bonus. You can create SSH tunnels using the standard SSH client. Run commands like these to establish tunnels from the local ports 50070 (for the namenode web interface) and 8088 (for the resource manager web interface) to the same ports on your manager instance. Use the public IP address or, if it is available, the public DNS name for your manager instance to establish the connection from your local computer. For the remote end of the tunnel, "localhost" works for the namenode, but you must use the same IP address for the resource manager as configured for the `yarn.resourcemanager.hostname` configuration property in _yarn-site.xml_. $ ssh -i /path/to/cloud_provider_key.pem -n -N \ > -L 50070:localhost:50070 userid@manager.cloud-provider.example & $ ssh -i /path/to/cloud_provider_key.pem -n -N \ > -L 8088:203.0.113.101:8088 userid@manager.cloud-provider.example & Consult the man page for `ssh` for more information about setting up SSH tunnels. Tunneling is also covered in more detail in Chapter 14. Now, in your browser, navigate to _http://localhost:50070_ and _http://localhost:8088_ to see your namenode and resource manager ready for work. The web interfaces are being served from the manager instance, but tunneled through SSH to your browser. # Running a Test Job After all of that work, it should be gratifying to see your cluster in action. The Hadoop distribution comes with many example programs bundled in an examples JAR. You can use any of those on your new cluster. One easy one to try is the "pi" example, which calculates the value of pi using a MapReduce algorithm. MapReduce jobs in the cluster will write their history information to _/user/history_ in HDFS, so that directory needs to be established before any jobs are run. Using the "hdfs" user, create it with wide-open permissions but owned by the "mapred" user and the "hadoop" group: # as hdfs $ hdfs dfs -mkdir -p /user/history $ hdfs dfs -chmod -R 1777 /user/history $ hdfs dfs -chown mapred:hadoop /user/history Now, you can run the example under any account on an instance. For the account you choose, create a home directory in HDFS, using the hdfs account. Then go ahead and run the example: # as hdfs $ hdfs dfs -mkdir -p /user/userid $ hdfs dfs -chown userid /user/userid # as the user account $ export PATH=/opt/hadoop/bin:$PATH $ export HADOOP_CONF_DIR=/etc/hadoop $ hadoop jar \ > /opt/hadoop/share/hadoop/mapreduce/hadoop-mapreduce-examples-x.y.z.jar \ > pi 10 100 You should see the MapReduce job submitted to YARN and visible in the resource manager web interface. If not, then it is possible that you are not configured to use YARN for MapReduce, and the job is being run locally; check over the configuration, especially _yarn-site.xml_ and _mapred-site.xml_. After a short runtime and some output describing the progress of the job, you should see an answer like this. Yours may vary: Estimated value of Pi is 3.14800000000000000000 Congratulations, you have created a functional Hadoop cluster in the cloud! You should feel free to try running more example programs or other analyses through it. Even though it is running in the cloud, using it is much like using an on-premises cluster. ## What If the Job Hangs? If the example job never gets started, but gets stuck waiting for an application master (AM) to be allocated, it's usually a sign that there may not be enough memory on the node managers for allocating the container needed for the application master process. The default configurations for YARN are higher than what you often have to work with in smaller cloud deployments. Try setting these configuration properties: * In _/etc/hadoop/yarn-site.xml_ , set `yarn.nodemanager.resource.memory-mb` to something low; for example, 1,024 for a worker instance with 8 GB of memory. The default value of 8,192 is too high for such an instance. * In _/etc/hadoop/mapred-site.xml_ , set `yarn.app.mapreduce.am.resource.mb` to the same value. If this does not work, consult the documentation about tuning YARN configurations for MapReduce. They provide advice, and even worksheets, for coming up with appropriate configuration property settings for your cluster. # Running Basic Data Loading and Analysis The example job does exercise your new cluster, but might not be representative of the type of work a cloud-based cluster will perform. The next test of the cluster will get a little closer to real life by running a couple of simple MapReduce jobs that read in text data from Wikipedia and then, following the tradition of new Hadoop clusters everywhere, count words in it. ## Wikipedia Exports Wikipedia offers on-demand and pregenerated exports of all of its data in XML format. You can export the complete information for a single article, or for a category of articles, on demand. Wikipedia also periodically posts large, complete dumps of many wikis in the Wikimedia family. These exports are well suited for analysis in a Hadoop cluster. Visit _https://dumps.wikimedia.org/_ to see the available pregenerated dumps. ## Analyzing a Small Export While it is tempting to grab a complete Wikipedia dump, it is better to start with a smaller one, and then scale up. Since the XML format is the same for any dump, the same jobs will work on any of them. ### Generating the export Visit _https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export_, which lets you export one or more articles from the English Wikipedia site. Collect a set of page titles that you want to export and enter them manually, or select a category. In Figure 9-1, the category is "Member states of the United Nations," which returns around 200 articles. Remove any subcategory entries, and be sure to check the boxes to include only the current revision of each article and to save as a file. Then click the Export button to receive the exported data as XML. ###### Figure 9-1. Wikipedia export page The export will serve as the source data for analysis, so it needs to be copied into HDFS in the cluster. Copy the file up to the manager instance using `scp`; be sure to use the same private key that works for SSH access. Then, on the manager instance, use the `hdfs` utility to copy the XML into the home directory for the same user account used earlier to run the pi example: # on the computer where the export was downloaded $ scp -i /path/to/cloud_provider_key.pem Wikipedia-20160701000000.xml \ > userid@manager.cloud-provider.example:. # on the manager instance $ hdfs dfs -copyFromLocal Wikipedia-20160701000000.xml /user/userid ### The MapReduce jobs For this analysis, two MapReduce jobs will be used. The first one will scan the XML and extract each article's title and page contents, saving them into HDFS; this can be seen as a very basic _extract-transform-load_ or _ETL_ process, although real-life ETL is often much more involved. The second one will evaluate each article's text to count words in it, much like the standard Hadoop word-count example. Examples 9-1 and 9-2 show the important parts of the Java source for the loader job, which consists of a driver class and a mapper class. This is a map-only job with no reducers required. The driver sets up the job to stream the XML data from the file provided as the first argument, runs it through a mapper, and sends the output data to sequence files in an HDFS directory specified by the second argument. ##### Example 9-1. Wikipedia loader job driver code JobConf conf = new JobConf(getClass()); conf.setJobName("WP dump loader"); // Set the mapper class, but skip the reduce phase conf.setMapperClass(WikipediaDumpLoaderMapper.class); conf.setNumReduceTasks(0); // The object key/value pairs are text conf.setOutputKeyClass(Text.class); conf.setOutputValueClass(Text.class); // Stream XML into the job conf.setInputFormat(StreamInputFormat.class); StreamInputFormat.addInputPath(conf, new Path(args[0])); // Use the XML record reader, with each page as one record conf.set("stream.recordreader.class", "org.apache.hadoop.streaming.StreamXmlRecordReader"); conf.set("stream.recordreader.begin", "<page>"); conf.set("stream.recordreader.end", "</page>"); // Emit sequence files conf.setOutputFormat(SequenceFileOutputFormat.class); SequenceFileOutputFormat.setOutputPath(conf, new Path(args[1])); JobClient.runJob(conf); return 0; ##### Example 9-2. Wikipedia loader job mapper code private enum Counter { ARTICLES } private DocumentBuilder db; @Override public void configure(JobConf conf) { try { db = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance().newDocumentBuilder(); } catch (ParserConfigurationException e) { throw new IllegalStateException("XML parser configuration is bad", e); } } @Override public void map(Text key, Text value, OutputCollector<Text, Text> output, Reporter reporter) throws IOException { try { // Parse the page of XML into a document Document doc = db.parse(new InputSource(new StringReader(key.toString()))); // Extract the title and text (article content) from the page content String title = doc.getElementsByTagName("title").item(0).getTextContent(); String text = doc.getElementsByTagName("text").item(0).getTextContent(); // Emit the title and text pair output.collect(new Text(title), new Text(text)); reporter.getCounter(Counter.ARTICLES).increment(1L); } catch (SAXException e) { throw new IOException(e); } } MapReduce veterans may notice that this job uses the old Java MapReduce API. This is because `StreamInputFormat` is currently only available under that API. An alternative design would use Hadoop Streaming to load the XML data. The `StreamInputFormat` is configured to simply send each article's content to the mapper as the key; the value sent to the mapper is always an empty string. Other than those details, the job is straightforward. Once these classes are packaged into a JAR, the job is ready to run. Using `scp`, copy the JAR to the manager instance under your user account, and run it using the `yarn` command-line utility: $ yarn jar basic-loader-1.0.0.jar com.mh2c.WikipediaDumpLoaderDriver \ > Wikipedia-20160701000000.xml wikitext As before, you will see signs of progress as the job is run on the cluster. When the job completes, there will be one or more sequence files in a directory in HDFS (the preceding example uses the _wikitext_ directory in the user's HDFS home directory). You should also see the custom "ARTICLES" counter reporting the total number of articles parsed. If you like, you can peek at a sequence file to check that article text is present; while a sequence file is binary, it will have large areas of plain text that are easy to discriminate: $ hdfs dfs -ls wikitext $ hdfs dfs -cat wikitext/part-00000 It's time for the second job, also written in Java, which performs the word count. This job works like any other word-count job, except that it reads from sequence files instead of ordinary text files. Examples 9-3, 9-4, and 9-5 show the key portions of the code for the job. ##### Example 9-3. Wikipedia word-count job driver code JobConf conf = new JobConf(getClass()); conf.setJobName("WP word count"); // Set the mapper and reducer classes, and use the reducer as a combiner conf.setMapperClass(WikipediaWordCountMapper.class); conf.setReducerClass(WikipediaWordCountReducer.class); conf.setCombinerClass(WikipediaWordCountReducer.class); // The object key/value pairs are text words and integer counts conf.setOutputKeyClass(Text.class); conf.setOutputValueClass(IntWritable.class); // Read in sequence files conf.setInputFormat(SequenceFileInputFormat.class); SequenceFileInputFormat.addInputPath(conf, new Path(args[0])); // Emit ordinary text files conf.setOutputFormat(TextOutputFormat.class); TextOutputFormat.setOutputPath(conf, new Path(args[1])); JobClient.runJob(conf); return 0; ##### Example 9-4. Wikipedia word-count job mapper code private static final IntWritable ONE = new IntWritable(1); private Text wordText = new Text(); @Override public void map(Text key, Text value, OutputCollector<Text, IntWritable> output, Reporter reporter) throws IOException { // Split the text content of the article on whitespace String[] words = value.toString().split("\\s+"); // Count each word occurrence for (String word : words) { wordText.set(word); output.collect(wordText, ONE); } } ##### Example 9-5. Wikipedia word-count job reducer code private IntWritable sumIntWritable = new IntWritable(); /** * key = word * values = counts / @Override public void reduce(Text key, Iterator<IntWritable> values, OutputCollector<Text, IntWritable> output, Reporter reporter) throws IOException { // Total up the incoming counts for the word int sum = 0; while (values.hasNext()) { sum += values.next().get(); } // Emit the word count sumIntWritable.set(sum); output.collect(key, sumIntWritable); } The old Java MapReduce API is used here, for consistency with the loader job, but this code could easily be rewritten to use the new API instead. Run the job to perform the word count: $ yarn jar basic-loader-1.0.0.jar com.mh2c.WikipediaWordCountDriver \ > wikitext wikiwordcount The results are in one or more files in HDFS under the _wikiwordcount_ directory. The mapper code used here is intentionally simple; differing letter case and punctuation are not accounted for, so the results could be cleaned up with some improvements: $ hdfs dfs -ls wikiwordcount $ hdfs dfs -cat wikiwordcount/part-00000 Both of these MapReduce jobs are quite simple, and could have been combined into a single job, but they make clearer examples when separated. Also, the results of the first job could be saved off and used as the starting point for other analyses later, saving the work of parsing XML in each run. In a cloud architecture, you have the choice of saving valuable intermediate data long term in object storage services (see "Object Storage"), which lets you trade off the cost of repeated computation for the cost of increased data storage. As computation time increases, the option of reducing it by cheaply storing useful data products becomes more attractive. # Go Bigger With the Wikipedia export jobs available and working in your cluster, you have a starting point for further exploration. The "Member states of the United Nations" example used an export of around 200 articles, which at the time of writing weighed in at 26 MB, but larger exports should work just as well. The only limitation is the amount of room available in HDFS, since the XML data needs to be loaded there first for the loader job to work on it. If you are low on room in HDFS, or find that your workers run out of disk space when spilling data, either add worker instances or increase the available block storage for the existing workers. The trickiest part of working with a large export is getting it from Wikipedia into HDFS. In this chapter, the file was downloaded to the local computer, copied to the manager instance, and then copied into HDFS. This approach may not work well for, say, the complete export of English language Wikipedia, which exceeds 20 GB, compressed, as of this writing. It is feasible to download a large file directly to an instance, and then copy the file from there into HDFS. The disk where the large file resides can be kept as the "golden copy" of the data, and attached to instances when the file stored on it is needed. A more advanced approach involves uploading a large file to the cloud provider's object storage service, and then configuring Hadoop to access the file from there. The exact mechanics of this approach vary with the cloud provider, and there can be multiple ways to pull it off. Some possibilities: Under AWS, download the file to an EC2 instance, and use the S3 command-line client to upload the file into S3. Then, use Hadoop's s3a protocol to access the file directly as an HDFS volume, or use the `distcp` tool to copy the file from S3 into local HDFS. * Under Google Cloud Platform, use the Google Cloud Storage Transfer Service to load the file directly from Wikipedia into a bucket in Cloud Storage. Then, install the Google Cloud Storage Connector into your cluster and access the file directly as an HDFS volume. * Under Azure, download the file to a virtual machine, and use the Azure CLI to upload it to either Azure Blob Storage or Azure Data Lake Store (ADLS). Then, install the Azure Blob Storage module or the Azure Data Lake Store module into your cluster and access the file directly as an HDFS volume. Chapter 11, which covers adding Apache Hive to your cluster, describes how to use the s3a filesystem connector to directly access data residing in S3 for use in Hive queries. Depending on the capabilities of the job, you may not need to decompress a large file before storing it in HDFS or cloud provider object storage services. Avoiding decompression saves not only on HDFS capacity, but also storage costs and potential data transfer costs. However, as usual, compressed files can hamper the performance of MapReduce or other analytic jobs performed on them, and you may find you need to change over a file from, say, gzip compression to a splittable compression algorithm such as LZO. This affects the time it takes for data to be ready for work and modestly increases storage costs. Consider these trade-offs in your data flow. Check your cloud provider's documentation and examples to see what options you have for working with files and the provider's storage features. As new features are introduced, you may discover better patterns to move your large files around. The _/tmp_ directory may map to persistent storage, but can still be cleared out by the operating system on reboot. Find the complete source at: _https://github.com/bhavanki/moving-hadoop-to-the-cloud_. Or Spark (see Chapter 12). Increasing volume storage can be easy or difficult, depending on the cloud provider. With the correct content type set for the file, Cloud Storage should decompress it when it is accessed. # Part IV. Enhancing Your Cluster After working through Part III, you should have a simple, functional Hadoop cluster running on a cloud provider. While this can be satisfying, you may want to push it further, and that's what this part of the book is all about. Each chapter starts from the simple cluster and adds more capabilities to it, so that it works more like a real-world cluster. You can pick and choose which chapters to dive into based on your interests. # Chapter 10. High Availability A Hadoop cluster running in the cloud has some intrinsic reliability built in, due to the robustness of the cloud provider. Their data centers are built with reliable power sources and network connections. They also accommodate the constant parade of failing motherboards, memory chips, and hard drives that come with running huge numbers of servers. Often, when these "normal" hardware failures occur, your instances and infrastructure components are automatically migrated over to alternative resources. Sometimes, you won't even notice that anything went wrong. Still, there are some failures a cloud provider can't hide from its customers. Disks can become corrupted due to either software or hardware failures. Although rare, network hiccups or power outages at a cloud provider data center can cause instances, or even whole availability zones, to disappear for some amount of time. Even some of those "normal" hardware failures can't be automatically handled every time. Given that the risk of cluster failures is not completely eliminated by running on a cloud provider, it is reasonable to have a strategy in place to reduce their impact. Running in the cloud, if a cluster fails, it's completely feasible to simply spin up a new one to take its place. As long as the data the cluster was operating on is preserved, for example, in cloud provider storage services, a new cluster can be created in the same or a different availability zone, or even a different region in extreme cases, to pick up where the failed cluster left off. This is one of the strategies that makes little sense when working with physical hardware, but that can be advantageous when working with a flexible and resilient cloud provider infrastructure. If you prefer keeping clusters around for a while, perhaps because other systems depend on them being available constantly, then another strategy is to set up _high availability_ (HA). An HA cluster involves running redundant copies of some Hadoop components in order to eliminate single points of failure. By keeping cloud provider infrastructure and features in mind, you can set up HA clusters that are even more robust than those in an ordinary, single data center. This chapter does not completely describe Hadoop HA. Please consult Hadoop documentation for more information. # Planning HA in the Cloud The most important Hadoop components in a cluster to set up for HA are HDFS and YARN, so those will be focused on here. ## HDFS HA There are two options for configuring HA for HDFS: using conventional shared storage (NFS) or using the Quorum Journal Manager. This chapter explores using the Quorum Journal Manager, which involves running several journalnode daemons as well as a second namenode. Automatic failover, using ZooKeeper, is also covered. When a non-HA cluster is configured, it only has a single namenode, which of course runs in some availability zone in some region. When converting a cloud cluster to HA, a second namenode is added, as well as a set of at least three journalnodes. An important decision to make is whether to place the second namenode, and some of the journalnodes, in other availability zones or other regions. While it is possible to run the new daemons in a different region, there are practical reasons why this should be avoided. First, network connectivity between regions is much slower than between availability zones within a region. Second, cloud providers often charge for data transfer between regions, increasing the cost for HA clusters. Finally, management of all of HDFS within a cluster is much easier when all of its instances run within one region. There is a performance cost to spreading clusters across availability zones. Because clusters grow to hold more data and jobs running on them become more complex, the cost increases, and it can get to the point where jobs will tend to time out. In "Benchmarking HA", some techniques for testing cluster performance are discussed; they can help guide your decision on using multiple availability zones for HA. Figure 10-1 shows an HA deployment that is confined to a single availability zone. Figure 10-2 shows an HA deployment that spans two availability zones, with one namenode and several journalnodes in each zone. ###### Figure 10-1. An HA deployment of HDFS within a single availability zone ###### Figure 10-2. An HA deployment of HDFS in two availability zones. Many journalnodes are required so that there are at least three in each zone. ### What about the datanodes? HA configuration for HDFS does not require doing anything special for datanodes; it focuses on the critical data used by the namenode and on having a second namenode running. However, the loss of an availability zone causes a loss of datanodes within it as well, which can lead to data being lost or being unreachable for a time. When configuring a cluster for HA, then, consider spreading datanodes across availability zones too, keeping in mind potential performance problems. New datanodes added to new availability zones will, as usual, gradually receive replicated copies of HDFS data, until they are fully participating in the cluster. ## YARN HA Just as HDFS HA is enabled by running two namenodes, one active and one standby, YARN HA is enabled by running two resource managers, one active and one standby. As with the namenodes, it is possible to install the second resource manager in a different availability zone than the original (first) one. # Installing and Configuring ZooKeeper In order for an HA cluster to automatically switch from a formerly active namenode or resource manager to a standby, ZooKeeper must be running on the cluster. ZooKeeper is a distributed, highly reliable coordination system. It is used to enable many different capabilities in a Hadoop cluster, and automatic failover for HDFS and YARN HA is one of them. A distributed ZooKeeper deployment requires at least three daemons, and as with journalnodes and the second namenode and resource manager, it may be spread across availability zones. ZooKeeper itself is "smart" enough to detect when its own daemons disappear, and it can continue functioning when that happens, so no special steps are required after installing and configuring it for it to participate in an HA cluster. These instructions are based on the standard setup instructions and use the standard binary distribution from Apache. If you already have a tried-and-true set of steps for ZooKeeper installation, or if you prefer to use a customized or bundled distribution from a Hadoop vendor, you may be able to adapt these instructions. Prepare for installing ZooKeeper by creating a dedicated account for it on each host that will be running ZooKeeper, just like those for HDFS and YARN (see Chapter 9). These instructions will assume that the username for the account is "zk" and that the account belongs to the "hadoop" group. SSH key pairs are used for logging in. $ sudo useradd -G hadoop -m -s /bin/bash zk $ sudo mkdir /home/zk/.ssh $ sudo cp ~/.ssh/authorized_keys /home/zk/.ssh $ sudo chmod 700 /home/zk/.ssh $ sudo chown -R zk /home/zk/.ssh If you have a cluster with three workers like the one set up in Chapter 9, then those can be the targets for ZooKeeper installation as well. You may want to create an account on the manager instance as well for hosting a control script, described later on in this section. Download a binary ZooKeeper distribution from _zookeeper.apache.org_ to each of your instances, under the standard login account. In keeping with the use of _/opt/hadoop_ as the installation location for Hadoop, install ZooKeeper to _/opt/zookeeper_ : $ curl -O http://mirrorhost/path/to/zookeeper-x.y.z.tar.gz $ sudo tar xzfC zookeeper-x.y.z.tar.gz /opt $ sudo ln -s /opt/zookeeper-x.y.z /opt/zookeeper ###### Tip Example commands in this chapter will use the version number `x.y.z` to stand in for the real ZooKeeper version number. Unless you have a specific need otherwise, you should simply use the latest stable release. This ZooKeeper system will be running "replicated" with a quorum of servers. Each of them receives the same configuration file, so it's enough to create the file on one worker instance and copy it to the others. (The file should be named _/opt/zookeeper/conf/zoo.cfg_.) tickTime=2000 dataDir=/var/lib/zookeeper clientPort=2181 initLimit=5 syncLimit=2 server.1=203.0.113.102:2888:3888 server.2=203.0.113.103:2888:3888 server.3=203.0.113.104:2888:3888 In the preceding example, the private IP addresses of the worker instances are used in the file. It also names _/var/lib/zookeeper_ as its data directory, so create that on each worker as well: $ sudo mkdir /var/lib/zookeeper $ sudo chgrp hadoop /var/lib/zookeeper $ sudo chmod g+w /var/lib/zookeeper Each server requires a file named _/var/lib/zookeeper/myid_ containing its numeric ID from the configuration file (e.g., 1, 2, or 3 for the preceding file). This file, therefore, must be created uniquely on each worker. The last part of configuring ZooKeeper is setting its log directory. If it is not set, it defaults to the current directory, which in this configuration is the home directory of the "zk" account. You may want it to instead log to _/var/log/zookeeper_ , again to be similar to Hadoop. If so, create that directory on each worker, and set the `ZOO_LOG_DIR` environment variable in _/opt/zookeeper/bin/zkEnv.sh_ (before the script evaluates it): # commands to make the log directory $ sudo mkdir /var/log/zookeeper $ sudo chgrp hadoop /var/log/zookeeper $ sudo chmod g+w /var/log/zookeeper # then, editing zkEnv.sh export ZOO_LOG_DIR=/var/log/zookeeper ZooKeeper is ready to start. This can be done by running _/opt/zookeeper/bin/zkServer.sh_ on each worker instance; unfortunately, ZooKeeper does not ship with a distributed start script like the Hadoop distribution does. But it doesn't take anything complicated. See Example A-1 for a script that covers the basics. In order to use the example script, the account running it must have passwordless SSH access to each worker. One option is to create a "zk" account on the cluster manager instance and establish access from there, just like for the "hdfs" and "yarn" accounts. Once all the ZooKeeper servers are running, you can check the status of each one by running _zkServer.sh_ , or the example script in Example A-1, with the `status` subcommand. One server should report it is the leader, and the others should report they are the followers: # Using the example script "zk" $ ./zk status Checking ZooKeeper status ZooKeeper JMX enabled by default Using config: /opt/zookeeper/bin/../conf/zoo.cfg Mode: follower ZooKeeper JMX enabled by default Using config: /opt/zookeeper/bin/../conf/zoo.cfg Mode: leader ZooKeeper JMX enabled by default Using config: /opt/zookeeper/bin/../conf/zoo.cfg Mode: follower ZooKeeper is now running alongside your Hadoop cluster and ready to play its part in enabling HA. # Adding New HDFS and YARN Daemons With ZooKeeper in place and ready to perform automatic failover, the additional HDFS and YARN daemons can be installed on the cluster, and the entire cluster configured for HA. Start by noting the availability zone(s) where the current namenode and resource manager are running, and identify which other zone or zones will host the second instances of those daemons. ## The Second Manager For a cluster set up with a single manager instance that hosts both the namenode and resource manager, as was done in Part III, the most straightforward path is to create a second manager instance. Follow the procedure you used to prepare the first manager instance, depending on which cloud provider you use, to prepare a second one. Give it a unique name, say, "manager2". If desired, select a different availability zone for the new manager instance. ###### Tip In AWS, subnets do not span availability zones, and so the second manager instance in a separate availability zone must reside in a different subnet from the first one, which complicates cluster architectures. In Google Cloud Platform, this is not the case; a subnet may span availability zones. In Azure, instead of using a different availability zone, add the new manager instance to an availability set also containing the first one. ###### Tip There are more efficient ways of essentially cloning or copying existing instances, which will be covered in Chapter 16. Install Hadoop on the second manager instance and start to configure it like the first one, as covered in Chapter 9: * Install a JDK and Hadoop as before. * Set up the "hdfs" and "yarn" accounts, as well as "zk" if you are using a control script for ZooKeeper as described earlier. * Set up passwordless SSH access from the Hadoop accounts on the new manager instance to all of the workers, as well as to itself. In the event that the first manager is unavailable, say, because its instance fails, then control of the cluster will pass to this new instance, and so it should be capable of starting and stopping daemons. The second manager instance does not need to use the same SSH key pair as the first one, but it can. * Make the same directories and changes to the Hadoop environment scripts (like _hadoop-env.sh_ ) as before. You can copy the scripts from the first manager to the second, since the needed changes are identical. This does not include the XML configuration files, however, which need changes to set up HA. ## HDFS HA Configuration Now for the main part of this effort: configuring HDFS HA. Stop your existing cluster before proceeding, so that the Hadoop daemons aren't running while changes are being made to their configuration. Edit _/etc/hadoop/hdfs-site.xml_ on the _first_ , original master instance and make the following changes: * Configure the `dfs.nameservices` property with your cluster's name. These instructions assume a cluster name of "myfirstcluster"; replace this name with your own in other configuration properties. * Configure the `dfs.ha.namenodes.myfirstcluster` property with a list of namenode IDs. There should be two since there are two manager instances in your cluster. These instructions use "nn1" and "nn2". * Configure the `dfs.namenode.rpc-address.myfirstcluster` and `dfs.namenode.http-address.myfirstcluster` sets of properties with the private IP addresses of the manager instances. * Configure the `dfs.namenode.shared.edits.dir` property with a `qjournal://` URI pointing to each of the worker instances in your cluster. Each worker will host a single journalnode. * Specify the standard `ConfiguredFailoverProxyProvider` class with the `dfs.client.failover.proxy.provider.myfirstcluster` property. * Configure the `dfs.journalnode.edits.dir` property with the path that journalnodes should use for storing their data. In these instructions, _/var/data/jn_ will be used. * Configure the `dfs.ha.fencing.methods` property with at least the do-nothing value "shell(/bin/true)". Even though fencing isn't strictly required under the Quorum Journal Manager, automatic failover will not work without something set for it. * Configure the `dfs.ha.automatic-failover.enabled` property with the value "true". As one might expect, this enables automatic HDFS failover: <property> <name>dfs.nameservices</name> <value>myfirstcluster</value> </property> <property> <name>dfs.ha.namenodes.myfirstcluster</name> <value>nn1,nn2</value> </property> <property> <name>dfs.namenode.rpc-address.myfirstcluster.nn1</name> <value>203.0.113.101:8020</value> </property> <property> <name>dfs.namenode.rpc-address.myfirstcluster.nn2</name> <value>203.0.113.105:8020</value> </property> <property> <name>dfs.namenode.http-address.myfirstcluster.nn1</name> <value>203.0.113.101:50070</value> </property> <property> <name>dfs.namenode.http-address.myfirstcluster.nn2</name> <value>203.0.113.105:50070</value> </property> <property> <name>dfs.namenode.shared.edits.dir</name> <value>qjournal://203.0.113.102:8485;203.0.113.103:8485; 203.0.113.104:8485/myfirstcluster</value> </property> <property> <name>dfs.client.failover.proxy.provider.myfirstcluster</name> <value>org.apache.hadoop.hdfs.server.namenode.ha. ConfiguredFailoverProxyProvider</value> </property> <property> <name>dfs.journalnode.edits.dir</name> <value>/var/data/jn</value> </property> <property> <name>dfs.ha.fencing.methods</name> <value>shell(/bin/true)</value> </property> <property> <name>dfs.ha.automatic-failover.enabled</name> <value>true</value> </property> Copy _/etc/hadoop/hdfs-site.xml_ over to the new manager instance, so that both of them have the same HA settings. Also copy it to the worker instances, so that they are aware of HA being in place. Don't forget to create the journalnode data directory that was configured in _hdfs-site.xml_. It should be writable by the "hdfs" account, since that account will run the journalnodes. The directory only needs to be created where the journalnodes are running: $ sudo mkdir -p /var/data/jn $ sudo chgrp hadoop /var/data/jn $ sudo chmod g+w /var/data/jn Next, edit _/etc/hadoop/core-site.xml_ on all of the instances, and any other instances that serve as clients for Hadoop, and make the following changes: * Change the `fs.defaultFS` configuration property from the URI for the single namenode to the HA URI. * Configure the `ha.zookeeper.quorum` property with a list of the private IP addresses and ports for the ZooKeeper instances. Since ZooKeeper will arbitrate automatic failover, the system needs to be pointed to where its servers are running: <property> <name>fs.defaultFS</name> <value>hdfs://myfirstcluster</value> </property> <property> <name>ha.zookeeper.quorum</name> <value>203.0.113.102:2181,203.0.113.103:2181,203.0.113.104:2181</value> </property> Start the ZooKeeper servers if they are not running, and initialize their HA state: # as zk, if needed $ ./zk start # as hdfs $ hdfs zkfc -formatZK It is time to transition the cluster to HA, now that configuration is complete. Start by manually starting the journalnodes on each of the worker instances: # as hdfs on worker instances $ $HADOOP_PREFIX/sbin/hadoop-daemon.sh start journalnode After the journalnodes are running, the namenodes can be started. First, on the original, first manager instance, initialize the namenode's shared edits directory and start the namenode. Then go to the new, second manager instance and initialize and start it as well: # as hdfs on the original manager instance $ hdfs namenode -initializeSharedEdits $ $HADOOP_PREFIX/sbin/hadoop-daemon.sh start namenode # as hdfs on the new manager instance $ hdfs namenode -bootstrapStandby $ $HADOOP_PREFIX/sbin/hadoop-daemon.sh start namenode At this point, HDFS is not fully running: the namenodes and journalnodes are up, but nothing else. The easiest way to get everything running again is to start HDFS as usual, with the helper script. You may notice that this not only starts datanodes, but also the ZooKeeper failover controller (zkfc), which is required for automatic failover to work: # as hdfs on a manager instance $ $HADOOP_PREFIX/sbin/start-dfs.sh Moving forward, the _start-dfs.sh_ script is all you need to start and stop all of the HDFS daemons; once HA is configured, it handles starting journalnodes and zkfc processes. HDFS is now running in an HA configuration. You can verify this by looking at the web interface for each of the two namenodes. If you are using SSH tunnels to reach the namenodes, note that since HA configuration required specifying private IP addresses for their HTTP addresses, the remote host specified for the tunnels must match those private IP addresses, instead of just "localhost". One of the namenodes should be listed as active, the other as standby. If this is not the case, check to make sure that ZooKeeper is running correctly and that the ZooKeeper failure controller processes are working properly. Another way to find out which namenode is active is to use the `hdfs haadmin` command. In the following example output, as expected, one of the namenodes is listed as active, the other as standby: $ hdfs haadmin -getServiceState nn1 active $ hdfs haadmin -getServiceState nn2 standby ## YARN HA Configuration Configuring HA for YARN takes less work than for HDFS. As with configuring HDFS, stop the YARN daemons before configuring for HA. Edit _/etc/hadoop/yarn-site.xml_ on the _first_ , original master instance and make the following changes: * Configure the `yarn.resourcemanager.ha.enabled` property with the value "true". * Configure the `yarn.resourcemanager.cluster-id` property with your cluster's name. These instructions assume a cluster name of "myfirstcluster"; replace this name with your own in other configuration properties. * Configure the `yarn.resourcemanager.ha.rm-ids` property with a list of resource manager IDs. There should be two since there are two manager instances in your cluster. These instructions use "rm1" and "rm2". * Configure the `yarn.resourcemanager.ha.id` property with the ID of the resource manager on the instance; for the first manager instance, use "rm1". * Configure the set of `yarn.resourcemanager.hostname` properties with the private IP addresses of the manager instances. Eliminate or comment out the single, non-HA `yarn.resourcemanager.hostname` property. * Configure the `yarn.resourcemanager.zk-address` property with a list of the private IP addresses and ports for the ZooKeeper instances. * Configure the `yarn.resourcemanager.ha.automatic-failover.enabled` and `yarn.resourcemanager.ha.automatic-failover.embedded` properties each with the value "true". As one might expect, this enables automatic resource manager failover using the embedded elector: <property> <name>yarn.resourcemanager.ha.enabled</name> <value>true</value> </property> <property> <name>yarn.resourcemanager.cluster-id</name> <value>myfirstcluster</value> </property> <property> <name>yarn.resourcemanager.ha.rm-ids</name> <value>rm1,rm2</value> </property> <property> <name>yarn.resourcemanager.ha.id</name> <value>rm1</value> </property> <property> <name>yarn.resourcemanager.hostname.rm1</name> <value>203.0.113.101</value> </property> <property> <name>yarn.resourcemanager.hostname.rm2</name> <value>203.0.113.105</value> </property> <property> <name>yarn.resourcemanager.zk-address</name> <value>203.0.113.102:2181,203.0.113.103:2181,203.0.113.104:2181</value> </property> <property> <name>yarn.resourcemanager.ha.automatic-failover.enabled</name> <value>true</value> </property> <property> <name>yarn.resourcemanager.ha.automatic-failover.embedded</name> <value>true</value> </property> Copy _/etc/hadoop/yarn-site.xml_ over to the new manager instance and update the `yarn.resourcemanager.ha.id` property with the value "rm2" in that copy. Also copy the file to the worker instances, so that they are aware of HA being in place, but remove the `yarn.resourcemanager.ha.id` property. YARN is ready to be restarted. Unfortunately, its helper script does not have the ability to start both resource managers, so it's necessary to start one of them directly: # as yarn on one manager $ $HADOOP_PREFIX/sbin/start-yarn.sh # as yarn on the other manager $ $HADOOP_PREFIX/sbin/yarn-daemon.sh start resourcemanager YARN is now running in an HA configuration. You can verify this by looking at the web interface for the active resource manager. The same caveat applies here as with HDFS: SSH tunnels must point their remote ends to the private IP addresses of the resource managers, and not "localhost". It is possible that only the active resource manager is reachable over a tunnel. The standby resource manager returns to the browser an HTTP redirect to the active resource manager, and if the redirect uses a DNS name that is not resolvable on your local computer, the request will fail. This doesn't indicate a problem with YARN HA. To find out which resource manager is active, use the `yarn rmadmin` command. In the following example output, as expected, one of the resource managers is listed as active, the other as standby. If this is not the case, check to make sure that ZooKeeper is running correctly: $ yarn rmadmin -getServiceState rm1 active $ yarn rmadmin -getServiceState rm2 standby # Testing HA Perhaps the best part of running an HA cluster is testing it out. If everything has been configured correctly, then it should be possible to stop a namenode or resource manager and still have a functional cluster. The first step is to ensure that the reconfigured cluster is still working. Running the pi example from "Running a Test Job" again should succeed as it did before: $ hadoop jar \ > /opt/hadoop/share/hadoop/mapreduce/hadoop-mapreduce-examples-x.y.z.jar \ > pi 10 100 If it doesn't work, any of a wide variety of problems could be at the root of the failure. Start by making sure that all of the daemons for HDFS and YARN are running, as well as the ZooKeeper servers. Check their logs in _/var/log/hadoop_ for signs of any errors. See if HDFS on its own is working correctly before looking at YARN, which builds on top of it. As you have seen, configuring HA is involved, and it is very easy to make a typographical error or forget a critical configuration property. Check over the configuration files, especially _core-site.xml_ and _hdfs-site.xml_ , on all of the instances to make sure they are correct. Once you are able to run a job through the HA cluster, it's time to put it through its paces. Here are some things to try: * Stop the active resource manager. The standby resource manager should automatically take over, and the pi example should run without any trouble: # as yarn on the manager instance with the active resource manager $ yarn rmadmin -getServiceState rm1 active $ yarn rmadmin -getServiceState rm2 standby $ $HADOOP_PREFIX/sbin/yarn-daemon.sh stop resourcemanager stopping resourcemanager $ yarn rmadmin -getServiceState rm2 active * Stop the active namenode. The standby namenode should automatically take over: # as hdfs on the manager instance with the active namenode $ hdfs haadmin -getServiceState nn1 active $ hdfs haadmin -getServiceState nn2 standby $ $HADOOP_PREFIX/sbin/hadoop-daemon.sh stop namenode stopping namenode $ hdfs haadmin -getServiceState nn2 active * Using the console for your cloud provider, stop the manager instance hosting the active namenode and active resource manager. This emulates, to a degree, the unanticipated termination of a manager instance in your cluster, and is much more severe than merely stopping a daemon. Be sure to only _stop_ the instance, not terminate it, or else the work you put into its configuration will be lost. # Improving the HA Configuration The HA cluster set up in this chapter works well enough, but there are additional changes that could be made to it to make it even more robust. Here are some suggestions for further exploration of HA clusters in the cloud. ## A Bigger Cluster It's recommended that the HDFS journalnodes be running on more robust instances than the worker instances; manager instances are a great choice. Allocate a third manager instance with Hadoop installed, and reconfigure the cluster to host journalnodes on the three manager instances. Even though the second manager instance may be in a separate availability zone from the first manager instance, all of the datanodes are still in that original availability zone. Try allocating additional worker instances in the second availability zone and add them to the cluster, so that it could potentially survive the loss of an entire zone. The cluster built up in this chapter is only running three ZooKeeper servers. Since ZooKeeper is vital for automatic failover, it is a good idea to run more servers. New servers could be run on the manager instances, or on additional worker instances that also host more datanodes and node managers. It's vital, though, to only run an odd number of ZooKeeper servers, so that a majority can be reached when the quorum makes decisions. ## Complete HA The instructions in this chapter did not cover all HA configurations, including namenode fencing and work-preserving recovery for resource managers. Those additional measures can be added to an HA cluster in the cloud just as they normally would be. Namenode fencing using SSH implies that passwordless SSH to the "misbehaving" manager instance is possible from the other manager instance, so be sure to configure the fencing method with a private key that is already authorized for that SSH connection. Since either manager instance could be the one being fenced, keys need to be set up for either direction. ## A Third Availability Zone? If two availability zones can be good, wouldn't three be even better? Unfortunately, that is not the case. Both HDFS HA and YARN HA currently only support two namenodes and resource managers, respectively, so it is not possible today to field a third instance of those. You can add more datanodes, node managers, ZooKeeper servers, and more to a third availability zone, and the cluster should still hang together. Expanding too far, however, will not only increase the cost of the cluster but also further hurt performance as data moves across even more availability zones. # Benchmarking HA Depending on your choices, the HA cluster implemented in this chapter may span two availability zones. Network traffic between availability zones is not as fast as within an availability zone, and so a cluster spread across availability zones can have poorer performance. While it is certainly better to have an HA cluster that continues to function during an availability zone failure, the performance penalty paid during the times when nothing has gone wrong could more than offset the benefit. The best thing to do, then, is to run some benchmarks on the cluster. If its performance suffers, then either there are configuration tweaks to be made, or perhaps spanning availability zones is not worth it. The best benchmarks are those that resemble the "real" workloads that will be run on the cluster. Here, benchmarks that ship with the Hadoop distribution are used. While they are general, they are well understood and have been used for years to measure cluster performance. You can use the same methodology with your own benchmarks. The benchmarks described in this section were run using Hadoop 2.7.2 on an HA cluster just like the one developed in this chapter. The cluster ran on t2.large instances with 30 GB root volumes in AWS, in the us-east-1 region. ## MRBench The main concern about spreading cluster instances across availability zones is the increased time for them to communicate with each other. So, a good benchmark to try out first is MRBench, which focuses on MapReduce performance, and thereby communication between instances, instead of HDFS performance, which focuses on each instance's connection to its block storage. For the following test results, MRBench was run with these parameters: * 30 runs * 3 maps * 10 input lines MRBench is a small benchmark, but it can be run many times in succession to get an average runtime: $ hadoop jar \ > /opt/hadoop/share/hadoop/mapreduce/hadoop-mapreduce-client-jobclient-2.7.2.jar \ > mrbench -numRuns 30 -maps 3 -inputLines 10 ###### Tip A long-standing bug in MRBench kept it from correctly obeying its `-baseDir` option. If you add the option and find that the benchmark tries to write to the _/benchmarks/MRBench_ directory in HDFS anyway, then create the _/benchmarks_ directory in HDFS with global write permissions and try again. The benchmark was run under the following conditions: 1. The active namenode and resource manager are in the same availability zone (zone 1) as the datanodes, while the standby daemons are in a separate zone (zone 2); the job is run from zone 1. 2. The same as the first condition, except the active namenode is in zone 2. 3. The active namenode and resource manager are in zone 2; the job is run from zone 1. 4. The same as the first condition, except the job is run from zone 2. 5. The same as the first condition, except the standby namenode and resource manager are not running. This is similar to a non-HA cluster, although there are additional daemons running, such as the journalnodes and ZooKeeper servers. The average job times for the test runs are listed in Table 10-1. Table 10-1. Average job times for MRBench Condition \| Average time (ms) ---\|--- 1 \| 20863 2 \| 20860 3 \| 20789 4 \| 20858 5 \| 20858 For this set of runs, you can see that the average job time does not vary significantly across the different test conditions. ## Terasort The Terasort benchmark tests both HDFS and MapReduce performance by sorting large amounts of data. It exercises HDFS as well as MapReduce, but it is much larger than MRBench, so it is useful to try it out. For these runs, `teragen` was first executed to generate 5 GB of test data. Jobs were run under the "ubuntu" user account: # run as the ubuntu user $ hadoop jar \ > /opt/hadoop/share/hadoop/mapreduce/hadoop-mapreduce-examples-2.7.2.jar \ > teragen 50000000 /user/ubuntu/terasort-input Then, `terasort` was run under the same conditions described for MRBench. In between each run, the previous run's output was deleted from HDFS and removed from the trash: # as ubuntu $ hdfs dfs -rm -r -skipTrash /user/ubuntu/terasort-output $ hadoop jar \ > /opt/hadoop/share/hadoop/mapreduce/hadoop-mapreduce-examples-2.7.2.jar \ > terasort /user/ubuntu/terasort-input /user/ubuntu/terasort-output ###### Note No tuning was performed on the cluster before running Terasort. Cluster tuning is a critical part of configuring real-world clusters, and the right settings can dramatically improve performance both on benchmarks like Terasort and on real workloads. So, interpret the results here as those of a cluster with an out-of-the-box configuration. The CPU times for each run are listed in Table 10-2. Table 10-2. Job times for Terasort Condition \| CPU time spent (ms) ---\|--- 1 \| 416260 2 \| 422250 3 \| 416510 4 \| 414970 5 \| 415460 As was the case with MRBench, there were no significant differences in total CPU time across the test conditions. ## Grains of Salt What do the preceding results mean? Not too much, to be honest. There are a huge number of variables that can affect cluster performance, including: * The number and instance types of cluster instances * The version of Hadoop in use and the services running * Cloud provider configuration, especially networking * Current load and outages at the cloud provider * The choice of cloud provider * The nature of the workload One conclusion that can be drawn from them is that it is possible to have an HA cluster that performs consistently under different configurations of active, standby, or inactive namenodes and resource managers. Whether this is true for your own clusters can only truly be determined by running tests on them. One final, important principle to remember is that, while outages in cloud providers are rare, they can and will happen. Your clusters and applications should be structured in such a way that they can withstand those inevitable problems. By configuring high availability to automatically deal with outages, and running tests on your clusters' performance, you can implement a reliable and resilient cloud cluster architecture. The instructions in Chapter 9 did not include any modifications to _hdfs-site.xml_ , so your file probably has no configuration properties to start with. # Chapter 11. Relational Data with Apache Hive So far, the clusters established in the cloud using the instructions in this book have only been capable of running classic MapReduce jobs. Of course, the Hadoop ecosystem offers many other ways to work with large amounts of data, and one of the most attractive is viewing it as relational data that can be queried using Structured Query Language (SQL). For decades before the advent of Hadoop and similar cluster architectures, data analysts worked with large data sets in relational databases, and for many use cases that is still appropriate today. Hadoop components such as Apache Hive allow those with experience in relational databases to transition their skills over to the big data world. As you might expect, a Hadoop cluster running on a cloud provider can support these components. What's more, the cloud providers have features that the components can take advantage of, and the components themselves have ways to explicitly use cloud provider features to enhance their capabilities. The content in this chapter starts off with installing Hive into a cloud cluster. The instructions assume that you have a cluster set up in the configuration developed in Chapter 9 but, as usual, you should be able to adapt the instructions to your specific situation. # Planning for Hive in the Cloud The most important pieces of Hive to consider are the Hive server (HiveServer2), a server process that accepts requests from other Hive clients, and the Hive metastore, which houses information about the objects and structures comprising Hive databases, tables, and partitions. A typical configuration has at least a single Hive server running on a manager node, alongside the HDFS namenode and YARN resource manager. The Hive metastore, which maps HDFS data into relational data models, can live either "locally" within Hive itself or "remotely" on a separate database server. The instructions here start with a local metastore, since that is a quick way to check that Hive is working, but then go on to set up a remote metastore fronted by a Hive metastore server. # Installing and Configuring Hive These instructions are based on the standard Hive installation instructions and use the standard binary distribution from Apache. If you already have a tried-and-true set of steps for Hive installation, or if you prefer to use a customized or bundled distribution from a Hadoop vendor, you may be able to adapt these instructions. Prepare for installing Hive by creating a dedicated account for it, just like those for HDFS and YARN (see Chapter 9). These instructions will assume that the username for the account is "hive" and that the account belongs to the "hadoop" group. SSH key pairs are used for logging in. Since Hive components only run on the manager node, it's not necessary to establish a "hive" account on workers or to have passwordless SSH established across the cluster for the account: $ sudo useradd -G hadoop -m -s /bin/bash hive $ sudo mkdir /home/hive/.ssh $ sudo cp ~/.ssh/authorized_keys /home/hive/.ssh $ sudo chmod 700 /home/hive/.ssh $ sudo chown -R hive /home/hive/.ssh Download a binary Hive distribution from _hive.apache.org_ to your manager instance, under the standard login account. In keeping with the use of _/opt/hadoop_ as the installation location for Hadoop, install Hive to _/opt/hive_ : $ curl -O http://mirrorhost/path/to/apache-hive-x.y.z-bin.tar.gz $ sudo tar xzfC apache-hive-x.y.z-bin.tar.gz /opt $ sudo ln -s /opt/apache-hive-x.y.z-bin /opt/hive ###### Tip Example commands in this chapter will use the version number `x.y.z` to stand in for the real Hive version numbers. Unless you have a specific need otherwise, you should simply use the latest stable releases. Now that Hive is installed, it can be configured. The instructions here are simple ones, just to get Hive going. Again, if you are used to configuring Hive clusters, go ahead and adapt what you normally do. Fortunately, Hive's default configuration is set up to use a local metastore. Take a look at _/opt/hive/conf/hive-default.xml.template_ to see what the default configuration entails: * The `hive.metastore.warehouse.dir` property points to where data that Hive operates on lives in HDFS. Its default value is _/usr/hive/warehouse_ , which works fine. These instructions will assume that default, but for something different, set this property in _hive-site.xml_. * The `javax.jdo.option.ConnectionURL` and `javax.jdo.option.ConnectionDriverName` properties point to a local database running under Apache Derby, a lightweight embedded relational database engine, as the metastore. Initially Hive will use that metastore, but later in this chapter Hive will be reconfigured to use a remote metastore. * The `hive.metastore.uris` property is empty, which indicates to Hive that the metastore is local. * The `hive.exec.scratchdir` property points to _/tmp/hive_ , also in HDFS like the warehouse directory, as Hive's scratch directory. This default works as well, and these instructions use it. There are still some changes to make, however. Hive does not ship with a copy of _/opt/hive/conf/hive-site.xml_ , so create it: # as root % cat > /opt/hive/conf/hive-site.xml <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="configuration.xsl"?> <configuration> </configuration> ^D These instructions require that impersonation be disabled in Hive, so that queries run as the user running the Hive server and not the querier. (A more secure installation would leave impersonation on and set permissions appropriately.) To do so, set the `hive.server2.enable.doAs` property in _hive-site.xml_ to "false". Hive's instructions also recommend disabling filesystem caches to avoid memory leaks when impersonation is disabled, so also set the `fs.hdfs.impl.disable.cache` and `fs.file.impl.disable.cache` properties to "true": <property> <name>hive.server2.enable.doAs</name> <value>false</value> </property> <property> <name>fs.hdfs.impl.disable.cache</name> <value>true</value> </property> <property> <name>fs.file.impl.disable.cache</name> <value>true</value> </property> As the "hdfs" user on the manager instance, create the required warehouse and scratch directories in HDFS, and set their permissions. Here, the _/tmp_ directory is opened up because the Hive server must write to it and will fail to start correctly if it cannot: # as hdfs $ hdfs dfs -mkdir /tmp $ hdfs dfs -mkdir -p /user/hive/warehouse $ hdfs dfs -chmod 777 /tmp $ hdfs dfs -chown -R hive:hadoop /user/hive Hive uses Apache Log4J 2 for its own logging. Since the rest of the Hadoop components in the cluster are logging to _/var/log_ , Hive should as well. Start by creating a _/var/log/hive_ directory that the "hive" user can write to: $ sudo mkdir /var/log/hive $ sudo chgrp hadoop /var/log/hive $ sudo chmod g+w /var/log/hive Then put the Log4J properties file in place for Hive and edit the value of `property.hive.log.dir` to point to _/var/log/hive_ : $ sudo cp /opt/hive/conf/hive-log4j2.properties.template \ > /opt/hive/conf/hive-log4j2.properties $ sudo vi /opt/hive/conf/hive-log4j2.properties # and edit property.hive.log.dir # Startup Hive is ready to start. Set up the "hive" account to work with Hive by setting the `HIVE_HOME` and other environment variables, and by adding Hive's _bin_ directory to the `PATH`: # as hive $ export HADOOP_HOME=/opt/hadoop $ export HIVE_HOME=/opt/hive $ export PATH=${HIVE_HOME}/bin:${HADOOP_HOME}/bin:$PATH $ export HADOOP_CONF_DIR=/etc/hadoop Use _schematool_ to initialize the local metastore, and then start the Hive server: # as hive $ $HIVE_HOME/bin/schematool -dbType derby -initSchema $ $HIVE_HOME/bin/hiveserver2 & ###### Note If, while working with Hive, the server fails to start and logs errors saying that "direct SQL is disabled," it is because you did not start it from the same directory in which it was first started, and it cannot locate the local metastore. Find the _metastore_db_ directory and start the Hive server from there. As was the case with the HDFS namenode and YARN resource manager, you can check on the status of the Hive server through its web interface, but security rules governing the manager instance block access from the outside to the necessary port. Establish an SSH tunnel (see "SSH Tunneling" for a refresher) from the local port 10002 to the same port on your manager instance: $ ssh -i /path/to/cloud_provider_key.pem -n -N \ > -L 10002:localhost:10002 userid@manager.cloud-provider.example & Now, in your browser, navigate to __http://localhost:10002__ to see your Hive server ready for work. # Running Some Test Hive Queries To make sure Hive is working properly, you can run some basic queries using the Beeline CLI. For now, run it from the "hive" account on the manager instance, since its environment is already set up for Hive. You can also try these steps from a separate account. $ beeline -u jdbc:hive2://localhost:10000 Make a simple table and run some queries on it. This example creates a test table with a single column, inserts a row, and runs some SELECT queries. You should see evidence of Hive issuing MapReduce jobs, starting with the first SELECT query: CREATE TABLE test (value INT) ROW FORMAT DELIMITED FIELDS TERMINATED BY '\t' STORED AS TEXTFILE; SELECT COUNT() from test; INSERT INTO test VALUES (123); SELECT FROM test; !quit For something a little more interesting, try working with the MovieLens database using the instructions in Apache Hive documentation. The datasets are distributed as ZIP files, so to extract them you will need the _unzip_ utility; use your operating system's package manager to install it. If the data load and count query work, you should see a correct result for the row count: SELECT COUNT() FROM u_data; ... OK +---------+--+ \| c0 \| +---------+--+ \| 100000 \| +---------+--+ At this point, Hive is working on your cluster and running MapReduce jobs in the cloud to satisfy queries. The next step, needed for a more robust Hive installation, is to switch to a remote metastore. Fortunately, your cloud provider can help you with setting up a database server where the metastore can live. # Switching to a Remote Metastore The result of the previous instructions is a Hive server using a local metastore. To switch to a remote metastore, begin by stopping the Hive server and cleaning out the warehouse in HDFS. This will get Hive back into an empty state: # as hive $ kill hive-server-pid # as hdfs $ hdfs dfs -rm -r /user/hive/warehouse $ hdfs dfs -mkdir -p /user/hive/warehouse $ hdfs dfs -chown -R hive:hadoop /user/hive A remote metastore requires a database server. The instance hosting the database should be separate from any of the cluster instances, so that it can be managed independently. While you can launch a new instance and manually install a database server, it's much easier to use your cloud provider's database hosting features. See "Cloud Relational Databases" for an overview; here is a quick rundown: Under AWS, you can use RDS to stand up a database server, choosing from several supported engines. RDS handles backups, availability, and patching automatically. * Under Google Cloud Platform, you can use Google Cloud SQL to stand up a MySQL database server. The server can be configured with automatic backups, high availability, and automatic failover. * Under Azure, you can use Azure SQL database to stand up a Microsoft SQL Server database server, or Azure Database for MySQL or Azure Database for PostgreSQL to stand up one of those types of database server. The server is automatically backed up across data centers and can be explicitly replicated. These instructions cover setting up a MySQL database server to host the remote metastore, since MySQL is supported across all three cloud providers. There are no special requirements on the database server, so you can follow your provider's standard instructions. The steps here work with AWS RDS, but even if you use Google Cloud Platform or Azure, it is worth looking through them to guide you. ###### Tip It may be tempting to use an existing, on-prem database server for the remote metastore. While it is possible, it is a very bad idea. Not only will performance be much worse between the server and the rest of your cluster, but you will be charged for data moving into and out of the cloud provider infrastructure. See Chapter 13 and Chapter 14 for more about how the choices in where you position cluster components affects price and performance. In the AWS console dashboard, select the RDS service. Be sure to select the same region where your cluster resides as well. Just like when working with EC2, the RDS dashboard presents a menu on the lefthand side of the page, as shown in Figure 11-1. Select Instances in the menu. ###### Figure 11-1. RDS dashboard The main area of the page will show that you have no RDS instances. Click the Launch Instance button to start the process of creating a new RDS instance. Your first choice is which engine to use; pick the MySQL tab from the available options, as shown in Figure 11-2, and click Select for MySQL. You may be presented with a choice of using Amazon Aurora, an in-house, compatible variant of MySQL; these instructions stick with MySQL itself. ###### Figure 11-2. RDS engines Your next decision is whether to set up a production-ready database or one suited for development and testing. See Figure 11-3 for an example of this prompt. Since the cluster is being used for testing and exploration, select Dev/Test. ###### Figure 11-3. A choice of production or development database The next page, part of which is shown in Figure 11-4, presents options for the specifications of the new RDS instance: * Select the latest available version of MySQL for the Database Engine Version. * The DB instance class may be the smallest available, since this is an exploratory installation of the remote metastore. Feel free to pick a larger instance if you plan to do more work in Hive. Similarly, a multizone deployment isn't necessary. * The metastore does not require a lot of space, so the maximum permitted under the AWS Free Tier should be more than enough. ###### Figure 11-4. RDS instance specifications Below the instance specifications is a separate form, shown in Figure 11-5, for naming the instance and providing its root username and password. Be sure to record your choices here, so that you can connect to it to create the metastore database. ###### Figure 11-5. RDS instance settings Next, describe where the new instance will reside in your network. Use the same VPC, subnet, and availability zone as your manager instance for the best performance and lowest cost. Also select the same security group that your cluster belongs to, so that communications between the metastore and the cluster are unimpeded. The instance does not need to be publicly accessible, because Hive is running inside the cloud provider as well. Figure 11-6 shows the network and security form filled out with these settings. ###### Figure 11-6. RDS instance network and security settings The remaining items on the page can be left as they are. RDS can create an initial database, but to show more about how the remote metastore is created and managed, these instructions opt not to use that feature. Click the Launch DB Instance button to complete this last step. When RDS reports that the instance is being created, click View Your DB Instances to return to the list of instances. Once the database server is available, determine its hostname or IP address. The next step is to create the metastore database; Hive ships with a MySQL script for this purpose. ###### Note The Hive `schematool` can be used as an alternative way to establish the metastore database; consult the Hive documentation for details. To connect to the database server, install the MySQL client on the manager instance that hosts the Hive server, using the operating system's package manager. Then, run the SQL script included with the Hive distribution to create the metastore database: $ cd /opt/hive/scripts/metastore/upgrade/mysql # use chosen root username here $ mysql -h mysql-hostname.cloud-provider.example -u root -p Enter password: # enter chosen root password here mysql> create database metastore; mysql> use metastore; mysql> source /opt/hive/scripts/metastore/upgrade/mysql/hive-schema-x.y.z.mysql.sql; # many queries are run mysql> create user 'hive'@'%' identified by 'hive'; mysql> grant all privileges on metastore.* to 'hive'@'%'; mysql> \q The preceding MySQL commands create a "hive" user inside MySQL with access to the metastore database. Change the password in the `create user` command if desired. The new user can log in from any remote address, which is acceptable for testing and when security rules block access from most sources; in a production setting, you may wish to restrict access to a small range of remote addresses as an extra line of defense. ###### Note The `cd` command is necessary because the SQL script that is sourced itself sources another script in the current directory. This limitation was fixed in issue HIVE-6559 but appears to have regressed. As an extra check, you can reconnect to the database server as the "hive" user and see that the metastore tables have been created: $ mysql -h mysql-hostname.cloud-provider.example -u hive -p Enter password: mysql> use metastore; mysql> show tables; # list of tables appears mysql> \q Next, Hive must be reconfigured to use the new database server for the metastore. Edit _/opt/hive/conf/hive-site.xml_ and make the following additions: * Add the `javax.jdo.option.ConnectionURL` property, set to the JDBC URL of the metastore database. * Add the `javax.jdo.option.ConnectionDriverName` property, set to "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver". * Add the `javax.jdo.option.ConnectionUserName` and `javax.jdo.option``.ConnectionPassword` properties with the username and password for the database user added while creating the metastore database. * Add the `hive.metastore.uris` property with a Thrift URI for the manager instance that hosts the Hive server. This same instance will also host the metastore server: <property> <name>javax.jdo.option.ConnectionURL</name> <value>jdbc:mysql://mysql-hostname.cloud-provider.example/ metastore</value> </property> <property> <name>javax.jdo.option.ConnectionDriverName</name> <value>com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</value> </property> <property> <name>javax.jdo.option.ConnectionUserName</name> <value>hive</value> </property> <property> <name>javax.jdo.option.ConnectionPassword</name> <value>hive</value> </property> <property> <name>hive.metastore.uris</name> <value>thrift://203.0.113.101:9083</value> </property> Hive needs access to the MySQL JDBC driver in order to communicate with the remote metastore database server. Either install the driver JAR file, called Connector/J, using the manager instance's operating system package manager, or download a copy from the official download page. Copy the JAR file to _/opt/hive/lib/mysql-connector-java.jar_. Hive is now configured for a remote metastore. Start the Hive metastore server, and then the Hive server once more. Use the same port for the metastore server that is configured in _hive-site.xml_ , and direct its log to _/var/log/hive_ alongside the Hive server's log: # as hive $ $HIVE_HOME/bin/hive --service metastore -p 9083 > /var/log/hive/metastore.log & # wait for the metastore server to come up $ $HIVE_HOME/bin/hiveserver2 & Once the servers are up, you can try the same tests that were performed for the local metastore. This time, Hive is reaching out to the remote metastore on the database server maintained by the cloud provider, with all the benefits of performance and reliability that come along with it. ## The Remote Metastore and Stopped Clusters If you stop your cluster instances, you may also wish to turn off the database server hosting the remote metastore. Google Cloud SQL allows you to stop a database instance, but if you are using RDS or Azure SQL, then you do not have the option to just stop a database server; you can only terminate it. In that case, go ahead and terminate the instance, but take one last snapshot or backup of the server contents. When it comes time to start the cluster again, create a new database instance that restores from the final snapshot. You may need to reconfigure Hive if the new database server's hostname or IP address differs from the old one's. # Hive Control Scripts Hive does not ship with convenience scripts for starting and stopping its servers. See Example A-2 and Example A-3 for some simple ones that should work well, at least as starting points. # Hive on S3 So far, Hive has operated on data that was explicitly loaded into HDFS. The data is distributed across datanodes in the cluster, and metadata about how it can be interpreted as relational data tables is kept in a remote database server; all of the instances are running in the cloud. This is a common and reasonable way of working with Hive data. But you can go further, specifically in how the data is stored. Cloud providers have object storage solutions, as described in "Object Storage". Instead of pulling data into HDFS before analyzing it, you can keep the data in object storage and reference it there as Hive external tables. This section describes how to configure Hive to work with data on the AWS object storage service, S3. ## Configuring the S3 Filesystem The first step in working with S3 under Hadoop is to configure the cluster to use a Hadoop S3 filesystem. When such a filesystem is enabled, you can address objects and folders in S3 like files and directories in HDFS. S3 cannot act exactly like a filesystem, due to its weaker guarantees on consistency, but it can work as one in many situations, including as a source for file-like data. ##### Why Not Use S3 for Everything? If you can access data in S3 like a Hadoop filesystem, you may wonder why you shouldn't just use S3 for all file storage, forgoing HDFS completely. The primary reason is that S3 does not adhere to POSIX-like constraints on how a filesystem should behave. Newly created files may not be immediately visible after creation, and deleted files may still be available for some time after deletion. These behaviors and others are why S3, and other object stores like it, are called _eventually consistent_. Because of the delays in some changes made in S3, it is not suitable for storing transient or highly variable data, like that saved in the middle of a workflow. Its strengths include storage of read-only data and archival use. An attempt to compensate for S3's eventual consistency, called _S3Guard_ , is underway at the time of this writing. It pairs up an external, consistent database with S3 access to improve consistency overall. See the Hadoop issue tracking its development at "HADOOP-13345". Over time, Hadoop has supported three separate S3 filesystem implementations: the original S3 block filesystem or "s3", the S3 native filesystem or "s3n", and the latest "s3a" filesystem. The instructions here focus on s3a, since s3 has already been removed from Hadoop and s3n is deprecated. The s3a filesystem implementation ships with Hadoop but is not active by default. Activating it involves adding the library directory where the implementation and supporting JAR files reside to the Hadoop classpath. On each cluster instance, edit _/etc/hadoop/hadoop-env.sh_ and add the following line, which places the necessary directory into the Hadoop classpath: export HADOOP_CLASSPATH=$HADOOP_CLASSPATH:$HADOOP_HOME/share/hadoop/tools/lib/* Then, again on each cluster instance, edit _/etc/hadoop/mapred-site.xml_ and add the `mapreduce.application.classpath` property. This property controls the classpath available to MapReduce tasks, which is independent from the Hadoop classpath. The value shown in the following code includes the default classpath as well as the directory containing the s3a filesystem implementation. (The following XML is edited for fit.) <property> <name>mapreduce.application.classpath</name> <value>$HADOOP_MAPRED_HOME/share/hadoop/mapreduce/, $HADOOP_MAPRED_HOME/share/hadoop/mapreduce/lib/, $HADOOP_MAPRED_HOME/share/hadoop/tools/lib/</value> </property> These new settings do not take effect until HDFS and YARN are restarted, but there are more settings to add. ## Adding Data to S3 One way to check that the s3a filesystem is working properly, once it is fully configured, is to place some data into S3 and then attempt to look at it using the HDFS client. Since you are already familiar with the MovieLens data, that data can work for this test. In the AWS console dashboard, select the S3 service. The welcome page for S3 appears, with a button for creating your first bucket. Click that button, and use the dialog box shown in Figure 11-7 to name your bucket. Remember that the bucket name is globally unique, so more obvious names are most likely already taken. Select the region where your cluster resides, and then click Create to create the bucket. ###### Figure 11-7. Creating an S3 bucket Remember the region that you chose for your bucket, as that may influence how you must configure Hadoop later on. Select the bucket from the S3 dashboard. The bucket is currently empty, so add a folder by clicking the Create Folder button. Enter the name "ml-100k" for the folder, and it will be created and displayed as shown in Figure 11-8. ###### Figure 11-8. A folder in an S3 bucket Now the file containing the MovieLens data can be uploaded. Download the ZIP file containing the data to your local computer and unzip it. The file "u.data" in the contents contains the data set, and it's that file that should be uploaded to S3. Back in the S3 console, select the folder you just created to navigate into it, and then click the Upload button. In the upload dialog, click the Add Files button, and navigate to the "u.data" file on your local computer and select it for addition. Then click the Upload button in the dialog to begin the file upload. It should complete in a few seconds, and the file should appear in the bucket as shown in Figure 11-9. ###### Figure 11-9. A file uploaded to an S3 bucket The data is now available in S3. However, attempts to look at it from Hadoop at this point will fail, because public access to the S3 bucket contents is not established. Additional configuration is necessary for Hadoop to be able to authenticate to AWS using an account with permissions to look into S3. ## Configuring S3 Authentication The s3a filesystem implementation can retrieve credentials for S3 from many different locations, including environment variables, properties in _core-site.xml_ , Hadoop's own credential providers, and the instance profile associated with the EC2 instances where Hadoop runs. Here, properties in _core-site.xml_ are used. The _core-site.xml_ properties themselves support a few different means of authentication, but the simplest is to use a typical AWS access key and secret key pair. The keys associate Hadoop with a user under your AWS account, and when that user has permissions to work with S3, Hadoop is able to work with S3. A user is needed for AWS keys, so make one using the Identity and Access Management (IAM) service, which is available from the AWS console. Select Users from the menu on the left side of the page, and click the Add User button above the empty user list. In the form that appears, shown in Figure 11-10, provide your choice of username and select the Programmatic access checkbox, which triggers the creation of keys. Click the Next: Permissions button to pick what the new user can do. ###### Figure 11-10. Creating a new user in IAM From the choices in the next form, as shown in Figure 11-11, select "Attach existing policies directly," since there are no groups or users existing yet. ###### Figure 11-11. Permission choices for a new IAM user Below these choices, a list of security policies appears. Each policy can grant a set of permissions to the new user. Look for the policy named "AmazonS3FullAccess," as shown in Figure 11-12, and check its checkbox. Click the Next: Review button to check over the settings for the new user, and then "Create user" to create it. ###### Figure 11-12. An S3 policy selected for a new IAM user The next page should display a success message along with a table containing the keys for the new user. Record both key values and then click the Close button. This is the only time that AWS will tell you the secret access key, so do not miss the opportunity to save it; if you do, then you must delete the user and start again. Keys in hand, edit _/etc/hadoop/core-site.xml_ on each cluster instance and add the `fs.s3a.access.key` and `fs.s3a.secret.key` properties. (Obviously, the keys in the following XML have been masked out.) <property> <name>fs.s3a.access.key</name> <value>AKIAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</value> </property> <property> <name>fs.s3a.secret.key</name> <value>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</value> </property> ## Configuring the S3 Endpoint If your S3 bucket resides in a region that was added to AWS after January 30, 2014, then calls accessing the bucket must be authenticated with the AWS Signature Version 4 (V4) algorithm, and not with the older Signature Version 2 (V2) algorithm. Usually this detail can be ignored, since the AWS SDK handles the details for you, but it matters for S3 access. The default endpoint for S3 is _s3.amazonaws.com_ ; this endpoint works for any region under V2, but under V4 it only works for the default us-east-1 region. So, if your bucket is in a V4-only region, edit _/etc/hadoop/core-site.xml_ on each cluster instance and add the `fs.s3a.endpoint` property with the unique S3 endpoint for the region. For example, if you are using the Frankfurt region eu-central-1, add the following: <property> <name>fs.s3a.endpoint</name> <value>s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com</value> </property> Now that S3 authentication and the correct S3 endpoint are in place, go ahead and restart HDFS and YARN. This will activate the s3a filesystem implementation with authentication in place using the new user account. Once HDFS is ready, you can try to look into S3 using the HDFS client. Pass a URL that follows the s3a scheme, starting with the bucket and proceeding down through the folders: $ hdfs dfs -ls s3a://myhivebucket/ml-100k Found 1 items -rw-rw-rw- 1 1979173 2017-01-01 12:34 s3a://myhivebucket/ml-100k/u.data $ hdfs dfs -tail s3a://myhivebucket/ml-100k/u.data # last 1K of file If s3a listings do not work, make sure that the AWS keys were entered correctly, that the updated classpaths are correct, and that you have set the S3 endpoint if required for your region. ## External Table in S3 All of the prerequisites are in place for Hive to work with data in S3. Return to the Beeline client and create a new table for the MovieLens data loaded into the new bucket. This table is an external table, indicating that the data should be left in its original location and not copied into HDFS: CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE u_data_s3 ( userid INT, movieid INT, rating INT, unixtime STRING) ROW FORMAT DELIMITED FIELDS TERMINATED BY '\t' LOCATION 's3a://myhivebucket/ml-100k/'; Notice that the s3a URL for the folder containing the data is provided as the location for the table. You should now be able to work with the data just as when it was available in HDFS: SELECT COUNT() FROM u_data; ... OK +---------+--+ \| c0 \| +---------+--+ \| 100000 \| +---------+--+ # What About Google Cloud Platform and Azure? If you are using Google Cloud Platform, you can use the Google Cloud Storage Connector to link up Hadoop and Google Cloud Storage. Like the s3a filesystem implementation, the connector establishes a filesystem, usually named "gs", that is backed by Google Cloud Storage. It is implemented by a JAR that must be placed into the necessary classpaths, and it authenticates via the service account associated with the cluster's GCE instances. Consult Google Cloud Platform documentation for details on installation and configuration. Hadoop ships with an implementation for a "wasb" filesystem backed by Azure Blob Storage. It is activated in a similar fashion to the s3a filesystem, by including it in the necessary classpaths and configuring authentication using an access key. The implementation supports both block blobs and page blobs. Consult the Hadoop documentation for the hadoop-azure module for more information. An even better option for Azure is to use the "adl" Azure Data Lake Store (ADLS) Hadoop filesystem implementation. ADLS has stronger consistency guarantees than Azure Blob Storage or even S3, so it should better support scenarios where updates occur. Once any of these provider-specific filesystems are in place and working, external Hive tables should work from locations containing their URLs. # A Step Toward Transient Clusters It is certainly convenient to be able to work with relational data directly from cloud provider object storage services, but there is another, greater motivation for doing so. With data given a safe home on a storage service, you do not need to worry about the Hadoop cluster that works with it; it no longer needs to store the data for the long term. If the cluster should be lost, due to problems in the cloud provider or even a mistake made by administrators, the data remains. In this chapter, you've worked with reading data stored in S3, but of course data can be written to S3 too. When you begin to think of cloud storage as the durable, available home for important cluster data, then you can understand how the clusters themselves do not need to live for a long time. To work with the data, you can spin up a cluster, query the data from S3, write final results back to S3, and then destroy the cluster. This has the potential to save money and make more efficient use of cloud provider resources. With the right automation, you can thereby support working with _transient_ clusters. "Long-Running or Transient?" goes into greater detail about using transient clusters, but this chapter has given you initial exposure to the idea. # A Different Means of Computation While working with Hive, you may have noticed some warnings like this: WARNING: Hive-on-MR is deprecated in Hive 2 and may not be available in the future versions. Consider using a different execution engine (i.e. tez, spark) or using Hive 1.X releases. So far, the steps in this book for setting up a Hadoop cluster have only covered setting up YARN, so that is all that is available for conducting MapReduce jobs to satisfy Hive queries. As the warnings suggest, different providers for Hive computation are supported. The next chapter covers adding one of those providers, Spark, to your cloud cluster. Not only will Spark be configured as another execution engine for Hive, but it will also be used for processing streaming data, which is one of its more powerful capabilities. In this book, Hive will run using the newer HiveServer2 server process and the Beeline client, as opposed to the older Hive CLI. You can instead copy _hive-default.xml.template_ to _hive-site.xml_. The MovieLens database contains ratings of movies entered by users of the MovieLens website. For full details, visit the MovieLens database. RDS does not divulge IP addresses for database servers, so use the assigned hostname. As of Hadoop 2.7. An instance profile for an EC2 instance links to a role in AWS. Processes running on the instance automatically gain the permissions associated with the role. For even more security, choose "AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess." However, this will prohibit Hadoop writing to S3 in the future. # Chapter 12. Streaming in the Cloud with Apache Spark The venerable MapReduce computation framework, part of Apache Hadoop from the beginning, is falling out of favor now that newer and more flexible solutions are available. The original MapReduce implementation of job trackers and task trackers is obsoleted by YARN, which scales better and can support distributed work beyond MapReduce jobs. One of the most popular alternatives to MapReduce is Apache Spark, which supports a wide variety of algorithms including mapping and reducing, and also manages the chaining of the distributed computations together. Much like Hive caters to users who are familiar with relational data, Spark caters to developers who can focus more on the algorithmic features of the jobs they write, so they need not try to hammer them into the MapReduce mold. The content in this chapter starts off with installing Spark in a cloud cluster. The instructions assume that you have a cluster set up in the configuration developed in Chapter 9 but, as usual, you should be able to adapt the instructions to your specific situation. Later on, the instructions cover running Hive on Spark, and it's expected that your cluster is set up for Hive as described in Chapter 11. # Planning for Spark in the Cloud Spark running in a cluster can use any of several execution engines, including its own "standalone" manager and worker processes that can run in an integrated fashion with a Hadoop cluster. However, Spark can use YARN for running jobs, which is already available in your cluster. By configuring _Spark on YARN_ , you can get running more quickly and take advantage of the resiliency already present in the YARN framework. # Installing and Configuring Spark These instructions are based on the standard Spark download and configuration instructions and use the standard binary distribution from Apache. If you already have a tried-and-true set of steps for Spark installation, or if you prefer to use a customized or bundled distribution from a Hadoop vendor, you may be able to adapt these instructions. Prepare for installing Spark by creating a dedicated account for it, just like those for HDFS and YARN (see Chapter 9). These instructions will assume that the username for the account is "spark" and that the account belongs to the "hadoop" group. SSH key pairs are used for logging in. Since Spark will run jobs on YARN, which is already installed in the cluster, it's not necessary to establish a "spark" account on workers or to have passwordless SSH established across the cluster for the account: $ sudo useradd -G hadoop -m -s /bin/bash spark $ sudo mkdir /home/spark/.ssh $ sudo cp ~/.ssh/authorized_keys /home/spark/.ssh $ sudo chmod 700 /home/spark/.ssh $ sudo chown -R spark /home/spark/.ssh Download a binary Spark distribution from _spark.apache.org_ to your manager instance, under the standard login account. You can choose a prebuilt package that matches your specific Hadoop version, or a package that needs to be configured for a "user-provided" Hadoop; these instructions use the latter to be more widely applicable. In keeping with the use of _/opt/hadoop_ as the installation location for Hadoop, install Spark to _/opt/spark_ : $ curl -O http://mirrorhost/path/to/spark-x.y.z-bin-without-hadoop.tar.gz $ sudo tar xzfC spark-x.y.z-bin-without-hadoop.tar.gz /opt $ sudo ln -s /opt/spark-x.y.z-bin-without-hadoop /opt/spark ###### Warning If you plan to run Hive on Spark and are using a version of Hive before 2.2.0, then you will need to install a 1.x version of Spark. You may also install a 2.x version of Spark in a separate directory to benefit from its improvements elsewhere, but it is not compatible with Hive before version 2.2.0. ###### Tip Example commands in this chapter will use the version number `x.y.z` to stand in for the real Spark version numbers. Unless you have a specific need otherwise, you should simply use the latest stable releases. Now that Spark is installed, it can be configured. The instructions here are simple ones, just to get Spark going. Again, if you are used to configuring Spark clusters, go ahead and adapt what you normally do. Create the file _/opt/spark/conf/spark-env.sh_ ; the easiest way is to copy the empty template file for it: $ sudo cp /opt/spark/conf/spark-env.sh.template /opt/spark/conf/spark-env.sh Then, define the `HADOOP_CONF_DIR` environment variable, pointing to _/etc/hadoop_ , so that Spark can find the cluster's configuration files. If you installed the Spark package for user-provided Hadoop, then also define the `SPARK_DIST_CLASSPATH` environment variable so that Spark can locate Hadoop binaries: export HADOOP_CONF_DIR=/etc/hadoop export SPARK_DIST_CLASSPATH=$(/opt/hadoop/bin/hadoop classpath) This is a good checkpoint to make sure that Spark is configured correctly, before continuing to connect it to YARN. Try running the "SparkPi" example job locally: # as spark $ cd /opt/spark $ ./bin/run-example SparkPi 10 In the midst of a lot of informative logging, you should see a result like this: Pi is roughly 3.1421711421711422 It is not much more work to get Spark jobs running on YARN; Spark is already configured with Hadoop's configuration directory. To make it easier to find the output from Spark jobs, enable log aggregation in YARN; this causes logs from each node manager involved in a job to be gathered and stored in HDFS for later retrieval. To enable log aggregation, edit _/etc/hadoop/yarn-site.xml_ on each cluster instance and add the `yarn.log-aggregation-enable` configuration property, set to true: <property> <name>yarn.log-aggregation-enable</name> <value>true</value> </property> # Startup Since Spark is set up to run on YARN, there are no Spark components to start. Do ensure that HDFS and YARN are running, though. If YARN had been running before enabling log aggregation, restart it. # Running Some Test Jobs You can run Spark jobs under any account, and so for the account you choose, create a home directory in HDFS, using the hdfs account. These instructions assume that the new "spark" user account is used for running Spark jobs: # as hdfs $ hdfs dfs -mkdir -p /user/spark $ hdfs dfs -chown spark /user/spark The example job can now be run again, this time using YARN instead of local execution. The command for running the example differs based on the Spark version: # as spark $ cd /opt/spark # for Spark 2.x $ ./bin/spark-submit --class org.apache.spark.examples.SparkPi --master yarn \ > --deploy-mode cluster examples/jars/spark-examples_2.11-x.y.z.jar 10 # for Spark 1.x $ ./bin/spark-submit --class org.apache.spark.examples.SparkPi --master yarn \ > --deploy-mode cluster lib/spark-examples-x.y.z-hadoop2.2.0.jar 10 You should see the Spark job submitted to YARN and visible in the resource manager web interface. After a short runtime and a good amount of local output describing the progress of the job, you should see a report that the job was successful. The application master IP address and hostname in the tracking URL will use the private IP address of the YARN resource manager, and the timestamps and application IDs will reflect the time that the job was executed: 16/12/27 13:59:13 INFO yarn.Client: Application report for application_ 1482846864508_0002 (state: FINISHED) 16/12/27 13:59:13 INFO yarn.Client: client token: N/A diagnostics: N/A ApplicationMaster host: 203.0.113.101 ApplicationMaster RPC port: 0 queue: default start time: 1482847140363 final status: SUCCEEDED tracking URL : http://ip-203-0-113-101.ec2.internal:8088/proxy/application_ 1482846864508_0002/ user: spark There is no indication of the job output, because that is echoed to standard output by one of the Spark containers that executed the job. The result can be found in the aggregated log results for the job, which can be viewed using the `yarn logs` command. Find the application ID for the Spark job in the output from running it, or consult the resource manager web UI: # as spark $ $HADOOP_PREFIX/bin/yarn logs -applicationId application_1482846864508_0002 \| \ > less The standard error and standard output logs for each container are listed, and one of those standard output logs should contain the result: Pi is roughly 3.1417631417631418 Congratulations, your Hadoop cluster running in the cloud now supports Spark jobs! You should feel free to try running more example Spark jobs or other analyses through it. # Configuring Hive on Spark Hive queries are converted under the hood into jobs to be run on the underlying cluster, and by default those are ordinary MapReduce jobs. You can configure a different "execution engine" if one is available, and now that Spark is installed in your cluster, you can use it instead of MapReduce jobs on YARN for satisfying Hive queries. There is documentation on this subject, but as usual, the steps here attempt to represent the minimum needed to get to a working state. ## Add Spark Libraries to Hive Hive ships with the ability to run a Spark driver, but it does not ship with the necessary Spark code. That must be installed by you. For Spark versions before 2.0, a single "assembly" JAR is all that is required: $ sudo cp /opt/spark/lib/spark-assembly-.jar /opt/hive/lib/ Starting with Spark version 2.0, there is no longer an assembly JAR, but several smaller JARs take its place: $ sudo cp /opt/spark/jars/scala-library-.jar /opt/hive/lib/ $ sudo cp /opt/spark/jars/spark-core_.jar /opt/hive/lib/ $ sudo cp /opt/spark/jars/spark-network-common_.jar /opt/hive/lib/ Be sure to use a version of Spark that is compatible with the version of Hive. ## Configure Hive for Spark Edit _/opt/hive/conf/hive-site.xml_ and make the following changes: * Configure the `spark.master` property with the value "yarn". This indicates that Spark should itself rely on YARN for compute capability, as opposed to its own standalone implementation, for example. * Configure the `spark.home` property to point to the Spark installation that is compatible with Hive; for example, _/opt/spark_. * Optionally, configure the `hive.spark.job.monitor.timeout` property with a custom timeout, in seconds, larger than the default of 60. When using a small, untuned test cluster, it may take longer than 60 seconds for some Hive queries to be serviced by Spark, in particular, the first query in each session. You may leave this property out and add it later if you find that jobs submitted by Hive are timing out after just over a minute: <property> <name>spark.master</name> <value>yarn</value> </property> <property> <name>spark.home</name> <value>/opt/spark</value> </property> <property> <name>hive.spark.job.monitor.timeout</name> <value>120</value> </property> ## Switch YARN to the Fair Scheduler To configure YARN to use the fair scheduler, as recommended by Hive documentation, edit _/etc/hadoop/yarn-site.xml_ and configure the `yarn.resourcemanager``.scheduler.class` property with the class name for the fair scheduler. (The following XML is edited for fit.) <property> <name>yarn.resourcemanager.scheduler.class</name> <value>org.apache.hadoop.yarn.server.resourcemanager.scheduler.fair. FairScheduler</value> </property> ## Try Out Hive on Spark on YARN Restart the Hive metastore server and the Hive server to pick up the new Hive configuration. If you have multiple Spark installations, specify the `SPARK_HOME` environment variable with the same value as the `spark.home` configuration property in _hive-site.xml_. Without the environment variable, the startup scripts for Hive may guess incorrectly as to the location of the Spark installation: # as hive # export usual environment variables, but then add: $ export SPARK_HOME=/opt/spark $ $HIVE_HOME/bin/hive --service metastore -p 9083 > /var/log/hive/metastore.log & # wait for the metastore server to come up $ $HIVE_HOME/bin/hiveserver2 & Also restart YARN to switch it to use the fair scheduler. Finally, run the Beeline client as usual, but before running your first query, tell it to use Spark for query executions: set hive.execution.engine=spark; Now when you run a query, instead of seeing information about MapReduce being used, you will see details about how Hive submitted work to Spark, and how Spark is itself running on YARN. (The following output is edited for fit.) 0: jdbc:hive2://localhost:10000> SELECT COUNT() FROM u_data; Query ID = hive_20161228174515_9bfd160e-6c6b-413f-9f7e-5eff85d04124 Total jobs = 1 Launching Job 1 out of 1 In order to change the average load for a reducer (in bytes): set hive.exec.reducers.bytes.per.reducer=<number> In order to limit the maximum number of reducers: set hive.exec.reducers.max=<number> In order to set a constant number of reducers: set mapreduce.job.reduces=<number> Starting Spark Job = 72d7b61d-9f19-4a31-ae87-385ac80676c7 Running with YARN Application = application_1482938585635_0013 Kill Command = /opt/hadoop/bin/yarn application -kill application_1482938585635_0013 Query Hive on Spark job[1] stages: 2 3 Status: Running (Hive on Spark job[1]) Job Progress Format CurrentTime StageId_StageAttemptId: SucceededTasksCount(+RunningTasksCount-FailedTasksCount)/TotalTasksCount [StageCost] 2016-12-28 17:45:16,760 Stage-2_0: 0(+1)/1 Stage-3_0: 0/1 2016-12-28 17:45:19,775 Stage-2_0: 1/1 Finished Stage-3_0: 1/1 Finished Status: Finished successfully in 4.02 seconds OK +---------+--+ \| c0 \| +---------+--+ \| 100000 \| +---------+--+ 1 row selected (4.285 seconds) # Spark Streaming from AWS Kinesis Besides being able to perform complex analytics on data stored at rest, whether in HDFS or elsewhere, Spark can also work on data that is streamed into it. Spark Streaming lets you process large amounts of incoming live data in much the same way as typical _resilient distributed datasets_ (RDDs). Batches of data generated through _discretized streams_ or "DStreams" can be operated upon similarly to RDDs, and the results can be saved to persistent storage for further analytics. Spark supports several sources for DStreams, including Apache Flume and Apache Kafka. It also ships with support for streaming data from Amazon Kinesis, a component of AWS that supports the establishment and management of data streams within AWS. This section describes how to set up a Spark Streaming job that reads from a Kinesis stream, performs some simple processing on it, and saves the results to HDFS. The streaming pipeline developed in this section operates on Apache access logs. In a real-life scenario, Apache web servers would be configured to forward their access logs to the Kinesis stream, but to make the work here simpler, access log data is faked using a basic generator. The basic architecture of the streaming pipeline is shown in Figure 12-1. ###### Figure 12-1. Data flow for a Spark Streaming job through AWS Kinesis ## Creating a Kinesis Stream To create a Kinesis stream, use the AWS console to select the Kinesis service. Be sure to select the region where you want the stream to be created. On the Kinesis home page, click Go to Streams. Click the "Create stream" button on the next page to reveal the form—shown in Figure 12-2—for creating a new stream. Provide a name for the stream, such as "apache-access-logs". For the simple stream used in this section, use just one shard. The form automatically calculates the read and write throughput for the stream, which is more than enough for exploration purposes. Click the "Create stream" button to begin the process of stream creation. ###### Figure 12-2. Creating a Kinesis stream The stream eventually appears in the list of streams. Soon, the stream should be reported as ACTIVE, as shown in Figure 12-3, meaning it is ready to accept and provide data. ###### Figure 12-3. An active Kinesis stream Once the generator begins to send data into the stream and the stream job reads data from the stream, the Monitoring tab for the stream will provide graphs summarizing the data flow. ## Populating the Stream with Data The simplest way to populate the new Kinesis stream is to use a simple standalone generator program. The Kinesis client available in the AWS SDK can be used to send one generated log line at a time, as bytes, to the stream. The main body of a generator program is listed in Example 12-1. ###### Note As in the rest of this book, code in this chapter is written in Java. ##### Example 12-1. Loop for sending log lines to a Kinesis stream AmazonKinesisClient client = new AmazonKinesisClient(); int numPasses = (numRecords + recsPerSecond - 1) / recsPerSecond; int recordsLeft = numRecords; for (int i = 0; i < numPasses; i++) { int numToGenerate = Math.min(recordsLeft, recsPerSecond); for (int j = 0; j < numToGenerate; j++) { String logLine = generateLogLine(); PutRecordRequest request = new PutRecordRequest() .withStreamName(streamName) .withPartitionKey(PARTITION_KEY) .withData(ByteBuffer.wrap(logLine.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8))); PutRecordResult result = client.putRecord(request); System.out.println(String.format("Wrote to shard %s as %s", result.getShardId(), result.getSequenceNumber())); } recordsLeft -= numToGenerate; if (recordsLeft > 0) { Thread.sleep(1000L); } } The loop in Example 12-1 sends a batch of records each second (roughly) to the Kinesis stream and reports the sequence number assigned by Kinesis to each record as a sign that the transfer was successful. The work of creating a fake Apache access log line is done by the `generateLogLine()` method. There are many ways to implement the method; the code in Example 12-2 uses a combination of `java.util.Random`, weighted distributions supported by Apache Commons Math 3, and the Java Faker library to create realistic-looking log lines. (The example here is edited down for clarity.) ##### Example 12-2. Generation of a random Apache access log line private static final String FORMAT = "%s - - [%s] \"%s %s HTTP/1.0\" %s %d \"%s\" \"%s\""; private Random random = new Random(); private Faker faker = new Faker(); private static final DateTimeFormatter TIMESTAMP_FORMATTER = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd/MMM/yyyy:HH:mm:ss Z"); private static final EnumeratedDistribution<String> METHODS = makeDistribution( Pair.create("GET", 6.0), Pair.create("POST", 2.0) ); private static final EnumeratedDistribution<String> RESOURCES = makeDistribution( Pair.create("/page1", 10.0), Pair.create("/page2", 9.0) ); private static final EnumeratedDistribution<String> RESPONSES = makeDistribution( Pair.create("200", 8.0), Pair.create("404", 2.0) ); private static final EnumeratedDistribution<String> USER_AGENTS = makeDistribution( Pair.create("user agent string 1", 4.7), Pair.create("user agent string 2", 3.8) ); @SafeVarargs private static EnumeratedDistribution<String> makeDistribution(Pair<String, Double>... items) { return new EnumeratedDistribution<String>(Arrays.asList(items)); } private String generateLogLine() { String ipAddress = faker.internet().privateIpV4Address(); String dateTime = TIMESTAMP_FORMATTER.format(ZonedDateTime.now()); String method = METHODS.sample(); String resource = RESOURCES.sample(); String status = RESPONSES.sample(); int bytes = random.nextInt(10000); String referer = faker.internet().url(); String userAgent = USER_AGENTS.sample(); return String.format(FORMAT, ipAddress, dateTime, method, resource, status, bytes, referer, userAgent); } A Kinesis stream can hang on to data for a while, but the processing job will read from the leading edge of the stream. So, in order to see the job in action, the generator must run simultaneously. The generator program can run anywhere that has access to the Kinesis stream. AWS credentials are necessary for putting records in the stream, and one way that they can be supplied to the program is through an AWS access key ID and secret access key assigned to an IAM user with the necessary permissions. See "Configuring S3 Authentication" for instructions on how to add a new IAM user with the permissions you choose. The policies required are: "AmazonKinesisFullAccess" for reading from and writing to Kinesis streams * "AmazonDynamoDBFullAccess" for checkpointing progress in reading Kinesis streams * "CloudWatchFullAccess" for reporting stream metrics to AWS CloudWatch The keys may be passed to the program in a few different ways. The most straightforward is to set the `AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID` and `AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY` environment variables before running. ## Streaming Kinesis Data into Spark A streaming job that processes records from a Kinesis stream starts by creating a DStream from it. All the usual stream manipulation capabilities of Spark are available to perform processing on the data, and the end result may be saved to any of several locations. The job in Example 12-3 alters each log record to have an anonymized IP address and a generic user agent, and then maps each line to a pair with a unique identifier so that it can be saved to Hadoop. ##### Example 12-3. Processing of Apache log lines in Spark Streaming public void process(String streamName, String region, int batchInterval, String hadoopDir) throws InterruptedException { String kinesisEndpoint = String.format("https://kinesis.%s.amazonaws.com/", region); AmazonKinesisClient client = new AmazonKinesisClient(); client.setEndpoint(kinesisEndpoint); int numShards = client.describeStream(streamName).getStreamDescription().getShards().size(); SparkConf conf = new SparkConf().setAppName(APP_NAME); JavaStreamingContext ctx = new JavaStreamingContext(conf, new Duration(batchInterval)); JavaDStream<byte[]> kinesisStream = KinesisUtils.createStream(ctx, APP_NAME, streamName, kinesisEndpoint, region, InitialPositionInStream.LATEST, new Duration(batchInterval), StorageLevel.MEMORY_AND_DISK_2()); // Make more DStreams JavaDStream<ApacheLogRecord> processedRecords = kinesisStream .map(line -> new ApacheLogRecord(new String(line, StandardCharsets.UTF_8))) .map(record -> record.withIpAddress(anonymizeIpAddress(record.getIpAddress()))) .map(record -> record.withUserAgent(categorizeUserAgent(record.getUserAgent()))) ; // Only pair streams can be written as Hadoop files JavaPairDStream<String, ApacheLogRecord> markedRecords = processedRecords .transformToPair(recordRdd -> recordRdd.mapToPair( record -> new Tuple2<>(UUID.randomUUID().toString(), record) )); // Write out to Hadoop markedRecords.print(); markedRecords.saveAsHadoopFiles(hadoopDir, "txt", Text.class, Text.class, TextOutputFormat.class); ctx.start(); try { ctx.awaitTermination(); } catch (InterruptedException e) { System.out.println("Streaming stopped"); return; } } ###### Note The processing code in Example 12-3 uses lambdas, introduced in Java 8, to be more readable. This requires that the Hadoop cluster, or at least YARN, run under Java 8 as well. The `ApacheLogRecord` class referenced in Example 12-3 is a basic implementation of an object that can manage the fields in a log record. When the streaming job is run, each batch delimited by the batch interval is processed, and its results are saved into a separate directory in Hadoop. To avoid an explosion of directories, make the batch interval somewhat large, on the order of at least a minute. ### Packaging the streaming job As with any Spark job, the streaming job should be packaged into an all-in-one JAR that can be uploaded to the cluster for execution. The Spark Streaming library does not need to be included, since the job runs within Spark. This will dramatically reduce the size of the JAR. With complex systems like Spark, the AWS SDK, and Hadoop all being used at once, it is likely that dependency conflicts will arise when running the streaming job. Here are some conflicts to watch out for, and how to resolve them: * The Amazon Kinesis Client Library (KCL) available through Spark uses a specific version of the AWS Java SDK. If you use a different version for your job, classes in the SDK may be reported missing or incompatible. Try using the same version of the AWS SDK for your job that the KCL packaged with Spark uses. * Spark and the AWS SDK may rely on different versions of the Jackson JSON library, leading to class-loading problems. Override the versions of Jackson so that the latest ones are bundled. * The Amazon KCL also uses a specific version of Apache Commons HTTPClient, which may be newer than the version embedded in the Hadoop cluster. Use Apache Maven's package relocation capability to move the HTTPClient code used by the job to a different "shaded" package to avoid the conflict altogether. Example 12-4 illustrates how to use Apache Maven to implement the workarounds that resolve dependency conflicts among Spark, the AWS SDK, and Hadoop. ##### Example 12-4. Maven settings resolving dependency conflicts among Spark, AWS SDK, and Hadoop <dependencyManagement> <dependencies> <dependency> <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId> <artifactId>aws-java-sdk-bom</artifactId> <version>1.10.20</version><!-- KCL in Spark 2.1.0 uses 1.10.20 --> <type>pom</type> <scope>import</scope> </dependency> <!-- Jackson libs in AWS 1.10 are too old for Spark 2 --> <dependency> <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId> <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId> <version>2.6.5</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat</groupId> <artifactId>jackson-dataformat-cbor</artifactId> <version>2.6.5</version> </dependency> </dependencies> </dependencyManagement> <build> <plugins> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-shade-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.4.3</version> <executions> <execution> <phase>package</phase> <goals> <goal>shade</goal> </goals> <configuration> <relocations> <!-- Apache Commons HTTPClient in Hadoop may conflict --> <relocation> <pattern>org.apache.http</pattern> <shadedPattern>com.mh2c.shaded.org.apache.http</shadedPattern> </relocation> </relocations> </configuration> </execution> </executions> </plugin> </plugins> </build> ### Running the streaming job To run the streaming job, upload its JAR to the Hadoop cluster and run it in a Hadoop user account like "spark". Use the `spark-submit` utility to start the job driver in YARN and to pass essential Spark configuration properties and command-line arguments: # as spark $ ./bin/spark-submit --class com.mh2c.LogProcessor --master yarn \ > --deploy-mode cluster \ > --conf spark.yarn.appMasterEnv.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX \ > --conf spark.yarn.appMasterEnv.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=XXXX....XXXX \ > --conf spark.executorEnv.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX \ > --conf spark.executorEnv.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=XXXX....XXXX \ > /home/spark/apache-access-log-processing-1.0.0.jar \ > apache-access-logs us-east-1 60000 > hdfs://203.0.113.101:8020/user/spark/access-logs/stream Notice that the AWS keys are passed to both the application master and the Spark executors. Failing to do both leads to authentication failures working with Kinesis or DynamoDB. The arguments in this command line, which correspond to the arguments of the `process` method in Example 12-3, are: * The name of the Kinesis stream * The region of the Kinesis stream, which is used to determine the Kinesis endpoint URL * The batch interval for Spark Streaming, in milliseconds * The "prefix" for Hadoop files written by the job The Hadoop file prefix is the start of the URL for where files should be written. An `hdfs://` URL directs Spark to write the files into HDFS. If the s3a filesystem implementation is installed and available in the Hadoop cluster, then the job can write files directly to S3, provided that the IAM user associated with the AWS keys also has write access to S3. That is how you can create a Spark Streaming job that not only reads from a cloud service, but also writes to one as well, leaving no critical data resident in the cluster itself. See "Configuring the S3 Filesystem" for instructions on setting up the s3a filesystem. ### Stopping the streaming job The `spark-submit` command is merely reporting on the status of the YARN application hosting the Spark Streaming job, so it can be stopped at any time using Control-C. This leaves the YARN application itself running, and it continues to run until you kill it through YARN. Find the application ID for the job, as reported by `spark-submit`, and then kill the application. (The following output has been edited for fit.) # as spark $ /opt/hadoop/bin/yarn application -kill application_1484496337475_0014 17/01/15 20:58:47 INFO client.RMProxy: Connecting to ResourceManager at /203.0.113.101:8032 Killing application application_1484496337475_0014 17/01/15 20:58:47 INFO impl.YarnClientImpl: Killed application application_1484496337475_0014 With YARN log aggregation enabled, you can find the output from the job as usual, using `yarn logs`. The logs contain output from Spark itself, including the output from `print()` calls on DStreams: # as spark $ $HADOOP_PREFIX/bin/yarn logs -applicationId application_1484496337475_0014 \| \ > less The actual output files can be found in Hadoop at the location specified to the job as the "prefix." For example, a prefix of "hdfs://203.0.113.101:8020/user/spark/access-logs/stream" leads to a set of directories in HDFS starting with "stream" and timestamped at each batch. Each directory houses "part" files with the text records from the processor. (The following output is edited for fit.) # as spark $ hdfs dfs -ls /user/spark/access-logs/ Found 5 items drwxr-xr-x /user/spark/access-logs/stream-1484513640000.txt drwxr-xr-x /user/spark/access-logs/stream-1484513700000.txt drwxr-xr-x /user/spark/access-logs/stream-1484513760000.txt drwxr-xr-x /user/spark/access-logs/stream-1484513820000.txt drwxr-xr-x /user/spark/access-logs/stream-1484513880000.txt With the streaming results in place, other analysis jobs using Spark, MapReduce, or other frameworks that can read the files can be run later to drill further into the data. # What About Google Cloud Platform and Azure? If you are using Google Cloud Platform, Google Cloud Pub/Sub is the analogous service for AWS Kinesis. There is a Java library for the service, although it is still very new. Spark does not ship with built-in support for working with Cloud Pub/Sub, but connecting should be possible with the Pub/Sub Java library or the grpc library. Another tack is to use Apache Kafka as the source for the streaming job, and use the CloudPubSubConnector to move data from Cloud Pub/Sub through Kafka to the job. If you are using Azure, Azure Event Hubs is the analogous service for AWS Kinesis. Microsoft's HDInsight team maintains a Spark connector for Azure Event Hubs that can take the place of the AWS KCL in Spark Streaming jobs. Apache Kafka alone is a viable alternative for any of the stream services offered by the cloud providers. Choosing Kafka gives you more control over how your streams are managed, at the cost of having to maintain Kafka itself and the instances Kafka runs on. # Building Clusters Versus Building Clusters Well Configuring Spark, including Hive on Spark and Spark Streaming, on a cluster is a complex affair. If you also installed Hive as described in Chapter 11 and enabled high availability as described in Chapter 10, you did a lot of work and ended up with a powerful, capable cluster in the cloud. It is time now to take a step back and think about other issues with deploying cloud clusters beyond the mechanics of installation and configuration, which has been the focus of this book up until now. Part V begins by exploring the pricing decisions to be made when designating resources for clusters, weighing them against performance requirements. After all, while a cloud cluster is powerful and useful, it is even better if it is also cost-effective and fast. A dedicated account is not truly needed for Spark on YARN, but it provides better separation of Spark jobs from other cluster work. Find the complete source at: _https://github.com/bhavanki/moving-hadoop-to-the-cloud_. This exposes the key values in the command line reported by utilities like `ps`. Other ways of passing the keys are described in the AWS SDK documentation for managing credentials. # Part V. Care and Feeding of Hadoop in the Cloud By now you have created a simple Hadoop cluster running on a cloud provider, run some jobs on it, and possibly enhanced it to be highly available or tried out some other Hadoop components on it. The goals so far have been centered on getting things working and exploring, but now that you have some experience with clusters running in the cloud, it's time to focus on getting things to work well. That entails understanding how the features offered by cloud providers, as well as their trade-offs and limitations, can influence the choices you make in architecting clusters. # Chapter 13. Pricing and Performance As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. When it comes to cloud providers, in general, the more you are willing to pay, the more resources you can have at your command. For a small price, you can provision some modest instances with a small amount of storage and use them for proof-of-concept work, small websites, or simple server hosting. On the other hand, if you have money to spend, you can employ the full range of compute and storage offerings from your cloud provider, which enable you to field entire enterprise-scale infrastructures—for a corresponding enterprise-scale price. Fortunately, Hadoop was designed from the start not to require enterprise hardware, and it can run on a small handful of instances, at least to start with. Even in cloud deployments, it is not necessary to deploy the most powerful resources in order to architect a powerful cluster. You can build a decent cluster at a decent price. Regardless of the scale of your clusters, there's no need to waste money. By taking a careful look at the menu of selections for instances and storage, and building your network out well, you can be sure that you are getting the most bang for your buck. # Picking Instance Types One of the first decisions to confront when designing a cluster running in the cloud is which instance type or types to use. Some instance types are too underpowered for most cluster roles, while some are overpowered except for very large-scale deployments. Even though there is a lengthy list of instance types to choose from, it's enough to focus on a few characteristics common to all of them to find a good fit. ## The Criteria The primary criteria to consider when choosing instance types for a cluster are: * Number of vCPUs or cores * Memory * Associated block storage or disk space In general, and as you probably expect, an instance type is priced higher when it has more vCPUs, more memory, or more block storage. However, the ratios between these criteria do not stay constant across the set of available instance types. Some instance types go heavy on memory, while others have a tremendous amount of block storage. Instance types can usually be categorized by what their expected role is, and the role for a type derives from what criteria are emphasized in its makeup. Role classifications can apply to Hadoop cluster architectures as well as other uses. Here are some common roles for instance types: * _General-purpose_ instance types provide a balanced amount of vCPUs, memory, and block storage. These are analogous to general-purpose physical computers, which are configured to perform most tasks well, but without any specializations. * _Compute_ instance types provide more vCPUs and a lot more memory, while reducing available block storage. These instance types excel at number-crunching and analysis tasks that can eat up a lot of memory, but which don't require large amounts of block storage. * _Storage_ instance types are light on vCPUs and memory but deliver large amounts of block storage. While these instance types can still perform nontrivial compute tasks, they serve best as data repositories. Cloud providers do offer other instance types aimed at different roles, such as very high memory or GPU availability. If you are just getting started with Hadoop in the cloud, those more specialized instance types are not usually necessary, but as your expertise grows and the needs of your clusters become apparent, they can become useful. ## General Cluster Instance Roles As a Hadoop cluster architect, you have complete freedom to choose the instance types you want to use for your cluster (provided you have the budget). A common-sense starting point is to define some basic cluster instance roles, where each role maps to some set of Hadoop daemons. The needs of those daemons then influence the proper instance type for the role. Here is a good starter set of instance roles: _manager_ An instance that hosts the "master" or "manager" daemons for each cluster service, such as the HDFS namenode and the YARN resource manager _worker_ An instance that hosts the more numerous daemons for each cluster service, such as an HDFS datanode or a YARN node manager _gateway_ An instance that hosts daemons that interface with the world outside the cluster, like Flume agents, and/or host clients for cluster services If you built out a cluster in Part II, you will recognize the manager and worker roles. In a cluster that follows these roles, there are usually only one or two manager instances, a large number of workers, and a handful of gateways. More sophisticated architectures would evolve to include different worker roles optimized for specific cluster services, or even different manager instances. Given these roles, it's straightforward to map them to appropriate instance types: Table 13-1. Some cluster roles and their matching instance types Role \| Instance type ---\|--- manager \| more powerful general purpose worker \| compute and/or storage gateway \| less powerful general purpose Because manager instances host the most crucial daemons in the cluster, they need to have the best and broadest resources available. They themselves do not store much data or execute cluster jobs, so general purpose-hardware is suitable. For larger clusters, an instance type with somewhat more memory can help keep things running smoothly. Since cluster work is spread out across workers, they can be less powerful compared to a manager instance, but they make up for it in numbers. Workers that run jobs can take advantage of the extra vCPUs and memory of a compute instance, while HDFS datanodes can take up the additional storage associated with storage instances. In larger clusters, you may choose to run storage daemons and compute daemons on separate instances with optimized instance types, but on smaller clusters all of the worker daemons will host both kinds of daemons, in which case compute instances tend to be the better choice. If you need additional storage on a compute instance, you can always attach more volumes, but you can't as easily add vCPUs or memory to a storage instance, if it's possible at all. Gateway instances are used lightly and mostly serve to feed the cluster or to host interactive applications for people to use, so they typically do not require a lot of horsepower. As always, there are exceptions, depending on what the cluster needs, but these are good guidelines to start with. # Persistent Versus Ephemeral Block Storage Each instance you launch comes with at least one persistent root volume for data storage. Some instance types provide additional ephemeral volumes, where data survives as long as the instance is not stopped or terminated. After an instance is launched, you can attach new persistent volumes and may be able to add more ephemeral volumes, at least up to a limit. So, with all these block storage options, what should you use for a Hadoop cluster? One option is to use persistent volumes for all block storage. Cloud providers take measures to ensure that they are available and can survive outages. However, persistent storage has two primary drawbacks over ephemeral storage: * _They are slower._ Persistent volumes are not necessarily attached to the same hardware, or even nearby in the same network, as an instance. In contrast, ephemeral storage is either directly connected to the same physical hardware or extremely close to it, so data access is fast. * _They cost more._ While the cost of persistent volumes is not generally considered _expensive_ , it is more than that of ephemeral storage. Once your clusters scale up to storing huge amounts of data, the cost of maintaining that data, triple-replicated in the case of HDFS, may start to add up. While ephemeral storage is relatively fast and cheap, its primary drawback is that it's ephemeral. Whenever a cluster instance stops, its ephemeral storage is wiped out. Therefore, it's likely unsafe to use it for data that needs to be stored long-term only within the Hadoop cluster. The primary issue is using ephemeral storage as the backing disks for HDFS. Because HDFS replicates data across datanodes, a cluster can automatically recover from the loss of a single datanode and the corresponding loss of its share of data. As usual, a cluster can safely lose as many datanodes as the value of its replication factor, less one. Losing more than that risks data loss, unless the data is saved off elsewhere. In some cases, you may not be able to use ephemeral storage for HDFS at all. Perhaps information-handling policies require that cluster data be stored on more robust forms of storage, or perhaps there is concern that the cluster will lose too many datanodes while jobs are running. If so, persistent storage is the better option. The dichotomy between persistent and ephemeral storage is not as simple to discern as perhaps one would like. Other factors blur the lines. As one example, some cloud providers offer different types of persistent block storage with faster or slower access times and throughput, with corresponding differences in cost. You could choose faster, more expensive types of persistent storage for commonly used clusters or instances, and choose slower ones for less busy corners of your architecture. With different options for persistent storage, you may not need to consider ephemeral storage at all. If you architect data flows such that data you cannot afford to lose is kept safely outside of Hadoop clusters, perhaps in object storage, then in-flight data is no longer as critical to preserve, and it becomes more feasible to use ephemeral storage for cluster data. The trade-off is that it can take time to retrieve data from storage and send final results back to it; is that extra time and data transfer cost offset by increased cluster performance? Finally, it is important not to forget that you can, and should, back up your cluster data periodically (see Chapter 18). With reliable backups in places, the risk of using ephemeral storage is reduced, but now there is a need to restore data once in a while, which can slow things down and incur data transfer costs. In summary, then, here are two overarching strategies for block storage use in a Hadoop cluster: * Use persistent storage for all data. Optionally, go with slower and cheaper storage types where performance is not an issue. * Use ephemeral storage for HDFS, and persistent storage for the rest. Save critical data to object storage, and restart processing from there if too many datanodes are lost. Current trends are to go with the first strategy and use persistent storage for everything. The cost savings and performance boost of ephemeral storage are often not enough to make up for the increased criticality of data backups and the lack of intrinsic reliability compared to persistent storage. It is also more akin to running on-prem, which organizations are today still more comfortable with. Exclusive use of persistent storage also makes it easier to start and stop clusters. # Stopping and Starting Entire Clusters Running clusters on a cloud provider opens up new usage patterns and operations practices. There is added flexibility, due to the fact that instances are not actual physical pieces of hardware, but abstract collections of resources. One practice that becomes viable in a cloud provider is shutting down clusters when they are not needed. In a typical on-premises architecture, it does not usually make sense to shut down entire machines when they are not needed, except to save on power and cooling costs; instead, you might try to have those machines serve multiple purposes, so that they are in use as much as possible. Of course, this makes administration of those instances more complex and can lead to conflicts among the software packages installed. This pursuit of machine-level efficiency isn't as necessary in the cloud, because it is easy to stop and start instances as often as you wish. There is no need for a human to physically visit hardware and push buttons and rewire network connections; everything is controlled through the cloud provider's consoles and APIs. This practice can save money. However, it's also a way to effectively field a larger set of clusters than with a more static operational stance. For example, instead of running ten general-purpose clusters all the time, you could run six general-purpose clusters, but then use the remaining capacity for a shifting set of eight other clusters for specialized needs. At any moment, only some of those specialized clusters would be running, but they can be swapped in and out in response to business needs. There is still the cost of maintaining the block storage associated with all of the instances, but this costs less than it would with all of the instances running with their storage attached. This scheme is shown graphically in Figure 13-1. On the left, all of the resources are constantly used by ten running clusters. On the right, six clusters always run, but other clusters are defined that can be started and stopped to use the rest of the resources. There are important caveats with this practice. Perhaps the most important is that all data residing on ephemeral block storage is destroyed when instances are stopped. The process of stopping specialized clusters must involve backing up any important data that ends up on ephemeral storage, and likewise the process for starting them must involve putting it back. For this reason, it's usually recommended to use persistent storage exclusively for clusters that are stopped and started. ###### Figure 13-1. Ways to manage clusters with limited resources Another important caveat is that providers may grant a restarted instance a different IP address from when it was last running. Cluster configurations that rely on those IP addresses must be updated in order to bring the cluster back up to fully operational status. For example, a GCE instance that is stopped and restarted will receive a new ephemeral public IP address by default, unless a static IP address has already been established for it. Generally, private IP addresses do remain assigned to instances as they are stopped and started, which is a good reason to configure clusters using them. Finally, not all cloud providers meter instance usage at a fine level, but instead at larger time units, such as whole hours for EC2. As a result, it is not always economical to bring up clusters frequently but for short periods of time; the provider will round up charges to the next time unit anyway. For example, if a cluster is brought up and shut down three times in a single hour, and billing is done in units of hours, then the cloud provider will charge for three hours of usage for each instance. So, bring up clusters at times when there is a batch of jobs to be run; this will maximize their time used within the billing unit. In general, trying to game cloud provider billing practices to save a few dollars is tricky and prone to creating higher charges. Automation is extremely helpful for managing the starting and stopping of clusters, which is covered in Chapter 17. # Using Temporary Instances Another attractive way to save money on clusters besides stopping them when not in use is to use temporary instances. As explained in "Temporary Instances", a temporary instance works just as well as a standard instance and costs much less, but can or will be terminated without warning after some time. Some roles in a cluster are naturally suited for temporary instances. In the set of basic instance roles defined previously, the worker role is the most appropriate to host on temporary instances, because a cluster has so many of them. As temporary instances are reclaimed, new ones can be provisioned to take their place. Hadoop automatically copes with the disappearance and appearance of worker daemons like datanodes and node managers, so operating in this fashion is practical. It's important to maintain a minimum number of nontemporary instances for some cluster roles. The HDFS datanode role is a prime example. If all of the datanodes are running on temporary instances and are reclaimed by the host provider, then all of your HDFS data is lost. Even if only some datanodes disappear, if those hosted all of the replicas of some HDFS data and they disappeared too quickly for the replicas to be copied to remaining datanodes, then that data is lost. Automation of the maintenance of temporary cluster instances is required to work with them for a significant period of time. It's wasteful and slow to have someone manually allocating new temporary instances as older ones are reclaimed. Scripts, tools, or cloud provider features should be employed to notice when the pool of temporary instances in your clusters falls below a certain level, provision new temporary instances to take their place, and configure them into your clusters. Chapter 17 covers ways that you can get started with monitoring your clusters. One common tactic is to use temporary instances for YARN node managers, expanding a cluster's compute capacity. If there is, say, a surge of end-of-month jobs to run, or a busy shopping day coming up, and the additional load on the cluster is certain to abate after some time, then expanding a cluster with temporary compute instances is a cost-effective and easy way to cope. Even as some node managers drop away when the cloud provider pulls back its instances, YARN can automatically push the work to the remaining node managers without intervention. It isn't too difficult to "manually" expand a cluster, but with the right combination of monitoring and automation, you can arrange for clusters to grow in response to increased demand as it is sensed. See "Elastic Compute Using a Custom Metric" for pointers on how to implement _autoscaling_ of compute capacity, which works with both temporary and ordinary instances. Always keep in mind that you cannot rely on temporary instances to last for any amount of time. Even if historically you find that they survive for a long time, there are no guarantees that history will continue to repeat itself. AWS spot instances, for example, can theoretically last for weeks if the initial bid is high enough and the market price stays low, and this can lull you into a false sense of security. In contrast, Google Cloud Platform preemptible instances are guaranteed to be terminated within 24 hours, specifically to avoid that, but that makes them less reliable for some cluster operations. # Geographic Considerations The cost of running clusters in a cloud doesn't depend just on _what_ you run with, but _where_ it runs. ## Regions The price for an instance type, or gateway, or other element of cloud infrastructure can vary from region to region. The hardware and connectivity in each of a cloud provider's regions is roughly the same, so you can realize significant cost savings by running in a region that has lower rates. There are reasons to run in a more expensive region. The most important one is network performance between instances running in the region and their users; this is even more important when the users are customers outside of your organization. You may find that your clusters need to run closer to their users to meet your needs. For example, clusters running in Asian regions will tend to exhibit higher latencies for users in Europe than users also in Asia. If the performance is bad enough, you may consider replicating your clusters in a European region. You should never construct a cluster that spans regions. Not only are network speeds much slower than even between availability zones in the same region, but there is additional cost associated with data flowing into or out of regions, which are significant given the amount of network traffic within Hadoop clusters. ## Availability Zones Resources are not priced differently depending on the availability zone within which they run, so that need not influence your cluster design. However, some cloud providers do charge for network traffic between availability zones. A cluster that spans availability zones will cost more, although not nearly as much as one spanning regions. Network speeds between availability zones are slower than within availability zones, although again not as slow as between regions. Still, larger clusters and more extensive workloads benefit from being contained within a single zone, since they will run faster. You may wish to build clusters that span availability zones as part of a high-availability strategy (see Chapter 10), but heavier workloads may have trouble running and costs may shoot up, and you may be driven to stay within a single zone. Keeping cluster data backed up or safe in a cloud provider storage service (see Chapter 5) can enable moving work from a cluster lost in one availability zone to another running in a separate zone, as an alternative to a single HA cluster. # Performance and Networking The performance of Hadoop clusters in the cloud is determined by more than the sort of instances they run on and the kinds of storage they use; how the instances are networked also has a major effect. The geographic considerations of regions and availability zones covered here only touch on the topic of networking Hadoop clusters. Chapter 14 goes further, developing and comparing network topologies while keeping in mind performance as well as security. Well, not always. Cloud providers like AWS allow you to start an instance with an ephemeral root volume, but for most uses, including Hadoop clusters, this is not recommended. # Chapter 14. Network Topologies Cloud providers let you design almost any network architecture you could imagine to support your instances. You have options for where in the world the instances are running, their IP addresses and DNS names, and all of the rules for how they can talk to each other and the outside world. All of that freedom can be overwhelming. Cloud providers start you off with a default network that gets you up and running quickly. However, even establishing a single Hadoop cluster leads you to outgrow that initial state, and compels you to confront many questions about how your instances should be arranged, and the rules that they should play by. Your organization may also have its own requirements for where data can live and the protections for it both at rest and in transit, including access rules and redundancy requirements. The collective layout for a network of computing resources can be called its _topology_. This chapter defines some common concepts behind cloud network topologies and shows how Hadoop clusters can work within them. # Public and Private Subnets When it comes to networking and security, perhaps the most fundamental question to ask about a single instance, or an entire cluster's worth of them for that matter, is: Who can see it? It's essential that all of the instances within a single Hadoop cluster be able to see each other. In the typical, basic case, all of the instances run in the same subnet in the same availability zone, so that they have the fastest network connectivity to each other. Security rules also allow for unrestricted communication between them, so there is no internal obstacle to the cluster's functionality. ###### Tip It is possible to set up security rules so that only the ports relevant to Hadoop clusters are reachable, even from instances in the same cluster. In practice, this is very difficult, as there are so many of them to cover. The better model is to assume that cluster instances can completely trust each other with no obstacles blocking their way. If instances within a single cluster cannot trust each other, there are deeper architectural problems! If the cluster instances in a subnet are also reachable, in some way, from the internet, then the subnet is called a _public subnet_. If there is no network routing between the instances and the internet, or security rules completely prevent communications, then the subnet is called a _private subnet_. A cloud provider generally starts you off with public subnets, by automatically allowing at least SSH access from either the internet or from your apparent IP address to instances residing in it. After all, without any other way to reach your instances, they are not of much use. You can manipulate the security rules to allow wider access, or eliminate all outside access and turn the subnet private. A good rule of thumb for securing any system is to minimize the attack surface. So, in general, using private subnets for your clusters is more secure than using public subnets. The trade-off is in convenience, as it takes extra steps to reach a private subnet. The rest of this chapter explores the trade-offs. If you use a public subnet to host clusters, then access from the internet should be tightly restricted: * Prefer allowing only SSH access, using tunneling or proxies (see "SOCKS Proxy") for any other form of communication. * Prefer key-based authentication over password-based authentication. For SSH access in particular, there is no reason to use passwords. * Prefer secure, encrypted communication protocols or layers, such as HTTPS instead of HTTP. * Use security rules that restrict outside access to known IP address ranges instead of allowing in the entire internet (CIDR 0.0.0.0/0). Imagine an HDFS namenode running in a public subnet, and suppose cluster users want to check on it through its web interface. The worst configuration for it would be to allow access from anywhere on the internet to its unencrypted HTTP port. While this is undoubtedly _convenient_ , it is completely exposed to attack from anywhere. Moreover, anyone who stumbles upon it can learn about your internal cluster architecture, including IP addresses of your instances. Just enabling HTTPS for the namenode's web interface is not enough; authentication is also required, which involves setting up Kerberos and configuring the namenode appropriately. Fortunately, in the cloud, there are alternatives to doing all of that work for securing the namenode. ## SSH Tunneling One alternative is to prohibit direct access to the namenode's HTTP port from outside the subnet. As described in "SSH Tunneling", you can establish an SSH tunnel from outside the subnet to the HTTP port of the namenode. This is less convenient than direct access, but it carries the benefits of key-based authentication and encryption, and reduces the exposure of the subnet's instances; it's one less port that's exposed. To create a tunnel, make an SSH connection to an instance inside the public subnet, and request that it establish a tunnel to the desired instance and port within the subnet. Here is an example of creating a tunnel for reaching a namenode: $ ssh -i /path/to/cloud_provider_key.pem -n -N \ > -L 50070:localhost:50070 userid@bastion.cloud-provider.example & In this example, the SSH command is purely for creating a tunnel, and so it runs in the background with the `-n` option. A different pattern is to create the tunnel along with a normal, active SSH connection to the instance where you will be issuing commands. The `-N` option instructs the SSH client not to run a command on the instance hosting the tunnel, since it is running only to maintain a tunnel. An important concept to understand for tunneling is that the instance on the other end of the tunnel does not need to be the same as the desired destination. In the preceding example, the SSH connection is made to an instance "bastion.cloud-provider.example", and then the tunnel's remote end is directed to port 50070 on "localhost". The tunnel is illustrated in Figure 14-1. ###### Figure 14-1. An SSH tunnel to a bastion host that forwards to a port on the bastion host ###### Note The network diagrams in this chapter were generated using Cloudcraft. The address for the remote end of the tunnel is specified _relative to the serving instance_. So, "localhost" here means _bastion.cloud-provider.example_ , because the namenode is running on that same instance. If the namenode were running elsewhere, and the routes and security rules allowed connecting from the instance, the tunnel could direct requests there. This arrangement is shown in Figure 14-2, created by a command like the following: $ ssh -i /path/to/cloud_provider_key.pem -n -N \ > -L 50070:nn1.cloud-provider.internal:50070 \ > userid@bastion.cloud-provider.example & ###### Figure 14-2. An SSH tunnel to a bastion host that forwards to a port on another host The single instance _bastion.cloud-provider.example_ can be used for SSH tunneling to lots of other instances, and serves as a kind of communications center on behalf of all the instances in the public subnet. Such an instance is called a _bastion_ , because it is like a fortified part of the subnet that is exposed to the internet, protecting the rest of the instances. You should not run cluster components on a bastion, but use it as a dedicated communications hub. ##### Caring for Your Bastion A bastion is a potentially vulnerable part of your cloud architecture, so it must be hardened. Some prudent practices: * Keep its operating system up-to-date with the latest patches, especially security-related ones. * Disable root access except through local logins. * Disable password-based SSH authentication. * Monitor network connections made to it, and watch for attacks. * Lock it down to access from a limited IP address range and from as few ports as possible, preferably only SSH (port 22). * Stop it when it is not in use. Since the desired destination is resolved on the bastion, you are free to use the private IP address or private hostname of the destination when describing the tunnel. They do not mean anything to your local computer hosting the local end of the tunnel, but the bastion runs in the cloud provider and can interpret them. So, with the right network and security configuration, this allows a bastion to reach private subnets as well. Once an SSH tunnel is established, you use it by pointing your browser to the local port on your own computer, e.g., _http://localhost:50070/_. The SSH client is listening on that port locally, and forwards the request through the tunnel to the bastion, which sends it to the remote destination and port. Response data flows back through the same path. So, communication is enabled by only having the SSH port of the bastion exposed. ## SOCKS Proxy Another method for reaching into a public subnet in a more secure way is to establish a SOCKS proxy server, again on a bastion host. A SOCKS proxy listens on a single port and forwards requests to it on to the desired destination. There are many SOCKS proxy server implementations available. As it turns out, the OpenSSH client process can act as a SOCKS proxy: $ ssh -i /path/to/cloud_provider_key.pem -n -N \ > -D 8157 userid@bastion.cloud-provider.example & This command connects to the bastion host, as when performing SSH tunneling, but it also starts a SOCKS proxy server listening locally on port 8157. Any TCP requests that are sent to that local port are forwarded through the encrypted SSH connection and then issued from the bastion host to the desired destination. This method adds an additional layer on top of the basic SSH tunnel. To use a SOCKS proxy, a client program like your web browser needs to be configured to send requests through it instead of directly to the destination. Using an SSH tunnel requires you to explicitly send requests to the local end of the tunnel, but using a SOCKS proxy does not, as the client program automatically knows that it needs to communicate via the proxy. So, a SOCKS proxy is less intrusive once configured, but requires support from the client. A SOCKS proxy connecting through an SSH tunnel is illustrated in Figure 14-3. The client application is configured to work with the SOCKS proxy, which forwards requests through SSH to a bastion host, and onward from there to the desired destination. ###### Figure 14-3. A SOCKS proxy with an SSH connection To connect to the example namenode, you would point your configured browser to port 50070 of its instance's _private_ IP address or _private_ DNS hostname. The browser will send the request to the SOCKS proxy running on your local computer, which forwards it through the SSH tunnel to the bastion, and the SSH daemon on the bastion will be able to resolve either private identifier and send the request to the namenode instance. It is possible, depending on your network configuration, that you can use the _public_ IP address or hostname, which is more natural when you are operating outside the cloud provider. However, if the cloud provider routes requests to those public identifiers outside the subnet, as it would for any other external address, then the connection can fail. The route for the request will exit the subnet and attempt to re-enter, but the subnet may be locked down. This situation is illustrated in Figure 14-4. ###### Figure 14-4. A SOCKS proxy with an SSH connection with a bad destination address: because the bastion host resolves the public IP address to a route that leaves the secure network, the connection fails An advantage of using a SOCKS proxy is that once one is established, you are free to send requests to any reachable host and port within the subnet. With SSH tunneling, you must establish one tunnel per host and port. A disadvantage is that you must configure applications on the client side to use the proxy; SSH tunneling does not require that, although you must then target the tunnels explicitly. Instead of relying on SSH, you can set up a standalone SOCKS proxy server on the bastion host. The server would listen on its own port, which is available outside its subnet, and client programs would be configured to use it as their proxy. When using such a server, it's important to establish strong authentication and not run it as an "open proxy" that the whole world can use. Restricting access to only IP addresses in the range used by you or your organization is also prudent, whether for a SOCKS server or SSH in general. ## VPN Access An organization that uses a cloud provider heavily may establish access directly from the organization's VPN. Conceptually, this is like extending private access to virtual networks to clients that are connected to the VPN; at a minimum, clients are able to reach instances using their private IP addresses. It may also be possible for clients to resolve the cloud provider's internal hostnames, which are normally only resolvable inside the cloud provider, if DNS is included in the arrangement. Sometimes, cloud instances can even connect out of their subnets and into clients running on the VPN, making the connection truly two-way. In practice this is uncommon, since it complicates the security posture of the organization's own network. With VPN access, it is as if your local computer connected to the VPN is also present in the subnet; in a way, your computer is itself a bastion. SSH tunnels or SOCKS proxies are not necessary to gain access to instances because of the hard work that your network administrators have done for you. VPNs do have outages, though, so your only access to critical clusters should not be through a VPN. Having security rules defined, but inactive, that allow access when the VPN link is down will let you keep working with your clusters. It's just another part of keeping clusters available. ## Access from Other Subnets In a large enough cluster architecture, multiple subnets will be in use. Cloud providers allow you to establish routes between subnets and to set security rules for how instances in different subnets can connect to each other. Each subnet may be either private or public. Most importantly, instances in a public subnet can connect to instances in a private subnet. This opens up different possibilities for where clusters live and how they are accessed and used. # Cluster Topologies A cluster topology describes what runs on instances in a cluster as well as how they are connected to each other and to cluster users. Now that concepts for public and private access have been laid out, some cluster topologies can be built with them. ## The Public Cluster This topology is the least secure and arguably the worst choice of them all, but serves well as a basis for comparison with better topologies. In a public cluster, all of the instances run in a public subnet, and all of the ports involved in cluster operations are open to the internet. In the least secure case, all ports on all instances are reachable from any IP address, either inside or outside the cloud provider. A public cluster is illustrated in Figure 14-5. ###### Figure 14-5. A public cluster, in which access is completely open to the internet Considering a basic cluster that is running HDFS and YARN services, this means that all of the ports for the namenode, datanodes, resource manager, and node managers are accessible from outside the subnet. This includes the standard ports used by the daemons to communicate with each other (e.g., port 8020 for the namenode, port 50010 for a datanode) and those used by users and other clients (e.g., HTTP port 50070 for the namenode). This topology puts up no roadblocks to accessing it, which is convenient. Anyone can use the cluster from any location. However, it is terrible for security. Anyone can configure a Hadoop client to connect to the cluster and peruse data stored in it, and use it to run jobs. Even if steps are taken to secure the Hadoop services, such as enabling Kerberos and requiring TLS, the cluster components are still exposed to the public and vulnerable to attacks. The convenience is not worth the risk. ## The Secured Public Cluster An important step in securing a public cluster is to restrict the ports that are accessible outside the subnet. A cluster with many services running can make use of a large number of standard ports, but most of them are not pertinent to people or processes outside the cluster. For example, port 50010 is the standard port that a datanode listens on for cluster operations, but cluster clients do not need to reach that port to do their work. So, that port does not need to be exposed outside the subnet hosting the cluster. Port for daemons like the HDFS journalnodes and the ZooKeeper servers, which are purely for internal cluster functioning, need not have any ports exposed at all. So which ports are necessary? It depends on what clients need to do with the cluster. For people checking on cluster health, it's enough to expose the HTTP ports—or better yet, HTTPS ports—for the namenode, resource manager, and other key daemons. Client processes that run jobs on the cluster or look through its stored data need access to the primary ports of daemons like the namenode (8020), resource manager (8032), and the Hive server (10000). ###### Tip You could configure nonstandard ports as a means of obscuring the fact that Hadoop daemons are running on your instances. A naïve port scan might assume that a process listening on port 8020 is an HDFS namenode, but might not assume that for the same process listening on, say, port 23456. However, port scanners can perform fingerprinting on responses that they receive, which give away the nature of listening processes. Also, the use of non-standard ports makes cluster and client configuration much more difficult. So, the practice is pointless. Source address restrictions are also important to secure a public cluster. Just because the cluster is reachable from the internet does not mean it has to be reachable from the entire internet. Security rules placed on the subnet can easily limit access to IP ranges that are known to be safe. A secured public cluster is illustrated in Figure 14-6. ###### Figure 14-6. A secured public cluster; security rules control what outside sources can access the cluster and which ports are available ##### Your Drifting IP Address If your local computer has a fixed IP address assigned to it, from your ISP or your work organization, then maintaining security rules that are pinned to your local computer is easy. Often this is not the case, and over time your IP address will change. It's up to you to watch for that to happen and update your security rules. If SSH access spontaneously stops working, check if you have a new IP address. The cluster can be configured with authentication and authorization, using Kerberos for example, as an additional layer of protection. This is not a topological choice, but is very effective in further locking down a cluster. _Hadoop Security_ by Ben Spivey and Joey Echeverria (O'Reilly) covers "Kerberizing" clusters and many other security topics in great detail. ## Gateway Instances To make a secured public cluster even more secure, you can limit its availability to clients. For example, the HTTP port for the namenode does not need to be directly accessible from outside the cluster; you can use SSH tunneling or a SOCKS proxy to reach it indirectly. It is harder to reach it, but the attack surface of the cluster is reduced, since communications are now encrypted and authenticated with SSH. It's one thing to want to reach an HTTP port on a cluster with a browser, but another to run a MapReduce job. Client applications do need direct access to work effectively. The strategy here is to only allow client applications to run on designated resources that are specifically configured to have direct access to the cluster. The resources might not even run any cluster daemons, but are there purely for using the cluster. Such a resource running in the cloud provider is called a _gateway instance_ , because it provides a gateway for accessing the cluster. Figure 14-7 shows the addition of a gateway instance to a secured public cluster. Access from the internet to the cluster is normally only through the gateway instance, although it still may be possible to reach the cluster directly. ###### Figure 14-7. A secured public cluster with a gateway instance Use of gateway instances is less convenient. No longer do users simply run jobs from their local computer or their favorite nearby server; they must connect to a gateway instance, potentially copying their application over, and work from there. Server applications that use a backing Hadoop cluster must be installed out in the cloud provider on gateway instances, instead of on on-premises hardware. They, in turn, must enforce their own security using TLS, passwords, and/or other measures. ## The Private Cluster A gateway instance can be viewed as a kind of bastion, a fortified and controlled entry point for working with a cluster. With gateway instances in place, cluster instances running Hadoop daemons no longer need to be accessible at all from the internet. A private cluster topology places all of the instances that constitute the cluster in one private subnet. The only way to access the instances is through other subnets. Some of those may in turn be private, but at least one of them, somewhere down the line, is public and hosts gateway instances. Cluster users only ever directly connect to the gateway instances which, ensconced in the cloud provider and locked down, safely access the cluster. A private cluster is illustrated in Figure 14-8. Access to the cluster is only possible through the gateway instance, and access from the internet is routed only to the gateway instance. ###### Figure 14-8. A private cluster A private cluster does not strictly require additional security measures to be implemented, such as TLS or Kerberos, because all communications are either contained within its subnet or on controlled paths to client applications. The cloud provider shields the "soft underbelly" of the cluster from the outside. You may still need to, or want to, implement those measures, depending on the nature of the data that the cluster manages and the number and skill of the users of the cluster. Administrators can still access cluster instances by tunneling or proxying through gateway instances to the relevant ports. ## Cluster Access to the Internet and Cloud Provider Services The preceding topologies assume that the cluster doesn't initiate interactions with the outside world, but this assumption does not hold true in many real-world deployments. For example, a job executing on a cluster may reach out to a website or to a database running outside the cloud provider to pull down data for analysis. A different job could rely on another cloud provider service, such as object storage, and calls to those service endpoints might be routed outside of the private subnet. Fortunately, it isn't necessary to open the cluster all the way back up to the internet to satisfy these situations. If a cluster is running in a public subnet, the security rules for outbound traffic can be fashioned to allow exactly the connections that jobs in the cluster need. If there's confidence that the cluster will not be used maliciously, all outbound traffic can be permitted. A fully locked down private subnet permits no outbound traffic, though, except to gateway instances in order to deliver results. Those gateway instances run in a public subnet, with access to the outside world, so they can be used in routes the cluster uses to reach out. Sometimes, client applications that make use of the cluster can arbitrate that access themselves, so there is no additional work to be done; otherwise, a gateway instance needs to be set up, this time to serve the cluster's needs, and not just users' needs. One general solution to this problem is to set up a gateway instance as a network address translation (NAT) instance. Like a home router, a NAT instance provides controlled access outside of an isolated network. It must run in a public subnet in order to do its job, but cluster instances only need to talk to the NAT instance, and are not themselves directly exposed. For example, if a job running on the cluster needs to save a data blob to the cloud provider's object storage service, then the request sent to the storage service is routed to the NAT instance, which then handles sending it on to the service. A proxy instance is a similar solution. Instead of performing NAT, a proxy instance runs a proxy server, such as a SOCKS server, which forwards any requests from the cluster out and returns the results. This could be considered more heavyweight than a NAT instance. Cloud providers support NAT and proxying in different ways: * EC2 provides both _NAT instances_ and newer _NAT gateways_. A NAT instance is an EC2 instance that launches from a special AMI containing network configuration scripts that, on launch, set up the instance to perform NAT. A NAT gateway is a more abstract element that EC2 automatically manages; it is the newer and usually the better choice. * GCE does not have first-class support for NAT instances, but supports creating either a NAT instance that uses iptables or a proxy instance that uses Squid to enable access from a private subnet to the internet. * Azure automatically uses Source Network Address Translation (SNAT) to support outbound connections. If the virtual machine is under a load balancer with a public IP address, the connection is made through the load balancer's IP address; otherwise, a temporary, unconfigurable public IP address is associated with the connection. Sometimes a NAT or proxy instance is not necessary, because it is possible to run part of a cluster service on a gateway instance directly. A good example of this is Flume, which uses agent processes to accept incoming data and save it to HDFS. Flume agents can run on gateway instances in a public subnet, thereby allowing external sources to deliver data to them directly, but also having a controlled outbound path into the cluster on the private subnet to save that data (or to other agents, depending on the flow architecture). # Geographic Considerations The topologies developed in this chapter are all logically defined, without concern for where the availability zones in a cluster's subnet exist in the real world. It is not possible to completely ignore this aspect of cluster topology, but fortunately it does not have a large impact on it. ## Regions The guidance for cluster topologies across regions is simple: each cluster should reside in just one region. As described in "Regions", network speeds are too slow and data transfer costs are too high to make cross-region topologies practical. Moreover, it is essentially impossible to construct a single working cluster in separate regions where the instances all reside in private subnets, as heavy amounts of NAT or proxying would be necessary for the large volume of traffic between cluster daemons. ## Availability Zones Most clusters will exist in a single availability zone. A cluster that spans multiple availability zones should be set up for high availability (see Chapter 9) in order to cope with the loss of a zone hosting the namenode or resource manager. Under high availability, it is possible to have the two namenodes and two resource managers in separate availability zones. ###### Warning See "Planning HA in the Cloud" and "Availability Zones" for discussions on the price and performance trade-offs of running a cluster that spans availability zones. The higher costs and lower performance that come with such a cluster may drive you to avoid it altogether, making network topology choices moot. In any of these cases, clusters can reside in private subnets and rely on gateway instances for working with them. The important question becomes: where should gateway instances reside? A rule of thumb to follow is: _For the highest availability for use of the cluster, gateway instances should run in the same availability zones as the namenodes and resource managers._ Consider the case of a non-HA cluster running in a single availability zone. Its gateway instances could run in the same zone or in a separate zone. When they run in the same zone, and that zone drops out, then the gateway instances are unavailable, but so is the cluster, so the client applications would not work anyway. When they run in a separate zone, there are two ways to lose functionality: 1. The cluster's availability zone drops out but the gateway instances remain available. The client applications are only usable for the few features, if any, that do not require the cluster. 2. The gateway instances' availability zone drops out but the cluster remains available. However, without any gateway instances, the cluster is effectively unavailable, if it is running in a private subnet. There is limited advantage to running gateway instances separately from the cluster, so it is generally better to host them in the same availability zone for speed and ease of administration. However, if the client applications are still useful without the cluster, or if some basic "emergency use" gateway instances are running in the same zone as the cluster, then running the client applications separately could still be a good option. The possibilities for an HA cluster are a little more complex. Here, usually there are one or two key availability zones hosting namenodes and resource managers. If the namenodes and resource managers are all running in a single availability zone, then the calculus does not change compared to the non-HA case. If they are split across two availability zones, things become more interesting, because even if one zone drops out, the daemons in the other zone take over and the cluster remains available. One option for gateway instances for an HA cluster is to host them in a third availability zone. This way, no matter which of the two cluster's zones drops out, the cluster and its client applications remain available. There is only one set of client applications in existence, so managing them is straightforward. One downside, as in the non-HA case, is that if the third zone drops out, the cluster is still available yet unusable without gateway instances. Also, network speeds between the gateway instances and the cluster are worse, no matter the state of the availability zones. Another option is to include gateway instances in both of the key availability zones for the cluster. If one of the zones drops out, the client applications are still available and the cluster, configured for HA, still works, so there is no loss of functionality. Including instances in just one zone creates a new single point of failure for using the cluster, so it is better to use both. However, this complicates management of the gateway instances and client applications since there are two copies of them. Load balancing, application data replication, and other measures are necessary to create a seamless user experience. Still, this option ensures that the cluster is usable whenever it is available. # Starting Topologies For your first few clusters, it's reasonable to use a secured public cluster topology where only SSH access is required to a small number of bastion hosts. This topology is nearly as secure as a private cluster topology and takes less work to establish and maintain. Gateway instances can be deployed for hosting server applications, and those instances can be protected just like bastions. As you gain more experience deploying clusters in the cloud, you should think about moving to the private cluster topology for critical clusters. They are more difficult to administer, but experience gained along the way in configuring virtual networks and subnets and defining security rules will lessen the burden. Structurally, they are similar to public secured clusters, except that the gateway instances reside in a separate subnet from the cluster. You may come up with your own topologies. After all, the practice of deploying Hadoop in the cloud is still evolving, so there is yet room for new ideas. Good topologies will always follow the guiding principles that have been covered in this chapter: minimize outside access, use controlled access points, prefer stronger modes of authentication, and ensure adequate performance. # Higher-Level Planning The chapters so far in Part V of this book have focused on understanding low-level concepts for designing clusters and making the right choices for cost, performance, and security on a cluster-by-cluster basis. There are concepts at a higher level to consider as well, which come to the forefront once you have become somewhat adept at creating clusters and have resolved many of those low-level questions. Chapter 15 takes a wider view and considers options for how all of your cloud clusters can be managed. Topologies for clusters running in multiple subnets are not considered here, since they have cost and performance problems. Establishing VPN access to the cluster is an alternative that preserves convenience. It is theoretically possible to spread out the active and standby daemons across up to four availability zones, but those scenarios are exceedingly rare and not explored here. # Chapter 15. Patterns for Cluster Usage Eventually you, or your organization, will be at the point where the use of clusters running in your cloud provider is no longer just for research or proof-of-concept work. The important questions now change from whether it is a good idea at all to how best to take advantage of the clusters: * When should clusters be created and how long should they last? * Who should be able to use them? * How should they be created? * How much work should be sent to the cloud? Every organization has different answers to these questions, but knowing that there are choices to be made helps you formulate the plan to get from experimentation to regular use of cloud clusters. # Long-Running or Transient? Of all the questions, the one that tends to come up the earliest and has the most effect on the answers for others is the question of when. When do you create clusters running in your cloud provider, and relatedly, how long should those clusters be available? There are two dominant answers to the question. The first, which is most like the way that on-prem clusters are used, is that clusters should be set up in advance and tended so that they are always available for anyone to use. Administrators monitor them and resolve problems as they arise, perhaps even increasing or decreasing their sizes or adjusting the mix of service components in response to demand. Meanwhile, users coordinate to work on them, each sharing the storage and computation facilities with everyone else. This arrangement can be called _long-running clusters_. The second, opposing answer is that clusters should be set up when they are needed and destroyed when they are done with their work or there is no longer demand for them. Each cluster encompasses the storage, compute power, and Hadoop components necessary for the jobs at hand, as laid out by the (usually automated) systems that built it. If the cluster experiences problems, it is destroyed and replaced by a working one. If it is not powerful enough, a new and larger one replaces it. Users can share clusters or have their own, but overall cloud resource usage is managed across all users. This arrangement can be called _transient clusters_. Most organizations start out in the cloud thinking mostly about long-running clusters, because they are most like on-prem clusters in how they are managed. An existing Hadoop administration team can apply most of their expertise right away; it's as if the instances are simply in a server room they cannot physically access, but otherwise much like any other resources to manage. Users who are already familiar with the standard practices for on-prem clusters can easily transition to cloud clusters that run in the same way. It's not long before it becomes obvious that long-running clusters can be a waste of money. For example, why run a 20-node cluster all day, every day, when it's only used for 8 hours each work day? Instead, the cluster should be shut down somehow, so that charges aren't incurred every night while the cluster is idle. So, the next stage in the evolution of cloud cluster usage is to have clusters reserved for long spans of time, but running only during certain time periods when demand is anticipated. "Stopping and Starting Entire Clusters" explains more about this mode of operation, including some caveats that come along with it such as the disappearance of ephemeral storage and shifting IP addresses. Beyond those issues lies another problem: What do users do when they want to use a cluster that is stopped? Perhaps they are working outside the normal work day, to finish work during some crunch time. The problem is exacerbated for teams spread across time zones, in which case there may not be a lot of common downtime. How can these users get working, or do they have to wait until the morning in your time zone? There's also the issue of dealing with workloads that are still in progress on a cluster when it's time to stop it. Even if it is somehow feasible to "freeze" these workloads, the users waiting for the results are out of luck and have to wait even longer for the cluster to restart. A less severe tactic, similar to wholesale stopping and starting, is to reduce the size of clusters during off-peak hours. A Hadoop cluster can cope with the loss of YARN node managers and, to a certain extent based on replication, HDFS datanodes, while continuing to function. Clusters can therefore be shrunk and grown at certain times of the day or in response to demand, which naturally reduces at off-peak times. _Elastic_ clusters like these do a good job of balancing efficiency with availability, but require the help of automation to trigger size adjustments, to reduce or eliminate the burden of performing the work, and to ensure data is managed safely. After all, there is more to adding and removing cluster instances than just allocating or terminating them in the cloud provider. Instead of focusing on the clusters, and trying to figure out how to run them so that users can get their work done, it can be a good idea to focus on the users, and figure out how to run clusters that cater to them. This change in perspective seeds the idea of creating entire clusters on demand. Why stop and start the same old clusters over and over, when fresh ones can be created and terminated whenever you like? Why struggle to get just the right sizes and components in place, when each cluster can be tailor-made from the start with exactly what users want? Why try to guess when clusters are needed, when they can be made at will? The idea of transient clusters isn't necessarily obvious at first, because it is not practical with expensive, slow-changing on-prem hardware. It also requires even more automation than elastic clusters, since it involves creating and destroying entire clusters, each with potentially different characteristics; this is much more drastic than just adding or removing instances. Finally, it creates a new requirement to store critical data somewhere outside the clusters. Fortunately, as described in Chapter 5, there are plenty of options for cloud data storage, and ways to connect to it, like the AWS s3a connector used in "Hive on S3", that merge well with workloads. Users do have to adjust their workloads, and their thinking, to have data flow from storage to transient clusters and back again. However, transient clusters solve many of the problems with long-running clusters. They help to minimize expenses, virtually eliminate ongoing maintenance with the help of robust automation, and avoid struggling with unpredictable times of peak demand. Both long-running clusters and transient clusters can work well in the cloud, and each mode of operation has its benefits and costs. However, of the two, the benefits to using transient clusters can move you and your organization to a higher level of efficiency and performance. # Single-User or Multitenant? A cluster for each user? That concept doesn't seem like it could be efficient at all, at first. Yet, once an organization becomes proficient at using transient clusters, it's a possibility worth considering. Imagine a system where every data scientist and every analyst can have their own bespoke cluster, or even clusters. Since each cluster is made according to the user's specifications, it's much more likely that workloads will succeed for everyone. Since they do not have to share local storage, there is no danger of data being mixed inappropriately or accidentally overwritten. If a cluster starts failing, due to hardware problems or data corruption, it can be torn down and recreated, because it's transient anyway, and only the cluster's single user is affected. Single-user clusters shift the problem of resource sharing out of each cluster and into the system that allots clusters to users. Because users are no longer sharing cluster instances and disk storage, overall resource requirements can slightly increase. However, because each user doesn't need clusters at all most of the time, resource requirements can decrease, if the clusters are managed effectively (see "Self-Service or Managed?"). Confining users to their own clusters leads to effective isolation of their workloads, taking advantage of the strong network and security capabilities of the cloud provider. The problem of preventing users on a shared cluster from accidentally accessing each other's data goes away. This can help to satisfy security requirements for that data. If single-user clusters are too extreme of an idea, then you could consider per-team clusters, where only a few users have access to a cluster, instead of just one user. It is easier for a small team of users to coordinate among themselves to share cluster resources than for an entire organization. If they all have the necessary authorizations to access cluster data, security requirements within the cluster are relaxed. The fewer users that have access to a cluster, the more desirable it is for the cluster to be transient. A cluster for a single user should be limited to his or her immediate needs, so that its resources can be returned in good time to the pool for others to use. On the other hand, a multitenant cluster should be long-running, since more people rely on it, and collectively use it more often. # Self-Service or Managed? Suppose that you are thinking about taking advantage of the flexibility of your cloud provider to create many clusters, some of which are transient, and some of which are for only one or a few users. Whose job is it, exactly, to create and destroy all of these clusters, and how do they know what to do? In keeping with the questions considered so far, here are two possible answers. The more traditional one is that cluster management is performed by a single controlling entity, perhaps a cloud team, on behalf of the entire organization. A user requests a cluster, describing exactly how big it should be, what Hadoop components must be installed, and who needs access. The cloud team weighs the request against others based on its priority, the clusters that have already been allocated, and other factors. Finally, it creates the cluster and provides its addresses and credentials back to the requester. The cluster is assigned a lifetime and is destroyed when it elapses or when the user indicates that the cluster can be terminated. The function of managing cluster allocations is certainly one that can be automated, even beyond the core process of creating and destroying clusters. Monitoring systems can track how many instances of what types are being used, and other factors, in order to keep the overall cloud usage within budget. Watchdog processes can clean up clusters automatically after their lifetimes or once they are idle for a while. After automating business processes like these, there might not be much left for a human to do. If that's so, then why not take humans out of the loop completely, and make the entire process user-driven? A self-service system parallels the consoles and APIs of the cloud providers, working on the level of entire clusters instead of instances and networks and Hadoop components. As is the case with transient clusters, there is a cost to create such a system, but it can lead to increased user satisfaction and greater efficiency in cloud resource usage. Even with maximized automation around cluster creation, careful monitoring is still vital. It's a boon to users to be granted the power to create their own clusters, but users can forget about them and leave them idle and costing money, reserve too many resources, or misuse what they've been given. At least a light touch of oversight is still necessary to ensure the health of all clusters and to ward off unexpectedly high cloud provider bills. No matter which choice you pick, it's a reasonable idea to offer only predefined cluster types for users to select. The assumption is that the grand majority of users can make do with a typical, say, "Hive cluster" or "Spark cluster." They needn't be concerned with the details of which network the cluster resides in, or what the security rules are, or even which instance types to use; those can be determined at an organizational level, taking into account the cloud budget, the infrastructure that's already been established, and technical recommendations. Users should be free instead to devote their attention to their workloads and the jobs that they want to get done. # Cloud-Only or Hybrid? Despite all of the benefits cluster users can reap from using cloud clusters, some may be stuck on-prem. A common reason is data security: it may be necessary by law, regulation, or contract to keep data within local data centers with the approved geographic location, physical security, and network defenses. Another reason is that your organization may not have enough money to afford sending everyone to the cloud. Another is that licenses for essential software used in clusters may require it to be installed only within your own facilities. The question that is relevant here is: How much of your Hadoop work should be shipped off to cloud clusters? Two simple answers, of course, are "all of it" and "none of it." A third is "some of it," but this answer goes beyond just running some clusters in the cloud provider and others on-prem. Data analysts prefer to think in terms of their workloads, and not in terms of the clusters they run on. It's why single-user, on-demand clusters are so appealing to them, and it is also key to seeing that a single workload could be arranged to be performed partially on-prem and partially in the cloud. An architecture that works in this way is called a _hybrid cloud_. A workload running in a hybrid cloud is not a single, enclosed entity. It would usually have a primary segment running on-prem, and secondary segments running in cloud clusters. The idea is to offload processing to the cloud where it makes sense to do so, so that the local demand for resources is lessened. At dividing points in the overall workload, data and logic are transferred up to the cloud, and then results are pulled back. A hybrid cloud certainly uses less cloud resources than running everything in the cloud, but it does incur data transfer costs, since providers charge for data being sent to and from instances and storage services. Rates are usually quite modest, but it is still wise to design hybrid workloads so that they minimize data transfer. Of course, excessive data transfer stages also extend processing time. Here are some examples of workloads that could benefit from a hybrid cloud architecture: * Regulators have determined that data being processed must remain on machines within a locked server room. Processing unrelated to the sensitive data has already been migrated elsewhere, but things are still running too slowly. Some of the work that is peripheral to the sensitive data and that doesn't use it directly is relocated to ancillary jobs in the cloud, which eases the load on the server room. To send even more work to the cloud, identifiers in the data are replaced with anonymizing tokens locally; the scrubbed data is deemed safe to process in the cloud, and other local processes de-anonymize the resulting data once it returns. While overall the amount of work has increased, large portions have been offloaded to the cloud, where it is easier and cheaper to expand. * There already exists a large on-prem data processing system, perhaps using Hadoop clusters, which works well. In order to expand its capacity for running new analyses, rather than adding more on-prem hardware, Hadoop clusters can be created in the cloud. Data needed for the analyses is copied up to the Hadoop clusters where it is analyzed, and the results are sent back on-prem. The cloud clusters can be brought up and torn down in response to demand, which helps to keep costs lower. * Vast amounts of data are streaming in, and it all needs to be centralized and processed. To avoid having one single choke point where all of the raw data is sent, a set of cloud clusters can share the load, perhaps each in a geographic location convenient to where the data is generated. These clusters can perform pre-processing of the data, such as cleaning and summarization, thereby spreading the work out. The preprocessed data is finally sent on the final centralized system to be merged. Notice that the last two examples are not situations where some portion of the workload _must_ remain on-prem. You could imagine alternative layouts where all of the processing occurs in the cloud, and only final results are returned, if ever. Just because you can move completely into the cloud does not mean you need to, and a hybrid cloud architecture is one way to take a measured approach that balances the benefits of the cloud with your budget and the time you have to invest. # Watching Cost A key factor for selecting a cluster usage pattern for your organization is cost. No pattern has a guaranteed cost advantage over another, because so much depends on when and how clusters are used. It takes research and experimentation to find the patterns that give you the most value for what you are paying your cloud provider. Table 15-1 compares the patterns explained in this chapter through highlighting how they can either save you money or cost you money. Table 15-1. Comparing cluster usage patterns by cost Pattern \| Possible savings \| Possible extra cost ---\|---\|--- Long-running clusters \| Less time waiting for clusters to start and stop, lower resource demand \| Wasted idle time, maintenance burden, growing size over time Transient clusters \| Minimal maintenance, high efficiency \| Spin-up time, higher resource demand, data transfer to permanent storage Single-user clusters \| Simpler security, smaller size \| Higher overall resource demand Multitenant clusters \| Efficient use of resources per user \| Complex management, security risks Self-service clusters \| Efficiency of on-demand creation \| Need to maintain tooling, waste through overuse Managed clusters \| Easy alignment with budget constraints \| Waiting time for usage, administrative effort Cloud-only clusters \| Data transfers stay within the cloud, minimal on-prem costs, integration with provider \| Security risks, higher cloud expenditure Hybrid clusters \| Lower cloud expenditure, simpler security \| Complex workflows, on-prem maintenance, data transfer costs While cost is indeed a critical factor for settling on the best way to use the cloud, it is not the only one; fundamentally clusters need to be up and ready when needed. Focusing only on spending on the cloud provider may lead to the implementation of inefficient patterns whose wastefulness outweigh the savings, either in time or money. # The Rising Need for Automation Running clusters on a cloud provider opens up new options for how to architect your clusters, while making it easier to exercise other options that are already available on-prem. The best choices for your organization can depend on outside factors and on your budget, but cloud providers can support you no matter which paths you choose. Some of the answers to the questions examined in this chapter drive the need for automation. Even if you have been performing some of the practices described here manually so far, having a cloud provider at your disposal tends to increase cluster usage, simply because of the lower barrier for setting up new clusters. It would quickly grow tiresome to manually create clusters in the face of increased user demand and adjudicate who gets which clusters when. Chapter 16 kicks off the discussion of ways to manage clusters using scripts, tools, services, and cloud provider features. The first technique, that of using images, is a straightforward and highly effective initial way to get more efficient at building more clusters. Sometimes these are instead called _ephemeral clusters_ , but to avoid confusion the term _ephemeral_ in this book is applied only to ephemeral storage (see "Block Storage"). For example, simply dropping HDFS datanodes out of a cluster can lead to data loss if blocks are under-replicated or if the dropped datanodes house all of a block's replicas. Shrinking must be done in a controlled fashion to preserve data. Some may use the term "hybrid" to refer to elastic clusters that have some instances that exist for the life of the cluster and others that come and go to adjust capacity. # Chapter 16. Using Images for Cluster Management It is worthwhile to go through the exercise of building out a Hadoop cluster "by hand," as laid out in Part III, in order to understand how instance allocation, networking, and security rules all play their parts. Once you are building clusters over and over again, though, you'll want to be much more efficient. You don't usually need to establish virtual networks, routing, and security rules for every new cluster. They can all happily coexist within one or a few networks and abide by the same rules. Each cluster needs its own instances, but starting those up is also straightforward, either by using a provider console or by a single API call. It's Hadoop installation and configuration that takes most of the time. One method to speed things up is to create images for cluster instances with most of the installation and configuration work baked in. Instances based on those images can already have Hadoop components almost ready to go, requiring only a minimum of additional configuration to become fully functional. Stamping out cluster instances like this is not only faster, but results in fewer mistakes or unintentional variations. It also lends itself to automation; you could imagine it as part of a complete automatic process for building Hadoop clusters. Images can be shared. That means that a valuable base image for creating Hadoop cluster instances can benefit not just who built it, but their friends, coworkers, and even their customers. This chapter starts out by describing the structure of an image, and then covers creating and maintaining them directly and through the use of Packer. At the end, tooling options for creating and managing clusters are described, along with their relationships to images. # The Structure of an Image The concept of images was introduced in "Images". What makes up an image varies from cloud provider to cloud provider. Fundamentally, though, an image is a set of one or more disk snapshots along with metadata that makes the snapshots available for launching new instances. The snapshot of the root disk, which houses the operating system, is the essential ingredient in an image. Images can include snapshots of additional data disks that are always to be associated with instances launched from the image. The metadata about an image holds its name, describes its features and limitations, links to the snapshots for the image's disks, and may include permissions or other guidance on using it. Each cloud provider offers a starter set of images for many different operating systems. The operating systems are preconfigured to work within the provider infrastructure, primarily so that they can be seamlessly integrated into virtual networks. Usually, the cloud provider's own client utilities are preinstalled as well, but for all practical purposes they are uncustomized, vanilla installations of the operating systems. Because base images are so minimal in content, they frequently serve as the basis for new, custom images. For example, a software vendor may start with an instance created from a standard Ubuntu image, install its own software on it and configure it properly, and then create a new image. You can imagine a custom image, then, that already has Hadoop components installed and mostly ready to run. ## EC2 Images An EC2 image, called an _Amazon Machine Image_ or _AMI_ , consists of the snapshot for a root volume, permissions for who can use the image, and a block device mapping laying out additional EBS or instance store volumes to attach, based on their own snapshots. The root volume for an image can be hosted on either EBS, making it persistent, or the instance store, making it ephemeral. You should always use EBS-backed instances for Hadoop clusters. They are created faster, have larger root volume capacity, can be stopped and started without losing data, and are stored more efficiently and thus more cheaply within AWS. Permissions are applied to each AMI to determine who can use them. By default, those you create yourself are private, but you can grant permission to specific users or to the public. You are not charged for others' use of your AMI, only for storing it. ## GCE Images A GCE image consists of a boot loader and templates for the operating system and root filesystem as a single persistent disk. Images can be grouped into _image families_ as a framework for versioning them; this way, it is easy to figure out, for example, the latest image available for a specific purpose. GCE images can be shared in one of two ways. The simpler way is to grant other Google Cloud Platform users the necessary permission to use images in the image's project. While this is straightforward, the permission allows access to all images in the project. The more complex but fine-grained way is to save images to Google Cloud Storage as compressed "raw disk" images. Access controls in Google Cloud Storage govern the saved image files and therefore dictate who may use them. ## Azure Images An Azure image is comprised of the snapshot for a root volume, optional snapshots for additional volumes, and a Resource Manager template defining metadata for the image. Each disk snapshot is formatted as a virtual hard disk (VHD) file, which means that it is possible to supply your own VHD files created outside Azure as the basis for new images. While images available in the Azure Marketplace are treated as single units, your own images are managed as the component VHD files and accompanying template. The VHD files underlying an Azure image are kept in Azure Storage, and so they may be shared by applying the appropriate permissions to those files, along with distributing the associated template. Users of the image may update the template, which is written in JSON, for their own needs before creating new virtual machines from it and the disk snapshots. # Image Preparation Suppose that you have an instance running that is just how you like it, and you want to be able to create new instances from the same pattern. If you worked your way through Part III, then you have a cluster's worth of these instances. It's a lot of work, and almost all of it would need to be done again for your next cluster. Even just building the first cluster, there were a lot of steps that had to be repeated on every instance. To save time and effort, then, you'll want to make an image of one of the cluster instances. For easy management later, it's good to work with a single image for any cluster instance. They all have the same software installed, and most Hadoop configuration files are identical, or nearly so, across all of the instances. A useful variation for complex clusters is to have one image per role, to cover any special infrastructure choices you make. For example, an image for a worker node may call for extra volumes to be attached to be used for HDFS storage, something manager or gateway nodes don't usually need. Images do not mandate the size of the instance types that may be used for them. The same image can be used for a small gateway node and a heavy manager node, since images focus on the disk storage used for an instance. There may be instance types that are incompatible with an image, but normally many of them apply. So, decide which cluster instance or instances you'd like to image. You'll want to make changes to it to make it generic, but there's plenty to leave just the way it is, including these items: * The JDK installation * The Hadoop user accounts, such as "hdfs" and "yarn" * The installed Hadoop software * The Hadoop configuration files and most of the properties in them (read on for exceptions) * Directories created for Hadoop There are some files and configurations you can keep, but you might wish to change for improved security: SSH keys for the Hadoop user accounts The keys are necessary to control Hadoop services from the manager instance or instances, but there is no reason that every future cluster has to use the same set of keys. Leaving the keys in place would let a manager instance in one cluster connect via SSH to instances in another cluster, which may be a security issue for you. The SSH key used to connect to the instances from your own local computer, however, needs to remain, or else you will be unable to reach your cluster. The file _$HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys_ in each Hadoop user account This keeps track of which SSH keys are trusted for logging in. If you dispose of the SSH keys for the user accounts, then this file should be cleaned out to no longer include them. It does need to retain the SSH key used for outside connections from your local computer. Finally, there are some things that should be changed, as they are specific to the cluster: IP addresses in the Hadoop configuration files A new cluster built from the image will have different IP addresses, so replace those in _core-site.xml_ , _yarn-site.xml_ , and the others with tokens indicating what they should be. If someone uses the image and forgets to fill in the token, it will be obvious in error messages. For example, you should change the "fs.defaultFS" property in _core-site.xml_ to something like "hdfs://${manager.ip}:8020/". ZooKeeper configuration files The file _zoo.cfg_ contains the IP addresses for each quorum server, so those should be replaced with tokens like other IP addresses. The content of _myid_ , which unfortunately must be unique per server, should be replaced as well, or else the file should just be removed. Local data and code If you uploaded files to the cluster for import into HDFS, uploaded job code to run, or extracted files from the cluster to look at or save, they should be wiped away so that new clusters do not waste space carrying them forward. In addition, any data still resident in cluster data stores such as HDFS should be deleted and/or purged. Each image should provide a clean starting state for new clusters. The file _$HOME/.ssh/known_hosts_ in each Hadoop user account Because IP addresses will be different in new clusters, the mapping between hosts and IP addresses in this file will be obsolete or, if some IP address does happen to get reused, incorrect, causing SSH connections to fail. The file should be deleted. It's easy to miss a change or two when preparing an instance. Fortunately, the process can be performed iteratively, where each image is better than its predecessor. As time goes on, the needs for the image will evolve anyway, perhaps to include more Hadoop components or third-party applications. ## Wait, I'm Using That! Obviously, preparing an instance to be imaged as just described will break it as a cluster instance. If you cannot spare the instance, there are other ways to proceed. The simplest alternative is to image the instance as it is, and then create a separate instance from the image to do the preparation work. You will need to stop the original instance in order to create the image, so that it is guaranteed that there are no ongoing writes to the disk that could cause a disk snapshot to be corrupted. So, this doesn't require breaking a cluster, but does require degrading it. A worker node is a good candidate here, since Hadoop can recover when one drops out. Another alternative is to create a new instance from the original image used for the cluster and work through the Hadoop installation and configuration steps from the beginning, modifying them here and there so that the end result is correct for imaging. This method is attractive since it eliminates the possibility that anything will be left over from the real cluster, but it takes more time, and it's easy to miss some steps. Eventually you will want to automate this manual, error-prone work. See "Automated Image Creation with Packer" for how to get started with using Packer for image creation; for now, imaging an existing instance yields quick results. # Image Creation Once the instance is prepared, it can be imaged. The procedure for doing so varies depending on your cloud provider. ## Image Creation in AWS Creating an AMI from an EBS-backed instance is straightforward. First, stop the instance to be sure that there is no changing disk state. Then, locate your instance in the list of EC2 instances and select it. Click the Actions button and select Image, then Create Image from the drop-down menu. In the Create Image dialog, as shown in Figure 16-1, give the new image a name and description. The table of instance volumes lists each attached volume that will be snapshotted as part of the image creation process. You can add more volumes, either as EBS snapshots or as ephemeral instance store volumes. Finally, click Create Image to create a new AMI. A snapshot is taken of the root volume and any other attached EBS volumes, and AMI metadata is generated and registered with AWS. The process can take some time, mostly due to the snapshot work. Eventually, the AMI will appear in the list of images shown when you select AMIs from the EC2 menu. ###### Figure 16-1. The form for creating a new AMI ## Image Creation in Google Cloud Platform An image can only be created from an unattached root disk. The first step in creating an image from an instance is to ensure that the root disk for the instance is not automatically deleted when the instance itself is terminated. In the Google Cloud Platform console, select VM instances from the Google Cloud Platform menu. Follow the hyperlink for the name of the instance to image, so that a page with its details is displayed. Look for the "Boot disk and local disks" table, as shown in Figure 16-2; below it is a checkbox labeled "Delete boot disk when instance is deleted." If the checkbox is checked, then select Edit from the menu at the top of the page, clear the checkbox, and click the Save button. ###### Figure 16-2. The disk attached to an image and the cleared deletion checkbox Now it is safe to delete the instance by using the Delete option in the top menu. If the confirmation dialog includes a checkbox for deleting the boot disk, be sure it is not checked. Select Disks from the Google Cloud Platform menu. The table of disks should include the former root disk for the instance. Eventually the "In use by" column for the disk will be empty, as shown in Figure 16-3, indicating that the disk is no longer attached to its former instance. Note the name of the disk. ###### Figure 16-3. The unattached disk ready for imaging Select Images from the Google Cloud Platform menu. The many public images available from Google are listed, but you will be making your own private image. Select the Create Image option from the menu at the top of the page. Fill in the form for the new image, as shown in Figure 16-4, including its name, family, and description. Select Disk for the source of the image, and pick the disk from the recently deleted instance as the "Source disk." Click Create to create the new image. ###### Figure 16-4. The form for creating a new image in GCE Return to the Images page. Eventually, the new image appears in the table of available images. At this point, if you wish, you can return to the list of disks and delete the snapshot used as the foundation for the image. ## Image Creation in Azure Creating an image in Azure is a largely manual process that does not involve the Azure portal. The first step, for a Linux virtual machine, is to "deprovision" the instance to be imaged by running a command on it. This eliminates data on disk that would be problematic for new instances created from the image: $ sudo waagent -deprovision+user -force The remaining steps require use of the Azure CLI, properly configured to work with your account. The three steps to execute, after ensuring that the CLI is in Resource Manager mode, are to deallocate (stop) the virtual machine, then "generalize" it, and finally capture it as VHD snapshots and a JSON template. The snapshots are saved in Azure Blob Storage and named with the prefix you provide: # switch to Resource Manager mode $ azure config mode arm # stop the virtual machine $ azure vm deallocate -g my_first_cluster -n manager # generalize the virtual machine $ azure vm generalize -g my_first_cluster -n manager # capture its disks and generate a template $ azure vm capture -g my_first_cluster -n manager -p snap -t manager.json # Image Use It's simple to use your new image in AWS and Google Cloud Platform. When launching an instance, instead of selecting a standard base image for your instances, select your own. Other than that, the procedure for launching instances does not change. In Azure, use the JSON template generated by the image creation process to launch a new virtual machine. This can be done from the Azure CLI. It is up to you to define additional resources needed for the virtual machine that otherwise can be automatically created by the Azure portal when creating virtual machines. You can target an existing virtual network and subnet for the new virtual machine, but you must allocate a NIC and, if you wish, a public IP address. These resources can be created in the Azure portal or through the Azure CLI. After creating the NIC, find its ID, a path-like string, which you then must supply to the interactive virtual instance creation process: # create a public IP address $ azure network public-ip create my_first_cluster manager3_ip -l "eastus" # create a NIC that uses the public IP address $ azure network nic create my_first_cluster manager3_nic \ > -m cluster_net -k default -p manager3_ip -l "eastus" # find the ID of the new NIC $ azure network nic show my_first_cluster manager3_nic # create the new virtual machine from the template $ azure group deployment create my_first_cluster my_image_deployment \ > -t manager.json info: Executing command group deployment create info: Supply values for the following parameters vmName: manager_3 adminUserName: root adminPassword: password networkInterfaceId: /subscriptions/.../networkInterfaces/myNic Once your instances are ready, connect to them via SSH using the same key used to access the original instance. Reconfiguring instances launched from a Hadoop image takes much less work than starting from scratch: * If necessary, generate new SSH keys for the Hadoop user accounts and add them to the necessary _authorized_keys_ files. Then, use them to connect from the manager instance to each worker instance in order to populate the _known_hosts_ files. * Edit the Hadoop configuration files with the private IP addresses for the new cluster instances, replacing the placeholder tokens. * Edit or recreate the _myid_ files for the ZooKeeper servers. * Edit the database server hostname for the remote Hive metastore. ## Scripting Hadoop Configuration The preceding steps should only take a few moments, but since they are well-defined and only depend on a few pieces of information, they are ripe for scripting. Appendix B provides example scripts for automating the work. # Image Maintenance A custom image remains available until you decide to deregister or delete it. Your cloud provider charges for the storage used by the snapshots backing the image, and some also charge a small amount for the image definition itself, but instances launched from an image are charged for separately. In fact, even after an image is no longer available, instances launched from it keep running. It's common to want to improve an image, to address problems with it, or to add new stock configurations or installed software. Because snapshots are immutable, you cannot update the image itself. Instead, launch an instance based on the image, make the desired changes to it, and then create a new image from the instance. ###### Tip Under GCE, successive images can be placed in the same image family. This mechanism gives you the option to launch the most recent (and likely "best") image in a family. It may not be long before you have made a lot of images, and you will want to consider ways to track them and to enable users to understand what they contain and which ones to use. Cloud providers do not provide services to help with these tasks, so here are some ideas to get you started: * Use image names and tags in well-defined ways to describe image contents and purposes. * Maintain an image registry, using a spreadsheet, wiki, or simple web page. * Wrap tools that automate image creation in calls to databases holding image information. # Image Deletion Over time, then, images tend to pile up. To save money and make tracking images easier, you'll want to get rid of older images that should no longer be in use. As with image creation, the image deletion process varies across cloud providers. ## Image Deletion in AWS Select Images from the EC2 menu, and highlight the image to delete in the list of images. Look at its details and note the IDs of the snapshots for the root EBS volume and any other attached EBS volumes listed as "Block Devices"; each ID begins with "snap-". Then, click the Actions button and select Deregister from the drop-down menu. A deregistered AMI is no longer available for use in launching new instances, but deregistration does not destroy the snapshots backing the former image. Select Snapshots from the EC2 menu to see the list of snapshots, select the snapshots used for the deregistered AMI, and select Delete from the Actions button drop-down menu. ## Image Deletion in Google Cloud Platform GCE lets you either _deprecate_ or _delete_ an image. A deprecated image can still be used, but does not appear by default in the list of available images. When an image is deprecated, an image must be named as its replacement. A deleted image, in contrast, is simply no longer available. To either deprecate or delete an image, select Images from the Google Cloud Platform menu. Select the image to work with, and select either Deprecate or Delete from the options in the menu at the top of the page. After confirming, the image will disappear from the list of images. To see a deprecated image once again, use the "Show deprecated images" link at the bottom of the list. ## Image Deletion in Azure To delete an image in Azure, simply discard the JSON template and delete the VHD files from storage. # Automated Image Creation with Packer Creating images manually is fine for small-scale or exploratory work, but a production environment requires speed, predictability, and robustness. Packer from HashiCorp is a leading tool for this purpose. It takes as input a JSON template describing how to build an image, runs through the steps as prescribed, and then creates a new image in the cloud provider. The template serves as one form of documentation for what the image contains, and it can be placed in version control for safekeeping and to track changes over time. Example 16-1 shows a simple Packer template that creates an AMI. ##### Example 16-1. Example Packer template { "variables": { "ami_name": null, "region": null, "source_ami": null, "ssh_username": null }, "builders": [{ "type": "amazon-ebs", "ami_name": "{{user `ami_name`}}", "instance_type": "m3.large", "region": "{{user `region`}}", "source_ami": "{{user `source_ami`}}", "ssh_pty": "true", "ssh_username": "{{user `ssh_username`}}" }], "provisioners": [{ "type": "shell", "inline": "sudo yum install --assumeyes wget" }] } A Packer template uses one or more _builders_ to build images for different platforms and tools that can use images. There are builders for creating images for EC2 and GCE and VHDs for Azure. Each builder requires information about the source image to work from. In the template in Example 16-1, the source AMI is specified as a variable passed to the template, along with other variables. _Provisioners_ in the template can run processes on the instances being used by the builders to perform installation and configuration tasks. Some provisioners use shell scripts, run either on the instances or locally, while others use common infrastructure automation tools like Ansible, Chef, and Puppet. The provisioner in Example 16-1 performs an installation of the `wget` utility on the build instance, so the final image will have it already installed. Packer can run on your local computer, remotely connecting to the cloud provider using credentials that you supply. Each builder accepts credentials differently; the EC2 builders look in a variety of typical locations for the access key ID and secret access key, including the environment: $ export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=... $ export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=... Assuming those keys have been set, the following command line works to build an image from the example template. It works in us-east-1 and selects a specific CentOS AMI as the source: $ packer build -var 'region=us-east-1' -var 'source_ami=ami-6d1c2007' \ > -var 'ami_name=PackerTest1' -var 'ssh_username=centos' packer.json Packer outputs progress as it builds and provisions, and then finally reports the ID of the new AMI. (Yours will be unique.) ==> Builds finished. The artifacts of successful builds are: --> amazon-ebs: AMIs were created: us-east-1: ami-5c29154b Packer has just done the work of creating an instance from a source image, installing software on it, and using it to create a new image. Along the way it handled deciding the choice of network and security rules for the temporary instance, generating an SSH key pair to use, and cleaning up after itself. Even for making simple images, automation has compelling advantages. The example template can be augmented to perform all of the work needed to create a base image for a Hadoop cluster; it's a matter of encoding the steps performed in Chapter 9 and elsewhere. Shell provisioners can perform software downloads and installations, file provisioners can copy up templates for configuration files, and other shell provisioners can use hands-off editing tools from `sed` up to Perl and Python to add and change configuration information. Unfortunately, Packer cannot do all of the work. Specifically, the information listed in "Image Use" still is not available until an actual cluster is being constructed. So, there is still room for automation outside of Packer to get to a complete, working Hadoop cluster in the cloud. # Automated Cloud Cluster Creation Cloud providers have their own services for automatically creating Hadoop clusters, some of which are described in "Hadoop Solutions from Cloud Providers". They present a more hands-off approach to cluster management, focusing instead on what you want to do with the clusters. If you are looking for a tool that builds cloud clusters that are more under your direct control, you have some choices. ## Cloudera Director Cloudera Director supports creating clusters in AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Azure. It can be run as a server process or through a standalone client, both of which are installed and run directly. Director handles creating instances and then installing Cloudera Manager, Cloudera's own cluster management tool, and the company's CDH distribution of Hadoop components. Once a cluster is created, Director can manage adding and removing instances from it, and terminate it when you are done with it. Director can manage many clusters at once, and leaves it up to the user to select the components and define the topology for each cluster. The Director client works with configuration files defining all aspects of the Cloudera Manager and cluster installations and configurations. The server supports a RESTful API that enables scripting, and Cloudera distributes Java and Python client libraries. ## Hortonworks Data Cloud Hortonworks Data Cloud (HDCloud) is an AWS Marketplace application that runs inside EC2. Its web console lets you create clusters running the company's HDP distribution of Hadoop components, managed by Apache Ambari. Cluster templates can be defined and reused to create new similar clusters, and the application allows for resizing, cloning, and termination on demand. The user interface includes links to the web interfaces for Ambari and other Hadoop components. HDCloud offers a curated set of cluster types, some including Spark or Hive, and supports options that cover the instance types for master (manager) and worker instances, whether to use an existing or new VPC, and whether to use a shared remote Hive metastore database. Each cluster template can be represented in JSON, and a CLI tool downloadable from HDCloud can use such templates to perform cluster operations. ## Qubole Data Service The Qubole Data Service (QDS), available online, includes a cluster management solution for creating and configuring clusters in AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Azure. The service starts you off with definitions for a few default clusters to get you started, but you can create your own definitions, selecting from a set of predefined types. The core Hadoop components, as well as others including Spark and HBase, are compatible with the Apache distributions. QDS monitors cluster usage and terminates them when they are idle in order to manage costs. QDS has topology options that include instance types for master (manager) and slave (worker) instances, parameters for AWS spot instance proportion and pricing limits, and virtual network and subnet placement. There is also access to Hadoop configuration property overrides, along with suggestions. ## General System Management Tools The tools just described are created and supported by third-party vendors, and some of them may cost money to use. For those reasons, or others, you may decide to create your own homegrown cluster creation tool. The cloud providers each have powerful APIs that can be used to perform the work otherwise done manually through their web consoles, and a general management tool like Ansible, Chef, or Puppet can be employed to direct any configuration tasks that need to be performed beyond what is already baked into images. If it is not obvious yet, however, then it is important to understand before setting out that such an effort, while feasible, can be time-consuming. Creating your own tool may appear easy at first. However, it requires deep understanding of your cloud provider's API, including any quirks and known issues, and staying up-to-date with it as it changes. The tool must be able to reach out to new instances to issue necessary, nontrivial commands, all while coping with network configurations and security rules imposed on the instances. A cluster creation tool may eventually be called upon not just to create clusters but to destroy them as well, or change their size, or reconfigure them, all of which makes development and maintenance more expensive. On the other hand, with your own tooling you have full control and can address any unique needs that vendor tools do not support. You are also free to use any Hadoop distribution you choose, including the "vanilla" versions offered directly by Apache. A custom tool may integrate more easily into your existing systems than an off-the-shelf, general-purpose product. # Images or Tools? When it comes to choosing between managing clusters using either images or tools, you are strongly encouraged to use a tool that you can adapt to your desired processes. Images are excellent for preserving the static needs of cluster instances, but they do not apply well to the inescapable dynamic tasks that must be performed to fully create clusters. Besides built-in automation for cluster creation, tools can modify and destroy clusters and perform monitoring. They also abstract away the complexity of working with a cloud provider. Some tools can themselves use images as a way to save work that they would otherwise need to do, like software installation or operating system updates. Clusters are then spun up more quickly, which saves money and reduces user-waiting times. Organizational requirements about the contents and configuration of all cloud instances are more easily enforced by creating and using "blessed" images for tools to consume. When your organization is ready to consider automated cluster creation, first try some of the existing tools to see if they can meet your needs. Here are some reasons why, after trying what's already out there, you might decide to roll your own tooling: * You have security requirements that cannot be satisfied by the tools already available. * Your organization already has strong expertise in automation tools and in working with a cloud provider API. * Lack of visibility into or precise control over existing tools' activity runs against organizational prerogatives. If none of the existing tools are satisfactory, then at least trying them out will give you ideas for how your own tooling should work. # More Tooling Image creation is just one area where scripting and tooling can make it easier to stand up Hadoop clusters in the cloud. Chapter 17 explores other areas, such as monitoring and automation, where tools and scripts shine. It is possible to create a new image "from scratch," but it is a much more complex effort. Consult your cloud provider's documentation for information. Because you should not use instance store-backed AMIs for Hadoop clusters, the differing procedure for creating those is not described here. This is one of the less secure methods. See the builder documentation for all of the options. Disclaimer: At the time of this writing, the author is an employee of Cloudera who works on Director. As such, the descriptions of Director and competing products in this section may be unavoidably uneven. Please interpret the descriptions as informative and avoiding advocacy. # Chapter 17. Monitoring and Automation As use of Hadoop clusters in the cloud grows in your organization, it becomes more important to be able to monitor them. Early on, monitoring focuses on ensuring that the clusters are fully up and not overloaded; this information can help guide your future choices for instance types, cluster size, storage size, and network configuration. As time goes on, monitoring data will become more important for keeping tabs on overall cloud expenditure. Of course, cloud clusters themselves will also become more crucial to the organization, so it becomes doubly important to be sure they are working properly. The need for monitoring is somewhat less when clusters are transient (see "Long-Running or Transient?"). A transient cluster does not survive for long, so if it does have problems, it can be torn down and replaced using systems already established. Long-running clusters, on the other hand, need more monitoring, as it's necessary that they remain in good shape for continuous or on-demand use. There are two facets to monitoring cloud clusters: monitoring the cloud provider resources themselves, and monitoring the Hadoop components running on them. As you may have noticed, the cloud provider's consoles already deliver health information, and so it's good to start by considering all the monitoring features they offer. # Monitoring Choices When you're ready to start monitoring Hadoop clusters, you'll find that you have choices for which monitoring system to use. The major cloud providers each support monitoring infrastructures that you can tap into to get information about your instances, storage, and many other resources. You also have the option of using a system you create and maintain yourself. ## Cloud Provider Monitoring Services The information available in cloud providers' compute consoles is just the basics, what's necessary to give a useful overview of resource health; you can get much more information through their monitoring services. Each provider's monitoring service has the advantage of being tightly integrated, delivering the most up-to-date metrics without extra effort on your part in terms of configuration. A downside for them is that they are generally agnostic of the software, like Hadoop, using the resources, so it is up to you to cover monitoring for them. They can accept custom metrics, but you must install and run the code to generate each metric and upload it. Besides watching numeric metrics, monitoring can entail saving and analyzing the contents of logs. Here again, cloud provider monitoring services can be configured to ingest logs, such as the HDFS namenode log and the YARN resource manager log, and perform basic analysis on them to look for signs of trouble. The logs are stored in the provider's own storage service, so you can look at them yourself as well. Finally, monitoring services can issue alerts when metrics cross defined thresholds, or when logs indicate a problem. Email is always an option for receiving alerts, but integrations can enable alerting via pager, text message, or instant message. In some cases, you can also configure automatic actions that the provider should take on your behalf, such as creating new instances or restarting daemons. Cloud provider monitoring is free for basic levels, but advanced features such as custom metrics can cost extra. Expense can be one reason why you might select your own monitoring solution instead of a cloud provider's, but the seamless integration and features that you get up front make them compelling and worth evaluating. If you are using AWS, CloudWatch is the monitoring service to investigate. It supports a wide range of metrics for assessing the health of EC2 instances, RDS database servers, EBS volumes, and more, and its API can accept custom metrics that you send. Basic CloudWatch monitoring is automatically enabled under EC2. The service directly supports the submission of logs to its own storage and can be configured to scan them for patterns indicating trouble. Alarms raised from problem conditions can result in alerts sent to personnel or automated actions to be taken by AWS itself. Google offers a monitoring service called Stackdriver, which can monitor both Google Cloud Platform resources as well as AWS resources. Besides a large number of metrics for Google Cloud Platform, Stackdriver supports many metrics for AWS services as well as third-party applications running on either provider, including HBase, Kafka, and ZooKeeper. Beyond metrics, Stackdriver has a log ingestion and analysis capability called Stackdriver Logging as well as built-in support for uptime checks. The monitoring capabilities in Azure are collected under the term Azure Monitor. By itself, Azure Monitor is a RESTful API for managing metrics and alerts, with SDKs available for several languages. However, it is possible to configure alerts for Azure's wide variety of metrics using the Azure portal, its CLI, or Powershell. The Log Analytics service, which is part of the Microsoft Operational Management Suite, is capable of receiving logs from applications running either on Azure or elsewhere and providing search and analysis on them. The Application Insights service, which runs within Azure, functions as a management portal for gathering application-specific metrics, gathered either through runtime or development-time integration. ## Rolling Your Own If you do not prefer using a cloud provider monitoring service, you can run a separate application that is capable of monitoring your clusters. Applications such as Apache Ambari and Cloudera Manager provide comprehensive monitoring capabilities for Hadoop clusters, and they can be pointed to clusters running on a cloud provider, provided that network connectivity is established. Perhaps you already have a system established in your organization; it could similarly be extended to the cloud. Such applications are generally agnostic of whether clusters they monitor are in the cloud or on-prem, but for many monitoring needs that doesn't matter. Appendix C contains tips for configuring Nagios, a popular open source monitoring system, to monitor a Hadoop cluster running on a cloud provider, beyond what normally would need to be done for an on-prem cluster. Before leaping into configuring it, or any other system, read on to learn about provider command-line interfaces, which are essential for building the foundational scripts to support your monitoring. # Cloud Provider Command-Line Interfaces Thus far in this book, you've been pointed almost exclusively to cloud provider consoles to perform operations such as allocating and terminating instances, configuring networks, setting security rules, and checking on resource health. Becoming comfortable with your cloud provider's CLI is an important step to setting up efficient, automated monitoring and control capabilities. ## AWS CLI The AWS CLI is a single Python-based application that can work with the gamut of services such as EC2, RDS, S3, and Kinesis. It can be installed using native operating system installers (like MSI for Microsoft Windows), or through `pip`, Python's package installation tool: $ sudo pip install awscli You must have an AWS access key and secret key to use the AWS CLI. The tool can locate the keys in any of several locations; a good option is to store them in the _.aws/credentials_ file. After installing the CLI, you can configure it to use your keys in its default profile using the `aws configure` command: $ aws configure AWS Access Key ID [None]: AKIAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX AWS Secret Access Key [None]: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Default region name [None]: us-east-1 Default output format [None]: json The CLI can report results in JSON, as plain text, or in a tabular format. Interpretation of results by automated scripts is easiest with JSON, since it can be parsed in a straightforward fashion. The CLI itself can filter down its JSON results as well, using the JMESPath query language. To check if the CLI is working, try listing the available EC2 regions: $ aws ec2 describe-regions { "Regions": [ { "Endpoint": "ec2.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com", "RegionName": "ap-south-1" }, { "Endpoint": "ec2.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com", "RegionName": "eu-west-2" }, ... ## Google Cloud Platform CLI The Google Cloud SDK houses the CLI for Google Cloud Platform, and is comprised of the tools `gcloud`, `gsutil`, and `bq`. Most operations are provided through the `gcloud` tool, while `gsutil` is used for working with Google Cloud Storage and `bq` with BigQuery. You install the SDK using native operating system installers. After installation, the SDK must be configured using the `gcloud init` command. This establishes the default configuration for the CLI tools, including the account to authorize with and the default project. The authorization process includes the use of a browser window to confirm authorization of the local SDK installation for your account: $ gcloud init To check if the CLI is working, try listing your projects. The default output format is a general human-readable one, but many formats are available, including JSON, CSV, and YAML, through the `--format` option: $ gcloud projects list PROJECT_ID NAME PROJECT_NUMBER my-first-cluster-1311 My First Cluster 123456789012 temporal-parser-127719 My First Project 372793013720 $ gcloud projects list --format=json [ { "createTime": "2016-05-14T17:05:48.748Z", "lifecycleState": "ACTIVE", "name": "My First Cluster", "projectId": "my-first-cluster-1311", "projectNumber": "123456789012" }, { "createTime": "2016-04-10T19:52:51.350Z", "lifecycleState": "ACTIVE", "name": "My First Project", "projectId": "temporal-parser-127719", "projectNumber": "372793013720" } ] Format-specific attributes and projections can be used to filter down and modify the output results as desired. For example, JSON output can be culled down using simple projections to pick out fields: $ gcloud projects list '--format=json(name)' [ { "name": "My First Cluster" }, { "name": "My First Project" } ] ## Azure CLI The Azure CLI comes in two forms: a cross-platform CLI tool and a set of PowerShell cmdlets. This section covers only the cross-platform CLI. It can be installed using native installers for macOS or Windows, or through the `npm` package management tool: $ npm install -g azure-cli Docker images hosting the tool are also available. After installation, the CLI must be used to log in to Azure and become associated with your account. The authorization process includes the use of a browser window to confirm authorization of the local CLI for your account: $ azure login By default, the CLI operates in Azure Resource Manager mode, which is recommended for new Azure usage and is used throughout this book. To check if the CLI is working, try listing your resource groups. The default output format is a general human-readable one, but you can request JSON by passing the `--json` option. The tool itself does not offer ways to filter down JSON output, but an external tool such as jq or JMESPath can do that job for you. (The following command output is edited for fit.) $ azure group list info: Executing command group list + Listing resource groups data: Name Location Provisioning State Tags: data: ---------------- -------- ------------------ ----- data: my_first_cluster eastus Succeeded null info: group list command OK $ azure group list --json [ { "id": "/subscriptions/12345678-.../resourceGroups/my_first_cluster", "name": "my_first_cluster", "properties": { "provisioningState": "Succeeded" }, "location": "eastus" } ] $ azure group list --json \| jq '.[] \| { name }' { "name": "my_first_cluster" } ## Data Formatting for CLI Results Each cloud provider CLI is capable of generating output in human-readable formats, often with clarifying colors, indentation, and tabular markings. Each CLI also supports one or more machine-readable formats; notably, each CLI can produce JSON output. So, it's helpful to standardize on JSON as the output format of choice for scripting and automation, especially for systems that work across cloud provider boundaries. The rich ecosystem of applications that can consume and transform JSON also make it a great choice. # What to Monitor Now that you have your cloud provider CLI ready to use, you can think about the questions you want to answer through monitoring. This section starts you off with some basic ones, to get you familiar with using the CLI or other ways to script checks. ## Instance Existence The first question to consider, one which is silly for on-prem clusters, is whether the instances a Hadoop cluster runs on exist at all. While you can be confident that in almost all cases an instance will not vanish without you knowing about it, things can get confusing in those rare cases when you assume an instance is there, but it's gone. An instance existence check is not as useful for temporary instances (discussed in "Temporary Instances"), since those are expected to disappear after some amount of time. You will want to apply this check to ordinary, permanent instances, such as manager instances, nontemporary worker instances, or essential gateways. Given the IP address of an instance, how can you check that the instance exists in the cloud provider? The examples in Example 17-1 show how you can answer that question using the provider CLIs. ##### Example 17-1. Example existence checks using provider CLIs # AWS $ aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-id=i-12345678901234567 # Google Cloud Platform $ gcloud compute instances describe instance-name # Microsoft Azure $ azure vm show resource-group-name vm-name ## Instance Reachability It's not enough for an instance to exist to know that it is fundamentally functional; an instance also needs to be reachable, so that you can work with it as necessary. The definition of reachability can vary. Here, an instance is considered reachable if an SSH connection can be established to it. There are other ways to reach instances such as through web interfaces, and those are important as well, but SSH reachability is fundamental for maintaining control of your clusters. ### Reachability checks using a provider CLI The AWS CLI supports a `describe-instance-status` EC2 command, which returns basic status information for instances. Including the `--include-all-instances` option permits the command to return status information for instances that aren't running: $ aws ec2 describe-instance-status --instance-id=i-12345678901234567 \ > --include-all-instances The JSON result describes not only the "state" of the instance, which indicates if the instance is running, stopped, or other values, but also overall system and instance status information. Consult the EC2 documentation for full details on interpreting the command results. In general, if the instance status is "ok", AWS considers the instance reachable. The Google Cloud Platform CLI does not include reachability checks for SSH, although you can configure a _health check_ that monitors whether an instance is reachable over HTTP or HTTPS. For SSH, however, you have the option of using the CLI to connect, without needing to know what the IP address of the instance is. Combining that with a simple command to execute creates a good reachability check: $ gcloud compute ssh --ssh-key-file /path/to/google_key.pem instance-name \ > --command "echo OK" The Azure CLI does not include reachability checks over SSH. Here, your best course of action is to simply attempt an ordinary SSH connection. It is possible to retrieve the public IP address of a virtual machine through the CLI by using the name of its public IP address resource, and that can be embedded into a basic SSH command to form a basic reachability check: $ ssh -i /path/to/azure_key.pem \ > userid@$(azure network public-ip show \ > resource-group public-ip-address-resource --json \| \ > jq -r .ipAddress) \ > "echo OK" If the name of the public IP address resource is not known ahead of time, it can be found dynamically by using the Azure CLI to first look up the virtual machine to locate its network interface, and then again to look up the network interface to find the public IP address. The private IP address is directly attached to the network interface: # Find the network interface for a manager instance in a cluster $ azure vm show my_first_cluster manager --json \| \ > jq -r '.networkProfile.networkInterfaces[0].id' \| sed 's/.\///g' manager516 # Find the private IP address for the instance $ azure network nic show my_first_cluster manager516 --json \| \ > jq -r '.ipConfigurations[0].privateIPAddress' 10.0.0.4 # Find the public IP address resource for the instance $ azure network nic show my_first_cluster manager516 --json \| \ > jq -r '.ipConfigurations[0].publicIPAddress.id' \| sed 's/.\///g' manager-ip # Find the public IP address for the resource $ azure network public-ip show my_first_cluster manager-ip --json \| \ > jq -r .ipAddress 203.0.113.101 ### Rolling your own reachability checks There are many ways to perform straightforward checks of SSH connectivity using common utilities, and these work for on-prem hardware as well as cloud instances. One basic technique is to use the netcat utility to check if a daemon is listening on the SSH port (usually 22) of the instance. This does not check that it is the SSH daemon, nor does it ensure that an SSH connection can be established using the proper keys, but the check is quick and simple. If the command's exit code is 0, the check passes: $ nc -w 10 -z 203.0.113.101 22 For a stronger check, just establish an SSH connection and issue a simple command. Include a connection timeout so that the command does not get stuck for long if the connection cannot be established. If the command's exit code is 0, or if the expected command output is emitted, then the check passes: $ ssh -i /path/to/cloud_provider_key.pem -o ConnectTimeout=10 \ > userid@203.0.113.101 "echo OK" OK There are many other choices for implementing reachability checks. Be wary of using more powerful security scanning and troubleshooting tools, such as `nmap`. While they are effective, they could unintentionally trip defense mechanisms that cloud providers put in place to prevent abuse. ## Hadoop Daemon Status Once it's established that your instances exist and are reachable, a next logical step is to see if the expected Hadoop daemons are running on them. ### Cloud provider custom metrics The cloud provider monitoring services described in "Monitoring Choices" support the definition of custom metrics, beyond the defaults pertaining to general system health that they automatically track. It is up to you to implement a script or application that determines the value of a desired custom metric and uploads it to the monitoring service. The core benefit of this approach is that you can rely on the provider monitoring service as a single location for tracking the health of your cloud resources and the Hadoop components running on them. See "Custom Metrics in CloudWatch" to learn how to establish a custom metric for AWS CloudWatch. ### Rolling your own Hadoop daemon status checks As is the case with reachability checks, status checks for Hadoop daemons that you create yourself work just as well for on-prem or hybrid clusters as for cloud clusters. If you already have monitoring systems in place for on-prem clusters, they can be easily extended to check cloud clusters. Status check implementations for Hadoop focus on directly contacting the daemons at their expected ports, or else using client applications that connect for you. An important question is whether you should use the private IP addresses or public IP addresses for the daemons. Using private IP addresses is a better choice, for three reasons. First, it is the more secure option, because communication to public IP addresses requires opening up security rules to permit traffic from outside the provider network or your organization's VPN. Second, it will have somewhat better performance, since network traffic remains within the cluster's virtual network or within VPNs that are reliably connected. Third, using private IP addresses allows you to use ephemeral public IP address assignments for cluster instances, which cost less, and are only necessary for gateway instances. If you opt for using private IP addresses, you end up running the checks, or the monitoring application that houses them, either within the cloud provider or on your own VPN. This makes monitoring subject to the cloud provider's infrastructure functioning well. For example, if you monitor from a cloud instance that is coresident with your cluster and the availability zone for all of them goes down, you lose your monitoring capability. Another drawback is that it can be more difficult to integrate separate monitoring systems for cloud clusters with existing, perhaps global, monitoring systems already in place at your organization. Weigh the pros and cons of each possible home for your monitoring with these implications in mind. The simple check for SSH reachability using netcat, suggested in "Instance Reachability", can be applied to the well-known ports for Hadoop daemons. Table 17-1 is a quick reference for ports to check. Table 17-1. Well-known TCP ports for Hadoop daemons Daemon \| Port ---\|--- HDFS Namenode \| 8020 HDFS Datanode \| 50010 YARN Resource Manager \| 8032 YARN Node Manager \| 8040 ZooKeeper Server \| 2181 # check on the namenode $ nc -v -z 203.0.113.101 8020 # check on the resource manager $ nc -v -z 203.0.113.101 8032 For more detailed information, a scripted check can collect status information from the daemons by communicating with them. Consult the documentation for each Hadoop component to learn about what they offer. The core HDFS and YARN daemons automatically provide monitoring information over HTTP that is managed internally using JMX. Table 17-2 provides example URLs for retrieving the information. Table 17-2. Example URLs for retrieving JMX information from Hadoop Daemon \| Example URL ---\|--- HDFS Namenode \| _http://203.0.113.101:50070/jmx_ HDFS Datanode \| _http://203.0.113.101:50075/jmx_ YARN Resource Manager \| _http://203.0.113.101:8088/jmx_ YARN Node Manager \| _http://203.0.113.102:8042/jmx_ The data returned is formatted in JSON, with one object for each MBean. You can pass the `qry` query parameter to request only the information from a single MBean: $ curl http://203.1.113.101:50070/jmx?qry=beanName With the returned JSON in hand, you can use parsing utilities like `jq` to whittle them down to what you want to monitor. ZooKeeper servers do not use JMX, but you can retrieve textual status information from them by issuing the four-letter command `mntr` to them, and then use typical text processing utilities to narrow down what's returned: $ echo mntr \| nc 203.0.113.102 2181 The suggestions here just scratch the surface of monitoring Hadoop daemons. You can enable JMX on daemons that support it and then connect full-featured JMX console applications. You can design checks that use the standard client utilities for the Hadoop components to retrieve exactly the information you are interested in. There are many possibilities, and since they aren't specific to cloud clusters, they are not covered in this book. Consult texts such as _Hadoop Operations_ by Eric Sammer (O'Reilly) to learn more. ## System Load Monitoring Hadoop daemons gives you a view into whether your cloud clusters are working _at all_ , and also into whether they are working _well_ , if you monitor metrics such as how full HDFS is or how long MapReduce jobs take to begin and then complete execution. Another view on whether clusters are working well is gained by monitoring the usual system-level metrics, like CPU load. Here again, as with general Hadoop monitoring, you can apply the same checks you normally would to on-prem hardware to cloud instances, and you have the option of using the cloud provider's own services. ### AWS system monitoring Once again, under AWS you can use CloudWatch to gather and report on metrics. CloudWatch automatically tracks some basic metrics for every EC2 instance, and you can opt to gather more by enabling detailed metrics, for additional cost. To find out what metrics are available for an instance, use the CLI: $ aws cloudwatch list-metrics --namespace AWS/EC2 \ > --dimensions Name=InstanceId,Value=i-12345678901234567 Fortunately, CPUUtilization is a basic metric, so it should be listed as available for any instance. Utilization can be retrieved by asking for metric statistics, specifying a start and end time for the metric and a period over which each reported value, such as an average or maximum, is to be calculated. This example reports on the maximum CPUUtilization over the course of a day, as seen on an hourly basis: $ aws cloudwatch get-metric-statistics --namespace AWS/EC2 \ > --metric-name CPUUtilization \ > --dimensions Name=InstanceId,Value=i-12345678901234567 \ > --start-time 2017-02-04T00:00:00 --end-time 2017-02-05T00:00:00 \ > --period 3600 --statistics Maximum ### Google Cloud Platform system monitoring To work with anything beyond basic metrics in Google Cloud Platform, you need a Stackdriver account. Select Monitoring from the Stackdriver section of the Google Cloud Platform console menu, and log in with the account that you use. Create a new account and associate it with one of your projects, such as My First Cluster, as shown in Figure 17-1. ###### Figure 17-1. Creating a Stackdriver account After associating your account with one project, add other projects as you like. It is not necessary to associate any AWS accounts during the account setup process, so that step may be skipped and performed later. Instructions are displayed for installing Stackdriver agents on your instances, as shown in Figure 17-2, so that you can gather more detailed monitoring data. ###### Figure 17-2. Instructions for installing Stackdriver agents After working the rest of the way through account setup, click the Launch Monitoring button to go to the Stackdriver dashboard. You can use this dashboard to monitor many facets of your instances. The `gcloud` CLI for Google Cloud Platform does not offer access to Stackdriver metrics. A good alternative for scripting is to use the Python API client library for Stackdriver. Consult its documentation to learn how to install the library and to use it with service accounts to query the Stackdriver metrics endpoints. ### Azure system monitoring Azure automatically tracks several metrics for virtual machines, including Percentage CPU. While the data is easy to access through the Azure portal, there is no easy way to get at the raw data using the Azure CLI. The Azure REST API provides an endpoint for retrieving metrics under the Microsoft Insights banner. Consult the endpoint's documentation to learn how to access it. Note that use of the API requires authentication using a JSON web token based on an approved principal in your account. ### Rolling your own system checks Use any system check that works for on-prem hardware for your cloud instances. For checks that require SSH connectivity, be sure to provide the necessary SSH key. It's good practice to establish a separate account with permissions for only what is required for the checks, so that the monitoring system cannot unintentionally perturb cluster operations. A simple way to check CPUUtilization on any instance is to parse the results of the `uptime` command. For more detail, try the `mpstat` command, which you may need to install beforehand, depending on how minimal the base image for your cluster instances is. (The following `mpstat` output is edited for fit.) # determine system load using uptime $ ssh -i /path/to/cloud_provider_key.pem userid@203.0.113.101 uptime 18:51:04 up 1:58, 0 users, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.05 # determine system load using mpstat $ ssh -i /path/to/cloud_provider_key.pem userid@203.0.113.101 mpstat -u Linux 3.13.0-74-generic (ip-203-0-113-101) 02/20/2017 _x86_64_ (4 CPU) 06:51:20 PM CPU %usr %nice %sys ... %idle 06:51:20 PM all 1.24 0.00 0.09 ... 98.56 ## Putting Scripting to Use It's useful to spend some time with the provider CLIs to become comfortable with how they work and to understand what you can glean from them. Check out the built-in help that ships with the CLI for your provider, along with the online documentation; not only will you get more ideas for what you can monitor, but you can discover some convenient ways to work, beyond the confines of the provider web console. The next section uses scripting to support defining a custom metric in AWS CloudWatch. A custom metric can be designed to map to a measurement pertinent to Hadoop, such as YARN job volume, or HDFS usage. This way, if you are using a cloud provider monitoring service, you can have your Hadoop monitoring in the same place as everything else. # Custom Metrics in CloudWatch AWS CloudWatch automatically establishes custom metrics as soon as they are passed to it. Starting out, there are no custom metrics, but there are many basic metrics already tracked for several services. A brief look at working with those helps to get oriented for using custom metrics. This section assumes that you have a cluster running in AWS like the one set up in Chapter 9. ## Basic Metrics Select the CloudWatch service from the service list in the AWS console to go to the CloudWatch console. Then, click the Browse Metrics button to begin looking at metrics. The graph on the main portion of the page is empty because no metrics are selected for it. To add a metric, select EC2 from the "All metrics" tab, shown in Figure 17-3, which lists a few of the AWS services with basic metrics available. Each service maps to a _namespace_ of metrics under CloudWatch. ###### Figure 17-3. Initial metrics namespaces in AWS CloudWatch Then, drill further by selecting Per-Instance Metrics. All of the available EC2 metrics are listed, and checking any of them will have them begin to be plotted on the graph. As an example, select the CPUUtilization metric for the "manager" instance, as shown in Figure 17-4. ###### Figure 17-4. The CPUUtilization metric for the manager instance Over time, the graph will fill up with the CPUUtilization metric for the manager instance, looking something like Figure 17-5. You can add the same metrics for the other cluster instances to make a single graph tracking CPUUtilization cluster-wide. ###### Figure 17-5. CPU utilization graphed in CloudWatch ## Defining a Custom Metric Working with a custom metric is similar to working with a basic metric, but first, the metric must be created. This section defines a new metric for how full HDFS is, expressed as a percentage (so, 0% is empty and 100% is full). Before defining the new custom metric in CloudWatch, a script or application must be available to determine it. Fortunately, it is easy to get the figure needed for the metric using the `hdfs dfsadmin -report` command. This example command retrieves the first `DFS Used%` line from the DFS report, which covers the entire cluster, and extracts the field containing the percentage: # as hdfs $ hdfs dfsadmin -report \| grep -m 1 "DFS Used%" \| cut -d ' ' -f 3 \| sed 's/%//g' 0.00 This command can form the basis for a script that finds the percentage and then submits it to CloudWatch. The latter task requires the AWS CLI, so install it on the manager instance, under the "hdfs" account, as described in "AWS CLI". The CLI must be configured with credentials for an IAM user that can work with CloudWatch metrics. You can use your own, or you can create a new IAM user as described in "Configuring S3 Authentication". If you create a new IAM user, be sure to request programmatic access and save the access key pair to use for CLI configuration. Applying the policy "CloudWatchFullAccess" will grant enough permissions to the user to work with CloudWatch. With the CLI installed and ready to run, it's time to think about how to name the new custom metric. CloudWatch will establish everything automatically as soon as the metric is first submitted, so no additional work is required in CloudWatch to get it ready: * A custom metric in CloudWatch occupies a namespace, like any other metric, which groups similar metrics together. The namespace "HadoopClusters" works nicely for any metrics pertaining to Hadoop clusters. * A metric needs a name describing what it measures. "DFSUsed" is a succinct and accurate name. * A metric can have a unit associated with it, and for this custom metric "Percent" is perfect. * Since there may be multiple Hadoop clusters running, each with their own usage, a _dimension_ should be used to align the metric's datapoints. For example, the CPUUtilization metric has a dimension named "InstanceId"; this makes it possible to retrieve all of the datapoints for a single instance by its ID. The custom metric for DFS usage should be viewed per cluster, so a dimension named "Cluster" should be defined. ## Feeding Custom Metric Data to CloudWatch With the naming and dimensions worked out, a script for submitting usage information to CloudWatch can be written: #!/usr/bin/env bash dfs_used=$(/opt/hadoop/bin/hdfs dfsadmin -report \| \ grep -m 1 "DFS Used%" \| cut -d ' ' -f 3 \| sed 's/%//g') /usr/local/bin/aws cloudwatch put-metric-data --metric-name DFSUsed \ --namespace HadoopClusters --unit Percent --value "$dfs_used" \ --dimensions Cluster=MyFirstCluster Notice that the script uses full paths for the `hdfs` and `aws` commands. This is because this script will be called by the `cron` daemon, which passes a minimized set of environment variables to scripts that it runs. Use the correct path for `aws` for your instance, based on where `pip` installed it. You can test the script by calling it directly. ###### Tip The script could easily be adapted to become a Nagios service check, by removing the submission of the metric to CloudWatch and adding code to return different exit codes depending on the percentage value. Add the script to the crontab for the hdfs user to have it run on a regular basis, sending the custom metric data to CloudWatch continually: # as hdfs $ crontab -e # add a line for the script, as in the listing below $ crontab -l * * * * * /home/hdfs/dfs_used.sh > /home/hdfs/dfs_used.log 2>&1 Wait a couple of minutes after the job is added to the crontab for it to start feeding data to CloudWatch. Soon, in the "All metrics" tab of the CloudWatch metrics page, the new "HadoopClusters" custom namespace should appear, as shown in Figure 17-6. ###### Figure 17-6. A custom namespace for Hadoop clusters in AWS CloudWatch Selecting the HadoopClusters namespace reveals the single "Cluster" dimension, and selecting that dimension reveals the single custom metric, DFSUsed, for the dimension value "MyFirstCluster". It can now be selected, as demonstrated in Figure 17-7, and graphed like any other metric. ###### Figure 17-7. A custom metric for DFS usage in CloudWatch Also like any other metric, statistics are available for DFS usage: $ aws cloudwatch get-metric-statistics --namespace HadoopClusters \ > --metric-name DFSUsage \ > --dimensions Name=Cluster,Value=MyFirstCluster \ > --start-time 2017-02-19T17:00:00 --end-time 2017-02-20T00:00:00 \ > --period 60 --statistics Average Maximum { "Datapoints": [ { "Timestamp": "2017-02-19T17:57:00Z", "Average": 0.0, "Maximum": 0.0, "Unit": "Percent" }, ... { "Timestamp": "2017-02-19T17:55:00Z", "Average": 0.0, "Maximum": 0.0, "Unit": "Percent" } ], "Label": "DFSUsed" } If there is nothing in HDFS, all of the metrics values come back as zero, which is hardly exciting. An easy way to fill up the space is to run the `teragen` utility. The utility is normally used for running the Terasort benchmark, described in "Benchmarking HA"; it generates test data in HDFS in the amount that you request. Run `teragen` under a user account that can run MapReduce jobs. See "Running a Test Job" for steps to take for the account you choose. For the first run, try generating a small amount of data that fits easily in the available space in your cluster: $ hadoop jar \ > /opt/hadoop/share/hadoop/mapreduce/hadoop-mapreduce-examples-x.y.z.jar \ > teragen 50000000 /user/userid/terasort-input You can rerun `teragen` to add more and more data to HDFS, and watch the graph of DFS usage grow. An example graph showing increased DFS usage is shown in Figure 17-8. For each run, use a different HDFS directory as an argument. ###### Figure 17-8. DFS usage graphed in CloudWatch ## Setting an Alarm on a Custom Metric CloudWatch is now tracking DFS usage for a cluster, but nothing is watching the metric to make sure usage doesn't go too high. Accordingly, you can set an alarm to trigger if usage exceeds a threshold. CloudWatch can take actions on your behalf if an alarm is triggered; a simple action would be to send an email, but a highly advanced action could add a datanode to the cluster to expand the available space. For now, only the basic alarm without actions is established. An alarm needs a descriptive name, such as "DFS_Usage_Alarm" for alarming on excessive DFS usage. Various other parameters are needed as well: * For an alarm that triggers at 80% usage, an alarm threshold of 80.0 should be used, along with a comparison operator representing the greater-than comparison. Thus, the alarm is triggered when the DFSUsed metric, already expressed as a percentage, crosses above 80.0. * An alarm can be made more or less sensitive by defining the length of the period over which the metric is evaluated, and the number of periods to evaluate. To be quite sensitive, specifying a period of 60 (seconds) and only one evaluation period will narrow the alarm evaluation to each minute of time. * Finally, an appropriate aggregated statistic for the metric should be chosen. Looking at the average usage is generally a good idea, but looking at the maximum over the evaluation period leads to a highly sensitive alarm. These choices lead to a sensitive alarm, which in real-life usage would likely trip more often than necessary. Instead, you would have the alarm watch the DFS usage over a longer evaluation period, perhaps 10 or 20 minutes, and only look at the average usage, so that transient heavy use of HDFS would not trigger the alarm needlessly. The AWS CLI can be used to create a new alarm: $ aws cloudwatch put-metric-alarm --alarm-name "DFS_Usage_Alarm" \ > --no-actions-enabled --namespace HadoopClusters \ > --dimensions Name=Cluster,Value=MyFirstCluster --metric-name DFSUsed \ > --statistic Maximum --period 60 --evaluation-periods 1 \ > --threshold 80.0 --comparison-operator GreaterThanThreshold After the new alarm is created, it appears in the Alarms page of the CloudWatch console. After a couple of minutes, depending on how full HDFS is, the alarm status will appear as either "OK", indicating that DFS usage is under 80%, or "ALARM", indicating that it is over 80%. Figure 17-9 shows the alarm in the "OK" state. ###### Figure 17-9. An alarm on DFS usage in CloudWatch If usage is under 80%, run `teragen` again until HDFS usage crosses the 80% threshold (be careful not to fill up HDFS), and ensure the alarm is triggered, as in Figure 17-10. Then, delete the HDFS directories holding the test data so that the usage drops again, until the alarm returns to the "OK" state. ###### Figure 17-10. A triggered alarm on DFS usage in CloudWatch You might notice that the CloudWatch interface calls out that there are no actions on the alarm. In the next section, an alarm on a different custom metric tracking the compute capacity of the cluster will trigger the addition of a new worker to the cluster. # Elastic Compute Using a Custom Metric One of the best reasons to run clusters on a cloud provider is the flexibility to add and remove instances as your needs change. "Using Temporary Instances" discussed using temporary instances as a cost-effective way to scale up clusters for short periods. Rather than scaling up "by hand," you can set up an automated process that detects when there is a need for more capacity and responds by _growing_ your cluster. This process is called _autoscaling_. Here again, a custom metric is introduced to AWS CloudWatch, but this time it tracks cluster compute capacity. When it gets too low, the action triggered by the metric's alarm adds a new worker to the cluster. ## A Custom Metric for Compute Capacity There are a few different ways to look at compute activity to determine if it is insufficient and needs more resources. A simple process could add compute instances at a fixed time in the workday, perhaps at the beginning, with the expectation that work will pick up as people arrive for work. A more targeted technique, though, is to look at how busy the compute system is, and if it crosses a threshold of activity, add more instances. In practice, this technique may need to be governed; as more capacity is added, users may simply throw more work at the cluster, driving its size higher and higher. For simplicity here, no upper limit or throttling is included. There are several ways to determine if YARN is "busy." Here, memory usage is used; low memory availability is taken to indicate that the system is running near its capacity. The `yarn` command can list the IDs of the compute nodes as well as each node's memory usage: # as yarn $ yarn node -list 2>/dev/null \| grep -v Total \| grep -v Node-Id \| cut -d ' ' -f 1 ip-172-31-60-201.ec2.internal:57541 ip-172-31-60-202.ec2.internal:58543 ip-172-31-60-103.ec2.internal:43340 $ yarn node -status ip-172-31-60-201.ec2.internal:57541 2>/dev/null \| \ > grep 'Memory-' Memory-Used : 0MB Memory-Capacity : 8192MB With this information, a general memory usage figure can be determined, as the ratio of the memory used to the memory capacity across all nodes. A script can loop over the nodes to sum up their memory statistics and then report the final ratio: #!/usr/bin/env bash used_total=0 available_total=0 for n in $(yarn node -list 2>/dev/null \| grep -v Total \| grep -v Node-Id \| \ cut -d ' ' -f 1); do mem="$(yarn node -status "$n" 2>/dev/null \| grep 'Memory-' \ \| cut -d ' ' -f 3 \| sed 's/MB//g' \| xargs)" used=${mem%% } available=${mem## } used_total=$(( used_total + used )) available_total=$(( available_total + available )) done if [[ $available_total == 0 ]]; then echo 0 else bc <<< "scale=4;($used_total/$available_total)100" fi ###### Note This script is reaching the limits of what bash shell scripting can perform easily. Specifically, it uses techniques like `xargs` without a command to concatenate lines, bash arithmetic, and `bc` with a here string to perform a floating-point calculation. In practice, you may want to use a scripting language like Python to make a more maintainable script. With a script available, a custom metric can be supplied to CloudWatch on a regular basis via a cron job: #!/usr/bin/env bash yarn_mem_used=$(/path/to/yarnmem.sh) /usr/local/bin/aws cloudwatch put-metric-data --metric-name YarnMemUsage \ --namespace HadoopClusters --unit Percent --value "$yarn_mem_used" \ --dimensions Cluster=MyFirstCluster ## Prerequisites for Autoscaling Compute To make automatically adding a new compute instance fast and robust, you need an image at the ready for it. Chapter 16 lays out how much work can be saved by crafting an image with most of the Hadoop configuration already baked in. Without a custom image, the autoscaling work involves installing all of the Hadoop components and their dependencies, along with extensive configuration work. For speed and to reduce the chance of misconfiguration, an image should be used. You can certainly use the same image that you normally would for creating a new cluster. Some configuration work must be done to a new instance before it can participate in a cluster. In "Image Preparation", several items were called out as being necessary to modify for any new instance, including IP addresses. Most of the configuration in the image can remain as it is, so the scripting needed to finish off the configuration is minimal. A modified form of the cluster-wide configuration update script in Appendix B can do the trick. Some caveats: The script must have SSH access to the new instance, so establishing that must be part of the configuration process. * Some components may require a restart in order to accept their new configurations. At a minimum, the daemons on the new instance must be started. * To keep administration simple, add the private IP address of each new instance to the _/etc/hadoop/slaves_ file on each manager instance. ## Triggering Autoscaling with an Alarm Action YARN usage can be volatile. Under normal conditions, a cluster may experience spikes in activity followed by lulls of almost no activity. So, an alarm that can trigger adding a new instance should look for consistent heavy usage. In CloudWatch, this can be done by requiring the alarm condition to hold for more than just one consecutive evaluation period: $ aws cloudwatch put-metric-alarm --alarm-name "YARN_Mem_Alarm" \ > --no-actions-enabled --namespace HadoopClusters \ > --dimensions Name=Cluster,Value=MyFirstCluster --metric-name YarnMemUsage \ > --statistic Maximum --period 60 --evaluation-periods 5 \ > --threshold 80.0 --comparison-operator GreaterThanThreshold The preceding alarm has no actions, but one is needed to begin the process of adding an instance. With CloudWatch, there are choices as to how to architect this portion of the autoscaling flow: * An _autoscaling action_ can trigger the creation of an instance within an EC2 autoscaling group. An _autoscaling group_ in EC2 is a grouping of instances that can be automatically grown and shrunk in size. Here, an autoscaling group can represent the additional workers that are added to a cluster. When you create an autoscaling group, you create a _launch configuration_ , which includes the information needed to launch an instance, such as its AMI, subnet, and security group, and whether to request a spot instance. A tripped alarm can cause the addition of instances to the group, while an alarm subsiding can cause instances to be removed. * A _notification_ from an alarm can go to any of various listening or receiving entities, such as an HTTP server, an email address, or text message. Scripts triggered upon receipt of the message can use the AWS CLI to create a new instance as desired. The information normally in a launch configuration would be included in the scripts. This is a do-it-yourself form of autoscaling, which is more complex to set up but which relies less on AWS capabilities. Whichever path you choose, you must provide a way to run the Hadoop configuration script for the new instance (and possibly the cluster at large). When performing your own autoscaling, you can use the information from the alarm to gain context about the cluster and thereby find its IP addresses, or simply have them hardcoded in the script; the script can be run anywhere that is convenient to your architecture. When using an autoscaling group, the script may be set up to run directly on the new instance, but it must be able to retrieve information necessary for the configuration work, such as the IP addresses of the managers in the cluster it is being added to. For that reason, if you are using AWS autoscaling, you may wish to also send a notification to a helper application that can make the necessary information available to the new instance when it has finished starting up. Setting up autoscaling of Hadoop clusters is a challenging task. This section provides a plan and some starting materials for making it happen, relying on CloudWatch for metric tracking and alarming. Take the time to think about the conditions under which you'd want to scale up your clusters, and rely on automation for cluster creation you have already established to help with the similar task of adding new instances. ## What About Shrinking? Autoscaling also includes removing instances when they are no longer needed. The same metric can be used to determine when YARN memory usage (or your chosen metric) has gone back under some threshold for some length of time, and then terminate a worker that had been added (or any that are equivalent from the original cluster composition). The cluster should be configured again to no longer expect the destroyed instance to be around. If you use temporary instances, then the need to shrink is not as strong, since they will disappear on their own after a time. However, you would still want to update the cluster configuration to account for their absence. ## Other Things to Watch The alarms and actions set up under CloudWatch so far have been based on numeric metrics that are sampled over time and analyzed. The next section looks at another source of information about a cluster, logs, and also shows how to send CloudWatch alarm notifications to an email list. # Ingesting Logs into CloudWatch Aside from custom metrics that are tied to Hadoop components, logs are one of the best windows into seeing how your clusters are performing. As part of their monitoring services, each of the cloud providers offers the ability to save off log content for later analysis, either to their standard storage services or dedicated storage, and perform automated scans and alerting based on their content. The basic procedure is to identify a logfile to track, specify how its content is organized in storage, and define alerts that are triggered by patterns in the logfile as it is incrementally saved off. This section explores using AWS CloudWatch to monitor the log for an HDFS namenode and trigger alerts whenever an error appears. Before starting, determine the full path of the namenode log; the initial setup for CloudWatch logging includes configuration for the first logfile. It's assumed that the logfile exists and has some content in it already. ## Creating an IAM User for Log Streaming CloudWatch relies on an agent process running on your cloud instance to extract logfile content. The agent requires credentials to authorize itself with CloudWatch. If your instances already have IAM roles associated with them, then it's enough to add the necessary policies to a role. Otherwise, you can create a dedicated IAM user for the agent. A tailored custom policy can grant the permissions necessary for the CloudWatch agent to work. Go to the IAM service in the AWS console, and select Policies from the menu on the left side. The list of predefined IAM policies is displayed. Click the Create Policy button, as shown in Figure 17-11, to create a new custom policy. ###### Figure 17-11. Starting to create a custom IAM policy for CloudWatch Select the option to Create Your Own Policy. Then, in the form shown in Figure 17-12 for creating the policy: * Provide a policy name, such as "CloudWatchLogSubmitter". * Enter a description if desired. * Fill in a policy document that matches the EC2 quick start documentation for AWS CloudWatch. Click the Create Policy button to create the new custom policy. ###### Figure 17-12. A custom policy for CloudWatch Next, create a new IAM user with the custom policy applied. Instructions for creating a new IAM user are in "Configuring S3 Authentication". Be sure to request programmatic access, and save the access key pair. ## Installing the CloudWatch Agent AWS provides a Python script for installing and configuring the CloudWatch agent on your instances. Download it to the desired instance (e.g., the manager node hosting the HDFS namenode) and run it, specifying the region where the instance runs: $ sudo apt-get update # on Ubuntu instances only $ curl -O \ > https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-cloudwatch/downloads/latest/awslogs-agent-setup.py $ sudo python awslogs-agent-setup.py --region us-east-1 The script installs `pip` and uses it to download and install the agent. Then it asks a series of questions to configure the agent and have it start streaming a log to CloudWatch. In the first set of questions, provide the access keys for the IAM user just created for submitting log data to CloudWatch, and the region. The output format response may be left empty. The next set of questions establishes a log stream for the first logfile to monitor. You will need to determine the name of the _log stream_ that represents the log contents as they arrive at CloudWatch, and the name of the _log group_ where the log stream resides. The organization of log groups is up to you; one suggestion is to use a log group for each type of Hadoop daemon (HDFS namenode, ZooKeeper server, Hive server) and a log stream for each instance of a Hadoop daemon. For example: * path of log: _/var/log/hadoop/hadoop-hdfs-namenode-ip-203-0-113-101.log_ * log group name: mycluster/hdfs/nn * log stream name: mycluster-hdfs-nn-manager Finally, choose a timestamp format that you prefer, and pick the start of the file for the initial position to load, so that the log's entire contents are streamed. After the agent is installed and configured, its configuration is written to _/var/awslogs/etc/awslogs.conf_. More log streams can be defined there later. If you proceed to the CloudWatch Logs service in the AWS console, you should see the new log group and log stream for the HDFS namenode log, as shown in Figures 17-13 and 17-14. ###### Figure 17-13. A CloudWatch log group for HDFS namenode logs ###### Figure 17-14. A CloudWatch log stream for the HDFS namenode log ## Creating a Metric Filter Now that namenode log data is being streamed to CloudWatch, the next step for monitoring it is to create a _metric filter_ on the log stream. A metric filter generates a metric based on patterns occurring in the log contents. Here, a metric filter is created that looks for log messages containing the string "ERROR", which indicates an error logged by the namenode. Start creating a metric filter by selecting the radio button for the new "mycluster/hdfs/nn" log group in the list of log groups, and then clicking the "Create Metric Filter" above the list, as shown in Figure 17-15. ###### Figure 17-15. Beginning to create a CloudWatch log metric filter On the next page, define the filter pattern by entering "ERROR" (without quotes) in the Filter Pattern text field. Click the Assign Metric button to continue to the next step. Fill in the remaining information for the filter on the last page, as shown in Figure 17-16: * Choose a filter name, such as "Namenode Errors". * Select a metric _namespace_ , which is used to group similar metrics together in CloudWatch. The namespace "HadoopClusters", for example, could be used to group together all metrics pertaining to your Hadoop clusters. * Select a name for the metric that is to be generated by the filter. Something simple like "NamenodeErrors" fits. * Finally, open the "Advanced Options" if necessary and assign the Metric Value of "1", which is the default. This causes the filter to post a value of 1 to the metric whenever the filter pattern, which looks for error messages, encounters a match. Click the Create Filter button to create the metric filter. ###### Figure 17-16. Definition for a new metric filter in CloudWatch The new filter is shown as one of the metric filters associated with the namenode log group, as shown in Figure 17-17. ###### Figure 17-17. A metric filter established in CloudWatch ## Creating an Alarm from a Metric Filter There is now a metric representing the presence of errors in the namenode log, but without an alarm monitoring the metric, it is up to administrators to watch it. To create an alarm for the new metric, follow the "Create Alarm" link displayed for the metric filter. A dialog appears, with the second step in the alarm creation workflow, Define Alarm, already selected. The first step already refers to the metric associated with the filter. Working in the Alarm Threshold section, first provide a name and description for the new alarm. The alarm is already focused on the "NamenodeErrors" metric; choose to have it move to an alarmed state whenever that metric is greater than or equal to 0 for one (consecutive) period. This will cause the alarm to trigger whenever an error appears in the log, because the metric filter will post a value of "1" at that time. In the Actions section of the dialog, you can define notifications to send when the alarm changes state. Begin by selecting the default value of "State is ALARM" for the "Whenever this alarm:" menu, so that notifications are sent when the alarm is triggered, that is, when an error message appears in the namenode menu. CloudWatch uses the AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS) to manage sending notifications. Rather than specifying email addresses directly for a notification, you create a named topic in SNS that includes your email address, and point to that in the alarm definition. Follow the "New List" link, and the form for the notification definition expands to allow you to enter a topic name and list of email addresses. Enter a topic name and email address of your choice. The final states of the Alarm Threshold and Actions sections of the dialog are shown in Figure 17-18. ###### Figure 17-18. Alarm threshold and actions in CloudWatch The period and statistic that the alarm uses to consider the metric is in the Alarm Preview section, shown in Figure 17-19. Together, they determine the calculation performed to decide if the alarm should be triggered. For this example, a period of 5 minutes and statistic of "Sum" states that the alarm should be tripped if the sum of the metric exceeds zero when evaluated over a 5-minute period. Since any error message will cause a value of "1" to be entered for the metric, these values will cause the alarm to be triggered within 5 minutes of an error appearing in the namenode log. ###### Figure 17-19. Alarm preview in CloudWatch Click the Create Alarm button to create the alarm. You may be presented with a dialog box asking you to confirm the email address you supplied for the notification list. You can do this now or later. Click the View Alarm button in the dialog to see the new alarm. Select the Alarms section of CloudWatch from the menu on the left side of the console to see the new alarm listed. Its state of "INSUFFICIENT_DATA" notes that there are not enough datapoints for the metric to determine a state for the alarm; this is because the metric filter does not post anything at all for the metric unless there is an error message. To get the alarm to trigger, induce an error message in the namenode log. An easy way to do that is simply to stop the namenode using the usual stop script: # as hdfs $ $HADOOP_PREFIX/sbin/stop-dfs.sh An error message should appear in the namenode log indicating that it received a SIGTERM signal. Within 5 minutes, the state for the namenode error alarm should transition to ALARM, as shown in Figure 17-20, and you should receive an email from AWS notifying you of the problem. ###### Figure 17-20. A tripped alarm for a log metric filter in CloudWatch Receiving an email is very helpful, but you could expand on the notification capabilities in SNS to do more, such as ping a paging system, or even trigger a script that automatically restarts HDFS. # So Much More to See and Do This chapter, despite its length, has only scratched the surface of the monitoring opportunities available for your clusters running in the cloud. There is much more you can learn about each cloud provider's offerings, and the reward is a much better view of the health and well-being of your clusters in the cloud. Having that assurance is both necessary to encourage moving more work to cloud providers and to keep tabs on what's already there. Eventually, your monitoring will alarm you that one of your clusters is degraded. Perhaps HDFS has crashed, or all of the worker instances have vanished. When (not if) that happens, you will need to be able to restore the cluster and the data that it held. Chapter 18 briefs you on the options you have for cluster backup and restoration. A cloud provider's own Hadoop services, like Amazon EMR, will often integrate with its monitoring. Stackdriver was originally an independent service, which Google acquired in 2014. As cloud usage for Hadoop clusters continues to increase, it is likely that the applications will become more aware of where clusters are running and provide new features to be more effective. At the time of writing, version 2 of the CLI is in development. Should this be the private IP address or public IP address? See "Hadoop Daemon Status" for discussion. You can create custom policies for more security. See "Creating an IAM User for Log Streaming" to learn about this process in the context of submitting logs to CloudWatch. # Chapter 18. Backup and Restoration Despite the reliability and availability benefits of running your clusters on a cloud provider, failures still can occur. It's essential to include disaster recovery procedures as part of your maintenance process, and that starts with safe backups of your cluster data. Even if you have faith in your cloud provider that your resources will remain operational as long as you need them, rules and regulations pertaining to your data can compel you to have a backup process in place. There are many general techniques for performing backup and restoration for Hadoop clusters. This chapter focuses on aspects of those techniques that are relevant for cloud clusters. # Patterns to Supplement Backups Besides explicit backup procedures, there are other measures you can, and should, employ to provide greater assurance that your cluster data, and clusters themselves, remain available in the face of problems. "Long-Running or Transient?" discusses the trade-offs between long-running clusters and transient clusters. By their nature, long-running clusters become more and more critical as they accumulate important data as well as unique configurations or software installations. Transient clusters, on the other hand, cannot become the permanent home of any data, and can be spun up easily with the proper automation. Adoption of transient clusters, therefore, can lead to an architecture that is more resilient to failure. When a transient cluster fails, a new similar one can be created with little trouble, and data is already stored off-cluster in robust cloud provider storage services. Another measure that effectively preserves your work is the use of images, as covered in Chapter 16, to persist the required configurations of your cluster instances. Combined with the automation necessary to create new clusters, you are freed from concern that all of the effort put into configuring your clusters properly will be lost if those clusters become corrupted or disappear. HDFS data can be similarly "imaged" by using HDFS snapshots. You can quickly create an HDFS snapshot to hold a read-only copy of a specified directory. If the directory contents become corrupted, you can restore the snapshot to return to a past, known good state. Note that HDFS snapshots, however, may be lost if a cluster loses enough datanodes. Finally, Hadoop itself supports high availability (HA) clusters, covered in depth in Chapter 10, to eliminate single points of failure in your architecture such as the HDFS namenode and the YARN resource manager. The built-in resiliency of Hadoop to the loss of other daemons like HDFS datanodes, combined with an HA configuration that works with cloud provider features such as availability zones, can result in clusters that not only intrinsically back up data, but continue functioning in the face of failure. In summary, the following architectural choices go a long way to ensuring that cluster data and configuration is backed up, before even performing direct data backup operations: * Use images to bake in cluster configuration, with scripts to fill in what's needed at deployment time. * Use transient clusters so that they do not accumulate essential configuration and data. * Store data in cloud provider storage services, pulling them into a cluster when needed; likewise, save final results to storage services for safekeeping. * Set up high availability. * Use cloud provider features like availability zones and automatic failover. After embracing some or all of these measures, you may still want an ordinary data backup. After all, a key tenet of data security, or information assurance in general, is _defense in depth_ , which means setting up multiple layers of protection. In the end, your mind may be more at ease simply knowing that, if all else fails, there's always a copy of your data somewhere else, safe and sound. # Backup via Imaging A cloud provider lets you create an image of any instance. So, why not just create images of each instance in a cluster as your backup? This can work as a backup scheme, but it has a good number of drawbacks. Among them: * The cluster components must be shut down, and often its instances stopped, in order to have a stable basis for imaging. * An image must be made of every cluster instance, because they hold unique combinations of data and have unique configurations. Therefore, this technique does not scale well to large clusters. * On restoration, all private and public IP addresses will most likely be different, so some reconfiguration work is still necessary. SSH access also needs to be updated. * The images include files from the operating system and installed software, none of which is strictly necessary for backing up a cluster. So, a lot of space is wasted. * Some of the data stored in the cluster may not need to be backed up, such as checkpoint data written in the middle of a larger workflow. So, even more space is wasted. Few situations call for this form of cluster backup. Moving an entire cluster as is from, say, one region to another could be accomplished in this fashion, and that may be easier than using a selective backup scheme to manage what data needs to be copied over. A cluster that is highly critical, and whose configuration is fragile, may need to be backed up this way, because any other technique would be too risky. However, it is much better not to get yourself into the position where backup via imaging is your only option. Instead, migrate to using base images plus automation to create clusters that can do the necessary work, and adopt transient clusters to prevent buildup of one-off configuration changes and vital data stored only in running clusters. Rely on whole-cluster imaging only for extenuating circumstances. # HDFS Replication A common pattern for backing up a Hadoop cluster is to maintain a _disaster recovery_ (DR) cluster, configured in much the same way as the original, primary cluster. The DR cluster could serve merely as a receptacle for the data that normally resides in the primary cluster, so that at recovery time the data must be copied back to a new operational cluster. Alternatively, the DR cluster could be fully capable of taking over workloads for the primary cluster, as a complete failover system. The copying of HDFS data from one cluster to another is normally performed by the `distcp` tool, which ships with Hadoop itself, and cloud clusters are no different. You only need the IP addresses or hostnames of the namenodes in the source (primary) and destination (DR) cluster: $ hadoop distcp hdfs://203.0.113.101:9820/datadir \ > hdfs://203.0.113.201:9820/datadir Consult the `distcp` documentation for information on the available options, like `-update` and `-overwrite`, that affect where and how files are copied over. Network connectivity is an important factor to consider when using `distcp`. `distcp` requires that the YARN node managers executing the copy be able to reach both the source and destination filesystems; so, network security rules that apply to the clusters must allow the communication. It's simplest for both clusters to reside in the same subnet, where unrestricted connectivity is the norm. However, since this is a backup scenario, you may wish to host the DR cluster in a separate network location, such as a separate region, so that it's less likely that it will experience an outage when the primary does. If so, check the security rules, and attempt a run or two of `distcp` to be sure that it works. A related factor here is cost. Data transfer within an availability zone is generally free, but there can be costs associated with traversing availability zones and regions. Costs are especially important to consider if the DR cluster sits outside the cloud provider entirely. You must strike a balance between the costs incurred for performing HDFS replication, where the DR cluster resides, and how often replication runs. For example, you could replicate more often to a DR cluster hosted in a different availability zone, but replicate to another DR cluster in a separate region less often. ## Cloud Storage Filesystems `distcp` takes in Hadoop filesystem URLs as arguments, so it can work with filesystem implementations that are backed by cloud provider storage services: S3 for AWS, Google Cloud Storage for Google Cloud Platform, and Azure Blob Storage or Azure Data Lake Store for Azure. For example, once the s3a filesystem is installed as described in "Configuring the S3 Filesystem", you can back up HDFS data to S3 directly: $ hadoop distcp hdfs://203.0.113.101:9820/datadir s3a://mybackupbucket/datadir This does not require a DR cluster running to work. Storage costs are significantly lower for object storage than for the block storage associated with cluster instances, and you also save on the cost of running the cluster instances themselves. The backup and replication guarantees for object storage may also be stronger than for block storage. In the case of primary cluster failure, however, you will need to not only stand up a new cluster, but copy the data out of object storage to it. So recovery time may be affected. Once again, there is a balance to be achieved, based on your goals. ## HDFS Snapshots The `distcp` tool can take a long time to run. It needs to assemble a list of files to copy, as well as run the mappers that take time to perform the copies. During this time, changes can be written to HDFS, which causes inconsistency between the set of original files and the set of backed up files. To avoid this problem, HDFS snapshots can be backed up instead of the live data. The `distcp` tool provides some performance optimizations based on analysis of the difference between snapshots. These can not just make the tool run faster, but also lead it to copy less data, an advantage that directly maps to lower cost for cloud data transfer: # initial backup as snapshot $ hdfs dfs -createSnapshot /datadir 101 $ hadoop distcp hdfs://203.0.113.101:9820/datadir/.snapshot/101 \ > hdfs://203.0.113.201:9820/datadir # make snapshot 101 in other cluster # next backup compares snapshots $ hdfs dfs -createSnapshot /datadir 102 $ hadoop distcp -update -diff 101 102 hdfs://203.0.113.101:9820/datadir \ > hdfs://203.0.113.201:9820/datadir The HDFS snapshot documentation explains how to enable, perform, and manage HDFS snapshots. # Hive Metastore Replication HDFS data isn't the only important data to preserve in a cluster. The Hive metastore, which stores mapping information for tabular data accessed by Hive and other Hadoop components, also needs to be backed up, so that those components can be recovered without having to reconfigure them from scratch. If you are using a local metastore, then its data is stored in HDFS, and HDFS replication is sufficient to back it up. Otherwise, if you are using a remote metastore, then some database server outside the cluster houses the metastore database, and it's that database that you must back up. Fortunately, if you are using your cloud provider's cloud database service to host your remote metastore, there is not much that you need to do yourself. You don't need to directly manage the instance hosting the database server; in fact, it's hidden from you, cared for completely by the provider. Database backups, replication, and failover are all handled as well. For cost and speed reasons, the metastore should reside within the cloud provider anyway, so for all these reasons, you should use a cloud database to host a Hive metastore, and delegate the work of backups. # Logs A complete backup regime for a cluster should include saving off logs for key daemons and for applications that run alongside the cluster. With logs backed up, it becomes easier to reconstruct whatever problems led to having to perform a restoration. Because cloud providers reclaim resources for other customers to use after you stop using them, deep forensic analysis of failures becomes impossible without your own log backups. For easier analysis and reconstruction, you may also want to enable audit logging for those components that support it, such as HDFS and Hive. Audit logs are more suited for analysis and reconstruction attempts than the usual daemon logs. Consult the documentation for each Hadoop component to learn about its auditing capability. Alternatively, you can deploy a separate application that supports auditing of Hadoop clusters, and use its capability to safely store audit logs. Logs generally do not need to be restored into clusters, so there are more options for where they can be saved. A great choice is to use your cloud provider's monitoring service; see "Monitoring Choices" for an overview. The services are efficient and include search and filter capabilities for easier analysis. "Ingesting Logs into CloudWatch" demonstrates how to set up AWS CloudWatch to ingest an HDFS namenode log as an example. Another option available in the cloud is to copy log data into an object storage service. You do not gain the benefits of search and monitoring, but you may save on cost. Since logs rarely need to be analyzed, they can be sent to "cold" storage tiers, where costs are even lower. Suppose all of the Hadoop logs that should be saved are in _/var/log/hadoop_. If you are running in AWS or Google Cloud Platform, you can use their respective CLIs to efficiently send new and updated files to a storage bucket: # AWS $ aws s3 sync /var/log/hadoop s3://myhadooplogs # Google Cloud Platform $ gsutil rsync -r /var/log/hadoop gs://myhadooplogs At the time of this writing, there is no equivalent command in the Azure CLI. You can use the CLI to copy individual files via the `azure storage file upload` command, but this does not skip files that are unchanged. A more efficient alternative is to use Azure File storage to mount a file share on the relevant cluster instances, and then employ the standard `rsync` command to perform backups. Consult the Azure File storage for Linux documentation to learn how to create a file share and mount it on a Linux virtual machine. # A General Cloud Hadoop Backup Strategy Your task as the maintainer of critical Hadoop clusters is to combine the usual options for backup with those available in the cloud into a strategy that meets the needs of your organization and the requirements associated with the data the clusters operate on. Every organization is different, but here are some general pointers that can form the seed of your own strategy: * Identify cluster data that must be backed up, distinct from transient data that can easily be regenerated. Have jobs work with the first set in areas separate from the second set, so that it's easier to target backups. * Adjust workflows for cloud clusters so that critical data needn't reside in the clusters for long, preferring to save long-term results in object storage services or elsewhere. This reduces the risk of clusters failing and the need to restore backups. * Designate destination storage for backups, either in DR clusters or object storage services. Make sure that security rules restrict access to protect the data within them, but also allow for backup processes to reach them and write data. * Establish regular backups, and monitor them so they cannot silently stop working. Use cloud services to set alarms if backups stop occurring. * Improve the speed and reliability of the process for standing up Hadoop clusters, using images and automation as much as possible, so that restoring from backup takes a reasonable amount of time. * Practice performing restoration. The time to discover that a backup is incomplete or a restoration process is faulty is not when you need to restore a critical cluster. Regular practice of restoration increases confidence in the backup strategy and leads to faster recovery times. * Delegate backup responsibilities to cloud services where possible. Your cloud provider has powerful backup, availability, and failover capabilities managed by experts ready for you to use. # Not So Different, But Better You may notice that some of the advice in this chapter, like identifying the essential data for backup and practicing cluster restoration, is not specific to clusters running on a cloud provider. You should employ the techniques no matter where your clusters are. The key idea is that, in the cloud, there are services at your disposal that can augment your typical practices. It's one of the most important reasons to move your clusters to the cloud, for it opens up a vast array of resources and versatile services that may be difficult or impossible to create in your organization's own data centers. You don't need to create a robust, resilient, geographically dispersed storage system. You don't need to rig up a network that is flexible to configure yet straightforward to secure. You don't even need to directly manage database servers. All of these responsibilities, and more, are handled by your cloud provider. You just need to figure out how best to take advantage of them. This doesn't apply just to performing backups, but to every aspect of cluster management. When you begin moving Hadoop clusters to the cloud, it's natural to start with the processes you are already familiar with, and that works. As you grow more comfortable and you explore cloud provider capabilities, those processes can morph and expand, perhaps beginning with a focused change or two, but eventually moving on to embracing provider services to fundamentally change how you manage clusters. This indeed can make cluster management easier and more satisfying, but it also opens up new ways of working for your organization, so you can use clusters to answer questions you couldn't before, and move faster and with more confidence. The reason to adopt a new technology then, like the cloud, is not merely to check a box. It's to advance to a higher state of functioning, which could be speed, or quantity, or complexity, or quality. The public cloud providers have provided the means to get there; it's a matter of learning about them and building on them. # To the Cloud When you look up at a cloud, it seems simple enough, and not so mysterious. But when you are in an airplane flying through one, you can barely see anything outside of your window, and the ride gets bumpy. So it is with "the cloud": It doesn't appear that complicated at first, but once you're inside it, it's easy to lose sight of where you are and hard to figure out which way to go. For moving your Hadoop clusters to the cloud, this book's goal is to be like radar, helping you discern the shape of your cloud provider and all its services, and the path through it to get your clusters up and running. Providers are ever-changing, but with enough experience, your piloting skills will be enough to see you through, as both Hadoop and the cloud continue into the future. Both of these components include an audit logger in their Log4J properties. There is an AzCopy utility that can perform copies to Azure Storage, but it works only on Windows. # Appendix A. Hadoop Component Start and Stop Scripts Some Hadoop components, like HDFS and YARN, ship with management scripts that let you start and stop all of their component daemons or servers in one command. Others do not. The scripts here fill those gaps. ###### Tip Code is available at this book's code repository. # Apache ZooKeeper The script in Example A-1 starts and stops Apache ZooKeeper servers, assuming each one is running on a worker instance in the cluster. It should be installed on the manager instance and run under the "zk" account, or any account that has passwordless SSH access to an account on each worker that may control ZooKeeper. ##### Example A-1. Control script for Apache ZooKeeper #!/usr/bin/env bash if [[ -z $1 ]]; then echo "Syntax: $0 (start\|stop\|status)" exit fi # Assumption is that each "slave" hosts a ZooKeeper server SLAVES=( $(cat /etc/hadoop/slaves) ) case "$1" in start) echo Starting ZooKeeper for s in "${SLAVES[@]}"; do ssh "$s" /opt/zookeeper/bin/zkServer.sh start done ;; stop) echo Stopping ZooKeeper for s in "${SLAVES[@]}"; do ssh "$s" /opt/zookeeper/bin/zkServer.sh stop done ;; status) echo Checking ZooKeeper status for s in "${SLAVES[@]}"; do ssh "$s" /opt/zookeeper/bin/zkServer.sh status done ;; esac # Apache Hive The scripts in Examples A-2 and A-3 start and stop the Hive server (HiveServer2) and the Hive metastore server, respectively. They should be installed on an instance where Hive is installed, usually a manager, under an account such as "hive" that has permission to run Hive components. The scripts do not require any remote connectivity. Ensure that the value of `SPARK_HOME` in the scripts points to a version of Spark that is compatible with Hive. ##### Example A-2. Control script for Apache Hive server #!/usr/bin/env bash if [[ -z $1 ]]; then echo "Syntax: $0 (start\|stop\|status)" exit fi # Define enviroment variables Hive expects export HADOOP_HOME=/opt/hadoop export HIVE_HOME=/opt/hive export SPARK_HOME=/opt/spark export PATH=${HIVE_HOME}/bin:${HADOOP_HOME}/bin:$PATH export HADOOP_CONF_DIR=/etc/hadoop HS2_PID_DIR=/var/run/hadoop HS2_PID_FILE="${HS2_PID_DIR}"/hs2.pid case "$1" in start) echo Starting HiveServer2 "${HIVE_HOME}"/bin/hiveserver2 & PID=$! echo "${PID}" > "${HS2_PID_FILE}" echo "HiveServer2 started [${PID}]" ;; stop) if [[ ! -f "${HS2_PID_FILE}" ]]; then echo HiveServer2 not running exit fi echo Stopping HiveServer2 kill "$(cat "${HS2_PID_FILE}")" ;; status) if [[ ! -f "${HS2_PID_FILE}" ]]; then echo Pid file for HiveServer2 not found exit 1 fi PID=$(cat "${HS2_PID_FILE}") if kill -0 "${PID}" 2>/dev/null; then echo "HiveServer2 is running [${PID}]" else echo "HiveServer2 is not running" fi ;; esac ##### Example A-3. Control script for Apache Hive metastore server #!/usr/bin/env bash if [[ -z $1 ]]; then echo "Syntax: $0 (start\|stop\|status)" exit fi # Define enviroment variables Hive expects export HADOOP_HOME=/opt/hadoop export HIVE_HOME=/opt/hive export SPARK_HOME=/opt/spark export PATH=${HIVE_HOME}/bin:${HADOOP_HOME}/bin:$PATH export HADOOP_CONF_DIR=/etc/hadoop HIVEMETA_LOG_DIR=/var/log/hive HIVEMETA_PID_DIR=/var/run/hadoop HIVEMETA_PID_FILE="${HIVEMETA_PID_DIR}"/hivemeta.pid PORT=9083 case "$1" in start) echo Starting Hive Metastore Server hive --service metastore -p ${PORT} > ${HIVEMETA_LOG_DIR}/metastore.log & PID=$! echo "${PID}" > "${HIVEMETA_PID_FILE}" echo "Hive Metastore Server started [${PID}]" ;; stop) if [[ ! -f "${HIVEMETA_PID_FILE}" ]]; then echo Hive Metastore Server not running exit fi echo Stopping Hive Metastore Server kill "$(cat "${HIVEMETA_PID_FILE}")" ;; status) if [[ ! -f "${HIVEMETA_PID_FILE}" ]]; then echo Pid file for Hive Metastore Server not found exit 1 fi PID=$(cat "${HIVEMETA_PID_FILE}") if kill -0 "${PID}" 2>/dev/null; then echo "Hive Metastore Server is running [${PID}]" else echo "Hive Metastore Server is not running" fi ;; esac # Appendix B. Hadoop Cluster Configuration Scripts To speed up the creation of Hadoop clusters in the cloud, you can create an image for one or more representative cluster instances with software already installed and, for the most part, configured. Chapter 16 describes the process. Still, there are configuration steps that can only be done once the cluster instances are running, and the scripts here can automate the work. A quick glance at the scripts should reveal that even this small slice of automation is not trivial. You might consider borrowing the techniques used here and implementing them using a different scripting language or framework. Central to them is the ability to establish SSH connections into and within the cluster, so look for frameworks that help in that regard, such as Fabric. ###### Tip Code is available at this book's code repository. # SSH Key Creation and Distribution The Hadoop installation process in Chapter 9 and elsewhere includes the creation of user accounts specific to services like HDFS, YARN, and ZooKeeper. Those accounts can already be in place in an image, but for greater security they should be configured with unique SSH keys, so that instances in one cluster cannot access instances in other clusters that were built from the same image. The Bash script in Example B-1 can be run from your local computer to orchestrate the creation of SSH key pairs on the manager instance of a Hadoop cluster for each Hadoop account, and the distribution of public keys to the manager instance and worker instances. ##### Example B-1. SSH key pair creation and distribution script #!/usr/bin/env bash # Generates SSH key pairs for accounts on one instance (manager), and distributes # public keys to that instance and other instances (workers). DEFAULT_ACCOUNTS=( ubuntu hdfs yarn zk ) usage() { cat << EOF usage: $0 options manager-ips worker1-ips ... OPTIONS: -a accts Accounts to configure (default ${DEFAULT_ACCOUNTS[]}) Specify as space-separated list, e.g., "acct1 acct2 acct3" -G Do not generate new SSH key pairs; use what is already available -i file Identity file for SSH connections to manager -u user User for SSH connections to manager -h Shows this help message Run this script on a machine that can connect to the manager instance via SSH. The user account on the manager instance must have passwordless sudo access. Pass the public and private IP addresses for each instance in the cluster as a colon-separated pair, e.g., 203.0.113.101:192.168.1.101. EXAMPLE: $0 -a "hdfs yarn" -i /path/to/key.pem -u ubuntu \\ 203.0.113.101:192.168.1.101 \\ 203.0.113.102:192.168.1.102 \\ 203.0.113.103:192.168.1.103 \\ 203.0.113.104:192.168.1.104 EOF } ACCOUNTS=( "${DEFAULT_ACCOUNTS[@]}" ) DO_NOT_GENERATE= SSH_IDENTITY= SSH_USER= while getopts "a:Gi:u:h" opt do case $opt in h) usage exit 0 ;; a) ACCOUNTS=( $OPTARG ) ;; G) DO_NOT_GENERATE=1 ;; i) SSH_IDENTITY="$OPTARG" ;; u) SSH_USER="$OPTARG" ;; ?) usage exit ;; esac done shift $((OPTIND - 1)) if (( $# < 2 )); then echo "Supply the manager private IP address and at least one worker IP address" usage exit 1 fi if [[ ${#ACCOUNTS[@]} == 0 ]]; then echo "No accounts specified" usage exit 1 fi # Find manager IP addresses: "public IP:private IP" MANAGER_PUBLIC_IP="${1%%:}" MANAGER_PRIVATE_IP="${1##:}" shift # Collect remaining IP address pairs for workers WORKER_IPS=( "$@" ) NUM_WORKERS=${#WORKER_IPS[@]} MANAGER_HOSTNAME="$(hostname --fqdn)" echo "Manager public IP: $MANAGER_PUBLIC_IP" echo "Manager private IP: $MANAGER_PRIVATE_IP" echo "Manager hostname: $MANAGER_HOSTNAME" echo "${NUM_WORKERS} worker IPs: ${WORKER_IPS[]}" echo "Accounts: ${ACCOUNTS[]}" # Construct the SSH command with the provided identity file and username SSH_CMD=( ssh ) if [[ -n $SSH_IDENTITY ]]; then SSH_CMD+=( -i "$SSH_IDENTITY" ) fi if [[ -n $SSH_USER ]]; then SSH_CMD+=( -o "User=$SSH_USER" ) fi # For each account ... for acct in "${ACCOUNTS[@]}"; do # Note whether this account is the one used for SSH connections by this script if [[ -n $SSH_USER && "$acct" == "$SSH_USER" ]]; then issshuser=1 else issshuser= fi echo if [[ -z $DO_NOT_GENERATE ]]; then # Generate a key pair on the manager instance using ssh-keygen echo "[$acct] Generating manager SSH key pair" "${SSH_CMD[@]}" -t "${MANAGER_PUBLIC_IP}" "sudo -u \"$acct\" ssh-keygen" \ "-t rsa -b 2048 -f /home/$acct/.ssh/id_rsa -N ''" # Copy the new public key to the authorized_keys file on the manager # - If this account is the one being used by this script, then just # append it to authorized_keys, don't outright replace the file echo "[$acct] Copying public SSH key to authorized_keys on manager" if [[ -n $issshuser ]]; then "${SSH_CMD[@]}" -t "${MANAGER_PUBLIC_IP}" \ "sudo cat /home/$acct/.ssh/id_rsa.pub \| sudo -u \"$acct\"" \ "tee -a /home/$acct/.ssh/authorized_keys > /dev/null" else "${SSH_CMD[@]}" -t "${MANAGER_PUBLIC_IP}" \ "sudo cat /home/$acct/.ssh/id_rsa.pub \| sudo -u \"$acct\"" \ "tee /home/$acct/.ssh/authorized_keys > /dev/null" fi # Set the permissions for authorized_keys appropriately "${SSH_CMD[@]}" -t "${MANAGER_PUBLIC_IP}" \ "sudo chmod 600 /home/$acct/.ssh/authorized_keys" else echo "[$acct] Skipping manager SSH key pair generation" fi # Get the new public key echo "[$acct] Retrieving public SSH key" pubkey="$( "${SSH_CMD[@]}" -t "${MANAGER_PUBLIC_IP}" \ "sudo cat /home/$acct/.ssh/id_rsa.pub" )" echo "[$acct] Public key contents:" echo "----" echo "$pubkey" echo "----" # For each worker ... for worker_ips in "${WORKER_IPS[@]}"; do # Write the public key to the authorized_keys file on the worker, creating # it and its directory if necessary # - Again, just append to the file if the account is being used here worker=${worker_ips%%:} echo echo "[$acct] Installing public SSH key on $worker" "${SSH_CMD[@]}" -t "${worker}" \ "sudo -u \"$acct\" mkdir -p -m 0700 /home/$acct/.ssh" "${SSH_CMD[@]}" "${worker}" "cat >> /tmp/pubkey" <<< "$pubkey" if [[ -n $issshuser ]]; then "${SSH_CMD[@]}" -t "${worker}" "sudo cat /tmp/pubkey \| sudo -u \"$acct\"" \ "tee -a /home/$acct/.ssh/authorized_keys > /dev/null" else "${SSH_CMD[@]}" -t "${worker}" "sudo cat /tmp/pubkey \| sudo -u \"$acct\"" \ "tee /home/$acct/.ssh/authorized_keys > /dev/null" fi "${SSH_CMD[@]}" -t "${worker}" "sudo chmod 600 /home/$acct/.ssh/authorized_keys" "${SSH_CMD[@]}" "${worker}" "rm /tmp/pubkey" done # Connect from the manager instance to itself and each worker so that the # new host keys are accepted now; this avoids being asked interactively later echo echo "[$acct] Connecting to each cluster instance from manager to" \ "accept host keys" if [[ -n $MANAGER_HOSTNAME ]]; then "${SSH_CMD[@]}" -t "${MANAGER_PUBLIC_IP}" "sudo -u \"$acct\"" \ "ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no \"$MANAGER_HOSTNAME\" date > /dev/null" fi "${SSH_CMD[@]}" -t "${MANAGER_PUBLIC_IP}" "sudo -u \"$acct\"" \ "ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no \"$MANAGER_PRIVATE_IP\" date > /dev/null" "${SSH_CMD[@]}" -t "${MANAGER_PUBLIC_IP}" "sudo -u \"$acct\"" \ "ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no 0.0.0.0 date > /dev/null" for worker_ips in "${WORKER_IPS[@]}"; do worker=${worker_ips##:} # connect from manager to private IP of worker "${SSH_CMD[@]}" -t "${MANAGER_PUBLIC_IP}" "sudo -u \"$acct\"" \ "ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no \"$worker\" date > /dev/null" done done # Configuration Update Script The bash script in Example B-2 handles substituting cluster instance private IP addresses for tokens placed into various Hadoop configuration files, as suggested in "Image Preparation". The script is run on the manager instance (and, for HA clusters, on the second manager instance as well) and handles configuration on that instance as well as worker instances. ##### Example B-2. Hadoop configuration update script #!/usr/bin/env bash # Configures Hadoop components on a manager instance and one or more worker # instances. usage() { cat << EOF usage: $0 options manager-ip worker-ip ... OPTIONS: -d <name> Hostname of database server hosting Hive metastore -a <keys> AWS access key and secret access key, separated by a colon -H Initialize for second manager (for HA cluster) -m <ip> IP address of second manager (for HA cluster) -h Shows this help message For an HA cluster, run this script on the first manager with -m, and then on the second manager with -m and -H. Use the same manager IP addresses on each manager; do not reverse them when running on the second manager. The user account on each manager must have passwordless sudo access. EOF } HIVE_DB_SERVER= AWS_ACCESS_KEY= AWS_SECRET_KEY= ON_SECOND_MANAGER= MANAGER2_IP= while getopts "a:d:hHm:" opt do case $opt in h) usage exit 0 ;; a) AWS_ACCESS_KEY="${OPTARG%%:}" AWS_SECRET_KEY="${OPTARG##:}" ;; d) HIVE_DB_SERVER="$OPTARG" ;; H) ON_SECOND_MANAGER=1 ;; m) MANAGER2_IP="$OPTARG" ;; ?) usage exit ;; esac done shift $((OPTIND - 1)) if (( $# < 2 )); then echo "Supply the manager private IP address and at least one worker IP address" usage exit 1 fi if [[ -n $ON_SECOND_MANAGER && -z $MANAGER2_IP ]]; then echo "When running on second manager, -m is required" usage exit 1 fi # Collect required IP addresses: manager and workers MANAGER_IP="$1" shift WORKER_IPS=( "$@" ) NUM_WORKERS=${#WORKER_IPS[@]} echo "Manager IP: $MANAGER_IP" if [[ -n $MANAGER2_IP ]]; then echo "HA Manager IP: $MANAGER2_IP" fi echo "${NUM_WORKERS} worker IPs: ${WORKER_IPS[]}" echo # Replaces a ${token_string} in a file with a value swap_in() { local f="$1" local token_name="$2" local repl="$3" local token='\${'"${token_name}"'}' sudo sed -i "s/${token}/${repl}/g" "$f" } echo echo "Substituting IP addresses and hostnames into Hadoop configurations" echo # Replace in core-site.xml files: manager.ip, worker<i>.ip echo "- /etc/hadoop/core-site.xml" swap_in /etc/hadoop/core-site.xml manager.ip "${MANAGER_IP}" for i in $(seq 1 "$NUM_WORKERS"); do w="${WORKER_IPS[$(( i - 1 ))]}" swap_in /etc/hadoop/core-site.xml "worker${i}.ip" "$w" done # Replace in yarn-site.xml files: manager.ip, manager2.ip, worker<i>.ip echo "- /etc/hadoop/yarn-site.xml" swap_in /etc/hadoop/yarn-site.xml manager.ip "${MANAGER_IP}" swap_in /etc/hadoop/yarn-site.xml manager2.ip "${MANAGER2_IP}" for i in $(seq 1 "$NUM_WORKERS"); do w="${WORKER_IPS[$(( i - 1 ))]}" swap_in /etc/hadoop/yarn-site.xml "worker${i}.ip" "$w" done if [[ -n $ON_SECOND_MANAGER ]]; then # Change YARN RM HA ID to rm2 on the second manager sudo sed -i 's/<value>rm1</<value>rm2</' /etc/hadoop/yarn-site.xml echo fi # Write slaves file based on known worker IP addresses echo "- /etc/hadoop/slaves" printf '%s\n' "${WORKER_IPS[@]}" \| sudo tee /etc/hadoop/slaves > /dev/null # Replace in zoo.cfg files: worker<i>.ip echo "- /opt/zookeeper/conf/zoo.cfg" for i in $(seq 1 "$NUM_WORKERS"); do w="${WORKER_IPS[$(( i - 1 ))]}" swap_in /opt/zookeeper/conf/zoo.cfg "worker${i}.ip" "$w" done # Replace in hive-site.xml: manager.ip, dbserver.name echo "- /opt/hive/conf/hive-site.xml" if [[ -z $ON_SECOND_MANAGER ]]; then swap_in /opt/hive/conf/hive-site.xml manager.ip "${MANAGER_IP}" else swap_in /opt/hive/conf/hive-site.xml manager.ip "${MANAGER2_IP}" fi if [[ -n $HIVE_DB_SERVER ]]; then swap_in /opt/hive/conf/hive-site.xml dbserver.name "${HIVE_DB_SERVER}" fi echo echo "IP address and hostname substitutions complete" if [[ -n $AWS_ACCESS_KEY ]]; then echo echo "Substituting AWS keys into Hadoop configurations" echo # Replace in core-site.xml: AWS keys echo "- /etc/hadoop/core-site.xml" swap_in /etc/hadoop/core-site.xml aws.access.key "${AWS_ACCESS_KEY}" swap_in /etc/hadoop/core-site.xml aws.secret.key "${AWS_SECRET_KEY}" echo echo "AWS key substitutions complete" fi if [[ -z $ON_SECOND_MANAGER ]]; then echo echo "Copying configurations out to workers" WORKER_FILES=(/etc/hadoop/core-site.xml /etc/hadoop/yarn-site.xml /opt/zookeeper/conf/zoo.cfg) # Copy out configuration files to each worker for w in "${WORKER_IPS[@]}"; do echo "- $w" scp "${WORKER_FILES[@]}" "$w":. for f in "${WORKER_FILES[@]}"; do ssh "$w" sudo cp "$(basename "$f")" "$f" done done # If configuring for HA (and running on first manager), remove # yarn.resourcemanager.ha.id from worker copies of yarn-site.xml if [[ -n $MANAGER2_IP ]]; then echo echo "Removing YARN RM HA ID from workers" for w in "${WORKER_IPS[@]}"; do echo "- $w" ssh "$w" sudo sed -i \ '/\<name\>yarn.resourcemanager.ha.id\</,/\<property\>/d' \ /etc/hadoop/yarn-site.xml done fi # Create ZooKeeper myid files, assigning a unique number per worker echo echo "Creating ZooKeeper myid files on workers" for i in $(seq 1 "$NUM_WORKERS"); do w="${WORKER_IPS[$(( i - 1 ))]}" echo "- $w" echo "$i" \| ssh "$w" "sudo tee /var/lib/zookeeper/myid > /dev/null" done fi ## New Worker Configuration Update Script When adding a new worker to an existing cluster, only a small amount of configuration is needed compared to what's done for an entire new cluster. The script in Example B-3 is a cut-down form of the previous script that works for most kinds of new worker instances, such as those hosting an HDFS datanode or a YARN node manager. See "Elastic Compute Using a Custom Metric" for how a script like this can help implement the automatic addition of workers to a busy cluster. ##### Example B-3. Hadoop configuration update script for a new worker #!/usr/bin/env bash # Configures Hadoop components on a new worker instance. usage() { cat << EOF usage: $0 new-worker-ip worker-ip ... Run this script on a manager. EOF } if (( $# < 2 )); then echo "Supply the new worker private IP address and at least one" \ "(old) worker IP address" usage exit 1 fi # Collect required IP addresses: this worker, and other workers NEW_WORKER_IP="$1" shift WORKER_IPS=( "$@" ) WORKER_IPS+=( "$NEW_WORKER_IP" ) NUM_WORKERS=${#WORKER_IPS[@]} echo "New worker IP: $NEW_WORKER_IP" echo "${NUM_WORKERS} worker IPs: ${WORKER_IPS[]}" echo echo echo "Substituting IP addresses and hostnames into Hadoop configurations" echo # Rewrite slaves file based on known worker IP addresses echo "- /etc/hadoop/slaves" printf '%s\n' "${WORKER_IPS[@]}" \| sudo tee /etc/hadoop/slaves > /dev/null echo echo "IP address and hostname substitutions complete" # Copy out configuration files to the new worker echo echo "Copying configurations out to new worker" WORKER_FILES=(/etc/hadoop/core-site.xml /etc/hadoop/yarn-site.xml /opt/zookeeper/conf/zoo.cfg) echo "- copy to $NEW_WORKER_IP" scp "${WORKER_FILES[@]}" "$NEW_WORKER_IP":. for f in "${WORKER_FILES[@]}"; do echo "- put $f in place" ssh "$NEW_WORKER_IP" sudo cp "$(basename "$f")" "$f" done # Appendix C. Monitoring Cloud Clusters with Nagios Nagios is a popular system for monitoring infrastructure. It can monitor networks, hardware, and applications using its built-in capabilities along with a plug-in architecture. Nagios is more than capable of monitoring cloud clusters for you, and a great choice if you are already familiar with the tool. It can be configured with custom checks that work with cloud provider infrastructures, Hadoop components, or anything else you can think of. ###### Tip Code is available at this book's code repository. # Where Nagios Should Run As discussed in "Hadoop Daemon Status", there are benefits and drawbacks for running a monitoring system within a cloud provider or outside it. These considerations apply to where Nagios runs as well. If you opt to run Nagios outside the cloud provider and outside a VPN with privileged access to the network where the Hadoop cluster runs, you must then loosen security rules to permit Nagios to reach all of the ports necessary for effective cluster monitoring. Also, unless you assign static public IP addresses to your instances, you will need to edit the Nagios configuration as those addresses change over time. # Instance Existence Through Ping Nagios normally checks if instances exist by attempting to ping them. The security rules set up in your cloud provider may block ping traffic, especially if it is running outside the cloud provider. You have the option of redefining the standard existence check, but you could instead simply permit ping traffic from where Nagios runs. For EC2 instances running in AWS, add a new inbound rule to the security group containing the cluster to permit pings to enter: Type: Custom ICMP Rule (IPv4) * Protocol: Echo Request * Port Range: N/A * Source: An appropriate IP range to cover your Nagios installation The default firewall rules set up in Google Cloud Platform include one that permits ICMP traffic. Edit the rule if necessary to cover your Nagios installation. Azure as a whole disallows all ICMP traffic, so pinging a virtual machine in Azure from an outside location such as the internet is not possible. The alternative is to set up a service listening on a TCP or UDP port and check for a response from that port instead. In the host definition for each Azure virtual machine, specify a command for the `check_command` value that itself uses either `check_tcp` or `check_udp` to attempt to connect to your chosen port. For example, if you choose TCP port 55555 as the port to check, first add a new inbound security rule to the network security group containing the cluster to permit TCP traffic over that port: * Source: A CIDR block with an appropriate IP range covering your Nagios installation * Service: Custom * Protocol: TCP * Port range: 55555 * Action: Allow Set up a service listening on port 55555 on each Azure instance. You have many options here, and perhaps the simplest is to use netcat, which can listen on a TCP port for arbitrary traffic. The `-k` option allows netcat to continue running after each connection from Nagios, instead of terminating after the first one: nc -k -l 55555 > /dev/null & With this command running on a virtual machine, the following `check_command` in its host definition will configure Nagios to check port 55555 to verify that the instance is up, instead of pinging it: check_command check_tcp!55555 A functioning TCP port check is shown in Figure C-1. ###### Figure C-1. Checking TCP port connectivity in Nagios for an Azure VM # Hosts and Host Groups Create a host definition in Nagios for each instance in the Hadoop cluster. As usual, prefer using the private IP address for each instance for security and performance reasons. For ease of tracking, use the cloud provider's name for each instance for the `host_name` and/or `alias` of its corresponding host definition. Every instance in the cluster can be corralled into a single host group representing the cluster. It is also helpful to create host groups for each instance role (see "General Cluster Instance Roles") since each role has common characteristics and performance expectations; this makes it easier to target service checks appropriately. For example, if a host group covers all of the worker instances in a cluster, then service checks concerning HDFS datanode disk usage or YARN node manager utilization can be targeted only at those instances. Nagios allows you to define custom variables for objects. To support service checks involving the cloud provider, define custom variables for each host to convey provider-specific identification. Here is an example of host and host group definitions for a small Hadoop cluster on AWS. The custom variable `_INSTANCEID` holds the EC2 instance ID for each instance: define host { use linux-server host_name manager alias manager address 203.0.113.101 _INSTANCEID i-12345678901234567 } define host { use linux-server host_name worker1 alias worker1 address 203.0.113.102 _INSTANCEID i-23456789012345678 } define host { use linux-server host_name worker2 alias worker2 address 203.0.113.103 _INSTANCEID i-34567890123456789 } define host { use linux-server host_name worker3 alias worker3 address 203.0.113.104 _INSTANCEID i-45678901234567890 } define hostgroup { hostgroup_name mycluster alias My Cluster members manager,worker1,worker2,worker3 } define hostgroup { hostgroup_name mycluster_workers alias My Cluster Workers members worker1,worker2,worker3 } Figure C-2 shows how the defined host groups appear in the Nagios web interface. ###### Figure C-2. Host groups for a Hadoop cluster in Nagios # Services and Service Groups The usual Nagios checks for system health apply to cloud cluster instances. To check on the health of Hadoop daemons, the `check_tcp` service check works in a similar fashion to netcat for determining if a daemon is listening on a port. For example, to verify that a namenode is running, check on port 8020: define service { use generic-service host_name manager service_description HDFS Namenode servicegroups HDFS check_command check_tcp!8020 } A service group can collect together all of the service checks relevant to a Hadoop component, so that it is possible to assess the overall health of that component in one spot. Example service groups for a few Hadoop components are shown in Figure C-3. ###### Figure C-3. Service groups for a Hadoop cluster in Nagios # Provider CLI Integration It is not difficult to define your own scripts for use as Nagios plug-ins. Such a script can perform a specific call to the provider based on host information, interpret the results, and then return one of the expected exit codes that Nagios interprets as the outcome of the service check. Nagios requires a functioning CLI installation to use such scripts, which implies that Nagios has access to credentials for an account on the cloud provider. It's therefore important to restrict the permissions on the account, in the event that the credentials are compromised, and also to prevent badly behaving Nagios plug-ins from interfering with cluster operations. Suppose that a Hadoop cluster is running in AWS, and you want a Nagios service check that looks at the instance status of each host. Start by creating a script that uses the `describe-instance-status` command to retrieve the status information. The command requires an instance ID, and so Nagios can pass that information from the custom variable associated with the host being checked. In Example C-1, the host is passed as an ordinary script argument. ##### Example C-1. A Nagios script for checking the status of an EC2 instance #!/usr/bin/env bash usage() { cat << EOF usage: $0 options instance-id OPTIONS: -p <profile> AWS profile (no default) -h Shows this help message EOF } PROFILE= while getopts "p:h" opt do case $opt in h) usage exit 3 # UNKNOWN ;; p) PROFILE="$OPTARG" ;; ?) usage exit 3 # UNKNOWN ;; esac done shift $((OPTIND - 1)) INSTANCE_ID="$1" CMD=(aws) if [[ -n $PROFILE ]]; then CMD+=(--profile "$PROFILE") fi CMD+=(ec2 describe-instance-status "--instance-id=${INSTANCE_ID}"\ --include-all-instances --query 'InstanceStatuses[0].InstanceStatus.Status') status=$("${CMD[@]}") echo "Instance $INSTANCE_ID status: $status" if [[ $status == "\"ok\"" ]]; then exit 0 # OK else exit 1 # WARNING fi This script uses the `--query` option of the AWS CLI to isolate the instance status from the JSON returned by the command. Place this script somewhere where Nagios can call it. Then, define a command for running the script, passing in the instance ID from the custom variable associated with the host using a custom variable macro: define command { command_name check_aws_instance_status command_line /path/to/check_aws_instance_status -p $ARG1$ $_HOSTINSTANCEID$ } Finally, add a service definition using the new check for the cluster instances. You can use the host group covering the entire cluster: define service { use generic-service hostgroup_name mycluster service_description AWS Instance Status check_command check_aws_instance_status!myprofile } Be sure to set the interval for provider CLI checks to a reasonable value. If Nagios performs too many calls, the provider may begin to enforce rate limiting and deny some calls, leading to spurious warnings from Nagios. A functioning instance status check is shown in Figure C-4. ###### Figure C-4. AWS instance status check in Nagios # Index ### A * ACLs, Network ACLs-Network ACLs * alarms * metric filter alarm creation, Creating an Alarm from a Metric Filter-Creating an Alarm from a Metric Filter * setting on a custom metric, Setting an Alarm on a Custom Metric * triggering autoscaling with, Triggering Autoscaling with an Alarm Action * allow rules, Allow Versus Deny * Amazon EC2 (see EC2) * Amazon Machine Image (AMI), The manager instance, EC2 Images * Amazon RDS (see RDS) * Amazon S3 (see S3) * Amazon Web Services (see AWS) * Apache Hive (see Hive) * Apache Spark (see Spark) * Apache ZooKeeper (see ZooKeeper) * APIs, for object access, Object Access * automation, cloud cluster creation, Automated Cloud Cluster Creation-General System Management Tools * (see also images) * autoscaling * custom metric for computing capacity, A Custom Metric for Compute Capacity * prerequisites for, Prerequisites for Autoscaling Compute * removing unneeded instances, What About Shrinking? * triggering with an alarm action, Triggering Autoscaling with an Alarm Action * with custom metrics, Elastic Compute Using a Custom Metric-Other Things to Watch * availability sets, Regions and Availability Zones * availability zones * instances and, Regions and Availability Zones * network topologies and, Availability Zones-Availability Zones * pricing/performance considerations, Availability Zones * role in high availability, HDFS HA * AWS (Amazon Web Services) * availability zones, Virtual Networks and Regions * block storage in, Block Storage in AWS * CLI, AWS CLI * cloud relational databases in, Cloud Relational Databases in AWS * CloudWatch (see CloudWatch) * cluster setup in AWS EC2 (see under EC2) * EMR, Elastic MapReduce * free tier, The manager instance * Hive remote metastore setup, Switching to a Remote Metastore * Hive tables with, Hive on S3-External Table in S3 * image creation, Image Creation in AWS * image deletion, Image Deletion in AWS * image use, Image Use * Kinesis (see Kinesis) * network ACL rules, Network ACLs-Network ACLs * object storage in, Object Storage in AWS * (see also S3) * overview, Amazon Web Services * prerequisites for cluster setup, Prerequisites * reachability checks, Reachability checks using a provider CLI * routing in, Routing in AWS * securing instances, Securing the Instances * security groups, Security groups * security rules, Network Security Rules in AWS-Network ACLs * spot instances, Spot Instances * SSH keys, Generating a Key Pair * subnets in, Virtual Networks and Regions * system monitoring by, AWS system monitoring * VPCs, Virtual Networks * AWS IAM (Identity and Access Management) * creating a custom policy, Creating an IAM User for Log Streaming * creating a new user in, Configuring S3 Authentication * Azure * allocating/launching virtual machines, Creating Virtual Machines-The Worker Instances * availability sets, Regions and Availability Zones * block storage in, Block Storage in Azure * CLI, Azure CLI * cloud relational databases in, Cloud Relational Databases in Azure * cluster setup in, Setting Up in Azure-The Worker Instances * free trial, Prerequisites * Hive remote metastore setup, Switching to a Remote Metastore * Hive tables with, What About Google Cloud Platform and Azure? * image composition, Azure Images * image creation, Image Creation in Azure * image deletion, Image Deletion in Azure * image use, Image Use * instance existence checking, Instance Existence Through Ping * network security rules, Network Security Rules in Azure * object storage in, Object Storage in Azure * overview, Microsoft Azure * peered networks, Private DNS * prerequisites for cluster setup, Prerequisites * reachability checks, Reachability checks using a provider CLI * resource creation, Creating Resources-Creating Resources * resource group creation, Creating a Resource Group-Creating a Resource Group * routing in, Routing in Azure * securing instances, Next Steps * SSH keys, SSH Keys * stopped instances, Instance Control * subnets in, Virtual Networks and Regions * system monitoring by, Azure system monitoring * Azure Blob Storage, Object Storage in Azure * Azure CLI, Image Creation in Azure, Azure CLI * Azure Cosmos DB, Cloud Relational Databases in Azure * Azure Data Lake Store (ADLS), HDInsight, Block Storage in Azure, Go Bigger, What About Google Cloud Platform and Azure? * Azure Event Hubs, What About Google Cloud Platform and Azure? * Azure File Storage, Block Storage in Azure * Azure Monitor, Cloud Provider Monitoring Services * Azure SQL Database, Cloud Relational Databases in Azure ### B * backup, Backup and Restoration-Not So Different, But Better * general strategy for, A General Cloud Hadoop Backup Strategy * HDFS replication, HDFS Replication-HDFS Snapshots * logs, Logs * patterns to supplement, Patterns to Supplement Backups * via imaging, Backup via Imaging * bastion, security practices for, SSH Tunneling * blobs, Object Storage in Azure * block storage, Block Storage-Block Storage in Azure * in AWS, Block Storage in AWS * in Azure, Block Storage in Azure * in Google Cloud Platform, Block Storage in Google Cloud Platform * persistent vs. ephemeral, Persistent Versus Ephemeral Block Storage * buckets, Buckets * builders (Packer), Automated Image Creation with Packer ### C * capacity, custom metric for, A Custom Metric for Compute Capacity * CDH, Cloudera Director * CIDR notation, A Drink of CIDR * CLIs (for performance monitoring) * AWS, AWS CLI * Azure, Azure CLI * cloud providers, Cloud Provider Command-Line Interfaces-Data Formatting for CLI Results * data formatting for CLI results, Data Formatting for CLI Results * Google Cloud Platform, Google Cloud Platform CLI * Nagios and, Provider CLI Integration-Provider CLI Integration * cloud (defined), What Is the Cloud? * cloud NoSQL databases, Cloud NoSQL Databases * cloud providers, Hadoop Solutions from Cloud Providers-A Spectrum of Choices * (see also specific providers) * Amazon Web Services, Amazon Web Services * choosing, Which One Should You Use? * CLI interfaces for monitoring, Cloud Provider Command-Line Interfaces-Data Formatting for CLI Results * cluster access to, Cluster Access to the Internet and Cloud Provider Services-Cluster Access to the Internet and Cloud Provider Services * daemon status monitoring, Cloud provider custom metrics * data formatting for CLI results, Data Formatting for CLI Results * Google Cloud Platform, Google Cloud Platform * Hadoop-like services, Hadoop-Like Services * Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure * monitoring services, Cloud Provider Monitoring Services * overview and comparisons, Overview and Comparison of Cloud Providers-Which One Should You Use? * reachability checks using provider CLI, Reachability checks using a provider CLI * cloud relational databases, Cloud Relational Databases-Cloud Relational Databases in Azure * about, Cloud Relational Databases * Azure Cosmos DB, Cloud Relational Databases in Azure * Google Cloud Spanner, Cloud Relational Databases in Google Cloud Platform * in AWS, Cloud Relational Databases in AWS * in Azure, Cloud Relational Databases in Azure * in Google Cloud Platform, Cloud Relational Databases in Google Cloud Platform * Cloudera Director, Cloudera Director * CloudWatch * about, Cloud Provider Monitoring Services * AWS system monitoring by, AWS system monitoring * basic metrics, Basic Metrics * creating an IAM user for log streaming, Creating an IAM User for Log Streaming * custom metric for compute capacity, A Custom Metric for Compute Capacity * custom monitoring metrics in, Custom Metrics in CloudWatch-Setting an Alarm on a Custom Metric * defining a custom metric, Defining a Custom Metric * elastic compute using a custom metric, Elastic Compute Using a Custom Metric-Other Things to Watch * ingesting logs into, Ingesting Logs into CloudWatch-Creating an Alarm from a Metric Filter * installing agent, Installing the CloudWatch Agent * metric filter alarm creation, Creating an Alarm from a Metric Filter-Creating an Alarm from a Metric Filter * metric filter creation, Creating a Metric Filter * setting an alarm on a custom metric, Setting an Alarm on a Custom Metric * submitting usage information to, Feeding Custom Metric Data to CloudWatch-Feeding Custom Metric Data to CloudWatch * triggering autoscaling with an alarm action, Triggering Autoscaling with an Alarm Action * clusters * automated creation, Automated Cloud Cluster Creation-General System Management Tools * cloud-only vs. hybrid, Cloud-Only or Hybrid? * configuration scripts, Hadoop Cluster Configuration Scripts-New Worker Configuration Update Script * elastic, Long-Running or Transient? * failure management strategies (see high availability) * general system management tools, General System Management Tools * images for management of (see images) * long-running vs. transient, Long-Running or Transient?-Long-Running or Transient? * monitoring with Nagios, Monitoring Cloud Clusters with Nagios-Provider CLI Integration * self-service vs. managed, Self-Service or Managed? * setting up in AWS EC2, Setting Up in AWS-Next Steps * setting up in Azure, Setting Up in Azure-The Worker Instances * setting up in Google Cloud Platform, Setting Up in Google Cloud Platform-Securing the Instances * single-user vs. multitenant, Single-User or Multitenant? * standing up a (see standing up a cluster) * stopping/starting, Stopping and Starting Entire Clusters-Stopping and Starting Entire Clusters * topologies, Cluster Topologies-Cluster Access to the Internet and Cloud Provider Services * usage patterns (see usage patterns) * compute instance types, The Criteria * computing capacity, custom metric for, A Custom Metric for Compute Capacity * cost (see pricing) * custom metrics * autoscaling with, Elastic Compute Using a Custom Metric-Other Things to Watch * in CloudWatch, Custom Metrics in CloudWatch-Setting an Alarm on a Custom Metric ### D * daemons * for HA, Adding New HDFS and YARN Daemons-YARN HA Configuration * status monitoring, Hadoop Daemon Status-Rolling your own Hadoop daemon status checks * data objects, Data Objects * default tag, Network Security Rules in Azure * deny rules, Allow Versus Deny * disaster recovery (DR) cluster, HDFS Replication * distcp tool, HDFS Replication * DNS hostname * private, Private DNS * public, Public IP Addresses and DNS * use in Hadoop configuration files, Private DNS ### E * EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) * allocating/launching instances, Allocating Instances-The worker instances * images, EC2 Images * instance existence checking, Instance Existence Through Ping * reachability checks, Reachability checks using a provider CLI * spot instances, Spot Instances * SSH keys, Generating a Key Pair * Elastic Block Storage (EBS), Block Storage in AWS * elastic clusters, Long-Running or Transient? * Elastic MapReduce (EMR), Elastic MapReduce * elastic pools, Cloud Relational Databases in Azure * endpoint, S3, Configuring the S3 Endpoint * ephemeral storage, Block Storage, Persistent Versus Ephemeral Block Storage ### F * failure management strategies (see high availability) * fair scheduler, Switch YARN to the Fair Scheduler * fault domains, Regions and Availability Zones * firewall rules, Network Security Rules in Google Cloud Platform-Network Security Rules in Google Cloud Platform, Securing the Instances-Securing the Instances ### G * gateway instance, General Cluster Instance Roles, Gateway Instances * GCE (Google Compute Engine), Setting Up in Google Cloud Platform * allocating/launching instances, Allocating Instances-The worker instances * image composition, GCE Images * instance existence checking, Instance Existence Through Ping * preemptible instances, Preemptible Instances * reachability checks, Reachability checks using a provider CLI * SSH keys, SSH Keys-SSH Keys * general-purpose instance types, The Criteria * geographic distribution (see regions) * Google Cloud Dataproc, Google Cloud Dataproc * Google Cloud Platform * allocating/launching instances, Allocating Instances-The worker instances * availability zones, Virtual Networks and Regions * block storage in, Block Storage in Google Cloud Platform * CLI, Google Cloud Platform CLI * cloud relational databases in, Cloud Relational Databases in Google Cloud Platform * cluster setup in, Setting Up in Google Cloud Platform-Securing the Instances * creating a project, Creating a Project * Hive remote metastore setup, Switching to a Remote Metastore * Hive tables with, What About Google Cloud Platform and Azure? * image creation, Image Creation in Google Cloud Platform * image deletion, Image Deletion in Google Cloud Platform * image use, Image Use * instance existence checking, Instance Existence Through Ping * network security rules, Network Security Rules in Google Cloud Platform-Network Security Rules in Google Cloud Platform * object storage in, Object Storage in Google Cloud Platform * overview, Google Cloud Platform * preemptible instances, Preemptible Instances * prerequisites for cluster setup, Prerequisites * reachability checks, Reachability checks using a provider CLI * routing in, Routing in Google Cloud Platform * securing instances, Securing the Instances-Securing the Instances * SSH keys, SSH Keys-SSH Keys * subnets in, Virtual Networks and Regions * system monitoring by, Google Cloud Platform system monitoring-Google Cloud Platform system monitoring * Google Cloud Pub/Sub, What About Google Cloud Platform and Azure? * Google Cloud Spanner, Cloud Relational Databases in Google Cloud Platform * Google Cloud SQL, Cloud Relational Databases in Google Cloud Platform * Google Cloud Storage, Object Storage in Google Cloud Platform * Google Compute Engine (GCE) (see GCE) ### H * HA (see high availability) * Hadoop in the cloud * basics, Why Hadoop in the Cloud?-Getting Started * defined, What Does Hadoop in the Cloud Mean? * hybrid cloud architecture, Hybrid Clouds * reasons not to run, Reasons to Not Run Hadoop in the Cloud * reasons to run, Reasons to Run Hadoop in the Cloud * security issues, What About Security? * solutions from cloud providers, Hadoop Solutions from Cloud Providers-A Spectrum of Choices * HDCloud (Hortonworks Data Cloud), Hortonworks Data Cloud * HDFS * adding new daemons for HA, Adding New HDFS and YARN Daemons-YARN HA Configuration * and cloud storage filesystems, Cloud Storage Filesystems * configuration environment, The Environment-The Environment * HA configuration for, HDFS HA * replication as backup strategy, HDFS Replication-HDFS Snapshots * snapshots, HDFS Snapshots * XML configuration files, XML Configuration Files * HDInsight, HDInsight * HDP (Hortonworks Data Platform), HDInsight, Hortonworks Data Cloud * high availability (HA), High Availability-Grains of Salt * adding new HDFS and YARN daemons, Adding New HDFS and YARN Daemons-YARN HA Configuration * availability zones, Availability Zones * benchmarking, Benchmarking HA-Grains of Salt * configuring for HDFS, HDFS HA * configuring for YARN, YARN HA * datanodes, What about the datanodes? * HDFS configuration, HDFS HA Configuration-HDFS HA Configuration * improving the HA configuration, Improving the HA Configuration * planning in the cloud, Planning HA in the Cloud-YARN HA * second manager instance, The Second Manager * testing, Testing HA * variables affecting cluster performance, Grains of Salt * YARN configuration, YARN HA Configuration-YARN HA Configuration * ZooKeeper installation/configuration, Installing and Configuring ZooKeeper-Installing and Configuring ZooKeeper * Hive * Azure and, What About Google Cloud Platform and Azure? * configuring on Spark, Configuring Hive on Spark-Try Out Hive on Spark on YARN * control scripts, Hive Control Scripts * Google Cloud Platform and, What About Google Cloud Platform and Azure? * installing and configuring, Installing and Configuring Hive-Installing and Configuring Hive * on S3, Hive on S3-External Table in S3 * (see also S3) * planning for cloud deployment, Planning for Hive in the Cloud * relational data with, Relational Data with Apache Hive-A Different Means of Computation * Spark libraries for, Add Spark Libraries to Hive * startup, Startup * switching to remote metastore, Switching to a Remote Metastore-The Remote Metastore and Stopped Clusters * switching YARN to fair scheduler, Switch YARN to the Fair Scheduler * test queries, Running Some Test Hive Queries * transient clusters and, A Step Toward Transient Clusters * trying out Hive on Spark on YARN, Try Out Hive on Spark on YARN * Hive metastore, Installing and Configuring Hive, Switching to a Remote Metastore-The Remote Metastore and Stopped Clusters * replication as backup strategy, Hive Metastore Replication * Hortonworks Data Cloud (HDCloud), Hortonworks Data Cloud * Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP), HDInsight * hybrid cloud, Hybrid Clouds, Cloud-Only or Hybrid? ### I * images, Images * automated cloud cluster creation as alternative to, Automated Cloud Cluster Creation-General System Management Tools * automated creation with Packer, Automated Image Creation with Packer-Automated Image Creation with Packer * backup via, Backup via Imaging * composition in Azure, Azure Images * composition in EC2, EC2 Images * composition in GCE, GCE Images * creation, Image Creation-Image Creation in Azure * creation in AWS, Image Creation in AWS * creation in Azure, Image Creation in Azure * creation in Google Cloud Platform, Image Creation in Google Cloud Platform * deletion, Image Deletion * deletion in AWS, Image Deletion in AWS * deletion in Azure, Image Deletion in Azure * deletion in Google Cloud Platform, Image Deletion in Google Cloud Platform * for cluster management, Using Images for Cluster Management-Images or Tools? * limitations of, Images or Tools? * maintenance, Image Maintenance * preparation, Image Preparation-Wait, I'm Using That! * structure, The Structure of an Image * tools vs., Images or Tools? * use in AWS, Image Use * use in Azure, Image Use * use in Google Cloud Platform, Image Use * inbound rules, Inbound Versus Outbound * instance template, The worker instances * instances, Instances-No Instance Is an Island * about, Instances * allocating/launching in Azure, Creating Virtual Machines-The Worker Instances * allocating/launching in EC2, Allocating Instances-The worker instances * allocating/launching in GCE, Allocating Instances-The worker instances * availability zones, Regions and Availability Zones * basic roles in clusters, General Cluster Instance Roles-General Cluster Instance Roles * configuration update script, Configuration Update Script * control, Instance Control * creation in EC2, Allocating Instances-The worker instances * creation in Google Cloud Platform, Creating Instances-The worker instances * criteria for choosing types, The Criteria * gateway instances, Gateway Instances * image preparation, Image Preparation-Wait, I'm Using That! * images, Images * manager instance, General Cluster Instance Roles * monitoring existence of, Instance Existence, Instance Existence Through Ping * monitoring reachability of, Instance Reachability * preemptible (GCE), Preemptible Instances * pricing/performance factors, Picking Instance Types-General Cluster Instance Roles * reachability monitoring, Instance Reachability * regions, Regions and Availability Zones * securing in Azure, Next Steps * securing in EC2, Securing the Instances * securing in GCE, Securing the Instances-Securing the Instances * spot (EC2), Spot Instances * temporary, Temporary Instances-Preemptible Instances, Using Temporary Instances * terminating, Instance Control * types, Instance Types * virtual machines vs., Instances * worker instances, General Cluster Instance Roles * Internet, cluster access to, Cluster Access to the Internet and Cloud Provider Services-Cluster Access to the Internet and Cloud Provider Services * IP addresses * in CIDR notation, A Drink of CIDR * private, Virtual Networks * public, Public IP Addresses and DNS * security rules and, The Secured Public Cluster * use in Hadoop configuration files, Private DNS ### J * Java, The JDK * JDK, The JDK ### K * key pair, Generating a Key Pair * (see also SSH keys) * Kinesis, Spark Streaming from AWS Kinesis-Stopping the streaming job * creating a stream, Creating a Kinesis Stream * equivalent Google Cloud Platform/Azure services, What About Google Cloud Platform and Azure? * populating stream with data, Populating the Stream with Data-Populating the Stream with Data * Spark streaming from, Spark Streaming from AWS Kinesis-Stopping the streaming job * streaming data into Spark, Streaming Kinesis Data into Spark-Stopping the streaming job ### L * logs * as part of backup strategy, Logs * CloudWatch metric filter alarm creation, Creating an Alarm from a Metric Filter-Creating an Alarm from a Metric Filter * CloudWatch metric filter creation, Creating a Metric Filter * creating an IAM user for log streaming, Creating an IAM User for Log Streaming * ingesting into CloudWatch, Ingesting Logs into CloudWatch-Creating an Alarm from a Metric Filter * installing CloudWatch agent, Installing the CloudWatch Agent * monitoring and, Cloud Provider Monitoring Services * long-running clusters * defined, Long-Running or Transient? * transient clusters vs., Long-Running or Transient?-Long-Running or Transient? ### M * managed clusters, Self-Service or Managed? * manager instance * Azure, The Manager Instance-The Manager Instance * defined, General Cluster Instance Roles * EC2, The manager instance-The manager instance * Google Cloud Platform, The manager instance-The manager instance * second instance for HA, The Second Manager * MapReduce * for analyzing small data export, The MapReduce jobs-The MapReduce jobs * in cluster, Running a Test Job * MRBench and, MRBench * Spark as alternative to, Streaming in the Cloud with Apache Spark * Terasort and, Terasort * metric filter, CloudWatch * alarm for, Creating an Alarm from a Metric Filter-Creating an Alarm from a Metric Filter * creating, Creating a Metric Filter * Microsoft Azure (see Azure) * monitoring, Monitoring and Automation-Creating an Alarm from a Metric Filter * AWS CLI for, AWS CLI * Azure CLI for, Azure CLI * cloud cluster monitoring with Nagios, Monitoring Cloud Clusters with Nagios-Provider CLI Integration * cloud provider CLI interfaces for, Cloud Provider Command-Line Interfaces-Data Formatting for CLI Results * cloud provider services for, Cloud Provider Monitoring Services * creating your own service for, Rolling Your Own * custom metrics in CloudWatch, Custom Metrics in CloudWatch-Setting an Alarm on a Custom Metric * elastic compute using a custom metric, Elastic Compute Using a Custom Metric-Other Things to Watch * Google Cloud Platform CLI for, Google Cloud Platform CLI * Hadoop daemon status, Hadoop Daemon Status-Rolling your own Hadoop daemon status checks * ingesting logs into CloudWatch, Ingesting Logs into CloudWatch-Creating an Alarm from a Metric Filter * instance existence, Instance Existence, Instance Existence Through Ping * instance reachability, Instance Reachability * scripting and, Putting Scripting to Use * Stackdriver, Google Cloud Platform system monitoring-Google Cloud Platform system monitoring * system choices for, Monitoring Choices * system load, System Load * system monitoring by Azure, Azure system monitoring * what to monitor, What to Monitor-Putting Scripting to Use * MRBench, MRBench * multitenant clusters, Single-User or Multitenant? ### N * Nagios * cloud cluster monitoring, Monitoring Cloud Clusters with Nagios-Provider CLI Integration * host and host groups, Hosts and Host Groups * instance existence checking, Instance Existence Through Ping * provider CLI integration, Provider CLI Integration-Provider CLI Integration * services and service groups, Services and Service Groups * where to run, Where Nagios Should Run * network ACL rules, Network ACLs-Network ACLs * network address translation (NAT) gateway, Cluster Access to the Internet and Cloud Provider Services * network address translation (NAT) instance, Cluster Access to the Internet and Cloud Provider Services * network security groups, Network Security Rules in Azure * network topologies, Network Topologies-Starting Topologies * availability zones, Availability Zones-Availability Zones * cluster access to Internet/cloud provider services, Cluster Access to the Internet and Cloud Provider Services-Cluster Access to the Internet and Cloud Provider Services * cluster topologies, Cluster Topologies-Cluster Access to the Internet and Cloud Provider Services * gateway instances, Gateway Instances * geographic considerations, Geographic Considerations-Availability Zones * private cluster, The Private Cluster * public cluster, The Public Cluster * public/private subnets, Public and Private Subnets-Access from Other Subnets * regions, Regions * secured public cluster, The Secured Public Cluster-The Secured Public Cluster * SOCKS proxy server, SOCKS Proxy-SOCKS Proxy * SSH tunneling, SSH Tunneling-SSH Tunneling * starting topologies, Starting Topologies * VPN access, VPN Access * networking, Networking and Security-What About the Data? * CIDR notation, A Drink of CIDR * combining with security, Putting Networking and Security Together * routing, Routing-Routing in Azure * security rules, Network Security Rules-Network Security Rules in Azure * virtual networks, Virtual Networks-Public IP Addresses and DNS * new worker configuration update script, New Worker Configuration Update Script * next hop, Routing in Google Cloud Platform * NoSQL databases (see cloud NoSQL databases) ### O * object access, Object Access * object storage, Object Storage-Object Storage in Azure * accessing objects in, Object Access * basics, Object Storage * buckets, Buckets * containers (Azure), Buckets * data objects, Data Objects * in AWS, Object Storage in AWS * in Azure, Object Storage in Azure * in Google Cloud Platform, Object Storage in Google Cloud Platform * on-premise clusters, What Does Hadoop in the Cloud Mean? * Oracle JDK, The JDK * outbound rules, Inbound Versus Outbound ### P * Packer, Automated Image Creation with Packer-Automated Image Creation with Packer * page blobs, Block Storage in Azure * peered networks, Private DNS * per-team clusters, Single-User or Multitenant? * performance (see pricing and performance) * persistent disks, Block Storage in Google Cloud Platform * persistent storage, Block Storage, Persistent Versus Ephemeral Block Storage * port scanners, The Secured Public Cluster * preemptible instances, Preemptible Instances * pricing and performance, Pricing and Performance-Performance and Networking * as reason not to run Hadoop in the cloud, Reasons to Not Run Hadoop in the Cloud * availability zones, Availability Zones * cloud provider selection, Which One Should You Use? * cluster usage patterns, Watching Cost * geographic considerations, Geographic Considerations * instance types and, Picking Instance Types-General Cluster Instance Roles * persistent vs. ephemeral block storage, Persistent Versus Ephemeral Block Storage * regions, Regions * stopping/starting entire clusters, Stopping and Starting Entire Clusters-Stopping and Starting Entire Clusters * temporary instances, Using Temporary Instances * private cloud, What Is the Cloud? * private cluster, The Private Cluster * private DNS, Private DNS * private subnet, Routing in AWS, Public and Private Subnets * provisioners (Packer), Automated Image Creation with Packer * public cloud, What Is the Cloud? * public cluster, The Public Cluster * public DNS hostname, Public IP Addresses and DNS * public IP addresses, Public IP Addresses and DNS * public subnet, Routing in AWS, Public and Private Subnets ### Q * Qubole Data Service (QDS), Qubole Data Service * Quorum Journal Manager, HDFS HA ### R * RDS (Relational Database Service), Cloud Relational Databases in AWS * hosting remote Hive metastore, Switching to a Remote Metastore * reachability monitoring, Instance Reachability * regions * defined, Regions and Availability Zones * factors in selecting, Regions and Availability Zones * instances and, Regions and Availability Zones * network topologies and, Regions * pricing/performance considerations, Regions * virtual networks and, Virtual Networks and Regions * relational data (see Hive) * Relational Database Service (RDS) (see RDS) * relational databases (see cloud relational databases) * remote metastore, Hive, Switching to a Remote Metastore-The Remote Metastore and Stopped Clusters * resource group (Azure), Creating a Resource Group-Creating a Resource Group * resources (Azure), Creating Resources-Creating Resources * restoration (see backup) * route collection, Routing in Google Cloud Platform * routing, Routing-Routing in Azure * AWS, Routing in AWS * Azure, Routing in Azure * Google Cloud Platform, Routing in Google Cloud Platform * routing table, Routing ### S * S3 (Simple Storage Service) * adding data to, Adding Data to S3 * configuring authentication for, Configuring S3 Authentication-Configuring S3 Authentication * configuring endpoint, Configuring the S3 Endpoint * eventual consistency, Configuring the S3 Filesystem * external Hive table in, External Table in S3 * filesystem configuration, Configuring the S3 Filesystem * Hive on, Hive on S3-External Table in S3 * scripts * cluster configuration, Hadoop Cluster Configuration Scripts-New Worker Configuration Update Script * configuration update, Configuration Update Script * for monitoring, Putting Scripting to Use * new worker configuration update, New Worker Configuration Update Script * SSH key creation/distribution, SSH Key Creation and Distribution * start/stop, Hadoop Component Start and Stop Scripts * secured public cluster, The Secured Public Cluster-The Secured Public Cluster * security, Putting Networking and Security Together * (see also network topologies) * in the cloud, What About Security? * securing instances in AWS EC2, Securing the Instances * securing instances in Azure, Next Steps * securing instances in GCE, Securing the Instances-Securing the Instances * security groups, AWS, Security groups * security rules (for networking), Network Security Rules-Network Security Rules in Azure * allow vs deny, Allow Versus Deny * AWS, Network Security Rules in AWS-Network ACLs * Azure, Network Security Rules in Azure * Google Cloud Platform, Network Security Rules in Google Cloud Platform-Network Security Rules in Google Cloud Platform * inbound vs. outbound, Inbound Versus Outbound * self-service clusters, Self-Service or Managed? * service tier (Azure), Cloud Relational Databases in Azure * Simple Storage Service (see S3) * single-user clusters, Single-User or Multitenant? * snapshots * HDFS, HDFS Snapshots * of volumes in block storage, Block Storage * SOCKS proxy server, SOCKS Proxy-SOCKS Proxy * Spark * configuring Hive on, Configuring Hive on Spark-Try Out Hive on Spark on YARN * installing and configuring, Installing and Configuring Spark * planning for cloud deployment, Planning for Spark in the Cloud * running on YARN, Planning for Spark in the Cloud * startup, Startup * streaming from AWS Kinesis, Spark Streaming from AWS Kinesis-Stopping the streaming job * streaming in the cloud with, Streaming in the Cloud with Apache Spark-What About Google Cloud Platform and Azure? * test jobs, Running Some Test Jobs * trying out Hive on Spark on YARN, Try Out Hive on Spark on YARN * Spark Streaming, Spark Streaming from AWS Kinesis-Stopping the streaming job * spot instances, Spot Instances, Using Temporary Instances * SSH keys * creation/distribution scripts, SSH Key Creation and Distribution * generating for Azure, SSH Keys * generating for EC2, Generating a Key Pair * generating for GCE, SSH Keys-SSH Keys * image security and, Image Preparation * passwordless, Passwordless SSH * SSH tunneling, SSH Tunneling-SSH Tunneling * Stackdriver * about, Cloud Provider Monitoring Services * Google Cloud Platform system monitoring, Google Cloud Platform system monitoring-Google Cloud Platform system monitoring * standing up a cluster, Standing Up a Cluster-Go Bigger * analyzing a small export, Analyzing a Small Export-The MapReduce jobs * Hadoop accounts for, Hadoop Accounts * Hadoop installation, Hadoop Installation * HDFS and YARN configuration, HDFS and YARN Configuration-Finishing Up Configuration * JDK, The JDK * memory configuration, What If the Job Hangs? * passwordless SSH for, Passwordless SSH * running a test job, Running a Test Job * running basic data loading/analysis, Running Basic Data Loading and Analysis-The MapReduce jobs * running large data loading/analysis, Go Bigger-Go Bigger * SSH tunneling, SSH Tunneling * startup, Startup * Wikipedia exports for data loading/analysis, Wikipedia Exports * XML configuration files, XML Configuration Files * start/stop scripts, Hadoop Component Start and Stop Scripts * stopped clusters, Stopping and Starting Entire Clusters-Stopping and Starting Entire Clusters * Hive remote metastore and, The Remote Metastore and Stopped Clusters * pricing and performance, Stopping and Starting Entire Clusters-Stopping and Starting Entire Clusters * storage, Storage-Where to Start? * block storage, Block Storage-Block Storage in Azure * cloud NoSQL databases, Cloud NoSQL Databases * cloud relational databases, Cloud Relational Databases-Cloud Relational Databases in Azure * object storage, Object Storage-Object Storage in Azure * storage account (Azure), Object Storage in Azure * storage class, Data Objects * storage instance types, The Criteria * streaming, with Apache Spark (see Spark) * subnets * access from other subnets, Access from Other Subnets * location, Virtual Networks and Regions * location in virtual network, Virtual Networks and Regions * public/private, Public and Private Subnets-Access from Other Subnets * SOCKS proxy server, SOCKS Proxy-SOCKS Proxy * SSH tunneling, SSH Tunneling-SSH Tunneling * virtual networks and, Virtual Networks-Virtual Networks * VPN access, VPN Access * system load monitoring, System Load * system routes (Azure), Routing in Azure ### T * temporary instances, Temporary Instances-Preemptible Instances, Using Temporary Instances * adding to cluster automatically, Elastic Compute Using a Custom Metric * and removal of unneeded instances, What About Shrinking? * preemptible instances, Preemptible Instances * spot instances, Spot Instances, Using Temporary Instances * Terasort, Terasort * tools, for automated cloud cluster creation, Automated Cloud Cluster Creation-General System Management Tools * Cloudera Director, Cloudera Director * general system management tools, General System Management Tools * HDCloud, Hortonworks Data Cloud * images vs., Images or Tools? * QDS, Qubole Data Service * transient clusters * and backup, Patterns to Supplement Backups * defined, Long-Running or Transient? * long-running clusters vs., Long-Running or Transient?-Long-Running or Transient? * off-cluster storage, A Step Toward Transient Clusters ### U * URLs, for object access, Object Access * usage patterns, Patterns for Cluster Usage-The Rising Need for Automation * cloud-only vs. hybrid, Cloud-Only or Hybrid? * cost factors, Watching Cost * long-running vs. transient, Long-Running or Transient?-Long-Running or Transient? * self-service vs. managed, Self-Service or Managed? * single-user vs. multitenant, Single-User or Multitenant? ### V * Virtual Hard Disks (VHDs), Block Storage in Azure * virtual hard disks (VHDs), Azure Images * virtual machines, Instances * (see also instances) * Azure, Creating Virtual Machines-The Worker Instances * virtual networks * about, Virtual Networks-Public IP Addresses and DNS * private DNS and, Private DNS * public IP addresses and DNS hostname, Public IP Addresses and DNS * regions and, Virtual Networks and Regions * subnet location, Virtual Networks and Regions * Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), Virtual Networks * Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), VPN Access ### W * worker instances * Azure, The Worker Instances * configuration update script, New Worker Configuration Update Script * defined, General Cluster Instance Roles * EC2, The worker instances * Google Cloud Platform, The worker instances-The worker instances ### Y * YARN * adding new daemons for HA, Adding New HDFS and YARN Daemons-YARN HA Configuration * configuration environment, The Environment-The Environment * configuration when standing up a cluster, HDFS and YARN Configuration-Finishing Up Configuration * HA configuration, YARN HA Configuration-YARN HA Configuration * HA enabling, YARN HA * running Spark on, Planning for Spark in the Cloud * switching to fair scheduler, Switch YARN to the Fair Scheduler * trying out Hive on Spark on YARN, Try Out Hive on Spark on YARN * XML configuration files, XML Configuration Files ### Z * ZooKeeper * installation/configuration for HA, Installing and Configuring ZooKeeper-Installing and Configuring ZooKeeper * start/stop scripts, Apache ZooKeeper # About the Author Bill Havanki is a software engineer working for Cloudera, where he has contributed to Hadoop components as well as systems for deploying Hadoop clusters into public Cloud services. Prior to joining Cloudera he worked for 15 years developing software for government contracts, focusing mostly on analytic frameworks and authentication and authorization systems. He earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University and his M.S. in Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University. A New Jersey native, he currently lives near Annapolis, Maryland with his family. # Colophon The animal on the cover of _Moving Hadoop to the Cloud_ is a southern reedbuck ( _Redunca arundinum_ ). Southern reedbucks are typically found in southern Africa. They inhabit areas of tall grass near a source of water. The grass offers camouflage from predators such as lions, leopards, cheetahs, spotted hyenas, pythons, and crocodiles. Being herbivores, the tall grass also provides sustenance. Southern reedbucks need to drink water at least every few days, which is not typical for species in this arid region of Africa. An elegant antelope, southern reedbucks have distinctive dark lines running down the front of their forelegs and lower hind legs. The color of their coat ranges between light- and greyish-brown and their underparts are white. Only the males bear forward-curving horns, about 35–45 cm (14–18 in) long. The southern reedbuck is monogamous, a pair inhabits a territory that is defended by the male from other males. A single calf is born after a gestation period of around eight months and remains hidden in the dense grass for the next two months. During this period, the female does not stay with her young but instead visits it for 10 to 30 minutes each day. This antelope has an average lifespan of ten years. The southern reedbuck makes a number of characteristic noises, including a shrill whistle through the nostrils, a clicking noise to alert others about danger, and a distinctive "popping" sound, caused by the inguinal glands, heard when the southern reedbuck jumps. Many of the animals on O'Reilly covers are endangered; all of them are important to the world. To learn more about how you can help, go to _animals.oreilly.com_. The cover image is from _Wood's Animate Creation_. The cover fonts are URW Typewriter and Guardian Sans. The text font is Adobe Minion Pro; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is Dalton Maag's Ubuntu Mono. 1. Foreword 2. Preface 1. Who This Book Is For 2. What You Should Already Know 3. What This Book Leaves Out 4. How This Book Works 5. Which Software Versions This Book Uses 6. Conventions Used in This Book 1. IP Addresses 7. Using Code Examples 8. O'Reilly Safari 9. How to Contact Us 10. Acknowledgments 3. I. Introduction to the Cloud 4. 1. Why Hadoop in the Cloud? 1. What Is the Cloud? 2. What Does Hadoop in the Cloud Mean? 3. Reasons to Run Hadoop in the Cloud 4. Reasons to Not Run Hadoop in the Cloud 1. What About Security? 5. Hybrid Clouds 6. Hadoop Solutions from Cloud Providers 1. Elastic MapReduce 2. Google Cloud Dataproc 3. HDInsight 4. Hadoop-Like Services 5. A Spectrum of Choices 7. Getting Started 5. 2. Overview and Comparison of Cloud Providers 1. Amazon Web Services 1. References 2. Google Cloud Platform 1. References 3. Microsoft Azure 1. References 4. Which One Should You Use? 6. II. Cloud Primer 7. 3. Instances 1. Instance Types 2. Regions and Availability Zones 3. Instance Control 4. Temporary Instances 1. Spot Instances 2. Preemptible Instances 5. Images 6. No Instance Is an Island 8. 4. Networking and Security 1. A Drink of CIDR 2. Virtual Networks 1. Private DNS 2. Public IP Addresses and DNS 3. Virtual Networks and Regions 4. Routing 1. Routing in AWS 2. Routing in Google Cloud Platform 3. Routing in Azure 5. Network Security Rules 1. Inbound Versus Outbound 2. Allow Versus Deny 3. Network Security Rules in AWS 4. Network Security Rules in Google Cloud Platform 5. Network Security Rules in Azure 6. Putting Networking and Security Together 7. What About the Data? 9. 5. Storage 1. Block Storage 1. Block Storage in AWS 2. Block Storage in Google Cloud Platform 3. Block Storage in Azure 2. Object Storage 1. Buckets 2. Data Objects 3. Object Access 4. Object Storage in AWS 5. Object Storage in Google Cloud Platform 6. Object Storage in Azure 3. Cloud Relational Databases 1. Cloud Relational Databases in AWS 2. Cloud Relational Databases in Google Cloud Platform 3. Cloud Relational Databases in Azure 4. Cloud NoSQL Databases 5. Where to Start? 10. III. A Simple Cluster in the Cloud 11. 6. Setting Up in AWS 1. Prerequisites 2. Allocating Instances 1. Generating a Key Pair 2. Launching Instances 3. Securing the Instances 4. Next Steps 12. 7. Setting Up in Google Cloud Platform 1. Prerequisites 2. Creating a Project 3. Allocating Instances 1. SSH Keys 2. Creating Instances 4. Securing the Instances 5. Next Steps 13. 8. Setting Up in Azure 1. Prerequisites 2. Creating a Resource Group 3. Creating Resources 4. SSH Keys 5. Creating Virtual Machines 1. The Manager Instance 2. The Worker Instances 6. Next Steps 14. 9. Standing Up a Cluster 1. The JDK 2. Hadoop Accounts 3. Passwordless SSH 4. Hadoop Installation 5. HDFS and YARN Configuration 1. The Environment 2. XML Configuration Files 3. Finishing Up Configuration 6. Startup 7. SSH Tunneling 8. Running a Test Job 1. What If the Job Hangs? 9. Running Basic Data Loading and Analysis 1. Wikipedia Exports 2. Analyzing a Small Export 10. Go Bigger 15. IV. Enhancing Your Cluster 16. 10. High Availability 1. Planning HA in the Cloud 1. HDFS HA 2. YARN HA 2. Installing and Configuring ZooKeeper 3. Adding New HDFS and YARN Daemons 1. The Second Manager 2. HDFS HA Configuration 3. YARN HA Configuration 4. Testing HA 5. Improving the HA Configuration 1. A Bigger Cluster 2. Complete HA 3. A Third Availability Zone? 6. Benchmarking HA 1. MRBench 2. Terasort 3. Grains of Salt 17. 11. Relational Data with Apache Hive 1. Planning for Hive in the Cloud 2. Installing and Configuring Hive 3. Startup 4. Running Some Test Hive Queries 5. Switching to a Remote Metastore 1. The Remote Metastore and Stopped Clusters 6. Hive Control Scripts 7. Hive on S3 1. Configuring the S3 Filesystem 2. Adding Data to S3 3. Configuring S3 Authentication 4. Configuring the S3 Endpoint 5. External Table in S3 8. What About Google Cloud Platform and Azure? 9. A Step Toward Transient Clusters 10. A Different Means of Computation 18. 12. Streaming in the Cloud with Apache Spark 1. Planning for Spark in the Cloud 2. Installing and Configuring Spark 3. Startup 4. Running Some Test Jobs 5. Configuring Hive on Spark 1. Add Spark Libraries to Hive 2. Configure Hive for Spark 3. Switch YARN to the Fair Scheduler 4. Try Out Hive on Spark on YARN 6. Spark Streaming from AWS Kinesis 1. Creating a Kinesis Stream 2. Populating the Stream with Data 3. Streaming Kinesis Data into Spark 7. What About Google Cloud Platform and Azure? 8. Building Clusters Versus Building Clusters Well 19. V. Care and Feeding of Hadoop in the Cloud 20. 13. Pricing and Performance 1. Picking Instance Types 1. The Criteria 2. General Cluster Instance Roles 2. Persistent Versus Ephemeral Block Storage 3. Stopping and Starting Entire Clusters 4. Using Temporary Instances 5. Geographic Considerations 1. Regions 2. Availability Zones 6. Performance and Networking 21. 14. Network Topologies 1. Public and Private Subnets 1. SSH Tunneling 2. SOCKS Proxy 3. VPN Access 4. Access from Other Subnets 2. Cluster Topologies 1. The Public Cluster 2. The Secured Public Cluster 3. Gateway Instances 4. The Private Cluster 5. Cluster Access to the Internet and Cloud Provider Services 3. Geographic Considerations 1. Regions 2. Availability Zones 4. Starting Topologies 5. Higher-Level Planning 22. 15. Patterns for Cluster Usage 1. Long-Running or Transient? 2. Single-User or Multitenant? 3. Self-Service or Managed? 4. Cloud-Only or Hybrid? 5. Watching Cost 6. The Rising Need for Automation 23. 16. Using Images for Cluster Management 1. The Structure of an Image 1. EC2 Images 2. GCE Images 3. Azure Images 2. Image Preparation 1. Wait, I'm Using That! 3. Image Creation 1. Image Creation in AWS 2. Image Creation in Google Cloud Platform 3. Image Creation in Azure 4. Image Use 1. Scripting Hadoop Configuration 5. Image Maintenance 6. Image Deletion 1. Image Deletion in AWS 2. Image Deletion in Google Cloud Platform 3. Image Deletion in Azure 7. Automated Image Creation with Packer 8. Automated Cloud Cluster Creation 1. Cloudera Director 2. Hortonworks Data Cloud 3. Qubole Data Service 4. General System Management Tools 9. Images or Tools? 10. More Tooling 24. 17. Monitoring and Automation 1. Monitoring Choices 1. Cloud Provider Monitoring Services 2. Rolling Your Own 2. Cloud Provider Command-Line Interfaces 1. AWS CLI 2. Google Cloud Platform CLI 3. Azure CLI 4. Data Formatting for CLI Results 3. What to Monitor 1. Instance Existence 2. Instance Reachability 3. Hadoop Daemon Status 4. System Load 5. Putting Scripting to Use 4. Custom Metrics in CloudWatch 1. Basic Metrics 2. Defining a Custom Metric 3. Feeding Custom Metric Data to CloudWatch 4. Setting an Alarm on a Custom Metric 5. Elastic Compute Using a Custom Metric 1. A Custom Metric for Compute Capacity 2. Prerequisites for Autoscaling Compute 3. Triggering Autoscaling with an Alarm Action 4. What About Shrinking? 5. Other Things to Watch 6. Ingesting Logs into CloudWatch 1. Creating an IAM User for Log Streaming 2. Installing the CloudWatch Agent 3. Creating a Metric Filter 4. Creating an Alarm from a Metric Filter 7. So Much More to See and Do 25. 18. Backup and Restoration 1. Patterns to Supplement Backups 2. Backup via Imaging 3. HDFS Replication 1. Cloud Storage Filesystems 2. HDFS Snapshots 4. Hive Metastore Replication 5. Logs 6. A General Cloud Hadoop Backup Strategy 7. Not So Different, But Better 8. To the Cloud 26. A. Hadoop Component Start and Stop Scripts 1. Apache ZooKeeper 2. Apache Hive 27. B. Hadoop Cluster Configuration Scripts 1. SSH Key Creation and Distribution 2. Configuration Update Script 1. New Worker Configuration Update Script 28. C. Monitoring Cloud Clusters with Nagios 1. Where Nagios Should Run 2. Instance Existence Through Ping 3. Hosts and Host Groups 4. Services and Service Groups 5. Provider CLI Integration 29. Index	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaBook" }	252
\section{Introduction} Particle detector models~\cite{Unruh1976,Unruh-Wald,DeWitt} have become an ubiquitous concept in the study of fundamental problems in quantum field theory (QFT). They provide a way of circumventing some of the conceptual and technical issues associated with the notion of measurement of localized field observables \cite{Sorkin,Benincasa_2014,fewster3,borsten}, and also yield an operationally appealing approach to common phenomenology in QFT in curved spacetimes such as the Unruh and Hawking effects (see, e.g., \cite{Unruh1976,Sciama1977,Unruh-Wald,Takagi,Louko}). Beyond their value as a fundamental tool, particle detector models are commonly employed in concrete setups in relativistic quantum information and quantum optics to model the light-matter interaction in relativistic regimes (see, e.g. \cite{Pozas2016,eduardo}). Common desired features of particle detector models include being localized, controllable and measurable nonrelativistic quantum systems that couple to a quantum field in a finite region of spacetime. Historically~\cite{DeWitt}, particle detectors have been typically considered to be pointlike objects which interact with a quantum field along timelike curves representing their trajectories. There are, however, good reasons to extend the model beyond pointlike detectors, thus including some spatial extension to the system. One reason is to regularize UV divergences in the predictions of the theory by introducing a finite lenghtscale for the size of the detector~\cite{Schlicht,Jorma}. Smeared detectors are also more appealing from the point of view of algebraic quantum field theory, where field observables are directly linked to field operators that are smeared in both time and space~\cite{kasia}, and to which it is natural to couple our detectors. Finally, one could also argue for the need for smeared particle detector models due to the fact that in all physically realistic scenarios, the devices being used as detector---for instance, an atom coupling to the electromagnetic field~\cite{ScullyBook,Pozas2016,eduardo}---is not a pointlike object, but has in fact some nontrivial spatial extension. Smeared particle detectors, however, are not devoid of their own issues. In particular, coupling a single nonrelativistic degree of freedom of the detector to a region of spacetime with finite spatial extension implies ``faster than light'' coupling of the internal constituents of the detector. In other words, one single detector's degree of freedom ``feels'' the interaction with the field simultaneously at spacelike separated points. \textcolor{black}{ This does not mean that smeared detectors should be avoided in a relativistic description of measurement in QFT. Rather, this seems intuitively compatible with the assumption that the detector is a non-relativistic system. Indeed, particle detector models do not intend to yield a fundamental description of reality, but rather, to provide an approximate description of measurements in quantum fields that is valid under certain regimes. The effects that the detector's `non-locality' of the coupling may have} on the causal behaviour of the detector model were analyzed in~\cite{martin-martinez2015}, where it was shown that as long as predictions are taken at times longer than the light-crossing time of the detectors' lengthscales, smeared particle detector models cannot signal faster than light. Furthermore, following on this, in recent work~\cite{us}, it was discussed that there are ways to covariantly prescribe the coupling between smeared detectors and fields. However, even when the detector-field Hamiltonian density is covariantly prescribed, one may wonder whether there may still be issues with the covariance of the time evolution generated by this Hamiltonian density due to the non-local nature of the coupling of smeared detectors. Indeed, taking the common Hamiltonian formulation for particle detector physics, we can ask how these non-locality issues affect the time evolution operator given by the time-ordered exponential of the Hamiltonian for the system. Although in nonrelativistic physics time is an external, absolute parameter, when considering relativistic scenarios, one has to address the issues and subtleties that arise from different choices of a time parameter. In particular, each observer has their own rest spaces and proper times, and therefore the notion of time order may become frame dependent. Namely, the ordering of events in spacetime according to different time coordinates will only be unambiguous if the events are timelike or null separated. If, on the other hand, two events are spacelike separated, one can find observers that see either event happening before or after the other. In the case of particle detectors, first principle arguments tell us that it is physically justified to prescribe the interaction in the reference frame of the detector's center of mass~\cite{eduardo,us}. However, if the interaction between the field and the detector is spatially smeared, there will be spacelike separated events in the `worldtube' of the detector. This means that the ambiguity in time ordering will impact smeared detector setups, since certainly time-ordering with respect to the detector's centre of mass proper time will in general not be equivalent to time-ordering with respect to a different frame. If taken at face value, this would be catastrophic for a detector model of a quantum field theory: suddenly, time evolution and all its predictions would be reference frame dependent. General covariance is an important foundational point of modern theoretical physics: fundamental theories must be independent of the (strictly mathematical) choice of the coordinates used to describe the laws of physics. Even though the detector based approach for probing quantum fields is not intended to be a fundamental description of nature, it is still important that its predictions are generally covariant if we are to give them physical meaning in terms of features of the quantum field. Moreover, particle detectors are used in scenarios where covariance plays an important role, such as entanglement harvesting (see, e.g.,~\cite{Valentini1991,Reznik1,reznik2,Retzker2005,RalphOlson1,RalphOlson2,Nick,Cosmo,Salton:2014jaa,Pozas-Kerstjens:2015}), where multiple detectors are present and the causal relations between the interactions of the many detectors are relevant. In the present paper, we study in detail how the spatial smearing of an UDW detector breaks covariance. First, we show that all predictions made for a system of pointlike detectors with covariant Hamiltonian densities (prescribed as in \cite{us}) are coordinate independent. In other words, systems of many pointlike particle detectors in general spacetime backgrounds are fully covariant. We then explicitly analyze the time evolution operator for smeared detectors and calculate (up to lowest nontrivial order) the magnitude of the violation of covariance due to the detectors' finite size. In particular, we show how predictions made in different coordinate systems with different notions of time-ordering deviate from each other as a function of the field-detector state, the size and shape of the detector, as well as the geometry of spacetime. We will show that if the detector is initially in a statistical mixture of states of well defined energy (eigenstates of the free Hamiltonian, thermal states, etc), then the violations of covariance are of third order (and in many cases fourth order) in the coupling strength between the detector and field. This means that predictions associated to different choices of time parameters are equivalent at the order in perturbation theory where many important phenomena manifest (e.g., entanglement harvesting, detection of the Unruh effect, etc.). Furthermore, for the cases where the violations of covariance are of leading order, we discuss in what regimes they can be made negligible. Namely, approximate covariance is restored when several requirements are met: 1) the relative motion of the detectors with respect to the frame in which we are computing should not be extreme; 2) the curvature around the detectors should also be small enough; and 3) the predictions are only taken for times much longer than the light-crossing time of each of the detectors in their respective proper frames, as well as in the coordinate frame we use to calculate. \section{Review of Spacetime intervals in curved spacetimes}\label{intervals} For the purposes of this work, it is convenient to review the notions of timelike, null and spacelike separation in curved spacetimes. In Minkowski spacetime it is easy to define the notion of spacelike and timelike separation of two events $\mathsf{p}$ and $\mathsf{q}$. If we let $\Delta \mathsf{x} = \mathsf{p}-\mathsf{q}$, we say that the two events are spacelike separated in the case in which $\eta_{\mu\nu}\Delta \mathsf{x}^\mu\Delta \mathsf{x}^\nu > 0$ and that they are timelike separated if $\eta_{\mu\nu}\Delta \mathsf{x}^\mu\Delta \mathsf{x}^\nu < 0$, where $\eta_{\mu\nu}$ stands for the metric in inertial coordinates. If $\mathsf{p}$ and $\mathsf{q}$ are spacelike separated in Minkowski spacetime, it is always possible to find an inertial timelike observer that sees both events simultaneously. If they are timelike separated, there is always an inertial timelike trajectory that goes through both of the events. Also, we say that two events are null separated if the norm of $\Delta \mf x$ is zero. Null separated events are connected by a ray of light. These concepts provide very useful insight about the causal structure of Minkowski spacetime, in the sense that events that are spacelike separated have no causal influence over one another. In the context of quantum field theory, this fact manifests itself as the microcausality condition: the commutator of quantum fields in spacelike separated regions vanishes. In Minkowski spacetimes, we can simply say timelike separated events are those events that can be connected by timelike curves, and the analogous holds for null separated events. The points that are spacelike separated are the ones that do not fit any of the categories before. In curved spacetimes, however, defining global notions analogous to timelike, null and spacelike separations is more delicate \cite{Wald1}. First, we assume that we have a spacetime $\mathcal{M}$ with a metric $\mathsf{g}$ that is globally hyperbolic and time orientable. Given a point $\mf{p}$, we then define the set of chronological events related to $\mathsf{p}$ as the set of all points that can be connected to $\mathsf{p}$ by a timelike curve. We denote the set of chronological events related to $\mathsf{p}$ by $I(\mathsf{p})$. This can be shown to be an open set \cite{Wald1} and it corresponds to the interior of the lightcone in Minkowski spacetime. We then define the set of null separated events $N(\mf p) = \overline{I(\mathsf{p})}\setminus I(\mathsf{p})$ as the boundary of the closure of $I(\mathsf{p})$. In Minkowski $N(\mf p)$ corresponds to the set of points that are in the boundary of the lightcone of $\mf p$. It should be noted however that in general this set might contain points that are not causally connected to $\mathsf{p}$ (See again \cite{Wald1} for an example). However, all null curves that go through $\mathsf{p}$ are contained in $N(\mf p)$. Note that as $N(\mf p)$ is the boundary of a region, it possesses one dimension less than the spacetime it is contained in, and volume integrals performed over it yield zero. We then define the set of non-chronological events related to $\mathsf{p}$ as $S(\mathsf{p}) = \mathcal{M}\setminus \overline{I(\mathsf{p})}$. In Minkowski this is equivalent to the region outside the lightcone of $\mathsf{p}$. This set is always open since it is the complement of a closed set, and no event in $S(\mathsf{p})$ is causally connected to the point $\mathsf{p}$. Having generalizations of spacelike and timelike separation, we notice that $\mathsf{q}\in I(\mathsf{p}) \Leftrightarrow \mathsf{p}\in I(\mathsf{q})$, so that we can define the relation between events `belonging to the chronological set of one another' that we notate $\mathsf{p}\musNatural \mathsf{q}$. This relation is what we define as timelike separation. Analogously, $\mathsf{q}\in N(\mathsf{p}) \Leftrightarrow \mathsf{p}\in N(\mathsf{q})$ so that we can define the relation between events `belonging to the null set of one another' that we denote by $\mf p \rotatebox[origin=c]{135}{\musNatural} \mf q$. This is what we will call null separation here, although it should be noted that not all null separated events can be connected by a lightlike curve \cite{Wald1}. \color{black} Consider two future-oriented timelike differential forms $\dd t$ and $\dd t'$ which foliate spacetime by achronal surfaces, and are associated to two coordinate systems \color{black} $R\equiv(t,\bm x)$ and $R'\equiv(t',\bm x')$. Now, take two events $\mathsf{p}$ and $\mathsf{q}$ of coordinates $(p^0,p^i), (p^{0'},p^{i'})$ and $(q^0,q^i), (q^{0'},q^{i'})$ respectively in $R$ and $R'$. If $\mf p \musNatural \mf q$ or $\mf p \rotatebox[origin=c]{135}{\musNatural} \mf q$ , we have that the sign of $p^0-q^0$ and $p^{0'}-q^{0'}$ is the same. Also, we will only have $p^0-q^0$ (or $p^{0'}-q^{0'}$) equal zero if $\mf p=\mf q$. Therefore, the notion of time ordering for these events is unambiguous and coordinate independent (hence reference frame independent), \textcolor{black}{provided that the surfaces of constant $t$ and $t'$ are achronal}. This will be particularly useful for the discussion of the meaning of the time ordering operation in quantum mechanics in curved spacetimes. We also define the relation $\mathsf{p}\rotatebox[origin=c]{90}{\musNatural} \mathsf{q}$ in the case in which $\mathsf{q} \in S(\mathsf{p})\Leftrightarrow\mathsf{p}\in S(\mathsf{q})$. Relevant to this paper, notice that since in this case the points $\mathsf{p}$ and $\mathsf{q}$ are not causally connected, the microcausality condition imposes that the commutator of a scalar quantum field evaluated at them must vanish. \section{The Unruh-DeWitt Model in Curved Spacetimes}\label{UDWmodel} To model the interaction of a particle detector and a quantum field in curved spacetimes we use a smeared Unruh-DeWitt (UDW) detector~\cite{DeWitt,Unruh-Wald}. That is, a two-level system interacting with a free scalar field through a minimally coupled (for simplicity) action. The UDW model captures most of the fundamental features of the light-matter interaction (barring the exchange of angular momentum~\cite{EduardoOld,eduardo}) and hence one could think of this detector as modelling the interaction of atomic probes and the electromagnetic field~\cite{Pozas2016,eduardo}. \color{black} To describe the quantum field and detector, we assume that we have a globally hyperbolic $D = n+1$ dimensional spacetime $\mathcal{M}$. Under these assumptions, the action for a (minimally coupled) classical real scalar field can be written as \begin{equation}\label{actionField} S[\phi] = \int \!\dd\mathcal{V}\left(-\dfrac{1}{2}\nabla_{\mu}\phi\nabla^{\mu}\phi - \dfrac{1}{2}m^2 \phi ^2\right), \end{equation} where $\dd \mathcal{V}$ is the invariant volume element of spacetime, given by \begin{equation} \dd \mathcal{V} \equiv \sqrt{- g} \dd^D \mathsf{x} = \sqrt{- \bar{g}} \dd^D \bar{\mathsf{x}}. \end{equation} When extremized, the action in Eq. \eqref{actionField} yields the Klein-Gordon equation of motion for the field $\phi$, \begin{equation}\label{KG} \nabla_\mu \nabla^\mu \phi - m^2 \phi = 0. \end{equation} At this point we can pick a complete set of solutions to Eq. \eqref{KG}, $\{u_{\bm k}(\mf x)\}$ which is orthonormal with respect to the Klein-Gordon inner product~\cite{Takagi,Wald2}. That is, \begin{align} (u_{\bm k},\bm u_{\bm k'}) &= \delta(\bm k - \bm k'),\\ (u_{\bm k}^,\bm u_{\bm k'}^) &= -\delta(\bm k - \bm k'),\\ (u_{\bm k},\bm u_{\bm k'}^) &=0. \end{align} This allows one to write any classical solution $\phi(\mf x)$ as a linear combination of the $u_{\bm k}(\mf x)$ and $u_{\bm k}^(\mf x)$: \begin{equation}\label{modeExp} \phi(\mf x) = \int \dd^{n} \!\bm{k}\left({a}^_{\bm{k}} u_{\bm{k}}^(\mathsf x)+{a}_{\bm{k}} u_{\bm{k}}( \mathsf x) \right), \end{equation} where ${a_{\bm k} = (u_{\bm k},\phi)}$. Notice that the field $\phi(\mf x)$ can be completely determined from the coefficients $a_{\bm k}$, which can be calculated in any Cauchy surface $\Sigma$ provided that both $\phi$ and its normal derivative to the surface are specified in $\Sigma$. This procedure is independent of the mode expansion performed and of the Cauchy surface chosen to prescribe the initial conditions. To canonically quantize the field $\phi(\mf x)$, one must first define the conjugate momentum to the field, $\pi(\mf x)$. The form of $\pi(\mf x)$ depends explicitly on the choice of foliation by Cauchy surfaces $\mathcal{E}_s$ and a time translation direction $s$ that connects the different sheaves, so that it can be written as \begin{equation} \pi(\mf x) = \frac{\delta S}{\delta (\partial_s \phi(\mf x))}. \end{equation} Having the momentum associated to this given foliation of spacetime, it is then possible to upgrade $\phi(\mf x)$ and $\pi(\mf x)$ to operators and impose the `equal time' canonical commutation relations \begin{align} \nonumber \big[\hat{\phi}(\mf x),\hat{\pi}(\mf x')\big] &= \delta_{\mathcal{E}_s}(\mf x,\mf x')\openone,\\ \big[\hat{\phi}(\mf x),\hat{\phi}(\mf x')\big] &= 0,\label{2}\\ \nonumber \big[{\hat{\pi}(\mf x)},{\hat{\pi}(\mf x')}\big] &= 0, \end{align} where $\delta_{\mathcal{E}_s}(\mf x,\mf x')$ is the Dirac delta distribution associated to each of the surfaces $\mathcal{E}_s$ We can then build the usual Fock representation for field states by promoting the coefficients $a_{\bm k}$ and $a_{\bm k}^$ from Eq. \eqref{modeExp} to operators. This gives rise to the creation and annihilation operators associated to the mode expansion in terms of the basis of solutions $\{u_{\bm k}(\mf x)\}$. That is, the quantum field $\hat{\phi(\mf x)}$ can be written in any point of spacetime as \begin{equation}\label{theQField} \hat{\phi}(\mf x) = \int \dd^{n} \!\bm{k}\left(\hat{a}^\dagger_{\bm{k}} u_{\bm{k}}^(\mathsf x)+\hat{a}_{\bm{k}}^{\phantom{\dagger}} u_{\bm{k}}( \mathsf x) \right). \end{equation} The canonical commutation relations \eqref{2} force the standard bosonic commutation relations for the creation and annihilation operators \begin{align} \big[\hat{a}_{\bm{k}}^{\phantom{\dagger}},\hat{a}^\dagger_{\bm{k'}}\big] &= \delta^{(n)}(\bm k - \bm k') \openone\nonumber,\\ \big[\hat{a}_{\bm{k}}^{\phantom{\dagger}},\hat{a}^{\phantom{\dagger}}_{\bm{k'}}\big] &= 0 ,\\ \big[\hat{a}_{\bm{k}}^{{\dagger}},\hat{a}^\dagger_{\bm{k'}}\big] &= 0.\nonumber \end{align} With this, a vacuum state $\ket{0}$ associated to this quantization is defined as the state annihilated by all the annihilation operators $\hat{a}_{\bm k}$. The Hilbert space associated to the field is built by successive applications of the creation operators $\hat{a}^\dagger_{\bm k}$ on the vacuum state. Notice that the choice of orthonormal set $\{u_{\bm k}(\mf x)\}$ is not unique and indeed there are an infinite number of ways of representing the field in terms of a sum of modes. If two different representations are unitarily equivalent then the annihilation operators $\hat{a}_{\bm k}$ and $\hat{a}^\dagger_{\bm k}$ associated to the two different set of modes annihilate the same vacuum. However, even in the simplest scenarios there are non-unitarily equivalent ways of quantizing the field. A typical example is the Rindler quantization. The vacuum associated to a quantization in terms of Minkowski modes corresponds to thermal states in the right and left wedges of a Rindler quantization~\cite{Takagi,birrelldavies}. The choice of modes determines the explicit spacetime dependence of the field and therefore fixes its free dynamics. In this manuscript we will assume that this choice has been made at the level of field quantization and the free quantum field is already given as in Eq. \eqref{theQField} for every point of spacetime. It is important to remark that this is a common assumption when using the UDW model in curved backgrounds and it is the assumption that yields covariant predictions for pointlike detectors as we will see. \color{black} Same as in (among others) \cite{us}, we assume our detector to be localized as a smeared (Fermi-Walker rigid) two-level first quantized system. We notate $\mathsf{z}(\tau)$ the trajectory of the detector's centre of mass, parametrized by proper time $\tau$. We denote $\ket{g}$ and $\ket{e}$ the ground and excited state of the detector according to the detector's free Hamiltonian $\hat H_{\text{d}}^\tau$ (which generates translations with respect to $\tau$) \begin{equation}\label{hD} \hat H_{\textrm{d}}^\tau = \Omega \hat \sigma^{+}\hat \sigma^{-} = \frac{\Omega}{2} \left(\hat{\sigma}_z+\openone\right), \end{equation} where $\Omega$ is the proper energy gap of the detector and \mbox{$\hat{\sigma}^+=\ket{e}\!\bra{g}=(\hat\sigma^{-})^\dagger$}. \color{black} In a given coordinate system the interaction Hamiltonian density $\hat{\mathfrak{h}}_I(\mf x)$ can be written in terms of a scalar Hamiltonian weight $\hat{h}_I(\mf x)$ according to \mbox{$\hat{\mathfrak{h}}_I(\mf x) = \sqrt{-g}\, \hat{h}_I(\mf x)$}, where $g$ is the determinant of the metric in the corresponding coordinates. This will simplify the analysis because unlike the Hamiltonian density, the Hamiltonian weight is a scalar, and therefore can be used without the need to explicitly mention coordinate systems. The Hamiltonian weight associated to the interaction of a two-level system with a scalar quantum field in the UDW model takes the following shape, \color{black} \begin{equation} \hat{h}_I(\barsf{x}) = \lambda \chi(\tau)f(\bar{\bm x})\hat{\mu}(\tau)\hat{\phi}(\bar{\mathsf{x}}). \end{equation} where---following the prescription from \cite{us}---we pick Fermi normal coordinates $(\tau,\bar{\bm{x}})$, associated to the centre of mass of the detector, and the monopole moment operator takes the form \begin{equation} \hat \mu(\tau) = e^{\mathrm{i}\Omega \tau}\hat \sigma^+ +e^{-\mathrm{i}\Omega\tau}\hat \sigma^-. \label{eq:monopole} \end{equation} \color{black} $\chi(\tau)$ and $f(\bar{\bm{x}})$ are the switching and smearing functions, respectively. Notice that, by construction, in the proper frame of the detector we can factor a switching function and a spatial smearing function in the interaction Hamiltonian. This is associated to the assumption that the detector is Fermi-Walker rigid, that is, it keeps its shape in its own reference frame\color{black}. In a general coordinate system there is no factorization of a switching and a smearing function and the Hamiltonian weight will be characterized instead by a spacetime smearing $\Lambda(\mathsf{x})$, that is, \begin{equation}\label{hDensityCov} \hat{h}_I(\mf x) = \lambda \Lambda(\mf x) \hat{\mu}(\tau(\mf x))\hat{\phi}(\mf x). \end{equation} As stated in \cite{us}, the integral of the above quantity in spacetime is fully covariant and coordinate independent. The Hamiltonian that generates time evolution with respect to the proper time $\tau$ of the detector is then defined as the integral over the constant $\tau$ surfaces $\Sigma_\tau$, according to \begin{equation}\label{HamiltonianTau} \hat{H}_{I}^{\tau}(\tau) = \lambda \int_{\Sigma_{\tau}}\!\!\!\dd^n \bar{\bm x} \sqrt{-\bar{g}}\chi(\tau)f(\bar{\bm x})\hat{\mu}(\tau)\hat{\phi}(\bar{\mathsf{x}}), \end{equation} while the Hamiltonian generating translations with respect to an arbitrary time coordinate $t$ can be written as \begin{equation}\label{HamiltonianT} \hat{H}_{I}^{t}(t) = \lambda \int_{\mathcal{E}_{t}}\!\!\!\dd^n \bm{x} \sqrt{-{g}}\:\Lambda(\mathsf{x})\hat{\mu}(t)\hat{\phi}({\mathsf{x}}), \end{equation} where $\mathcal{E}_t$ denotes the constant $t$ spacelike surfaces in the coordinates $\mf x = (t,\bm x)$. The time evolution operator is then defined as the time-ordered exponential \begin{align}\label{ufirst} \hat{\mathcal{U}} &= \mathcal{T}_\tau\exp\left(-\mathrm{i}\!\int_{\mathcal{M}}\!\!\dd\mathcal{V} \hat{h}_I(\mf x)\right)= \mathcal{T}_\tau\exp\left(-\mathrm{i}\!\int_\mathbb{R}\!\!\dd\tau \hat{H}_I^\tau(\tau)\right), \end{align} where \textcolor{black}{we have made it explicit that} the time ordering operator $\mathcal{T}_\tau$ represents time ordering with respect to the proper time of the detector's centre of mass $\tau$. \color{black} It is important to notice that the UDW model has historically been prescribed at the Hamiltonian level, and not from a `first-principle' action. It is indeed an effective model built to bypass the need for a full relativistic description of the detector's internal dynamics. It is nevertheless possible to obtain the interaction Hamiltonians in~\eqref{HamiltonianTau} and \eqref{HamiltonianT} from the following interaction \emph{action}: \begin{equation}\label{interactionaction} S_I = \int \dd^D\bar{\mathsf{x}} \sqrt{-\bar{g}} \mathcal{L}_I(\bar{\mathsf{x}}), \end{equation} where $\mathcal{L}_I$ is a scalar interaction Lagrangian weight. From this action, an interaction energy-momentum tensor can be assigned: \begin{equation} T^{ab}_I = -\dfrac{2}{\sqrt{-g}}\dfrac{\delta S_I}{\delta g_{ab}}. \end{equation} Now assume that the interaction Lagrangian does not explicitly depend on the metric. This is true for common potential and interaction terms in scalar field theories and certainly true for the common UDW detector models as introduced in previous literature~\cite{Unruh1976,DeWitt,Unruh-Wald}. Then, the only dependence on the metric in~\eqref{interactionaction} comes from the volume element, so that we obtain \begin{equation} T_I^{ab} = -\mathcal{L}_I(\bar{\mathsf{x}}) g^{ab}. \end{equation} The interaction Hamiltonian~\eqref{interactionhamiltonian} can then be obtained as \begin{equation}\label{interactionhamiltonian2} H^\tau_I = \int_{\Sigma_\tau} \dd \Sigma\,\, n_a T_I^{ab} \xi_b, \end{equation} where $\xi^a = (\partial_\tau)^a$, $\dd\Sigma$ is the induced volume element on the spacelike surfaces $\Sigma_\tau$ with unit normal $n^a$, and we complete the identification from~\eqref{interactionhamiltonian2} to~\eqref{interactionhamiltonian} by recognizing $h_I(\bar{\mathsf{x}}) = -\mathcal{L}_I(\bar{\mathsf{x}})$. We will take as an \emph{assumption} of the setup that, once the free quantization of the field has been performed, its spacetime dependence in the interaction picture is fully determined. In particular, this implies that any local interaction term in an interaction action between the fields in our setup will correspond to an interaction Hamiltonian weight $\hat{h}_I(\mathsf{x})$ that is a \emph{foliation-independent} scalar function of the coordinates. This is a nontrivial assumption, insofar as it is hard to justify it in general from first-principle arguments based on a careful description of the free and interacting Hamiltonians arising from splitting the full energy-momentum tensor of the theory as a ``free'' and an ``interacting'' part. Nevertheless, this has certainly been taken for granted in the standard approaches based on particle detector models with detectors in trajectories that may not correspond to the trajectories of fiducial observers according to which canonical quantization (and in particular, the definition of the vacuum) has been performed. Notice again that this choice yields covariant predictions for pointlike detectors. Since the model has been remarkably successful in QFT in many scenarios where the non-triviality manifests (for example predicting the Unruh effect~\cite{Takagi,Unruh-Wald,Unruh1976}) and our our objective is to highlight the limitations that are intrinsic to the usual strategy employed in smeared particle detector models. We find this a fair assumption upon which to base our following remarks. \color{black} \section{The Time Ordering Operation}\label{timeOrderSection} The notion of time ordering is fundamental in our understanding of time evolution in quantum theory. When a given coordinate system is chosen, $\mf x = (t,\bm x)$, the time ordering of events associated to this coordinate system is understood as an ordering with respect to the coordinate time $t$. For timelike or null separated events, time ordering is independent of the coordinate system picked. However, for spacelike events this is not the case. In this section, we will study under which conditions the time-ordered exponential of a Hamiltonian density is independent of the time parameter used to order it. \color{black}We will do so for a scalar quantum field theory in a globally hyperbolic spacetime $\mathcal{M}$ of dimension $D = n+1$ with metric $g$, in the context of the UDW model discussed in Section \ref{UDWmodel}. Consider the UDW model, as presented in Section \ref{UDWmodel}. In the Fermi normal coordinates associated to the detector's center of mass worldline, we have seen that the Hamiltonian and unitary time evolution operator are respectively given by \color{black} \begin{equation} \hat{H}_I^\tau(\tau) = \int \dd^n \bar{\bm{x}} \sqrt{-\bar{g}}\, \hat{h}_I(\bar{\mf x}),\label{interactionhamiltonian} \end{equation} \vspace{-15pt} \begin{equation} \hat{\mathcal{U}}_\tau = \mathcal{T}_\tau\exp\left(-\mathrm{i}\int_\mathbb{R}\! \dd\tau\: \hat{H}_I^\tau(\tau) \right). \end{equation} \color{black} \textcolor{black}{This time evolution operator should then be thought to evolve initial data, encoded in general as a state operator $\hat{\rho}_0$ and prescribed at an initial Cauchy surface $\Sigma_{\tau_0}$, to a final future Cauchy surface $\Sigma_{\tau_1}$. Throughout our discussion, we will in general assume $(\tau_0, \tau_1) \rightarrow (-\infty, +\infty)$. Notice that any finite nature of the interaction would be implemented through the possibly finite spacetime support in the Hamiltonian. } \textcolor{black}{Under the assumptions outlined in Section \ref{UDWmodel}, one can alternatively compute the time evolution prescribed by a different coordinate time $t$ by assigning an interaction Hamiltonian given by} \begin{equation}\label{hCovGeneral} \hat{H}^{t}_I(t) = \int_{\mathcal{E}_{t}} \!\! \dd^n \bm{x} \sqrt{-g}\:\hat{h}_I(\mathsf{x}), \end{equation} where $\bm{x}$ are spacelike coordinates on $\mathcal{E}_{t}$, which are the surfaces of simultaneity defined by constant $t$. \textcolor{black}{When comparing the time evolution generated by~\eqref{interactionhamiltonian} and~\eqref{hCovGeneral}, one should keep in mind that we are implicitly assuming that the past and future Cauchy surfaces corresponding to $(t_0, t_1)$ coincide with the ones associated to $(\tau_0, \tau_1)$---otherwise, the comparison would be meaningless, since it would involve comparing observables located in different spatial slices. Again, this does not mean that we cannot model finite-time interactions since the finiteness will be encoded in the spacetime support of $ \hat{H}^{t}_I(t)$} Having a covariantly defined Hamiltonian as in \eqref{hCovGeneral} is, however, not enough to guarantee that the time evolution operator itself will be independent of the time parameter chosen to prescribe it. This will only be true if the time ordering operation with respect to $\tau$ is actually truly independent of the time coordinate chosen. If this were not the case, it is easy to see that issues with time-ordering will appear in every order $\mathcal{O}(\lambda^n)$ with $n\geq 2$ of the Dyson expansion of $\hat{\mathcal{U}}_\tau$. Namely, if we write the Dyson expansion as \begin{equation} \hat{\mathcal{U}}_\tau=\openone+\hat{\mathcal{U}}^{(1)}_\tau+ \hat{\mathcal{U}}^{(2)}_\tau +\mathcal{O}(\lambda^3), \end{equation} then the time ordering prescription $\mathcal{T}_\tau$ associated to the the detector's proper time yields for the second order term \begin{align} \nonumber \hat{\mathcal{U}}^{(2)}_\tau &\coloneqq (-\mathrm{i})^2 \int_{-\infty}^{+\infty}\!\!\!\dd \tau \int_{-\infty}^{\tau} \!\!\!\dd\tau'\, \hat{H}^{\tau}_I(\tau)\hat{H}^{\tau'}_I(\tau')\\ &=(-\mathrm{i})^2\int_{\mathcal{M}\times\mathcal{M}} \!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\dd \mathcal{V} \dd \mathcal{V}'\: \hat{h}_I(\bar{\mathsf{x}})\hat{h}_I(\bar{\mathsf{x}}')\theta(\tau-\tau'), \label{U2f} \end{align} where $\theta(\tau)$ is the Heaviside step function. If we now try to perform a coordinate transformation to another coordinate system \mbox{$\mathsf{x} = (t, \bm{x})$}, we get \begin{align}\label{U2tau} \hat{\mathcal{U}}^{(2)}_\tau&= (-\mathrm{i})^2\int_{\mathcal{M}\times \mathcal{M}} \!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\dd \mathcal{V} \dd \mathcal{V}'\: \hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}})\hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}'})\theta\big(\tau(\mathsf{x})-\tau'(\mathsf{x}')\big)\\ &\neq (-\mathrm{i})^2 \int_{-\infty}^{+\infty}\!\!\!\dd t \int_{-\infty}^{ t } \!\!\!\dd t '\, \hat{H}^{ t }_I( t )\hat{H}^{ t '}_I( t ') = \hat{\mathcal{U}}^{(2)}_t. \nonumber \end{align} Because there can be spacelike separated events in the integral in \eqref{U2tau}, we do not get the nested integration that one would expect from carrying out time ordering $\mathcal{T}_t$ with respect to the time coordinate $t$ instead of $\tau$. Note, however, that we can split the integration region $\mathcal{M}\times \mathcal{M}$ into four subregions \begin{align} &\!\!\!\!T :=\{(\bar{\mathsf{x}},\bar{\mathsf{x}}')\in \mathcal{M}\!\times\! \mathcal{M}: \barsf{x} \musNatural \barsf{x}' \},\\ &\!\!\!\!N :=\{(\bar{\mathsf{x}},\bar{\mathsf{x}}')\in \mathcal{M}\!\times\! \mathcal{M}: \barsf{x} \rotatebox[origin=c]{135}{\musNatural} \barsf{x}' \},\\ &\!\!\!\!S_> := \{(\bar{\mathsf{x}},\bar{\mathsf{x}}')\in \mathcal{M}\!\times\! \mathcal{M}: \barsf{x} \rotatebox[origin=c]{90}{\musNatural} \barsf{x}' \textrm{ and } \tau\!>\!\tau' \Rightarrow t\!>\! t' \},\\ &\!\!\!\!S_\le := \{(\bar{\mathsf{x}},\bar{\mathsf{x}}')\in \mathcal{M}\!\times\! \mathcal{M}: \barsf{x} \rotatebox[origin=c]{90}{\musNatural} \barsf{x}' \textrm{ and } \tau\!>\!\tau' \Rightarrow t\!\le \!t' \}, \end{align} where $\mathsf{x}\musNatural \mathsf{x'}$ corresponds to timelike, $\mf x \rotatebox[origin=c]{135}{\musNatural} \mf x'$ corresponds to null and $\mathsf{x}\rotatebox[origin=c]{90}{\musNatural} \mathsf{x'}$ corresponds to spacelike separation between $\mathsf{x}$ and $\mathsf{x}'$. With this splitting we can write $\hat{\mathcal{U}}^{(2)}$ in \eqref{U2f} as a sum of integrals over the different regions \begin{align} \hat{\mathcal{U}}^{(2)}_\tau \! &=(-\mathrm{i})^2\int_{T\,\cup\, N\,\cup\, S_>}\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\! \dd \mathcal{V} \dd \mathcal{V}'\, \hat{h}_I(\bar{\mathsf{x}})\hat{h}_I(\bar{\mathsf{x}}')\theta(\tau\!-\!\tau')\nonumber\\ &+(-\mathrm{i})^2\int_{S_\leq}\!\!\dd \mathcal{V} \dd \mathcal{V}'\: \hat{h}_I(\bar{\mathsf{x}})\hat{h}_I(\bar{\mathsf{x}}')\theta(\tau\!-\!\tau'). \label{U2s} \end{align} For timelike and null separation, the time ordering between two events is the same for every observer, which means that for points on regions $T$ and $N$, $\tau(\mathsf{x})-\tau'(\mathsf{x}') > 0 \iff t - t' > 0$ as per the discussion in Section \ref{intervals}. This allows us to equate $\theta\big(\tau(\mathsf{x})-\tau(\mathsf{x}')\big) = \theta(t - t')$ in these regions. The same reasoning is true for the points in the $S_>$ region by construction, since we defined $S_>$ to be the region composed of spacetime events that preserved the previous time ordering. The only region where the coordinate transformation may cause problems is $S_\leq$, since it changes the time ordering between the two events. In this region, we can write $\theta\big(\tau(\mathsf{x})-\tau(\mathsf{x}')\big) = \theta(t' - t)$, which allows us to rewrite the integral as \begin{equation} \begin{gathered} \int_{S_\leq} \!\!\!\dd \mathcal{V} \dd \mathcal{V}' \hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}})\hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}'})\theta\big(\tau(\mathsf{x})-\tau(\mathsf{x}')\big)\\ =\int_{S_\leq} \!\!\!\dd \mathcal{V} \dd \mathcal{V}' \hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}})\hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}'})\theta\big(t' - t\big); \end{gathered} \end{equation} Then, writing $\hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}})\hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}'}) = \hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}'})\hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}}) + [\hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}}), \hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}'})]$, we get \begin{equation} \begin{gathered} \int_{S_\leq} \!\!\!\dd \mathcal{V} \dd \mathcal{V}' \hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}})\hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}'})\theta\big(t' - t\big)\\ = \int_{S_\leq} \!\!\!\dd \mathcal{V} \dd \mathcal{V}' \hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}'})\hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}})\theta\big(t' - t\big)\\ +\int_{S_\leq} \!\!\!\dd \mathcal{V} \dd \mathcal{V}' [\hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}}), \hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}'})]\theta\big(t' - t\big). \end{gathered} \end{equation} Renaming the integration variables $\mathsf{x}$ and $\mathsf{x}'$ in the first integral of the right hand side above we recover the same integrand as in Eq. \eqref{U2tau}. Adding the integrals over the regions ${T},N, S_>$ and $S_\leq$, we finally get \begin{align} \!\!\!\! \hat{\mathcal{U}}^{(2)}_\tau &=(-\mathrm{i})^2\int_{\mathcal{M}\times\mathcal{M}} \!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\dd \mathcal{V} \dd \mathcal{V}' \hat{h}_I(\bar{\mathsf{x}})\hat{h}_I(\bar{\mathsf{x}}')\theta(\tau-\tau')\nonumber\\ \!\!\!\!\! &=(-\mathrm{i})^2\int_{\mathcal{M}\times\mathcal{M}} \!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\dd \mathcal{V} \dd \mathcal{V}' \hat{h}_I(\mathsf{x})\hat{h}_I(\mathsf{x}')\theta(t - t')\nonumber\\ \!\!\!\!\! &+(-\mathrm{i})^2\int_{S_\leq} \!\!\!\!\!\dd \mathcal{V} \dd \mathcal{V}' [\hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}}), \hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}'})]\theta\big(t' - t\big)\nonumber\\ \!\!\!\!\! &= \hat{\mathcal{U}}^{(2)}_t+(-\mathrm{i})^2\int_{S_\leq} \!\!\!\!\!\dd \mathcal{V} \dd \mathcal{V}' [\hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}}), \hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}'})]\theta\big(t' - t\big),\label{U2correction} \end{align} where we recall $\mathcal{T}_t$ represents time ordering with respect to $t$ and $\hat{\mathcal{U}}_t$ the associated time evolution operator. The second summand in \eqref{U2correction} ultimately threatens the covariance of the time ordering prescription. This term is proportional to the commutator of the Hamiltonian densities at spacelike-separated points. To generalize the result above to higher orders, notice that the $N$th term in the Dyson series can be written as \begin{align} \nonumber\hat{\mathcal{U}}^{(N)}_\tau &= \dfrac{(-\mathrm{i})^N}{N!}\!\!\int_{\mathcal{M}^N}\!\!\!\!\!\!\dd \mathcal{\mathcal{\mathcal{V}}}_1\dots \dd \mathcal{V}_N\:\mathcal{T}_\tau \hat{h}_I(\bar{\mathsf{x}}_1)\dots\hat{h}_I(\bar{\mathsf{x}}_N)\\ &= \dfrac{(-\mathrm{i})^N}{N!}\!\!\int_{\mathcal{M}^N}\!\!\!\!\!\!\dd \mathcal{\mathcal{\mathcal{V}}}_1\dots \dd \mathcal{V}_N\:\mathcal{T}_\tau \hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}}_1)\dots\hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}}_N)\label{U2}\\ &\neq \dfrac{(-\mathrm{i})^N}{N!}\!\!\int_{\mathcal{M}^N}\!\!\!\!\!\!\dd \mathcal{\mathcal{\mathcal{V}}}_1\dots \dd \mathcal{V}_N\:\mathcal{T}_t \hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}}_1)\dots\hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}}_N).\nonumber \end{align} where $\mathcal{T}_\tau$ applied to the Hamiltonian densities time-orders the product according to the detector's centre of mass proper time $\tau$. As the second and third line of \eqref{U2} shows, we could switch from the $\bar{\mf x} = (\tau,\bar{\bm x})$ coordinates to arbitrary coordinates $\mf x = (t,\bm x)$ without picking any extra terms, but we need to keep the time ordering with respect to $\tau$. Expressing the time-ordering with respect to $\tau$ in terms of time ordering in the coordinates $(t,\bm x)$ is, in general, a nontrivial task but it is in general different from time ordering with respect to $t$. We would like to highlight that the non-coincidence of time-ordering with respect to different coordinate systems can be bypassed in many common scenarios. If the Hamiltonian weight is microcausal, that is, it satisfies \begin{equation}\label{microcausality} \mathsf{x}\rotatebox[origin=c]{90}{\musNatural}\mathsf{x}' \Rightarrow [\hat{h}(\mf x),\hat{h}(\mf x')] = 0, \end{equation} then the ambiguity in time ordering of spacelike-separated events will have no impact in the calculation of the time evolution operator. In other words, when \eqref{microcausality} is satisfied, the time evolution operator is the same with respect to any time parameter. There are many relevant interactions where the Hamiltonian density is microcausal. The postulate of microcausality in QFT implies that field operators evaluated at spacelike-separated points commute. If the interaction Hamiltonian weight $\hat{h}_I(\mf x)$ is local in the quantum fields (that is, only couples the detector to field degrees of freedom evaluated at a single point in each spatial slice) the Hamiltonian weight is microcausal. This is why in (most of) high-energy physics, where all fields are microcausal and the interactions are local, there is no need to specify a privileged time ordering and the time evolution is always covariant. This is also why a detection scheme based on the Fewster-Verch QFT measurement framework~\cite{fewster1,fewster2,fewster3} would not have any problems with covariance. However, smeared particle detectors such as the smeared UDW model involve non-local couplings to quantum fields, hence will suffer from time-ordering ambiguities as we will see. \section{Breaking of Covariance by a single smeared detector}\label{CovOneDetector} In section \ref{timeOrderSection} we have seen that local quantum field theories that satisfy microcausality (observables commute at different spacelike separated points) would produce time evolution operators that do not depend on the time parameter chosen for time ordering. When we take $\hat{h}_I(\mf x)$ to be the Hamiltonian weight associated to a single pointlike detector undergoing an arbitrary timelike trajectory in a fixed background, the interaction is local. That is, the detector's degree of freedom only couples to a single point in each space slice. This translates into the fact that the support of the Hamiltonian weight $\hat{h}_I(\mf x)$ consists of a single point in each spatial slice, which in turn implies that $\hat{h}_I(\mf x)$ satisfies a microcausality condition: it commutes with itself at spacelike separated points. In summary: predictions of the time evolution of pointlike UDW detectors coupled through Hamiltonian weights of the form \eqref{hDensityCov} are fully covariant. However, in the smeared UDW detector model \color{black} employed in the literature, the Hamiltonian weight (and therefore the Hamiltonian density) can be shown to violate microcausality. Namely, the commutator of the UDW interaction Hamiltonian densities for a single smeared detector evaluated at spacelike-separated points is not identically zero due to the smearing. To the authors' knowledge, this has not been taken into account in previous literature. This represents an important limitation of the theory that must be accounted for even for the simplest cases of inertial detectors in flat spacetimes (as we will show in an example later). This violation of general covariance can then be used to stipulate a limit of validity and better clarify under which conditions the predictions of particle detector models can be trusted. This violation (that would yield coordinate dependence of the model's predictions) is deeply linked to the fact that the spatially smeared UDW Hamiltonian itself encodes an interaction of a single degree of freedom of the detector with a field observable in a region with finite spatial extension, and is therefore inherently nonlocal. The goal of this subsection is therefore to quantify the degree to which this nonlocality of the interaction hinders the covariant nature of predictions prescribed in different coordinate systems. In other words, evaluate how good an approximation we are taking when we consider a smeared UDW detector to model the underlying covariant theory describing the interaction of field and detectors.\color{black} To quantify the break of covariance introduced by the smearing we make use of the results of Section \ref{timeOrderSection}, by taking the coordinates $\bar{\mf x} = (\tau,\bar{\bm x})$ to be the Fermi normal coordinates associated to the detector's center of mass and we take $\mf x = (t,\bm x)$ to be a different arbitrary frame. We recall that time ordering is unambiguous for the timelike and null regions $T$ and $N$. Furthermore the only region where time ordering can cause covariance problems is $S_\leq$ since, by definition, it contains all the events for which time-ordering is not the same in both frames. Considering that the quantum field theory satisfies microcausality ($[\hat{\phi}(\mf x),\hat{\phi}(\mf x')] = 0$ for $\mathsf{x}\rotatebox[origin=c]{90}{\musNatural}\mathsf{x}'$), we can write the commutator of the Hamiltonian weights in \eqref{U2correction} in terms of the commutator of the monopole operator at different times in $S_{\leq}$ as \begin{equation}\label{commhI} \!\big[\hat{h}_I(\mathsf{x}),\hat{h}_I(\mathsf{x}')\big]\!=\! \lambda^2 \Lambda(\mathsf{x})\Lambda(\mathsf{x}') \big[\hat{\mu}(\tau(\mathsf{x})),\hat{\mu}(\tau(\mathsf{x}'))\big] \hat\phi(\mathsf{x})\hat \phi(\mathsf{x'}), \end{equation} where the $\Lambda(\mathsf{x})$ is the spacetime smearing function. From \eqref{eq:monopole} we can explicitly evaluate the monopole moment commutator for a qubit UDW detector as \begin{equation} \big[\hat{\mu}(\tau),\hat{\mu}(\tau')\big] = 2\mathrm{i} \sin(\Omega(\tau-\tau'))\hat{\sigma}_z.\label{commMu} \end{equation} \color{black} Notice that this commutator vanishes only for specific times, namely, when $\tau = \tau'+\pi n /\Omega$ for integer values of $n$, hence the smeared UDW detector interaction Hamiltonian density breaks microcausality. It is important to remark that this issue is present even in the simplest scenarios already studied in the literature, such as inertial motion of particle detectors in flat spacetimes. As mentioned in Section \ref{timeOrderSection}, when an interaction Hamiltonian does not satisfy microcausality, the time ordering associated to different notions of time translations might impact the result for the time evolution operator. This implies that the uses of smeared particle detectors not relying on a quantum field theoretical description of the detector (i.e., particle detector models except for the Fewster-Verch approach~\cite{fewster1,fewster2,fewster3}) implicitly assume a notion of time translation with respect to which the calculations are performed, and, in principle, different choices of such notions might have yielded different predictions. However, a mathematical model that represents reality cannot yield different results depending on the coordinate system used to perform computations. It is thus important to quantify the difference that the different choices of coordinates introduce in the time evolution operator. If these differences were to be relevant, they may cast doubt on the accuracy of the predictions made by particle detector models. To study the possible coordinate dependence of the predictions of particle detector models let us start by comparing the time ordering operation associated to the proper time of the detector's frame $\tau$ with the time ordering with respect to a different parameter $t$, associated to a foliation $\mathcal{E}_t$. We make use of the result of Eq. \eqref{commhI}, where the commutator of $\hat{h}_I(\mf x)$ with itself at different events was explicitly evaluated. \color{black} Concretely, consider two time-ordered exponentials that define two different time evolution operators $\hat{\mathcal{U}}_\tau$ and $\hat{\mathcal{U}}_t$. On the one hand, $\hat{\mathcal{U}}_\tau$ is associated to the Hamiltonian generating time evolution with respect to the proper time of the detector $\hat{H}_I^\tau(\tau)$, that is \begin{align}\label{u30} \hat{\mathcal{U}}_\tau = \mathcal{T}_\tau\exp\left(-\mathrm{i}\! \int\!\dd \tau\, \hat{H}_I^\tau(\tau)\right). \end{align} On the other hand, the time evolution operator $\hat{\mathcal{U}}_t$ is associated to the time-order of the Hamiltonian $\hat{H}_I^t(t)$ generating translations with respect to another time parameter $t$: \begin{align} \hat{\mathcal{U}}_t = \mathcal{T}_t\exp\left(-\mathrm{i}\! \int\!\dd t\, \hat{H}_I^t(t)\right). \end{align} In a covariant formalism we should have $\hat{\mathcal{U}}_\tau=\hat{\mathcal{U}}_t$, so that the predictions do not depend on the choice of coordinates. \color{black} While this is not going to be the case for non-pointlike detectors, it is possible to precisely quantify the difference between the two time-ordering prescriptions in a general smearing scenario. \color{black} As discussed in Section \ref{timeOrderSection}, for the first order Dyson expansion term in the time evolution, we verify that $\hat{\mathcal{U}}^{(1)}_\tau = \hat{\mathcal{U}}^{(1)}_t$ and therefore the first deviation from using the two coordinate systems appears in the second order of the Dyson expansion. From \eqref{U2correction} we get \begin{equation}\label{deviationOne} \hat{\mathcal{U}}_t^{(2)} - \hat{\mathcal{U}}_\tau^{(2)} = - \int_{S_\leq} \!\!\!\dd \mathcal{V} \dd \mathcal{V}' \comm{\hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}})}{\hat{h}_I({\mathsf{x}'})}\theta\big(t' - t\big). \end{equation} If we expand the integral above using the expression of the Hamiltonian weight $\hat{h}_I(\mathsf{x})$ in terms of the field and monopole operators and equation \eqref{commMu}, we obtain \begin{align} \nonumber \hat{\mathcal{U}}_t^{(2)} - \hat{\mathcal{U}}_\tau^{(2)}=- 2 \mathrm{i} \lambda^2 \hat{\sigma}_z\!\!&\int_{S_\leq} \!\!\!\!\!\dd \mathcal{V} \dd \mathcal{V}'\Lambda(\mathsf{x})\Lambda(\mathsf{x}')\hat\phi(\mathsf{x})\hat \phi(\mathsf{x'})\\ &\times\sin\big[\Omega(\tau-\tau')\big]\theta\big(t' - t\big). \end{align} We then define an operator $\hat{E}$ that acts only on the Hilbert space of the field as \begin{align}\label{defE} \hat{E}\!\coloneqq\! \!- 2 \mathrm{i}\!\!\int_{S_\leq} \!\!\!\!\!\dd \mathcal{\mathcal{V}} \dd \mathcal{V}'\!\Lambda(\mathsf{x})\Lambda(\mathsf{x}')\hat\phi(\mathsf{x})\hat \phi(\mathsf{x'}) \sin\!\big[\Omega(\tau\!-\!\tau')\big]\theta\big(t'\!\! - \!t\big), \end{align} so that we can write the difference between $\hat{\mathcal{U}}_t^{(2)}$ and $\hat{\mathcal{U}}_\tau^{(2)}$ as \begin{equation}\label{jonas} \hat{\mathcal{U}}_t^{(2)} - \hat{\mathcal{U}}^{(2)}_\tau = \lambda^2 \hat{\sigma}_z \hat{E}. \end{equation} Taking the adjoint of Equation \eqref{defE} and using the fact that the field operators commute when evaluated at points in $S_\leq$, one sees that $\hat{E}^\dagger = -\hat{E}$. We can evaluate the exact magnitude of the violation of covariance by choosing a particular initial state for detector and field. In particular, in the reasonable scenario that field and detector are initially uncorrelated, the initial joint state is \begin{equation} \hat{\rho}_0 = \hat{\rho}_{\text{d},0}\otimes \hat{\rho}_\phi. \end{equation} After the interaction, the state of the field-detector system will be given by \begin{equation} \hat{\rho}^\tau = \hat{\mathcal{U}}_\tau\hat{\rho}_0 \hat{\mathcal{U}}_\tau^\dagger. \end{equation} The time-evolved state of the detector is obtained after tracing over the field degrees of freedom: \mbox{$\hat{\rho}_\textrm{d} = \Tr_\phi \hat{\rho}$}. If one decides to prescribe the interaction using any other coordinate system, general covariance would demand that the time evolution implemented by $\hat{\mathcal{U}}_t$ should coincide with that of $\hat{\mathcal{U}}_\tau$. For $\hat{\mathcal{U}}_t$, the density operator used to describe the system after the interaction will be given by \begin{equation} \hat{\rho}^t = \hat{\mathcal{U}}_t \hat{\rho}_0 \hat{\mathcal{U}}_t^\dagger. \end{equation} Since the spacetime region of interaction is given by the support of the spacetime profile $\Lambda(\mf x)$ which is coordinate invariant, we can then use Equation \eqref{jonas} to compare $\hat{\rho}^{t}$ with $\hat{\rho}^\tau$. We obtain \begin{align} \nonumber \hat{\rho}^t &= \hat{\mathcal{U}}_\tau \hat{\rho}_0 \hat{\mathcal{U}}_\tau^\dagger + \lambda^2\left( \hat{\sigma}_z \hat{E} \hat{\rho}_0 \hat{\mathcal{U}}_\tau^\dagger+\hat{\mathcal{U}} _\tau\hat{\rho}_0 \hat{\sigma}_z\hat{E}^\dagger\right)+\mathcal{O}(\lambda^3)\\ & = \hat{\rho}^\tau +\lambda^2\left(\hat{\sigma}_z\hat{\rho}_{\textrm{d},0}\otimes\hat{E}\hat{\rho}_\phi+\hat{\rho}_{\textrm{d},0}\hat{\sigma}_z\otimes \hat{\rho}_\phi \hat{E}^\dagger\right) + \mathcal{O}(\lambda^3). \end{align} The covariance breaking introduced in the detector evolved states can be evaluated by partial-tracing the field. Using the cyclic property of the trace and that $\hat{E}=-{\hat{E}}^\dagger$ we can write $\hat \rho^t_{\text{d}}= \Tr_\phi \hat{\rho}^t$ as \begin{align} \hat{\rho}^t_\textrm{d} &= \hat{\rho}_\textrm{d}^\tau + \lambda^2\left( \hat{\sigma}_z\hat{\rho}_{\textrm{d},0}\Tr \hat{E}\hat{\rho}_\phi+\hat{\rho}_{\textrm{d},0}\hat{\sigma}_z\Tr \hat{\rho}_\phi \hat{E}^\dagger\right)+\mathcal{O}(\lambda^3)\nonumber\\ &= \hat{\rho}^\tau_\textrm{d} + \lambda^2\left( \hat{\sigma}_z\hat{\rho}_{\textrm{d},0}\Tr \hat{E}\hat{\rho}_\phi-\hat{\rho}_{\textrm{d},0}\hat{\sigma}_z\Tr \hat{\rho}_\phi \hat{E}\right)+\mathcal{O}(\lambda^3)\nonumber\\ &= \hat{\rho}_\textrm{d}^\tau + \lambda^2\comm{\hat{\sigma}_z}{\hat{\rho}_{\textrm{d},0}}\Tr \hat{\rho}_\phi \hat{E}+\mathcal{O}(\lambda^3), \end{align} where $\Tr \hat{\rho}_\phi\hat{E}$ can be written in terms of the field state Wightman function as \begin{align}\label{citeE} \Tr \hat{\rho}_\phi\hat{E}\!=- 2 \mathrm{i}\!\!\int_{S_\leq} \!\!\!\!\!\dd \mathcal{\mathcal{V}} \dd \mathcal{V}'\!\Lambda(\mathsf{x})&\Lambda(\mathsf{x}')W_{\hat{\rho}_\phi}(\mf x,\mf x')\\& \times\sin\!\big[\Omega(\tau\!-\!\tau')\big]\theta\big(t'\!\! - \!t\big).\nonumber \end{align} We therefore obtain that the difference between both descriptions is given by \begin{equation}\label{podeSIM} \hat{\rho}_\textrm{d}^t-\hat{\rho}_\textrm{d}^\tau = \lambda^2\comm{\hat{\sigma}_z}{\hat{\rho}_{\textrm{d},0}}\Tr \hat{\rho}_\phi \hat{E}+\mathcal{O}(\lambda^3). \end{equation}\color{black} Equation \eqref{podeSIM} quantifies how much the standard smeared UDW particle detector model changes if one decides to perform the calculations in another reference frame. It is important to remark that the predictions of such models can only be trusted up to the point where the difference between the states $\hat{\rho}_\textrm{d}^t$ and $\hat{\rho}_\textrm{d}^\tau$ is negligible. For example, smeared UDW models provide an accurate approximation for the description of a probe coupling to a quantum field up to second order if the initial state of the detector commutes with its free Hamiltonian, a common choice in many previous works. Recall that we discussed in Section~\ref{timeOrderSection} that the break of covariance is linked to the non-local coupling of a single quantum degree of freedom of the detector to multiple spacelike separated points. Indeed, we can check from Eq. \eqref{podeSIM} that $\hat{E}$ is identically zero for a pointlike detector due to the fact that the pointlike smearing (a delta function) has no points in the region $S_\leq$. \color{black} Furthermore, if the initial state of the field is a Gaussian state with vanishing one-point function---i.e., \mbox{$\langle \hat\phi(\mathsf{x})\rangle_{\hat{\rho}_\phi}=0$}, which includes not only the vacuum or any thermal state but also any squeezed thermal state---there is no breakdown of covariance even at order $\mathcal{O}(\lambda^3)$. This can be seen by noting that the corrections of order $\lambda^3$ are proportional to integrals of the three point function $\langle{\hat{\phi}(\mathsf{x_1})\hat{\phi}(\mathsf{x_2})\hat{\phi}(\mathsf{x_3})}\rangle_{\hat{\rho}_\phi}$, which is zero for any Gaussian state with vanishing one-point function. \color{black} It is also worth to point out that in the cases where there is violation of covariance at leading order, this violation is due to the smearing of the detector and is therefore suppressed with the smearing decay in spacetime as can be seen from Eq. \eqref{defE}. \color{black} This is congruent with the causality violations found in early literature associated to the smearing of particle detectors \cite{martin-martinez2015}. There, the causality violations were deemed controllable if they decayed at least as fast as the detector's smearing function tails. \color{black} Therefore, in the event where the predictions of the model are taken for proper timescales and lengthscales much larger than the light-crossing time of the detector's smearing, the difference between the two time-ordered evaluations should be negligible when the frames are related by non-extreme accelerations and curvatures, providing regimes for which the model's violation of covariance is negligible. These regimes are precisely the regimes where using particle detectors is meaningful according to other relativistic considerations~\cite{us}, and are well within the regimes where phenomena such as the Unruh effect should become observable. We explicitly illustrate this with an example in Section \ref{ExampleFlatSpacetime}. \color{black} \section{Covariance of multiple detectors} After the analysis of the covariance violations in the time-ordering for a single detector, one can wonder what happens when we have scenarios with multiple detectors where, arguably, covariance could be more subtle. These scenarios can combine detectors whose proper times are radically different, and where identifying regimes of timelike or spacelike separation between them is crucial (for example in entanglement harvesting \cite{Valentini1991,Reznik1,reznik2,Retzker2005,RalphOlson1,RalphOlson2,Nick,Cosmo,Salton:2014jaa,Pozas-Kerstjens:2015}). One can work out the deviation between the time-evolution operators defined by different time coordinates in the case of multiple detectors as a straightforward generalization of what was done in Section \ref{CovOneDetector}. Assume we have $N$ detectors, labelled by $j = 1,\dots, N$ whose centres of mass undergo trajectories $\mf z_j(\tau_j)$ parametrized by the proper time of each detector's center of mass, $\tau_{j}$. We then prescribe the interaction Hamiltonian densities (or equivalently their weights) in the Fermi normal coordinates associated to each of the detectors' worldlines, $\bar{\mf x}_{j} = (\tau_{j},\bar{\bm x}_{j})$, according to \begin{equation} \hat{h}_{I,j}(\bar{\mf x}_{j}) = \lambda_j \chi_j(\tau_j)\hat{\mu}_j(\tau_{j}) f_j(\bar{\bm x}_{j}) \hat{\phi}(\bar{\mf x}_{j}), \end{equation} where $f_j$ is the smearing function for the $j$th detector, $\hat{\mu}_j(\tau_{j})$ is its monopole moment and $\lambda_j$ the coupling strength. In Section \ref{timeOrderSection} we obtained results for a general interaction Hamiltonian weight\textcolor{black}{. W}e can now apply those results to the multiple detectors case where the Hamiltonian weight is \begin{equation}\label{hIMultiple} \hat{h}_I(\mathsf{x}) = \sum_{j=1}^{N} \hat{h}_{I,j}(\mathsf{x}). \end{equation} The time-evolution calculations can get quite complicated if the detectors are in different states of motion. This is because to obtain the total Hamiltonian or the time evolution operator, in general, we need to recast all the summands in \eqref{hIMultiple} in terms of a common set of coordinates different from at least some of the detector's proper frame. Notice, however, that in the case of pointlike detectors, and therefore with Dirac deltas as smearings $f_j(\bar{\bm x}_{j})$, the Hamiltonian weight from Equation \eqref{hIMultiple} commutes with itself at spacelike separated points. This is due to the fact that the different monopole moment operators act in different Hilbert spaces and the field operator is assumed to satisfy the axiom of microcausality. Therefore, we conclude that for a system of pointlike detectors, the time evolution operator can be written as \begin{equation} \hat{\mathcal{U}} = \mathcal{T}_{}\exp\left(-\mathrm{i} \int_\mathcal{M}\!\!\! \dd\mathcal{V} \hat{h}_I(\mf x)\right), \end{equation} with no necessity to explicitly indicate with respect to which time parameter the ordering happens. In other words, as anticipated in previous sections, the formalism for (an arbitrary number of) pointlike UDW detectors is fully covariant. Same as in the single-detector case, violations of covariance will appear when smeared detectors are considered. \color{black} In lieu of full covariance for one detector, one may be tempted to privilege the time ordering with respect to the proper time of the detector's center of mass due to the fact that interaction is prescribed in the Fermi-Walker reference frame of the detector's centre of mass. However, when multiple detectors are considered we are mixing different Hamiltonian weights prescribed with respect to different Fermi-Walker frames. The results therefore would be different if we time order the full interaction with respect to any of the many proper time parameters involved in the many-detector problem. In plain words, should we time-order the global $\hat{\mathcal{U}}$ with respect to Alice's detector's proper time? or Bob's? Or Charles's? Or none? Each prescription would yield quantitatively different predictions. Obviously this is a problem: there is no unique way of writing the time evolution operator for a system of $N$ smeared particle detectors. Since the UDW model is an effective model, we do not necessarily expect that it is fully covariant, as all fundamental models must be. The breakdown of covariance just responds to the usage of the effective model beyond the regimes in which it can be used to properly model the (covariant) physical reality. With this in mind, we will show that there are physically reasonable regimes where the covariance breakdown can be minimized and provide approximate results that can be used to define limits of validity of the theory. To quantify the dependence of the predictions of the smeared UDW model on the coordinate system used, let us first consider an arbitrary choice of time parameter $s$ associated to a foliation $\mathcal{E}_s$, yielding the following time evolution operator \color{black} \begin{equation} \hat{\mathcal{U}}_s = \mathcal{T}_{s}\exp\left(-\mathrm{i} \int_\mathcal{M}\!\!\! \dd\mathcal{V} \hat{h}_I(\mf x)\right). \end{equation} In the case of multiple detectors, we can adapt the calculation done in Section \ref{CovOneDetector} to prove a similar result: choosing an initial detectors' state that commutes with their free Hamiltonian cancels the violations of covariance at $\mathcal{O}(\lambda^2)$. Moreover, if the field state is Gaussian with a zero one-point function the difference in the predictions for $\hat{\mathcal{U}}$ with respect to different time parameters is cancelled also at $\mathcal{O}(\lambda^3)$. Furthermore, for arbitrary states, the offending deviation can be calculated at leading order from equation \eqref{U2correction} by plugging in the Hamiltonian weight \eqref{hIMultiple}. Let us consider the second order term in the Dyson expansion prescribed with respect to two notions of time ordering, $t$ and $s$ that do not necessarily agree. We then obtain two time evolution operators, $\hat{\mathcal{U}}_t$ and $\hat{\mathcal{U}}_s$ with their associated second order terms being $\hat{\mathcal{U}}_t^{(2)}$ and $\hat{\mathcal{U}}_s^{(2)}$. Recalling that in the region $S_\leq$ the field operators commute, and so do the monopole operators associated to different detectors, we have that $\big[\hat{h}_{I,i}(\mathsf{x}),\hat{h}_{I,j}(\mathsf{x}')\big] = 0$ for $i\neq j$ in $S_\leq$, and Eq. \eqref{U2correction} yields \begin{equation}\label{deviation} \hat{\mathcal{U}}_t^{(2)} - \hat{\mathcal{U}}_s^{(2)} = - \sum_{i = 1}^N\int_{S_\leq} \!\!\!\dd \mathcal{V} \dd \mathcal{V}' \comm{\hat{h}_{I,i}(\mathsf{x})}{\hat{h}_{I,i}(\mathsf{x}')}\theta\big(t' - t\big). \end{equation} This gives us \begin{equation} \hat{\mathcal{U}}_t^{(2)} - \hat{\mathcal{U}}_s^{(2)} = \lambda^2 \sum_{i = 1}^N\hat{\sigma}_{z,i} \hat{E}_i, \end{equation} where $\hat{E}_i$ corresponds exactly to the $\hat{E}$ defined in \eqref{defE} for each detector. If the system starts in an uncorrelated state of the form \begin{equation} \hat{\rho}_0 = \left(\bigotimes_{i = 1}^N\hat{\rho}_{0, i}\right)\otimes\hat{\rho}_\phi, \end{equation} the same procedure outlined in section \ref{CovOneDetector} leads to two different density operators for the detector part of the system, $\hat{\rho}^s_{\textrm{d}}$ associated to time evolution with respect to the parameter $s$, and $\hat{\rho}^t_{\textrm{d}}$ associated to the parameter $t$. Their difference will then be given by \begin{equation}\label{last} \hat{\rho}_\textrm{d}^t-\hat{\rho}^s_\textrm{d} = \lambda^2\sum_{i=1}^N\left(\bigotimes_{j \neq i}\hat{\rho}_{0, j}\right)\comm{\hat{\sigma}_{z,i}}{\hat{\rho}_{0,i}}\Tr \hat{\rho}_\phi \hat{E}_i+\mathcal{O}(\lambda^3). \end{equation} It is therefore clear that if all detectors start in a product state, with the state of each detector being a statistical mixture of eigenstates of the respective free Hamiltonian, the deviation up to second order in the coupling vanishes\color{black}, allowing the model to be used within these regimes. This means that although there is no unique non-perturbative way of writing a given time evolution operator for smeared detectors, we do not see any difference in predictions for different time ordering at leading order in the coupling. It is important to remark that the standard results obtained from techniques and setups that are dependent on multiple UDW detectors, such as entanglement harvesting and quantum energy teleportation, are dominated by second order dynamics and often use initial states for which the second order violation cancels. In all those cases there is no violation of covariance in the final result. \color{black} Moreover, same as in the case of a single detector, the violations of covariance scale with the size of the detectors as it can be seen from the definition of the $\hat E_i$ operators. This means that the violation of covariance can be made small under the following three conditions: 1) the relative motion of the detectors with respect to the frame in which we are computing $\hat{\mathcal{U}}$ is not extreme, 2) the curvature around the detectors is also not extreme, and 3) the predictions are going to be considered for times much longer than the light-crossing time of the lenghtscale of each of the detectors in their respective proper frames. In those cases, making the detector smaller suppresses the covariance violations very fast. For atomic-sized detectors one would expect these three assumptions to hold even for regimes where the Unruh effect is detectable, paralleling the discussion about orders of magnitude where these effects are relevant found in \cite{us}. We will illustrate this decay of the violations of covariance with an example in the next section. \section{Example: Smeared Inertial detector in Flat spacetime}\label{ExampleFlatSpacetime} Even the simplest possible dynamics for the detector and field---inertial motion in flat spacetimes---already suffers from the covariance violation studied in this paper. That is, the UDW model for an inertial detector (of center of mass proper time $\tau$) moving with respect to the frame used for the quantization of a scalar quantum field $(t,\bm{x})$ (that we call the lab frame) still yields different predictions if the time ordering is taken with respect to $\tau$ or $t$. Evaluating Equation \eqref{defE} explicitly for this simple case will provide intuition on the scales that play a role in determining the regimes where the breaking of covariance can be neglected. Without loss of generality, we can take the detector's centre of mass to be moving in the $x$ direction, with positive speed $v$ relative to the lab frame. We make the choice of Fermi-Walker coordinates for the detector $(\tau, \bar{x}, \bar{\bm{x}}_\perp)$, so that $\bar{\bm{x}}_\perp$ comprises the coordinates in the spatial directions that are orthogonal to the detector's velocity. The lab time $\Delta t$ elapsed between two events with coordinates $(\tau, \bar{x}, \bar{\bm{x}}_\perp)$ and $(\tau', \bar{x}', \bar{\bm{x}}'_\perp)$ is simply given by a Lorentz transformation: \begin{equation} \begin{gathered} \Delta t = \gamma\left(\Delta\tau + v\Delta \bar{x}\right),\\ \gamma \equiv \dfrac{1}{\sqrt{1 - v^2}}, \end{gathered} \end{equation} where $\Delta\tau = \tau - \tau'$, $\Delta\bar{x} = \bar{x} - \bar{x}'$. Time ordering is different in the two frames only for events in the region $S_\leq$, since in that region $\Delta\tau > 0$ and $\Delta t < 0$. This happens when \begin{equation} \Delta\bar{x} < -\dfrac{\Delta \tau}{v}. \end{equation} Therefore, in this case, the region $S_\leq$ can be written in the Fermi normal coordinates of the detector as the points $(\mathsf{\bar{x}}, \mathsf{\bar{x}}')$ parametrized by \begin{equation}\label{parametrization} \begin{gathered} \bar{\mf{x}} = (\tau, \bar{x}, \bar{\bm{x}}_\perp), \\ \bar{\mf{x}}' = (\tau - \sigma, \bar{x} - \xi, \bar{\bm{x}}_\perp') \end{gathered} \end{equation} with $\sigma > 0$, $\xi < -\sigma/v$, and $\bar{\bm{x}}_\perp, \bar{\bm{x}}_\perp'$ arbitrary. One primary consistency check for our previous claims is to see that Eq. \eqref{defE} vanishes when we set the smearing function to be \mbox{$f(\bar{x}, \bar{\bm{x}}_\perp) = \delta(\bar{x})\delta^{(n-1)}(\bar{\bm{x}}_\perp)$}, which would correspond to the case of a pointlike detector. With this choice of smearing and the parametrization of the region $S_\leq$ according to Eq.~\eqref{parametrization}, the integrals over $\bar{x}, \bar{\bm{x}}_\perp, \bar{\bm{x}}'_\perp$ in Eq.~\eqref{defE} can be trivially computed in the case of a stationary state of the field, so that we are left with \begin{align}\label{inertialerror} \Tr \hat{\rho}_\phi \hat{E} =&\, 2\mathrm{i}\int_{0}^{\infty}\!\!\!\!\dd\sigma\int_{-\infty}^{-\sigma/v}\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\dd\xi\,\, \delta(\xi)\sin(\Omega\sigma)\mathcal{W}_{\hat{\rho}_\phi}(\xi,\sigma)\nonumber\\ &\times\int_{\mathbb{R}}\!\dd\tau \chi(\tau) \chi(\tau - \sigma), \end{align} where \begin{equation} \mathcal{W}_{\hat{\rho}_\phi}(\xi,\sigma)\coloneqq \ev{\hat{\phi}(\mf x(0,0,\bm 0)) \hat{\phi}(\mf x(-\sigma, -\xi, \bm 0))}_{\hat\rho_\phi} \end{equation} is obtained from the field's Wightman function $\langle\hat\phi(\mf{x})\hat\phi(\mf{x}')\rangle$ assuming stationarity and after carrying out all the spatial integrals but $\xi$ using the delta smearing. Since the domain of integration in $\xi$ never crosses the origin, the integral in Eq. \eqref{inertialerror} yields zero. This is consistent with what we showed in Section \ref{CovOneDetector}: pointlike detectors do not introduce any covariance problems. We now compute explicitly the deviation from predictions between time-ordering with detector's proper time and an arbitrary inertial frame. For concreteness, let us consider the vacuum state of the field in three spatial dimensions. The vacuum Wightman function of a massless scalar field evaluated between spacelike points is given by: \begin{equation}\label{wightman} \bra{0}\!\hat{\phi}(\mathsf{x})\hat{\phi}(\mathsf{x}')\!\ket{0} = \dfrac{2}{{(2\pi)^2}}\dfrac{1}{\abs{\Delta \mathsf{x}}^2}, \end{equation} where $\abs{\Delta\mathsf{x}}^2 = \eta_{\mu\nu}(\Delta\mathsf{x})^\mu(\Delta\mathsf{x})^\nu$ is the invariant spacetime interval between the events $\mathsf{x}$ and $\mathsf{x}'$. In the coordinates associated to the frame of the detector, $\abs{\Delta \mf x}^2$ can be written as \begin{equation}\label{deltaX} \abs{\Delta\mathsf{x}}^2 = -\sigma^2 + \xi^2 + \abs{\bar{\bm{x}}_\perp - \bar{\bm{x}}'_\perp}^2. \end{equation} We consider a Gaussian switching function $\chi(\tau)$ with timescale $T$ and a Gaussian smearing function $f(\bm{\bar{x}})$ with length scale $\ell$ respectively: \vspace{-8pt} \begin{align} \chi(\tau) &= \dfrac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}}\exp\left(-\dfrac{\tau^2}{2T^2}\right), \end{align} \vspace{-18pt} \begin{align} f(\bar{\bm{x}}) &= \dfrac{1}{\sqrt{(2\pi)^3}\ell^3}\exp\left(-\dfrac{\abs{\bar{\bm{x}}}^2}{2\ell^2}\right). \end{align} With these choices for switching and smearing, the integrals over $\tau$ and $\bar{x}$ in \eqref{defE} can be computed in closed form. The integrals in the perpendicular directions can be evaluated by changing variables from $\bar{\bm{x}}_\perp, \bar{\bm{x}}_\perp'$ to $\bm{r} = \bar{\bm{x}}_\perp - \bar{\bm{x}}_\perp'$ and $\bm{R} = \bar{\bm{x}}_\perp + \bar{\bm{x}}_\perp'$. By doing so, Eq. \eqref{defE} takes the following form \begin{widetext} \begin{align} \Tr \hat{\rho}_\phi \hat{E} =& \dfrac{4\mathrm{i}}{{(2\pi)^2}} \int_{\mathbb{R}^2}\!\!\dd^{2}\bar{\bm x}_\perp\int_{\mathbb{R}^2}\!\!\dd^{2}\bar{\bm x}_\perp'\int_{\mathbb{R}^2}\!\!\!\dd\tau\dd \bar{x}\int_{0}^{\infty}\!\!\!\dd\sigma\int_{-\infty}^{-\sigma/v}\!\!\!\dd \xi \,\dfrac{\chi(\tau)\chi(\tau - \sigma)\sin(\Omega\sigma)f(\bar{x}, \bar{\bm{x}}_\perp)f(\bar{x} - \xi, \bar{\bm{x}}_\perp')}{\left(-\sigma^2 + \xi^2 + \abs{\bar{\bm{x}}_\perp - \bar{\bm{x}}'_\perp}^2\right)}\nonumber\\ =& \dfrac{\mathrm{i} T}{{2 \pi^2}\ell^3} \int_{0}^{\infty}\dd \sigma \int_{-\infty}^{-\sigma/v}\dd \xi\, e^{-\sigma^2/4T^2}e^{-\xi^2/4 \ell^2}\sin(\Omega\sigma)\int_{\mathbb{R}^2}\dd^2r\dfrac{e^{-\abs{\bm{r}}^2/4\ell^2}}{\xi^2 - \sigma^2 + \abs{\bm{r}}^2} \nonumber\\ =& \dfrac{\mathrm{i} T}{{\pi}\ell^3} \int_{0}^{\infty}\dd \sigma \int_{-\infty}^{-\sigma/v}\dd \xi\, e^{-\sigma^2/4T^2}e^{-\xi^2/4 \ell^2}\sin(\Omega\sigma)\int_{0}^{\infty}\dd r\dfrac{re^{-r^2/4\ell^2}}{\xi^2 - \sigma^2 + r^2} \nonumber\\ =& \dfrac{\mathrm{i} T}{2{\pi}\ell^3}\int_{0}^{\infty}\dd \sigma \int_{-\infty}^{-\sigma/v}\dd \xi\,\exp\left(-\sigma^2\left(\dfrac{1}{4T^2} + \dfrac{1}{4\ell^2}\right)\right)\sin(\Omega\sigma)\,\operatorname{Ei}\left(\tfrac{-\xi^2 + \sigma^2}{4\ell^2}\right) \label{error1}\\ =& \dfrac{\mathrm{i} }{{\pi}}\left(\dfrac{T}{\ell}\right)^3 v\int_{0}^{\infty}\dd s \int_{-\infty}^{-s}\dd \zeta\,\exp\left(-\dfrac{s^2 v^2}{4}\left(1 + \dfrac{T^2}{\ell^2}\right)\right)\sin(\Omega T v s)\,\operatorname{Ei}\left((-\zeta^2 + s^2v^2)\dfrac{T^2}{4\ell^2}\right) \label{error2}, \end{align} \end{widetext} where $\operatorname{Ei}(x)$ is the exponential integral function~\cite{database}, and we get equation \eqref{error2} from \eqref{error1} by performing the change of variables $s = \sigma/vT$, $\zeta = \xi/T$. Analysis on \eqref{error2} shows that for fixed $v$, the violation of covariance computed above goes to zero as the duration of the interaction $T$ becomes much longer than the light-crossing time of the detector $\ell$. Numerical results show that for values of $T/\ell\gtrapprox 10^3$ the error becomes negligible for speeds below $v\leq0.9$. As a summary, in the limit of $T/\ell \rightarrow \infty$, the whole integrand in equation \eqref{error2} vanishes, and therefore so does the covariance breaking term as expected from the discussion in previous sections. \section{Conclusion} We have studied the breakdown of covariance that the time-ordering operation introduces in smeared particle detector models (such as the UDW model) used in QFT in general spacetimes. We have first shown how for pointlike detectors, the time-ordering operation does not introduce any coordinate dependence: all predictions of properly prescribed pointlike UDW detectors are covariant. Namely, we have explicitly shown how, for the predictions of a system of $N$ pointlike particle detectors on arbitrary trajectories in curved spacetimes, all possible choices of time-ordering are equivalent. We highlighted that all predictions are covariant even when the multiple pointlike detectors are relatively spacelike separated. This can be traced back to the fact that a) pointlike detectors only see the field along timelike trajectories---so the time ordering of the events making up each detector's worldline is unambiguous---and b) the individual Hamiltonian densities coupling each detector to the field mutually commute when the detectors are spacelike separated. In contrast, we have shown that, for smeared detectors, the fact that the detectors couple to the field at multiple spacelike separated points introduces a break of covariance in time-ordering. This is problematic because different choices of time-ordering parameter can, in principle, yield radically different predictions. This is aggravated for systems of many detectors in arbitrary states of motion since there is no physical reason in those setups to privilege one particular notion of time order. With this in mind, we explicitly evaluated the magnitude of this break of covariance and concluded that if a detector starts in a statistical mixture of eigenstates of its free Hamiltonian (such as ground, excited or thermal state), the deviations from a fully covariant prediction are of third order in the detector's coupling strength (and in most cases even fourth order), hence subleading for many interesting phenomena (e.g., the thermal response of detectors in the Unruh and Hawking effects~\cite{Unruh1976,Sciama1977,Unruh-Wald,Takagi,Louko} and typical scenarios of entanglement harvesting \cite{Valentini1991,Reznik1,reznik2,Retzker2005,RalphOlson1,RalphOlson2,Nick,Cosmo,Salton:2014jaa,Pozas-Kerstjens:2015}). Furthermore, in the cases where the breakdown of covariance is of leading order, we have argued that it is of the same magnitude as the causality violation already introduced by the mere fact of smearing a detector degree of freedom~\cite{martin-martinez2015}, and showed that these deviations from covariance are suppressed with the smearing length scales. Analogously to the discussion in \cite{us},the difference between predictions in different coordinates can be negligible in scenarios where the duration of the interaction is much longer than the light-crossing time of the detector's smearing length scale in all the detectors' center of mass frames and in the coordinate frame used to perform calculations. We have also shown a particular example of this in flat spacetime. The analysis on this paper quantifies the coordinate dependence of predictions for particle detector models in a very general setting as a function of the initial states, the shape and state of motion of the detectors, and the geometry of the spacetime they move in. Thus, these results establish the limits of validity of smeared particle detector models to covariantly extract information from a quantum field. \section{Acknowledgements} The authors thank Luis J. Garay, Jonas Neuser and Erickson Tjoa for insightful discussions. E.M-M acknowledges the support of the NSERC Discovery program as well as his Ontario Early Researcher Award. T.R.P. and B.S.L.T. thank IFT-UNESP/ICTP-SAIFR and CAPES for partial financial support. Research at Perimeter Institute is supported in part by the Government of Canada through the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and by the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. \begin{comment}	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv" }	1,224
namespace Poco { SynchronizedObject::SynchronizedObject() { } SynchronizedObject::~SynchronizedObject() { } } // namespace Poco	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub" }	1,760
There's something about running first thing which makes you think that you're moving much quicker that you actually are. Even the usual first mile which I definitely know is always intentionally slow felt quicker than usual. There must be something to this, probably because you've been lead down for the best part of 8 hours. Who knows. We're at that part of the year now where I am fully justified in using a head torch straight out of the door. However, we're also in the part where half to 3/4 way through I can turn it off and run in the dawn light. It's great. I try to time my run and devise my routes so that I'm coming across the moor at that time, and this morning I got it spot on. Mist was rolling across the landscape to either side of me, sheep and cows slept and the sun began to creep up from behind the hilly terrain in the distance. It was awesome. There's only a couple of months of the year where you get this junction of perfect conditions, the other obviously being in spring. This time of year though, it's only going to be darker for longer and thus I'll have more use for the head torch, not less. Which reminds me, I must put it on charge ready for tomorrow. Today was a "medium long run" as I believe they call it in the trade. 90mins of running pre-dawn really puts you into the training mindset. It's these runs which you're most likely to see those improvements, and I'm beginning to feel nearer to the fitness I left behind at my last race season, before the joy of summer and the hot weather took hold. How far away does that feel now, by the way? With that return to fitness however means the routes I used to run are now shorter than I need them to be. Thus, here begins a few weeks of finding those new routes to run. Always an exciting time.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	248
{"url":"https:\/\/www.elitedigitalstudy.com\/11799\/find-the-equation-of-the-set-of-points-which-are-equidistant-from-the-points-1-2-3-and-3-2-1","text":"Find the equation of the set of points which are equidistant from the points (1, 2, 3) and (3, 2, \u20131).\n\nAsked by Abhisek \| 11 months ago \| \u00a086\n\n##### Solution :-\n\nLet A (1, 2, 3) & B (3, 2, \u2013 1)\n\nLet point P be (x, y, z)\n\nSince it is given that point P(x, y, z) is equal distance from point A(1, 2, 3) & B(3, 2, \u2013 1)\n\nPA = PB\n\nFirstly let us calculate\n\nCalculating PA\n\nP \u2261 (x, y, z) and A \u2261 (1, 2, 3)\n\nBy using the formula,\n\nDistance PA =\n\n$$\\sqrt{(x^2 \u2013 x^1)^2 + (y^2 \u2013 y^1)^2 + (z^2 \u2013 z^1)^2}$$\n\nSo here,\n\nx1\u00a0= x, y1\u00a0= y, z1\u00a0= z\n\nx2\u00a0= 1, y2\u00a0= 2, z2\u00a0= 3\n\nDistance PA\n\n$$\\sqrt{(1 \u2013 x)^2 + (2 \u2013 y)^2 + (3 \u2013 z)^2}$$\n\nCalculating PB\n\nP \u2261 (x, y, z) and B \u2261 (3, 2, \u2013 1)\n\nBy using the formula,\n\nDistance PB\u00a0=\n\n$$\\sqrt{(x^2 \u2013 x^1)^2 + (y^2 \u2013 y^1)^2 + (z^2 \u2013 z^1)^2}$$\n\nSo here,\n\nx1\u00a0= x, y1\u00a0= y, z1\u00a0= z\n\nx2\u00a0= 3, y2\u00a0= 2, z2\u00a0= \u2013 1\n\nDistance PB\u00a0=\n\n$$\\sqrt{(3 \u2013 x)^2 + (2 \u2013 y)^2 + (-1 \u2013 z)^2}$$\n\nSince PA = PB\n\nSquare on both the sides, we get\n\nPA2\u00a0= PB2\n\n(1 \u2013 x)2\u00a0+ (2 \u2013 y)2\u00a0+ (3 \u2013 z)2\u00a0= (3 \u2013 x)2\u00a0+ (2 \u2013 y)2\u00a0+ (\u2013 1 \u2013 z)2\n\n(1 + x2\u00a0\u2013 2x) + (4 + y2\u00a0\u2013 4y) + (9 + z2\u00a0\u2013 6z)\n\n(9 + x2\u00a0\u2013 6x) + (4 + y2\u00a0\u2013 4y) + (1 + z2\u00a0+ 2z)\n\n\u2013 2x \u2013 4y \u2013 6z + 14 = \u2013 6x \u2013 4y + 2z + 14\n\n4x \u2013 8z = 0\n\nx \u2013 2z = 0\n\nThe required equation is x \u2013 2z = 0\n\nAnswered by Pragya Singh \| 11 months ago\n\n### Related Questions\n\n#### A(1, 2, 3), B(0, 4, 1), C(-1, -1, -3) are the vertices of a triangle ABC. Find the point in which the bisector of the\n\nA(1, 2, 3), B(0, 4, 1), C(-1, -1, -3) are the vertices of a triangle ABC. Find the point in which the bisector of the angle\u00a0\u2220BAC meets BC.\n\n#### The mid-points of the sides of a triangle ABC are given by (-2, 3, 5), (4, -1, 7) and (6, 5, 3). Find the coordinates\n\nThe mid-points of the sides of a triangle ABC are given by (-2, 3, 5), (4, -1, 7) and (6, 5, 3). Find the coordinates of A, B and C.\n\n#### If the points A(3, 2, -4), B(9, 8, -10) and C(5, 4, -6) are collinear, find the ratio in which C divided AB.\n\nIf the points A(3, 2, -4), B(9, 8, -10) and C(5, 4, -6) are collinear, find the ratio in which C divided AB.","date":"2022-11-30 07:41:51","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.5736891031265259, \"perplexity\": 977.358387204662}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2022-49\/segments\/1669446710733.87\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20221130060525-20221130090525-00732.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
Q: Get a specific object from url ( API ) and print the value in html Please i want to get a value from API with JSON , but the object wanted is duplicated and i don't know how to chose the value of this object in the screen I have an object named "region" but it's duplicated many times, so i want to get just the first value and this is my code javascript <!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="UTF-8"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"> <title>Document</title> </head> <body> cas confirmé<p id="1"></p> <br> <br> cas recovered<p id="2"></p> <br> <br> cas decedés<p id="3"></p> </body> <script> const api = 'https://covidma.herokuapp.com/api?fbclid=IwAR2Zsptom8RZPknstJrmlJwaCKfSTvxyO5fOCAUt_NNN9YvbsSPq1b_kF0o'; async function getData() { const response = await fetch(api); const data = await response.json(); const [{ confirmed , recovered , region }] = data; document.getElementById('1').textContent = confirmed; document.getElementById('2').textContent = recovered; document.getElementById('3').textContent = region[0]; } getData(); </script> </html> A: As a comment has noted, it's always easiest to post code instead of a screenshot. From what I could tell, the correct index should be: const { confirmed, recovered, region } = data[0][0] If above doesn't work, please update your question with actual code, instead of screenshots. You can use markdown codeblocks: ```code```	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange" }	6,993
Dandy Warhols \| Showbox \| Seattle, WA \| Review Article Contributed by SonicHiFi \| Published on Monday, June 25, 2012 Thunderous oscillations expand violently from center stage, miraculously freed from a vintage Moog chipset only to be captured by my outer pinna, which sends the tone swirling inward toward the depths of my cochlea. The synthetic drone weaves through a latticework of scenestirs and technocrats occupying Seattle's Showbox Theater this evening. Ensuing layers of tonal stew self-oscillate, self-sustain, and self-evolve into an overwhelming muck that rattles the cinderblock before receding back toward its creator.The creator, one Courtney Taylor-Taylor, remains stoic -- unaffected if not wholly underwhelmed by the magnitude of sound coming from his custom stack and subsequent house PA. He turns his back to the audience and adjusts his rig, spinning knobs with no discernible impact and ingesting liquid of no discernible proof. As a spectator, its unclear what accounts for Taylor's stature; his is not a modest or shy presence but indeed the lack of a presence. Distinct from the "aloof persona," a trait all-to-common amongst songwriters and musicians, Taylor is a specimen simultaneously here and gone, visible yet transparent. Perhaps he's frustrated with the sound system, perhaps he's under the influence, or perhaps he's simply over it all: playing identical set after identical set, living on the road, setting up and breaking down, the life of a frontman -- even of a band as successful as The Dandy Warhols -- can't be as romantic as it sounds.But Taylor thrusts onward, turns to the crowd, and overlays a vocal drone that breaks the psychedelic tension of a forever building, forever breaking, forever bubbling synthetic stew. The opening song evolves and dissolves, elaborates and degenerates, sings, whispers, screams and bickers, calls forth as the Siren yet falls short to beguile. It demands to be art, and treated as such. It is neither alive nor dead, just like its creator, the man who wasn't there.The Dandys continue to interplay self-oscillating muck amidst a string of toe tapping classics including "Not If You Were The Last Dandy" and "We Used To Be Friends." But this incarnation is not the same band of Dig fame, indeed they barley resemble the ragtag rockers who achieved pop art celebrity with the help of David LaChapelle, or the experimentalists who conquered Europe with the help of chiseled cheekbones and fitted shirts. It's not even the same band that had the adrenaline and ego to go jab-for-jab with Anthony Newcombe. Their renditions of these hits felt less like crowd pleasers and more like introspective meditations of past glory. They had none of the spite one typically expects from a band bored to death of playing their most popular cuts, but rather in its place the deeper tragedy of no longer feeling it. Simply put, they were going through the motions.Sonic structure continued as such, The Dandys trading off between synthetic stew and strung-out transcendentalism. By halftime, Taylor's voice was tired and unemotional. Come encore, digital drone overtook harmonic content. And by the end of the night, we had witnessed the inevitable vanish of a band waning in relevance, and the disappearance a man who wasn't there. Insightful evening? Quite. But do yourself a favor, and stick to the recordings. Bumbershoot part 2	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl" }	2,210
La Prédication de saint Pierre est une fresque de Masolino décorant la chapelle Brancacci dans l'église Santa Maria del Carmine à Florence. L'œuvre, datable d'environ 1424-1425 (), représente une scène des Histoires de saint Pierre tirée des Actes des Apôtres (II, 14-41). Histoire Les fresques de la chapelle Brancacci sont une énigme pour les historiens du fait de l'absence de documentation authentifiée. Peut-être commandées à Masolino, qui avait le jeune Masaccio comme assistant, des preuves indirectes permettent de savoir qu'elles ont dû être commencées en 1424 et qu'à partir de 1425, elles sont exécutées par Masaccio seul après le départ de Masolino pour la Hongrie. Cette scène, sauvée des repeints baroques de la voûte, est ressortie noircie par l'incendie de 1771 qui a détruit une grande partie de la basilique. Ce n'est qu'avec la restauration de 1983-1990 qu'il a été possible de retrouver la couleur brillante d'origine et que les repeints ont été éliminées. Description et style La scène de la Prédication se trouve sur le mur du fond dans le registre central, côté gauche, à côté du Paiement du tribut de Masaccio. L'histoire de référence est celle présente dans les Actes des Apôtres (II 14-41) dans laquelle saint Pierre commence à prêcher à la foule après la Pentecôte, exhortant le peuple au baptême. Dans cette scène, Pierre est représenté seul, tandis que dans le texte des Actes il est en compagnie des autres apôtres : ce choix souligne fortement sa primauté et sa personnification avec toute l'Église. Masolino a peint la fresque en huit jours, et on suppose que Masaccio aurait participé à la peinture des montagnes en arrière-plan, qui sont liées à celles du Tribut. Seules les montagnes sont très certainement de Masaccio, qui semblent être en continuation de la scène précédente du Tribut, et qui sont très différentes des roches escarpées et angulaires typiques de Masolino (comme à Castiglione Olona ), au style giottesque avec des roches anguleuses. Elles sont ici traitées comme des masses informes et gonflées, avec un contour doux d'arbres et d'arbustes peints à sec. Pierre est représenté comme un orateur ardent habillé dans le style romain (qui pourrait être un rappel du Saint Jean de Giotto dans la scène de la Résurrection de Drusiana dans la chapelle Peruzzi à Florence). Il se trouve devant la foule tandis qu'il prêche d'un geste éloquent. Cette figure énergique avait dans le passé été attribuée à Masaccio, mais le traitement miniaturiste des boucles de ses cheveux et de sa barbe, ainsi que les visages doux et uniformes des spectateurs, sont des signes évidents de l'art de Masolino. Les expressions des spectateurs sont des plus variées, de la douce attention de la religieuse voilée au premier plan, à l'engourdissement de la fille et du vieil homme barbu, à la peur de la femme en arrière-plan, dont les seuls yeux froncés sont visibles. Les trois visages de jeunes gens derrière le saint sont probablement des portraits de contemporains, ainsi que les deux frères sur la droite, peut-être deux carmélites du couvent du Carmel qui, dans le passé, étaient également attribués à Masaccio. Bibliographie John_Spike, Masaccio, Rizzoli libri illustrati, Milan, 2002 Mario Carniani, La Cappella Brancacci a Santa Maria del Carmine, in AA.VV., Cappelle del Rinascimento a Firenze, Editrice Giusti, Florence, 1998. Pierluigi De Vecchi ed Elda Cerchiari, I tempi dell'arte, volume 2, Bompiani, Milan, 1999 Source de traduction Articles connexes Chapelle Brancacci Gothique international italien Peinture de la Renaissance Renaissance florentine Renaissance italienne Fresque de Masaccio Pierre apôtre dans la peinture Œuvre d'art à Florence Chapelle Brancacci	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia" }	2,423
September 1, 2017 September 1, 2017 heynineteenmusic Hair Down – Mollie King – Review It was a real tragedy when Girls Aloud split, wasn't it? The best girl band since the Spice Girls, their inventive, off-kilter style of pop was an absolute delight, earning the band a record breaking run of top 10 hits. The wind in Girls Aloud's sails was undoubtedly Xenomania, the songwriting machine that manufactured hit after hit, each one innovative and unique. But since the group disbanded, Xenomania haven't quite found the right act in which to channel their genius. Enter Mollie King. Former member of middling girl band The Saturdays (very much the Tesco Value to Girls Aloud's Tesco's Finest), she's no stranger to Xenomania, having worked with the songwriting/production team during her girl group days. Knowing which side her bread is buttered, she's teamed up with the hit-makers again, this time on her own for solo single 'Hair Down'. What a Girls Aloud song this would be. You can picture the choreography, the girls in unison, hands on hips, heads bobbing. There are echoes of 'Sexy! No No No' to be heard here, though the track's focal point is certainly the blaring brass that gives the song an impossible-not-to-love bounce. If Girls Aloud were still around, this is the kind of single they'd be releasing. But enough about Girls Aloud (only joking, you can never have too much GA). King is a fitting collaborator for Xenomania, her voice malleable and easily engineered. But though her name is on the record, this is a Xenomania affair through and through. The swaggering 'na-na-na' hook, the no-room-for-nuance brassy arrangement, the clumsy lyrics (imagine Kimberley singing "Pleased to meet your barber shop quartet, but that means you obviously aren't getting any sex"!!). It's Xenomania's genius condensed into a gaudy and incredibly fun blast of no-nonsense pop, their best since the heady days when GA were ruling the roost. King has done a cracking job on her latest single, snagging the best pop pioneers in the business and concocting a fantastically camp, flashy and addictive track. Only time will tell whether the notoriously bland tastes of the music buying public will allow such a colourful track to become a hit – but then, these are the people who sent Ed Sheeran to number one for a hundred years. So who really cares what they think, right? @alexsnorris Previous Freedom Child – The Script – Review Next …Ready For It? – Taylor Swift – Review	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl" }	8,556
\section{Introduction} Unambiguous experimental realization of a quantum spin liquid (QSL) state remains an enduring challenge \cite{Balents10:464,Zhou17:89,broholm20:367}. Characterized by a ground state featuring highly entangled spins exhibiting no long-range magnetic order, QSL states are born out of an intricate and often subtle interplay of comparable, often competing, energy scales and are thought to be quenched by relatively small perturbations. Thus, understanding and controlling crystalline disorder, structural distortions, chemical impurities, and intrinsic defects are critical challenges when developing QSL phenomenology in real materials. NaRuO$_2$ is a newly proposed, candidate QSL host that straddles a unique energy landscape -- one where Heisenberg-Kitaev interactions as well as extended exchange foster a native, quantum disordered ground state \cite{ortizNaRuO2}. NaRuO$_2$ is a member of the layered family of $AB$O$_2$ delafossite-like oxides, a larger family of $R\overline{3}m$ quasi-two-dimensional materials that support ideal antiferromagnetic triangular lattices on the $B$-site sublattice. Specifically, NaRuO$_2$ (Figure \ref{fig:Crystal}) features a triangular lattice of Ru$^{3+}$ ions separated by planes of Na$^+$. The edge-sharing RuO$_6$ octahedra place the Ru$^{3+}$ (4d$^5$) ions in a lightly trigonally distorted cubic crystal field. With appreciable spin-orbit coupling $\lambda$ and Coulomb repulsion $U$, the system is capable of supporting a half-filled $J_\text{eff}=1/2$ orbital. The result is a weak $J_\text{eff}=1/2$ Mott state with a disordered magnetic ground state and energetic antiferromagnetic interactions \cite{ortizNaRuO2}. Despite lacking native chemical disorder such as that present in triangular lattice compounds like YbMgGaO$_{4}$ \cite{Paddison17:13,li19:2}, off-stoichometry and the resulting defects are a persistent concern among the alkali metal delafossite variants \cite{Dally17:459,clarke1998synthesis}. The typical culprit tends to be alkali-metal vacancies, whose presence is traditionally countered by the introduction of an excess of alkali precursors during growth. However, the historical precedent for alkali-vacancies as the dominant defect often neglects complex structure-defect-property relationships that can dominate in real systems -- NaRuO$_2$ is one such example. In this work, we examine the defect chemistry of the Heisenberg-Kitaev candidate material NaRuO$_{2}$, mapping the Na--Ru--O phase diagram in the vicinity of NaRuO$_{2}$ to understand the extent and type of off-stoichiometry supported by the compound. We demonstrate the formation of a single solid-solution Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~between the triangular lattice compound NaRuO$_{2}$ and the disordered honeycomb lattice compound Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ \cite{mogare2004syntheses}, highlighting the tendency for NaRuO$_{2}$ to form Na-rich Na$_\text{Ru}$ defects. A combination of bulk magnetization and electron transport measurements highlight strong property changes as a function of Na-loading, highlighting the importance, and more importantly, the ability to control stoichiometry in NaRuO$_{2}$. \begin{figure} \includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{CrystalStructure.png} \caption{Delafossite ($R\bar{3}m$) crystal structure assumed by the Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~solid solution between the ternary end members NaRuO$_{2}$ ($x$=0) and disordered Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ ($x$=1). Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~forms a triangular sublattice comprised of edge-sharing Ru$^{3+}$ (4$d^{5}$) octahedra. Na-rich conditions overwhelmingly favor formation of Na$_\text{Ru}$ anti-site defects, diluting the Ru$^{3+}$ sublattice with nonmagnetic Na$^{+}$.} \label{fig:Crystal} \end{figure} \section{Experimental Methods} \subsection{Synthesis} Polycrystalline members of the Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~solid solution were synthesized using mechanochemical methods. Na$_{2}$O$_{2}$ beads (Sigma, 97\%), RuO$_{2}$ powder (Alfa, 99.95\%), and Na metal (Alfa 99.8\%) were combined in a pre-seasoned tungsten carbide ball mill vial and sealed under Ar. Due to the volitility of Na and and potential oxygen off-stoichiometry in RuO$_{2-x}$, adjustments are required to the nominal Na:Ru:O ratios. Specifically, both the compositions for Na$_2$RuO$_3$ and NaRuO$_2$ were empirically tuned to yield phase-pure compositions at Na$_{1.07}$(RuO$_2$)$_{1.13}$(Na$_2$O$_2$)$_{0.70}$ (Na$_{2.0}$Ru$_{0.9}$O$_{3.0}$) and Na$_{1.07}$(RuO$_2$)$_{1.37}$(Na$_2$O$_2$)$_{0.37}$ (Na$_{1.0}$Ru$_{0.8}$O$_{2.0}$) respectively. Using a combination of excess Na metal, Na$_2$O$_2$ and RuO$_2$, we iteratively narrowed down the single-phase region of the NaRuO$_2$--Na$_2$RuO$_3$ alloy, adjusting the compositional vectors until secondary phases were eliminated. All alloys were generated through a subsequent linear interpolation of the \textit{tuned} compositions of Na$_2$RuO$_3$ and NaRuO$_2$. Empirical tuning and interpolation is essential, as the compensating ratio of Na:Ru:O that yields phase pure NaRuO$_2$ is not the same as the compensation required for Na$_2$RuO$_3$. The resulting mixture was milled for 60~min in a Spex 8000D Mixer/Mill using four 7.9~mm tungsten carbide balls. The reaction generates a substantial amount of heat, and care must be taken with large sample volumes. The resulting precursor is confirmed amorphous by powder x-ray diffraction. The milled powder was then lightly ground in an agate mortar under Ar to disperse any agglomerates, sieved through a 100 micron sieve, and loaded into 2~mL alumina cylindrical crucibles (CoorsTek). In addition, a small portion of the milled powder was cold-pressed into 5~mm diameter pellets and buried within the powder bed. The crucibles were subsequently sealed under 1~atm of Ar in fused silica ampoules and placed within a 900$^{\circ}$C preheated furnace. Samples were annealed for 30~min and then immediately air-quenched before extracting powders under Ar. The final powders and sintered pellets are largely phase pure with trace amounts of Ru metal ($<$2~\%). Powders are black and moisture sensitive, with sensitivity increasing dramatically with additional Na content. \subsection{Structural Characterization} Phase purity was initially examined with powder x-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements at room temperature on a Panalytical Empyrean diffractometer (Cu K$_{\alpha_{1,2}}$) in Bragg-Brentano ($\theta$-$\theta$) geometry. Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~powders were placed on a Si zero-diffraction plate under argon and capped with a 12~mm$\times$12~mm piece Kapton film to shield against atmospheric moisture. Pawley and Rietveld refinements were performed using \texttt{TOPAS Academic} v6 \cite{Coelho}. Structural models and visualization utilized the \textsc{VESTA} software package \cite{Momma2011}. \subsection{Magnetization and Electron Transport Measurements} Temperature dependent dc-magnetization data under zero-field-cooled (ZFC) and field-cooled (FC) conditions were collected on a 7~T Quantum Design Magnetic Property Measurement System (MPMS3) SQUID magnetometer. Samples were sealed in polypropylene holders under argon to minimize absorption of atmospheric moisture. Data was collected continuously in sweep mode with a ramp rate of 2~K/min in the presence of an external DC field of 1000~Oe. Isothermal dc-magnetization measurements at 2~K were collected continuously in sweep mode with a ramp rate of 100~Oe/sec. Resistivity measurements were performed on sintered pellets of Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~that were sectioned into rectangular bars with approximate dimensions of 1$\times$2$\times$0.5~mm. Electrical contacts were made in a standard four-point geometry with contacts being made with a combination of gold wire and silver paint. Thermal contact and electrical isolation was ensured using layers of GE varnish and cigarette paper. The temperature dependence of the electrical resistivity was measured with the Electrical Transport Option (ETO) in a 9~T Quantum Design Dynacool Physical Property Measurement System (PPMS) using a drive current of 10 $\mu$A and drive frequency of 100~Hz. Data was collected continuously in sweep mode with a ramp rate of 2~K/min. \section{Results \& Discussion} \subsection{Synthesis \& Structure} Motivated by the combination of strong spin-orbit coupling, the expanded nature of the Ru $d$-orbitals, and remnant Coulomb interaction effects, ruthenates have continued to garner substantial attention. Owing to the many stable oxidation states of Ru, the Na--Ru--O phase diagram is remarkably complex. Within a relatively narrow set of chemical potentials there are at least 7 reported Na--Ru--O ternary compounds: NaRuO$_2$ \cite{shikano2004naruo2}, NaRu$_2$O$_4$ \cite{shikano2004synthesis}, Na$_2$RuO$_3$ \cite{mogare2004syntheses}, Na$_3$RuO$_4$ \cite{regan2005isolated}, Na$_2$RuO$_4$ \cite{mogare2004syntheses}, Na$_{27}$Ru$_{14}$O$_{48}$ \cite{allred2011na27ru14o48}, and Na$_{3-x}$Ru$_4$O$_9$ \cite{regan2006structure}. NaRuO$_2$ is of particular interest due to the triangular sublattice of Ru$^{3+}$ and the potential applications as a QSL candidate material \cite{ortizNaRuO2}. Remarkably, a survey of adjacent phases to NaRuO$_2$ reveals the ``disordered'' ($R\bar{3}m$) polymorph of Na$_2$RuO$_3$ is structurally identical to NaRuO$_2$, except for the random dilution of the Ru$^{3+}$ triangular sublattice with nonmagnetic Na$_\text{Ru}$ defects. It is important to note that while Na$_2$RuO$_3$ can also crystallize in a ordered $C2/c$ monoclinic structure, it is not clear which phase is the thermodynamic ground state. Such a relationship and the resulting potential for off-stoichiometry in NaRuO$_{2}$ is supported by a comparison the available crystallographic data. The original synthesis procedure reported for NaRuO$_2$ involves a three step decomposition process where: 1) \ce{Na2RuO4} was synthesized from a stoichiometric mixture of \ce{Na2O2} and \ce{RuO2}, 2) stoichiometric amounts of \ce{Na2RuO4} and Ru metal were mixed, dried, and sealed inside gold tubing, and finally 3) the mixture was heated at 1173~K for 12~h and then 1273~K for 120~h \cite{shikano2004synthesis}. This processing route produces material with lattice parameters [$a,c$] : [3.02~\AA, 16.49~\AA]. We have developed a new, rapid, mechanochemical route for the synthesis of NaRuO$_{2}$ \cite{ortizNaRuO2}, which is the method utilized in the present study. This processing route renders NaRuO$_2$ with lattice parameters [3.06~\AA, 16.18~\AA]. The difference observed in the $c$-axis lattice parameters reported in this work \cite{ortizNaRuO2} and prior work by Shikano et al. \cite{shikano2004naruo2} is substantial and noteworthy. One potential origin of this discrepancy is the impact of Na off-stoichiometry, which would naturally impact the interlayer spacing. Looking to the analogous titanate structure (Na$_{1-x}$TiO$_{2}$), detailed structural studies have identified a contraction along \textit{c} and an expansion in \textit{a} as Na-vacancies were eliminated and the composition approached nominal NaTiO$_2$ \cite{clarke1998synthesis}. We suggest that the smaller \textit{c}-axis lattice parameter of NaRuO$_{2}$ synthesized via the mechanochemical route presented herein are closer to the ideal 1:1:2 stoichiometry. This is further supported by our previous neutron powder diffraction refinement \cite{ortizNaRuO2}, which indicates that the \textit{tuned} NaRuO$_2$ composition is stoichiometric within the resolution of our measurement. The discrepancy between the prior report and our results suggests that off-stoichiometry and defect control are important factors in NaRuO$_2$. Drawing inspiration from the thermoelectric community and the concept of ``phase boundary mapping" \cite{pbmortiz2019carrier, pbmohno2017achieving,pbmohno2018phase,pbmcrawford2018experimental}, we sought to map the phase space surrounding NaRuO$_2$. Wide swaths of the space immediately surrounding NaRuO$_2$ are dominated by 2-phase equilibria, which is unexpected if NaRuO$_2$ is a prototypical line compound. This is instead consistent with the formation of a large single-phase region or an extended alloy. Furthermore, NaRuO$_2$ shows an unusual proclivity to incorporate excess Na into the structure. Considering the structural similarity of disordered Na$_2$RuO$_3$, an extended solid solution between NaRuO$_2$ and Na$_2$RuO$_3$ could exist. In support of this conjecture, synthesizing Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ using the same synthetic conditions as NaRuO$_{2}$ results in the formation of disordered $R\bar{3}m$ Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$. This disordered Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ polymorph persists after extended annealing and appears to be the stable structure under our processing conditions. \begin{figure} \includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{Scattering.png} \caption{X-ray patterns of Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$ alloy series demonstrate Successful alloying of NaRuO$_{2}$ ($x$=0) and Na$_2$RuO$_3$ ($x$=1) through continuous shifts in the peak positions and intensities. Black traces indicate resulting Pawley refinements in the $R\overline{3}m$ structure. All samples up to $x$=1 are predominately phase-pure Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$ with trace Ru metal. Samples extending beyond nominal Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ ($x$=1) exhibit increased Ru formation, suggesting a geometrical shift in the single-phase boundary.} \label{fig:Scattering} \end{figure} To verify the solid-solution hypothesis, a series of samples ranging from NaRuO$_{2}$--Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ were synthesized. For the sake of convenience, we will refer to the series using the renormalized stoichiometry Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$ where the end members of $x$=0 and $x$=1 correspond to nominal NaRuO$_{2}$ and Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$, respectively. As illustrated in Fig.~\ref{fig:Scattering}, x-ray and neutron diffraction data confirm that the series of alloys constructed along the NaRuO$_2$--Na$_2$RuO$_3$ pseudobinary phase diagram are predominantly single phase, with a only a small secondary fraction of Ru metal. In the spirt of phase-boundary mapping \cite{pbmcrawford2018experimental,pbmohno2017achieving,pbmohno2018phase,pbmortiz2019carrier}, this impurity was intentionally introduced to pin the samples to the Ru-rich edge of the single-phase region. Significant changes in peak positions and the corresponding lattice parameters (Fig.~\ref{fig:Vegard}) are clearly observed in the x-ray scattering measurements. A summary of the changes in the crystallographic parameters accompanying the transition from NaRuO$_{2}$ to Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ is presented in Fig.~\ref{fig:Vegard}. The cell volume increases both monotonically and linearly from NaRuO$_{2}$ ($x$=0) to Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ ($x$=1), consistent with Vegard's Law. This serves as confirmation of a solid solution, and further highlights the propensity for the formation of Na$_\text{Ru}$ antisite defects in NaRuO$_{2}$. Unexpectedly, the off-stoichometry of disordered Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ is similarly complex and has the ability to absorb excess Na up to $x$=4/3. Past this point, samples become multiphase and exhibit a mixture of Na-rich Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$ and Na$_{3}$RuO$_{4}$. It is interesting to note that the symmetry of Na$_{3}$RuO$_{4}$ (space group $C2/m$) is a subgroup for $R\bar{3}m$ and is structurally similar to NaRuO$_{2}$ and Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ ($e.g.$ 6-coordinate Na/Ru, approximate planes of metal cations). \begin{figure} \includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{VegardLaw.png} \caption{(a) Compositional dependence of the lattice parameters and cell volume for the Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~solid solution extracted from Pawley refinements of room temperature pXRD data. (b) Tentative processing ternary phase diagram at 900$^{\circ}$C isotherm for Na--Ru--O space surrounding the Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~solid solution. } \label{fig:Vegard} \end{figure} The volumetric expansion of the lattice observed in Fig.~\ref{fig:Vegard} with additional Na-loading can be rationalized through simple ionic radii arguments. In a 6-coordinate environment, the Shannon radius of Ru$^{3+}$ is 0.68~\AA\ and Ru$^{4+}$ is 0.62~\AA. While excess Na is expected to convert Ru$^{3+}$ to Ru$^{4+}$, the effect of substituting the much larger Na$^+$ (1.02~\AA) on Ru$^{3+}$ dominates. Thus, a general expansion of the lattice is expected as Na$_\text{Ru}$ defects accumulate. The Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~solid solution poses a synthetic challenge, particularly when the stoichiometry of polycrystalline NaRuO$_2$ needs to be tightly controlled. As illustrated in Fig.~\ref{fig:Vegard}(b), the Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~solid solution creates several large 2-phase (blue) regions where Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~ is at equilibrium with NaRu$_{2}$O$_{4}$ under O-rich conditions, Ru metal under O-poor conditions, and Na$_{3}$RuO$_{4}$ under Na-rich conditions. Three unique three-phase (gray) equilibria were identified between Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$--NaRu$_2$O$_4$--Ru, Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$--Na$_2$RuO$_4$--Na$_3$RuO$_4$, and Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$--Na$_3$RuO$_4$--Ru. In our experience, the NaRuO$_2$--Na$_2$RuO$_3$ alloy does not readily support off-stoichiometry in the Ru-rich direction beyond NaRuO$_2$. Employing the principles of phase boundary mapping, we would aim to synthesize NaRuO$_2$ under conditions that place it in equilibrium with NaRu$_2$O$_4$ and Ru metal. A convenient metric would be to minimize the cell volume of NaRuO$_2$. Attempts to make samples in the O-rich region above nominal Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ indicate the presence of \textit{at least one} unknown Na--Ru--O ternary, complicating the mapping process. Although we would na\"{i}vely suspect samples to contain Na$_{28}$Ru$_{14}$O$_{48}$ \cite{allred2011na27ru14o48}, this phase could not be reproduced using the processing techniques described here. Considering the potential complexity in this region of the diagram, we refrain from postulating on the phase equilibria in this region. This is complicated by the existence of the Na$_{3-x}$Ru$_4$O$_9$ solid-solution, creating large swaths of 2-phase regions. Future work will be required to fully understand the O-rich side of the Na--Ru--O phase diagram. Regardless of the additional complexities present in the O-rich regime, the isothermal phase diagram presented here establishes a reliable method for Ru-rich processing of NaRuO$_{2}$, minimizing the substitution of nonmagnetic Na$_\text{Ru}$ defects on the Ru triangular lattice. Compositions located in the three-phase NaRuO$_2$--NaRu$_2$O$_4$--Ru Alkemade triangle will reliably produce NaRuO$_{2}$ at the compositional invariant point where the ternary Alkemade triangle adjoins the vertex of the Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~single-phase region. Tuning the composition to produce NaRuO$_{2}$ at this vertex with minimal contributions from Ru-metal and NaRu$_2$O$_4$ enables stoichiometry control in a system with a complex phase diagram containing volatile elements. \begin{figure} \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{Resistivity.png} \caption{Temperature dependence of electronic resistivity of Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~alloys up to $x=2/3$ is consistent with a lightly doped insulator, with (inset) resistivity increasing exponentially with Na incorporation.} \label{fig:Transport} \end{figure} \begin{figure} \includegraphics[width=1\textwidth]{MagnetizationData.png} \caption{(a) Temperature dependence of the ZFC and FC dc magnetic susceptibility for Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$ alloys in an external applied field of 1000~Oe. Black triangles denote bifurcation temperatures of the ZFC/FC curves. (b) Compositional dependence of the ZFC/FC bifurcation temperature. Peaking for intermediate compositions, ZFC/FC splitting falls below 2~K for the nominal end members $x$=0 and 1. (c) Field dependence of the dc isothermal magnetization at 2~K with (d) magnified view about $H=0$, highlighting non-zero coercivity for intermediate Na loading. Note that the coercivity vanishes to within the level of background for $x$=0 and 1. (e) Temperature dependence of the in-phase component $\chi'$ of the ac susceptibility in the absence of an external dc field with (f) corresponding Arrhenius plot.} \label{fig:Mag} \end{figure} \subsection{Magnetization and Electrical Transport} Our prior investigation on both the magnetic and electronic properties of stoichiometric NaRuO$_{2}$ identified the system as a magnetic insulator with a quantum disordered ground state \cite{ortizNaRuO2}. Considering that Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ was considered a distinct compound to date, the discovery of the Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~solid solution should provide an experimental route to exploring the physical properties and possibly unique crossovers ($e.g.$ metal-to-insulator) between the endpoint members. However, literature reports on the magnetic and electronic properties of Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ are varied. Much of the variation stems from the ambiguity whether the ordered or disordered polymorph is present. Even within studies focused predominantly on disordered Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ or mixtures of the ordered/disordered phase, there are conflicting reports. Some works suggest insulating behavior with long range antiferromagnetic order \cite{Wang14:90,gapontsev2017spectral}, while others report a paramagnetic, moderately correlated electron metal with no observable magnetic excitations \cite{Veiga20:4}. This lack of consensus on Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ is likely driven by the existence of the Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~solid-solution. Since Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ is not a line compound, the stoichiometry of a given synthesis is not well-defined. In the case of disordered Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$, the majority of samples were produced as a product of decomposition reactions, yielding lattice parameters \textit{a} : [3.11--3.17~\AA] and \textit{c} : [15.94-16.04~\AA] \cite{mogare2004syntheses,tamaru2013layered,Veiga20:4}. One of the ``hallmark'' features of disordered Na$_2$RuO$_3$ in prior work is the merger of the (101) and (006) peak positions. In good agreement with prior literature, we find that the peak merger occurs with \textit{a}=3.11~\AA~and \textit{c}=15.94~\AA. However, our nominal stoichiometry at that point is only $x$=2/3 instead of $x$=1. This is conceptually consistent with our findings that the Na--Ru--O systems require additional Na and O to compensate for volitility issues. Furthermore, Na incorporation continues well past the point of peak merger -- and well beyond nominal Na$_{2}$RuO$_{3}$ (Fig.~\ref{fig:Vegard}). The Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~solid solution presents an opportunity to study the defect-sensitivity of NaRuO$_2$ and the consequence of diluting the Ru-sublattice. We first address the electrical resistivity to determine whether all members of the Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~solid solution remain insulating, or whether the Na$_\text{Ru}$ defects cause any increase in the free carrier concentration. As illustrated in Fig.~\ref{fig:Transport}, the resistivity at room temperature for many of the series falls within the lightly doped semiconducting regime (10-100\,m$\Omega$-cm), and rises exponentially with decreasing temperature. Both observations suggest that members of the Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$ solid solution up to $x$=2/3 are insulators or small-gap semiconductors. The isothermal resistivity at 300~K (Fig.~\ref{fig:Transport}(inset)) exhibits an exponential \textit{increase} with Na content, contradicting the most facile defect formation ($e.g.$ $\text{Na}_\text{Ru} + 2\text{h})$ and instead supports the localization of holes via a shift of Ru into a higher oxidation state. The influence of poorly screened, higher charged Ru$^{4+}$ -- coupled with increased alloy/disorder scattering likely contribute to the strong resistivity increases. Potentially more complex compensation reactions such as oxygen vacancies could be present, and more research (e.g. DFT defect studies) will be important for fully understanding the defect energetics in the alloys. We note here that members with higher Na content ($x\geq$1) become progressively deliquescent and will condense atmospheric water on the surfaces, precluding reliable measurement of the resistivity. The dc susceptibility data for select Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$ compositions are plotted in Fig.~\ref{fig:Mag}(a). A manual vertical offset has been introduced to facilitate a visual qualitative comparison, and an unscaled set of magnetization curves is included in the supplementary information for comparison \cite{ESI}. Notably, an onset of irreversibility in the ZFC/FC curves appears in compositions with nonintenger $x$. This irreversibility is absent in the stoichiometric $x$=0 end member above 2 K. Then, as summarized in Fig.~\ref{fig:Mag}(b), ZFC/FC irreversibility onsets at finite $x$ and increases in temperature as further disorder is introduced. Near the midpoint between NaRuO$_2$ and Na$_2$RuO$_3$, the irreversibility temperature reaches a local maximum and then begins to decrease again as $x=1$ is approached. In the nominal $x$=1 composition with uniform Ru$^{4+}$ sites, the system naively assumes a $J_\text{eff}=0$ nonmagnetic singlet state and irreversibility vanishes. With continued Na loading beyond $x=1$, moments are reintroduced and a sharp reemergence of irreversibility occurs. It should be noted that as $x=0,1/6,1$ samples exhibit no discernible splitting by 2~K, this lower limit on the onset of an irreversibility temperature is denoted as open circles in Fig.~\ref{fig:Mag}(b). As illustrated in Figs.~\ref{fig:Mag}(c,d), the main qualitative trends presented in Fig.~\ref{fig:Mag}(b) are also reflected in the compositional dependence of the isothermal dc magnetization. Compositions with higher irrversibility temperatures exhibit larger coercivity, particularly for those samples where $x>1$ (Fig.~\ref{fig:Mag}(d)). Irreversibility in FC/ZFC data reflect that local Ru moments freeze, and Fig.~\ref{fig:Mag}(e) illustrates this freezing further in the Na-rich side of the phase diagram with $x=7/6$. The ac-susceptibility data reveal a clear frequency-dependence associated with local moment freezing and an activation energy $E_{a}/R$ $\sim$ 150~K for the higher temperature feature. Further work exploring this freezing process and whether long-range correlations form will require neutron scattering measurements on single crystals. It is worth stressing here that even in the nominal $x=0$ composition, a low-temperature cusp appears in the ac-susceptibility below 2 K \cite{ortizNaRuO2}. Near 1.7 K, signs of partial moment freezing were observed, indicating a weak spin freezing transition and crossover in the low frequency spin dynamics. We attribute this crossover/partial freezing as likely driven by a small percentage of remnant Na defects (~1 $\%$). This is consistent with the amplification of the freezing onset upon the intentional introduction of additional Na defects along the solid solution line between NaRuO$_2$ and Na$_2$RuO$_3$. \section{Conclusions} Born from the need to control and understand defect relationships in the Heisenberg-Kitaev candidate material NaRuO$_{2}$, we studied the chemical potential phase space surrounding NaRuO$_{2}$. We discovered the existence of a full solid-solution Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~between NaRuO$_{2}$ ($x$=0) and disordered Na$_2$RuO$_3$ ($x$=1). While resistivity measurements demonstrate that all members of Na$_{3+x}$Ru$_{3-x}$O$_6$~are insulators, increased Na-incorporation into the alloy results in a glass-like freezing of local Ru moments between stoichiometric endpoints. At small $x$, this is conceptually consistent with moment dilution/induced freezing on a highly frustrated Ru$^{3+}$ sublattice. Our study provides key information needed to control chemical disorder and off-stoichiometry in the Heisenberg-Kitaev candidate material NaRuO$_2$. \section{Acknowledgments} We acknowledge fruitful conversations with A.~A.~Aczel, G.~Pokharel, and A.~R.~Ericks. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering under Grant No. DE-SC0017752. B.R.O. and P.M.S. both acknowledge financial support from the California NanoSystems Institute through the Elings Fellowship program. The research made use of the shared facilities of the NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at UC Santa Barbara (DMR- 1720256). The UC Santa Barbara MRSEC is a member of the Materials Research Facilities Network. (www.mrfn.org). This work also used facilities supported via the UC Santa Barbara NSF Quantum Foundry funded via the Q-AMASE-i program under award DMR-1906325. Use of the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory was supported by the U. S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. A portion of this research used resources at the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv" }	8,297
Current202120202019201820172016201520142013201220112010200920082007200620052004200320022001 Luxury SUV ranked by Resale Value "If you are willing to accept the compromises that come with the coupe styling -- and coupes are all about style -- ZDX is one terrific piece of work." — USA Today See More Reviews no Resale Value data for 2012 no Resale Value "Underway, it's very comfortable and very quiet, considering that the LR4 is quite a big box that catches lots of air and rides on enormous tires. " — New Car Test Drive See More Reviews no Resale Value "It looks more like a concept car than anything else that can be had for less than $100,000, and it's even more arresting in person than in photos." — Car and Driver See More Reviews no Resale Value "Cornering is actually quite good for a vehicle of this size, height and weight. " — New Car Test Drive See More Reviews no Resale Value "The hybrid model is particularly well sorted out, and both RXs are easier to use as mind-numbing, commute-erasing devices than they were before. Even as enthusiasts, we have to admit there are plenty of days when such a device (especially for this Los Angeles-based editor) would come in handy." — Car and Driver See More Reviews no Resale Value "Other than the goofy proportions and polarizing snout, perhaps the most immediately noteworthy thing about the MKT is how pleasant it is inside its cabin. The interior is serenely quiet, even at triple-digit speeds, thanks to heaps of sound deadening; laminated, thicker windows; and aerodynamic tuning that included optimizing the shape of the side mirrors." — Car and Driver See More Reviews no Resale Value "The Mercedes-Benz GL-Class is large and capable off road yet feels surprisingly car-like on the road. That car-like feeling comes in part because this is the first full-size SUV built around a unibody architecture instead of traditional body-on-frame construction." — New Car Test Drive See More Reviews no Resale Value "From a purely practical standpoint, the GLK makes a lot of sense, with a great driving position and plenty of space for four adults (three can fit in a pinch in back)." — The Car Connection See More Reviews no Resale Value "As Arrival Vehicles go, this one gives the fashionistas something to look at: a high-waisted shape that flares dramatically as it sweeps back to huge sculptural taillights. Better yet, this visual entertainment takes place without encroaching on the capacity within." — Car and Driver See More Reviews no Resale Value	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl" }	9,793
{"url":"https:\/\/jeremykun.com\/tag\/image-manipulation\/","text":"# Making Hybrid Images\n\nThe Mona Lisa\n\nLeonardo da Vinci\u2019s Mona Lisa is one of the most famous paintings of all time. And there has always been a discussion around her enigmatic smile. He used a trademark Renaissance technique called\u00a0sfumato,\u00a0which involves many thin layers of glaze mixed with subtle pigments. The striking result is that when you look directly at Mona Lisa\u2019s smile, it seems to disappear. But when you look at the background your peripherals see a smiling face.\n\nOne could spend decades studying the works of these masters from various perspectives, but if we want to hone in on the disappearing nature of that\u00a0smile, mathematics can provide valuable insights. Indeed, though he may not have known the relationship between his work and da Vinci\u2019s, hundreds of years later Salvador Dali did the artist\u2019s equivalent of mathematically\u00a0isolating the problem with his painting, \u201cGala Contemplating\u00a0the Mediterranean Sea.\u201d\n\nGala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea (Salvador Dali, 1976)\n\nHere you see a woman in the foreground, but step back quite far from the picture and there is a (more or less) clear image of Abraham Lincoln. Here the question of gaze is the blaring focus of the work. Now of course Dali and\u00a0da Vinci weren\u2019t scribbling down equations and computing integrals; their artistic expression\u00a0was much less well-defined. But we the artistically\u00a0challenged have tools of our own:\u00a0mathematics, science, and programming.\n\nIn 2006 Aude Oliva,\u00a0Antonio Torralba, and\u00a0Philippe. G. Schyns used those tools to merge the distance of\u00a0Dali and the faded smiles of da Vinci into one cohesive idea. In their 2006 paper they presented the notion of a \u201chybrid image,\u201d presented below.\n\nThe Mona Lisas of Science\n\nIf you look closely, you\u2019ll see three women,\u00a0each of which looks the teensiest bit strange, like they might be trying to suppress a smile, but none of them\u00a0are\u00a0smiling. Blur your eyes or step back\u00a0a few meters, and they clearly look happy. The effect is quite dramatic. At the risk of being overly dramatic, these three women are literally modern day versions of Mona Lisa, the \u201cMona Lisas of Science,\u201d if you will.\n\nAnother, perhaps more famous version of their technique, since it was more widely publicized, is their \u201cMarilyn Einstein,\u201d which up close is Albert Einstein and from far away is Marilyn Monroe.\n\nMarilyn Einstein\n\nThis one gets to the heart of the question of what the eye sees at close range versus long range. And it turns out that you can address this question (and create\u00a0brilliant works of art like the ones above) with some basic Fourier analysis.\n\n## Intuitive Fourier analysis (and references)\n\nThe basic idea of Fourier analysis is the idea that smooth functions are hard to understand, and realization of\u00a0how great it would be if we could decompose them into simpler pieces. Decomposing complex things into simpler parts is one of the main tools in all of mathematics, and Fourier analysis is one of the clearest examples\u00a0of its application.\n\nIn particular, the things we care about are functions $f(x)$ with specific properties I won\u2019t detail here\u00a0like \u201csmoothness\u201d and \u201cfiniteness.\u201d\u00a0And the building blocks are the complex exponential functions\n\n$\\displaystyle e^{2 \\pi i kx}$\n\nwhere $k$ can be any integer. If you have done some linear algebra (and ignore this if you haven\u2019t), then I can summarize the idea succinctly by saying the complex exponentials\u00a0form an orthonormal basis for the vector space of square-integrable functions.\n\nBack in colloquial language, what the Fourier theorem says is that\u00a0any function\u00a0of the kind we care about can be broken down into (perhaps infinitely many) pieces of this form called Fourier coefficients\u00a0(I\u2019m abusing the word \u201ccoefficient\u201d here). The way it\u2019s breaking down is also pleasingly simple: it\u2019s a linear combination. Informally that means you\u2019re just adding up all the complex exponentials with specific\u00a0weights for each one. Mathematically, the conversion from the function to its Fourier coefficients is called the Fourier transform,\u00a0and the set of all Fourier coefficients together is called the Fourier spectrum.\u00a0So if you want to learn about your function $f$, or more importantly modify it in some way, you can inspect and modify\u00a0its spectrum\u00a0instead. The reason this is useful is that Fourier coefficients\u00a0have very natural interpretations in sound and images, as we\u2019ll see for the latter.\n\nWe wrote $f(x)$ and the complex exponential as a function of\u00a0one\u00a0real variable, but you can do the\u00a0same thing for\u00a0two variables (or a hundred!). And, if you\u2019re willing to do some abusing and ignore the complexness of complex numbers, then you can visualize \u201ccomplex exponentials in two variables\u201d as images of stripes whose orientation and thickness correspond to two parameters (i.e., the $k$ in the offset equation becomes two coefficients). The video below shows how such complex exponentials can be used to build up an image of striking detail. The left frame shows which complex exponential is currently being added, and the right frame shows the layers all put together.\u00a0I think the result is quite beautiful.\n\nThis just goes to show how powerful da Vinci\u2019s idea of fine layering is: it\u2019s as\u00a0powerful as possible because it can create any image!\n\nNow for digital\u00a0images like the one above, everything is\u00a0finite. So rather than have an infinitely precise function and a corresponding infinite set of Fourier coefficients, you get a finite list of sampled values (pixels) and a corresponding\u00a0grid of Fourier coefficients.\u00a0But\u00a0the\u00a0important and beautiful theorem is, and I want to emphasize how groundbreakingly important this is:\n\nIf you give me an\u00a0image (or any function!) I can\u00a0compute\u00a0the decomposition very\u00a0efficiently.\n\nAnd the same theorem lets you go the other way: if you give me the decomposition, I can compute the original function\u2019s samples quite easily.\u00a0The algorithm to do this is called the Fast Fourier transform, and if any piece of mathematics or computer science\u00a0has a legitimate claim to changing the world, it\u2019s the Fast Fourier transform. It\u2019s hard to pinpoint specific applications, because the transform is so\u00a0ubiquitous across science and engineering, but we definitely would not have cell phones, satellites, internet, or electronics anywhere near as small as we do without the Fourier transform and the ability to compute it quickly.\n\nConstructing hybrid images is one particularly nice\u00a0example of\u00a0manipulating the Fourier spectrum of two images, and then combining them back into a single image. That\u2019s what we\u2019ll do now.\n\nAs a side note,\u00a0by the nature of brevity, the discussion above is a big disservice to the mathematics involved. I summarized and abused in ways that mathematicians would object to. If you want to see a much better treatment of the material, this blog has a long series of posts developing Fourier transforms and their discrete analogues\u00a0from scratch. See\u00a0our\u00a0four\u00a0primers, which lead into the main content posts where we implement the Fast Fourier transform in\u00a0Python and use it to apply digital watermarks to an image. Note that in those posts, as in this one, all of the materials and code used are posted on this blog\u2019s Github page.\n\n## High\u00a0and low frequencies\n\nFor images, interpreting\u00a0ranges of Fourier coefficients is easy to do.\u00a0You can imagine the coefficients lying on a grid in the plane like so:\n\nEach dot in this grid corresponds to how \u201cintense\u201d the Fourier coefficient is. That is, it\u2019s the magnitude of the (complex) coefficient of the corresponding complex exponential. Now the points that are closer to the origin correspond\u00a0informally to the broad, smooth changes in the image. These are called \u201clow frequency\u201d coefficients. And points that are further away correspond to sharp changes and edges, and are likewise called \u201chigh frequency\u201d components. So the if you wanted to\u00a0\u201chybridize\u201d two images, you\u2019d pick ones with complementary intensities in these regions. That\u2019s why\u00a0Einstein (with all his wiry hair and wrinkles) and Monroe (with smooth features) are such good candidates. That\u2019s also why, when we layered the Fourier components one by one in the video from earlier, we see the fuzzy shapes emerge before the fine details.\n\nMoreover, we can \u201cextract\u201d the\u00a0high frequency Fourier components by simply removing the low frequency ones. It\u2019s a bit more complicated than that, since you want the transition from \u201csomething\u201d to \u201cnothing\u201d to be smooth in sone sense. A proper discussion of this would go into sampling and the Nyquist frequency, but that\u2019s beyond the scope of this post. Rather, we\u2019ll just define a family of \u201cfiltering functions\u201d without motivation and observe\u00a0that they work well.\n\nDefinition:\u00a0The\u00a0Gaussian filter function with\u00a0variance $\\sigma$ and center $(a, b)$ is the function\n\n$\\displaystyle g(x,y) = e^{-\\frac{(x - a)^2 + (y - b)^2}{2 \\sigma^2}}$\n\nIt looks like this\n\nimage credit Wikipedia\n\nIn particular, at zero the\u00a0function\u00a0is 1 and it gradually drops to zero as you get farther away. The parameter $\\sigma$ controls the rate at which it vanishes, and in the picture above the center is set to $(0,0)$.\n\nNow what we\u2019ll do is take our image, compute its spectrum, and multiply coordinatewise with a certain Gaussian function. If we\u2019re\u00a0trying to get rid of high-frequency components (called a \u201clow-pass filter\u201d because it lets the low\u00a0frequencies through), we can just multiply the Fourier coefficients directly by the filter values $g(x,y)$,\u00a0and if we\u2019re doing a \u201chigh-pass filter\u201d we multiply by $1 - g(x,y)$.\n\nBefore we get to the code, here\u2019s an example of a low-pass filter. First, take this image of Marilyn Monroe\n\nNow compute its Fourier transform\n\nApply the low-pass filter\n\nAnd reverse the Fourier transform to get an image\n\nIn fact, this is a common operation in programs like photoshop for blurring an image (it\u2019s called a\u00a0Gaussian blur for obvious reasons).\u00a0Here\u2019s the\u00a0python code to do this.\u00a0You can download it\u00a0along with all of the other\u00a0resources used in making this post on this blog\u2019s Github page.\n\nimport numpy\nfrom numpy.fft import fft2, ifft2, fftshift, ifftshift\nfrom scipy import misc\nfrom scipy import ndimage\nimport math\n\ndef makeGaussianFilter(numRows, numCols, sigma, highPass=True):\ncenterI = int(numRows\/2) + 1 if numRows % 2 == 1 else int(numRows\/2)\ncenterJ = int(numCols\/2) + 1 if numCols % 2 == 1 else int(numCols\/2)\n\ndef gaussian(i,j):\ncoefficient = math.exp(-1.0 * ((i - centerI)2 + (j - centerJ)2) \/ (2 * sigma*2))\nreturn 1 - coefficient if highPass else coefficient\n\nreturn numpy.array([[gaussian(i,j) for j in range(numCols)] for i in range(numRows)])\n\ndef filterDFT(imageMatrix, filterMatrix):\nshiftedDFT = fftshift(fft2(imageMatrix))\nfilteredDFT = shiftedDFT filterMatrix\nreturn ifft2(ifftshift(filteredDFT))\n\ndef lowPass(imageMatrix, sigma):\nn,m = imageMatrix.shape\nreturn filterDFT(imageMatrix, makeGaussianFilter(n, m, sigma, highPass=False))\n\ndef highPass(imageMatrix, sigma):\nn,m = imageMatrix.shape\nreturn filterDFT(imageMatrix, makeGaussianFilter(n, m, sigma, highPass=True))\n\nif __name__ == \"__main__\":\nlowPassedMarilyn = lowPass(marilyn, 20)\nmisc.imsave(\"low-passed-marilyn.png\", numpy.real(lowPassedMarilyn))\n\n\nThe first function samples the values from a Gaussian function with the specified parameters, discretizing the function and storing the values in a matrix. Then the filterDFT function applies the filter by doing coordinatewise multiplication (note these are all numpy arrays). We can do the same thing with a high-pass filter, producing the edgy image below\n\nAnd if we compute the average of these two images, we basically get back to the original.\n\nSo the only difference between this and a hybrid image is that you take the low-passed part of one image and the high-passed part of another. Then the art is in balancing the parameters so as to make the averaged image look right. Indeed, with the following picture of Einstein and the above shot of Monroe, we can get a pretty good recreation of the Oliva-Torralba-Schyns piece. I think with more tinkering it could be even better (I did barely any centering\/aligning\/resizing to the original images).\n\nAlbert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, and their hybridization.\n\nAnd here\u2019s the code for it\n\ndef hybridImage(highFreqImg, lowFreqImg, sigmaHigh, sigmaLow):\nhighPassed = highPass(highFreqImg, sigmaHigh)\nlowPassed = lowPass(lowFreqImg, sigmaLow)\n\nreturn highPassed + lowPassed\n\n\nInterestingly enough, doing it in reverse doesn\u2019t give quite as pleasing results, but it still technically works. So there\u2019s something particularly important that the high-passed image does have a lot of high-frequency components, and vice versa for the low pass.\n\nYou can see some of the other hybrid images Oliva et al constructed over at their web gallery.\n\n## Next Steps\n\nHow can we take this idea further? There are a few avenues I can think of. The most obvious one would be to see how this extends to video. Could one come up with generic\u00a0parameters so that when two videos are\u00a0hybridized (frame by frame, using this technique) it is only easy to see one at close distance? Or else, could we apply a three-dimensional transform to a video and modify that in some principled way? I think one would\u00a0not likely\u00a0find anything astounding, but who knows?\n\nSecond would be to look at the many other transforms\u00a0we have at our disposal. How does\u00a0manipulating\u00a0the spectra of these transforms affect the original image, and can you make images that are hybridized in senses other than this one?\n\nAnd finally, can we bring this idea down in dimension to work with one-dimensional signals? In particular, can we hybridize music? It could usher in a new generation of mashup songs that sound different depending on whether you wear\u00a0earmuffs \ud83d\ude42\n\nUntil next time!\n\n# The Two-Dimensional Fourier Transform and Digital Watermarking\n\nWe\u2019ve studied the Fourier transform quite a bit on this blog: with four primers and the Fast Fourier Transform algorithm under our belt, it\u2019s about time we opened up our eyes to higher dimensions.\n\nIndeed, in the decades since Cooley & Tukey\u2019s landmark paper, the most interesting applications of the discrete Fourier transform have occurred in dimensions greater than 1. But for all our work we haven\u2019t yet discussed what it means to take an \u201cn-dimensional\u201d Fourier transform. Our past toiling and troubling will pay off, though, because the higher Fourier transform and its 1-dimensional cousin are quite similar. Indeed, the shortest way to describe the $n$-dimensional transform is as the 1-dimensional transform with inner products of vector variables replacing regular products of variables.\n\nIn this post we\u2019ll flush out these details. We\u2019ll define the multivariable Fourier transform and it\u2019s discrete partner, implement an algorithm to compute it (FFT-style), and then apply the transform to the problem of digitally watermarking images.\n\nAs usual, all the code, images, and examples used in this post are available on this blog\u2019s Github page.\n\n## Sweeping Some Details Under the Rug\n\nWe spent our first and second primers on Fourier analysis describing the Fourier series in one variable, and taking a limit of the period to get the Fourier transform in one variable. By all accounts, it was a downright mess of notation and symbol manipulation that culminated in the realization that the Fourier series looks a lot like a Riemann sum. So it was in one dimension, it is in arbitrary dimension, but to save our stamina for the applications we\u2019re going to treat the $n$-dimensional transform differently. We\u2019ll use the 1-dimensional transform as a model, and magically generalize it to operate on a\u00a0vector-valued variable. Then the reader will take it on faith that we could achieve the same end as a limit of some kind of multidimensional Fourier series (and all that nonsense with Schwarz functions and tempered distributions is left to the analysts), or if not we\u2019ll provide external notes with the full details.\n\nSo we start with a real-valued (or complex-valued) function $f : \\mathbb{R}^n \\to \\mathbb{R}$, and we write the variable as $x = (x_1, \\dots, x_n)$, so that we can stick to using the notation $f(x)$. Rather than think of the components of $x$ as \u201ctime variables\u201d as we did in the one-dimensional case, we\u2019ll usually think of $x$ as representing physical\u00a0space.\u00a0And so the periodic behavior of the function $f$ represents periodicity in space.\u00a0On the other hand our transformed variables will be \u201cfrequency\u201d in space, and this will correspond to a vector variable $\\xi = (\\xi_1, \\dots, \\xi_n)$. We\u2019ll come back to what the heck \u201cperiodicity in space\u201d means momentarily.\n\nRemember that in one dimension the Fourier transform was defined by\n\n$\\displaystyle \\mathscr{F}f(s) = \\int_{-\\infty}^\\infty e^{-2\\pi ist}f(t) dt$.\n\nAnd it\u2019s inverse transform was\n\n$\\displaystyle \\mathscr{F}^{-1}g(t) = \\int_{-\\infty}^\\infty e^{2\\pi ist}f(s) ds$.\n\nIndeed, with the vector $x$ replacing $t$ and $\\xi$ replacing $s$, we have to figure out how to make an analogous definition. The obvious thing to do is to take the place where $st$ is multiplied and replace it with the inner product of $x$ and $\\xi$, which for this post I\u2019ll write $x \\cdot \\xi$ (usually I write $\\left \\langle x, \\xi \\right \\rangle$). This gives us the $n$-dimensional transform\n\n$\\displaystyle \\mathscr{F}f(\\xi) = \\int_{\\mathbb{R}^n} e^{-2\\pi i x \\cdot \\xi}f(x) dx$,\n\nand its inverse\n\n$\\displaystyle \\mathscr{F}^{-1}g(t) = \\int_{\\mathbb{R}^n} e^{2\\pi i x \\cdot \\xi}f( \\xi ) d \\xi$\n\nNote that the integral is over all of $\\mathbb{R}^n$. To give a clarifying example, if we are in two dimensions we can write everything out in coordinates: $x = (x_1, x_2), \\xi = (\\xi_1, \\xi_2)$, and the formula for the transform becomes\n\n$\\displaystyle \\mathscr{F}f(\\xi_1, \\xi_2) = \\int_{-\\infty}^{\\infty} \\int_{-\\infty}^{\\infty} e^{-2 \\pi i (x_1 \\xi_1 + x_2 \\xi_2)} f(\\xi_1, \\xi_2) dx_1 dx_2$.\n\nNow that\u2019s a nasty integral if I\u2019ve ever seen one. But for our purposes in this post, this will be as nasty as it gets, for we\u2019re primarily concerned with image analysis. So representing things as vectors of arbitrary dimension is more compact, and we don\u2019t lose anything for it.\n\n## Periodicity in Space? It\u2019s All Mostly the Same\n\nBecause arithmetic with vectors and arithmetic with numbers is so similar, it turns out that most of the properties of the 1-dimensional Fourier transform hold in arbitrary dimension. For example, the duality of the Fourier transform and its inverse holds, because for vectors $e^{-2 \\pi i x \\cdot (-\\xi)} = e^{2 \\pi i x \\cdot \\xi}$. So just like in on dimension, we have\n\n$\\mathscr{F}f(-\\xi) = \\mathscr{F}^{-1}f(\\xi)$\n\nAnd again we have correspondences between algebraic operations: convolution in the spatial domain corresponds to convolution in the frequency domain, the spectrum is symmetric about the origin, etc.\n\nAt a more geometric level, though, the Fourier transform does the same sort of thing as it did in the one-dimensional case. Again the complex exponentials form the building blocks of any function we want, and performing a Fourier transform on an $n$-dimensional function decomposes that function into its frequency components. So a function that is perfectly periodic corresponds to a Fourier spectrum that\u2019s perfectly concentrated at a point.\n\nBut what the hell, the reader might ask, is \u2018periodicity in space\u2019? Since we\u2019re talking about images anyway, the variables we care about (the coordinates of a pixel) are spatial variables.\u00a0You could, if you were so inclined, have a function of multiple time variables, and to mathematicians a physical interpretation of dimension is just that, an interpretation.\u00a0But as confusing as it might sound, it\u2019s actually not so hard to understand the Fourier transform when it\u2019s specialized to image analysis. The idea is that complex exponentials $e^{\\pm 2 \\pi i s \\cdot \\xi}$ oscillate in the $x$ variable for a fixed $\\xi$ (and since $\\mathscr{F}$ has $\\xi$ as its input, we do want to fix $\\xi$). The brief mathematical analysis goes like this: if we fix $\\xi$ then the complex exponential is periodic with magnitudinal peaks along parallel lines spaced out at a distance of $1\/ \\left \\\| \\xi \\right \\\|$ apart. In particular any image is a sum of a bunch of these \u201ccomplex exponential with a fixed $\\xi$\u201d images that look like stripes with varying widths and orientations (what you see here is just the real part of a particular complex exponential).\n\nAny image can be made from a sum of a whole lot of images like the ones on top. They correspond to single points in the Fourier spectrum (and their symmetries), as on bottom.\n\nWhat you see on top is an image, and on bottom its Fourier spectrum. That is, each brightly colored pixel corresponds to a point $[x_1, x_2]$ with a large magnitude for that frequency component $\|\\mathscr{F}f[x_1, x_2]\|$.\n\nIt might be a bit surprising that every image can be constructed as a sum of stripey things, but so was it that any sound can be constructed as a sum of sines and cosines. It\u2019s really just a statement about a basis of some vector space of functions. The long version of this story is laid out beautifully in\u00a0pages 4 \u2013 7 of these notes. The whole set of notes is wonderful, but this section is mathematically tidy and needs no background; the remainder of the notes outline the details about multidimensional Fourier series mentioned earlier, as well as a lot of other things. In higher dimensions the \u201cparallel lines\u201d idea is much the same, but with lines replaced by hyperplanes normal to the given vector.\n\n## Discretizing the Transform\n\nRecall that for a continuous function $f$ of one variable, we spent a bit of time figuring out how to find a good discrete approximation of $f$, how to find a good discrete approximation of the Fourier transform $\\mathscr{F}f$, and how to find a quick way to transition between the two. In brief: $f$ was approximated by a vector of samples $(f[0], f[1], \\dots, f[N])$, reconstructed the original function (which was only correct at the sampled points) and computed the Fourier transform of\u00a0that, calling it the discrete Fourier transform, or DFT. We got to this definition, using square brackets to denote list indexing (or vector indexing, whatever):\n\nDefinition: Let $f = (f[1], \\dots f[N])$ be a vector in $\\mathbb{R}^N$. Then the discrete Fourier transform of $f$ is defined by the vector $(\\mathscr{F}f[1], \\dots, \\mathscr{F}f[N])$, where\n\n$\\displaystyle \\mathscr{F}f[j] = \\sum_{k=0}^{N-1} f[k]e^{-2 \\pi i jk\/N}$\n\nJust as with the one-dimensional case, we can do the same analysis and arrive at a discrete approximation of an $n$-dimensional function. Instead of a vector it would be an $N \\times N \\times \\dots \\times N$ matrix, where there are $n$ terms in the matrix, one for each variable. In two dimensions, this means the discrete approximation of a function is a matrix of samples taken at evenly-spaced intervals in both directions.\n\nSticking with two dimensions, the Fourier transform is then a linear operator taking matrices to matrices (which is called a tensor if you want to scare people). It has its own representation like the one above, where each term is a double sum. In terms of image analysis, we can imagine that each term in the sum requires us to look at every pixel of the original image\n\nDefinition:\u00a0Let $f = (f[s,t])$ be a vector in $\\mathbb{R}^N \\times \\mathbb{R}^M$, where $s$ ranges from $0, \\dots, N-1$ and $t$ from $0, \\dots, M-1$. Then the discrete Fourier transform of $f$ is defined by the vector $(\\mathscr{F}f[s,t])$, where each entry is given by\n\n$\\displaystyle \\mathscr{F}f[x_1, x_2] = \\sum_{s=0}^{N-1} \\sum_{t=0}^{M-1} f[s, t] e^{-2 \\pi i (s x_1 \/ N + t x_2 \/ M)}$\n\nIn the one-dimensional case the inverse transform had a sign change in the exponent and an extra $1\/N$ normalization factor. Similarly, in two dimensions the inverse transform has a normalization factor of $1\/NM$ (1 over the total number of samples). Again we use a capital $F$ to denote the transformed version of $f$. The higher dimensional transforms are analogous: you get $n$ sums, one for each component, and the normalization factor is the inverse of the total number of samples.\n\n$\\displaystyle \\mathscr{F}^{-1}F[x_1, x_2] = \\frac{1}{NM} \\sum_{s=0}^{N-1} \\sum_{t=0}^{M-1} f[s,t] e^{2 \\pi i (sx_1 \/ N + tx_2 \/ M)}$\n\nUnfortunately, the world of the DFT disagrees a lot on the choice of normalization factor. It turns out that all that really matters is that the exponent is negated in the inverse, and that the product of the constant terms on both the transform and its inverse is $1\/NM$. So some people will normalize both the Fourier transform and its inverse by $1\/ \\sqrt{NM}$. The reason for this is that it makes the transform and its inverse more similar-looking (it\u2019s just that, cosmetic). The choice of normalization isn\u2019t particularly important for us, but beware: non-canonical choices are out there, and they do affect formulas by adding multiplicative constants.\n\n## The Fast Fourier Transform, Revisited\n\nNow one might expect that there is another clever algorithm to drastically reduce the runtime of the 2-dimensional DFT, akin to the fast Fourier transform algorithm (FFT). But actually there is almost no additional insight required to understand the \u201cfast\u201d higher dimensional Fourier transform algorithm, because all the work was done for us in the one dimensional case.\n\nAll that we do is realize that each of the inner summations is a 1-dimensional DFT. That is, if we write the inner-most sum as a function of two parameters\n\n$\\displaystyle g(s, x_2) = \\sum_{t=0}^{M-1} f(s,t) e^{-2 \\pi i (tx_2 \/ M)}$\n\nthen the 2-dimensional FFT is simply\n\n$\\displaystyle \\mathscr{F}f[x_1, x_2] = \\sum_{s=0}^{N-1} g(s, x_2) e^{-2 \\pi i (sx_1\/N)}$\n\nBut now notice, that we can forget that $g(s,x_2)$ was ever a separate, two-dimensional function. Indeed, since it only depends on the $x_2$ parameter from out of the sum this is precisely the formula for a 1-dimensional DFT! And so if we want to compute the 2-dimensional DFT using the 1-dimensional FFT algorithm, we can compute the matrix of 1-dimensional DFT entries for all choices of $s, x_2$ by fixing each value of $s$ in turn and running FFT on the resulting \u201ccolumn\u201d of values. If you followed the program from our last FFT post, then the only difficulty is in understanding how the data is shuffled around and which variables are fixed during the computation of the sub-DFT\u2019s.\n\nTo remedy the confusion, we give an example. Say we have the following 3\u00d73 matrix whose DFT we want to compute. Remember, these values are the sampled values of a 2-variable function.\n\n$\\displaystyle \\begin{pmatrix} f[0,0] & f[0,1] & f[0,2] \\\\ f[1,0] & f[1,1] & f[1,2] \\\\ f[2,0] & f[2,1] & f[2,2] \\end{pmatrix}$\n\nThe first step in the algorithm is to fix a choice of row, $s$, and compute the DFT of the resulting row. So let\u2019s fix $s = 0$, and then we have the resulting row\n\n$\\displaystyle f_0 = (f[0,0], f[0,1], f[0,2])$\n\nIt\u2019s DFT is computed (intentionally using the same notation as the inner summation above), as\n\n$\\displaystyle g[0,x_2] = (\\mathscr{F}f_0)[x_2] = \\sum_{t=0}^{M-1} f_0[t] e^{- 2 \\pi i (t x_2 \/ M)}$\n\nNote that $f_0[t] = f[s,t]$ for our fixed choice of $s=0$. And so if we do this for all $N$ rows (all 3 rows, in this example), we\u2019ll have performed $N$ FFT\u2019s of size $M$ to get a matrix of values\n\n$\\displaystyle \\begin{pmatrix} g[0,0] & g[0,1] & g[0,2] \\\\ g[1,0] & g[1,1] & g[1,2] \\\\ g[2,0] & g[2,1] & g[2,2] \\end{pmatrix}$\n\nNow we want to compute the rest of the 2-dimensional DFT to the end, and it\u2019s easy: now each column consists of the terms in the outermost sum above (since $s$ is the iterating variable). So if we fix a value of $x_2$, say $x_2 = 1$, we get the resulting column\n\n$\\displaystyle g_1 = (g[0, 1], g[1,1], g[2,1])$\n\nand computing a DFT on this row gives\n\n$\\displaystyle \\mathscr{F}f[x_1, 1] = \\sum_{s=0}^{N-1} g_1[s] e^{-2 \\pi i sx_1 \/ N}$.\n\nExpanding the definition of $g$ as a DFT gets us back to the original formula for the 2-dimensional DFT, so we know we did it right. In the end we get a matrix of the computed DFT values for all $x_1, x_2$.\n\nLet\u2019s analyze the runtime of this algorithm: in the first round of DFT\u2019s we computed $N$ DFT\u2019s of size $M$, requiring a total of $O(N M \\log M)$, since we know FFT takes time $O(M \\log M)$ for a list of length $M$. In the second round we did it the other way around, computing $M$ DFT\u2019s of size $N$ each, giving a total of\n\n$O(NM \\log M + NM \\log N) = O(NM (\\log N + \\log M)) = O(NM \\log (NM))$\n\nIn other words, if the size of the image is $n = NM$, then we are achieving an $O(n \\log n)$-time algorithm, which was precisely the speedup that the FFT algorithm gave us for one-dimension. We also know a lower bound on this problem: we can\u2019t do better than $NM$ since we have to look at every pixel at least once. So we know that we\u2019re only a logarithmic factor away from a trivial lower bound. And indeed, all other known DFT algorithms have the same runtime. Without any assumptions on the input data (or any parallelization), nobody knows of a faster algorithm.\n\nNow let\u2019s turn to the code. If we use our FFT algorithm from last time, the pure Python one (read: very slow), then we can implement the 2D Fourier transform in just two lines of Python code. Full disclosure: we left out some numpy stuff in this code for readability. You can view the entire source file on this blog\u2019s Github page.\n\ndef fft2d(matrix):\nfftRows = [fft(row) for row in matrix]\nreturn transpose([fft(row) for row in transpose(fftRows)])\n\n\nAnd we can test it on a simple matrix with one nonzero value in it:\n\nA = [[0,0,0,0], [0,1,0,0], [0,0,0,0], [0,0,0,0]]\nfor row in fft2d(A):\nprint(', '.join(['%.3f + %.3fi' % (x.real, x.imag) for x in row]))\n\n\nThe output is (reformatted in LaTeX, obviously):\n\n$\\displaystyle \\begin{pmatrix} 1 & -i & -1 & i \\\\ -i & -1 & i & 1 \\\\ -1 & i & 1 & -i \\\\ i & 1 & -i & -1 \\end{pmatrix}$\n\nThe reader can verify by hand that this is correct (there\u2019s only one nonzero term in the double sum, so it just boils down to figuring out the complex exponential $e^{2 \\pi i (x_1 + x_2 \/ 4)}$). We leave it as an additional exercise to the reader to implement the inverse transform, as well as to generalize this algorithm to higher dimensional DFTs.\n\n## Some Experiments and Animations\n\nAs we did with the 1-dimensional FFT, we\u2019re now going to switch to using an industry-strength FFT algorithm for the applications. We\u2019ll be using the numpy library and its \u201cfft2\u201d function, along with scipy\u2019s ndimage module for image manipulation. Getting all of this set up was a nightmare (thank goodness for people who guide users like me through this stuff, but even then the headache seemed unending!). As usual, all of the code and images used in the making of this post is available on this blog\u2019s Github page.\n\nAnd so we can start playing with a sample image, a still from one of my favorite television shows:\n\nThe Fourier transform of this image (after we convert it to grayscale) can be computed in python:\n\ndef fourierSpectrumExample(filename):\nunshiftedfft = numpy.fft.fft2(A)\nspectrum = numpy.log10(numpy.absolute(unshiftedfft) + numpy.ones(A.shape))\nmisc.imsave(\"%s-spectrum-unshifted.png\" % (filename.split('.')[0]), spectrum)\n\n\nWith the result:\n\nThe Fourier spectrum of Sherlock and Watson (and London).\n\nA few notes: we use the ndimage library to load the image and flatten the colors to grayscale. Then, after we compute the spectrum, we shift and take a logarithm. This is because the raw spectrum values are too massive; plotting them without modification makes the image contrast too high.\n\nSomething is odd, though, because the brightest regions are on the edges of the image, where we might expect the highest-frequency elements to be. Actually, it turns out that a raw DFT (as computed by numpy, anyhow) is \u201cshifted.\u201d That is, the indices are much like they were in our original FFT post, so that the \u201ccenter\u201d of the spectrum (the lowest frequency component) is actually in the corner of the image array.\n\nThe numpy folks have a special function designed to alleviate this called fftshift. Applying it before we plot the image gives the following spectrum:\n\nNow that\u2019s more like it.\u00a0For more details on what\u2019s going on with shifting and how to use the shifting functions, see\u00a0this matlab thread. (As a side note, the \u201csmudges\u201d in this image are interesting. We wonder what property of the original image contributes to the smudges)\n\nShifted or unshifted, this image represents the frequency spectrum of the image. In other words, we could take the inverse DFT of each pixel (and its symmetric partner) of this image separately, add them all together, and get back to our original image! We did just that using a different image (one of size 266 x 189, requiring a mere 25137 frequency components), to produce this video of the process:\n\nMany thanks to James Hance for his relentlessly cheerful art (I have a reddish version of this particular masterpiece on my bedroom wall).\n\nFor the interested reader, I followed this youtube video\u2019s recommended workflow to make the time-lapsed movie, along with some additional steps to make the videos play side by side. It took quite a while to generate and process the images, and the frames take up a lot of space. So instead of storing all the frames, the interested reader may find the script used to generate the frames on this blog\u2019s Github page\u00a0(along with all of the rest of the code used in this blog post).\n\n## Digital Watermarking\n\nNow we turn to the main application of Fourier transforms to this post, the task of adding an invisible digital watermark to an image. Just in case the reader lives in a cave, a watermark\u00a0is a security device used to protect the ownership or authenticity of a particular good. Usually they\u2019re used on money to prevent counterfeits, but they\u2019re often applied to high-resolution images on the web to protect copyrights. But perhaps more than just protect existing copyrights, watermarks as they\u2019re used today are ugly, and mostly prevent people from taking the image (paid for or not) in the first place. Here\u2019s an example from a big proponent of ugly watermarks, Shutterstock.com.\n\nNow if you were the business of copyright litigation, you\u2019d make a lot of money by suing people who took your clients\u2019 images without permission. So rather than prevent people from stealing in the first place, you could\u00a0put in an invisible watermark into all of your images and then crawl the web looking for stolen images with your watermark. It would be easy enough to automate (Google already did most of the work for you, if you just want to use Google\u2019s search by image feature).\n\nNow I\u2019m more on the side of Fair Use For All, so I wouldn\u2019t hope for a company to actually implement this and make using the internet that much scarier of a place. But the idea makes for an interesting thought experiment and blog post.\u00a0The idea is simply to modify the spectrum of an image by adding in small, artificial frequency components. That is, the watermarked image will look identical to the original image to a human, but the Fourier spectrum will contain suspicious entries that we can extract if we know where to look.\n\nImplementing the watermarking feature is quite easy, so let\u2019s do that first. Let\u2019s work again with James Hance\u2019s fine artwork.\n\nLet\u2019s call our image\u2019s pixel matrix $A$ and say we\u2019re working with grayscale images for simplicity (for color, we just do the same thing to all three color channels). Then we can define a watermark matrix $W$ by the following procedure:\n\n1. Pick a radius $r$, a length $L$, a watermark strength $\\alpha$, and a secret key $k$.\n2. Using $k$ as a seed to a random number generator, define a random binary vector $v$ of length $L$.\n3. Pick a subset $S$ of the circle of coordinates centered at the image\u2019s center of radius $r$, chosen or rejected based on the entries of $v$.\n4. Let $W$ be the matrix of all zeros (of the same dimension as $A$ with 1\u2019s in the entries of $S$.\n5. Compute the watermarked image as $\\mathscr{F}^{-1}(\\mathscr{F}(A) + \\alpha W)$. That is, compute the DFT of $A$, add $\\alpha W$ to it, and then compute the inverse Fourier transform of the result.\n\nThe code for this is simple enough. To create a random vector:\n\nimport random\ndef randomVector(seed, length):\nrandom.seed(secretKey)\nreturn [random.choice([0,1]) for _ in range(length)]\n\n\nTo make the watermark (and flush out all of the technical details of how it\u2019s done:\n\ndef makeWatermark(imageShape, radius, secretKey, vectorLength=50):\nwatermark = numpy.zeros(imageShape)\ncenter = (int(imageShape[0] \/ 2) + 1, int(imageShape[1] \/ 2) + 1)\n\nvector = randomVector(secretKey, vectorLength)\n\nx = lambda t: center[0] + int(radius * math.cos(t * 2 * math.pi \/ vectorLength))\ny = lambda t: center[1] + int(radius * math.sin(t * 2 * math.pi \/ vectorLength))\nindices = [(x(t), y(t)) for t in range(vectorLength)]\n\nfor i,location in enumerate(indices):\nwatermark[location] = vector[i]\n\nreturn watermark\n\n\nWe use the usual parameterization of the circle as $t \\mapsto (\\cos(2 \\pi t \/ n), \\sin(2 \\pi t \/ n)$ scaled to the appropriate radius. Here\u2019s what the watermark looks like as a spectrum:\n\nIt\u2019s hard to see the individual pixels, so click it to enlarge.\n\nAnd then applying a given watermark to an image is super simple.\n\ndef applyWatermark(imageMatrix, watermarkMatrix, alpha):\nshiftedDFT = fftshift(fft2(imageMatrix))\nwatermarkedDFT = shiftedDFT + alpha * watermarkMatrix\nwatermarkedImage = ifft2(ifftshift(watermarkedDFT))\n\nreturn watermarkedImage\n\n\nAnd that\u2019s all there is to it! One might wonder how the choice of $\\alpha$ affects the intensity of the watermark, and indeed here we show a few example values of this method applied to Hance\u2019s piece:\n\nClick to enlarge. The effects are most visible in the rightmost image where alpha = 1,000,000\n\nIt appears that it\u2019s not until $\\alpha$ becomes egregiously large (over 10,000) that we visibly notice the effects. This could be in part due to the fact that this is an image of a canvas (which has lots of small textures in the background). But it\u2019s good to keep in mind the range of acceptable values when designing a decoding mechanism.\n\nIndeed, a decoding mechanism is conceptually much messier; it\u2019s the art to the encoding mechanism\u2019s science. This paper details one possible way to do it, which is essentially to scale everything up or down to 512\u00d7512 pixels and try circles of every possible radius until you find one (or don\u2019t) which is statistically similar to the your random vector. And note that since we have the secret key we can generate the exact same random vector. So what the author of that paper suggests is to extract each circle of pixels from the Fourier spectrum, treating it as a single vector with first entry at angle 0. Then you do some statistical magic (compute cross-correlation or some other similarity measure) between the extracted pixels and your secret-key-generated random vector. If they\u2019re sufficiently similar, then you\u2019ve found your watermark, and otherwise there\u2019s no watermark present.\n\nThe code required to do this only requires a few extra lines that aren\u2019t present in the code we\u2019re already presented in this article (numpy does cross-correlation for you), so we leave it as an exercise to the reader: write a program that determines if an image contains our watermark, and test the algorithm on various $\\alpha$ and with modifications of the image like rotation, scaling, cropping, and jpeg compression. Part of the benefit of Fourier-based techniques is the resilience of the spectrum to mild applications of these transformations.\n\nNext time we\u2019ll use the Fourier transform to do other cool things to images, like designing filters and combining images in interesting ways.\n\nUntil then!","date":"2021-10-16 01:48:28","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 1, \"img_math\": 142, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.7941579222679138, \"perplexity\": 600.257973398532}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2021-43\/segments\/1634323583408.93\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20211016013436-20211016043436-00185.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
Best blog of Dead Sea Minerals Cosmetics. Dead Sea minerals cosmetics products actually come from the deepest and lowest point of earth ever. These products range from body, face and hair, which contains all natural Dead Sea ingredients specifically pure minerals. We need to keep our skin healthier because this is a significant part of our body, not only making us appear great, but also making us feel fabulously cool and better. As we age, we need to be more careful about our skincare. There are countless products available in the market which promises nourishing the skin, with ingredients like vitamins and minerals, but in truth, they are chemical based and contain synthetic, artificial and sometimes harmful ingredients that can be hazardous to the skin and health as a whole. Dead Sea products however, contain the purest substances such as salts, mud and other essential minerals that are best for all types of skin. Moisture levels is one of the common and biggest problems that people encounter. Dry skin is a problem too, because this can cause itchiness and soreness. Other people experience oily skin, which is the main factor that makes the pores clogged and causes pimples and acne problems. Even normal skin can have a real bad balance because of the environmental factors such as heat, dust, or air pollution. Dead Sea products can help combat, and calm these problems by using them on your face and any part of the body that is always exposed and prone to dirt and other substances. There are various essential minerals that you can find in Dead Sea products, all of them are useful, healthy, and provide the necessary nutrients needed by the skin. Boron. This mineral helps minimize and provides relief on symptoms of dry, scaly skin. Bromine. This type calms and relaxes the nerves and facial muscles. It has also inflammatory agents that cut down on swelling. Calcium. This mineral is responsible for skin regeneration of different cells under the skin's surface. Magnesium. This also works as anti-inflammatory agent and promotes cell regeneration. Potassium. This regulates the level of moisture keeping it on a balanced level. Sodium. This one reduces muscles fatigue and enhances skin cells to function properly. Sulfur. For acne problems, this is the best mineral that has the anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. Visit Dead Sea Minerals cosmetics shop for best Dead Sea cosmetics skin care products and get 15% discount coupon (C8297G).	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	5,382
{"url":"https:\/\/theromanxpl0it.github.io\/ctf_codeblue2017\/2017\/11\/11\/paillier.html","text":"# Codeblue CTF 2017 - Paillier Oracle\n\nby chq-matteo\nNovember 11, 2017\n\nWe have a service and we are given the source code.\nWhen we connect we have to submit a proof of work, after that we will receive the encrypted flag.\nWe can then send cipher text to the server and get the least significant bit of the decrypted text.\n\nThe first thing you find looking for the Pailler Cryptosystem is that:\n\n1. $(n, g)$ is the public key\n2. given an ecrypted message $c = enc(m)$ you can craft another encrypted message so that is decrypts to $m + m_1$ or $mm_2$.\n\nSo we can control the decrypted text (kind of).\n\nI worked offline at first with a mock flag.\n\nThe first idea I came up with was to send a message that decrypts to $m2^{-1}$ and build the flag 1 bit at a time. This worked for a couple of bit, but sometimes randomly not.\n\nThat\u2019s because multiplying for $2^{-1} \\mod n^2$ is not really an integer division!\n\nSo I came up with this:\n\n1. if the binary representation of $m$ (the flag for example) ends with $0$ we can craft a message that decrypts to $m2^{-1}$ and get the bit following the last zero (like a shift to the right)\n2. if $m$ does not end with $0$ we can send a message that decrypts to $(m - 1) * 2^{-1}$ and get the next bit\n\nThe server can tell us the last bit of $m$. So how we get the flag?\n\n1. Get the encrypted_flag (ef) from the server\n2. Get the least significant bit and set it on our partial flag\n3. Send m so that dec(m) $= (ef - flag)\/ 2^{len(flag)} = ef \\gg len(flag)$\n4. Repeat from 2\n\nIt was pretty cool because when I started the script and I got } as the first character and I was like \u2018wow it works\u2019, but then I started to get random hex characters and not my mock flag.\n\nWell I had forgotten that I switched to the remote server :P\n\nI had a video of the run, but it got overwritten by an attempt to solve Smoke on the Water.\n\n## Python solution\n\nI have pwntools on a virtualenv and it didn\u2019t play well with SageMath, so back to plain old python\n\nflag = 0\nl = 0\n# i = g^(-1), j = 2^(-1)\nwhile l < 8 * 100:\n# dec((ef * g^(-flag)) ^ (2^(-l))) = (flag - knownbits) >> l\nflag \|= (getLSB(pow(encrypted_flag * pow(i, flag, n2), pow(j, l, n2), n2)) << l)\nl += 1\n# print pt\nif l % 8 == 0:\nprint unhexlify(format(pt, 'x'))\n\n\n\nWe have these two nice properties in the Paillier Cryptosystem\n\n$dec(m g^{k}) = m + k \\mod n^2$ $dec(m^{k}) = mk \\mod n^2$\n\n### Helper functions\n\ndef getLSB(m):\n'''\nGet LSB from the server\n'''\nr.sendline(str(m))\nes = r.recvline()\nlsb = int(es[-2])\nr.recvuntil(loop)\nreturn lsb","date":"2021-08-04 12:56:55","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 2, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 1, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.5446035861968994, \"perplexity\": 2259.1996319693753}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 5, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2021-31\/segments\/1627046154805.72\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20210804111738-20210804141738-00065.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
Everything You Need to Know About the EmDrive Thruster Even if you don't keep up with developments in space propulsion technology, you've still probably heard about the EmDrive. You've probably seen headlines declaring it the key to interstellar travel, and claims that it will drastically reduce travel time across our solar system, making our dreams of people walking on other planets even more of a reality. There have even been claims that this highly controversial technology is the key to creating warp drives.These are bold claims, and as the great cosmologist and astrophysicist Carl Sagan once said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." With that in mind, we thought it'd be helpful to break down what we know about the enigmatic EmDrive, and whether it is, in fact, the key to mankind exploring the stars. science Outer Space science in universe science So without further ado, here's absolutely everything you need to know about the world's most puzzling propulsion device. science Outer Space science in universe science A new, leaked NASA paper points to potentially working EmDrive A leaked NASA paper obtained by the International Business Times via a post by a user on the NASA Spaceflight forums. The post was originally deleted by the forum's moderators, however, the document has since been posted and remains currently viewable. science Outer Space science in universe science The paper is ostensibly the same that was discussed earlier in the year (reported below). The information in the paper clearly points to a working version of the EmDrive, and while it's yet to be published, it is still set to run in the Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' scientific journal, AIAA Journal of Propulsion and Power. science Outer Space science in universe science As discussed below, this is a massive step forward for the EmDrive and for those who believe in the theoretical technology. If the paper on NASA's findings does in fact pass muster and see the light of day — which seems very likely — it'll be a boon for further research and development of the EmDrive tech. This would open the door for continued study and tests, and may finally put humans on the road to fast, lightweight space travel. science Outer Space science in universe science An EmDrive paper has finally been accepted by peer review Originally, this article pointed out that previous studies and papers on the EmDrive have either not been submitted, or passed peer review. Those days are in the past, however, given a NASA Eagleworks' paper on the EmDrive test which has reportedly passed the peer review process and will soon be published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' AIAA Journal of Propulsion and Power. science Outer Space science in universe science This is an important step for the EmDrive as it adds legitimacy to the technology and the tests done thus far, opening the door for other groups to replicate the tests. This will also allow other groups to devote more resources to uncovering why and how it works, and how to iterate on the drive to make it a viable form of propulsion. So, while a single peer-reviewed paper isn't going to suddenly equip the human race with interplanetary travel, it's the first step toward eventually realizing that possible future. science Outer Space science in universe science What is the EmDrive? Simply put, the EmDrive is a conundrum. First designed in 2001 by aerospace engineer Roger Shawyer, the technology can be summed up as a propellantless propulsion system, meaning the engine doesn't use fuel to cause a reaction. Removing the need for fuel makes a craft substantially lighter, and therefore easier to move (and cheaper to make, theoretically). In addition, the hypothetical drive is able to reach extremely high speeds — we're talking potentially getting humans to the outer reaches of the solar system in a matter of months. The issue is, the entire concept of a reactionless drive is inconsistent with Newton's conservation of momentum, which states that within a closed system, linear and angular momentum remain constant regardless of any changes that take place within said system. More plainly: Unless an outside force is applied, an object will not move. Reactionless drives are named as such because they lack the "reaction" defined in Newton's third law: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." But this goes against our current fundamental understanding of physics: An action (propulsion of a craft) taking place without a reaction (ignition of fuel and expulsion of mass) should be impossible. For such a thing to occur, it would mean an as-yet-undefined phenomenon is taking place — or our understanding of physics is completely wrong. How does the EmDrive "work?" Setting aside the potentially physics-breaking improbabilities of the technology, let's break down in simple terms how the proposed drive operates. The EmDrive is what is called an RF resonant cavity thruster, and is one of several hypothetical machines that use this model. These designs work by having a magnetron push microwaves into a closed truncated cone, then push against the short end of the cone, and propel the craft forward. This is in contrast to the form of propulsion current spacecraft use, which burn large quantities of fuel to expel a massive amount of energy and mass to rocket the craft into the air. An often-used metaphor for the inefficacy of this is to compare the particles pushing against the enclosure and producing thrust to the act of sitting in a car and pushing a steering wheel to move the car forward. While tests have been done on experimental versions of the drive — with low energy inputs resulting in a few micronewtons of thrust (about as much force as the weight of a penny) — The first peer-reviewed paper has only been recently accepted, and none of the findings from other tests have ever been published in a peer-reviewed journal. It's possible some positive thrust results may have been caused by interference or an unaccounted error with test equipment. The fact that NASA Eagleworks' paper has been reportedly accepted by peer review and will be published in AIAA Journal of Propulsion and Power does add quite a bit of legitimacy to these claims, however. Although there's been much skepticism regarding the EmDrive prior to the Eagleworks paper, it's important to note that there's been a number of people who have tested the drive and reported achieving thrust. In 2001, Shawyer was given a £45,000 grant from the British government to test the EmDrive. His test reportedly achieved 0.016 Newtons of force and required 850 watts of power, but no peer review of the tests verified this. It's worth noting, however, that this number was low enough that it was potentially an experimental error. In 2008, Yang Juan and a team of Chinese researches at the Northwestern Polytechnical University allegedly verified the theory behind RF resonant cavity thrusters, and subsequently built their own version in 2010, testing the drive multiple times from 2012 to 2014. Tests results were purportedly positive, achieving up yo 750 mN (millinewtons) of thrust, and requiring 2,500 watts of power. In 2014, NASA researchers, tested their own version of an EmDrive, including in a hard vacuum. Once again, the group reported thrust (about 1/1,000 of Shawyer's claims), and once again, the data was never published through peer-reviewed sources. Other NASA groups are skeptical of researchers' claims, but in their paper, it is clearly stated that these findings neither confirm nor refute the drive, instead calling for further tests. In 2015, that same NASA group tested a version of chemical engineer Guido Fetta's Cannae Drive (née Q Drive), and reported positive net thrust. Similarly, a research group at Dresden University of Technology also tested the drive, again reporting thrust, both predicted and unexpected. Yet another test by a NASA research group, Eagleworks, in late 2015seemingly confirmed the validity of the EmDrive. The test corrected errors that had occurred in the previous tests, and surprisingly, the drive achieved thrust. However, the group has not yet submitted their findings for peer review. It's possible that other unforeseen errors in the experiment may have cause thrust (the most likely of which is that the vacuum was compromised, causing heat to expand air within it testing environment and move the drive). Whether the findings are ultimately published or not, more tests need to be done. That's exactly what Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory intend to do. For EmDrive believers, there seems to be some hope. In mid-2016, a new theory was put forth by physicist Michael McCulloch, a researcher from Plymouth University in the United Kingdom, which may offer an explanation of the thrust observed in tests. McCulloch's theory deals with inertia and something called the Unruh effect — a concept predicted by relativity, which makes the universe appear hotter the more you accelerate, with the heat observed relative to the acceleration. McCulloch's new theory deals with the unconfirmed concept of Unruh radiation, which infers that particles form out of the vacuum of space as a direct result from the observed heating of the universe due to acceleration. This theoretical concept largely fits into our current understanding of the universe and predicts the results of inertia we currently observe, albeit with one notable exception: small accelerations on the scale of about what has been observed while testing the EM Drive. This acceleration comes as a result of the Unruh radiation particles, whose wavelengths increase as acceleration decreases. Unruh particles at different wavelengths would have to fit at either end of the EM Drive's cone, and as they bounce around inside the cone, their inertia would change as well, which would ultimately result in thrust. McCulloch's theory is, admittedly, a bit difficult to parlay into succinct layman's terms. If you're curious and want to delve into further reading on the theory, you can read McCulloch's entire paper discussing his theory here. The point here is that, should the Unruh Effect and Unruh Radiation be confirmed, it offers an entirely plausible explanation for the EM Drive's seemingly heretofore impossible thrust observations. This will require further research and experimentation, and gives the propulsion system even more momentum for testing. Implications of a working EmDrive It's easy to see how many in the scientific community are wary of EmDrive and RF resonant cavity thrusts altogether. But on the other hand, the wealth of studies raises a few questions: Why is there such a interest in the technology, and why do so many people wish to test it? What exactly are the claims being made about the drive that make it such an attractive idea? While everything from atmospheric temperature-controlling satellites, to safer and more efficient automobiles have been drummed up as potential applications for the drive, the real draw of the technology — and the impetus for its creation in the first place — is the implications for space travel. Spacecraft equipped with a reactionless drive could potentially make it to the moon in just a few hours, Mars in two to three months, and Pluto within two years. These are extremely bold claims, but if the EmDrive does turn out to be a legitimate technology, they may not be all that outlandish. And with no need to pack several tons-worth of fuel, spacecraft become cheaper and easier to produce, and far lighter. For NASA and other such organizations, including the numerous private space corporations like SpaceX, lightweight, affordable spacecraft that can travel to remote parts of space fast are something of a unicorn. Still, for that to become a reality, the science has to add up. Shawyer is adamant that there is no need for pseudoscience or quantum theories to explain how EmDrive works. Instead, he believes that current models of Newtonian physics offer an explanation, and has written papers on the subject, one of which is currently being peer reviewed (separate from the Eagleworks paper). He expects the paper to be published sometime this year. While in the past Shawyer has been criticized by other scientists for incorrect and inconsistent science, if the paper does indeed get published, it may begin to legitimize the EmDrive and spur more testing and research. Despite his insistence that the drive behaves within the laws of physics, it hasn't prevented him from making bold assertions regarding EmDrive. Shawyer has gone on record saying that this new drive produced warp bubbles which allow the drive to move, claiming that this is how NASA's test results were likely achieved. Assertions such as these have garnered much interest online, but have no clear supporting data and will (at the very least) require extensive testing and debate in order to be taken seriously by the scientific community — the majority of which remain skeptical of Shawyer's claims. Hopefully, with this new peer reviewed paper, more EmDrive tests will be undertaken, helping elucidate just how this thing works.Colin Johnston of the Armagh Planetarium wrote an extensive critique of the EmDrive and the inconclusive findings of numerous tests. Similarly, Corey S. Powell of Discovery wrote his own indictment of both Shawyer's EmDrive and Fetta's Cannae Drive, as well as the recent fervor over NASA's findings. Both point out the need for greater discretion when reporting on such instances. Professor and mathematical physicist, John C. Baez expressed his exhaustion at the conceptual technology's persistence in debates and discussions, calling the entire notion of a reactionless drive "baloney." His impassioned dismissal echoes the sentiments of many others.Shawyer's EmDrive has been met with enthusiasm elsewhere, including the website NASASpaceFlight.com — where information about the most recent Eagleworks' tests was first posted — and the popular journal New Scientist, which published a favorable and optimistic paper on EmDrive. (The editors later issued a statement that, despite enduring excitement over the idea, they should have shown more tact when writing on the controversial subject.)NASA Eagleworks' paper opens the door for better understanding of the technology, and for further refinement of it. A demonstrable, working EmDrive could open up exciting possibilities for both space and terrestrial travel — not to mention call into question our entire understanding of physics.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl" }	6,435
Sarajevo to Paris, Marleen Daniëls Veerle Windels Sarajevo to Paris, fashion or reportage, deciding on the title of a book is mind-boggling. I call myself a documentary photographer that accidentally ended up doing fashion. The end of the '80s was an interesting and intense time in world history, and a particularly creative time in the world of fashion. As a young female photographer I was interested in both worlds. I was travelling for newspapers and magazines to the fashion weeks in Milan and Paris and to the conflict zones of Lebanon and Iraq. It was during the war in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the siege of Sarajevo that I matured in documentary photography, fortunately without being injured. Thirty years later, when looking back, those two worlds — documentary and fashion — still define my work. Both are equally represented in my archives. This book, of my fashion work, is the first to be published. I called it Sarajevo to Paris because sometimes I would travel directly from one to the other. These two cities had a big impact on my life. Marleen Daniëls, May 2021 Uitgever Stockmans Art Books	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl" }	8,417
Q: Sending a renamed file using Intent.ACTION_SEND Let's say I have a save file, saves.xyz, and I want to share it, by mail. Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND); intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, content.getShareSubject()); intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, content.getShareText()); File savesFile = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory(), filePath); Uri savesUri = Uri.fromFile(savesFile); intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, savesUri); String fileType = activity.getString(R.string.saves_file_type); //"text/xyz" intent.setType(fileType); String chooserMessage = activity.getString(R.string.saves_chooser_message); activity.startActivity(Intent.createChooser(intent, chooserMessage)); This works fine enough. However, I now want to be able to rename the attached file (say saves-01-01-2017.xyz). I've thought about copying the file, sending it, then deleting it, but haven't found a way to delete it cleanly afterwards (see this). I also tried to implement my own FileProvider (as advised here) and redirecting saves-*.xyz to saves.xyz, but I couldn't get the FileProvider to work (I probably didn't grasp their function fully) : manifest.xml <manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" package="com.mydomain.myapp" > ... <application ... > <provider android:name="com.mydomain.myapp.MyFileProvider" android:authorities="com.mydomain.fileprovider" android:exported="false" android:grantUriPermissions="true" > <meta-data android:name="android.support.FILE_PROVIDER_PATHS" android:resource="@xml/file_provider_paths" /> </provider> ... </application> </manifest> file_provider_paths.xml <paths xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"> <files-path name="saves_folder" path="/" /> </paths> MyFileProvider class public class MyFileProvider extends FileProvider { @Override public ParcelFileDescriptor openFile(Uri uri, String mode) throws FileNotFoundException { //doesn't print anything Log.d(MyFileProvider.class.getSimpleName(), uri.toString()); return super.openFile(uri, mode); } } I'd be grateful if I were to be enlightened here. A: You may wanna try this way File savesFile = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory(), filePath); //rename your file here File rename = new File(context.getCacheDir(), "renameithere.txt"); if (savesFile.exists()) { savesFile.renameTo(rename); } Also if you're using a FileProvider, then use this way to get the Uri. try { return FileProvider.getUriForFile(context, authority, viewFile); } catch (Exception ex) { return Uri.fromFile(viewFile); } Hope this helps. A: I've found a cleaner way than FileProvider (felt way too overkill, and I couldn't get it to work anyway), using startActivityForResult and onSaveInstanceState. Copying the file to the desired name: try { copyFile(saves_file, saves_tmp_file); } catch (IOException ex) { return false; } Uri saves_uri = Uri.fromFile(saves_tmp_file) ; Starting the intent's activity with startActivityForResult: activity.startActivityForResult(Intent.createChooser(intent, chooserMessage), MY_REQUEST_CODE); Saving the temporary file's name in the activity's state: @Override protected void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle outState) { super.onSaveInstanceState(outState); outstate.putCharArray(TO_DELETE_PATH_BUNDLE_KEY, tmpFilePath.toCharArray()); } Restoring it: @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); //... if (savedInstanceState != null) { char[] array = savedInstanceState.getCharArray(TO_DELETE_PATH_BUNDLE_KEY); if (array != null) tmpFilePath = new String(array); { } Deleting the file: @Override protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) { super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data); if (requestCode == MY_REQUEST_CODE && tmpFilePath != null) new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory(), tmpFilePath).delete(); } I guess this method isn't the safest, but it should be safe and clean enough for my uses.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange" }	8,671
{"url":"https:\/\/portal.kobv.de\/advancedSearch.do?fq=topic%3AAstrophysics&sortCrit=score&sortOrder=desc&hitsPerPage=10&usedLibs=DE-B763&usedLibs=DE-204&usedLibs=DE-523&usedLibs=DE-600&usedLibs=DE-B1528&usedLibs=DE-522&usedLibs=DE-B486&usedLibs=DE-521&usedLibs=DE-Bo133&usedLibs=DE-526&usedLibs=DE-ER522&usedLibs=DE-525&usedLibs=DE-Bo410&usedLibs=DE-Po79&usedLibs=DE-287&usedLibs=DE-364&usedLibs=DE-Po75&usedLibs=DE-2070s&usedLibs=DE-Mun1&usedLibs=DE-B1570&usedLibs=DE-F131&usedLibs=DE-B2223&usedLibs=DE-609&usedLibs=DE-B1532&usedLibs=DE-B2224&usedLibs=DE-83&usedLibs=DE-B1575&usedLibs=DE-B1533&usedLibs=DE-2552&usedLibs=DE-B1536&usedLibs=DE-2110&usedLibs=DE-B1579&usedLibs=DE-B1535&usedLibs=DE-B479&usedLibs=DE-2273&usedLibs=DE-B478&usedLibs=DE-634&usedLibs=DE-B4&usedLibs=DE-B433&usedLibs=DE-Eb1&usedLibs=DE-Po82&usedLibs=DE-517&usedLibs=DE-CP521&usedLibs=DE-11&usedLibs=DE-B1563&usedLibs=DE-B1562&usedLibs=DE-B1566&usedLibs=DE-B1525&usedLibs=DE-B785&usedLibs=DE-B103&usedLibs=DE-B464&usedLibs=DE-B185&usedLibs=DE-186&usedLibs=DE-188&usedLibs=DE-2291&usedLibs=DE-B1550&usedLibs=DE-B1595&usedLibs=DE-2533&usedLibs=DE-2377&usedLibs=DE-B775&usedLibs=DE-578&usedLibs=DE-B1539&usedLibs=DE-B496&usedLibs=DE-B177&usedLibs=DE-B171&usedLibs=DE-VOEB&usedLibs=DE-B170&usedLibs=DE-Po24&usedLibs=DE-B15&usedLibs=DE-B1583&usedLibs=DE-181&usedLibs=DE-B1543&usedLibs=DE-2565&usedLibs=DE-B1586&usedLibs=DE-1&usedLibs=DE-B768&usedLibs=DE-B1547&usedLibs=DE-B11&usedLibs=DE-B1549&unownedTitles=true&index=primoCentral&f1=author&v1=Bowman%2C+Judd+D.&conj1=&f2=&v2=&conj2=&f3=&v3=&conj3=&f4=&v4=&conj4=&f5=&v5=&conj5=&f6=&v6=&conj6=&f7=&v7=&plv=2","text":"# Kooperativer Bibliotheksverbund\n\n## Berlin Brandenburg\n\nand\nand\n\nAn error occurred while sending the email. Please try again.\n\nProceed reservation?\n\nExport\n\u2022 1\nArticle\nLanguage: English\nIn: Nature, December 2018, Vol.564(7736), pp.E35\nDescription: [...]their choice to use it over the full band was not justified. Judd D. Bowman1\u00b7, Alan E. E. Rogers2, Raul A. Monsalve1'3'4'5'6, Thomas J. Mozdzen1 & Nivedita Mahesh1 1School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA. 2Haystack Observatory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Westford, MA, USA. 3Department of Physics, McGill University, Montr\u00e9al, Quebec, Canada. 4McGill Space Institute, McGill University, Montr\u00e9al, Quebec, Canada. 5Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA. 6Facultad de Ingenier\u00eda, Universidad Cat\u00f3lica de la Sant\u00edsima Concepci\u00f3n, Concepci\u00f3n, Chile. *e-mail: judd.bowman@asu.edu Published online 19 December 2018. First results on the epoch of reionization from first light with SARAS 2.\nKeywords: United States\u2013Us ; Massachusetts ; Canada ; Quebec Canada ; Arizona ; Chile ; Space Exploration ; Astronomy ; Ionization ; Astronomy ; Calibration ; Astrophysics ; Ionosphere ; Space Exploration ; Parameter Estimation ; Massachusetts Institute of Technology ; Arizona State University ; University of Colorado ; Mcgill University;\nISSN: 00280836\nE-ISSN: 1476-4687\nLibrary Location Call Number Volume\/Issue\/Year Availability\nOthers were also interested in ...\n\u2022 2\nArticle\nIn: Nature, 2018, Vol.555(7694), p.67\nDescription: After stars formed in the early Universe, their ultraviolet light is expected, eventually, to have penetrated the primordial hydrogen gas and altered the excitation state of its 21-centimetre hyperfine line. This alteration would cause the gas to absorb photons from the cosmic microwave background, producing a spectral distortion that should be observable today at radio frequencies of less than 200 megahertz. Here we report the detection of a flattened absorption profile in the sky-averaged radio spectrum, which is centred at a frequency of 78 megahertz and has a best-fitting full-width at half-maximum of 19 megahertz and an amplitude of 0.5 kelvin. The profile is largely consistent with expectations for the 21-centimetre signal induced by early stars, however, the best-fitting amplitude of the profile is more than a factor of two greater than the largest predictions. This discrepancy suggests that either the primordial gas was much colder than expected or the background radiation temperature was hotter than expected. Astrophysical phenomena (such as radiation from stars and stellar remnants) are unlikely to account for this discrepancy, of the proposed extensions to the standard model of cosmology and particle physics, only cooling of the gas as a result of interactions between dark matter and baryons seems to explain the observed amplitude. The low-frequency edge of the observed profile indicates that stars existed and had produced a background of Lyman-alpha photons by 180 million years after the Big Bang. The high-frequency edge indicates that the gas was heated to above the radiation temperature less than 100 million years later. Comment: Accepted version of article published March 1, 2018. Full edited version available through Nature Springer SharedIt at: http:\/\/rdcu.be\/H0pE\nKeywords: Astrophysics - Cosmology And Nongalactic Astrophysics ; Astrophysics - Instrumentation And Methods For Astrophysics;\nISSN: 0028-0836\nE-ISSN: 1476-4687\nLibrary Location Call Number Volume\/Issue\/Year Availability\nOthers were also interested in ...\n\u2022 3\nArticle\nIn: Nature, Volume 468, Issue 7325, pp. 796-798 (2010)\nDescription: Observations of the 21-centimetre line of atomic hydrogen in the early Universe directly probe the history of the reionization of the gas between galaxies. The observations are challenging, though, because of the low expected signal strength (~10 mK), and contamination by strong (\u232a100 K) foreground synchrotron emission in the Milky Way and extragalactic continuum sources2. If reionization happened rapidly, there should be a characteristic signature visible against the smooth foreground in an all-sky spectrum. Here we report an all-sky spectrum between 100 and 200 MHz, corresponding to the redshift range 6 \u2329 z \u2329 13 for the 21-centimetre line. The data exclude a rapid reionization timescale of dz \u2329 0.06 at the 95% confidence level. Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Published in Nature, Volume 468, Issue 7325, pp. 796-798 (2010)\nKeywords: Astrophysics - Cosmology And Nongalactic Astrophysics\nSource: Cornell University\nLibrary Location Call Number Volume\/Issue\/Year Availability\nOthers were also interested in ...\n\u2022 4\nArticle\nDescription: A new method of absolute calibration of sky noise temperature using a three-position switched spectrometer, measurements of antenna and low noise amplifier impedance with a vector network analyzer, and ancillary measurements of the amplifier noise waves is described. The details of the method and its application to accurate wideband measurements of the spectral index of the sky noise are described and compared with other methods. Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, published in Radio Science\nKeywords: Astrophysics - Instrumentation And Methods For Astrophysics\nSource: Cornell University\nLibrary Location Call Number Volume\/Issue\/Year Availability\nOthers were also interested in ...\n\u2022 5\nArticle\nIn: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2017, Vol. 470(4), pp.4720-4731\nDescription: We present the E-field Parallel Imaging Calibration (EPICal) algorithm, which addresses the need for a fast calibration method for direct imaging radio astronomy correlators. Direct imaging involves a spatial fast Fourier transform of antenna signals, alleviating an $\\mathcal {O}(N_{\\mathrm{a}} ^2)$ computational bottleneck typical in radio correlators, and yielding a more gentle $\\mathcal {O}(N_{\\mathrm{g}} \\log _2 N_{\\mathrm{g}})$ scaling, where N a is the number of antennas in the array and N g is the number of gridpoints in the imaging analysis. This can save orders of magnitude in computation cost for next generation arrays consisting of hundreds or thousands of antennas. However, because antenna signals are mixed in the imaging correlator without creating visibilities, gain correction must be applied prior to imaging, rather than on visibilities post-correlation. We develop the EPICal algorithm to form gain solutions quickly and without ever forming visibilities. This method scales as the number of antennas, and produces results comparable to those from visibilities. We use simulations to demonstrate the EPICal technique and study the noise properties of our gain solutions, showing they are similar to visibility-based solutions in realistic situations. By applying EPICal to 2\u00a0s of Long Wavelength Array data, we achieve a 65\u00a0per\u00a0cent dynamic range improvement compared to uncalibrated images, showing this algorithm is a promising solution for next generation instruments.\nKeywords: Instrumentation: Interferometers ; Techniques: Image Processing ; Techniques: Interferometric\nISSN: 0035-8711\nE-ISSN: 1365-2966\nLibrary Location Call Number Volume\/Issue\/Year Availability\nOthers were also interested in ...\n\u2022 6\nArticle\nIn: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2017, Vol. 467(1), pp.715-730\nDescription: Modern radio telescopes are favouring densely packed array layouts with large numbers of antennas ( N A \u2273 1000). Since the complexity of traditional correlators scales as $\\mathcal {O}(N_{\\rm A}^2)$ , there will be a steep cost for realizing the full imaging potential of these powerful instruments. Through our generic and efficient E-field Parallel Imaging Correlator ( epic ), we present the first software demonstration of a generalized direct imaging algorithm, namely the Modular Optimal Frequency Fourier imager. Not only does it bring down the cost for dense layouts to $\\mathcal {O}(N_{\\rm A}\\log _2N_{\\rm A})$ but can also image from irregular layouts and heterogeneous arrays of antennas. epic is highly modular, parallelizable, implemented in object-oriented python , and publicly available. We have verified the images produced to be equivalent to those from traditional techniques to within a precision set by gridding coarseness. We have also validated our implementation on data observed with the Long Wavelength Array (LWA1). We provide a detailed framework for imaging with heterogeneous arrays and show that epic robustly estimates the input sky model for such arrays. Antenna layouts with dense filling factors consisting of a large number of antennas such as LWA, the Square Kilometre Array, Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array, and Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment will gain significant computational advantage by deploying an optimized version of epic . The algorithm is a strong candidate for instruments targeting transient searches of fast radio bursts as well as planetary and exoplanetary phenomena due to the availability of high-speed calibrated time-domain images and low output bandwidth relative to visibility-based systems.\nKeywords: Instrumentation: Interferometers ; Techniques: Image Processing ; Techniques: Interferometric ; Telescopes\nISSN: 0035-8711\nE-ISSN: 1365-2966\nLibrary Location Call Number Volume\/Issue\/Year Availability\nOthers were also interested in ...\n\u2022 7\nArticle\nLanguage: English\nIn: IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, August 2016, Vol.64(8), pp.2631-2639\nDescription: This paper introduces a one-port method for estimating model parameters of vector network analyzer calibration standards. The method involves measuring the standards through an asymmetrical passive network connected in direct mode and then in reverse mode, and using these measurements to compute the S-parameters of the network. The free parameters of the calibration standards are estimated by minimizing a figure of merit based on the expected equality of the S-parameters of the network when used in direct and reverse modes. The capabilities of the method are demonstrated through simulations, and real measurements are used to estimate the actual offset delay of a 50-\u03a9 calibration load that is assigned zero delay by the manufacturer. The estimated delay is 38.8 ps with a 1 \u03c3 uncertainty of 2.1 ps for this particular load. This result is verified through measurements of a terminated airline. The measurements agree better with theoretical models of the airline when the reference plane is calibrated using the new estimate for the load delay.\nKeywords: Standards ; Transmission Line Measurements ; Calibration ; Delays ; Scattering Parameters ; Ports (Computers) ; Extraterrestrial Measurements ; Delay ; Impedance ; Reflection Standards ; Scattering Parameters ; Vector Network Analyzer (Vna) ; Engineering\nISSN: 0018-9480\nE-ISSN: 1557-9670\nLibrary Location Call Number Volume\/Issue\/Year Availability\nOthers were also interested in ...\n\u2022 8\nArticle\nIn: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2012, Vol. 419(2), pp.1070-1084\nDescription: Efforts are being made to observe the 21-cm signal from the \u2018cosmic dawn\u2019 using sky-averaged observations with individual radio dipoles. In this paper, we develop a model of the observations accounting for the 21-cm signal, foregrounds and several major instrumental effects. Given this model, we apply Markov Chain Monte Carlo techniques to demonstrate the ability of these instruments to separate the 21-cm signal from foregrounds and quantify their ability to constrain properties of the first galaxies. For concreteness, we investigate observations between 40 and 120\u2003MHz with the proposed\u2002 Dark Ages Radio Explorer \u2002mission in lunar orbit, showing its potential for science return.\nKeywords: Methods: Statistical ; Cosmology: Theory ; Diffuse Radiation ; Radio Lines: General\nISSN: 0035-8711\nE-ISSN: 1365-2966\nLibrary Location Call Number Volume\/Issue\/Year Availability\nOthers were also interested in ...\n\u2022 9\nArticle\nIn: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2017, Vol. 474(4), pp.4487-4499\nDescription: We present a baseline sensitivity analysis of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) and its build-out stages to one-point statistics (variance, skewness, and kurtosis) of redshifted 21\u2009cm intensity fluctuation from the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) based on realistic mock observations. By developing a full-sky 21\u2009cm light-cone model, taking into account the proper field of view and frequency bandwidth, utilizing a realistic measurement scheme, and assuming perfect foreground removal, we show that HERA will be able to recover statistics of the sky model with high sensitivity by averaging over measurements from multiple fields. All build-out stages will be able to detect variance, while skewness and kurtosis should be detectable for HERA128 and larger. We identify sample variance as the limiting constraint of the measurements at the end of reionization. The sensitivity can also be further improved by performing frequency windowing. In addition, we find that strong sample variance fluctuation in the kurtosis measured from an individual field of observation indicates the presence of outlying cold or hot regions in the underlying fluctuations, a feature that can potentially be used as an EoR bubble indicator.\nKeywords: Methods: Statistical ; Dark Ages, Reionization, First Stars ; Cosmology: Observations\nISSN: 0035-8711\nE-ISSN: 1365-2966\nLibrary Location Call Number Volume\/Issue\/Year Availability\nOthers were also interested in ...\n\u2022 10\nArticle\nDescription: Changes in the sky noise spectrum are used to characterize perturbations in the ionosphere. Observations were made at the same sidereal time on multiple days using a calibrated broadband dipole and radio spectrometer covering 80 to 185 MHz. In this frequency range, an ionospheric opacity perturbation changes both the electron thermal emission from the ionosphere and the absorption of the sky noise background. For the first time, these changes are confirmed to have the expected spectral signature and are used to derive the opacity and electron temperature associated with the perturbations as a function of local time. The observations were acquired at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia from 18 April 2014 to 6 May 2014. They show perturbations that increase at sunrise, continue during the day, and decline after sunset. Magnitudes corresponding to an opacity of about 1 percent at 150 MHz with a typical electron temperature of about 800 K, were measured for the strongest perturbations. Comment: 11 pages including 6 figures. Submitted to Radio Science\nKeywords: Astrophysics - Instrumentation And Methods For Astrophysics\nISSN: 00486604\nE-ISSN: 1944799X\nLibrary Location Call Number Volume\/Issue\/Year Availability\nOthers were also interested in ...\nClose \u2297\nThis website uses cookies and the analysis tool Matomo. Further information can be found on the KOBV privacy pages","date":"2019-12-06 22:42:19","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.4604869484901428, \"perplexity\": 2903.0291906815332}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2019-51\/segments\/1575540491491.18\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20191206222837-20191207010837-00509.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
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{"url":"https:\/\/www.yuanmas.com\/info\/GlypPnP1y2.html","text":"# Machine Learning - III. Linear Algebra Review (Week 1, Optional)\n\nwhat are matrices\u77e9\u9635\n\nmatrix is just another way for saying, is a 2D or a two dimensional array.\n\ndimension of the matrix\nis going to be written as the number of row times the number of columns in the matrix.\n\nwritten out as R4 by 2 or concretely what people will sometimes say this matrix is an element of the set R 4 by 2.\n\nmatrix elements,(entries of matrix) the numbers inside the matrix.\n\nthe matrix gets you a way of letting you quickly organize, index and access lots of data.\n\nwhat are vectors\u5411\u91cf\n\nA vector turns out to be a special case of a matrix.A vector is a matrix that has only 1 column so you have an N x 1 matrix.{\u672ccourse\u4e2d\u7684vector\u90fd\u662f\u5217\u5411\u91cf}\n\ndimension:if have N equals four elements here.so we also call this is a four dimensional vector, just means that this is a vector with four elements, with four numbers in it.\n\nrefer to this as a vector in the set R4.\n\nNotation\u5173\u4e8e\u7b26\u53f7\u7684\u89c4\u8303\u8868\u793a:\n\nthroughout the rest of these videos on linear algebra review, I will be using one index vectors.\u8bfe\u7a0b\u4e2d\u5927\u591a\u5411\u91cf\u4e0b\u6807\u90fd\u662f\u4ece1\u5f00\u59cb\u3002\n\nwhen talking about machine learning applications, sometimes explicitly say when we need to switch to, when we need to use the zero index vectors as well.\u8ba8\u8bba\u673a\u5668\u5b66\u4e60\u5e94\u7528\u65f6\u4f1a\u8f6c\u6362\u5230\u4e0b\u6807\u4ece0\u5f00\u59cb\u3002\n\nFinally, by convention,use upper case to refer to matrices.So we\u2018re going to use capital letters like A, B, C.and usually we\u2018ll use lowercase,like a, b, x, y,to refer to either numbers,or just raw numbers or scalars or to vectors.\n\nfrom:\n\n## ON THE EVOLUTION OF MACHINE LEARNING: FROM LINEAR MODELS TO NEURAL NETWORKS\n\nON THE EVOLUTION OF MACHINE LEARNING: FROM LINEAR MODELS TO NEURAL NETWORKS We recently interviewed Reza Zadeh (@Reza_Zadeh). Reza is a Consulting Professor in the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering at Stanford University and a\n\n## Machine Learning - II. Linear Regression with One Variable (Week 1)\n\nhttp:\/\/blog.csdn.net\/pipisorry\/article\/details\/43115525 \u673a\u5668\u5b66\u4e60Machine Learning - Andrew NG courses\u5b66\u4e60\u7b14\u8bb0 \u5355\u53d8\u91cf\u7ebf\u6027\u56de\u5f52Linear regression with one variable \u6a21\u578b\u8868\u793aModel representation \u4f8b\u5b50: \u8fd9\u662fRegression Problem(one of supervised learning)\u5e76\u4e14\u662fUnivariate linear regressi\n\n## Machine Learning\uff1aLinear Regression With Multiple Variables\n\nMachine Learning:Linear Regression With Multiple Variables \u63a5\u7740\u4e0a\u6b21\u9884\u6d4b\u623f\u5b50\u552e\u4ef7\u7684\u4f8b\u5b50,\u5f15\u51fa\u591a\u53d8\u91cf\u7684\u7ebf\u6027\u56de\u5f52. \u5728\u8fd9\u91cc\u6211\u4eec\u7528\u5411\u91cf\u7684\u8868\u793a\u65b9\u6cd5\u4f7f\u8868\u8fbe\u5f0f\u66f4\u52a0\u7b80\u6d01. \u53d8\u91cf\u68af\u5ea6\u4e0b\u964d\u8ddf\u5355\u53d8\u91cf\u4e00\u6837\u9700\u540c\u6b65\u66f4\u65b0\u6240\u6709\u7684theta\u503c. \u8fdb\u884cfeature scaling\u7684\u539f\u56e0\u662f\u4e3a\u4e86\u4f7fgradient descent\u7b97\u6cd5\u6536\u655b\u901f\u5ea6\u52a0\u5feb.\u5982\u4e0b\u56fe\u6240\u793a,\u5de6\u56fetheta2\u4e0etheta1\u7684\u91cf\u7ea7\u76f8\u5dee\u592a\u5927,\u8fd9\u6837\u5bfc\u81f4Cost Function\u7684\u7b49\u9ad8\u56fe\u4e3a\u4e00\u4e2a\u7ec6\u9ad8\u7684\u692d\u5706\u5f62\u72b6,\u53ef\u4ee5\u770b\u5230\n\n## Machine Learning\uff1aLinear Regression With One Variable\n\nMachine Learning:Linear Regression With One Variable \u673a\u5668\u5b66\u4e60\u53ef\u4ee5\u5e94\u7528\u4e8e\u8ba1\u7b97\u673a\u89c6\u89c9,\u81ea\u7136\u8bed\u8a00\u5904\u7406,\u6570\u636e\u6316\u6398\u7b49\u9886\u57df,\u53ef\u4ee5\u5206\u4e3a\u76d1\u7763\u5b66\u4e60(Supervised Learning),\u65e0\u76d1\u7763\u5b66\u4e60(Unsupervised Learning),\u5f3a\u5316\u5b66\u4e60(Reinforcement Learning)\u7b49. \u9996\u5148\u6211\u4eec\u4ece\u4e00\u4e2a\u7b80\u5355\u7684\u76d1\u7763\u5b66\u4e60\u5165\u624b:\u5047\u5982\u7ed9\u6211\u4eec\u4e00\u7ec4\u8bad\u7ec3\u96c6(\u5728\u8fd9\u91cc\u5c31\u662fSize\u548cPrice),\u6211\u4eec\u5982\u4f55\u624d\u80fd\u5efa\u7acb\u4e00\u4e2a\u53ef\u4ee5\u9884\u6d4b\u623f\u4ef7\u7684\u6a21\u578b\u5462? \u8fd9\u91cc(x,y)\u79f0\u4e3a\u4e00\n\n## CheeseZH: Stanford University: Machine Learning Ex1:Linear Regression\n\n(1) How to comput the Cost function in Univirate\/Multivariate Linear Regression; (2) How to comput the Batch Gradient Descent function in Univirate\/Multivariate Linear Regression; (3) How to scale features by mean value and standard deviation; (4) Ho\n\n## Machine Learning - IV. Linear Regression with Multiple Variables (Week 2)\n\nhttp:\/\/blog.csdn.net\/pipisorry\/article\/details\/43529845 \u673a\u5668\u5b66\u4e60Machine Learning - Andrew NG courses\u5b66\u4e60\u7b14\u8bb0 multivariate linear regression\u591a\u53d8\u91cf\u7ebf\u6027\u89c4\u5212 (linear regression works with multiple variables or with multiple features) Multiple Features(variables)\u591a\u7279\u5f81(\u53d8\u91cf)","date":"2020-07-03 15:47:30","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.4044513702392578, \"perplexity\": 2830.1511848098307}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2020-29\/segments\/1593655882634.5\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20200703153451-20200703183451-00481.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
Last edited by Zulusho 1 edition of State of Washington irrigation guide found in the catalog. Published 1985 by The Service in [Washington, D.C.?] . Irrigation -- Washington (State) -- Handbooks, manuals, etc, Irrigation -- Washington (State) -- Tables Statement prepared by United States Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, in cooperation with Washington State Cooperative Extension Service Contributions United States. Soil Conservation Service, Washington State University. Extension Service Pagination 2 v. (loose-leaf) : Additional Physical Format: Online version: Waller, O.L. (Osmar Lysander), Irrigation in the state of Washington. Washington, Govt. Print. This isolation was reflected in national politics, in which the state had little impact until after World War II, when Warren G. Magnusen, who represented Washington in the U.S. Senate from to , and Henry M. Jackson, who served in the Senate from until his death, acquired considerable influence in health, consumer affairs, foreign. Read the Landowner's Guide to Washington Water Rights; Water availability in Washington. Washington is known as a water-rich state, particularly on the west side of the Cascade Mountains. But water for new uses is becoming more difficult to come by . Washington wine is wine produced from grape varieties grown in the U.S. state of gton ranks second in the United States (behind California) in the production of wine. By , the state had o acres ( km 2) of vineyards, a harvest of , short tons (, t) of grapes, and exports going to over 40 countries around the world from the + wineries . WSU Extension Guide to Watering Home Gardens and Landscape Plants - An extensive, but easy to follow guide, detailing many aspects of irrigation and garden watering especially as it pertains to the Inland Northwest.. WSU Extension Drought, Conservation, and Irrigation Guide - An extensive list of resources detailing water conservation strategies including planting drought tolerant . Disincorporation of irrigation or reclamation districts located in counties with a population of two hundred ten thousand or more and inactive for five years: Chapter RCW. Hospitalization and medical aid for public employees and dependents — Premiums, governmental . The open window USDA Forest Service environmental statement, zone vegetation management project using selective herbicides (July 1, 1975 - June 30, 1976) Numerical simulation of snow avalanche flow Arachnomania The Ballad of Reading Gaol changeless and the changing in Islamic-Arabic-Hispanic cultures Outline of the main divisions of the Universal decimal classification with special regard to proposal 528.7, photogrammetry JFS1460 F07 READINGS:WEEK 4 (OCT.3) Specialty Gas Analysis Lilith Insight Industrial conference at Madrid, Spain. birth of China State of Washington irrigation guide Download PDF EPUB FB2 The WA Irrigation Guide is a very large document. After you have used the "Save Target As" function as outlined above, it is recommended the 'bookmark' feature in Adobe Acrobat be used to quickly access specific sections of interest within the guide and appendix. WA Irrigation Guide (PDF. Irrigation Guide, Partis a new handbook to the family of references in the NRCS, National Engineering Handbook series. It is written for NRCS employees who provide technical assistance to the water user with con. Currently, the Washington Irrigation Guide (WIG by Washington State Conservation Engineering) contains 76 selected National Weather Service (NWS) stations. In this revised project, weather data from stations from NWS, Agrimet and Washington AgWeatherNet were used in our calculations. Washington Irrigation. Washington's designation as "The Evergreen State" really only applies to half of the state. The Cascade Mountain Range effectively drains most of the moisture from the atmosphere onto the west side of the mountains leaving the east side with plenty of sunshine, but very little rainfall. For more information, email [email protected] or call Rich soils, diverse climates and large-scale irrigation make Washington State one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world, allowing us to produce over different crops. This version of the Standard Specifications is in X 11 format and is available as a printed document from Washington State Department of Enterprise Services, myPrint as an X 11 inch document in a 3-ring binder. Related Resources: x. CCC Rules (PDF, DOH ) - Washington State CCC regulations (WAC ) and related definitions. CCC Guidance Manual for Small Water Systems (DOH ) - Washington State guidance to help water systems develop and implement CCC Programs. Water System Design Manual DOH Pub Revised October About The Washington State Government Channel. The YouTube channel of the Washington State Government, linking you to videos from state agencies, departments, and elected officials. More State. View and download the Washington State driver guide. Skip to main content UPDATE. Limited in-person driver licensing appointments available. Learn more. Extensions granted for some expiring driver licenses and instruction permits. If the information on this translated website is unclear, please contact us at for help in your. The Revised Code of Washington (RCW) is the compilation of all permanent laws now in force. It is a collection of Session Laws (enacted by the Legislature, and signed by the Governor, or enacted via the initiative process), arranged by topic, with. History of Irrigation in the State of Washington ~63 particular section. But we have more direct evidence that these mission fathers and carried on irrigation from A. Splawn's book. Having discussed the first ditch built by the whites (Ka-mi-akin,pp. ), he says: "The first one was built by the Indians many. The Official Washington State Visitors' Guide is the essential, one-stop source for Washington State travelers. With stunning photography, detailed maps, and insider information on the state's must-see attractions, the guide highlights the unique and appealing aspects of each of the state. Landscape Drip Application Guide: A Practical Guide for Designing and Installing Drip Irrigation Systems. This helpful 68 page guide contains a wealth of useful information to help irrigation professionals save water with efficient drip irrigation systems. It begins with an anatomy of a drip system and an overview of various products used in. Figure 1. Washington climate factors affecting vegetable production: length of growing season (frost-free days) (A); average last killing frost date in spring (B); and average first killing frost date in fall (C) (adapted from Antonelli et al.4). Table 1. Crops well-suited to warm and cool temperatures in Washington. Washington State Department of Labor & Industries Prevailing Wage Section PO BOX Olympia WA Location Linderson Way SW Tumwater WA The formation of an irrigation district may be subject to potential review by a boundary review board under chapter RCW. The alteration of the boundaries of an irrigation district, including but not limited to a consolidation, addition of lands, exclusion of lands, or merger, may be subject to potential review by a boundary review board under chapter RCW, except that additions or. An October Washington State Supreme Court case impacts permit -exempt well use, which may affect some of the information provided in this publication. Water Rights in Washington. For. The Department of Ecology (Ecology) manages the state's water resources, working to meet all the varied demands on Washington's public waters. Reviser's note: The language "this act," "this chapter," and words of similar import appear throughout chapter RCW. This chapter is almost entirely comprised of the basic irrigation act of p et seq. as amended and as expressly added thereto by subsequent enactments. Contact information for the Washington governor and key state agencies. Find contact information and major state agencies and offices for the government of Washington. On This Page. USAGov is the Official Guide to Government Information and Services.Recommended: six months or 1, hours of irrigation-related field experience. Pass the irrigation technician exam. The three-hour exam includes equally weighted, multiple-choice questions on basic irrigation principles, basic electrical principles and basic hydraulics. Comply with the Select Certified Code of Ethics. Remain in good standing.Washington has reciprocal certification with Idaho for journey level plumbers. All other plumbers working in Washington must pass the Washington state plumber examination to work in the state. To apply, you will need to submit a copy of your government-issued photo ID and your out-of-state license for review by the plumber certification program. botanicusart.com - State of Washington irrigation guide book © 2020	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl" }	4,194
Non Denominational Churches In Cincinnati Prayer Before Sleep Angel God I have friends who excel in prayer. They inhale heaven and exhale God. They would rather pray than sleep. I sleep when I should pray. We think of speaking softly to God, humbling ourselves before G. Dec 8, 2015. A child's bedtime prayer is normally short and rhyming to make them. "Now, before I run to Bridgetown Church of Christ is a non-denominational Christian church on the Westside of Cincinnati, Ohio. Started in 1933, BCC exists to love our community and invite them into a life-changing relatio. Early Washington Co. Pennsylvania Histories with References to Spalding, Rigdon, Mormonism, etc. Solomon Spalding's "Temperance Inn" and Residence (1814-16) at Amity, PA CINCINNATI. a non-denominational pastor, was brainstorming about connecting with his unchurched or "de-churched" neighbors. He knew they wouldn't be interested in any religious activities hosted by. Evangelical Community Church Cincinnati Ohio service times, driving directions and parking information, church photos and videos, children and youth programs and more. Non-denominational churches in Cincinnati, OH. Christ Centered Worship Center Cincinnati Bible Way Church Connect Christian Church the nation's largest churches are disproportionately independent, non-denominational. Reflecting a recent trend, 40% of the more than 1,500 mega churches in North America and a majority of the hundred. The churches are non denominational and thus giving everyone the possibility to attend the church. A number of resources. A number of resources. 39.100204,-84.386965 A recent article on WCPO.com about Cincinnati House Groups at Vineyard Northwest. Click here. CONTACT 9165 Round Top Road, Cincinnati, OH 45251. Like the bell, made from a mold by the Cincinnati Bell Foundry decades ago. Romania and Central America. Services for the non-denominational church are temporarily being held at the nearby St. John. Seven Hills Church is a non-denominational church located in the greater metro Cincinnati and the Northern Kentucky area. We know that there are a lot of. Easter Info. Partners for Sacred Places lives at the intersection of heritage, faith, and community. Partners' staff brings a wide variety of skills and backgrounds, grounded in a passion for the value of historic sacred places as valuable community assets. Crossroads are about as common as First Baptists among today's non-denominational, contemporary churches. But this particular Crossroads, based in Cincinnati, could have a location near you in coming. Find the Best Cincinnati, OH Non Denominational Churches on Superpages. We have multiple consumer reviews, photos and opening hours. Mosaic Church is a growing community of faith that consists of a diverse group of people all with unique stories. We are committed to three core values:. Lifespring Christian Church. Joining God in Restoring a Broken World Join us for worship this Sunday at 8:45, 10:00 or 11:15 a.m. We meet on Galbraith Road. Oct 11, 2017 · Americans like things supersized, even their churches. Millions of Americans attend megachurches — Protestant Christian congregations with regular attendance of. Cathedral of San Juan Bautista: San Juan, Puerto Rico: PR 1521–1540 Roman Catholic The oldest church built in the United States and in the (non incorporated) U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. Nov 27, 2015. Vineyard Westside, Cincinnati's home for non-denominational worship, was founded in 2004 by Pastor Tim Urmston. The church grew out of. Find Non Denominational Churches in Cincinnati OH online yellow pages. California Sam Luce—Redeemer Church (Non-denominational) in Utica, New York Lou Cha—Kenwood Baptist Church (ABC) in Cincinnati, Ohio Kathie Phillips—Central Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Baltimore, M. Welcome to Love City Church. We are a church in Cincinnati, Ohio. We exist to Love God. Love People. Make Disciples. Lead teaching pastor, Vince Marquis. Find A Church In Your City. Pastor Joel and Victoria would like to invite you to attend a good Bible-based church in your area. As a Pastor himself, Joel knows how important it is for every believer to have a healthy church home where they can connect with other believers and grow in their faith. Carmel Christian Church – which is building a new worship center in Union Township – bills itself as a "casual congregation." But Senior Minister John "Didi" Bacon says the non-denominational. be f. 4. Houston Baptist University: Visionary Education. Houston, Texas Tweet this! Houston Baptist University ranks #4 on The 25 Best Schools for Studying the Bible! Non denominational Churches in Cincinnati, OH Recently Updated Non denominational Church Listings in Cincinnati Central Synagogue Yom Kippur Prayer Book Download Naija Gospel Music Prof Kpamor JT Orkar, a Second Republic commissioner in Benue state, former national vice chairman of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN. My favourite music is gospel music and aside this i. Free music download! Africa's best hits and biggest catalogue. Stream and download high quality mp3 and listen to popular Mar 3, 2014. Nondenominational CityGate Church will expand its reach Sunday with the opening of a satellite location at Savannah Center, 5533 Chappel. Non-denominational Churches in Cincinnati, OH Find Non-denominational Churches in Cincinnati, OH. Listings include Crossroads Church, New Thought Unity Center, Christ Emmanuel Christian Fellowship, Passion Community Church, Solid Rock Church. Non-Denomination Christian church under the leadership of Bishop Gary G. Hayles and Pastor Andrea A. Hayles. DETROIT — Declaring "the fight is on," a formidable coalition of conservative Christian groups filed legal briefs in federal appellate court Wednesday supporting Michigan's ban on gay marriage. and. Official website of Community Christian Church. We are a church with 2 locations in Butler county. One in Fairfield Township on Millikin Rd. The other is on. White Oak is one church meeting in multiple locations. All of our campuses offer modern worship, relevant teaching and excellent children's programs. At White. The Institute for Welcoming Resources is a consortium of denominational representatives of the Welcoming Church Movement. This ecumenical group provides resources to facilitate a paradigm shift in multiple denominations whereby churches. This is a list of the largest megachurches in the United States with more than 2,000 members. Celebration Church, Austin, TX, Joe Champion, 5,000, Non- denominational. Celebration Church. "Vineyard Cincinnati Locations". Retrieved 1. Highland is non-denominational and doesn't have the "club" mentality. Jesus" [formally known as the "King of Kings"] sculpture at the Solid Rock Church north of Cincinnati by I-75 that was struck b. WELCOME TO THE. This is the official site of the Cincinnati Church of Christ, a non-denominational Christian church committed to the mission of Jesus Christ. Michael Clark is an inspiring speaker, teacher, and motivator. He's a former pastor, church planter, and ministry leader. He has been in Baptist, Presbyterian, Wesleyan, and non-denominational churche. New City is a church serving in Cincinnati's eastside neighborhoods. to the Presbyterian Church in America (our denomination), and Acts 29 (a church planting. 30+ items · 48 Non-Denominational Church Companies in Cincinnati, Ohio. Search or browse our list of Non-Denominational Church companies in Cincinnati, Ohio by category. Articles and Media: Nontechnical information on hearing aid compatible assistive listening has been authored or produced by. The New York Times (2011, front page), Scientific American (2010), the Chicago Tribune (2010, front page), the American Psychological Association's magazine (2011), NPR's Science Friday (2010), All Things Considered (2011), the Hearing Journal (2012), The Washington. He's a former pastor, church planter, and ministry leader. He has been in Baptist, Presbyterian, Wesleyan, and non-denominational churches, and white, black, Korean American, and Latino congregations. CINCINNATI – Brian Cromer believes a higher power called. With the help of online media that non-denominational church now sees more than 38,000 people attend its services, according to an article. This is a list of the largest megachurches in the United States with more than 2,000 members. The Hartford Institute's database lists more than 1,300 such Protestant and Evangelical churches in the United States. According to that data, approximately 50 churches on the list have attendance ranging from 10,000 to 47,000. Dayspring Church is a culturally rich, ethnically diverse group of Christians who meet and worship together in Forest Park, Ohio. This church is welcoming to. Spiritual Thoughts Quotes Today – Feb. 20, 2017 – is Presidents Day. It's a time set aside to honor all those who served as America's Commander in Chief. There have been 45 Chief Executives, ranging from the first president, G. Only the quality, that is the social surrounding, the physical appearance and the mental abilities of a person are We're a growing community of families in East Cincinnati committed to following Jesus. Join us for Sunday services in the Parish Center at 9:00 and 11:00 a.m. Find Solid Rock Church in Cincinnati with Address, Phone number from Yahoo US Local. Includes Solid Rock. Solid Rock Church. Nondenominational Church. Since Nov. 4, Smith's non-denominational congregation of Faith. From there, the Smith family moved to Cincinnati where he became senior pastor of the River of Life Church, a position he kept until. CINCINNATI – When the housing market surged in 2018. in Milford and serves as the administrative pastor of Grace Fellowship. It's a small non-denominational Church that now meets at Neville's home. In 2007 they founded a ministry called and 3 years ago, started a new non-denominational church called New Hope Community, which they are currently co-pastoring. After going through a life-threatening. Download Naija Gospel Music Prof Kpamor JT Orkar, a Second Republic commissioner in Benue state, former national vice chairman of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN. My favourite music is gospel music and aside this i. Free music download! Africa's best hits and biggest catalogue. Stream and download high quality mp3 and listen to popular playlists. Bad Religion Suffer A well-attended non-denominational church service was held the next morning. Induction of Ewe Association of Cincinnati-Dayton into CEANA. 4. Approval of Ewe Association of Charlotte, North Carolin. The River Church (Liberty Township, OH) is a relational community that builds. 5546 Cincinnati Dayton Road, Liberty Township, OH 45044; Sunday Services:. This is the official App of the Cincinnati Church of Christ, a non-denominational Christian church committed to the mission of Jesus Christ. Get inspired. Get information. Get Connected. Here's a grea. Vineyard Westside is an honest, diverse, and inviting non-denominational church located in Cincinnati, Ohio that holds the central belief that every being longs. Upci Church Locator By State Islam Empire Of Faith Video Questions Answer Key Religion Outside The Box Previous Previous post: Characteristics Of Spiritual Organization Next Next post: Homeric Hymn Aphrodite	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl" }	7,640
{"url":"https:\/\/studydaddy.com\/question\/how-many-liters-of-a-3-0-m-h3po4-solution-are-required-to-react-with-4-5-g-of-zi","text":"Waiting for answer This question has not been answered yet. You can hire a professional tutor to get the answer.\n\nQUESTION\n\n# How many liters of a 3.0 M H3PO4 solution are required to react with 4.5 g of zinc? __ H3PO4 + __ Zn _x0001_ __ Zn3(PO4)2 + __ H2\n\nThe volume is 15.6 mL, or 0.0156 L\n\n2H_3PO_4 + 3Zn -> Zn_3(PO_4)_2 + 3H_2\n\nAs you can see, we have a 2:3 mole ratio between H_3PO_4 and Zn. Knowing that the molar mass of Zn is 65.4 g\/(mol), we can determine the number of Zn moles to be\n\nn_(Zn) = m\/(molar mass) = (4.5 g)\/(65.4 g\/(mol)) = 0.07\n\nThis means that the number of H_3PO_4 moles is equal to\n\nn_(H_3PO_4) = 0.07 * 2\/3 = 0.047\n\nTherefore, the volume required is\n\nV = n_(H_3PO_4)\/C = (0.047 m ol e s)\/(3 (mo l e s)\/L) = 0.0156 L = 15.6 mL","date":"2019-05-25 15:53:54","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 1, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.4642585813999176, \"perplexity\": 6431.238148218048}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2019-22\/segments\/1558232258120.87\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20190525144906-20190525170906-00119.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
<?php require("common.php"); if(empty($_SESSION['user'])) { header("Location: login.php"); exit("Redirecting to login.php"); } header("Location: home.php"); ?>	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub" }	8,426
{"url":"https:\/\/socratic.org\/questions\/how-do-you-calculate-expected-value#188679","text":"# How do you calculate expected value?\n\nNov 15, 2015\n\nSame thing as the mean\n\n#### Explanation:\n\nExpected value is another way of stating the mean. It can be calculated one of two ways:\n\nFor a set of numbers, take the sum divided by the number of data points. So 4,6,11: (4+6+11)\/3 = 21\/3 = 7\n\nIf it's a probability distribution then it's the sum of probabilities times each possible outcome\n\nX=1 with probability 0.5\nX=2 with probability 0.2\nX=3 with probability 0.3\n\nMean = 1(.5) + 2(.2) + 3(.3) = .5 + .4 + .9 = 1.8","date":"2022-08-09 17:58:55","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": false, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.9685139656066895, \"perplexity\": 1199.5700535188034}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2022-33\/segments\/1659882571056.58\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20220809155137-20220809185137-00551.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
A variable annuity is a contract between an individual and an insurance company in which the individual will make payments to the insurance company in return for periodic payments from the insurer. The annuitant purchasing the annuity is given several options as to how to invest their purchase payments; thus, variable annuities differ from traditional annuities as their rate of growth is not fixed, but variable. The annuity's variable growth rate allows for substantial gains as well as losses. What are the licensing requirements to sell Variable Annuities? Applicant must be registered with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Applicant must have successfully completed the Securities Industry Essentials (SIE) exam; and either the FINRA Series 6 or 7 examinations. Applicant must pass the Michigan variable annuities examination. Applicant must hold a variable annuities/variable life line of authority in his or her home state. Applicant must have successfully completed FINRA Series 6 or 7 examinations. Applicant must pass the Michigan variable annuities examination if the applicant has not passed an exam in their home state. A fixed annuity is a contract between an individual and an insurance company in which the insurer guarantees a fixed growth rate for the individual's account. In addition, the periodic payments made by the insurer to the individual are guaranteed at a fixed dollar amount. Payments are made to the annuitant over the term of the contract (this is usually life or some other specified date). What are the licensing requirements to sell Fixed Annuities? Unlike variable annuities, fixed annuities do not bear any risk. Fixed annuities are viewed as life insurance products and thus, an individual wishing to sell fixed annuities must possess a Producer Life Insurance License in good standing.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	4,822
Genter GmbH offers sophisticated solutions in metal and plastics machining. Our team of skilled experts is in high demand as project partner for the production of machine parts and components. Our core business encompasses prototypes, individual and series parts, ranging from 1 mm to 1600 mm in diameter, and lengths up to a maximum of 3600 mm. From the initial idea to the final processing of their materials, customers in industry, research, and development have come to trust our expertise, innovative know-how, precision, and reliability. Highly efficient production processes and our network of machining centers guarantee short lead and processing times. We continuously invest in state-of-the-art technology, process automation, and the ongoing training of our staff. We fulfill our customers' toughest demands with our CNC machinery, use of CAD/CAM software, and for quality assurance, our 3D coordinate measuring technology. At the threshold of industry 4.0, our tool management, highly qualified, innovative, and motivated staff as well as long-term partners, like RWTH Aachen, give us that crucial competitive edge. For many years now, customers in general mechanical engineering, the cable and food industry, industrial assembly, and special mechanical engineering have been entrusting us with their projects and challenging materials.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	3,281
We work with the world's most ambitious organisations to inspire new thinking, ignite action and create impact. Our proven, holistic methodology empowers your teams to grasp new opportunities, generate fresh solutions themselves and unlock the business models to make it a reality. We inspire and challenge your teams to think in radical ways about technologies and business models which threaten to disrupt your market, with a structured process and playful, hands‐on technology and innovation tools. We coach your teams to develop your own ability to innovate, flipping the consultancy model on its head – building your own capacity to repeatedly create breakthroughs and growth. Get in touch to discuss how we can use innovation to help your organisation grow.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	6,711
{"url":"https:\/\/eprints.iisc.ac.in\/2831\/","text":"# Conformational Analysis of an Active Chemotactic Peptide Analog Containing Z-dehydrophbnylalanine at Position 3\n\nChauhan, VS and Kaur, Paramjeet and Sen, Nirupa and Uma, K and Jacob, Jose and Balaram, P (1988) Conformational Analysis of an Active Chemotactic Peptide Analog Containing Z-dehydrophbnylalanine at Position 3. In: Tetrahedron, 44 (8). pp. 2359-2366.\n\n Preview\nPDF\nconformational.pdf\n\n$Formyl-Met-Leu-{\\Delta}^z-Phe-Ome$, an analog of the chemotactic tripeptide Formyl-Met-Leu-Phe has been synthesized to evaluate the effect of substitution of \\alpha, \\beta-dehydrophenylalanine on activity and conformation. The analog peptide shows high biological activity in stimulating superoxide production by rabbit neutrophils. An NMR analysis of the solution conformation of the ${\\Delta}^z-Phe$ analog, using nuclear Overhauser effects and comparisons with the corresponding saturated peptides, favours a significant population of extended backbone conformations.","date":"2023-04-01 01:13:28","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.8326290845870972, \"perplexity\": 14898.427949509065}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2023-14\/segments\/1679296949694.55\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20230401001704-20230401031704-00162.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
BR Home Page > Box Scores > 2004 ALDS1 > 2004 American League Division Series (ALDS) Game 3, Angels at Red Sox, October 8 Anaheim Angels Schedule 2004 American League Division Series (ALDS) Game 3, Angels at Red Sox, October 8 2004 AL Division Series Game 1, October 5 BOS 9 Final ANA 6 Final BOS 8 (10) Series Summary Prev Game Venue: Fenway Park Day Game, on grass Anaheim Angels 0 0 0 1 0 0 5 0 0 0 6 8 2 Boston Red Sox 0 0 2 3 1 0 0 0 0 2 8 12 0 WP: Derek Lowe (1-0) • LP: Francisco Rodriguez (0-2) Winning Run scored with 2 outs You are here: BR Home Page > Box Scores > 2004 ALDS1 > 2004 American League Division Series (ALDS) Game 3, Angels at Red Sox, October 8	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl" }	7,415
{"url":"https:\/\/mathoverflow.net\/questions\/296087\/baricentric-distributions","text":"# baricentric distributions\n\nLet $\\mathcal{P}$ be the convex hull of a point set $p_1, \\dotsc, p_n$ (for simplicity, assume that no $p \\in P$ lies in the convex hull of the other points.) Now, pick a point uniformly at random from the simplex $x_1 + \\dotsc + x_n = 1, x_i \\geq 0,$ and take $\\phi=\\sum x_i p_i.$ The point $\\phi$ will be contained in $\\mathcal{P}$ and in the simple case where $\\mathcal{P}$ is a triangle, $\\phi$ is uniformly distributed. In general, however, it is not: The two graphics are for the case $\\mathcal{P}$ is a square. The first is a simple plot of a million points sampled from the distribution - the distribution looks like it is trying to be supported on the quadrangle spanned by the midpoints of the sides of the square.\n\nThe second is the density histogram:\n\nwhich seems to indicate that the distribution has a bit of a peak at the center of gravity.\n\nAny deep thoughts?\n\n\u2022 For the square, the density seems to be proportional to $\\min\\{x+y,2-x-y\\}-\\max\\{x-y,y-x\\}=2\\min\\{x,y,1-x,1-y\\}$ (take the uniform distribution in the tetrahedron spanned by $(0,0,0)$, $(1,1,0)$, $(1,0,1)$, $(0,1,1)$ and project it on the $xy$ plane), which does not agree with your plots. What did I miss? \u2013\u00a0Mateusz Kwa\u015bnicki Mar 24 '18 at 19:50\n\u2022 Linearity of expectation implies that $E(\\sum X_i P_i)=\\sum E(X_i)P_i =\\sum \\frac{1}{n}P_i=G,$ where $G$ is the center of gravity. Also, you should have a look at this paper: dtic.mil\/dtic\/tr\/fulltext\/u2\/273207.pdf \u2013\u00a0Donatien B\u00e9n\u00e9at Mar 25 '18 at 7:20\n\u2022 Maybe the fact that barycentric coordinates aren't equal to the $x_i$ for polygons, that are not triangles, plays a r\u00f4le, c.f. uniqueness issues for barycentric coordinates \u2013\u00a0Manfred Weis Mar 25 '18 at 18:18\n\n## 1 Answer\n\nThe problem seems to lie in the way you sample the unit simplex. Let $(U_i)_{1\\leq i\\leq n}$ be a sequence of i.i.d. uniform random variables, $S=\\sum U_i$ and define $X_i=U_i\/S.$ Then non-intuitively, $(X_1,\\dots,X_n)$ is not uniformly distributed over the unit simplex. The following plot shows 300000 points on the unit square with barycentric coordinates generated using this method:\n\nFirst method\n\nThe method can easily be fixed: if the $U_i$s defined above are i.i.d. exponential random variables, then $(X_1,\\dots,X_n)$ is uniformly distributed over the simplex. Again, the following plot shows 300000 points generated according to this second method:\n\nSecond method\n\nIt should be noted that uniformly distributed $X_i$s doesn't imply uniformly distributed $\\phi,$ as said by Mateusz Kwa\u015bnicki in a comment.\n\n\u2022 As a side remark: Another simple method is to generate $X_1,X_2,\\ldots,X_n$ is to arrange $U_1,U_2,\\ldots,U_{n-1}$ in a non-decreasing order, $V_1\\leqslant V_2\\leqslant \\ldots \\leqslant V_{n-1}$, and set $X_i = V_{i+1}-V_i$ for $i = 1, 2,\\ldots, n - 1$, $X_n = 1 + X_1 - X_n$. \u2013\u00a0Mateusz Kwa\u015bnicki Mar 26 '18 at 7:50","date":"2019-07-23 12:47:27","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.8761243224143982, \"perplexity\": 128.29621048352186}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.3, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": false}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2019-30\/segments\/1563195529276.65\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20190723105707-20190723131707-00009.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
Norbert A. Schlei, key lawyer in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who found legal underpinning for the 1962 blockade of Cuba, wrote landmark civil rights legislation and once waged a strong bid to replace an entrenched Republican California secretary of state, has died. He was 73. Schlei died Thursday at an acute care hospital in Los Angeles of infections caused by long-term immobility, his wife, Joan, said Saturday. She said Schlei had been virtually unconscious since suffering a heart attack March 25, 2002, while jogging in Santa Monica. Considered a legal wunderkind, Schlei was the Democratic candidate for the 57th California Assembly District in 1962 when he was tapped by President John F. Kennedy as an assistant attorney general in charge of the office of legal counsel. At the time, Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, the president's younger brother, quipped that Schlei -- only 33 -- had been named so there would finally be "someone younger" than he in the Justice Department. But Schlei, who clerked for Supreme Court Justice John Harlan after graduating from Yale Law School, proved a scholarly asset to the Kennedys and later to President Lyndon B. Johnson and Atty. Gen. Nicolas Katzenbach during crises and in forging the landmark Kennedy-Johnson civil rights reforms. Schlei was the principal draftsman of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Immigration Reform Act of 1967. "I felt I was lucky," Schlei told the New York Times in 1995, "because I was able to turn what ability I had to something important." Schlei had barely moved into his quarters in August 1962 as head of the office of legal counsel just vacated by Katzenbach, when he was put to work. The University of Mississippi had refused to allow James Meredith, a black student, to enroll that fall, and Kennedy sent Schlei to Oxford, Miss., to get Meredith into the school. Hardly a month later, as the Cuban Missile Crisis developed, Kennedy asked Schlei to study the legal basis for presidential action in connection with Cuba after U.S. surveillance confirmed that Russia was installing surface-to-air missile sites in the Communist island nation. Schlei responded with what became Kennedy's October justification for a naval quarantine on all offensive military equipment being shipped to Cuba. "It is our view," he wrote, "that international law would permit use by the United States of relatively extreme measures, including various forms and degree of force, for the purpose of terminating or preventing the realization of such a threat to the peace and security of the Western Hemisphere." The lawyer supported the view with references to self-defense rights, the collective and multilateral security obligations of the U.S. and the 1934 Cuban-U.S. Treaty, which established U.S. rights for its naval base at Guantanamo. Although Schlei had to abandon his bid for assemblyman to go to Washington (incumbent Republican Charles Conrad was reelected), he tried for election in California four years later when he ran for secretary of state. Schlei handily defeated six others in the 1966 Democratic primary, polling nearly twice as many votes as were received by his nearest competitor. He also collected more than 2.7 million votes, a remarkable tally for a Democratic statewide office seeker in that penultimate general election against Republican Frank M. Jordan, incumbent for 23 years and at the time the only Republican statewide officeholder. Nevertheless, Schlei lost the general election Nov. 10, 1966, as Jordan was swept to victory in the Ronald Reagan Republican landslide. Schlei, a personable Democratic campaigner, was only yards from Robert Kennedy at Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel when Kennedy was fatally shot on the night of the California primary in 1968. He largely bowed out of politics after serving as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention that year in Chicago. A highly successful trial and securities lawyer who represented such clients as Howard Hughes' Summa Corp. in lengthy litigation brought by ousted Hughes executive Robert Maheu, Schlei himself was tried in a Florida federal courtroom in 1995. The charges and their aftermath were a cloud on Schlei's brilliant career. Schlei was acquitted of eight counts, including wire and bank fraud and money laundering, but was convicted by a jury of conspiracy and securities fraud for purportedly helping five others sell $16 billion in fake Japanese government bonds from the mid-1980s to 1992. He was sentenced to five years in federal prison and lost his license to practice law for 3 1/2 years. But he never went to prison, remaining free on appeal. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the judgment and, in 1998, Schlei abandoned motions for a new trial to clear his name. Instead he agreed to a negotiated settlement of a year's unsupervised probation on one misdemeanor count of conspiracy to possess counterfeit foreign securities, and resumed his law practice in L.A. Joan Schlei said Saturday that Schlei had been completely exonerated after federal prosecutors conceded that there was a "possibility the instruments are valid" and that Schlei had been wrongly prosecuted. Schlei maintained all along that he had done nothing illegal, and that prosecutors who issued charges against the others after a sting operation had added him only because of his high profile in Democratic and government circles to "get in the papers" and make the trial "newsworthy." At issue were bonds the Japanese government claimed were counterfeit and created by a forger they imprisoned in 1983. Schlei countered that the securities were legitimate, that they had been issued in 1983 by Japan's minister of finance, Michio Watanabe, at the request of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka after Tanaka left office in a bribery scandal. Schlei said he had never sold the securities and had simply tried to help about 30 clients purchase them with the understanding that the securities would be redeemable only if they could persuade a current Japanese government to honor them. Among the highly prominent character witnesses who testified on Schlei's behalf during the trial was key Republican U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who had known Schlei since they were students together at Yale. Born Norbert Anthony Schlei on June 14, 1929, in Dayton, Ohio, Schlei grew up in meager financial circumstances, taking odd jobs delivering papers and groceries to help his family. He paid his way through Ohio State University as a waiter, but managed to graduate with honors in English literature and international relations and earned three varsity letters for golf. He served as a Navy officer during the Korean War and later went to Yale Law, where he graduated first in his class and was editor of the Yale Law Journal. After a year clerking for Harlan, he moved to Los Angeles in 1957 to work for the prestigious law firm of O'Melveny and Myers. In 1959, Schlei helped form the firm Greenberg, Shafton and Schlei where he remained until he went to the Justice Department in 1962. In later years, he was associated with different law firms, most notably the Wall Street firm of Hughes Hubbard & Reed from 1972 until 1989, whose Los Angeles office he established. He was co-author of "Studies in World Public Order," a book on international law published in 1961, and in 1962 wrote the book "State Regulation of Corporate Financial Practices." Schlei sat on the boards of several corporations involved in international real estate and securities. Long involved in real estate development, Schlei had begun in 1959 to represent Janss Corp., which developed Westwood Village and the Conejo Ranch area near Thousand Oaks. In addition to his wife, the former Joan Masson, he is survived by three sons and three daughters from his earlier marriages to Jane Moore and to attorney Barbara Lindemann -- William, Andrew, Bradford, Anne, Blake and Elizabeth; and four grandchildren. Two other sons, Graham and Norbert L. Schlei, preceded him in death. Calling hours will be 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Gates-Kingsley Funeral Home, 19th Street and Arizona Avenue, Santa Monica. Graveside services are planned for 11 a.m. April 29 at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills. His wife asked that memorial contributions be made to any of these organizations: Amnesty International, the American Heart Assn., the American Cancer Society, the ACLU or the Constitutional Rights Foundation.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	3,706
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ABC Schedule and thoughts Earlier this week ABC announced their upcoming fall lineup, but I was too busy to make my comments regarding the upcoming schedule. Now...at last, my time has come. Continuing the trend of other networks, the majority of ABC's new orders are for Dramas (7), with a few Comedies (4) added for good measure. The current era of television seems to be as dominated by the Drama and Dramedy as the 90s were with the half-hour comedy. Which is one way of saying that TV networks will go with a good thing until they beat it to death and then they'll see if they can kick a couple of death throes out of it. Only then, will they move on to the next best thing. A less cynical way of saying that might be that networks go with what works. The new television series include everything from modern man to cavemen. Yes you read that right, ABC is premiering a series based on the Geico commercials. Some of these series are: "Big Shots," "Carpoolers," "Cashmere Mafia," "Cavemen," "Dirty Sexy Money," "Eli Stone," "Miss/Guided," "Private Practice," "Pushing Daisies," "Sam I Am" and "Women's Murder Club." The proposed fall lineup, and my comments are below (with the new shows in italics): 8:00 p.m.: "Dancing with the Stars" -- I only watch this show in spurts. I understand the appeal, heck I used to love "Circus of the Stars," but like "Circus" this is more of a one time thing for me than a weekly commitment. 9:30 p.m.: "Sam I Am" (new comedy series) -- This is Christina Applegate's new series about a person who has an accident and forgets who they are, only to discover they weren't very likable. The show's tension will rest on a "nature vs. nurture" irony, she wants to be good but isn't. (deadpan)I am laughing already. This is such a funny idea. No one ever though of a bad person trying to be good, but can't actually succeed at being good story before.(end deadpan) I will watch the show once, but I won't be very forgiving. When a terrible accident leaves Samantha "Sam" Newly in a coma for eight days, she wakes up with no recollection of any past experiences, memories or events. Faced with amnesia, Sam must start over. To her dismay she discovers that she wasn't a particularly honest, good-hearted or loving person. In fact she was self-involved, narcissistic and devoid of real relationships - essentially a bitch. Sam must now struggle with her desire to be good and her temptation to be...not so good. Finding the line between good and evil is never easy. 10:00 p.m.: "The Bachelor" -- The fact that people watch this show makes me worry for the state of our civilization. "Look ma! It's women being treated like cattle by a man who they all plot in Machiavellian fashion to seduce." 8:00 p.m. "Cavemen" The commercials are funny, but somehow I think that placing this show in the suburban South will spell quick doom for this show. That and the fact that the dinosaur version of the "Honeymooners" didn't last too long either. Cavemen is a unique buddy comedy that offers a clever twist on stereotypes and turns race relations on their head. Inspired by the popular Geico Insurance commercials, the series looks at life through the eyes of the ultimate outsiders - three modern cavemen - as they struggle to find their place in the world. Joel, his cynical best friend, Nick, and easy-going little brother, Jamie, are contemporary cavemen who live in the suburban south and simply want to be treated like ordinary thirty-something guys. Despite their attempts at assimilation, Nick doesn't believe mainstream society will ever completely accept them, Jamie seems to take it all in stride and Joel straddles the middle, torn between his friends, his more traditional values and his loving fiancée. 8:30 p.m. "Carpoolers" -- Hopefully this show will have moments that take place outside of the car. Though that makes me wonder how that would be different from an Office Space show. I'll watch it once, but if they don't get out of the car I won't be back. I want you to remember that this show is about 4 people. That seems to be a theme. Less about saving the environment than male bonding, four guys from very different backgrounds relish their daily commute as they commiserate about their lives, jobs and families in the carpool lane. There's Laird, the recently divorced playboy; Aubrey, the timid homemaker and breadwinner; the conservative and traditional Gracen; and eager newlywed Dougie. Together, between the pressures of home and work, these men find time to be themselves while driving to and from the office. 9:00 p.m. : "Dancing with the Stars the Results Show" -- See above. 10:00 p.m.: "Boston Legal" -- Glad to see the show back for another season. Shatner! WEDNESDAY: A night completely filled with new shows? That is a potential risk. 8:00 p.m. "Pushing Daisies" -- I am intrigued by this twist on a procedural and the romantic tension possible has potential. Ideal scenario for me as viewer is if this show is a well thought out single season narrative with a final episode that resolves the season long arc. From Bryan Fuller ("Heroes") and Barry Sonnenfeld ("Men in Black") comes an unprecedented blend of romance, crime procedural and high-concept fantasy in a forensic fairytale about a young man with a very special gift. Once upon a time, a mild-mannered boy named Ned realized he could touch dead things and bring them back to life. Grown-up Ned puts his ability to good use, not only touching dead fruit and making it ripe with everlasting flavor, but working with an investigator to crack murder cases by asking the deceased to name their killers. But the tale gets complicated, as all tales do, when Ned brings his childhood sweetheart, Chuck, back from the dead and keeps her alive. Chuck encourages him to use his power to help others, instead of merely solving mysteries and collecting the rewards. Life would be perfect for Ned and Chuck, except for one cruel twist: If he ever touches her again, she'll go back to being dead, this time for good. 9:00 p.m.: "Private Practice" -- "Grey's Anatomy 2?" No thanks. I stopped watching "Grey's Anatomy" when they killed the dog just to end a romantic storyline. I still like Kate Walsh, but I won't watch this show. The best "Grey's Anatomy" moment, in my opinion, was during the last season of "The OC" when Summer's father moved to Seattle. From Shonda Rhimes, the Golden Globe-winning creator of "Grey's Anatomy," comes a story about new beginnings and old friends. Addison Forbes Montgomery is a renowned neonatal surgeon, respected by her friends and colleagues at Seattle Grace Hospital. Deciding she can no longer healthily co-exist with her ex-husband, McDreamy, and her ex-lover, McSteamy, Addison heads to Los Angeles for sunnier weather and happier possibilities. Reunited with her once-married, newly divorced medical school friends, Naomi and Sam, Addison joins their chic private practice. Featuring an all-star cast including Kate Walsh, Amy Brenneman, Tim Daly and Taye Diggs, "Private Practice" tells the story of a woman unafraid of change and willing to begin a new life. 10:00 p.m. "Dirty Sexy Money" -- I think it is good to see the return of the evening Soap, but this just doesn't seem to do it for me. Besides wasn't the "I'll have access to a lot of money to do good things" tension a part of 2 Week's Notice? (Minus the Soapy mysterious death etc.) This show would have to be funny to attract me. And the "Darling" clan? Please, shoot me now. Some people say money is the root of all evil. They may be right. Nick George's whole life has been lived in the shadow of the Darling family, but as an adult he's leading the perfect life as an idealistic lawyer, until his father's suspicious death. The absurdly wealthy Darlings of New York have asked him to take over his father's job as their personal lawyer, but the money that will allow him the freedom to be an altruistic do-gooder is only part of the picture. That same money pulls him into the dubious doings of the Darling clan. Power, privilege and family money are a volatile cocktail. 8:00 p.m.: "Ugly Betty" -- One of my favorite shows, but I hope they do like a real telenovella and let the story end at some point. 9:00 p.m. "Grey's Anatomy" -- As I said, I stopped watching it when they killed the dog just to eliminate a romantic rivalry. 10:00 p.m. "Big Shots" -- It's "Carpoolers," but serious. By the way, what is up with the whole "4 friends" thing? Can't we have three friends? Or even five friends? This is the story of four friends at the top of their game...until the women in their lives enter the room. Lines between boardroom and bedroom blur when these competitive but dysfunctional CEOs take refuge in their friendship, discussing business, confiding secrets, seeking advice and supporting each other through life's surprising twists and turns. 8:00 p.m.: "MEN IN TREES" -- Don't watch it, so I have no opinion one way or the other. 9:00 p.m.: "Women's Murder Club" -- "CSI: Vigilante" with a dash of possible romantic subplots? Okay, I'm down for that. But what is with the whole 4 friends thing again? Based on James Patterson's bestselling novels, The Women's Murder Club, four working women in San Francisco - a detective, a district attorney, a medical examiner and a reporter - use their expertise and unique talents to solve murder cases. Each woman is successful in her own field, but because of their unique friendship, they realize that pooling their resources during investigations leads to undiscovered clues and answers in both work and their personal lives. 10:00 p.m.: "20/20" -- For those who have no internet or are baffled by the "tubes" that make the interwebs work. SATURDAY: 8:00 p.m.: "Saturday Night College Football" -- Depends on who's playing. 7:00 p.m.: "America's Funniest Home Videos" -- Watch Jimmy hit someone in the crotch! No. Don't watch this. Won't watch this. 8:00 p.m.: "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" -- I watched one season of this show. I like the premise, but don't watch it. 9:00 p.m.: "Desperate Housewives" -- I don't watch this, but I have nothing against it. I have to read books some time. 10:00 p.m.: "Brothers & Sisters" -- Sunday at 10? I might be watching "Lipstick Jungle" on NBC. I might not. The remaining shows will be mid-season pick ups after "Dancing with the Stars" and "The Bachelor" conclude their fall seasons. I will probably watch both "Cashmere Mafia" and "Miss/Guided" at least once. Labels: ABC, Disney, Television	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl" }	4,533
Q: File sharing not working on iPad I am trying to get file sharing to work on my app in iPad. I've added UIFileSharingEnabled to the plist, I've queried the documents dir and written a file there (and verified it is there by looking at it through Organizer). iTunes just refuses to display the file sharing info in the device's apps tab. Does anyone know of any obscure step I might be missing, or some edge case that might be causing my problem? I've tried all the rebooting, clean building avenues. A: Try running a sync of your iPad to iTunes. That did it for me. A: Here's what fixed this for me: I built an ad-hoc distribution and installed it on my iPad. I believe once the app was installed/recognized as an actual "app" in itunes (versus something that shows up as a function of building through xcode), it was able to handle recognizing it as being able to share documents.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange" }	252
Young soy beans in pod. Crispy breaded tofu with special broth. Sliced beef rolled with green onion. Lightly battered fried jumbo shrimp and veggies. Lightly battered fried jumbo chicken and veggies. Crispy fried breaded soft shell crab. Spicy tuna, seasoned seaweed, crabmeat and sliced avocado with Koi house dressing. Yellowtail wrapper with cucumber and jalapeno on the inside and tobiko on top. Wrapped in a cucumber with tuna, crabmeat, avocado, salmon or spicy tuna naruto with miso soup. Shrimp, fish cake, white fish, tofu and vegetables. Snow crab with crunch served with eel and spicy sauce. Green salad with sliced avocado. Lobster, mango topped with spicy tuna and Koi special sauce. Pepper tuna, avocado roll topped with spicy salmon and crunchy. Crunchy spicy tuna rolled on avocado and caviar. Spicy tuna, avocado roll topped with whole broiled eel and caviar. Fried soft shell crab with avocado, lettuce, cucumber, caviar, mayonnaise eel sauce. Tempura fried roll with eel, fish, crabstick, asparagus, cheese and spicy sauce. Broiled eel and avocado on top of the shrimp tempura roll. Broiled eel, cucumber roll topped with avocado and red caviar. Shrimp tempura wrapped in soy paper, topped with cooking, scallop, crabmeat, caviar and cheese. Crunch spicy crab and asparagus with super white tuna on top. Yellowtail, avocado, scallion inside wrapped with fresh mango. Choice: spicy salmon, spicy crab, spicy white tuna, spicy vegetable with spicy mayonnaise tobiko and tempura crisp. Spicy salmon, tobiko, avocado, crisp and deep fried spicy mayo. Unagi. Fresh water boiled eel. Chef's eight pieces sushi selection and crunch spicy salmon roll. Served with miso soup or salad. Fifteen pieces assorted fillet of fresh raw fish. Served with miso soup or salad. Four pieces sushi, 10 pieces sashimi and crunch spicy tuna roll. Served with miso soup or salad. Spicy tuna crunch roll, eel, avocado roll and shrimp tempura. Served with miso soup or salad. Assorted sashimi and a bed of sushi rice. Served with miso soup or salad. Sixteen pieces with crunch spicy tuna roll and a rainbow roll. Served with miso soup or salad. Eight pieces of sushi, twelve pieces sashimi with a crunch spicy tuna roll and a super dynamite roll. Served with miso soup or salad. Crabstick, shrimp, cucumber, avocado, lettuce with mayonnaise. Fried squid and cucumber, served with eel sauce. Cucumber, crabstick, egg, custard and oshinko. Asparagus, cook salmon, cream cheese with eel sauce. With teriyaki style or spicy black bean sauce. Served with miso soup or green salad. With onions and carrots. Served with miso soup or green salad. Broiled eel over rice. Served with miso soup or green salad. Fried breaded chicken cutlet. Served with miso soup or green salad. Fried breaded pork cutlet. Served with miso soup or green salad. Chicken, veggies, egg and shrimp tempura noodle soup. Tuesday - Saturday: 11:00 am - 3:00 pm.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	1,217
{"url":"https:\/\/gateoverflow.in\/19504\/dijkstras-algo","text":"553 views\n\n### 1 comment\n\nnot visible\n\nafter analysis on this i found.\n\n1) yes but they all infinite distance apart from source.\n\n2)yes \u00a0as mentioned in algorithm while(Q!=phi) dijkstra's will always terminate\n\n3)yes because for each vertex call extract min which is take O(log v) i.e total O(v log v) and in that for each edge we have relax all the adjacent edge which internally call decrease function call which take O(log v) i.e for each edge relaxation will be done only once so tatal for this O(e logv)\n\nso total time O((v+e)logv) but in worst case there may be chance that no relaxation performed in that case time O(vlogv +e).\n\n4)when no relaxation will performed in that case all vertices have cost infinity so simply extract one of them\nby\n\n### 1 comment\n\nGreat Explanation sir !\n\n1 vote\n1\n286 views","date":"2023-02-03 22:31:47","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": false, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.8099042773246765, \"perplexity\": 4971.464871208229}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": false, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2023-06\/segments\/1674764500076.87\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20230203221113-20230204011113-00762.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
\section{Introduction} The design of Network-on-Chip (NoC) interconnects for embedded systems requires the careful balance of multiple trade-offs. Over the past decades, a significant amount of work has addressed the trade-offs between performance and other secondary objectives such as energy~\cite{Silvano10}, fault-tolerance~\cite{Radetzki13}, and chip area~\cite{Pestana04}. Less work has addressed such trade-offs in NoCs with hard real-time constraints, with some inroads towards improving energy~\cite{Sayuti13} and area efficiency (by optimising buffering in virtual channels ~\cite{Nikolic13}) while meeting deadlines of all packets even in the worst-case scenario. In this paper, we consider NoCs with hard real-time constraints, and address a novel trade-off that has increasing importance in embedded systems: security. Because of their key role in interconnecting the multiple components of an embedded system, NoCs can be seen as a major security vulnerability. If an attacker can extract information from the NoC interconnect, they can potentially compromise the security of the complete embedded system. Therefore, many mechanisms have been designed to improve NoC security (as reviewed in Section \ref{RelWor}) and many more will certainly be developed in the coming years. However, most of such mechanisms impose performance overheads, and therefore can potentially jeopardise the ability of the NoC to provide real-time guarantees. So we argue in this paper that, just like in the previously mentioned trade-offs, security can be seen as an optimisation objective in NoC resource management: designers must carefully consider the resources they have available to increase NoC security without sacrificing performance guarantees (which in the case of hard real-time NoCs will always be the primary objective). In Section \ref{RelWor}, we review the most relevant NoC security mechanisms and the types of attacks they aim to prevent, discussing their performance overheads and resource usage, and highlighting the need for the contributions of this paper. Then, in Section \ref{Prob} we provide details on the specific problem we address in this paper, which is a security mechanism that aims to improve the NoC resilience to side-channel attacks. Such attacks try to break a secure system by gathering information from the system's timing behaviour, power consumption, temperature or electromagnetic emissions. Just like some of the related work~\cite{WAS14}~\cite{ESL15}, we address the problem of side channel attacks by randomising the behaviour of the NoC, aiming to make it difficult for an attacker to identify patterns and correlations between the functionality of the system and the timing, power, temperature and electromagnetic behaviour of the NoC. As expected, such an approach has a direct impact on NoC resource usage, and therefore on its real-time guarantees, so in Section \ref{Random} we identify techniques that support NoC designers in improving NoC resilience against side-channel attacks while still maintaining full system schedulability. The paper is closed with extensive experimental work based on schedulability analysis and simulation in Section \ref{Eval}, and with a summary of our findings. \section{Related Work}\label{RelWor} Multiprocessor embedded systems are target of attacks by means of malicious hardware or software~\cite{DIG07}. Hardware-based attacks depend on design-time access to the system, which is then modified in a way that can be exploited during operation (e.g. by adding hardware able to leak information by changing chip temperature~\cite{Iakymchuk11}). Software-based attacks are the most common cause of security incidents in such types of systems~\cite{PAP15}, and are carried out by malicious software installed at design time or after deployment. NoC-based systems have been shown to be vulnerable to a variety of attacks, both hardware and software-based. Active NoC attacks, such as code injection~\cite{DAC15}, malware ~\cite{FIO08} and control hijacking ~\cite{LEK11}, or passive NoC attacks, such as side-channel exploitation, can be used to read sensitive communications, modify the system behaviour or prevent correct NoC operation. NoCs are especially vulnerable to side-channel attacks that exploit traffic interference as timing channels ~\cite{WAN12}~\cite{ESL15}. The shared nature of NoCs can be exploited by an attacker to obtain sensitive information. By forcing traffic collision with sensitive packet flows, an attacker can observe the throughput variations and infer sensitive data, as shown in ~\cite{WAN12}~\cite{ESL15}~\cite{WAS14}. Security-enhancing mechanisms have been added to NoC platforms to provide authentication~\cite{SEP12}, access control~\cite{FIO08}, integrity~\cite{ICE14}, and confidentiality services~\cite{REC15}. By monitoring and controlling the data exchange inside the chip, NoCs can detect and avoid attacks. Firewall-based and crypto-based techniques integrated at the network interface are the most commonly used approaches against active NoC attacks over the past decade~\cite{FIO08}~\cite{PAS16}. Firewalls implement authentication, access control and integrity services by means of traffic matching with a security table. Authorized transactions are allowed and injected to the NoC, otherwise they are denied and thus dropped. Crypto-based NoCs implement the confidentiality service by creating a shared secret among the sensitive cores and perform the encoded data exchange. While achieving desirable security enhancements, such approaches have an unpredictable impact upon the performance of the NoC and thus the overall system. Firewalls and crypto-based NoCs are the state-of-the-art in NoC security, but they are not able to protect the system against passive NoC attacks. Randomised arbitration~\cite{ESL15}, virtual channel allocation~\cite{FLO16} and routing~\cite{WAS14} have been investigated and evaluated as countermeasures against timing attacks. By randomising the characteristics of sensitive packet flows, it is possible to break the correlation between the traffic characteristics (e.g. volume and access patterns) and the sensitive data thus avoiding information leakage. Among those mechanisms, random routing has achieved the best levels of security enhancement with the lowest energy and area overhead~\cite{WAS14}. By spreading sensitive traffic over the NoC, the spatial distribution makes it harder for compromised cores or external attackers to gather sufficient side-channel information to infer correlations with sensitive data. Similarly to firewalls and crypto-based approaches, the focus of randomisation approaches is to increase security and none of the works in the state-of-the-art consider the performance requirements of the applications. In this paper, we argue that NoCs supporting real-time applications require a careful balance of a trade-off between security and performance. In most cases, we envisage that the level of security will be constrained by the NoC's ability to support attack countermeasures while at the same time ensuring performance guarantees to the application. Thus, the main contributions of this paper are the identification of a test to evaluate whether performance guarantees can hold under a specific side-channel attack countermeasure (namely route randomisation), and a technique that uses that test to better balance the trade-off between performance guarantees, resource usage and security. \section{Problem Description}\label{Prob} \subsection{Network-on-Chip Architecture}\label{NoC} While the contribution of this paper can be applied to a large variety of NoC architectures, we believe it is easier to explain it with the help of a concrete architecture. Therefore, we open this section with the description of such architecture, and postpone to Section \ref{conc} the discussion about the applicability of the proposed approach to other NoC architectures. We assume a NoC architecture with a 2D-mesh topology and wormhole switching protocol, because such features are commonly used in embedded systems for their simplicity and moderate resource overheads: \begin{itemize} \item In a 2D-mesh topology, every core is connected to a NoC switch via a network interface (NI), which is responsible for packetising and depacketising data, and controlling the injection of packets into the network. We use the term core very loosely, so it can mean a processing core, a memory controller, an I/O controller (e.g. wireless communication interface) or any other hardware resource that requires chip-level communication. The regularity of such a topology is attractive because it simplifies packet routing, and because it facilitates chip floorplanning, placement and routing. \item The use of wormhole switching protocols allows packets to be gradually sent over the NoC in smaller units called flits. Once a flit is received by a switch, it can be forwarded to the next switch down the packet route as long as that switch has sufficient buffering to hold it. This means that at any given time a packet could have its flits temporarily stored by multiple switches, so each of them are not required to hold a complete packet, thus reducing the overall buffering requirements of the NoC. \end{itemize} There is a downside to this choice of topology and switching protocol, which is the difficulty in predicting packet latencies. Since a packet can be simultaneously occupying multiple NoC buffers and links, there is a significant amount of competition for resources throughout the NoC at all times. The wide variety of interference patterns makes it hard to predict how long it takes for a packet to reach its destination. Different resource arbitration policies can make such predictions more or less difficult, especially in the case of hard real-time NoCs when an upper-bound worst-case latency is needed. Previous work has considered NoC arbitration based on packet priority~\cite{Shi10}, time multiplexing~\cite{Schoeberl07} and round robin~\cite{Dasari14}, and has devised analytical models that can be used to find latency upper-bounds for packet flows transmitted over such NoCs~\cite{Kiasari13}. Any of those approaches could be used in this paper, and we chose a priority-arbitrated NoC because of its ability to provide upper-bound latency guarantees that are customisable to different levels of packet urgency while allowing for high NoC link utilisation~\cite{Indrusiak14}. \subsection{Side-channel Attacks and Countermeasures} In this paper, we aim to improve NoC resilience against side-channel attacks by making it harder for an attacker to gain information about secure applications running over the NoC. Side-channel attackers monitor physical, non-functional characteristics of a NoC implementation (e.g. timing, power dissipation, temperature, electromagnetic emissions), and try to identify patterns that can be correlated with functional characteristics of a secure application (e.g. time to decrypt a message, length of a private key, location of a private key on the chip's distributed memory~\cite{ESL15}). This follows a commonly used approach based on the randomisation of the information leaking over side channels. There are many of the components that are not easy to randomise unless one has full control over the NoC design, such as the arbitration and flow control latencies (which are defined by the NoC architecture) and the physical characteristics of the NoC (which are defined by the chip fabrication process). We consider those approaches to be outside the scope of this paper and focus instead on approaches that do not require significant changes on the NoC. Specifically, we focus on the randomisation of packet routes. By randomly changing the route of every packet injected into the NoC, we can introduce random effects to all side-channels of interest, such as packet timing, energy dissipation, temperature and electromagnetic emissions. In this paper, we concentrate on a threat model based on packet timing, as described in the next subsection. \subsection{Threat Model}\label{ThrMod} In this paper, we assume that the NoC and its interfaces to the cores are secure. We also assume that secure tasks execute in secure cores (i.e. cores that do not allow the execution of unsecured tasks). For this threat model, we assume that the NoC communicates sensitive information between two secure tasks, which we refer as the sensitive communication. We then assume an adversary that has knowledge about the NoC architecture, about the mapping of secure tasks to (secure) NoC cores, and is able to gain control of at most two non-secure NoC cores. A successfull attack happens when the adversary is able to infect two cores that can communicate over a route that intersects with that of the sensitive communication. In that case, the adversary is able to use one of the infected cores to inject low priority packets into the NoC towards the second infected core. The latency interference imposed by the sensitive communication over the malicious low priority traffic can provide the attacker with valuable information about the timing, frequency and volume of the secure communication. This threat model is not new, and its variations have also been used in best-effort NoC-based systems by ~\cite{WAN12} and~\cite{FLO16}. The timing nature of the threat is also the same used in hard real-time uniprocessor systems by~\cite{Yoon16}. By using a route randomisation approach, it is possible to prevent the adversary from obtaining accurate information about the sensitive communication. Because not every packet of the secure communication will interfere on the malicious flows injected by the attacker, the information about timing, frequency and volume they can obtain will be less accurate, which as a consequence increases the resilience of the NoC against the threat. There are many ways to introduce route randomisation in NoCs, and we will discuss our design decisions in subsection \ref{Design}. Figure \ref{FIG-Routes} shows an example of the described threat model. It shows an adversary controlling cores F and G, and using a malicious packet flow (shown as a purple dashed line) to infer data about a sensitive communication between secure cores C and E (shown as a red dotted line, representing the case of a NoC with deterministic XY routing). In the case of a NoC with randomised routing, all routes between C and E will be used (red dashed and dotted lines), preventing the adversary from inspecting the complete sensitive communication. \begin{figure}[!htb] \centering \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{graphs/routes} \caption{Threat model, and examples of route randomisation with pseudo-adaptive XY (from A to B) and west-first (from C to D and C to E) algorithms} \label{FIG-Routes} \end{figure} \subsection{System Model}\label{SysMod} To increase NoC resilience against side-channel attacks while providing hard real-time guarantees to the application tasks running on it, we must make assumptions about the application behaviour such as upper-bounds on resource usage by every application task and packet. In this paper, we follow the well-known and widely used sporadic task model, which makes assumptions about the worst-case execution time (WCET) of all tasks and their shortest inter-arrival interval (i.e. their period). Since we are concerned about NoC communications, we follow an extension of the sporadic task model that considers that tasks inject packets to the NoC only after their execution completes, and that the maximum packet size is known~\cite{Indrusiak14}. Thus, a hard real-time application $\Gamma$ comprises $n$ real-time tasks $\Gamma$ =$ \{\tau_1,\tau_2, \ldots, \tau_n\}$. Each task $\tau_i$ is a 6-tuple $\tau_i$ = ($C_i$, $T_i$, $D_i$, $J_i$, $P_i$, $\{\phi_i\}$) indicating respectively its worst case computation time, period, deadline, release jitter and priority. The sixth element of the tuple is an extension to the sporadic task model proposed by~\cite{Indrusiak14}, and represents the communication packets sent by $\tau_i$ at the end of its execution. Each packet $\phi_i$ is defined as a 3-tuple $\phi_i$ = ($\tau_d$,$Z_i$,$K_i$) representing its destination task, size and maximum release jitter. In this paper, we assume for simplicity that a single packet is released at the end of each execution of each task, but the contributions presented here can be generalised for any number of released packets. Such applications are executed over a NoC platform like the one described in subsection \ref{NoC} above. We model such a platform as a set of cores $\Pi$ =$\{\pi_a,\pi_b, \ldots, \pi_z\}$, a set of switches $\Xi$ =$\{\xi_1,\xi_2, \ldots, \xi_m\}$, and a set of unidirectional links $\Lambda$ =$\{\lambda_{a1},\lambda_{1a}, \lambda_{12}, \lambda_{21}, \ldots, \lambda_{zm}, \lambda_{mz}\}$. We also model the mapping of tasks to cores with the function $map(\tau_i)$ = $\pi_a$. The routing of packets over the NoC can be modelled by the function $route(\pi_a,\pi_b)$ = $\{\lambda_{a1},\lambda_{12},\ldots,\lambda_{mb}\}$, denoting the subset of $\Lambda$ used to transfer packets from core $\pi_a$ to core $\pi_b$. We can then extend the function $map$ to also model the mapping of a packet to its route: $map(\phi_i)$ = $route(map(\tau_i), map(\tau_d))$. With the knowledge of the NoC architectural characteristics such as the latency to cross a link or to route a packet header, and with the knowledge of the length of a packet's route (i.e. its hop count, or $\|route(\pi_a,\pi_b)\|$ as expressed in~\cite{Indrusiak14}), it is possible to calculate the no-load latency $L_i$ of every packet $\phi_i$: the time it takes to completely cross the NoC from its source to destination without any interference or contention from other packets. For the NoC described in subsection \ref{NoC}, and for most commercial and academic NoCs, the no-load latency of a packet can be deterministically obtained, and will not change if its route and the NoC operation frequency do not change. \section{NoC Routing Randomisation}\label{Random} \subsection{Design Choices and Constraints}\label{Design} There are many design choices related to packet routing in different NoC architectures~\cite{Pasricha10}. As expected, those choices also define whether and how route randomisation can be achieved. For example, some NoC architectures use deterministic routing~\cite{Moraes04}, meaning that there is only one possible route between a source and a destination, effectively preventing the approach proposed here. Among NoCs supporting dynamic or adaptive routing, which are the ones we target, there is a key design choice affecting the randomisation approach: source or distributed routing. In source-routed NoCs, the routing decision is done by the source core or its respective NI. This is usually implemented as multiple packet header flits that contain the next-hop information for each of the switches along the packet's route. Once a switch routes one of the packet headers by assigning its output port, it discards that header flit and forwards the rest of the packet through that port. The next switch will route the subsequent header flit, discard it, forward the rest of the packet, and this is repeated all the way towards the packet destination. By following this approach, it is possible to program the source core or its NI to perform full route randomisation before every packet release. In NoCs with distributed routing, the next-hop decision is made by each switch individually. Typically, they have far less resources than the cores (and often than the NIs), so the routing decisions are based on simple rules related to the relative position of the destination core with regards to the switch holding the packet header (e.g. pseudo-adaptive XY~\cite{Dehyadgari05}, turn model~\cite{Glass92}). In those cases, it is only possible to randomly choose from a predefined subset of all possible routes. For instance, pseudo-adaptive XY switches can only randomly choose between two routes between a source and a destination (e.g. routes between cores A and B in Figure \ref{FIG-Routes}). Switches implementing turn model routing may have a larger number of alternative routes to randomly choose from in most cases, but must behave deterministically for some specific cases. Figure \ref{FIG-Routes} shows two routes created by a west-first turn model: packets between core C and D have only one possible route, as the destination is located on the west of the source, while packets from core C to E can take a variety of possible routes. In both source and distributed routing, the NoC component making random decisions must have access to a source of random data, such as a pseudo-random number generator (PRNG, generated by a deterministic algorithm) or a true random number generator (TRNG, often generated out of low level noise signals). Such sources can have significant hardware overhead, thus favouring source routing because of the low area constraints for NoC switches. For the route randomisation approaches reviewed above, however, overheads should be minimal in either case as they only require random sources with one-bit output. Additional issues when randomising packet routes include the potential increase of the packet route, the possibility of deadlocks, and the potential increase of packet latency (and therefore the potential violation of real-time constraints). Let us now address each of them. All the routing approaches reviewed above are minimal: the route they choose has the smallest possible hop count between source and destination. This is because of their obvious advantages in terms of latency, network contention and energy dissipation. However, from the point of view of side-channel attack resilience, it may be interesting to exploit non-minimal randomised routing in order to decorrelate the side channels with the functional properties of the packet communication (e.g. short packet transmission between neighbouring cores would not necessarily have the shortest latency and lowest energy dissipation if they are forced to take a long route across the chip). Deadlock-free packet communication is a critical characteristic for NoCs. This can be achieved at the link arbitration layer, e.g. with priority-preemptive virtual channels~\cite{Indrusiak14}, or at the network layer by restricting the possible turns of the routing algorithm (either in source or in distributed routing). In NoCs that ensure deadlock-freeness at the network layer, special care must be taken by the route randomisation approach to avoid introducing turns that can lead to deadlocks. Finally, route randomisation is likely to change the latencies of packets, both because for every release their routes may have different hop counts (leading to different no-load latencies) and because different routes may trigger different contention scenarios (leading to different blocking times). In our approach, such variability is actually desirable because it is a key aspect to increasing the NoC's resilience against side channel attacks. In the case of hard real-time systems, however, it is critical that such variability is bounded and that the worst-case latencies of all packets are always less than their deadlines. In the next subsection, we propose an extension to existing schedulability analysis to evaluate if that is the case for a given application mapped to a given NoC architecture. The proposed approach is simple, yet general enough to analyse randomised routing approaches following any of the design choices reviewed above: source or distributed, minimal or non-minimal, and with deadline-freeness ensured at the link or network layer. \subsection{Schedulability Analysis}\label{Sched} Schedulability analysis for a set of sporadic packets transferred over a priority-preemptive wormhole switching NoC was presented in~\cite{Shi08}. A set of packets is deemed schedulable if the worst-case latency of each packet is less than their deadline. By coupling that analysis with classical response time analysis for uniprocessor fixed-priority scheduling, an end-to-end schedulability analysis for that type of NoC was proposed in~\cite{Indrusiak14}, considering the worst-case response times of tasks and the worst-case latency of the packets they generate. Both the original analysis from~\cite{Shi08} and the end-to-end extension from~\cite{Indrusiak14} assume static routing, so a different formulation is needed before it can be used for the purpose of this paper. First, we review those formulations, but using the notation described in subsection \ref{SysMod}. According to \cite{Shi08}, the worst-case latency $S_i$ of a packet $\phi_i$ can be obtained from Equation \ref{stan}. This equation is defined recursively and iterated until a stable fixed point is discovered. \begin{equation}\label{stan} S_i \ = \ L_i \ + \ \sum_{\phi_j \in \mathbf{interf}(i)} { \left\lceil {\frac{S_i + K_j + K_j^I}{T_j}} \right\rceil L_j }, \end{equation} The set $\mathbf{interf}(i)$ is the set of higher priority packets $\phi_j$ whose route shares at least one link with the route of $\phi_i$ and therefore can interfere with it. Precisely, $\mathbf{interf}(i)$ = $\{ \phi_j \in \phi : map(\phi_i) \cap map(\phi_j) \ne \emptyset \}$. The two terms $K_j$ and $K_j^I$ denote respectively the maximum release jitter of the interfering packet $\phi_j$ and its maximum indirect interference jitter. As shown in~\cite{Indrusiak14}, $K_j$ is equal to the worst case response time $R_j$ of task $\tau_j$ which produces $\phi_j$, assuming that $\phi_j$ will be released immediately after the end of $\tau_j$'s execution. $R_j$ can be calculated using uniprocessor response time analysis, considering the type of task scheduling by the operating system at each core (e.g. priority-preemptive). And as shown in \cite{Shi08}, the indirect interference jitter $K_j^I$ can be bound by $S_j - L_j$. It can be seen in Equation \ref{stan} that the route of a packet affects its worst-case latency because it defines the set of packets that can add to the interference term of the equation (i.e. sum operator). Route randomisation would change the set $\mathbf{interf}(i)$ at each packet release, since different routes would produce different interference patterns. An intuitive way to find the worst-case latency of a packet with a randomised route would be to calculate the worst-case latency of each of its possible routes with Equation \ref{stan}, and pick the highest value. However, that approach works only if there is a single packet with randomised route, and all others following deterministic routes. A general analysis where all packets could potentially have randomised routes is more complex: all possible routes of a packet would have to be tested with all possible routes of all other packets before the worst case could be found. Furthermore, if one cannot make probabilistic assumptions on the randomisation approach, pathological cases must also be taken into account (e.g. the same route could be chosen again and again for a single packet over a long period of time, even though that is very unlikely). In this paper we assume that, in the worst case, if there is a way for a high-priority packet to interfere with a low priority packet, it would interfere with it in every possible release. This means that even though there may be routes when packets do not interfere with each other, we assume that in the worst case the random choice of route would always pick the ones where there is interference. This is perfectly reasonable when packets have similar periods, but it gets more and more pessimistic as we reduce the periods of higher priority packets. In that case, high priority packets would have a larger number of releases within a single release of a low priority packet, thus interfering more often with it, even though the larger number of releases would make less likely that an interfering route would be chosen every time. To calculate worst-case latencies for the general problem where all packets could have randomised routes, we define the set $\mathbf{interf_r}(i)$ as the set of higher priority packets $\phi_j$ who could, with any of their possible routes, interfere with any of the possible routes of the packet of interest $\phi_i$. To precisely define that set, we must first define a new function $route_r(\pi_a,\pi_b)$ = $\{\lambda_{a1},\lambda_{12},\lambda_{13},\lambda_{14}, \dotsc,\lambda_{mb}\}$, denoting the subset of $\Lambda$ that contains all the links that could be part of any of the routes that could be randomly chosen to transfer packets from core $\pi_a$ to core $\pi_b$, and a new function $map_r(\phi_i)$ = $route_r(map(\tau_i), map(\tau_d))$. Then, $\mathbf{interf_r}(i)$ = $\{ \phi_j \in \phi : map_r(\phi_i) \cap map_r(\phi_j) \ne \emptyset \}$. By applying Equation \ref{stan} with the summation over the set $\mathbf{interf_r}(i)$ instead of the original $\mathbf{interf}(i)$, we can then find an upper bound to the packet latencies over a NoC with randomised routing. \subsection{Optimising the Performance-Security Trade-off}\label{Opt} The schedulability analysis proposed in the previous subsection can only be used to test whether a particular randomised NoC configuration can meet the hard real-time constraints of an application. It offers no alternatives in case of negative results, i.e. when performance constraints are not met. In this subsection we show how the schedulability test can be exploited as a fitness function in a design space exploration process. Similarly to~\cite{Sayuti13} and~\cite{Indrusiak14}, we follow an evolutionary approach to navigate over a key part of the design space: task-core mapping. By changing that mapping, it is possible to achieve fine-grained improvements on schedulability of tasks over cores and packet flows over NoC infrastructure (e.g. tasks that are barely unschedulable can become schedulable by a simple remapping of one of the higher priority tasks that interfere with their computation or communication, thus changing the set $\mathbf{interf}$ in Equation \ref{stan}). The same can happen in the case of route randomisation, since changes on mapping can determine which randomised routes interfere with each other and in turn affect schedulability through changes in the $\mathbf{interf_r}$ set. Figure \ref{FIG-GA} shows the evolutionary pipeline proposed here, which start with an arbitrary population of task mappings using a given route randomisation approach and a given level of security. It then uses evolutionary operators such as mutation and crossover to improve the mapping population with regards to the percentage of schedulable tasks and packets calculated using the proposed modification of Equation \ref{stan}. For every generation of the population, those with the larger number of schedulable tasks and packets are selected to the next generation, where they will be again mutated, crossed-over, evaluated and selected to the subsequent generation. The pipeline stops after a fully schedulable mapping is found, or a predefined maximum number of generations is reached. Unlike many constructive task mapping approaches, the evolutionary pipeline proposed here does not necessarily try to map communicating tasks to the same or neighbouring cores. Its fitness function can be tuned, for instance, to keep communicating tasks as far apart as possible while keeping their communication packets schedulable over a variety of randomly-chosen routes. \begin{figure}[!htb] \centering \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{graphs/ga} \caption{Evolutionary pipeline to optimise performance-security trade-off} \label{FIG-GA} \end{figure} In this paper, we consider two types of route randomisation which can be implemented either as source or distributed routing, namely random XY/YX and random west-first. Random XY/YX is a randomised version of pseudo-adaptive XY routing used in~\cite{Dehyadgari05}, so the route of the packet to its destination is randomly chosen between the XY or the YX route prior to the injection of the packet header into the network. In random west-first, we randomise one of the turn model routing approaches~\cite{Glass92} so that whenever a packet is allowed more than one route it randomly chooses one of them (i.e. uniform probability among all alternatives). We then allow for multiple levels of security by changing how many packet flows are allowed to have their routes randomised. A baseline with no randomisation should have the best results regarding schedulability, given that packets suffer less interference and therefore are more likely to be schedulable. Then, increased levels of security can be achieved by randomised larger percentages of packet flows, up to a fully randomised configuration where all packets follow randomised routes on every release. In the next section, we show experimentally that the proposed schedulability test and evolutionary optimisation pipeline can produce NoC configurations able to hold hard real-time guarantees with maximised security potential. \section{Experimental Work}\label{Eval} We evaluate the proposed approach in two distinct experimental setups. The first uses the proposed schedulability test and evolutionary pipeline to balance the trade-off between performance guarantees and security over a large set of synthetically generated applications. The second uses a cycle-accurate NoC simulator to show the effects of route randomisation upon latency with a realistic application. \subsection{Schedulability-driven optimisation of route randomisation}\label{Eval-sched} This section presents the workflow for analytic schedulability evaluation, and evolution with an evolutionary pipeline based on a genetic algorithm (GA). It follows the pipeline presented in Figure \ref{FIG-GA}. To evaluate the challenge of optimising different applications with different levels of load, we synthetically generate thousands of applications, each of them composed of tasks that communicate with each other with different numbers of packet flows. We then apply the evolutionary pipeline to each one of those applications, aiming to optimise the mappings of tasks in such a way that the whole set of tasks and flows is schedulable at different levels of security. We then plot the percentage of schedulable applications we could achieve for each level of security and each level of load. For the sake of reproducibility, we provide below more details on the whole process. For a single experiment upon a given NoC and set of parameters (e.g. topology, operating frequency, switch and link latencies), a range of packet flow counts are identified, each of which represents a level of communication within the application, and therefore a utilisation load upon the NoC. For each flow count chosen for experimental evaluation, a set of tasksets and packet flowsets are generated, each containing the chosen number of flows. The number of tasks is kept roughly constant, and all of them are either source or destination of at least one packet flow. Therefore, flowsets with higher flow counts represent increasing packet contention between the same endpoints. Flows are assigned to particular source and destination tasks with uniform random probability. This implies that the average number of flows transmitted is even across all tasks, although as a result of the random assignment there may be unique hotspots. Following this, an experiment is initialised by defining a population of initial mappings, and a setting for the target level of security case setting. The levels of security settings are defined as either unsecured, or 25\%, 50\%, 75\% and 100\% secured flows. The secured flows are those that will use randomised routing, providing increased potential protection against side-channel attacks. In case of a partial provision of security e.g. 50\%, security is assigned to the flows in their order of priority, with the highest priority flows being randomised. The rationale is to enforce overall random interference patterns, since higher priority packets are the ones causing interference. A population of chromosomes (each representing of a mapping of tasks to cores upon the NoC, as shown in the upper-left corner of Figure \ref{FIG-GA}) is specified for each level of load (i.e. synthetically generated taskset and flowset with a specific flow count). A genetic algorithm is then used to evolve these chromosomes, performing mutation, crossover and evaluation of the population according to a fitness function based on the modified Equation \ref{stan}. This is done separately for each level of security, each of them generating a different $\mathbf{interf_r}(i)$ set representing the randomised routes of different packet flows. By applying the modified Equation \ref{stan} for every packet flow of the application, it is possible to check whether each of them is schedulable, i.e. their end-to-end latency is less than the respective deadline. The overall fitness of an application is then assumed to be the number of schedulable packet flows. Following the fitness function evaluation, the population is culled to retain only the chromosomes that are at the top of the fitness ranking. If the fitness function indicates that the top-ranked chromosome represents a mapping where all flows are schedulable, then the GA terminates early. Otherwise, following the completion of the chromosome improvement process at a fixed number of generations, the best chromosome (output mapping) and schedulability obtained (both aggregate flows and flowsets) is output for display. To show the impact of the level of security on performance guarantees and resource usage, we have produced several experimental series: \begin{LaTeXdescription} \item[No security (NS)] Deterministic routing, fitness function incorporates schedulability calculated using Equation \ref{stan} with the original $\mathbf{interf}(i)$ set. \item[Percentage security (PS(\%))]A given percentage of the packet flows use randomised routing, fitness function evaluated using Equation \ref{stan} with the proposed $\mathbf{interf_r}(i)$ set reflecting that percentage. \item[Application of security a posteriori (SAP)]Evolution is performed using a fitness function that tests the schedulability without any security mechanisms (only deterministic routing), aiming to find a schedulable mapping without security considerations. Following the completion of this evolutionary process, the evolved best application mapping has 100\% of its packet routes randomised, and is then evaluated with Equation \ref{stan} with the proposed $\mathbf{interf_r}(i)$ set. This experiment therefore aims to show that the optimisation of the mapping should take into account route randomisation, and that poor results can be expected from applying randomisation to a mapping that was optimised for deterministic routing. \end{LaTeXdescription} \begin{table}[!tb] \begin{tabular}{\|l\|l\|l\|} \hline NoC/Packet flowset parameters & Value\\ \hline Maximum packet flow no-load latency & 100 ms\\ Maximum period & 500 ms\\ Priority assignment & Deadline monotonic\\ Route randomisation & Random XY/YX\\ Standard NoC topology & 4x4\\ Enlarged NoC topology & 8x8\\ Flowsets per data point & 100\\ \hline GA parameters & \\ \hline Population size & 100\\ Mutation individual task moving probability & 0.3\\ Maximum generations & 50\\ \hline \end{tabular} \caption{Evaluation parameters} \label{TAB-SIM-PARAMS} \end{table} \subsubsection{Results} Figure \ref{FIG-SCHED-FLOWS-4x4} shows the aggregate schedulability of flows after improvement with the GA, as a mean proportion across all flowsets generated for that data point. It is clear that the ordering of the results series in the illustrated plot follows the proportion of security provided, with an increasing number of flows in the flowsets (and therefore an increasing load upon the NoC) providing a slight reduction in schedulability of the evolved cases. This is as anticipated, in that the worst-case schedulability analysis would be affected by the increased interference present from the optional random routes. However, since each GA run is an independent evolutionary process, the ordering of the series does not always follow the anticipated order. In the SAP series (security a posteriori), evolution is performed using a fitness function that tested schedulability under the no security case (XY routing). However, following the completion of the GA the evolved mapping schedulability was evaluated with all flows using randomised routing. As anticipated, the schedulability of SAP is considerably worse than the NS or PS series, since the evolution was performed using a routing strategy that assumes lower interference than the final evaluation case. Figure \ref{FIG-SCHED-FLOWSETS-4x4} shows the schedulability of flowsets. A flowset is only considered schedulable if every flow within it is schedulable. The results follow the same general trend as in Figure \ref{FIG-SCHED-FLOWS-4x4}, although they reach zero earlier since flowset schedulability requires every component flow to be schedulable. \begin{figure}[!tb] \centering \includegraphics[width=\linewidth,height=5.5cm]{graphs/sched_flows_4x4} \caption{Flow schedulability results in the 4x4 case} \label{FIG-SCHED-FLOWS-4x4} \end{figure} \begin{figure}[!tb] \centering \includegraphics[width=\linewidth,height=5.5cm]{graphs/sched_flowsets_4x4} \caption{Flowset schedulability results in the 4x4 case} \label{FIG-SCHED-FLOWSETS-4x4} \vspace{-0.3cm} \end{figure} For the 8x8 example evaluation case, the results are presented in Figures \ref{FIG-SCHED-FLOWS-8x8} and \ref{FIG-SCHED-FLOWSETS-8x8}. The results show a greater separation between the NS and PS series after NoC evolution, due to the increased NoC size and number of flows allowing a greater complexity of interference graphs when randomised routing is enabled. The SAP case also has significantly lower schedulability, since its evolved mapping was obtained without routing randomisation and imposing randomisation later affects schedulability. In the schedulability of flowsets in Figure \ref{FIG-SCHED-FLOWSETS-8x8}, it is clear there is a wider difference in schedulability between the PS(100) secured case and NS (no security) particularly in flowsets with 70 to 85 flows. This illustrates that as the interference graph becomes more complex it is harder for the GA to find schedulable mappings. \begin{figure}[!tb] \centering \includegraphics[width=\linewidth,height=5.5cm]{graphs/sched_flows_8x8} \caption{Flow schedulability results in the 8x8 case} \label{FIG-SCHED-FLOWS-8x8} \end{figure} \begin{figure}[!tb] \centering \includegraphics[width=\linewidth,height=5.5cm]{graphs/sched_flowsets_8x8} \caption{Flowset schedulability results in the 8x8 case} \label{FIG-SCHED-FLOWSETS-8x8} \vspace{-0.3cm} \end{figure} \subsection{Cycle-accurate simulation of route randomisation}\label{Eval-sim} One of the key concerns in altering network routing is the impact that it will have upon latency for packet transmission, particularly in latency-sensitive real time applications. This section considers via simulation the impact of randomising of the routing protocol on the latency of a previously published real-time application case, the autonomous vehicle application \cite{Indrusiak14}. The simulation framework used for this section is a cycle-accurate NoC model with support for priority preemption and virtual channels. This simulator has been extensively validated in our previous work, frequently being used as a baseline for results in latency and power analysis~\cite{Indrusiak15}~\cite{Harbin16}. \subsubsection{Application Structure} The application used in this application is an autonomous vehicle (AV) application~\cite{Indrusiak14}. This application consists of 38 communicating flows between a set of tasks that represent video processing, system monitoring and control for a robotic vehicle. As is the convention throughout this paper, priorities are defined such that lower priority index values represent the highest priority transmissions. The priorities, data transmission rates, frequencies and deadlines of these application transmissions are as defined in \cite{Indrusiak14}, although a different mapping has been used in order to show the impact of routing protocols on a randomly selected mapping without artificial tuning to favour a particular routing protocol. The application has been mapped onto a 4x3 NoC, and the video resolution of the AV application video streams is 640x480. Since the application mapping is static and a single priority level is used per packet, a packet always travels between a fixed source-destination pair during the simulation. \subsubsection{Routing Alternatives} In this simulation evaluation, two routing alternatives incorporating randomisation are used, in addition to the baseline comparison of XY routing. The first routing alternative uses the XY/YX approach. In this approach, traffic producers determine uniformly randomly on injection whether a data packet will use XY or YX routing, and following this decision a flag is set in the data packet to control the routing behaviour. As a result, the chosen routing algorithm (either XY or YX) is used throughout packet transmission. In addition, an alternative routing structure known as random west first (RWF) routing is also implemented, which allows randomised routing decisions to be taken by individual arbiters during data transmission. RWF requires the packet always be forwarded towards the west when the destination node is west of the current arbiter. However, any other destination port can be chosen uniformly randomly (east, north or south) as long as the direction taken is towards the destination. Therefore, the RWF approach permits a more diverse range of transmission paths than the XY/YX selection approach, providing more potential protection against side channel attacks. \subsubsection{Evaluation Results} The results are presented in Figures \ref{FIG-SIM-RESULTS} and \ref{FIG-SIM-RESULTS-NORM}, illustrating the max-min-mean latencies and normalised latencies for the randomised routing cases (XY/YX and RWF) versus the baseline. Normalised latency is calculated by dividing the end-to-end latency of the packets by the packet size, which provides a metric of latency per flit. This metric is therefore more sensitive to delays in the transmission of short packets. The latency results presented in Figure \ref{FIG-SIM-RESULTS} illustrate that routing randomisation typically increases the communication latencies for the majority of packets compared to fixed XY routing. This is particularly evident in the case of the packets with priority 8 under RWF routing, which experience an increased latency due to contention with other higher priority flows on some of the randomly chosen routes. In the XY/YX routing case, increased latency is also observed for the packets with priorities 21 and 26 in some cases. Interestingly, for some of the packet transmissions with priority 10 and 13, the use of randomised routing is also to reduce latency in the best case, either by routing a higher priority packet so that it no longer causes interference, or routing the current packet around the interferer. Considering the normalised latency results in Figure \ref{FIG-SIM-RESULTS-NORM}, it is clear that the relative impact of route randomisation is most significant upon packets with priorities 13, 15, 18 and 26. These transmissions represent some of the shortest packets in the system, which are therefore more greatly impacted on a relative basis by contention with other packets. As depicted in the previous figure, some priority 13 packets encounter a large reduction in latency during some transmissions as a result of avoiding interference. \begin{figure}[!tb] \centering \includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{graphs/latencies_avapp_xy_rwf} \caption{Communication latency results for the randomised routing case on the AV application} \label{FIG-SIM-RESULTS} \end{figure} \begin{figure}[!tb] \centering \includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{graphs/latencies_avapp_xy_rwf_norm} \caption{Communication latency results (normalised) for the randomised routing case on the AV application} \label{FIG-SIM-RESULTS-NORM} \end{figure} \section{Conclusions and Future Work}\label{conc} This paper has addressed the trade-off between security and hard real-time performance guarantees in Networks-on-Chip. It has proposed route randomisation as a way to increase NoC resilience against side-channel attacks, and has discussed a number of design alternatives for the randomisation approach. It then has proposed a schedulability test for applications running over a secure priority-preemptive NoCs using route randomisation. Finally, the paper identifies an optimisation pipeline which can be guided by the proposed schedulability test towards configurations that can achieve full schedulability while maximising the provided level of security. Extensive experimental work using 4x4 and 8x8 NoCs with random XY/YX routing running thousands of synthetically generated applications show the performance guarantees that can be achieved by the proposed approach at four different levels of security, compared against two baselines (no security, and full security applied a posteriori). Additional experiments with a realistic application running over 4x3 NoCs with random XY/YX and random west-first routing were performed with a cycle-accurate simulator, aiming to show the impact of route randomisation on latency variability, which in turn shows the increased resilience against side-channel attacks. Since this is the first paper addressing the trade-off between security and hard real-time performance in NoCs, it had to make several assumptions to be able to attack the problem. Lifting some of those assumptions will certainly open new avenues of research, such as using different NoC arbitration mechanisms (e.g. TDM) or different route randomisation techniques (e.g. if randomised routes of subsequent releases of packets are never the same, a less pessimistic schedulability test can be used). Addressing those cases will require new schedulability tests, but could still reuse the proposed optimisation pipeline. \subsection*{Acknowledgements} The research described in this paper is funded, in part, by the EPSRC grant, MCC (EP/K011626/1). No new primary data were created during this study.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv" }	6,113
Q: office 365 IMAP mailbox migration error: MigrationRecipientNotFoundException I have tried to do this migration twice now and I get the same error. Error: MigrationRecipientNotFoundException: A recipient wasn‎'t found for "orders@example.com" on the target. Create a recipient of the appropriate type for this migration on the target and try again. I know that on my target (Exchange online server) I have an account named orders@mydomain.com and have an account named orders@example.com at the source. I have two domains, the default example.net and the example.com. Any help would be greatly appreciated. A: Issue had to do with the fact that even though the user was created in office 365, it didn't have a corresponding exchange mailbox. By creating a mailbox for this Office 365 user the migration succeeded.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange" }	764
\section{Introduction} The United Nations~(UN) state that inhabitants of settlements that meet any of the following criteria are defined to be living in an informal settlement~\cite{united2012state}: \begin{quote} \begin{enumerate} \item Inhabitants have no security of tenure vis-\`a-vis the land or dwellings they inhabit, with modalities ranging from squatting to informal rental housing. \item The neighborhoods usually lack, or are cut off from, basic services and city infrastructure. \item The housing may not comply with current planning and building regulations, and is often situated in geographically and environmentally hazardous areas. \end{enumerate} \end{quote} Slums, an example of informal settlements, are the most deprived and excluded form of informal settlements. They can be characterized by poverty and large agglomerations of dilapidated housing, located in the most hazardous urban land, near industries and dump sites, in swamps, degraded soils and flood-prone zones~\cite{Kohli2016}. Slum dwellers are constantly exposed to eviction, disease and violence~\cite{Sclar2005}, which stems from and leads to more severe economic and social constraints~\cite{WEKESA2011238}. Although informal settlements are well studied in the humanities and remote sensing communities \cite{fincher2003planning,WEKESA2011238,united2012state,huchzermeyer2006informal,hofmann2008detecting} in machine learning, only a small amount of research has been conducted on informal settlements, with all of that research using VHR and high resolution(HR) satellite imagery~\cite{mahabir2018critical,mboga2017detection,varshney2015targeting}, a cost prohibitive option for many NGOs and governments of developing nations. In contrast, there is an abundance of freely available and globally accessible LR satellite imagery, provided by the European Space Agency~(ESA), which provides updated imagery of the entire land mass of the Earth every 5 days~\cite{Waitr2016,Esas2img,Esasent2}. To the authors knowledge, no previous approaches have used LR imagery. The ability to map and locate these settlements would give organizations such as UNICEF and other NGOs the ability to provide effective social and economic aid~\cite{pais2002poverty}. This in turn would enable those communities to evolve in a sustainable way, allowing the people living in those environments to gain a much better quality of life addressing multiple of the UN sustainable development goals~\cite{UNsus}. These goals aim to eliminate poverty, increase good health and well-being, provide quality education, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, sustainable work and economic growth, access to industry, innovation and infrastructure.\\ \begin{figure}[t!] \begin{minipage}{.25\textwidth} \includegraphics[width=0.8775\linewidth]{images/kibera_1.png} \end{minipage}% \begin{minipage}{.25\textwidth} \includegraphics[width=0.8775\linewidth]{images/kibera_2.png} \end{minipage} \caption{Two images of the same informal settlement in Kibera, representing the difference between VHR and LR imagery. \textit{Left}: A DigitalGlobe 30cm VHR image. \textit{Right}: The Sentinel-2 10m resolution image.} \label{fig:compresimg} \end{figure} However, solving this problem is challenging due to several factors. 1) It requires collaboration among multiple parties: the NGOs, local government, the remote sensing and machine learning communities. 2) The locations and distribution of these informal settlements have yet to be mapped thoroughly on the ground or aerially, as the mapping demands dedicated human and financial resources. This often leads to partially completed, or completely un-annotated data-sets. 3) Informal settlements tend to grow sporadically (both in space and time), which adds an additional layer of complexity. 4) Even though we have access to satellite imagery for the entire globe, much of this raw data is not in a usable format for machine learning frameworks, making it difficult to extract actionable insights at scale~\cite{xie2015transfer}. 5) There may be no local government structure in a particular settlement, which can inhibit our ability to gather data quickly. and make it difficult to extract good quality ground truth data, see Section \ref{sec:data}.\\ In order to address these challenges, in this work we propose a semi-automated framework that takes a satellite image, directly extracted in its \textit{raw}-user form and outputs a trained classifier that produces binary maps highlighting the locations of informal settlements. Our first approach, the cost-effective approach, takes advantage of the pixel level contextual information by training a classifier to learn a unique spectral signal for informal settlements. When we require finer grained features, such as the roof size, or the density of the surrounding settlements to determine whether or not there exists an informal settlement, we demonstrate a second approach that uses a semantic segmentation neural network to extract these features, the cost-prohibitive solution. See Section~\ref{sec:method}.\\ To ensure that this work can be applied in the field, we have had an active partnership with UNICEF, to understand what we can do to facilitate their needs further and how we can facilitate the needs of other NGOs. Because of this, we focused on developing a system that will work in a computationally efficient and monetary effective manner. Our main approach runs efficiently on a laptop, or desktop CPU and is cost-effective as we only use freely available, openly accessible LR satellite imagery, rather than VHR imagery which can cost hundreds-of-thousands of dollars. \noindent Within this paper we make the following \textbf{contributions}: \begin{quote} \begin{itemize} \item We introduce and extensively validate two machine learning based approaches to detect and map informal settlements. One is cost-effective, the other is cost-prohibitive, but is required when contextual information is needed. \item We demonstrate for the first-time that informal settlements can be detected effectively using only freely and openly accessible LR satellite imagery. \item We release to the public two informal settlement benchmarks for LR and VHR satellite imagery, with accompanying ground truths. \item We provide all source code and models. \end{itemize} \end{quote} In Section~\ref{sec:data} we provide details of the data used and the challenges involved in collecting it. In Section~\ref{sec:relatedwork} we provide a condensed overview of related work and current approaches. In Section~\ref{sec:method} we introduce details of our methodologies and present the results of our contributions in Section~\ref{sec:results}. Finally we conclude and present future work in Section~\ref{sec:conclusions}. \section{Data Acquisition} \label{sec:data} In this work we use a combination of satellite imagery and on-the-ground measurements. However, to take advantage of machine learning frameworks we require an absolute \emph{ground truth}, which facilitates robust training and validation. Ground truth data for this project was very sparse, in part due to the difficulties and financial costs in obtaining the data across vast regions of developing nations. This meant that much of the accessible data was incomplete. Even when the data was available, it was not necessarily in a workable format; either it was provided as part of a PDF, with no external meta-data, or it was simply in an inaccessible format. As part of this work we fused these data sets together, to generate usable data sets that can be used by the community for developing new machine learning models. Data sets can be found here: \url{https://frontierdevelopmentlab.github.io/informal-settlements/}. \subsection{Satellite Data} In the last ten-years there has been an exponential increase in the number of satellites being launched due to the increase in commercial interests. This has accelerated the amount of satellite imagery available and continues to lower the cost of gaining access to VHR data. However, VHR imagery can still cost hundreds, to thousands, to hundreds-of-thousands of dollars per image, or collection of images and is typically only available through commercial providers. Institutions such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration~(NASA) and ESA do provide a multitude of freely available multi-spectral imagery, but this is typically of a much lower resolution, approximately $10-20 m$ resolution per pixel, and many of the fine grained features are blurred, see Figure \ref{fig:compresimg}. This makes it difficult to use a deep learning approach effectively to extract optical features that would be required for distinguishing informal and formal settlements, whereas the VHR imagery, less than $1 m$ resolution per pixel, enables us to do this, especially when we require contextual information, Section~\ref{sec:method}. \subsubsection{Sentinel-2} \begin{figure}[t!] \centering \includegraphics[width=0.45\textwidth, height=3cm]{images/sentinel-l1c-l2a.png} \caption{Image provided by the~\protect\citeauthor{Esas2img}.\textit{Top}: Represents the Sentinel-2 Level-1C uncorrected image. \textit{Bottom}: Represents the Sentinel-2 Level-2A corrected image. This lower image requires an additional time-consuming computational step to correct for atmospheric distortions in the spectral data. Our method does not require the use of this pre-processing step.} \label{fig:s2l1cl2a} \end{figure} The Sentinel-2 mission is part of the Copernicus program by the European Commission (EC). A global earth observation service addressing six thematic areas: land, marine, atmosphere, climate change, emergency management and security through its Sentinel missions. ESA is responsible for the observation infrastructure of the Sentinels~\cite{Copernicussent2}. The data provided by the Sentinels has a free and open data policy implying that the data from the Sentinel missions is available free of charge to everyone. The ease of data access and use, allows all users from the public, private or research communities to reap the socio-economic benefits of such data~\cite{Waitr2016}. A Sentinel-2 image is provided to the end user at Level-1C~\cite{sent2userhandbook} and has already gone through a series of pre-processing steps before it reaches the end user. However, these images have not been corrected for atmospheric distortions. This correction requires additional processing time to convert the image into Level-2A product, resulting in bottom of the atmosphere reflectances, see Figure~\ref{fig:s2l1cl2a} for a comparison. Within this work we directly use the Level-1C images for our computationally and cost efficient approach, mitigating the need to do the computationally costly processing. \paragraph{Multi-spectral Data} The Sentinel-2 satellites map the entire global land mass every 5-days at various resolutions of 10 to 60$m$ per pixel, which means that each pixel represents an area of between $10m^{2}$ to $60m^{2}$. At each resolution, spectral information at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) is provided, creating a total of 13 spectral bands covering the visible, near infrared (NIR) and the shortwave infrared (SWIR) part of the electromagnetic spectrum~\cite{sent2userhandbook,Zhang2017,Drusch2012}. Although there are 13 spectral bands in total, we exclude bands 1, 9 and 10 as they interfere strongly with the atmosphere due to their 60$m$ resolution. This means that we only use the bands 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8A, 11, 12 as these bands have minimal interactions with the atmosphere and are provided at either a 10$m$ or 20$m$ spatial resolution.\\ \subsubsection{Very-High-Resolution Satellite Images} In addition to freely available multi-spectral LR satellite images, we use VHR images with a resolution of up to 30cm per pixel, kindly provided by DigitalGlobe through Satellite Applications Catapult. See Figure~\ref{fig:compresimg} to see the difference in resolution between Sentinel-2 and VHR imagery.We emphasize that VHR imagery is only used in the cost-prohibitive method. \subsection{Annotated Satellite Imagery} We have annotated satellite imagery for the locations of informal settlements in parts of Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Sudan, Colombia and Mumbai. We then project these masks on to the satellite image and extract the necessary spectral information at those specific points, see Figure~\ref{fig:mumbaiannotated} for a example of an annotated ground truth map. We have open sourced the necessary code to do this here: \url{https://frontierdevelopmentlab.github.io/informal-settlements/}. \begin{figure}[t!] \centering \includegraphics[width=0.45\linewidth,height=7cm]{images/Mumbai_gt.jpg} \includegraphics[width=0.45\linewidth,height=7cm]{images/india3.png} \caption{An example of annotated ground truth map. \textit{Left:} The city is Mumbai, the white dots represent informal settlements and the black dots represent the environment. \textit{Right:} The Sentinel-2 image of Mumbai.} \label{fig:mumbaiannotated} \end{figure} \section{Related Work} \label{sec:relatedwork} Recent publications applying machine learning to remote sensing data, in particular to satellite imagery, that have focused on detecting, or mapping informal settlements \cite{xie2015transfer,varshney2015targeting,mboga2017detection,mahabir2018critical,kuffer2016slums,ASMAT2012650,Kohli2016} have typically been trained on a specific region, or feature in combination with VHR \cite{4610942,gevaert2016classification,4610942,kuffer2016slums}. The approaches most in spirit to our own are~\cite{varshney2015targeting,xie2015transfer,Jean790}. \citeauthor{varshney2015targeting} focus on detecting roofs in Eastern Africa using a template matching algorithm and random forest, they take advantage of Google Earths' API to extract high resolution imagery, which although is free to researchers, is not openly available to everyone. \citeauthor{xie2015transfer} and \citeauthor{Jean790} use a mixture of data sources and transfer learning across different data sets to generate poverty maps by taking advantage of night time imagery through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and daytime imagery through Google Earths' API. However, to our knowledge there exists no previous work on predicting informal settlements solely from LR data, or predicting informal settlements in the way that we present here. This inhibits our ability to benchmark against previous methods. Thus, by providing the data sets and the baselines in this paper, we provide a robust way to compare the effectiveness of any future approaches and facilitate the creation of new machine learning methodologies. \section{Methods} \label{sec:method} In this section, we describe our approaches for detecting and mapping informal settlements. We introduce two different methods; a cost-efficient method and cost-prohibitive method. Our \textbf{first method} trains a classifier to learn what the spectrum of an informal settlement is, using LR freely available Sentinel-2 data. To do this, we employ a pixel-wise classification, where the system learns whether or not a 10-band spectra is associated to an informal settlement or the environment, which encompasses everything that is not an informal settlement. Our \textbf{second method}, is a semantic segmentation deep neural network that uses VHR satellite imagery, which is useful when informal settlements do not have unique spectra when compared to the environment, like those in Sudan, see Figure~\ref{fig:sudaninffor}. \subsection{Cost Effective Method} \textbf{Canonical Correlation Forests}~(CCFs)~\cite{rainforth2015canonical} are a decision tree ensemble method for classification and regression. CCFs are the state-of-the-art random forest technique, which have shown to achieve remarkable results for numerous regression and classification tasks~\cite{rainforth2015canonical}. Individual canonical correlation trees are binary decision trees with hyper-plane splits based on local canonical correlation coefficients calculated during training. Like most random forest based approaches, CCFs have very few hyper-parameters to tune and typically provide very good performance out of the box. All that has to be set is the number of trees, $n_{trees}$. For CCFs, setting $n_{trees} = 15$ provides a performance that is empirically equivalent to a random forest that has $n_{trees} = 500$~\cite{rainforth2015canonical}, meaning CCFs have lower computational costs, whilst providing better classification. CCFs work by using canonical correlation analysis~(CCA) and projection bootstrapping during the training of each tree, which projects the data into a space that maximally correlates the inputs with the outputs. This is particularly useful when we have small data-sets, like in our case, as it reduces the amount of artificial randomness required to be added during the tree training procedure and improves the ensemble predictive performance~\cite{rainforth2015canonical}.\\ The computational efficiency aspects of CCFs and their suitability to both small and large data-sets, makes them ideal for detecting informal settlements for three reasons. First, many of the organisations that we aim to help will not have access to a large amount of compute resources, therefore computational efficiency is important. Second, to run the CCFs for both training and prediction, all that has to be called is one function. This ensures that the end user does not need to be an expert in ensemble methods and makes the method akin to plug and play. Finally, some of our ground truth data sets are relatively small, which means that we must use the data as efficiently as possible, which CCFs allow us to do. When VHR and computational cost are not a restriction we can employ a deep learning approach using convolution neural networks~(CNN) to detect informal settlements. \subsection{Cost Prohibitive Method} Since informal settlements can also be classified by the rooftop size and the surrounding building density, we employ a state-of-the-art semantic segmentation neural network on optical~(RGB) VHR satellite imagery to detect these contextual features. These contextual features are important when it is not possible to distinguish informal settlements from the environment by spectral signal in the same region. An example of such an informal settlement is shown in Figure~\ref{fig:sudaninffor}. We see that the informal settlements in a rural region of Al Geneina, Sudan have a very low building density, and also the roof tops of both formal and informal settlements are built out of concrete, meaning they have the same spectral signal. This is in contrast to the dense slums in Nairobi and Mumbai. \begin{figure} \begin{minipage}{.25\textwidth} \includegraphics[width=0.88\linewidth]{images/sudan_1_a.png} \end{minipage}% \begin{minipage}{.25\textwidth} \includegraphics[width=0.88\linewidth]{images/sudan_2_a.png} \end{minipage} \caption{A VHR image comparing an informal, \textit{left} and formal settlement, \textit{right}, in Al Geneina, Sudan. The main distinguishing feature is the wider contextual information, as the material spectrum's are the same.} \label{fig:sudaninffor} \end{figure} \subsubsection{Encoder-Decoder with Atrous Separable Convolution} \begin{figure}[ht!] \centering \begin{minipage}[b]{0.33\textwidth} \includegraphics[height=2.45cm, keepaspectratio]{images/pred_kibera_ccf_corrected.png} \end{minipage} \begin{minipage}[b]{0.33\textwidth} \includegraphics[height=2.45cm, keepaspectratio]{images/pred_kibera_dl_corrected.png} \end{minipage} \begin{minipage}[b]{0.33\textwidth} \includegraphics[height=2.45cm, keepaspectratio]{images/gt_kibera_corrected.png} \end{minipage} \caption{Predictions of informal settlements (white pixels) in Kibera, Nairobi. \textit{Left:} The CCF prediction of informal settlements in Kibera on low-resolution Sentinel-2 spectral imagery. \textit{Middle:} Deep learning based prediction of informal settlements in Kibera, trained on VHR imagery. \textit{Right: }The ground truth informal settlement mask for Kibera.} \label{fig:compDLandCCF} \end{figure} For the task of semantic segmentation of informal settlements we use the DeepLabv3+ encoder-decoder architecture. DeepLabv3+ ~\cite{deeplabv3plus2018} is a deep CNN that extends the prior DeepLabv3 network~\cite{chen2017rethinking} with a decoder module to refine the segmentation results of the previous encoder-decoder architecture particularly at the object boarders. The DeepLabv3 architecture uses Atrous Spatial Pyramid Pooling~(ASPP) with Atrous convolutions to explicitly control the resolution at which feature responses are computed within the CNN. This ASPP module is augmented with image level features to capture longer range information. We use a Xception 65 network backbone in the encoder-decoder architecture. The beneficial use of this Xception model together with applying depth wise separable convolution to ASPP and the decoder modules have been shown in~\cite{deeplabv3plus2018}. \subsubsection{Implementation details} We train the entire network end-to-end with the usual back-propagation algorithm using eight Tesla V100 GPUs with 16 GBs of memory each. We initialize the layer weights using those from the pre-trained PASCAL VOC 2012 model~\cite{pascal-voc-2012}. We then fine-tune in turn the finer strides on the training/validation data. We train our deep network with a batch size of 32, an initial learning rate of 0.001 and a learning rate decay factor of 0.1 every 2.000 steps until convergence. Our experiments are based on a single-scale evaluation. All other hyper-parameters are the same as in the DeepLabv3+ model~\cite{deeplabv3plus2018}. \section{Results} \label{sec:results} \paragraph{Experimental Setup} For each region we have a 10-20$m$ resolution Sentinel-2 image, the corresponding VHR 30-50$cm$ resolution image and the ground truth annotations. We have ensured that the images and annotations are aligned in space and time to reduce any additional noise in the data. When training and validating a model on the same region we use a 80-20 split. We ensure that each class contains the same number of points, we then randomly sample 80\% of each class to generate the training data and then use the remaining 20\% of each class to construct our test set, which is comprised of a different set of points. We then center the training data (testing data accordingly) to have a mean of zero and standard deviation of one. We set the $n_{trees} =10$ for training the CCF. For validating our methods we report both pixel accuracy, and mean intersection over union~(IoU). We use the standard definition of mean IOU, $ meanIOU = \frac{1}{n_{class}}\frac{t_{ii}}{(t_{i} + \sum_j n_{ji} - n_{ii})} $ and pixel classification, $pxclass = \frac{\sum_i n_{ii}}{t_i}$, where $n_{class}$ is the total number of classes, $n_{ij}$ is the number of pixels of class $i$ predicted to belong to class $j$, and $t_i$ is the total number of pixels of class $i$ in ground truth segmentation.\\ We provide a comparison of both the pixel-wise classification with CCFs and the contextual classification with CNNs for the detection and mapping of informal settlements, see Table~\ref{tab:res2}. The CCFs trained solely on freely available and easily accessible low-resolution data perform well, although they are unable to match the performance of the CNN trained on VHR imagery, except for Kibera. Figure~\ref{fig:compDLandCCF} shows the predictions of both methods and the ground truth annotations. Despite having access to very high resolution data, the CNN still manages to miss-classify structural elements of the informal settlements in Kibera. Whereas the CCF, although more granular, incorporates the full structure of the informal settlement in Kibera via only the spectral information. \subsubsection{Generalizability} To demonstrate the adaptability of our approach we train each model on different parts of the world and use that model to perform predictions on other unseen regions across the globe. For this paper we train two models, one on Northern Nairobi, Kenya and another on Medellin, Colombia. The results can be found in Table~\ref{tab:res3}. Even though we only have a small amount of data, we are able to demonstrate that our models can generalize moderately well, even with data that is noisy and partially incomplete. We provide several more results in the appendix~\ref{sec:all} of this paper. \begin{table}[h!] \centering \begin{tabular}{lcc\|cc} \toprule & \multicolumn{2}{c}{\textbf{Pixel Acc.}} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{\textbf{Mean IOU}} \\ \midrule \textbf{Region} & \textbf{CCF} & \textbf{CNN} & \textbf{CCF} & \textbf{CNN} \\ \midrule Kenya, Northern Nairobi & 69.4 & 93.1 & 62.0 & 80.8 \\ Kenya, Kibera & 69.0 & 78.2 & 73.3 & 65.5 \\ South Africa, Capetown* & 92.0 & - & 33.2 & - \\ Sudan, El Daien & 78.0 & 86.0 & 61.3 & 73.4 \\ Sudan, Al Geneina & 83.2 & 89.2 & 35.7 & 76.3 \\ Nigeria, Makoko* & 76.2 & 87.4 & 59.9 & 74.0 \\ Colombia, Medellin* & 84.2 & 95.3 & 74.0 & 83.0 \\ India, Mumbai* & 97.0 & - & 40.3 & - \end{tabular} \caption{Pixel accuracy and mean IOU (\%) results for informal settlement detection using the CCF pixel-wise classification and the contextual classification with CNNs. CCFs are trained and tested on low resolution imagery, CNNs are trained and tested on VHR imagery. Represents that the ground truth annotations are less than 75\% complete for the region.} \label{tab:res2} \end{table} \begin{table}[h!] \centering \begin{tabular}{lcc\|cc} \toprule & \multicolumn{2}{c}{\textbf{Pixel Acc.}} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{\textbf{Mean IOU}} \\ \midrule \textbf{Region} & \textbf{NN} & \textbf{M} & \textbf{NN} & \textbf{M} \\ \midrule Kenya, Northern Nairobi & 69.4 & 55.0 & 62.0 & 54.4 \\ Kenya, Kibera & 67.3 & 63.8 & 54.1 & 56.0\\ South Africa, Capetown & 41.3 & 71.5 & 43.1 & 32.0 \\ Sudan, El Daien & 14.2 & 1.1 & 37.9 & 34.0 \\ Sudan, Al Geneina & 27.1 & 6.0 & 34.9 & 41.0 \\ Nigeria, Makoko* & 59.0 & 77.0 & 37.8 & 34.6 \\ Colombia, Medellin* & 65.0 & 84.2 & 46.9 & 74.0 \\ India, Mumbai* & 37.9 & 63.0 & 32.4 & 34.4 \end{tabular} \caption{Pixel accuracy and mean IOU (\%) results for informal settlement detection using pixel-wise classification with CCFs trained on a particular region and testing on all other regions. Results are for a model trained on Northern Nairobi~(NN) and a model trained on Medellin~(M). * Represents that the ground truth annotations are less than 75\% complete for the region.} \label{tab:res3} \end{table} \newpage \section{Conclusions and Future Work} \label{sec:conclusions} \paragraph{Conclusion} In this work we have composed a series of annotated ground truth data-sets and have provided for the first time benchmarks for detecting informal settlements. We have provided a comprehensive list of the challenges faced in mapping informal settlements and some of the constraints faced by NGOs. In addition to this, we have proposed two different methods for detecting informal settlements, one a cost-effective method, the other a cost-prohibitive method. The first method used computationally efficient CCFs to learn the spectral signal of informal settlements from LR satellite imagery. The second used a CNN combined with VHR satellite imagery to extract finer grained features. We extensively evaluated the proposed methods and demonstrated the generalization capabilities of our methods to detect informal settlements not just in a local region, but globally. In particular, we demonstrated for the first time that informal settlements can be detected effectively using only freely and openly accessible multi-spectral low-resolution satellite imagery. \paragraph{Future work} Because of the uncertainties within the ground truth annotations and the differences in informal settlements across the world, we believe that this problem would be very useful for testing transfer learning and meta-learning approaches. In addition to this, Bayesian approaches would enable us to characterize these uncertainties via probabilistic models. This would provide an effective way to create adaptable models that learn what it means for an informal settlement to be informal, as the model absorbs new information. It is also interesting to note that a 1~$km^{2}$ area containing informal settlements could house up to 129089 people~\cite{desgroppes2011kibera} and so each pixel could represent up to 13 people~\footnote{$100m^{2} = 0.00001km^{2}$, therefore $129089 \times 0.00001 \sim 13 $ people per pixel~($ppx^{-1}$).}. This therefore allows us to also add population estimates to our maps, which UNICEF state is also crucial. This would enable governments and NGOs to understand how much infrastructure is required and how much aid needs to be provided. Although we could have added population estimates in this current work, we have chosen to omit them as it would be irresponsible of us to provide estimates when not enough ground truth data exists, regarding average population numbers in informal settlements. We are actively working with UNICEF to gather more ground truth data for this and additional annotations for informal settlements, as UNICEF would actively like to deploy a system like the one that we have developed here to provide both mapping and population estimates of rural and urban informal settlements. \section{Acknowledgements} This project was executed during the Frontier Development Lab, Europe program, a partnership between the $\phi$-Lab at ESA, the Satellite Applications~(SA) Catapult, Nvidia Corporation, Oxford University and Kellogg College. We gratefully acknowledge the support of Adrien Muller and Tom Jones of SA Catapult for their useful comments, providing VHR imagery and ground truth annotations for Nairobi. We thank UNICEF, in particular Do-Hyung Kim and Clara Palau Montava, for valuable discussions and AIData for access to geo-located Afrobarometer data. We thank Nvidia for computation resources. We thank Yarin Gal, Adam Golinski and Ben Fernando for their for their helpful comments. Bradley Gram-Hansen was also supported by the UK EPSRC CDT in Autonomous Intelligent Machines and Systems (EP/L015897/1). Patrick Helber was supported by the NVIDIA AI Lab program and the BMBF project DeFuseNN (Grant 01IW17002). \newpage \bibliographystyle{ACM-Reference-Format} \balance	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv" }	1,247
{"url":"https:\/\/www.freemathhelp.com\/forum\/threads\/factor-by-grouping.116074\/","text":"# Factor By Grouping\n\nStatus\nNot open for further replies.\n\n##### Full Member\nFactor by grouping.\n\nx^3 - 3x^2 - x + 3\n\nx^2(x - 3) - (- x + 3)\n\nx^2(x - 3) + (x - 3)\n\n(x^2 - 1)(x - 3)\n\n(x - 1)(x + 1)(x - 3)\n\nCorrect?\n\n#### Romsek\n\n##### Full Member\ndid you try multiplying out your result and seeing if it matched the original expression?\n\n#### Jomo\n\n##### Elite Member\nFactor by grouping.\n\nx^3 - 3x^2 - x + 3\n\nx^2(x - 3) - (- x + 3)\nx^2(x - 3) - (- x + 3) = x^2(x - 3) - 1(- x + 3) = x^3 -3x^2 +x -3 which is wrong\n\n#### Jomo\n\n##### Elite Member\nx^2(x - 3) + (x - 3)\n\n(x^2 - 1)(x - 3)\nx^2(x - 3) + (x - 3) = x^2(x - 3) + 1(x - 3) = (x^2 + 1)(x-3) which is not what you got!\n\n##### Full Member\ndid you try multiplying out your result and seeing if it matched the original expression?\nNo. I did not multiply the result.\n\n##### Full Member\nx^2(x - 3) + (x - 3) = x^2(x - 3) + 1(x - 3) = (x^2 + 1)(x-3) which is not what you got!\nWhich is what I tried to get. Give me credit or walk away.\n\n#### Harry_the_cat\n\n##### Senior Member\nFactor by grouping.\n\nx^3 - 3x^2 - x + 3\n\nx^2(x - 3) - (- x + 3) this should be x^2(x - 3) + (-x + 3)\n\nx^2(x - 3) + (x - 3) \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026. x^2(x - 3) + -1(x - 3)\n\n(x^2 - 1)(x - 3) \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026. this is correct, but doesn't follow from your previous line\n\n(x - 1)(x + 1)(x - 3) \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026.. yes this is correct, but you have made several mistakes in your working.\n\nCheck your factorising by expanding this out and see if you get the original expression.\n\nCorrect?\n\n#### lookagain\n\n##### Senior Member\nFactor by grouping.\n\nx^3 - 3x^2 - x + 3\nAddress the potential confusion head-on for the sign of the quantity that you are factoring out in the second pair.\nThen, there should be no doubts:\n\n$$\\displaystyle x^3 - 3x^2 - x + 3 \\ =$$\n\n$$\\displaystyle x^2(x - 3) - x + 3$$\n\nFor this expression to factor, there must be an (x - 3) factor in the second pair, so deliberately write it there,\nwith a few spaces in front of it for a plus sign or subtraction sign (depending), and a constant for a placeholder.\n\n$$\\displaystyle x^2(x - 3) \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ (x - 3) \\$$\n\nWhat multiplied by x equals -x? Negative one does. Write this in as a subtraction sign and 1 next to the second\n(x - 3) factor.\n\n$$\\displaystyle x^2(x - 3) - 1(x - 3) \\$$\n\nLastly, check to see if (-1) multiplied by the (-3) of (x - 3) gives 3, the last term of the original polynomial expression.\nIt does.\n\nFactor out the common factor of (x - 3), either to the right, or to the left, of $$\\displaystyle \\ (x^2 - 1)$$.\n\nThen, $$\\displaystyle (x^2 - 1)(x - 3) \\ =$$\n\n$$\\displaystyle (x - 1)(x + 1)(x - 3)$$\n\nIt just took me a lot of words and some minutes of hen-and-peck typing to explain this, but a newer student could\ncasually write out the steps on paper to fully factoring this by the grouping method in about 20 seconds, give or\ntake some seconds.\n\n- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --\n\nThis could also been factored by grouping this way, with keeping the highest degree term first:\n\n$$\\displaystyle x^3 - 3x^3 - x + 3 \\ =$$\n\n$$\\displaystyle x^3 - x - 3x^2 + 3 \\ =$$\n\n$$\\displaystyle x(x^2 - 1) \\ - \\ 3(x^2 - 1) \\ =$$\n\n$$\\displaystyle (x^2 - 1)(x - 3) \\ =$$\n\n$$\\displaystyle (x - 1)(x + 1)(x - 3)$$\n\nLast edited:\n\n#### Jomo\n\n##### Elite Member\nWhich is what I tried to get. Give me credit or walk away.\nNo, I will not give you credit if you are wrong. I hate when teachers do that. When you are wrong I will tell that you are wrong and when you are right I will say that.\n\n##### Full Member\nAddress the potential confusion head-on for the sign of the quantity that you are factoring out in the second pair.\nThen, there should be no doubts:\n\n$$\\displaystyle x^3 - 3x^2 - x + 3 \\ =$$\n\n$$\\displaystyle x^2(x - 3) - x + 3$$\n\nFor this expression to factor, there must be an (x - 3) factor in the second pair, so deliberately write it there,\nwith a few spaces in front of it for a plus sign or subtraction sign (depending), and a constant for a placeholder.\n\n$$\\displaystyle x^2(x - 3) \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ (x - 3) \\$$\n\nWhat multiplied by x equals -x? Negative one does. Write this in as a subtraction sign and 1 next to the second\n(x - 3) factor.\n\n$$\\displaystyle x^2(x - 3) - 1(x - 3) \\$$\n\nLastly, check to see if (-1) multiplied by the (-3) of (x - 3) gives 3, the last term of the original polynomial expression.\nIt does.\n\nFactor out the common factor of (x - 3), either to the right, or to the left, of $$\\displaystyle \\ (x^2 - 1)$$.\n\nThen, $$\\displaystyle (x^2 - 1)(x - 3) \\ =$$\n\n$$\\displaystyle (x - 1)(x + 1)(x - 3)$$\n\nIt just took me a lot of words and some minutes of hen-and-peck typing to explain this, but a newer student could\ncasually write out the steps on paper to fully factoring this by the grouping method in about 20 seconds, give or\ntake some seconds.\n\n- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --\n\nThis could also been factored by grouping this way, with keeping the highest degree term first:\n\n$$\\displaystyle x^3 - 3x^3 - x + 3 \\ =$$\n\n$$\\displaystyle x^3 - x - 3x^2 + 3 \\ =$$\n\n$$\\displaystyle x(x^2 - 1) \\ - \\ 3(x^2 - 1) \\ =$$\n\n$$\\displaystyle (x^2 - 1)(x - 3) \\ =$$\n\n$$\\displaystyle (x - 1)(x + 1)(x - 3)$$\nNicely done.\n\n##### Full Member\nNo, I will not give you credit if you are wrong. I hate when teachers do that. When you are wrong I will tell that you are wrong and when you are right I will say that.\nFair enough. I am also old school.\n\n#### Otis\n\n##### Senior Member\n... Give me credit or walk away.\nThat's not very nice. It's an example of one of the same types of bad behavior that got you banned from two other math sites.\n\n$$\\;$$\n\n$$\\;$$","date":"2019-08-20 16:03:28","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.35042768716812134, \"perplexity\": 758.4581818290645}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2019-35\/segments\/1566027315551.61\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20190820154633-20190820180633-00393.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
require 'securerandom' require 'digest/sha3' module DEVp2p class RLPxSession SUPPORTED_RLPX_VERSION = 4 ENC_CIPHER = 'AES-256-CTR' MAC_CIPHER = 'AES-256-ECB' extend Configurable add_config( eip8_auth_sedes: RLP::Sedes::List.new( elements: [ RLP::Sedes::Binary.new(min_length: 65, max_length: 65), # sig RLP::Sedes::Binary.new(min_length: 64, max_length: 64), # pubkey RLP::Sedes::Binary.new(min_length: 32, max_length: 32), # nonce RLP::Sedes::BigEndianInt.new, # version ], strict: false ), eip8_ack_sedes: RLP::Sedes::List.new( elements: [ RLP::Sedes::Binary.new(min_length: 64, max_length: 64), # ephemeral pubkey RLP::Sedes::Binary.new(min_length: 32, max_length: 32), # nonce RLP::Sedes::BigEndianInt.new # version ], strict: false ) ) attr :ecc, :ephemeral_ecc, :initiator_nonce, :responder_nonce, :remote_version, :remote_pubkey, :remote_ephemeral_pubkey def initialize(ecc, is_initiator=false, ephemeral_privkey=nil) @ecc = ecc @is_initiator = is_initiator @ephemeral_ecc = Crypto::ECCx.new ephemeral_privkey @ready = false @got_eip8_auth, @got_eip8_ack = false, false end ### Frame Handling def encrypt(header, frame) raise RLPxSessionError, 'not ready' unless ready? raise ArgumentError, 'invalid header length' unless header.size == 16 raise ArgumentError, 'invalid frame padding' unless frame.size % 16 == 0 header_ciphertext = aes_enc header raise RLPxSessionError unless header_ciphertext.size == header.size header_mac = egress_mac(Utils.sxor(mac_enc(egress_mac[0,16]), header_ciphertext))[0,16] frame_ciphertext = aes_enc frame raise RLPxSessionError unless frame_ciphertext.size == frame.size fmac_seed = egress_mac frame_ciphertext frame_mac = egress_mac(Utils.sxor(mac_enc(egress_mac[0,16]), fmac_seed[0,16]))[0,16] header_ciphertext + header_mac + frame_ciphertext + frame_mac end def decrypt_header(data) raise RLPxSessionError, 'not ready' unless ready? raise ArgumentError, 'invalid data length' unless data.size == 32 header_ciphertext = data[0,16] header_mac = data[16,16] expected_header_mac = ingress_mac(Utils.sxor(mac_enc(ingress_mac[0,16]), header_ciphertext))[0,16] raise AuthenticationError, 'invalid header mac' unless expected_header_mac == header_mac aes_dec header_ciphertext end def decrypt_body(data, body_size) raise RLPxSessionError, 'not ready' unless ready? read_size = Utils.ceil16 body_size raise FormatError, 'insufficient body length' unless data.size >= read_size + 16 frame_ciphertext = data[0, read_size] frame_mac = data[read_size, 16] raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid frame mac length' unless frame_mac.size == 16 fmac_seed = ingress_mac frame_ciphertext expected_frame_mac = ingress_mac(Utils.sxor(mac_enc(ingress_mac[0,16]), fmac_seed[0,16]))[0,16] raise AuthenticationError, 'invalid frame mac' unless expected_frame_mac == frame_mac aes_dec(frame_ciphertext)[0,body_size] end def decrypt(data) header = decrypt_header data[0,32] body_size = Frame.decode_body_size header len = 32 + Utils.ceil16(body_size) + 16 raise FormatError, 'insufficient body length' unless data.size >= len frame = decrypt_body data[32..-1], body_size {header: header, frame: frame, bytes_read: len} end ### Handshake Auth Message Handling ## # 1. initiator generates ecdhe-random and nonce and creates auth # 2. initiator connects to remote and sends auth # # New: # # E(remote-pubk, # S(ephemeral-privk, ecdh-shared-secret ^ nonce) \|\| # H(ephemeral-pubk) \|\| pubk \|\| nonce \|\| 0x0 # ) # # Known: # # E(remote-pubk, # S(ephemeral-privk, token ^ nonce) \|\| # H(ephemeral-pubk) \|\| pubk \|\| nonce \|\| 0x1 # ) # def create_auth_message(remote_pubkey, ephemeral_privkey=nil, nonce=nil) raise RLPxSessionError, 'must be initiator' unless initiator? raise InvalidKeyError, 'invalid remote pubkey' unless Crypto::ECCx.valid_key?(remote_pubkey) @remote_pubkey = remote_pubkey token = @ecc.get_ecdh_key remote_pubkey flag = 0x0 @initiator_nonce = nonce \|\| Crypto.keccak256(Utils.int_to_big_endian(SecureRandom.random_number(TT256))) raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid nonce length' unless @initiator_nonce.size == 32 token_xor_nonce = Utils.sxor token, @initiator_nonce raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid token xor nonce length' unless token_xor_nonce.size == 32 ephemeral_pubkey = @ephemeral_ecc.raw_pubkey raise InvalidKeyError, 'invalid ephemeral pubkey' unless ephemeral_pubkey.size == 512 / 8 && Crypto::ECCx.valid_key?(ephemeral_pubkey) sig = @ephemeral_ecc.sign token_xor_nonce raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid signature' unless sig.size == 65 auth_message = "#{sig}#{Crypto.keccak256(ephemeral_pubkey)}#{@ecc.raw_pubkey}#{@initiator_nonce}#{flag.chr}" raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid auth message length' unless auth_message.size == 194 auth_message end def encrypt_auth_message(auth_message, remote_pubkey=nil) raise RLPxSessionError, 'must be initiator' unless initiator? remote_pubkey \|\|= @remote_pubkey @auth_init = @ecc.ecies_encrypt auth_message, remote_pubkey raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid encrypted auth message length' unless @auth_init.size == 307 @auth_init end ## # 3. optionally, remote decrypts and verifies auth (checks that recovery of # signature == H(ephemeral-pubk)) # 4. remote generates authAck from remote-ephemeral-pubk and nonce (authAck # = authRecipient handshake) # # optional: remote derives secrets and preemptively sends # protocol-handshake (steps 9,11,8,10) # def decode_authentication(ciphertext) raise RLPxSessionError, 'must not be initiator' if initiator? raise ArgumentError, 'invalid ciphertext length' unless ciphertext.size >= 307 result = nil begin result = decode_auth_plain ciphertext rescue AuthenticationError result = decode_auth_eip8 ciphertext @got_eip8_auth = true end size, sig, initiator_pubkey, nonce, version = result @auth_init = ciphertext[0, size] token = @ecc.get_ecdh_key initiator_pubkey @remote_ephemeral_pubkey = Crypto.ecdsa_recover(Utils.sxor(token, nonce), sig) raise InvalidKeyError, 'invalid remote ephemeral pubkey' unless Crypto::ECCx.valid_key?(@remote_ephemeral_pubkey) @initiator_nonce = nonce @remote_pubkey = initiator_pubkey @remote_version = version ciphertext[size..-1] end ### Handshake ack message handling ## # authRecipient = E(remote-pubk, remote-ephemeral-pubk \|\| nonce \|\| 0x1) // token found # authRecipient = E(remote-pubk, remote-ephemeral-pubk \|\| nonce \|\| 0x0) // token not found # # nonce, ephemeral_pubkey, version are local # def create_auth_ack_message(ephemeral_pubkey=nil, nonce=nil, version=SUPPORTED_RLPX_VERSION, eip8=false) raise RLPxSessionError, 'must not be initiator' if initiator? ephemeral_pubkey = ephemeral_pubkey \|\| @ephemeral_ecc.raw_pubkey @responder_nonce = nonce \|\| Crypto.keccak256(Utils.int_to_big_endian(SecureRandom.random_number(TT256))) if eip8 \|\| @got_eip8_auth msg = create_eip8_auth_ack_message ephemeral_pubkey, @responder_nonce, version raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid msg size' unless msg.size > 97 else msg = "#{ephemeral_pubkey}#{@responder_nonce}\x00" raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid msg size' unless msg.size == 97 end msg end def create_eip8_auth_ack_message(ephemeral_pubkey, nonce, version) data = RLP.encode [ephemeral_pubkey, nonce, version], sedes: eip8_ack_sedes pad = SecureRandom.random_bytes(SecureRandom.random_number(151)+100) # (100..150) random bytes "#{data}#{pad}" end def encrypt_auth_ack_message(ack_message, eip8=false, remote_pubkey=nil) raise RLPxSessionError, 'must not be initiator' if initiator? remote_pubkey \|\|= @remote_pubkey if eip8 \|\| @got_eip8_auth # The EIP-8 version has an authenticated length prefix prefix = [ack_message.size + Crypto::ECIES::ENCRYPT_OVERHEAD_LENGTH].pack("S>") @auth_ack = "#{prefix}#{@ecc.ecies_encrypt(ack_message, remote_pubkey, prefix)}" else @auth_ack = @ecc.ecies_encrypt ack_message, remote_pubkey raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid auth ack message length' unless @auth_ack.size == 210 end @auth_ack end def decode_auth_ack_message(ciphertext) raise RLPxSessionError, 'must be initiator' unless initiator? raise ArgumentError, 'invalid ciphertext length' unless ciphertext.size >= 210 result = nil begin result = decode_ack_plain ciphertext rescue AuthenticationError result = decode_ack_eip8 ciphertext @got_eip8_ack = true end size, ephemeral_pubkey, nonce, version = result @auth_ack = ciphertext[0,size] @remote_ephemeral_pubkey = ephemeral_pubkey[0,64] @responder_nonce = nonce @remote_version = version raise InvalidKeyError, 'invalid remote ephemeral pubkey' unless Crypto::ECCx.valid_key?(@remote_ephemeral_pubkey) ciphertext[size..-1] end ### Handshake Key Derivation def setup_cipher raise RLPxSessionError, 'missing responder nonce' unless @responder_nonce raise RLPxSessionError, 'missing initiator_nonce' unless @initiator_nonce raise RLPxSessionError, 'missing auth_init' unless @auth_init raise RLPxSessionError, 'missing auth_ack' unless @auth_ack raise RLPxSessionError, 'missing remote ephemeral pubkey' unless @remote_ephemeral_pubkey raise InvalidKeyError, 'invalid remote ephemeral pubkey' unless Crypto::ECCx.valid_key?(@remote_ephemeral_pubkey) # derive base secrets from ephemeral key agreement # ecdhe-shared-secret = ecdh.agree(ephemeral-privkey, remote-ephemeral-pubk) @ecdhe_shared_secret = @ephemeral_ecc.get_ecdh_key(@remote_ephemeral_pubkey) @shared_secret = Crypto.keccak256("#{@ecdhe_shared_secret}#{Crypto.keccak256(@responder_nonce + @initiator_nonce)}") @token = Crypto.keccak256 @shared_secret @aes_secret = Crypto.keccak256 "#{@ecdhe_shared_secret}#{@shared_secret}" @mac_secret = Crypto.keccak256 "#{@ecdhe_shared_secret}#{@aes_secret}" mac1 = keccak256 "#{Utils.sxor(@mac_secret, @responder_nonce)}#{@auth_init}" mac2 = keccak256 "#{Utils.sxor(@mac_secret, @initiator_nonce)}#{@auth_ack}" if initiator? @egress_mac, @ingress_mac = mac1, mac2 else @egress_mac, @ingress_mac = mac2, mac1 end iv = "\x00" * 16 @aes_enc = OpenSSL::Cipher.new(ENC_CIPHER).tap do \|c\| c.encrypt c.iv = iv c.key = @aes_secret end @aes_dec = OpenSSL::Cipher.new(ENC_CIPHER).tap do \|c\| c.decrypt c.iv = iv c.key = @aes_secret end @mac_enc = OpenSSL::Cipher.new(MAC_CIPHER).tap do \|c\| c.encrypt c.key = @mac_secret end @ready = true end ### Helpers def ready? @ready end def initiator? @is_initiator end def mac_enc(data) @mac_enc.update data end def aes_enc(data='') @aes_enc.update data end def aes_dec(data='') @aes_dec.update data end def egress_mac(data='') @egress_mac.update data return @egress_mac.digest end def ingress_mac(data='') @ingress_mac.update data return @ingress_mac.digest end private def keccak256(x) Digest::SHA3.new(256).tap {\|d\| d.update x } end ## # decode legacy pre-EIP-8 auth message format # def decode_auth_plain(ciphertext) message = begin @ecc.ecies_decrypt ciphertext[0,307] rescue raise AuthenticationError, $! end raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid message length' unless message.size == 194 sig = message[0,65] pubkey = message[65+32,64] raise InvalidKeyError, 'invalid initiator pubkey' unless Crypto::ECCx.valid_key?(pubkey) nonce = message[65+32+64,32] flag = message[(65+32+64+32)..-1].ord raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid flag' unless flag == 0 [307, sig, pubkey, nonce, 4] end ## # decode EIP-8 auth message format # def decode_auth_eip8(ciphertext) size = ciphertext[0,2].unpack('S>').first + 2 raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid ciphertext size' unless ciphertext.size >= size message = begin @ecc.ecies_decrypt ciphertext[2...size], ciphertext[0,2] rescue raise AuthenticationError, $! end values = RLP.decode message, sedes: eip8_auth_sedes, strict: false raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid values size' unless values.size >= 4 [size] + values[0,4] end ## # decode legacy pre-EIP-8 ack message format # def decode_ack_plain(ciphertext) message = begin @ecc.ecies_decrypt ciphertext[0,210] rescue raise AuthenticationError, $! end raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid message length' unless message.size == 64+32+1 ephemeral_pubkey = message[0,64] nonce = message[64,32] known = message[-1].ord raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid known byte' unless known == 0 [210, ephemeral_pubkey, nonce, 4] end ## # decode EIP-8 ack message format # def decode_ack_eip8(ciphertext) size = ciphertext[0,2].unpack('S>').first + 2 raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid ciphertext length' unless ciphertext.size == size message = begin @ecc.ecies_decrypt(ciphertext[2...size], ciphertext[0,2]) rescue raise AuthenticationError, $! end values = RLP.decode message, sedes: eip8_ack_sedes, strict: false raise RLPxSessionError, 'invalid values length' unless values.size >= 3 [size] + values[0,3] end end end	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub" }	4,265
Ritsem, among other things has a hydroelectric plant(320MW,160m) which is located where the lake Sitasjaure falls into Akkajaure by a constructed tunnel(16 km made by:"Swedish state powerboard"Vattenfall""). It is located within Gällivare Municipality in Norrbotten County, Sweden. The location also has a camp used by the Sami people, and there is even a mountain cabin and Caravan camp run by the Svenska Turistföreningen. The cabin is mostly used by tourists who are traveling to/from Northern Padjelanta and Northern Sarek and are using the ferry (run by Svenska Turistföreningen) across Akkajaure. Ritsem is located near the Stora Sjöfallet National Park. There is a regular bus line between Ritsem and Gällivare during both summer and winter. Climate Ritsem has a subarctic climate that is significantly moderated by the North Atlantic Current outside of the nearby Norwegian coastline. As a result, summers are chilly and winters cold, but not severely cold when compared to areas on such northerly latitudes elsewhere in the world. Given its very high latitude, Ritsem sees a long midnight sun period in summer, whereas a shorter polar night period with significant twilight hours occurs in winter. Due to the low sun however, summers can see frost well inside the midnight sun period. Ritsem's all-time June cold record is lower than any other of the 100 stations featured in the national weather service's monthly reports. It does have to be taken into account that these records only date back to 1981. By the time Atlantic depressions set in during late autumn, temperatures are far milder in Ritsem than further east and even further south in Lapland. Days above freezing are common throughout November. The ensuing winters very seldom see temperatures fall below , unlike in the aforementioned areas. Even though the maritime air is strong during winter, precipitation in form of snow is normally not extreme in raw content, although large snowpacks form due to the lack of thaws. References External links Svenska Turistföreningen Populated places in Gällivare Municipality Lapland (Sweden)	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia" }	5,259
require 'spreadsheet' module StreetNames class Parser attr_reader :streets def initialize locale=LOCALE @locale = locale end def load_cities @streets \|\|= CITIES.each_value.map do \|city\| spreadsheet.worksheets[city].map {\|parameters\| Street.new parameters } end.inject(:+) end def save! db = StreetNames::Database.new @locale db.save! :streets => @streets.map(&:to_hash) end private def spreadsheet @spreadsheet \|\|= Spreadsheet.open("./data/cyprus_postcode_dir_#{@locale}.xls") end end end	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub" }	8,710
Q: Extracting values from arrays in custom fields I'm trying to come up with a single array of all values in specific custom fields. The values themselves are also arrays. I've tried all sorts of array functions but haven't come across the right one or the right combination. Here is my code thus far: $args = array( 'post_type' => 'match_report', 'post_status' => 'publish', 'meta_query' => array( 'relation' => 'OR', array( 'key' => 'report_home-scorers' ), array( 'key' => 'report_away-scorers' ) ) ); $reportscore = new WP_Query($args); $scorersResults = array(); if ( $reportscore->have_posts() ) { while ( $reportscore->have_posts() ) { $reportscore->the_post(); $homescorers = get_post_meta($post->ID,'report_home-scorers',false); $awayscorers = get_post_meta($post->ID,'report_away-scorers',false); foreach ($homescorers as $homescorer){ array_push($scorersResults, $homescorer); } foreach ($awayscorers as $awayscorer){ array_push($scorersResults, $awayscorer); } ?> <?php } wp_reset_postdata(); //endif }//endwhile $scorerResults = remove_empty($scorersResults); function remove_empty($array) { return array_filter($array, '_remove_empty_internal'); } function _remove_empty_internal($value) { return !empty($value) \|\| $value === 0; } Here what I get if I print_r($scorerResults); : Array ( [1] => Array ( [0] => 1 [1] => 63 ) [2] => Array ( [0] => 263 [1] => 195 ) [3] => Array ( [0] => ) [4] => Array ( [0] => ) ) I just want the values in the internal arrays in an array. A: Assuming you want the $scoreResults array to end up as array(1,63,263,195) you could use the array_reduce function like this: function gatherScores($lhs, $rhs) { foreach ($rhs as $key => $value) if ($value) $lhs[] = $value; return $lhs; } $scorerResults = array_reduce($scorerResults, "gatherScores", array()); I'm not sure what the blank values are in your third and fourth arrays and how they should be handled, so you may need to change the if ($value) condition to check for something different. As it stands it'll obviously also filter out zero scores.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange" }	1,432
Goals To Promote The Relations Between Semantics And Other Disciplines. To Teach The Basic Concepts Of Semantics. To Teach Stagnant And Dynamic Semantics Topics. To Teach The Characteristics Of Turkish In Terms Of Semantics. Contents After evaluating tenors, giving informations about the tenors of Turkish. Generallly in the context of static and progressive tenors, the features of Turkish tenors and tenor changings will be taught with the examples. 2 To Know How Language And Literature Are Used As A Material in Education And Training And To Make Effort To Protect And Develop This Base. 1 Semantics-Definition,History, Content read the course material to be processed. 2 Language System,Static Semantics Word Semantics, Conceptualization read the course material to be processed. 3 Semiotic and The Studies In This Field. read the course material to be processed. 4 Concept Field, Meaning Decisive And Analyzer read the course material to be processed. 5 Semantic text analysis read the course material to be processed. 6 Basic Meaning, Designs, Emotional Values read the course material to be processed. 7 Connotation, Meaning transference read the course material to be processed. 8 Idiom Transference Noun Transference read the course material to be processed. 10 Polysemy , Homonym, Context read the course material to be processed. 11 Reconcilement, Lexical And Apparent In The Semantics read the course material to be processed. 12 Dynamic Semantics, Extension, Restriction,change of Semantics, Euphemism read the course material to be processed. 13 Characteristics Of Turkish In Terms Of Sentence Semantics read the course material to be processed. 14 Characteristics Of Turkish In Terms Of Sentence Semantics read the course material to be processed. Additional Resources Doğan AKSAN, Anlambilim Konuları ve Türkçenin Anlambilim Konuları, Engin Yayınları, Ankara 1999. Doğan AKSAN, Her Yönüyle Dil Ana Çizgileriyle Dilbilim, TDK, Ankara 2003 Mehmet RİFAT, Dilbilim ve Göstergebilimin Çağdaş Kuramları, Düzlem Yayınları, İstanbul 1990.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	513
With the sad news this week about the death of Alphonza Watson in Baltimore which brought the number of transgender women of color in the US killed in the first three months up to 8 now, the story of CeCe McDonald takes on an even greater significance. A compelling new documentary from Jacqueline Gares doesn't just tell what brought CeCe to national attention, but it also focuses on the plight and dangers that trans-women face on a daily basis. In 2011, Cece and three of her friends were attacked in the street by 4 people who had started off making racist and transphobic taunts and then one of the women attacked CeCe in the face with a broken glass causing a large bleeding gash. After this one of the men came after CeCe and tried to attack her, and so she took a pair of scissors out of her purse and turned around to face him, and he was stabbed in the chest and died from the wound. From the word go, the Minneapolis authorities refused to accept either that CeCe had been defending herself, or that she was in fact the victim of a hate crime. They charged her with murder, but after an enormous public outcry that spread globally, CeCe was offered a plea bargain to second-class manslaughter which she was coerced to accept and for which she was jailed for 41 months. Made to serve out her time in a mens prison, and for a large part of the sentence, CeCe was put in solitary confinement. Her supporters never eased up on their campaigning and by this time they included the transgender actress and LGBT advocate Laverne Cox (who also acted as an Executive Producer for this documentary) who was there to greet CeCe on her release and to help propel her to the next part of her life. The second part of the movie starts with the background story of CeCe's upbringing and family which would have been much useful for us to help understand her more if we have learnt all this earlier. The reunion with her mother and also her siblings was, like most of this story, was highly emotional but still odd that none of them had featured in the campaign to get justice for CeCe. Over the next few years we see an uneducated CeCe develop into an articulate spokesperson for trans women of color as the community looked up to her as an example that they wanted to aspire too. CeCe was the rare one of their number who hadn't been killed when she was attacked, but she stood up for herself and fought back and survived. As she finds herself in demand as activist and a motivational speaker, we get to learn of the real risks that trans-women, particular those of color, have to deal with on a daily basis. Even if we had an idea about these before hand, seeing and hearing about them first hand by members of the very community, is both a shocking and sobering experience. The second part of the movie lacks some clarity and direction, but it's hard to fault a documentary that covers such a highly emotional subject, and anyway it makes up for it in part with some excellent interviews like that with the iconic 1960's activist Angela Davis. You may need a box of tissues when you watch this one.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	2,358
{"url":"https:\/\/web2.0calc.com\/questions\/geometry-question_94882","text":"+0\n\n# Geometry Question\n\n0\n54\n2\n\nThe tangent to the circumcircle of triangle WXY at X is drawn, and the line through W that is parallel to this tangent intersects XY at Z\u00a0If XY=14 and WX=6 find YZ.\n\nJun 16, 2022\n\n#1\n+9458\n+2\n\nLet P be the point on the tangent at the bottom of the image.\n\nNote that\u00a0\$\\angle PXZ = \\angle XZW\$\u00a0since they are alternate angles of the pair of parallel lines.\n\nAlso,\u00a0\$\\angle PXZ = \\angle XWY\$\u00a0since they are angles in alternate segments.\n\nTherefore\u00a0\$\\angle XZW = \\angle XWY\$. Also,\u00a0\$\\angle ZXW = \\angle WXY\$\u00a0since they are the same angle.\n\nBy AA postulate,\u00a0\$\\triangle XZW \\sim \\triangle XWY\$.\n\nLet YZ = t. Then by similar triangles,\u00a0\$\\dfrac{XZ}{XW} = \\dfrac{XW}{XY}\$. i.e.,\u00a0\$\\dfrac{14 - t}{6} = \\dfrac{6}{14}\$.\n\nCan you take it from here?\n\nJun 16, 2022\n#2\n+2\n\nThanks for the help!\n\nGuest\u00a0Jun 16, 2022","date":"2022-08-15 04:41:17","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": false, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.9134083986282349, \"perplexity\": 3012.523106021675}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2022-33\/segments\/1659882572127.33\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20220815024523-20220815054523-00384.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
Q: how to rotate .eps file I have a problem with rotation of .eps files for my dissertation. Initially, I thought it was a problem during conversion of .pdf to .eps. I tried the conversion in several ways: using Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro in Windows, in Linux the following commands: inkscape input.pdf --export-eps=output.eps and pdftops -eps file.pdf. All methods give good .eps files, but when I try to rotate (90 degree rotation) them in Latex, nothing works. I used \includegraphics[width=6.0 in,angle=90], also \special{ps: gsave -90 rotate}\......\special{ps: grestore }, and some other methods but with no luck. Any solutions (Windows, Linux, Mac) will be appreciated. A: From the Latex Wikibooks page: The package rotating gives you the possibility to rotate any object of an arbitrary angle. Once you have loaded it with the standard command in the preamble: \usepackage{rotating} you can use three new environments: \begin{sideways} %... \end{sideways} it will rotate the whole argument by 90 degrees counterclockwise. Moreover: \begin{turn}{30} %... \end{turn} it will turn the argument of 30 degrees. You can give any angle as an argument, whether it is positive or negative. It will leave the necessary space to avoid any overlapping of text. \begin{rotate}{30} %... \end{rotate} like turn, but it will not add any extra space. Also, note the warning: Many DVI viewers do not support rotating of text and tables. The text will be displayed normally. You must convert your DVI file to a PDF document and view it in a PDF viewer to see the rotation in effect. Take care however that printing from those PDF files may rotate the respective page again in the same direction under certain circumstances. This behaviour can be influenced by the settings of your dvi2pdf converter, look at your manual for further information. A: Make sure you have loaded the graphicx package not graphics then \includegraphics[width=6.0in,angle=90]{file} should work. Note if it is an EPS file then you need latex (and it may not show rotated in a dvi previewer) if you are using pdflatex you should convert the EPS to pdf first (or if I read your question correctly, just use the original pdf not the EPS).	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange" }	6,857
//--- // // License: MIT // Author: David Burken // Description: Interface for Kakadu compressor. // //--- // $Id$ #ifndef ossimKakaduCompressorInterface_HEADER #define ossimKakaduCompressorInterface_HEADER 1 #include <ossim/base/ossimConstants.h> #include <ossim/base/ossimIosFwd.h> #include <ossim/base/ossimRefPtr.h> class ossimImageData; class ossimIpt; class ossimIrect; class ossimNitfJ2klraTag; class ossimProperty; /** * @class GeoPackage writer interface. * * This interface is for using the ossimKakaduCompressor outside of the * kakadu plugin. / class OSSIM_DLL ossimKakaduCompressorInterface { public: // Matches static "COMPRESSION_QUALITY" string array in .cpp. enum ossimKakaduCompressionQuality { // Prefixed with OKP for OSSIM Kakadu Plugin to avoid clashes. OKP_UNKNOWN = 0, OKP_USER_DEFINED = 1, OKP_NUMERICALLY_LOSSLESS = 2, OKP_VISUALLY_LOSSLESS = 3, OKP_LOSSY = 4, OKP_LOSSY2 = 5, OKP_LOSSY3 = 6, OKP_EPJE = 7, // Exploitation Preferred J2K Encoding }; /* * GP: I had to add this or windows would not link with the latest * compiler. Also had to put in dot.cpp for debug mode(again windows). * (drb) / ossimKakaduCompressorInterface(); /* * @brief Create method. * @param os Stream to write to. * @param scalar Scalar type of source tiles to be fed to compressor. * @param bands Number of bands in source tiles to be fed to compressor. * @param imageRect The image rectangle. * @param tileSize The size of a tile. * @param tilesTileWrite The number of tiles to be written. * If zero, the tlm marker segment will not be used. * @param jp2 If true jp2 header and jp2 geotiff block will be written out. * @note Throws ossimException on error. / virtual void create(ossim::ostream os, ossimScalarType scalar, ossim_uint32 bands, const ossimIrect& imageRect, const ossimIpt& tileSize, ossim_uint32 tilesToWrite, bool jp2) = 0; /** * @brief Write tile method. * * Writes tiles stream provided to create method. Note that tiles should * be fed to compressor in left to right, top to bottom order. * * @param srcTile The source tile to write. * * @return true on success, false on error. / virtual bool writeTile(ossimImageData& srcTile) = 0; /* * @brief Finish method. Every call to "create" should be matched by a * "finish". Note the destructor calls finish. / virtual void finish() = 0; /* * Set the writer to add an alpha channel to the output. * * @param flag true to create an alpha channel. / virtual void setAlphaChannelFlag( bool flag ) = 0; /* * @brief Sets the number of levels. * * This must be positive and at least 1. * Default = 5 ( r0 - r5 ) * * @param levels Levels to set. / virtual void setLevels(ossim_int32 levels) = 0; /* * Will set the property whose name matches the argument * "property->getName()". * * @param property Object containing property to set. * * @return true if property was consumed, false if not. / virtual bool setProperty(ossimRefPtr<ossimProperty> property) = 0; /* * @brief Sets the quality type. * * Type enumerations: * OKP_UNKNOWN = 0, * OKP_USER_DEFINED = 1, * OKP_NUMERICALLY_LOSSLESS = 2, * OKP_VISUALLY_LOSSLESS = 3, * OKP_EPJE = 4 * * @param type See enumeration for types. / virtual void setQualityType(ossimKakaduCompressionQuality type) = 0; }; #endif / End of "#ifndef ossimKakaduCompressorInterface_HEADER" */	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub" }	1,175
Q: How to rate limit ajax requests? My user interface is currently wide open. Particularly, there are some elements, each of which can be deleted separately by the user. If the user hits the delete button repeatedly, an ajax request will be fired repeatedly. Is rate limiting a standard practice that I should implement or is it OK to give the user wide open access to this? A: You could group user requests in a queue. Then, check that queue from time to time for new requests to send. So, the user interface will append actions to execute and you would be able to control how often you send them. You could prevent an action from being appended if it already is in the queue. Also, this way you could modify your code to accept a list of actions to execute. This is a general description that could be implemented in JavaScript using functions such as setTimeout. A: First of all, this is part client issue, part server issue. Some standard solution is to: * adjust the interface to not allow the user to submit specific action too often (do it in JS eg. to disable abili to submit request to delete one thing twice), rate limiting on the server is usually not necessary, but could be useful, Take StackOverflow as an example: when you downvote an answer, you are not able to downvote it again, and when you are eg. submitting comments, you need to wait couple seconds between submissions. As far as errors are concerned... You may be hitting one of several categories of problems. For example: * connectivity issues (lack of connection, wonky connection, or very slow connection), internal client limitation (like number of concurrent requests has reached maximum allowed), *other, server-side limitations (rate limiting, requests blocking each other etc.),	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange" }	3,045
{"url":"https:\/\/ltwork.net\/i-m-sorry-but-i-can-t-changewe-ain-t-aimin-for-your-body--13450554","text":"# I'm sorry, but I can't changeWe ain't aimin' for your body, shots hits your brainWe come from poverty, man, we ain't have\n\n###### Question:\n\nI'm sorry, but I can't change We ain't aimin' for your body, shots hits your brain\nWe come from poverty, man, we ain't have a thing\nIt's a lot of animosity, but they won't say my name\nThem killers rock with me, lil' n*gga, don't get banged\n'Cause they'll do the job for me while I hop on a plane\n\n### You are going to a dinner whith three (3) friends, one who likes steak, another wine, and the third is a vegetarian (which is\n\nYou are going to a dinner whith three (3) friends, one who likes steak, another wine, and the third is a vegetarian (which is assumed to be the least expensive). Which is true? a. How the bill is shared has no effect on what and how much people choose to eat b. The vegetarian will be better off with...\n\n### Mein a forest, lynx prey on rodents and birds in the summer. but because of rising temperatures, the\n\nMein a forest, lynx prey on rodents and birds in the summer. but because of rising temperatures, the birds in the forest have migrated to a cooler place. what effect will this migration have on the population of the rodents? because there are fewer birds, the lynx will prey on rodents, leading to ...\n\n### What is introduction???\u200b\n\nWhat is introduction???\u200b...\n\n### A number with three digits will open up this lock. These clues will help you find it before the turkey burnshard as a rock.Drawing\n\nA number with three digits will open up this lock. These clues will help you find it before the turkey burns hard as a rock. Drawing a number line might help you too, Enter the number below when you are through My number has ones, tenths, and hundredths Rounding to the nearest whole number, you g...\n\n### The following table shows the probability distribution for a discrete random variable. \| X P(X 12 0.07 15 0.21 17 0.17 20 0.25\n\nThe following table shows the probability distribution for a discrete random variable. \| X P(X 12 0.07 15 0.21 17 0.17 20 0.25 22 0.05 24 \| 25 \| 30 0.04 0.13 0.08 an The mean of the discrete random variable X is 19.59. What is the variarice of X? Round your answer to the nearest hundredth....\n\n### Which is an example of volume?\n\nWhich is an example of volume?...\n\n### The temporal lobe is largely responsible for , whereas the frontal lobe is largely responsible for . a. vision; socially appropriate\n\nThe temporal lobe is largely responsible for , whereas the frontal lobe is largely responsible for . a. vision; socially appropriate behavior b. socially appropriate behavior; vision c. hearing; breathing and heartrate d. hearing; planning abilities...\n\n### Anais bought 2 1\/2 yards of ribbon. she had 1 foot 6 inches of ribbon left after trimming some curtains.\n\nAnais bought 2 1\/2 yards of ribbon. she had 1 foot 6 inches of ribbon left after trimming some curtains. how many inches of ribbon did anais use to trim the curtains?...\n\n### Why might you see more monarch butterflies in California in the winter\u200b\n\nWhy might you see more monarch butterflies in California in the winter\u200b $Why might you see more monarch butterflies in California in the winter\u200b$...\n\n### Where did Claude Monet paint many of his pictures?o in Poland and Englando in a studioo in the gardens\n\nWhere did Claude Monet paint many of his pictures? o in Poland and England o in a studio o in the gardens at Giverny...\n\n### In \u201cThe Treasure of Lemon Brown\u201d by Walter Dean Myers, Lemon Brown is a homeless man who used to be a blues singer. Which\n\nIn \u201cThe Treasure of Lemon Brown\u201d by Walter Dean Myers, Lemon Brown is a homeless man who used to be a blues singer. Which dialogue from the story best develops his character? \u201cLemon Brown,\u201d the old man said, pulling back his shoulders as he did so, \u201cthey used to call me Sweet Lemon Brow...\n\n### Anita helps kepil into passive voice\u200b\n\nAnita helps kepil into passive voice\u200b...\n\n### Phenols are characterized a) their behavior as gases b) ether linkages c) an \u2014oh group on a benzene\n\nPhenols are characterized a) their behavior as gases b) ether linkages c) an \u2014oh group on a benzene ring d) their use of flavoring agents...\n\n### During combustion reactions, explain why the energy of the reactants must exceed the total energy of the products.\n\nDuring combustion reactions, explain why the energy of the reactants must exceed the total energy of the products....\n\n### What is the area of triangle DEF? Triangle D E F has a base of 42 centimeters and a height of 28 centimeters. The other sides\n\nWhat is the area of triangle DEF? Triangle D E F has a base of 42 centimeters and a height of 28 centimeters. The other sides have lengths of 35 centimeters. 294 square centimeters 490 square centimeters 588 square centimeters 735 square centimeters...\n\n### Which resources does the national park service manage? check all that apply. -seashores -monuments -memorials -wildlife\n\nWhich resources does the national park service manage? check all that apply. -seashores -monuments -memorials -wildlife refuges -ecosystems -endangered species...\n\n### Your response will include\u20262 parts that answer the following:Why do cells divide?How do surface area and volume factor\n\nYour response will include\u2026 2 parts that answer the following: Why do cells divide? How do surface area and volume factor into the cell\u2019s need to divide? Proper grammar with accurate punctuation, spelling, and complete sentences. At least 3-5 sentences. I need a short answer...","date":"2023-03-31 00:05:42","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 2, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.27740615606307983, \"perplexity\": 4205.795682035434}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2023-14\/segments\/1679296949506.62\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20230330225648-20230331015648-00158.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
Q: findDOMNode is deprecated in StrictMode how to use refs instead Hi all Im just trying to get my head around using Refs to target elements in my components during router transitions. currently The onEnter, onExit and addEndListener events from React Transition Group already give you access to the DOM node you're animating. Which was fine for a while but now as you may already know you get the error. index.js:1 Warning: findDOMNode is deprecated in StrictMode. findDOMNode was passed an instance of Transition which is inside StrictMode. Instead, add a ref directly to the element you want to reference. Learn more about using refs safely [1] here is my code for App.js import React from 'react'; import { BrowserRouter as Router, Route } from 'react-router-dom'; import { CSSTransition } from 'react-transition-group'; import { gsap } from 'gsap'; import Header from './tools/header'; import About from './pages/about'; import Home from './pages/home'; const routes = [ { path: '/', name: 'Home', Component: Home }, { path: '/about', name: 'About', Component: About }, ] function Routeapp() { const nodeRef = React.useRef(null); const onEnter = (node) => { console.log(node) gsap.from( [node.children[0].firstElementChild, node.children[0].lastElementChild], { duration: 0.6, y: 30, delay: 0.6, ease: 'power3.inOut', opacity: 0, stagger: { amount: 0.3, }, } ); }; const onExit = node => { gsap.to( [node.children[0].firstElementChild, node.children[0].lastElementChild], { duration: 0.6, y: -30, ease: 'power3.inOut', opacity: 0, stagger: { amount: 0.15, }, } ); }; return ( <Router> <Header /> <div className="container"> {routes.map(({ path, Component }) => ( <Route key={path} exact path={path}> {({ match }) => ( <CSSTransition in={match != null} key={path} timeout={1200} classNames="page" onEnter={onEnter} onExit={onExit} unmountOnExit={true} > <div className="page" ref={nodeRef} > <Component /> </div> </CSSTransition> )} </Route> ))} </div> </Router> ); } export default Routeapp; Home.js import React from 'react'; import Title from '../tools/title'; const Home = () => { return ( <div className="inner"> <Title lineContent="this is the" lineContent2="Home page" /> <div className={'infoBox'}> <p className="info">hello mel and welcome</p> </div> </div> ); }; export default Home; about.js import React from 'react'; import Title from '../tools/title'; const About = () => { return ( <div className="inner"> <Title lineContent={'this is the'} lineContent2={'About page'} /> <div className={'infoBox'}> <p className="info pink"> Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum. </p> </div> </div> ); }; export default About; My issue is that I am trying to find a way to 'Ref' my 'Home' and 'About' components so that I can not only animate them but possible add different tweens to the 'onExit' and 'onEnter props if possible. I have tried to 'Ref' the components directly by trying this in app.js: return ( <Router> <Header /> <div className="container"> {routes.map(({ path, Component }) => ( <Route key={path} exact path={path}> {({ match }) => ( <CSSTransition in={match != null} key={path} nodeRef={nodeRef} timeout={1200} classNames="page" onEnter={onEnter} onExit={onExit} unmountOnExit={true} > <div className="page" ref={nodeRef} > <Component /> </div> </CSSTransition> )} </Route> ))} </div> </Router> ); as expected this causes my application to stop working since 'nodeRef' returns false and When nodeRef prop is used, node is not passed to callback functions (e.g. onEnter) because user already has direct access to the node. So I just need a new way of doing this now for future reference, any insights or ideas will be most welcomed. thanks A: So I just want to give a shout out to @Slbox who inspired me to dig deeper and relook at the problem. Disclaimer I am not an expert or professional Programmer in javascript and I by no means suggest that this is the only way of doing this, my presentation should be taken in an abstract fashion. My thoughts only explain the theoretical premises for which the solution is based on and implementation of this will depend upon your own architecture. Finding the node 'findDOMNode' So in React Strict mode 'FindDomNode is being depreciated and a 'Ref' friendly approached is now being favoured when you are wanting to refer to an element on your page. Like so many I was getting that pesky error message that pops up an tells you that 'findDOMNode has been depreciated in Strict Mode'. Use Case (why where you having problems) In React Router I had created a simple page transition using the combination of 'CSSTransition from 'react-transition-group and the Javascript based animation platform 'GSAP'. the issue that I was having was I having used a DOM node approach in referencing elements to the preferred way in react. 1. Restructure the app component // So the App now has the routes contained inside each component in order for it // to work and add additional functions and flexibility. import React from 'react'; import { BrowserRouter as Router } from 'react-router-dom'; import './route.scss'; import Header from './tools/header'; import About from './pages/about'; import Home from './pages/home'; function Routeapp() { return ( <Router> <Header /> <div className="container"> <Home /> <!-- routes and funcs --> <About /> <!-- routes and funcs --> </div> </Router> ); } export default Routeapp; 2. The home / about components import React, {useRef} from 'react'; import Title from './title'; import { CSSTransition } from 'react-transition-group'; import { Route} from 'react-router-dom'; import {gsap} from "gsap"; const Home = () => { // These two Refs are needed to refer to elements that we will be animating const title = useRef(null) const info = useRef(null) // This Ref will be used to make reference to the page of each component. // My understanding is that this Ref will be used to distinguish between each // component that is using 'CSSTransition' component and also removes the // 'findDOMNode' warning const nodeRef = useRef(null) // This function is called immediately after the 'enter' // or 'appear' class is applied from CSSTransition component. const onEnter = () => { gsap.from( [title.current,info.current], { duration: 0.6, y: 30, delay: 0.6, ease: 'power3.inOut', opacity: 0, stagger: { amount: 0.3, }, } ); }; // This function is called immediately after the 'exit' // class is applied from CSSTransition component. const onExit = () => { gsap.to( [title.current,info.current], { duration: 0.6, y: -30, ease: 'power3.inOut', opacity: 0, stagger: { amount: 0.15, }, } ); }; return ( <Route exact path={'/'} children={({ match }) => ( <CSSTransition in={match != null} // time should not really be longer than the time it takes the animation // to leave the scene. timeout={1200} classNames={'page'} nodeRef={nodeRef} onEnter={onEnter} onExit={onExit} unmountOnExit > <div className={'page'} ref={nodeRef}> <div className="inner"> <Title forwardRef={title} lineContent="this is the" lineContent2="Home page" /> <div ref={info} className={'infoBox'}> <p className="info">hello stackOverflow and welcome</p> </div> </div> </div> </CSSTransition> )} /> ); }; export default Home; GSAP and React-Router EXAMPLE Conclusion This is my method of achieving this effect, but if there are better or alternative ways then please add to the discussion and share. A: the quick solution is : ./src/index.js file and change it from this: ReactDOM.render( <React.StrictMode> <App /> </React.StrictMode>, document.getElementById('root') ); to this: ReactDOM.render( <App /> document.getElementById('root') ); A: The answer by @W9914420 guided me to find a workaround to this issue. I would just add that from all the lines of code, the most relevant is: * Declare an instance to a reference: const nodeRef = useRef(null) *Inject that reference as a property into the component: <CSSTransition `` in={match != null} // time should not really be longer than the time it takes the animation // to leave the scene. timeout={1200} classNames={'page'} nodeRef={nodeRef} onEnter={onEnter} onExit={onExit} unmountOnExit > Thanks @W9914420 for the tip!	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange" }	1,180
package edu.ucsc.dbtune.metadata; import java.sql.SQLException; import java.util.ArrayList; import java.util.HashSet; import java.util.Iterator; import java.util.List; import java.util.Set; import edu.ucsc.dbtune.util.Objects; /** * Abstraction of the highest level entry in the metadata hierarchy. A catalog is a container of * Schema objects. * * @author Ivo Jimenez / public class Catalog extends DatabaseObject implements Iterable<Schema> { /* * Creates a new catalog with the given name. * * @param name * name of the catalog / public Catalog(String name) { super(name); } /* * Copy constructor. * * @param other * other catalog object / public Catalog(Catalog other) { super(other); } /* * Convenience method that casts the object returned by {@link #findByQualifiedName}. * * @param pathToObject * fully qualified name of the new database object. * @return * object corresponding to the given fully qualified name; {@code null} if not found. * @throws SQLException * for the same reasons that {@link #findByQualifiedName} throws one * @throws java.lang.ClassCastException * if the {@link #findByQualifiedName} method returns an object whose type doesn't * correspond to the type given as parameter of the generic expression. * @see #findByQualifiedName * @param <T> * the object that is expected to be retrieved, i.e. the object type corresponding to the * given fully qualified name / public final <T extends DatabaseObject> T findByName(String pathToObject) throws SQLException { return Objects.<T>as(findByQualifiedName(pathToObject)); } /* * Creates a database object identified by the given fully qualified name. Only leaf objects are * created. For example, if {@code 'schema_one.table_1.column_2'} is given and {@code 'table_1'} * doesn't exist, an exception will be thrown. * <p> * Client code is in charge of casting appropriately. The type of the object created is * determined by the implementation of the {@link #newContainee} method. * * @param pathToObject * fully qualified name of the new database object. * @return * the new database object * @throws SQLException * if the path (up to the object's parent) doesn't exist; if the container already has an * element with that name contained in it * @see #findByQualifiedName * @see #newContainee / public final DatabaseObject createObject(String pathToObject) throws SQLException { DatabaseObject container; String[] pathElements; if (pathToObject.contains(".")) container = findByQualifiedName(pathToObject.substring(0, pathToObject.lastIndexOf("."))); else container = this; if (container == null) throw new SQLException("Can't find parent of new object in " + pathToObject); pathElements = pathToObject.split("\\."); return container.newContainee(pathElements[pathElements.length - 1]); } /* * Finds the schema whose name matches the given argument. Convenience method that accomplishes * what {@link #find} does but without requiring the user to cast. In other words, the following * is true {@code findSchema("name") == (Schema)find("name")}. * * @param name * name of the schema that is searched for in {@code this} catalog. * @return * the schema that has the given name; {@code null} if not found / public Schema findSchema(String name) { return (Schema) find(name); } /* * Finds the index whose name matches the given argument, across all the schemas contained in * the catalog. If more than one index with the same name exists, this method makes no * guarantees on which gets returned, that is, this method returns the "first" to be found, * where "first" is ambiguous. * * @param name * name of the index that is searched for in {@code this} catalog. * @return * the index that has the given name; {@code null} if not found * @throws SQLException * when {@code name} is a fully qualified path, and there's an error searching by it * @see #findByQualifiedName / public Index findIndex(String name) throws SQLException { if (name != null && name.contains("\\.")) return this.<Index>findByName(name); DatabaseObject dbo = null; for (Schema s : this) { dbo = s.find(name); if (dbo != null) break; } if (dbo instanceof Index) return (Index) dbo; return null; } /* * removes every index on every schema contained in the catalog. <b>important:</b> this DOESN'T * drop an index from an underlaying DBMS, since these objects reside in memory (as Index) * objects. In order to do so, refer to the {@link DatabaseSystem#dropIndex} method. * * @throws SQLException * if {@link Index#isMaterialized} is true for any index in the catalog. / public void dropIndexes() throws SQLException { for (Schema sch : schemas()) for (Index idx : sch.indexes()) if (idx.isMaterialized()) throw new SQLException( "Can't drop materialized indexes; see DatabaseSystem#dropIndex"); else sch.remove(idx); Index.IN_MEMORY_ID.getAndSet(0); } /* * returns set of indexes defined across the whole database. * * @return * all the indexes contained in the catalog / public Set<Index> indexes() { Set<Index> allIndexes = new HashSet<Index>(); for (Schema sch : schemas()) allIndexes.addAll(sch.indexes()); return allIndexes; } /* * returns the list of schemas that the catalog contains. * * @return * list of Schema objects / @Override public Iterator<Schema> iterator() { return Objects.<Iterator<Schema>>as(containees.iterator()); } /* * returns the list of schemas that the catalog contains. * * @return * the schemas contained in the catalog / public List<Schema> schemas() { return new ArrayList<Schema>(Objects.<List<Schema>>as(containees)); } /* * {@inheritDoc} / @Override public DatabaseObject newContainee(String name) throws SQLException { return new Schema(this, name); } /* * {@inheritDoc} / @Override public boolean isValid(DatabaseObject dbo) { return dbo instanceof Schema; } /* * {@inheritDoc} */ @Override public boolean equalsContent(Object other) { throw new RuntimeException("not implemented yet"); } }	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub" }	1,408
{"url":"https:\/\/www.ime.usp.br\/~egbirgin\/abstracts.html","text":"Mixed Integer Linear Programming and Constraint Programming Models for the Online Printing Shop Scheduling Problem\n\nW. T. Lunardi, E. G. Birgin, P. Laborie, D. P. Ronconi, and H. Voos\n\nSubmitted.\n\nAbstract: In this work, the online printing shop scheduling problem is considered. The problem, that appears in the nowadays printing industry, can be seen as an extended flexible job shop scheduling problem with several particularities such as operations' release times, operations' precedence constraints given by an arbitrary acyclic graph, partial overlapping among operations with precedence constraints, sequence-dependent setup times, fixed operations, and machines' unavailability periods. In the present work, mixed integer programming and constraint programming models for the minimization of the makespan are presented. Modeling the problem is twofold. On the one hand, the problem is precisely defined. On the other hand, small- and medium-sized instances are optimally solved. Extensive numerical experiments show the capabilities and limitations of a commercial software for solving the models.\n\nKeywords: Flexible job shop scheduling, Mixed integer linear programming, Constraint programming.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nOn the solution of linearly constrained optimization problems by means of barrier algorithms\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. L. Gardenghi, J. M. Mart\u00ednez, and S. A. Santos\n\nSubmitted.\n\nAbstract: Many practical problems require the solution of large-scale constrained optimization problems for which preserving feasibility is a key issue and the evaluation of the objective function is very expensive. In these cases it is mandatory to start with a feasible approximation of the solution, the obtention of which should not require objective function evaluations. The necessity of solving this type of problems motivated us to revisit the classical barrier approach for nonlinear optimization, providing a careful implementation of a modern version of this method. This is the main objective of the present paper. For completeness, we provide global convergence results and comparative numerical experiments with one of the state-of-the-art interior-point solvers for continuous optimization.\n\nKeywords: Linearly constrained optimization, feasible barrier methods, convergence, numerical experiments.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nOn constrained optimization with nonconvex regularization\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez, and A. Ramos\n\nSubmitted.\n\nAbstract: In many engineering applications it is necessary to minimize smooth functions plus penalty (or regularization) terms that violate smoothness and convexity. Specific algorithms for this type of problems are available in recent literature. Here a smooth reformulation is proposed and equivalence with the original problem is proved both from the point of view of global and local optimization. Moreover, for the cases in which the objective function is much more expensive than the constraints, model-intensive algorithms, accompanied by their convergence and complexity theories, are introduced. Finally, numerical experiments are presented.\n\nKeywords: Constrained non-Lipschitz nonsmooth optimization, complexity analysis, optimality conditions.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nComplexity and performance of an Augmented Lagrangian algorithm\n\nE. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nSubmitted.\n\nAbstract: Algencan is a well established safeguarded Augmented Lagrangian algorithm introduced in [R. Andreani, E. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez and M. L. Schuverdt, On Augmented Lagrangian methods with general lower-level constraints, SIAM Journal on Optimization 18, pp. 1286-1309, 2008]. Complexity results that report its worst-case behavior in terms of iterations and evaluations of functions and derivatives that are necessary to obtain suitable stopping criteria are presented in this work. In addition, the computational performance of a new version of the method is presented, which shows that the updated software is a useful tool for solving large-scale constrained optimization problems.\n\nKeywords: Nonlinear programming, Augmented Lagrangian methods, complexity, numerical experiments.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nOn the complexity of solving feasibility problems with quadratically regularized models\n\nE. G. Birgin, L. F. Bueno, and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nSubmitted.\n\nAbstract: The complexity of solving feasibility problems is considered in this work. It is assumed that the constraints that define the problem can be divided into two sets, namely, expensive and cheap constraints. It is also assumed that the set of solutions of the cheap constraints is non-empty and bounded and that minimizing a quadratic function subject to the cheap constraints is an affordable task. At each iteration, the introduced method minimizes a two-norm regularized quadratic approximation of the sum of squares of the expensive constraints subject to the cheap constraints. Under a H\\\"older continuity property with constant $\\beta \\in (0,1]$ on the gradients of the expensive constraints, it is shown that finding a feasible point with precision~$\\varepsilon > 0$ or an infeasible point that is stationary with tolerance~$\\gamma > 0$ of minimizing the Euclidean norm of the expensive constraints residual subject to the cheap constraints has iterations complexity~$O\\left(\|\\log(\\varepsilon)\| \\; \\gamma^{-(1+\\beta)\/\\beta} \\; \\varepsilon^{(\\beta-1)\/(2\\beta)}\\right)$ and evaluations complexity (of the expensive constraints) $O\\left(\|\\log(\\varepsilon)\|\\left[ \\gamma^{-(1+\\beta)\/\\beta} \\varepsilon^{(\\beta-1)\/(2\\beta)}+ ((1-\\beta)\/\\beta) \| \\log(\\gamma \\sqrt{\\varepsilon})\| \\right] \\right)$. When the gradients of the expensive constraints satisfy a Lipschitz condition, both complexities reduce to $O(\|\\log(\\varepsilon)\| \\gamma^{-2})$. Still under the H\\\"older continuity property on the gradients of the expensive constraints, and under a stronger regularity assumption with constant~$\\kappa$, that avoids KKT points of minimizing the sum of squares of the expensive constraints subject to the cheap constraints of being infeasible, the iterations complexity is shown to be $O\\left(\|\\log(\\varepsilon)\| \\; \\kappa^{-(1+\\beta)\/\\beta} \\; \\varepsilon^{(\\beta-1)\/(2\\beta)}\\right)$ while the evaluation complexity is given by $O\\left(\|\\log(\\varepsilon)\|\\left[ \\kappa^{-(1+\\beta)\/\\beta} \\varepsilon^{(\\beta-1)\/(2\\beta)}+ ((1-\\beta)\/\\beta) \|\\log(\\kappa \\sqrt{\\varepsilon})\| \\right] \\right)$. When the gradients of the expensive constraints satisfy a Lipschitz condition, both complexities reduce to $O(\|\\log(\\varepsilon)\| \\kappa^{-2})$. The results introduced in the present work complement, by analyzing the case $p=1$, the results obtained for $p$ even in [C. Cartis, N. I. M. Gould, and Ph. L. Toint, Improved worst-case evaluation complexity for potentially rank-deficient nonlinear least-Euclidean-norm problems using higher-order regularized models, Technical Report NA 15-17, University of Oxford, 2015], where~$p$ is the order of the underlying $(p+1)$-regularized Taylor's model of the sum of squares of the expensive constraints.\n\nKeywords: Complexity, feasibility problem, first order methods.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nAn Augmented Lagrangian algorithm for nonlinear semidefinite programming applied to the covering problem\n\nE. G. Birgin, W. G\u00f3mez, G. Haeser, L. M. Mito, and D. S. Viana\n\nComputational and Applied Mathematics, to appear.\n\nAbstract: In this work we present an Augmented Lagrangian algorithm for nonlinear semidefinite problems (NLSDPs), which is a natural extension of its consolidated counterpart in nonlinear programming. This method works with two levels of constraints; one that is penalized and other that is kept within the subproblems. This is done in order to allow exploiting the subproblem structure while solving it. The global convergence theory is based on recent results regarding approximate Karush-Kuhn-Tucker optimality conditions for NLSDPs, which are stronger than the usually employed Fritz John optimality conditions. Additionally, we approach the problem of covering a given object with a fixed number of balls with a minimum radius, where we exploit some convex algebraic geometry tools, such as Stengle's Positivstellensatz and its variations, which allows for a much more general model. Preliminary numerical experiments are presented.\n\nKeywords: Augmented Lagrangian, Nonlinear Semidefinite Programming, Covering Problem, Convex Algebraic Geometry.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nA filtered beam search method for the m-machine permutation flowshop scheduling problem minimizing the earliness and tardiness penalties and the waiting time of the jobs\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. E. Ferreira, and D. P. Ronconi\n\nComputers & Operations Research, to appear.\n\nAbstract: This paper addresses the minimization of the absolute deviation of job completion times from a common due date in a flowshop scheduling problem. Besides this main objective, the minimization of the waiting time of the jobs in the production environment is also considered. Initially, a mixed integer programming model for this problem is proposed and, due to its complexity, heuristic approaches are developed. A list-scheduling algorithm for the approached problem is introduced. Moreover, a filtered beam search method that explores specific characteristics of the considered environment is proposed. Numerical experiments show that the presented methods can be successfully applied to this problem.\n\nKeywords: Scheduling, flowshop, earliness and tardiness, common due date, waiting time, heuristics, beam search.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nThe multiperiod two-dimensional non-guillotine cutting stock problem with usable leftovers\n\nE. G. Birgin, O. C. Rom\u00e3o, and D. P. Ronconi\n\nInternational Transactions in Operational Research, to appear.\n\nAbstract: A mixed integer linear programming model for the two-dimensional non-guillotine cutting problem with usable leftovers was recently introduced in Andrade et al. [Journal of the Operational Research Society 65, pp. 1649-1663, 2014]. The problem consists in cutting a set of ordered items using a set of objects of minimum cost and, within the set of solutions of minimum cost, maximizing the value of the usable leftovers. Since the concept of usable leftovers assumes they can potentially be used to attend new arriving orders, the problem is extended to the multiperiod framework in this work. In this way, the decision at each instant does not minimize in a myopic way the cost of the objects required to attend the orders of the current instant; but it aims to minimize the overall cost of the objects up to the considered time horizon. Some variants of the proposed model are analyzed and numerical results are presented.\n\nKeywords: Two-dimensional cutting with usable leftovers, MIP models, non-guillotine cutting and packing, multiperiod scenario.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nOn the use of third-order models with fourth-order regularization for unconstrained optimization\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. L. Gardenghi, J. M. Mart\u00ednez, and S. A. Santos\n\nOptimization Letters, to appear.\n\nAbstract: In a recent paper [E. G. Birgin, J. L. Gardenghi, J. M. Mart\u00ednez, S. A. Santos, and Ph. L. Toint, Worst-case evaluation complexity for unconstrained nonlinear optimization using high-order regularized models, Mathematical Programming 163(1), 359-368, 2017], it was shown that, for the smooth unconstrained optimization problem, worst-case evaluation complexity $O(\\epsilon^{-(p+1)\/p})$ may be obtained by means of algorithms that employ sequential approximate minimizations of $p$-th order Taylor models plus $(p+1)$-th order regularization terms. The aforementioned result, which assumes Lipschitz continuity of the $p$-th partial derivatives, generalizes the case $p=2$, known since 2006, which has already motivated efficient implementations. The present paper addresses the issue of defining a reliable algorithm for the case $p=3$. With that purpose, we propose a specific algorithm and we show numerical experiments.\n\nKeywords: Unconstrained minimization, third-order models, regularization, complexity.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nModels for the two-dimensional rectangular single large placement problem with guillotine cuts and constrained pattern\n\nM. P. Martins, E. G. Birgin, R. D. Lobato, R. Morabito, and P. Munari\n\nInternational Transactions in Operational Research Vol. 27 No. 2 (March 2020), pages 767-793.\n\nAbstract: In this paper, we address the Constrained Two-dimensional Rectangular Guillotine Single Large Placement Problem (2D R CG SLOPP). This problem involves cutting a rectangular object to produce smaller rectangular items from orthogonal guillotine cuts.In addition, there is an upper limit on the number of copies that can be produced of each item type. To model this problem, we propose a new compact integer non-linear programming (INLP) formulation and obtain an equivalent integer linear programming (ILP) formulation from it. Additionally, we developed a procedure to reduce the numbers of variables and constraints of the ILP formulation, without loss of optimality. From the ILP formulation, we derive two new compact models for particular cases of the 2D R CG SLOPP, which consider only 2-staged or 1-group patterns. Finally, as a specific solution method for the 2D R CG SLOPP, we apply Benders decomposition to the proposed ILP formulation and develop a branch-and-Benders-cut algorithm. All proposed approaches are evaluated through computational experiments using benchmark instances and compared with other formulations available in the literature. The results show that the new formulations are appropriate in scenarios characterized by few item types that are large with respect to the objecti's dimensions.\n\nKeywords: Cutting and packing problems, Constrained two-dimensional guillotine cuts, Integer programming models, branch-and-Benders-cut algorithm.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nIteration and evaluation complexity for the minimization of functions whose computation is intrinsically inexact\n\nE. G. Birgin, N. Krejic, and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nMathematics of Computations Vol. 89 No. 321 (January 2020), pages 253-278.\n\nAbstract: In many cases in which one wishes to minimize a complicated or expensive function, it is convenient to employ cheap approximations, at least when the current approximation to the solution is far from the solution. Adequate strategies for deciding the accuracy desired at each stage of optimization are crucial for the global convergence and overall efficiency of the process. A recently introduced procedure [E. G. Birgin, N. Kreji\u0107, and J. M. Mart\u00ednez, On the employment of Inexact Restoration for the minimization of functions whose evaluation is subject to errors, Mathematics of Computation 87, pp. 1307-1326, 2018] based on Inexact Restoration is revisited, modified, and analyzed from the point of view of worst-case evaluation complexity in this work.\n\nKeywords: Inexact Restoration, global convergence, worst-case evaluation complexity.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nA Newton-like method with mixed factorizations and cubic regularization for unconstrained minimization\n\nE. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nComputational Optimization and Applications Vol. 73 No. 3 (July 2019), pages 707-753.\n\nAbstract: A Newton-like method for unconstrained minimization is introduced in the present work. While the computer work per iteration of the best-known implementations may need several factorizations per iteration or may use rather expensive matrix decompositions, the proposed method uses a single cheap factorization per iteration. Convergence and complexity and results, even in the case in which the subproblems' Hessians are far from being Hessians of the objective function, are presented. Moreover, when the Hessian is Lipschitz-continuous, the proposed method enjoys $O(\\varepsilon^{-3\/2})$ evaluation complexity for first-order optimality and $O(\\varepsilon^{-3})$ for second-order optimality as other recently introduced Newton method for unconstrained optimization based on cubic regularization or special trust-region procedures. Fairly successful and fully reproducible numerical experiments are presented and the developed corresponding software is freely available.\n\nKeywords: Smooth unconstrained minimization, Bunch-Parlett-Kaufman factorizations, regularization, Newton-type methods.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nA matheuristic approach with nonlinear subproblems for large-scale packing of ellipsoids\n\nE. G. Birgin and R. D. Lobato\n\nEuropean Journal of Operational Research Vol 272 No. 2 (January 2019), pages 447-464.\n\nAbstract: The problem of packing ellipsoids in the three-dimensional space is considered in the present work. The proposed approach combines heuristic techniques with the resolution of recently introduced nonlinear programming models in order to construct solutions with a large number of ellipsoids. The introduced approach is able to pack identical and non-identical ellipsoids within a variety of containers. Moreover, it allows the inclusion of additional positioning constraints. This fact makes the proposed approach suitable for constructing large-scale solutions with specific positioning constraints in which density may not be the main issue. Numerical experiments illustrate that the introduced approach delivers good quality solutions with a computational cost that scales linearly with the number of ellipsoids; and solutions with more than a million ellipsoids are exhibited.\n\nKeywords: Packing, ellipsoids, nonlinear programming, algorithms, matheuristic.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nOn regularization and active-set methods with complexity for constrained optimization\n\nE. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nSIAM Journal on Optimization Vol 28 No. 2 (May 2018), pages 1367-1395.\n\nAbstract: The main objective of this research is to introduce a practical method for smooth bound-constrained optimization that possesses worst-case evaluation complexity $O(\\varepsilon^{-3\/2})$ for finding an $\\varepsilon$-approximate first-order stationary point when the Hessian of the objective function is Lipschitz-continuous. As other well established algorithms for optimization with box constraints, the algorithm proceeds visiting the different faces of the domain aiming to reduce the norm of an internal projected gradient and abandoning active constraints when no additional progress is expected in the current face. The introduced method emerges as a particular case of a method for minimization with linear constraints. Moreover, the linearly-constrained minimization algorithm is an instance of a minimization algorithm with general constraints whose implementation may be unaffordable when the constraints are complicated. As a procedure for leaving faces, it is employed a different method that may be regarded as an independent device for constrained optimization. Such independent algorithm may be employed to solve linearly-constrained optimization problem on its own, without relying on the active-set strategy. A careful implementation and numerical experiments shows that the algorithm that combines active sets with leaving-face iterations is more effective than the independent algorithm on which leaving-face iterations are based, although both exhibits similar complexities $O(\\varepsilon^{-3\/2})$.\n\nKeywords: Nonlinear programming, bound-constrained minimization, active-set strategies, regularization, complexity.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nOn the employment of Inexact Restoration for the minimization of functions whose evaluation is subject to errors\n\nE. G. Birgin, N. Krejic, and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nMathematics of Computation Vol. 87 No. 311 (May 2018), pages 1307-1326.\n\nAbstract: Inexact Restoration is a well established technique for continuous minimization problems with constraints. Recently, it has been used by Krejic and Mart\u00ednez for optimization of functions whose evaluation is necessarily inexact and comes from an iterative process. This technique will be generalized in the present paper and it will be applied to stochastic optimization and related problems. New convergence results will be given and numerical results will be presented.\n\nKeywords: Inexact Restoration, stochastic programming, global convergence, numerical experiments.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nAugmented Lagrangians with constrained subproblems and convergence to second-order stationary points\n\nE. G. Birgin, G. Haeser, and A. Ramos\n\nComputational Optimization and Applications Vol. 69 No. 1 (January 2018), pages 51-75.\n\nAbstract: Augmented Lagrangian methods with convergence to second-order stationary points in which any constraint can be penalized or carried out to the subproblems are considered in this work. The resolution of each subproblem can be done by any numerical algorithm able to return approximate second-order stationary points. The developed global convergence theory is stronger than the ones known for current algorithms with convergence to second-order points in the sense that, besides the flexibility introduced by the general lower-level approach, it includes a loose requirement for the resolution of subproblems. The proposed approach relies on a weak constraint qualification, that allows Lagrange multipliers to be unbounded at the solution. It is also shown that second-order resolution of subproblems increases the chances of finding a feasible point, in the sense that limit points are second-order stationary for the problem of minimizing the squared infeasibility. The applicability of the proposed method is illustrated in numerical examples with ball-constrained subproblems.\n\nKeywords: Augmented Lagrangian methods, nonlinear programming, second-order stationary points, algorithms.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nOn the minimization of possibly discontinuous functions by means of pointwise approximations\n\nE. G. Birgin, N. Krejic, and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nOptimization Letters Vol. 11 No. 8 (December 2017), pages 1623-1637.\n\nAbstract: A general approach for the solution of possibly discontinuous optimization problems by means of pointwise (perhaps smooth) approximations will be proposed. It will be proved that sequences generated by pointwise approximation techniques eventually satisfy well justified stopping criteria. Numerical examples will be given.\n\nKeywords:Discontinuous functions, pointwise approximations, smoothing, minimization.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nA nonlinear programming model with implicit variables for packing ellipsoids\n\nE. G. Birgin, R. D. Lobato, and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nJournal of Global Optimization Vol. 68 No. 3 (July 2017), pages 467-499.\n\nAbstract: The problem of packing ellipsoids is considered in the present work. Usually, the computational effort associated with numerical optimization methods devoted to packing ellipsoids grows quadratically with respect to the number of ellipsoids being packed. The reason is that the number of variables and constraints of ellipsoids' packing models is associated with the requirement that every pair of ellipsoids must not overlap. As a consequence, it is hard to solve the problem when the number of ellipsoids is large. In this paper, we present a nonlinear programming model for packing ellipsoids that contains a linear number of variables and constraints. The proposed model finds its basis in a transformation-based non-overlapping model recently introduced by Birgin, Lobato, and Mart\u00ednez [Journal of Global Optimization (2015), DOI: 10.1007\/s10898-015-0395-z]. Numerical experiments show the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed model.\n\nKeywords: Cutting and packing ellipsoids, optimization, nonlinear programming, models, numerical experiments.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nThe use of quadratic regularization with a cubic descent condition for unconstrained optimization\n\nE. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nSIAM Journal on Optimization Vol. 27 No. 2 (June 2017), pages 1049-1074.\n\nAbstract: Cubic-regularization and trust-region methods with worst-case first-order complexity $O(\\varepsilon^{-3\/2})$ and worst-case second-order complexity $O(\\varepsilon^{-3})$ have been developed in the last few years. In this paper it is proved that the same complexities are achieved by means of a quadratic-regularization method with a cubic sufficient-descent condition instead of the more usual predicted-reduction based descent. Asymptotic convergence and order of convergence results are also presented. Finally, some numerical experiments comparing the new algorithm with a well-established quadratic regularization method are shown.\n\nKeywords: Nonlinear programming, unconstrained minimization, quadratic regularization, cubic descent, complexity.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nWorst-case evaluation complexity for unconstrained nonlinear optimization using high-order regularized models\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. L. Gardenghi, J. M. Mart\u00ednez, S. A. Santos, and Ph. L. Toint\n\nMathematical Programming Vol. 163 No. 1 (May 2017), pages 359-368.\n\nAbstract: The worst-case evaluation complexity for smooth (possibly nonconvex) unconstrained optimization is considered. It is shown that, if one is willing to use derivatives of the objective function up to order $p$ (for $p \\geq 1$) and to assume Lipschitz continuity of the $p$-th derivative, then an $\\epsilon$-approximate first-order critical point can be computed in at most $O(\\epsilon^{-(p+1)\/p})$ evaluations of the problem's objective function and its derivatives. This generalizes and subsumes results known for $p = 1$ and $p = 2$.\n\nKeywords: Unconstrained minimization, worst-case complexity.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nSequential equality-constrained optimization for nonlinear programming\n\nE. G. Birgin, L. F. Bueno, and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nComputational Optimization and Applications Vol. 65 No. 3 (December 2016), pages 699-721.\n\nAbstract: A new method is proposed for solving optimization problems with equality constraints and bounds on the variables. In the spirit of Sequential Quadratic Programming and Sequential Linearly-Constrained Programming, the new method approximately solves, at each iteration, an equality-constrained optimization problem. The bound constraints are handled in outer iterations by means of an Augmented Lagrangian scheme. Global convergence of the method follows from well-established non-linear programming theories. Numerical experiments are presented.\n\nKeywords:Nonlinear programming, Sequential Equality-Constrained Optimization, Augmented Lagrangian, numerical experiments.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nConstrained optimization with integer and continuous variables using inexact restoration and projected gradients\n\nE. G. Birgin, R. D. Lobato, and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nBulletin of Computational Applied Mathematics Vol. 4 No. 2 (2016), pages 55-70.\n\nAbstract: Inexact restoration (IR) is a well established technique for continuous minimization prob- lems with constraints that can be applied to constrained optimization problems with specific structures. When some variables are restricted to be integer, an IR strategy seems to be appropriate. The IR strategy employs a restoration procedure in which one solves a standard nonlinear programming problem and an optimization procedure in which the constraints are linearized and techniques for mixed-integer (linear or quadratic) programming can be em- ployed.\n\nKeywords: Inexact restoration, mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP), projected gradients.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nPacking ellipsoids by nonlinear optimization\n\nE. G. Birgin, R. D. Lobato, and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nJournal of Global Optimization Vol. 65 No. 4 (August 2016), pages 709-743.\n\nAbstract: In this paper, continuous and dierentiable nonlinear programming models and algorithms for packing ellipsoids in the n-dimensional space are introduced. Two dierent models for the non-overlapping and models for the inclusion of ellipsoids within half-spaces and ellipsoids are presented. By applying a simple multi-start strategy combined with a clever choice of starting guesses and a nonlinear programming local solver, illustrative numerical experiments are presented.\n\nKeywords: Cutting and packing ellipsoids, nonlinear programming, models, numerical experiments.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nEvaluation complexity for nonlinear constrained optimization using unscaled KKT conditions and high-order models\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. L. Gardenghi, J. M. Mart\u00ednez, S. A. Santos, and Ph. L. Toint\n\nSIAM Journal on Optimization Vol. 26 No. 2 (April, 2016), pages 951-967.\n\nAbstract: The evaluation complexity of general nonlinear, possibly nonconvex, constrained optimization is analyzed. It is shown that, under suitable smoothness conditions, an $\\epsilon$-approximate first-order critical point of the problem can be computed in order $O(\\epsilon^{1-2(p+1)\/p})$ evaluations of the problem's function and their first p derivatives. This is achieved by using a two-phases algorithm inspired by Cartis, Gould, and Toint [8, 11]. It is also shown that strong guarantees (in terms of handling degeneracies) on the possible limit points of the sequence of iterates generated by this algorithm can be obtained at the cost of increased complexity. At variance with previous results, the -approximate first-order criticality is defined by satisfying a version of the KKT conditions with an accuracy that does not depend on the size of the Lagrange multipliers.\n\nKeywords: Nonlinear programming, complexity, approximate KKT point.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nOn the application of an Augmented Lagrangian algorithm to some portfolio problems\n\nE. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nEURO Journal on Computational Optimization Vol. 4 No. 1 (February 2016), pages 79-92.\n\nAbstract: Algencan is a freely available piece of software that aims to solve smooth large-scale constrained optimization problems. When applied to specific problems, obtaining a good performance in terms of efficacy and efficiency may depend on careful choices of options and parameters. In the present paper the application of Algencan to four portfolio optimization problems is discussed and numerical results are presented and evaluated.\n\nKeywords: Constrained optimization, Augmented Lagrangian, Portfolios, Generalized Order-Value Optimization, Conditional Value-at-Risk.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nApplications of nonlinear programming to packing problems\n\nE. G. Birgin\n\nin Applications + Practical Conceptualization + Mathematics = fruitful Innovation, Proceedings of the Forum of Mathematics for Industry 2014, R. S. Anderssen, P. Broadbridge, Y. Fukumoto, K. Kajiwara, T. Takagi, E. Verbitskiy, and M. Wakayama (Eds.), Springer Series Mathematics for Industry 11, pp. 31-39, 2016.\n\nAbstract: The problem of packing items within bounded regions in the Euclidean space has multiple applications in a variety of areas, such as, Physics, Chemistry, and Engineering. Problems of this type exhibit various levels of complexity. Nonlinear programming formulations and methods had been successfully applied to a wide range of packing problems. In this review paper, a brief description of the state-of-the-art and an illustrated overview of packing nonlinear programming techniques and applications will be presented.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nTwo-stage two-dimensional guillotine cutting stock problems with usable leftovers\n\nR. Andrade, E. G. Birgin, and R. Morabito\n\nInternational Transactions in Operational Research Vol. 23 No. 1-2 (January-March, 2016), pages 121-145.\n\nAbstract: In this study we are concerned with the non-exact two-stage two-dimensional guillotine cutting problem considering usable leftovers, in which stock plates remainders of the cutting patterns (non-used material or trim loss) can be used in the future, if they are large enough to fulfill future demands of items (ordered smaller plates). This cutting problem can be characterized as a residual bin-packing problem because of the possibility of creating new residual pieces, as the trim loss of each cutting\/packing pattern does not necessarily represent waste of material and, depending on its size, it can be put back into stock. Two bilevel mathematical programming models to represent this non-exact two-stage two-dimensional residual bin-packing problem are presented. The models basically consist on cutting\/packing the ordered items using a set of plates of minimum cost and, among all possible solutions of minimum cost, choosing one that maximizes the value of the generated usable leftovers. Because of special characteristics of these bilevel models, they can be reformulated as one-level mixed integer programming models. Results of some numerical experiments are presented to show that the models represent appropriately the problem and to illustrate their performances.\n\nKeywords: Two-stage two-dimensional guillotine cutting, residual bin-packing problem, bilevel programming, MIP models, leftovers.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nAn inner-outer nonlinear programming approach for constrained quadratic matrix model updating\n\nM. Andretta, E. G. Birgin, and M. Raydan\n\nMechanical Systems and Signal Processing Vol. 66-67 (January, 2016), pages 78-88.\n\nAbstract: The Quadratic Finite Element Model Updating Problem (QFEMUP) concerns with updating a symmetric second-order finite element model so that it remains symmetric and the updated model reproduces a given set of desired eigenvalues and eigenvectors by replacing the corresponding ones from the original model. Taking advantage of the special structure of the constraint set, it is first shown that the QFEMUP can be formulated as a suitable constrained nonlinear programming problem. Using this formulation, a method based on successive optimizations is then proposed and analyzed. To avoid that spurious modes (eigenvectors) appear in the frequency range of interest (eigenvalues) after the model has been updated, additional constraints based on a quadratic Rayleigh quotient are dynamically included in the constraint set. A distinct practical feature of the proposed method is that it is implementable computing only a few eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the associated quadratic matrix pencil. The results of our numerical experiments on illustrative problems show that the algorithm works well in practice.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nList scheduling and beam search methods for an extended version of the flexible job shop scheduling problem\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. E. Ferreira, and D. P. Ronconi\n\nEuropean Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 247 No. 2 (December, 2015), pages 421-440.\n\nAbstract: An extended version of the flexible job shop problem is tackled in this work. The considered extension to the classical flexible job shop problem allows the precedences between the operations to be given by an arbitrary directed acyclic graph instead of a linear order. Therefore, the problem consists of allocating the operations to the machines and sequencing them in compliance with the given precedences. The goal in the present work is the minimization of the makespan. A list scheduling algorithm is introduced and its natural extension to a beam search method is proposed. Numerical experiments assess the efficiency of the proposed approaches.\n\nKeywords: Scheduling, flexible job shop, makespan, list scheduling, beam search.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nOptimality properties of an Augmented Lagrangian method on infeasible problems\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez, and L. F. Prudente\n\nComputational Optimization and Applications, Vol. 60 No. 3 (August, 2015), pages 609-631.\n\nAbstract: Sometimes, the feasible set of an optimization problem that one aims to solve using a Nonlinear Programming algorithm is empty. In this case, two characteristics of the algorithm are desirable. On the one hand, the algorithm should converge to a minimizer of some infeasibility measure. On the other hand, one may wish to find a point with minimal infeasibility for which some optimality condition, with respect to the objective function, holds. Ideally, the algorithm should converge to a minimizer of the objective function subject to minimal infeasibility. In this paper the behavior of an Augmented Lagrangian algorithm with respect to those properties will be studied.\n\nKeywords:Nonlinear Programming, infeasible domains, Augmented Lagrangians, algorithms, numerical experiments.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nAssessing the reliability of general-purpose Inexact Restoration methods\n\nE. G. Birgin, L. F. Bueno, and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nJournal of Computational and Applied Mathematics, Vol. 282 (July 2015), pages 1-16.\n\nAbstract: Inexact Restoration methods have been proved to be effective to solve constrained optimization problems in which some structure of the feasible set induces a natural way of recovering feasibility from arbitrary infeasible points. Sometimes natural ways of dealing with minimization over tangent approximations of the feasible set are also employed. A recent paper [N. Banihashemi and C. Y. Kaya, Inexact Restoration for Euler discretization of box-constrained optimal control problems, Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications 156, pp. 726--760, 2013] suggests that the Inexact Restoration approach can be competitive with well-established nonlinear programming solvers when applied to certain control problems without any problem-oriented procedure for restoring feasibility. This result motivated us to revisit the idea of designing general-purpose Inexact Restoration methods, especially for large-scale problems. In this paper we introduce an affordable algorithm of Inexact Restoration type for solving arbitrary nonlinear programming problems and we perform the first experiments that aim to assess its reliability.\n\nKeywords:Nonlinear programming, Inexact Restoration, numerical experiments.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nMetaheuristics for large-scale instances of the linear ordering problem\n\nC. S. Sakuraba, D. P. Ronconi, E. G. Birgin, and M. Yagiura\n\nExpert Systems with Applications, Vol. 42 No. 9 (June, 2015), pages 4432-4442.\n\nAbstract: This paper presents iterated local search and great deluge trajectory metaheuristics for the linear ordering problem (LOP). Both metaheuristics are based on the TREE local search method introduced in Sakuraba and Yagiura, 2010 (Efficient local search algorithms for the linear ordering problem, International Transactions in Operational Research 17, pp. 711-737) that is the only method ever applied to a set of large-sized instances that are in line with the scale of nowadays real applications. By providing diversification and intensification features, the introduced methods improve all best known solutions of the large-sized instances set. Extensive numerical experiments show that the introduced methods are capable of tackling sparse and dense large-scale instances with up to 8,000 vertices and 31,996,000 edges in a reasonable amount of time; while they also performs well in practice when compared with other state-of-the-art methods in a benchmark with small and medium-scale instances.\n\nKeywords:Metaheuristics, iterated local search, great deluge, linear ordering problem, large-scale instances.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nMIP models for two-dimensional non-guillotine cutting problems with usable leftovers\n\nR. Andrade, E. G. Birgin, R. Morabito, and D. P. Ronconi\n\nJournal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 65 No. 11 (November , 2014), pages 1649-1663.\n\nAbstract: In this study we deal with the two-dimensional non-guillotine cutting problem of how to cut a set of rectangular objects with known sizes and quantities to exactly produce a set of rectangular items with specified sizes and demands to be fulfilled. We are concerned with the special case of the problem in which the non-used material of the cutting patterns (objects leftovers) may be used in the future, if it is large enough to fulfill future items demands. Therefore, the problem is seen as a two-dimensional non-guillotine cutting\/packing problem with usable leftovers, also known in the literature as a two-dimensional residual bin-packing problem. We use multilevel mathematical programming models to represent appropriately the problem, which basically consists on cutting the ordered items using a set of objects of minimum cost, among all possible solutions of minimum cost, choosing one that maximizes the value of the usable leftovers, and, among them, selecting one that minimizes the number of usable leftovers. Because of special characteristics of these multilevel models, they can be reformulated as one-level mixed integer programming (MIP) models. Illustrative numerical examples are presented and analysed.\n\nKeywords: Two-dimensional cutting with usable leftovers, MIP models, non-guillotine cutting and packing, multilevel mathematical programming, residual bin-packing problem.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nSpectral Projected Gradient methods: Review and Perspectives\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez, and M. Raydan\n\nJournal of Statistical Software, Vol. 60 No. 3 (September, 2014), http:\/\/www.jstatsoft.org\/v60\/i03.\n\nAbstract: Over the last two decades, it has been observed that using the gradient vector as a search direction in large-scale optimization may lead to efficient algorithms. The effectiveness relies on choosing the step lengths according to novel ideas that are related to the spectrum of the underlying local Hessian rather than related to the standard decrease in the objective function. A review of these so-called spectral projected gradient methods for convex constrained optimization is presented. To illustrate the performance of these low-cost schemes, an optimization problem on the set of positive definite matrices is described.\n\nKeywords: Spectral Projected Gradient methods, nonmonotone line search, large scale problems, convex constrained problems.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nA MILP model for an extended version of the Flexible Job Shop Problem\n\nE. G. Birgin, P. Feofiloff, C. G. Fernandes, E. L. de Melo, M. T. I. Oshiro, and D. P. Ronconi\n\nOptimization Letters, Vol. 8 No. 4 (April, 2014), pages 1417-1431.\n\nAbstract: A MILP model for an extended version of the Flexible Job Shop Scheduling problem is proposed. The extension allows the precedences between operations of a job to be given by an arbitrary directed acyclic graph rather than a linear order. The goal is the minimization of the makespan. Theoretical and practical advantages of the proposed model are discussed. Numerical experiments show the performance of a commercial exact solver when applied to the proposed model. The new model is also compared with a simple extension of the model described by Ozguven, Ozbakir, and Yavuz (Mathematical models for job-shop scheduling problems with routing and process plan flexibility, Applied Mathematical Modelling, 34:1539--1548, 2010), using instances from the literature and instances inspired by real data from the printing industry.\n\nKeywords: Scheduling, Flexible Job Shop, MIP models.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nAugmented Lagrangians with possible infeasibility and finite termination for global nonlinear programming\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez, and L. F. Prudente\n\nJournal of Global Optimization, Vol. 58 No. 2 (February, 2014), pages 207-242.\n\nAbstract: In a recent paper, Birgin, Floudas and Mart\u00ednez introduced an augmented Lagrangian method for global optimization. In their approach, augmented Lagrangian subproblems are solved using the alphaBB method and convergence to global minimizers was obtained assuming feasibility of the original problem. In the present research, the algorithm mentioned above will be improved in several crucial aspects. On the one hand, feasibility of the problem will not be required. Possible infeasibility will be detected in finite time by the new algorithms and optimal infeasibility results will be proved. On the other hand, finite termination results that guarantee optimality and\/or feasibility up to any required precision will be provided. An adaptive modification in which subproblem tolerances depend on current feasibility and complementarity will also be given. The adaptive algorithm allows the augmented Lagrangian subproblems to be solved without requiring unnecessary potentially high precisions in the intermediate steps of the method, which improves the overall efficiency. Experiments showing how the new algorithms and results are related to practical computations will be given.\n\nKeywords: Deterministic global optimization, augmented Lagrangians, nonlinear programming, algorithms, numerical experiments.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nPacking circles within ellipses\n\nE. G. Birgin, L. H. Bustamante, H. F. Callisaya, and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nInternational Transactions in Operational Research, Vol. 20 No. 3 (May, 2013), pages 365-389.\n\nAbstract: The problem of packing circles within ellipses is considered in the present paper. A new ellipse-based system of coordinates is introduced by means of which a closed formula to compute the distance of an arbitrary point to the boundary of an ellipse exists. Nonlinear programming models for some variants of 2D and 3D packing problems involving circular items and elliptical objects are given. The resulting models are medium-sized highly nonlinear challenging nonlinear programming problems for which a global solution is sought. For this purpose, multistart strategies are carefully and thoroughly explored. Numerical experiments are exhibited.\n\nKeywords: Packing, ellipses, circles, global optimization.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nSparse projected-gradient method as a linear-scaling low-memory alternative to diagonalization in self-consistent field electronic structure calculations\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez, L. Mart\u00ednez, and G. B. Rocha\n\nJournal of Chemical Theory and Computation, Vol. 9 No. 2 (February, 2013), pages 1043-1051.\n\nAbstract: Large-scale electronic structure calculations usually involve huge nonlinear eigenvalue problems. A method for solving these problems without employing expensive eigenvalue decompositions of the Fock matrix is presented in this work. The sparsity of the input and output matrices is preserved at every iteration and the memory required by the algorithm scales linearly with the number of atoms of the system. The algorithm is based on a projected gradient iteration applied to the constraint fulfillment problem. The computer time required by the algorithm also scales approximately linearly with the number of atoms (or non-null elements of the matrices), and the algorithm is faster than standard implementations of modern eigenvalue decomposition methods for sparse matrices containing more than 50,000 non-null elements. The new method reproduces the sequence of semiempirical SCF iterations obtained by standard eigenvalue decomposition algorithms to good precision.\n\nKeywords: Electronic Structure Calculations, Semiempirical methods, Projected Gradient, linear scaling, sparsity.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nSymmetry-breaking constraints for packing identical orthogonal rectangles within polyhedra\n\nR. Andrade and E. G. Birgin\n\nOptimization Letters, Vol. 7 No. 2 (February 2013), pages 375-405.\n\nAbstract: Two problems related to packing identical orthogonal rectangles within a polyhedron are tackled in the present work. The first problem consists in packing as many identical rectangles as possible within a given polyhedron, while the second problem consists in finding the smallest polyhedron of a given type that accommodates a fixed number of identical rectangles. Both problems are modeled as mixed integer programming problems. Symmetry-breaking constraints that facilitate the solution of the MIP models are introduced. Numerical results are presented.\n\nKeywords: Packing of rectangles, MIP models, symmetry-breaking constraints, algorithms.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nDeterministic and stochastic global optimization techniques for planar covering with ellipses problems\n\nM. Andretta and E. G. Birgin\n\nEuropean Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 224 No. 1 (January 2013), pages 23-40.\n\nAbstract: Problems of planar covering with ellipses are tackled in this work. Ellipses can have a fixed angle or each of them can be freely rotated. Deterministic global optimization methods are developed for both cases, while a stochastic version of the method is also proposed for large instances of the latter case. Numerical results show the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed methods.\n\nKeywords: Planar covering with ellipses, deterministic global optimization, algorithms.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nEvaluating bound-constrained minimization software\n\nE. G. Birgin and J. M. Gentil\n\nComputational Optimization and Applications, Vol. 53 No. 2 (October 2012), pages 347-373.\n\nAbstract: Bound-constrained minimization is a subject of active research. To assess the performance of existent solvers, numerical evaluations and comparisons are carried on. Arbitrary decisions that may have a crucial effect on the conclusions of numerical experiments are highlighted in the present work. As a result, a detailed evaluation based on performance profiles is applied to the comparison of bound-constrained minimization solvers. Extensive numerical results are presented and analyzed.\n\nKeywords: Bound-constrained minimization, benchmarking, numerical evaluation, performance profiles.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nHeuristic methods for the single machine scheduling problem with different ready times and a common due date\n\nE. G. Birgin and D. P. Ronconi\n\nEngineering Optimization, Vol. 44 No. 10 (October 2012), pages 1197-1208.\n\nAbstract: The single machine scheduling problem with a common due date and non-identical ready times for the jobs is examined in this work. Performance is measured by the minimization of the weighted sum of earliness and tardiness penalties of the jobs. Since this problem is NP-hard, we investigate the application of constructive heuristics that exploit specific characteristics of the problem to improve their performance. The proposed approaches are examined through a computational comparative study on a set of 280 benchmark test problems with up to 1000 jobs.\n\nKeywords: Scheduling, single machine, earliness and tardiness, heuristic methods.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nOn the boundedness of penalty parameters in an Augmented Lagrangian method with lower level constraints\n\nE. G. Birgin, D. Fernandez and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nOptimization Methods and Software, Vol. 27 No. 6 (December 2012), pages 1001-1024.\n\nAbstract: Augmented Lagrangian methods are effective tools for solving large-scale nonlinear programming problems. At each outer iteration a minimization subproblem with simple constraints, whose objective function depends on updated Lagrange multipliers and penalty parameters, is approximately solved. When the penalty parameter becomes very large the subproblem is difficult, therefore the effectiveness of this approach is associated with boundedness of penalty parameters. In this paper it is proved that, under more natural assumptions than the ones up to now employed, penalty parameters are bounded. For proving the new boundedness result, the original algorithm has been slightly modified. Numerical consequences of the modifications are discussed and computational experiments are presented.\n\nKeywords: Nonlinear Programming, Augmented Lagrangian methods, Penalty parameters, Numerical experiments.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nAugmented Lagrangian method with nonmonotone penalty parameters for constrained optimization\n\nE. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nComputational Optimization and Applications, Vol. 51 No. 3 (April 2012), Pages 941-965.\n\nAbstract: At each outer iteration of standard Augmented Lagrangian methods one tries to solve a box-constrained optimization problem with some prescribed tolerance. In the continuous world, using exact arithmetic, this subproblem is always solvable. Therefore, the possibility of finishing the subproblem resolution without satisfying the theoretical stopping conditions is not contemplated in usual convergence theories. However, in practice, one might not be able to solve the subproblem up to the required precision. This may be due to different reasons. One of them is that the presence of an excessively large penalty parameter could impair the performance of the box-constraint optimization solver. In this paper a practical strategy for decreasing the penalty parameter in situations like the one mentioned above is proposed. More generally, the different decisions that may be taken when, in practice, one is not able to solve the Augmented Lagrangian subproblem will be discussed. As a result, an improved Augmented Lagrangian method is presented, which takes into account numerical difficulties in a satisfactory way, preserving suitable convergence theory. Numerical experiments are presented involving all the CUTEr collection test problems.\n\nKeywords: Nonlinear Programming, Augmented Lagrangian methods, Penalty parameters, Numerical experiments.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nGenerating unconstrained two-dimensional non-guillotine cutting patterns by a recursive partitioning algorithm\n\nE. G. Birgin, R. D. Lobato and R. Morabito\n\nJournal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 63 No. 2 (February 2012), Pages 183-200.\n\nAbstract: In this study, a dynamic programming approach to deal with the unconstrained two-dimensional non-guillotine cutting problem is presented. The method extends the recently introduced recursive partitioning approach for the manufacturer's pallet loading problem. The approach involves two phases and uses bounds based on unconstrained two-staged and non-staged guillotine cutting. The method is able to find the optimal cutting pattern of a large number of problem instances of moderate sizes known in the literature and a counterexample for which the approach fails to find known optimal solutions was not found. For the instances that the required computer runtime is excessive, the approach is combined with simple heuristics to reduce its running time. Detailed numerical experiments show the reliability of the method.\n\nKeywords: Cutting and packing, two-dimensional non-guillotine cutting pattern, dynamic programming, recursive approach, distributor's pallet loading problem.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nMixed-integer programming models for flowshop scheduling problems minimizing the total earliness and tardiness\n\nD. P. Ronconi and E. G. Birgin\n\nin Just-in-Time Systems, R. Z. R\u00edos-Mercado and Y. A. R\u00edos-Sol\u00eds (Eds.), Springer Series on Optimization and its Applications 60 (2012), Pages 91-105.\n\nAbstract: Scheduling problems involving both earliness and tardiness costs have received significant attention in recent years. This type of problem became important with the advent of the just-in-time (JIT) concept, where early or tardy deliveries are highly discouraged. In this work we examine the flowshop scheduling problem with no storage constraints and with blocking in-process. In this latter environment, there are no buffers between successive machines; therefore intermediate queues of jobs waiting in the system for their next operations are not allowed. Performance is measured by the minimization of the sum of earliness and tardiness of the jobs. Mixed-integer models that represent these scheduling flowshop problems are presented. The models are evaluated and compared in several problems using commercial known software.\n\nKeywords: Flowshop scheduling, earliness and tardiness, blocking in-process, mixed-integer programming formulations.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nLow Order-Value approach for solving VaR-constrained optimization problems\n\nE. G. Birgin, L. F. Bueno, N. Krejic and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nJournal of Global Optimization Vol. 51 No. 4 (December 2011), Pages 715-742.\n\nAbstract: In Low Order-Value Optimization (LOVO) problems the sum of the r smallest values of a finite sequence of q functions is involved as the objective to be minimized or as a constraint. The latter case is considered in the present paper. Portfolio optimization problems with a constraint on the admissible Value at Risk (VaR) can be modeled in terms of a LOVO problem with constraints given by Low Order-Value functions. Different algorithms for practical solution of this problem will be presented. Using these techniques, portfolio optimization problems with transaction costs will be solved.\n\nKeywords: Optimization, Augmented Lagrangian, Order-Value Optimization, Low Order-Value Optimization, Value at Risk, Numerical algorithms.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nOuter Trust-Region method for Constrained Optimization\n\nE. G. Birgin, E. V. Castelani, A. L. M. Martinez and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nJournal of Optimization Theory and Applications Vol. 150 No. 1 (July 2011), Pages 142-155.\n\nAbstract: Given an algorithm A for solving some mathematical problem based on the iterative solution of simpler subproblems, an Outer Trust-Region (OTR) modification of A is the result of adding a trust-region constraint to each subproblem. The trust-region size is adaptively updated according to the behavior of crucial variables. The new subproblems should not be more complex than the original ones and the convergence properties of the OTR algorithm should be the same as those of Algorithm A. In the present work, the OTR approach is exploited in connection with the \"greediness phenomenon\" of Nonlinear Programming. Convergence results for an OTR version of an Augmented Lagrangian method for nonconvex constrained optimization are proved and numerical experiments are presented.\n\nKeywords: Nonlinear programming, Augmented Lagrangian method, trust regions.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nOrthogonal packing of identical rectangles within isotropic convex regions\n\nE. G. Birgin and R. D. Lobato\n\nComputers & Industrial Engineering Vol. 59 No. 4 (November 2010), Pages 595-602.\n\nAbstract: A mixed integer continuous nonlinear model and a solution method for the problem of orthogonally packing identical rectangles within an arbitrary convex region are introduced in the present work. The convex region is assumed to be made of an isotropic material in such a way that arbitrary rotations of the items, preserving the orthogonality constraint, are allowed. The solution method is based on a combination of branch and bound and active-set strategies for bound-constrained minimization of smooth functions. Numerical results show the reliability of the presented approach.\n\nKeywords: Packing and cutting of rectangles, orthogonal packing, isotropic convex regions, feasibility problems, nonlinear programming, models.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nContinuous GRASP with a local active-set method for bound-constrained global optimization\n\nE. G. Birgin, E. M. Gozzi, M.G.C. Resende and R.M.A. Silva\n\nJournal of Global Optimization Vol. 48 No. 2 (October 2010), Pages 289-310.\n\nAbstract: Global optimization seeks a minimum or maximum of a multimodal function over a discrete or continuous domain. In this paper, we propose a hybrid heuristic -- based on the CGRASP and GENCAN methods -- for finding approximate solutions for continuous global optimization problems subject to box constraints. Experimental results illustrate the relative effectiveness of CGRASP-GENCAN on a set of benchmark multimodal test functions.\n\nKeywords: Global optimization, stochastic methods, active-set methods, heuristic, CGRASP, GENCAN.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nGlobal minimization using an Augmented Lagrangian method\nwith variable lower-level constraints\n\nE. G. Birgin, C. A. Floudas and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nMathematical Programming Vol. 125 No. 1 (September 2010), Pages 139-162.\n\nAbstract: A novel global optimization method based on an Augmented Lagrangian framework is introduced for continuous constrained nonlinear optimization problems. At each outer iteration the method requires the $\\varepsilon$-global minimization of the Augmented Lagrangian with simple constraints. Global convergence to an $\\varepsilon$-global minimizer of the original problem is proved. The subproblems are solved using the $\\alpha$BB method. Numerical experiments are presented.\n\nKeywords: Deterministic global optimization, Augmented Lagrangians, nonlinear programming, algorithms, numerical experiments.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nUsing sentinels to detect intersections of convex and nonconvex polygons\n\nW. F. Mascarenhas and E. G. Birgin\n\nComputational & Applied Mathematics Vol. 29 No. 2 (June 2010), Pages 247-267.\n\nAbstract: We describe finite sets of points, called sentinels, which allow us to decide if isometric copies of polygons, convex or not, intersect. As an example of the applicability of the concept of sentinel, we explain how they can be used to formulate an algorithm based on the optimization of differentiable models to pack polygons in convex sets.\n\nKeywords: Sentinels, polygons, intersection, packing, nonlinear programming.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nSecond-order negative-curvature methods for box-constrained and general constrained optimization\n\nR. Andreani, E. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez and M. L. Schuverdt\n\nComputational Optimization and Applications Vol. 45 No. 2 (March 2010), Pages 209-236.\n\nAbstract: A Nonlinear Programming algorithm that converges to second-order stationary points is introduced in this paper. The main tool is a second-order negative-curvature method for box-constrained minimization of a certain class of functions that do not possess continuous second derivatives. This method is used to define an Augmented Lagrangian algorithm of PHR (Powell-Hestenes-Rockafellar) type. Convergence proofs under weak constraint qualifications are given. Numerical examples showing that the new method converge to second-order stationary points in situations in which first-order methods fail are exhibited.\n\nKeywords: Nonlinear programming, Augmented Lagrangians, global convergence, optimality conditions, second-order conditions, constraint qualifications.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nAn effective recursive partitioning approach for the packing of identical rectangles in a rectangle\n\nE. G. Birgin, R. D. Lobato and R. Morabito\n\nJournal of the Operational Research Society Vol. 61 No. 2 (February 2010), Pages 306-320.\n\nAbstract: In this work, we deal with the problem of packing (orthogonally and without overlapping) identical rectangles in a rectangle. This problem appears in different logistics settings, such as the loading of boxes on pallets, the arrangements of pallets in trucks and the stowing of cargo in ships. We present a recursive partitioning approach combining improved versions of a recursive five-block heuristic and an $L$-approach for packing rectangles into larger rectangles and $L$-shaped pieces. The combined approach is able to rapidly find the optimal solutions of all instances of the pallet loading problem sets Cover I and II (more than 50 thousand instances). It is also effective for solving the instances of problem set Cover III (almost 100 thousand instances) and practical examples of a woodpulp stowage problem, if compared to other methods from the literature. Some theoretical results are also discussed and, based on them, efficient computer implementations are introduced. The computer implementation and the data sets are available for benchmark purposes at http:\/\/www.ime.usp.br\/~egbirgin\/packing\/.\n\nKeywords: Cutting and packing, manufacturer's pallet loading problem, woodpulp stowage problem, non-guillotine cutting pattern, recursive algorithms.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nNew and improved results for packing identical unitary radius circles within triangles, rectangles and strips\n\nE. G. Birgin and J. M. Gentil\n\nComputers & Operations Research Vol. 37 No. 7 (July 2010), Pages 1318-1327.\n\nAbstract: The focus of study in this paper is the class of packing problems. More specifically, it deals with the placement of a set of N circular items of unitary radius inside an object with the aim of minimizing its dimensions. Differently shaped containers are considered, namely circles, squares, rectangles, strips and triangles. By means of the resolution of nonlinear equations systems through the Newton-Raphson method, the herein presented algorithm succeeds in improving the accuracy of previous results attained by continuous optimization approaches up to numerical machine precision. The computer implementation and the data sets are available at http:\/\/www.ime.usp.br\/~egbirgin\/packing\/.\n\nKeywords: Packing, nonlinear equations system, Newton's method, nonlinear programming.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nPartial Spectral Projected Gradient Method with Active-Set Strategy for Linearly Constrained Optimization\n\nM. Andretta, E. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nNumerical Algorithms, Vol. 53 No. 1 (January 2010), Pages 23-52.\n\nAbstract: A method for linearly constrained optimization which modifies and generalizes recent box-constraint optimization algorithms is introduced. The new algorithm is based on a relaxed form of Spectral Projected Gradient iterations. Intercalated with these projected steps, internal iterations restricted to faces of the polytope are performed, which enhance the efficiency of the algorithms. Convergence proofs are given and numerical experiments are included and commented. Software supporting this paper is available through the TANGO Project web page.\n\nKeywords: Linearly constrained optimization, spectral projected gradient method, active set methods.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nPACKMOL: A package for building initial configurations for molecular dynamics simulations\n\nL. Mart\u00ednez, R. Andrade, E. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nJournal of Computational Chemistry, Vol. 30 No. 13 (October 2009), Pages 2157-2164.\n\nAbstract: Adequate initial configurations for molecular dynamics simulations consist of arrangements of molecules distributed in space in such a way to approximately represent the system's overall structure. In order that the simulations are not disrupted by large Van der Waals repulsive interactions, atoms from different molecules must keep safe pairwise distances. Obtaining such a molecular arrangement can be considered a packing problem: Each type molecule must satisfy spatial constraints related to the geometry of the system, and the distance between atoms of different molecules must be greater than some specified tolerance. We have developed a code able to pack millions of atoms, grouped in arbitrarily complex molecules, inside a variety of three-dimensional regions. The regions may be intersections of spheres, ellipses, cylinders, planes or boxes. The user must provide only the structure of one molecule of each type and the geometrical constraints that each type of molecule must satisfy. Building complex mixtures, interfaces, solvating biomolecules in water or other solvents, or mixtures of solvents is straightforward. In addition, different atoms belonging to the same molecule may also be restricted to different spacial regions, in such a way that more ordered molecular arrangements can be built, as micelles, lipid double-layers, etc. The packing time for state-of-the-art molecular dynamics systems varies from a few seconds to a few minutes in a personal computer. The input files are simple and currently compatible with PDB, Tinker, Molden or Moldy coordinate files. The package is distributed as free software and can be downloaded from http:\/\/www.ime.unicamp.br\/~martinez\/packmol\/.\n\nKeywords: Initial configuration, molecular dynamics, packing, large-scale optimization, PACKMOL.\n\nFull text: [pdf]\n\nEstimation of the thickness and the optical parameters of several superimposed thin films using optimization\n\nR. Andrade, E. G. Birgin, I. Chambouleyron, J. M. Mart\u00ednez and S. D. Ventura\n\nApplied Optics, Vol. 47 No. 28 (October 2008), Pages 5208-5220.\n\nAbstract: The Reverse Engineering problem addressed in the present research consists in estimating the thicknesses and the optical parameters of two thin films deposited on a transparent substrate using only transmittance data through the whole stack. To the present author's knowledge this is the first report on the retrieval of the optical constants and the thickness of multiple film structures using transmittance data only. The same methodology may be used if the available data correspond to normal reflectance. The software used in this work is freely available through the PUMA Project web page (http:\/\/www.ime.usp.br\/~egbirgin\/puma\/).\n\nKeywords: Optical constants, thin films, optimization, numerical algorithms, Reverse Engineering.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nImproving ultimate convergence of an Augmented Lagrangian method\n\nE. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nOptimization Methods and Software, Vol. 23 No. 2 (April 2008), Pages 177-195.\n\nAbstract: Optimization methods that employ the classical Powell-Hestenes-Rockafellar Augmented Lagrangian are useful tools for solving Nonlinear Programming problems. Their reputation decreased in the last ten years due to the comparative success of Interior-Point Newtonian algorithms, which are asymptotically faster. In the present research a combination of both approaches is evaluated. The idea is to produce a competitive method, being more robust and efficient than its \"pure\" counterparts for critical problems. Moreover, an additional hybrid algorithm is defined, in which the Interior Point method is replaced by the Newtonian resolution of a KKT system identified by the Augmented Lagrangian algorithm. The software used in this work is freely available through the TANGO Project web page.\n\nKeywords: Nonlinear programming, Augmented Lagrangian methods, Interior-Point methods, Newton's method, experiments.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nStructured minimal-memory inexact quasi-Newton method and secant preconditioners for Augmented Lagrangian Optimization\n\nE. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nComputational Optimization and Applications, Vol. 39 No. 1 (January 2008), Pages 1-16.\n\nAbstract: Augmented Lagrangian methods for large-scale optimization usually require efficient algorithms for minimization with box constraints. On the other hand, active-set box-constraint methods employ unconstrained optimization algorithms for minimization inside the faces of the box. Several approaches may be employed for computing internal search directions in the large-scale case. In this paper a minimal-memory quasi-Newton approach with secant preconditioners is proposed, taking into account the structure of Augmented Lagrangians that come from the popular Powell-Hestenes-Rockafellar scheme. A combined algorithm, that uses the quasi-Newton formula or a truncated-Newton procedure, depending of the presence of active constraints in the penalty-Lagrangian function, is also suggested. Numerical experiments using the CUTE collection are presented.\n\nKeywords: Nonlinear programming, Augmented Lagrangian methods, box constraints, quasi-Newton, truncated-Newton.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nMinimizing the object dimensions in circle and sphere packing problems\n\nE. G. Birgin and F. N. C. Sobral\n\nComputers & Operations Research, Vol. 35 No. 7 (July 2008), Pages 2357-2375.\n\nAbstract: Given a fixed set of identical or different-sized circular items, the problem we deal with consists on finding the smallest object within which the items can be packed. Circular, triangular, squared, rectangular and also strip objects are considered. Moreover, 2D and 3D problems are treated. Twice-differentiable models for all these problems are presented. A strategy to reduce the complexity of evaluating the models is employed and, as a consequence, instances with a large number of items can be considered. Numerical experiments show the flexibility and reliability of the new unified approach.\n\nKeywords: Packing of circles and spheres, models, algorithms, nonlinear programming.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nAugmented Lagrangian methods under the Constant Positive Linear Dependence constraint qualification\n\nR. Andreani, E. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez and M. L. Schuverdt\n\nMathematical Programming, Vol. 111 No. 1-2 (January 2008), Pages 5-32.\n\nAbstract: Two Augmented Lagrangian algorithms for solving KKT systems are introduced. The algorithms differ in the way in which penalty parameters are updated. Possibly infeasible accumulation points are characterized. It is proved that feasible limit points that satisfy the Constant Positive Linear Dependence constraint qualification are KKT solutions. Boundedness of the penalty parameters is proved under suitable assumptions. Numerical experiments are presented.\n\nKeywords: Nonlinear programming, Augmented Lagrangian methods, KKT systems, numerical experiments.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nOn Augmented Lagrangian methods with general lower-level constraints\n\nR. Andreani, E. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez and M. L. Schuverdt\n\nSIAM Journal on Optimization, Vol. 18 No. 4 (2008), Pages 1286-1309.\n\nAbstract: Augmented Lagrangian methods with general lower-level constraints are considered in the present research. These methods are useful when efficient algorithms exist for solving subproblems where the constraints are only of the lower-level type. Two methods of this class are introduced and analyzed. Inexact resolution of the lower-level constrained subproblems is considered. Global convergence is proved using the Constant Positive Linear Dependence constraint qualification. Conditions for boundedness of the penalty parameters are discussed. The reliability of the approach is tested by means of an exhaustive comparison against Lancelot. All the problems of the Cute collection are used in this comparison. Moreover, the resolution of location problems in which many constraints of the lower-level set are nonlinear is addressed, employing the Spectral Projected Gradient method for solving the subproblems. Problems of this type with more than $3 \\times 10^6$ variables and $14 \\times 10^6$ constraints are solved in this way, using moderate computer time.\n\nKeywords: Nonlinear programming, Augmented Lagrangian methods, global convergence, constraint qualifications, numerical experiments.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nMethod of Sentinels for Packing Items within Arbitrary Convex Regions\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez, W. F. Mascarenhas and D. P. Ronconi\n\nJournal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 57 No. 6 (June 2006), Pages 735-746.\n\nAbstract: A new method is introduced for packing objects in convex regions of the Euclidian n-dimensional space. By means of this approach the packing problem becomes a global finite-dimensional continuous optimization problem. The strategy is based on the new concept of sentinels sets. Sentinels sets are finite subsets of the objects to be packed such that when two objects are superposed at least one sentinel of one object is in the interior of the other. Minimal sets of sentinels are found in simple 2-dimensional cases. Numerical experiments and pictures showing the potentiality of the new technique are presented.\n\nKeywords: Sentinels, packing problems, cutting problems, models, nonlinear programming.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nOrthogonal packing of rectangular items within arbitrary convex regions by nonlinear optimization\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez, F. H. Nishihara and D. P. Ronconi\n\nComputers & Operations Research, Vol. 33 No. 12 (December 2006), Pages 3535-3548.\n\nAbstract: The orthogonal packing of rectangular items in an arbitrary convex region is considered in this work. The packing problem is modeled as the problem of deciding for the feasibility or infeasibility of a set of nonlinear equality and inequality constraints. A procedure based on nonlinear programming is introduced and numerical experiments which show that the new procedure is reliable are exhibited.\n\nKeywords: Packing of rectangles, orthogonal packing, feasibility problems, models, nonlinear programming.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nLocal Convergence of an Inexact-Restoration method and Numerical Experiments\n\nE. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nJournal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Vol. 127 No. 2 (November 2005), Pages 229-247.\n\nAbstract: Local convergence of an inexact-restoration method for nonlinear programming is proved. Numerical experiments are performed with the objective of evaluating the behavior of the purely local method against a globally convergent nonlinear-programming algorithm.\n\nKeywords: Inexact-restoration method, nonlinear programming, local convergence, numerical experiments.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nSee also the Technical Report (extended version of the published article) [pdf] [ps]\n\nA note on an L-approach for solving the manufacturer's pallet loading problem\n\nE. G. Birgin, R. Morabito and F. H. Nishihara\n\nJournal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 56 No. 12 (December 2005), Pages 1448-1451.\n\nAbstract: An L-approach for packing (l,w)-rectangles into an (L,W)-rectangle was introduced in [L. Lins, S. Lins and R. Morabito, An L-approach for packing (l,w)-rectangles into rectangular and L-shaped pieces, Journal of the Operational Research Society 54, pp. 777-789, 2003]. The authors of that paper conjecture that the L-approach is exact and point out its runtime requirements as the main drawback. In this note it is shown that, by simply using a different data structure, the runtime is considerably reduced in spite of larger (but affordable) memory requirements. This reduction is important for practical purposes since it makes the algorithm much more acceptable for supporting actual decisions in pallet loading. Intensive numerical experiments showing the efficiency and effectiveness of the algorithm are presented.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nOptimization techniques for the estimation of the thickness and the optical parameters of thin films using reflectance data\n\nS. Ventura, E. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez and I. Chambouleyron\n\nJournal of Applied Physics, Vol. 97 043512 (February 2005).\n\nAbstract: The present work considers the problem of estimating the thickness and the optical constants (extinction coefficient and refractive index) of thin films from the spectrum of normal reflectance R. This is an ill-conditioned highly underdetermined inverse problem. The estimation is done in the spectral range where the film is not opaque. The idea behind the choice of this particular spectral range is to compare the film characteristics retrieved from transmittance T and from reflectance data. In the first part of the paper a compact formula for R is deduced. The approach to deconvolute the R data is to use well known information on the dependence of the optical constants on photon energy of semiconductors and dielectrics and to formulate the estimation as a nonlinear optimization problem. Previous publications of the group on the subject provide guidelines for designing the new procedures. The consistency of the approach is tested with computer generated thin films and also with measured R and T spectral data of an a-Si:H film deposited onto glass. The results on gedanken films and onto a-Si:H indicate a very good agreement between expected and retrieved values.\n\nKeywords: Optical constants, thin films, reflectance, optimization, numerical algorithms.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nPractical active-set Euclidian trust-region method with spectral projected gradients for bound-constrained minimization\n\nM. Andretta, E. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nOptimization, Vol. 54 No. 3 (June 2005), Pages 305-325.\n\nAbstract: A practical active-set method for bound-constrained minimization is introduced. Within the current face the classical Euclidian trust-region method is employed. Spectral projected gradient directions are used to abandon faces. Numerical results are presented.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nNumerical comparison of Augmented Lagrangian algorithms for nonconvex problems\n\nE. G. Birgin, R. Castillo and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nComputational Optimization and Applications, Vol. 31 No. 1 (May 2005), Pages 31-55.\n\nAbstract: Augmented Lagrangian algorithms are very popular tools for solving nonlinear programming problems. At each outer iteration of these methods a simpler optimization problem is solved, for which efficient algorithms can be used, especially when the problems are large. The most famous Augmented Lagrangian algorithm for minimization with inequality constraints is known as Powell-Hestenes-Rockafellar (PHR) method. The main drawback of PHR is that the objective function of the subproblems is not twice continuously differentiable. This is the main motivation for the introduction of many alternative Augmented Lagrangian methods. Most of them have interesting interpretations as proximal point methods for solving the dual problem, when the original nonlinear programming problem is convex. In this paper a numerical comparison between many of these methods is performed using all the suitable problems of the CUTE collection.\n\nKeywords: Nonlinear programming, Augmented Lagrangian methods, inequality constraints, benchmarking, algorithms.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nRobust stopping criteria for Dykstra's algorithm\n\nE. G. Birgin and M. Raydan\n\nSIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, Vol. 26 No. 4 (March 2005), Pages 1405-1414.\n\nAbstract: Dykstra's algorithm is a suitable alternating projection scheme for solving the optimization problem of finding the closest point to a given one onto the intersection of a finite number of closed and convex sets. It has been recently used in a wide variety of applications. However, in practice, the commonly used stopping criteria are not robust and could stop the iterative process prematurely at a point that does not solve the optimization problem. In this work we present a counter example to illustrate the weakness of the commonly used criteria, and then we develop full-proof stopping rules. Additional experiments are shown to illustrate the advantages of this new stopping criteria, including their associated computational cost.\n\nKeywords: Convex optimization, alternating projection methods, Dykstra's algorithm, stopping criteria.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nSpectral projected gradient and variable metric methods for optimization with linear inequalities\n\nR. Andreani, E. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez and J. Yuan\n\nIMA Journal of Numerical Analysis, Vol. 25 No. 2 (April 2005), Pages 221-252.\n\nAbstract: A family of variable metric methods for convex constrained optimization was introduced recently by Birgin, Mart\u00ednez and Raydan. One of the members of this family is the Inexact Spectral Projected Gradient (ISPG) method for minimization with convex constraints. At each iteration of these methods a strictly convex quadratic function with convex constraints must be (inexactly) minimized. In the case of ISPG it was shown that, in some important applications, iterative projection methods can be used for this minimization. In this paper the particular case in which the convex domain is a polytope described by a finite set of linear inequalities is considered. For solving the linearly constrained convex quadratic subproblem a dual approach is adopted, by means of which subproblems become (not necessarily strictly) convex quadratic minimization problems with box constraints. For solving this problem, we use an active-set box-constraint quadratic optimizer with a proximal-point type unconstrained algorithm for minimization within the current faces. Convergence results and numerical experiments are presented.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nOptimizing the Packing of Cylinders into a Rectangular Container: A Nonlinear Approach\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez and D. P. Ronconi\n\nEuropean Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 160 No 1 (January 2005), Pages 19-33.\n\nAbstract: The container loading problem has important industrial and commercial applications. An increase in the number of items in a container leads to a decrease in cost. For this reason the related optimization problem is of economic importance. In this work, a procedure based on a nonlinear decision problem to solve the cylinder packing problem with identical diameters is presented. This formulation is based on the fact that the centers of the cylinders have to be inside the rectangular box defined by the base of the container (a radius far from the frontier) and far from each other at least one diameter. With this basic premise the procedure tries to find the maximum number of cylinder centers that satisfy these restrictions. The continuous nature of the problem is one of the reasons that motivated this study. A comparative study with other methods of the literature is presented and better results are achieved.\n\nKeywords: Cylinder packing, rectangular container, circular container, nonlinear programming, bound-constrained minimization, convex-constrained minimization.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nInexact Spectral Projected Gradient Methods on Convex Sets\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez and M. Raydan\n\nIMA Journal of Numerical Analysis, Vol. 23 No 4 (October 2003), Pages 539-559.\n\nAbstract: A new method is introduced for large scale convex constrained optimization. The general model algorithm involves, at each iteration, the approximate minimization of a convex quadratic on the feasible set of the original problem and global convergence is obtained by means of nonmonotone line searches. A specific algorithm, the Inexact Spectral Projected Gradient method (ISPG), is implemented using inexact projections computed by Dykstra's alternating projection method and generates interior iterates. The ISPG method is a generalization of the Spectral Projected Gradient method (SPG), but can be used when projections are difficult to compute. Numerical results for constrained least-squares rectangular matrix problems are presented.\n\nKeywords: Convex constrained optimization, Projected gradient, nonmonotone line search, spectral gradient, Dykstra's algorithm.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nEstimation of optical parameters of very thin films\n\nE. G. Birgin, I. Chambouleyron, J. M. Mart\u00ednez and S. D. Ventura\n\nApplied Numerical Mathematics, Vol. 47 No 2 (November 2003), Pages 109-119.\n\nAbstract: In recent papers, the problem of estimating the thickness and the optical constants (refractive index and absorption coefficient) of thin films using only transmittance data has been addressed by means of optimization techniques. Models were proposed for solving this problem using linearly constrained optimization and unconstrained optimization. However, the optical parameters of very thin'' films could not be recovered with methods that are successful in other situations. Here we introduce an optimization technique that seems to be efficient for recovering the parameters of very thin films.\n\nKeywords: Optical constants, thin films, optimization, numerical algorithms.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nGlobally convergent inexact quasi-Newton methods for solving nonlinear systems\n\nE. G. Birgin, N. Krejic and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nNumerical Algorithms, Vol. 32 No 2-4 (April 2003), Pages 249-260.\n\nAbstract: Large scale nonlinear systems of equations can be solved by means of inexact quasi-Newton methods. A global convergence theory is introduced that guarantees that, under reasonable assumptions, the algorithmic sequence converges to a solution of the problem. Under additional standard assumptions, superlinear convergence is preserved.\n\nKeywords: Nonlinear systems, inexact Newton methods, global convergence, superlinear convergence, quasi-Newton methods.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nOptimization problems in the estimation or parameters of thin films and the elimination of the influence of the substrate\n\nE. G. Birgin, I. Chambouleyron and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nJournal of Computational and Applied Mathematics, Vol. 152 No. 1 (March 2003), Pages 35-50.\n\nAbstract: In a recent paper, the authors introduced a method to estimate optical parameters of thin films using transmission data. The associated model assumes that the film is deposited on a completely transparent substrate. It has been observed, however, that small absorption of substrates affect in a nonnegligible way the transmitted energy. The question arises of the reliability of the estimation method to retrieve optical parameters in the presence of substrates of different thicknesses and absorption degrees. In this paper, transmission spectra of thin films deposited on non-transparent substrates are generated and, as a first approximation, the method based on transparent substrates is used to estimate the optical parameters. As expected, the method is good when the absorption of the substrate is very small, but fails when one deals with less transparent substrates. To overcome this drawback, an iterative procedure is introduced, that allows one to approximate the transmittance with transparent substrate, given the transmittance with absorbent substrate. The updated method turns out to be almost as efficient in the case of absorbent substrates as it was in the case of transparent ones.\n\nKeywords: Optimization, estimation of parameters, unconstrained minimization, constrained optimization, thin films, optical constants, transmittance.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nSolution of bounded nonlinear systems of equations using homotopies with inexact restoration\n\nE. G. Birgin, N. Krejic and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nInternational Journal of Computer Mathematics, Vol. 80 No. 2 (February 2003), Pages 211-222.\n\nAbstract: Nonlinear systems of equations often represent mathematical models of chemical production processes and other engineering problems. Homotopic techniques (in particular, the bounded homotopies introduced by Paloschi) are used for enhancing convergence to solutions, especially when a good initial estimate is not available. In this paper, the homotopy curve is considered as the feasible set of a mathematical programming problem, where the objective is to find the optimal value of the homotopic parameter. Inexact restoration techniques can then be used to generate approximations in a neighborhood of the homotopy, the size of which is theoretically justified. Numerical examples are given.\n\nKeywords: Nonlinear programming, nonlinear systems, homotopies, bounded homotopies, homotopy methods, inexact restoration.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nMinimization subproblems and heuristics for an applied clustering problem\n\nE. G. Birgin, J.M. Mart\u00ednez and D. P. Ronconi\n\nEuropean Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 146 No. 1 (April 1, 2003), Pages 19-34.\n\nAbstract: A practical problem that requires the classification of a set of points of Rn using a criterion not sensitive to bounded outliers is studied in this paper. A fixed-point (k-means) algorithm is defined that uses an arbitrary distance function. Finite convergence is proved. A robust distance defined by Boente, Fraiman and Yohai is selected for applications. Smooth approximations of this distance are defined and suitable heuristics are introduced to enhance the probability of finding global optimizers. A real-life example is presented and commented.\n\nKeywords: Nonlinear programming, heuristics, clustering, classification, fixed points.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nOptical constants and thickness determination of very thin amorphous semiconductor films\n\nI. Chambouleyron, S. D. Ventura, E. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez,\n\nJournal of Applied Physics, Vol. 92 No. 6 (September 15, 2002), Pages 3093-3102.\n\nAbstract: This contribution addresses the relevant question of retrieving, from transmittance data, the optical constants and thickness of very thin semiconductor and dielectric films. The retrieval process looks for a thickness that, subject to the physical input of the problem, minimizes the difference between the measured and the theoretical spectra. This is a highly underdetermined problem but, the use of approximate - though simple - functional dependences of the index of refraction and of the absorption coefficient on photon energy, used as an a priori information, allows surmounting the ill-posedness of the problem. The method is illustrated with the analysis of transmittance data of very thin amorphous silicon films. The method allows retrieving physically meaningful solutions for films as thin as 300 A. The estimated parameters agree well with known data or with optical parameters measured by independent methods. The limitations of the adopted model and the shortcomings of the optimization algorithm are presented and discussed.\n\nKeywords: Optical constants, thin films, optimization, numerical algorithms.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nLarge-scale active-set box-constrained optimization method with spectral projected gradients\n\nE. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nComputational Optimization and Applications, Vol. 23 No. 1 (October 2002), Pages 101-125.\n\nAbstract: A new active-set method for smooth box-constrained minimization is introduced. The algorithm combines an unconstrained method, including a new line-search which aims to add many constraints to the working set at a single iteration, with a recently introduced technique (spectral projected gradient) for dropping constraints from the working set. Global convergence is proved. A computer implementation is fully described and a numerical comparison assesses the reliability of the new algorithm.\n\nKeywords: Box-constrained minimization, numerical methods, active-set strategies, Spectral Projected Gradient.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nAlgorithm 813: SPG - software for convex-constrained optimization\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez and M. Raydan\n\nACM Transactions on Mathematical Software, Vol. 27 No. 3 (September 2001), Pages 340-349.\n\nAbstract: A Fortran 77 software which implements the SPG method is introduced. SPG is a nonmonotone projected gradient algorithm for solving large-scale convex-constrained optimization problems. It combines the classical projected gradient method with the spectral gradient choice of steplength and a nonmonotone line search strategy. Implementation details are presented and the usage of the software is described. Some new numerical tests that have been recently performed are reported. The main conclusion is that SPG compares favorably with existing software.\n\nKeywords: Projected gradients, nonmonotone line search, large-scale problems, bound constrained problems, spectral gradient method.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nA box-constrained optimization algorithm with negative curvature directions and spectral projected gradients\n\nE. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nComputing [Suppl], Vol. 15 (2001), Pages 49-60.\n\nAbstract: A practical algorithm for box-constrained optimization is introduced. The algorithm combines an active-set strategy with spectral projected gradient iterations. In the interior of each face a strategy that deals efficiently with negative curvature is employed. Global convergence results are given. Numerical results are presented.\n\nKeywords: Box constrained minimization, active set methods, spectral projected gradients, dogleg path methods.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nA Spectral Conjugate Gradient method for unconstrained optimization\n\nE. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nApplied Mathematics and Optimization, Vol. 43 No. 2 (2001), Pages 117-118.\n\nAbstract: A family of scaled conjugate-gradient algorithms for large-scale unconstrained minimization is defined. The Perry, the Polak-Ribi\u00e8ere and the Fletcher-Reeves formulae are compared using a spectral scaling derived from Raydan's spectral gradient optimization method. The best combination of formula, scaling and initial choice of step-length is compared against well known algorithms using a classical set of problems. An additional comparison involving an ill-conditioned estimation problem in Optics is presented.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nDetermination of thickness and optical constants of a-Si:H films from transmittance data\n\nM. Mulato, I. Chambouleyron, E. G. Birgin and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nApplied Physics Letters, Vol. 77 No. 14 (2000), Pages 2133-2135.\n\nAbstract: This work presents the first application of a recently developed numerical method to determine the thickness and the optical constants of thin films using experimental transmittance data only. The new method may be applied to films not displaying a fringe pattern and is shown to work for a-Si:H layers as thin as 100 nm. The performance and limitations of the method are discussed on the basis of experiments performed on a series of six a-Si:H samples grown under identical conditions, but with thickness varying from 98 nm to 1.2 mu m.\n\nKeywords: Thin films, optical constants, a-Si:H films, unconstrained minimization.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nNonmonotone Spectral Projected Gradient Methods on Convex Sets\n\nE. G. Birgin, J. M. Mart\u00ednez and M. Raydan\n\nSIAM Journal on Optimization, Vol. 10 No. 4 (2000), Pages 1196-1211.\n\nAbstract: Nonmonotone projected gradient techniques are considered for the minimization of differentiable functions on closed convex sets.\u00a0 The classical projected gradient schemes are extended to include a nonmonotone steplength strategy that is based on the Grippo-Lampariello-Lucidi nonmonotone line search. In particular, the nonmonotone strategy is combined with the spectral gradient choice of steplength to accelerate the convergence process. In addition to the classical projected gradient nonlinear path, the feasible spectral projected gradient is used as a search direction to avoid additional trial projections during the one-dimensional search process. Convergence properties and extensive numerical results are presented.\n\nKeywords: Projected gradients, nonmonotone line search, large scale problems, bound constrained problems, spectral gradient method.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nRestricted optimization: a clue to a fast and accurate implementation of the Common Reflection Surface Stack method\n\nE. G. Birgin, R. Biloti, M. Tygel and L. T. Santos\n\nJournal of Applied Geophysics, Vol. 42 No. 3-4 (December 1999), Pages 143-155.\n\nAbstract: For a fixed, central ray in an isotropic elastic or acoustic media, traveltime moveouts of rays in its vicinity can be described in terms of a certain number of parameters that refer to the central ray only. The determination of these parameters out of multi-coverage data leads to very powerful algorithms that can be used for several imaging and inversion processes. Assuming two-dimensional propagation, the traveltime expressions depend on three parameters directly related to the geometry of the unknown model in the vicinity of the central ray. We present a new method to extract these parameters out of coherency analysis applied directly to the data. It uses (a) fast one-parameter searches on different sections extracted from the multi-coverage data to derive initial values of the sections parameters, and (b) the application of a recently introduced Spectral Projected Gradient optimization algorithm for the final parameter estimation. Application of the method on a synthetic example shows an excellent performance of the algorithm both in accuracy and efficiency. The results obtained so far indicate that the algorithm may be a feasible option to solve the corresponding, harder, full three-dimensional problem, in which eight parameters, instead of three, are required.\n\nKeywords: Multi-coverage data, Common Reflection Surface method, hyperbolic traveltime, coherency function, optimization, Spectral Projected Gradient method.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nEstimation of the optical constants and the thickness of thin films using unconstrained optimization\n\nE. G. Birgin, I. Chambouleyron and J. M. Mart\u00ednez\n\nJournal of Computational Physics, Vol. 151, No. 2 (May 1999), Pages 862-880.\n\nAbstract: The problem of estimating the thickness and the optical constants of thin films using transmission data only is very challenging from the mathematical point of view, and has a technological and an economic importance. In many cases it represents a very ill-conditioned inverse problem with many local-nonglobal solutions. In a recent publication we proposed nonlinear programming models for solving this problem.Well-known software for linearly constrained optimization was used with success for this purpose. In this paper we introduce an unconstrained formulation of the nonlinear programming model and we solve the estimation problem using a method based on repeated calls to a recently introduced unconstrained minimization algorithm. Numerical experiments on computer-generated films show that the new procedure is reliable.\n\nKeywords: Unconstrained minimization, spectral gradient method, optical constants, thin films.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nAutomatic differentiation for optimal control problems\n\nE. G. Birgin and Y. G. Evtushenko\n\nin Dynamics of Non-homogeneous System, edited by Y. S. Popkov, Proceedings of ISA RAS, Institute of System Analysis of the Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Vol. 2 (1999), Pages 53-62.\n\nAbstract: Automatic differentiation is used for the solution of optimal control problems. The original problem is reduced to a nonlinear programming problem using general Runge-Kutta integration formulas. Canonical formulas which use a fast automatic differentiation strategy are given to compute derivatives of the goal function.\n\nKeywords: Automatic differentiation, optimal control problem, Runge-Kutta integration methods.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]\n\nAutomatic differentiation and Spectral Projected Gradient methods for optimal control problems\n\nE. G. Birgin and Y. G. Evtushenko\n\nOptimization Methods & Software, Vol. 10 No. 2 (December 1998), Pages 125-146.\n\nAbstract: Automatic differentiation and nonmonotone spectral projected gradient techniques are used for solving optimal control problems. The original problem is reduced to a nonlinear programming one using general Runge-Kutta integration formulas. Canonical formulas which use a fast automatic differentiation strategy are given to compute derivatives of the objective function. On the basis of this approach, codes for solving optimal control problems are developed and some numerical results are presented.\n\nKeywords: Automatic differentiation, Spectral Projected Gradient, nonmonotone line search, optimal control problem, software for optimal control problems, Runge-Kutta integration methods.\n\nFull text: [pdf] [ps]","date":"2019-12-08 07:25:57","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 1, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.47805914282798767, \"perplexity\": 1123.676907334947}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2019-51\/segments\/1575540507109.28\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20191208072107-20191208100107-00101.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
Die fünfte Frau (Originaltitel: Den 5:e kvinnan) ist ein in schwedisch-norwegisch-dänischer Koproduktion entstandener TV-Krimi aus dem Jahr 2002, der auf dem gleichnamigen Roman von Henning Mankell basiert. Die Hauptrolle übernahm Rolf Lassgård, Regie führte Birger Larsen. Handlung Algerien 1994: Vier französische Nonnen und eine schwedische Touristin werden von Fundamentalisten ermordet. Ein Jahr später ereignet sich im Süden Schwedens eine Mordserie; die Opfer sind ausschließlich Männer: Ein älterer Herr mit einer Vorliebe für Vogelgedichte, ein Orchideenliebhaber sowie ein Forscher, der mit Steinen im See ertränkt wurde. In allen Fällen mussten die Opfer lang und qualvoll sterben. Kommissar Wallander steht vor einem Rätsel: Warum tötet der Serienmörder scheinbar harmlose Bürger auf derart brutale Weise? Bei seinen Ermittlungen stößt er darauf, dass zu den Morden in Algerien eine Verbindung besteht und dass es sich bei dem Täter offenbar um eine Frau handelt. Die Krankenschwester Yvonne Ander ist dringend tatverdächtig, aber nicht aussagebereit. Hintergrund Die deutsche Fassung wurde 2002 vom ZDF synchronisiert und im Dezember desselben Jahres als Zweiteiler ausgestrahlt. Der Film ist die fünfte Wallander-Verfilmung, da die neueren Verfilmungen von der Chronologie der Bücher abweichen, und erschien am 17. Februar 2003 als DVD-Version inklusive der Dokumentation Die Welten des Henning Mankell. Neben den zum zweiten Mal eingesetzten neuen Schauspielern von Wallanders Kollegen tritt auch zum ersten Mal Maya Thysell in den Filmen auf, eine Kollegin Wallanders, mit der er eine Affäre eingeht, die aber in der literarischen Vorlage nicht existiert. Kritik Die Fernsehzeitschrift prisma urteilte, die Romanverfilmung sei "ein packender Thriller, der gleichzeitig auch ein vielschichtiges Porträt Schwedens abliefert". Dass "die Vorlage in einigen Punkten geändert wurde" würde die Spannung fördern. TV Spielfilm gab dem Film die bestmögliche Bewertung (Daumen nach oben) und bezeichnete ihn als "düsteres Drama um brutale Selbstjustiz". Auszeichnungen Der Zweiteiler wurde beim Filmfestival in Venedig als beste Miniserie ausgezeichnet. Bei der Cologne Conference 2002 erhielt Birger Larsen zudem den Preis in der Kategorie "Best Fiction Program". Weblinks Einzelnachweise Filmtitel 2002 Kriminalfilm Schwedischer Film Dänischer Film Norwegischer Film Henning-Mankell-Verfilmung Fernsehfilm	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia" }	5,288
Q: Getting Null from Ajax Post I am trying to get my model from inside my web app, into a post Action. the only issue is that I get a model object which has 1 null variables inside :(. The action is: [HttpPost] [ValidateAntiForgeryHeader] public async Task<JsonResult> StartRound(RoundModel model) the models are as follow: Edit: thanks to Nick Bailey, I started to find heaps of issues edits to the following: * removed Round as it wasn't needed changed Matches to List as not sure if model constructor defaults Interfaces changed OldId to int as that is the only type it will ever be and Json object had it as an int coming up to the action changed SystemId and AdminAprovedWinnerId to nullable as both are expected to be able to be null un-redacted all of constructors, I found out that I had no default constructor so therefore there was no way for it to be constructed added default constructor as mentioned above public class RoundModel { public List<ClientMatch> Matches { get; set; } // null in action } public class ClientMatch { public int OldId { get; set; } public string RoundName { get; set; } public string ServerName { get; set; } public string ServerPassword { get; set; } public string ServerMessage { get; set; } public Guid? SystemId { get; set; } public Guid? AdminAprovedWinnerId { get; set; } public Guid TeamAId { get; set; } public Guid TeamBId { get; set; } public int TeamAVote { get; set; } public int TeamBVote { get; set; } public ClientMatch() { } public ClientMatch(MatchWithTmpId noGuid) { ... } } As you will notice, the Round object is a Code First model with Virtual attributes. I have removed it from RoundModel just prior to uploading this question to test it, and removing it doesn't resolve the issue. and my Ajax post Edit: thanks to Nick Bailey, I started to find heaps of issues edits to the following: * SystemId now passes null as 0 cannot parse into GUID TeamAVote, TeamBVote both passing through 1 (which coresponds to an enum) Currently I have them nested inside of RoundModel as it was what I was last trying to get it working POST http://localhost:52690/Admin/StartRound HTTP/1.1 Host: localhost:52690 Connection: keep-alive Content-Length: 752 Accept: /* Origin: http://localhost:52690 X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest __RequestVerificationToken: TU5lBruq0K0FBxviWOS1GVjtRFw0edbCvE57bzh3wikqlXTw384jgxGBic61nMgUNwAXRgbf50cpk0naKADQgwnR9aNq1R55SSHj6UvszBRdfJ8nt362OFBQLC7eWLTwAwPJUVkRrFQkCOnZwtL6SQ2 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/45.0.2454.101 Safari/537.36 Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8 Referer: http://localhost:52690/Admin/MatchScheduler Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8 Cookie: redacted { "RoundModel":{ "Matches":[ { "SystemId":null, "OldId":0, "RoundName":"awd", "ServerName":"Apogawd0", "ServerPassword":"apog", "ServerMessage":"Can Team \"Lovin it\" please create server \"Apogawd0\" hosted in Oceania Servers, random map", "AdminAprovedWinnerId":null, "TeamAId":"74206e93-33aa-48d4-bac2-5f9acac0be90", "TeamBId":"35d4be62-4e3e-4575-8ce9-6c819382b50c", "TeamAVote":1, "TeamBVote":1 } ] } } Any and all help appreciated, Cheers, Michael. edit cont: I have made allot of changes thanks to Nick remdining me of the basics, haha I have spent too much time in JS land. Still getting null on Matches A: You're passing an empty object for your round parameter, so naturally it comes in null. TeamAVote and TeamBVote are non nullable fields on your client match model, so the Jason serialized can't parse the null values you posted. I'd make those fields nullable. Also, it's usually a really good idea to use different models for your API models and data models. The usually differ enough that shared code becomes a problem. A: The final piece of the puzzle was a frustrating one. I stopped using JSON as form data and went back to my raw js object and all a sudden, success! So I looked again at the headers and sure enough: Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8 so I went into my Ajax method and added: contentType: "application/json" Finally :) Success, thanks Nick Bailey, it was you who got me on the right track so I will be awarding you the answer. Please edit your Question to indicate that the full answer is in my answer, or just update yours to include the solution. Thanks again!	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange" }	5,914
You might need to share the link from the share button rather then the url from the browser. Or if you're trying to nest a VML button inside a VML background that will break. Don't think anyone has nailed that yet. Hi Mark, thanks for responding. We are nesting a CTA button within a background image and it is working within all major clients with the exception of Outlook 2013. And only then, the issue is that it ignores the left padding around the CTA . We did try adding the <center> tag but that created a host of other rendering issues. That is a bit of a strange one, not too sure why that's happening. Instead of using the padding-left:50px you could add a spacer cell next to the button. <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="187" height="50" alt="Salesforce Analytics Cloud" style="display: block; font-family:'SalesforceSansRegular', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:12px;line-height:50px;color:#009ddc;border-style:none;text-decoration:none;" <table border="0" align="left" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" bgcolor="#ffffff" <a href="http://www.salesforce.com" title="See the Infographic" target="_blank" <table border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" bgcolor="#ffffff" <img class="mobile-image" alt="Your document security blanket. Protect your documents the easy way. See how" <td align="left" valign="top" style="font-family:'SalesforceSansRegular', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:16px;line-height:22px;color:#555555;padding-top:30px;padding-right:30px;padding-bottom:15px;padding-left:30px;" <td align="left" valign="top" style="font-family:'SalesforceSansRegular', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:16px;line-height:22px;color:#555555;padding-right:30px;padding-bottom:15px;padding-left:30px;" <td align="left" valign="top" style="font-family:'SalesforceSansRegular', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:16px;line-height:22px;color:#555555;padding-right:30px;padding-bottom:20px;padding-left:30px;" <td align="left" valign="top" style="font-family:'SalesforceSansRegular', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:22px;color:#0077BB;padding-right:30px;padding-bottom:30px;padding-left:30px;font-weight:bold" <a href="http://www.salesforce.com" title="Test-drive Wave" style="color:#02b2a8;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none"	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	1,746
Ben Harrington (born 13 October 2001) is a New Zealand freestyle skier who specialises in halfpipe. He is representing New Zealand at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Biography Harrington was born in Dunedin on 13 October 2001, the son of Greg Harrington and Nancy Stout. He is the older brother of Luca Harrington, who won a bronze medal in the boy's halfpipe at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics. Ben Harrington began skiing when he was 18 months old, and rode his first halfpipe at the age of six. He was educated at Mount Aspiring College in Wānaka, and is now a business student at Massey University. Harrington made his FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup debut in the 2016–2017 season, with a 36th placing at Copper Mountain in December 2016. In the 2017–2018 season, he was 51st in the World Cup halfpipe rankings. At the FIS Freestyle Junior World Ski Championships at Cardrona Alpine Resort in September 2018, he finished fourth in the halfpipe, before tearing his anterior cruciate ligament and medial collateral ligament. He returned to competition in late 2019, and competed in the freeski halfpipe at the 2021 World Championships, placing 15th. References 2001 births Living people Sportspeople from Dunedin People educated at Mount Aspiring College Massey University alumni Freestyle skiers at the 2022 Winter Olympics Olympic freestyle skiers of New Zealand New Zealand male freestyle skiers	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia" }	9,574
At Essex Stage we aim to keep you up-to-date with what's going on in Essex, including Essex cinema and Essex theatre listings. We also have cinema listings for many surrounding areas including Kent, Middlesex, Northants, Buckinghamshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Herts and North and East London. We've now also added cinemas in Surrey. We have guides to what's going on around Essex at the cinema , as well as listings for cinemas in Southend, Chelmsford, Romford, Harlow, Clacton and Colchester plus the rest of Essex. We've now also added many more cinemas in surrounding areas in Kent, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Norfolk and London including popular venues such as Bishops Stortford, Ipswich, Stevenage, Bury St Edmunds, Ashford and Cambridge. We've now also added cinemas in Surrey. Check out our much expanded and up-to-date What's on at your local cinema page for further details. We've now also added a dedicated theatres page for theatre listings for all the areas and counties mentioned above. We have listings for theatres such as the Cliffs Pavilion, Westcliff-on-Sea, the New Empire Theatre, Southend-on-Sea, the Harlow Playhouse, the Kenneth More Theatre, Ilford, the Mercury Theatre, Colchester and the Thameside Theatre, Grays as well as many others. The Palace Theatre, Westcliff-on-Sea has now re-opened - click here for listings at the Palace Theatre. We have also begun to add theatre listings for all the areas that we currently cover on our What's on theatres page. If you would like to submit a listing or theatre or cinema then please contact us. Also, check out our new movie news, latest film reviews and entertainment news as well as the latest showbiz gossip, TV news and UK tabloid news and stories. With so much to keep track of, we hope that you'll let us know if you have an Essex event that's soon to take place that you want to publicise. We'll advertise it for you for free on our clubs page. All you have to do is agree to link back to Essex Stage in return. Check out also our directory pages of Essex stage and dance schools covering many areas in Essex including Southend, Chelmsford, Basildon, Clacton, Harlow, Romford, Ilford, Clacton and Colchester. If you would like to exchange links with Essex Stage please contact us. If you would like to advertise on Essex Stage please contact us. Plus, don't forget to visit the Essex Stage Amazon Shop where you can purchase iPods, MP3 players and many other electrical items plus DVD players, CDs and much, much more. Check out our new section for London and West End theatre tickets - see top London shows at discounted prices with tickets direct from top ticket agents. Essex Stage also has fantastic web hosting packages available. Packages include 500Mb of webspace, 20Gb of monthly bandwidth, 200 POP3 emails and much more - all for just £90 per annum. All packages come with their own dedicated control panel. For further details contact us. Add Essex Stage to your favourites or bookmarks now by clicking on the 'bookmark' icon on the top navigation bar or press 'control D' if you are using firefox. Or contact us now! We also offer great value dancewear from Dancewear4u.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	4,350
The Sound Transit Board of Directors has selected the alignment for extending light rail to Federal Way. The route, with stations at Kent/Des Moines near Highline College, South 272nd Street, and the Federal Way Transit Center, will travel along the west side of Interstate 5 between stations and maximize future transit oriented development around the stations. "Identifying a route gives us a clear path forward for bringing light rail to Federal Way by 2024," said Sound Transit Boardmember and King County Councilmember Peter von Reichbauer. "In just a few years' time, the people of South King County will enjoy the convenience of light rail that thousands of other regional commuters already enjoy." "South King County desperately needs more public transit to connect people to jobs and schools, said Sound Transit Boardmember and King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove. "This is an exciting step forward." The selected 7.8-mile route will extend south from the Angle Lake Station in the City of SeaTac, cross State Route 99, continue along the south edge of the future SR 509 highway to Interstate 5, and travel south along the west side of the I-5 freeway. In the Kent/Des Moines station area, the route will transition west near Highline College with a station along the west side of 30th Avenue South. The alignment will then continue south along the west side of I-5 to the Star Lake Park and Ride at South 272nd Street in the City of Kent. South of South 272nd, the alignment will continue along the west side of I-5 before curving west at South 317th Street and terminating at the Federal Way Transit Center at the west side of 23rd Avenue South and north of South 320th Street. A map of the selected alignment is available at www.soundtransit.org/Projects-and-Plans/Federal-Way-Link-Extension/Location-FWLE. The Board selected the alignment and stations after receiving public feedback on a Final Environmental Impact Statement published in November. Following yesterday's action by the Board, Sound Transit will request a Record of Decision from the Federal Transit Administration. Following the Record of Decision, procurement for a design-build contractor would begin, with construction scheduled to start in 2019. In addition to yesterday's action selecting the alignment, Sound Transit, King County Metro and the Federal Way School District signed a Memorandum of Agreement to work diligently toward a transaction with King County Metro that could enable the school district to acquire the nearby Redondo Park-and-Ride property. The current Mark Twain Elementary School property, which is in close proximity to the new light rail station at S. 272nd, could potentially be transferred to King County Metro or Sound Transit to be used for transit oriented development. "This is a potential win/win/win for all parties involved. Mark Twain Elementary School will gain a better location for expansion; Sound Transit will avoid $30 million in additional cost to the taxpayer; and Federal Way residents will benefit from enhanced transit oriented development," said Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff. "Extraordinary creativity and collaboration between the Federal Way Public School District, King County Metro and Sound Transit led to this very positive solution." By the time light rail begins serving Federal Way in 2024, Sound Transit will be operating Link across more than 60 miles of light rail service to Northgate and Lynnwood; Mercer Island, Bellevue and downtown Redmond; and Tacoma Link to Hilltop. Link is expected to carry more than 80 million riders annually by 2030.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	8,493
A De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) team has trialled a pioneering new system with the support of Scottish Water to clean toxic industrial wastewaters -- a process that could benefit our health, the environment and industry. Conducted at Scottish Water's wastewater development centre, the trial removed toxic pollutants to a level that would enable the waste to be treated locally. This means the water is cleared of a large number of 'nasties' -- such as oils and pesticides - so that it can be disposed of in a way that meets strict regulations. DMU's Wastewater Research Group, including PhD students, carried out initial scientific testing ahead of the three-month field trial, focused on the removal (advanced oxidation process) of priority substances. The university's reactor, housed in a shipping container, was transported to Bo'ness to the wastewater development centre run by Scottish Water Horizons -- a commercial subsidiary of the utility.	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4" }	2,698
{"url":"http:\/\/cran.uni-muenster.de\/web\/packages\/pbkrtest\/vignettes\/a02-coercion.html","text":"# 02 - Coercion between model objects and restriction matrices in \u2018pbkrtest\u2019\n\nPackage version: 0.5.2\n\nConsider two linear models; the smaller is a submodel of the large:\n\nN <- 4\ndat <- data.frame(int=rep(1, N), x=1:N, y=rnorm(N))\nlg <- lm(y ~ x + I(x^2), data=dat)\nsm <- lm(y ~ x, data=dat)\nlg\n##\n## Call:\n## lm(formula = y ~ x + I(x^2), data = dat)\n##\n## Coefficients:\n## (Intercept) x I(x^2)\n## 3.3611 -1.3818 0.1324\nsm\n##\n## Call:\n## lm(formula = y ~ x, data = dat)\n##\n## Coefficients:\n## (Intercept) x\n## 2.6990 -0.7197\n\nThe corresponding model matrices are\n\nXlg <- model.matrix(lg)\nXsm <- model.matrix(sm)\nXlg\n## (Intercept) x I(x^2)\n## 1 1 1 1\n## 2 1 2 4\n## 3 1 3 9\n## 4 1 4 16\n## attr(,\"assign\")\n## [1] 0 1 2\nXsm\n## (Intercept) x\n## 1 1 1\n## 2 1 2\n## 3 1 3\n## 4 1 4\n## attr(,\"assign\")\n## [1] 0 1\n\nGiven the two model matrices, the restriction matrix which describes the restrictions that should be made to the model matrix of the large model to produce the model matrix of the small model:\n\nL <- make_restriction_matrix(Xlg, Xsm)\nL \n## [,1] [,2] [,3]\n## [1,] 0 0 -1\n\nGiven the model matrix of the large model and the restriction matrix, the model matrix of the small model can be constructed as:\n\nXsm_2 <- make_model_matrix(Xlg, L)\nXsm_2\n## [,1] [,2]\n## 1 1 1\n## 2 2 1\n## 3 3 1\n## 4 4 1\n\nThe same operation can be made directly on model objects:\n\nL <- model2restriction_matrix(lg, sm)\nL\n## [,1] [,2] [,3]\n## [1,] 0 0 -1\n\nLikewise, given the large model and the restriction matrix, the small model can be constructed:\n\nsm_2 <- restriction_matrix2model(lg, L)\nsm_2\n##\n## Call:\n## lm(formula = y ~ .X1 + .X2 - 1, data = structure(list(.X1 = c(1,\n## 2, 3, 4), .X2 = c(1, 1, 1, 1), y = c(2.35880696402226, 0.385927588718172,\n## 1.14883382329707, -0.29436026637611), x = 1:4, I(x^2) = structure(c(1,\n## 4, 9, 16), class = \"AsIs\")), class = \"data.frame\", row.names = c(NA,\n## 4L)))\n##\n## Coefficients:\n## .X1 .X2\n## -0.7197 2.6990\nsm_2 \|> model.matrix()\n## .X1 .X2\n## 1 1 1\n## 2 2 1\n## 3 3 1\n## 4 4 1\n## attr(,\"assign\")\n## [1] 1 2\n\nLastly, model matrices can be compared\n\n## The first column space contains the second\ncompare_column_space(Xlg, Xsm)\n## [1] 1\n## The second column space contains the first\ncompare_column_space(Xsm, Xlg)\n## [1] 0\n## The two column spaces are identical\ncompare_column_space(Xlg, Xlg) \n## [1] -1","date":"2023-03-21 17:54:29","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 1, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.5818171501159668, \"perplexity\": 12418.412131588932}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.3, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2023-14\/segments\/1679296943704.21\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20230321162614-20230321192614-00321.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
Q: AS3 passing a function as a parameter creates memory leaks I have a function that takes another function as a parameter. Something like this : public function onHits(target : Shape, callback : Function) : void I use it by passing a member function as a parameter that should be called whenever the passed target hits something. The function is called many times a frame. So it is used by doing : //code... CollisionManager.onHits(myShape, onHitCB); //code... The on hit function : public function onHitCB(hitObject : ) : void { //removed all code to test this problem } When I do this, I have a memory leak. I've isolated the problem to that onHits method and have commented out everything else. onHits is an empty method with no code inside it, onHitCB is also empty. If I comment out the call to onHits, there is no memory leak and if I pass null instead of onHitCB there is no memory leak. So it's clearly when I pass onHitCB as a parameter that's the problem. So I thought it might be because Flash allocates some memory to create the Function pointer and doesn't release it but I call System.gc() every frame in debug mode and the leak is still there. Which would mean that this is either a bug in the SDK or I'm not doing something right. I have found a weird workaround by keeping a variable that points to the function which I assign in the constructor of my object : private var func : Function; public function MyObject() { func = onHitCB; } and this will clear the memory leak even if I still pass onHitCB as the parameter. So that would mean that it's not the "getter" function to obtain the onHitCB but something else causing the memory leak? I'm very confused. How can this cause a memory leak : public function MyObject() { } public function update() : void { CollisionManager.onHits(myShape, onHitCB);//empty function } public function onHitCB(hitObject : ) : void { //removed all code to test this problem } but not this? : private var func : Function; public function MyObject() { func = onHitCB; } public function update() : void { CollisionManager.onHits(myShape, onHitCB);//empty function } public function onHitCB(hitObject : ) : void { //removed all code to test this problem } and is there a way to not have to do this workaround? A: [...] bound methods are automatically created when you pass a method as a parameter. Bound methods ensure that the this keyword always references the object or class in which a method is defined. Source That sounds like creating a reference to a method isn't using a simple getter. A new method closure object is generated. So your assumption is right. I wonder why the references aren't cached for each instance and why they aren't garbage collected though. Better avoid creating multiple references. Referencing a method only once is exactly what I would do when I would have to use that method in multiple places, so most of the time I wouldn't call it a workaround but a good DRY practice. In your example it makes sense of course, assuming a method reference would be using a simple getter. A: For more information on exactly what does and does not cause memory leaks when you use functional techniques, check out http://www.developria.com/2010/12/functional-actionscript-part-1.html . Also, be aware that using static methods like this is really bad practice (http://misko.hevery.com/code-reviewers-guide/flaw-brittle-global-state-singletons/), and you're just beginning to encounter the many problems that are caused by using this technique. It sounds like you're early enough in your project that you're not completely committed to this path, so you might want to look at other ways to program this. A: I'm not sure what your code is about in the onHits function, but if it not requiring additional time to finish in another cycle. then i recomend you to do like this: static public function onHits(target : Shape) : { // do what you need // return the hitObject; return hitObject; } and public function update() : void { // parse the object direc to to the function. onHitCB ( CollisionManager.onHits(myShape) ); } public function onHitCB(hitObject : ) : void { if ( hitObject == null ) return; // if it not null then do all your calculations. //removed all code to test this problem } A: And this is why we don't do this kind of thing in OOP style programing. Your best bet is to do it properly and add the callback to the CollisionManager class. The reason it can be GCed when you keep a local reference is because the function never loses scope because that var is there holding the reference. Once something looses scope it becomes nearly impossible to GC it. Try this and watch how you lose scope. private var somevar:String = 'somevar with a string'; public function MyObject() { } public function update() : void { CollisionManager.onHits(myShape, onHitCB);//empty function } public function onHitCB(hitObject : ) : void { trace(this.somevar) // scope should be lost at this point and somevar should be null or toss an error. }	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange" }	3,392
{"url":"http:\/\/lara.epfl.ch\/w\/sav08:hoare_logic?rev=1429630213&do=diff","text":"\u2022 English only\n\n# Differences\n\nThis shows you the differences between two versions of the page.\n\nsav08:hoare_logic [2009\/03\/04 11:03]\nvkuncak\nsav08:hoare_logic [2015\/04\/21 17:30] (current)\nLine 28: Line 28:\nWhen $P, Q \\subseteq S$ (sets of states) and $r \\subseteq S\\times S$ (relation on states, command semantics) then\u00a0When $P, Q \\subseteq S$ (sets of states) and $r \\subseteq S\\times S$ (relation on states, command semantics) then\nHoare triple\u00a0Hoare triple\n-$+\\begin{equation} \\{P \\}\\ r\\ \\{ Q \\} \\{P \\}\\ r\\ \\{ Q \\} -$+\\end{equation}\nmeans\u00a0means\n-$+\\begin{equation} \\forall s,s' \\in S. s \\in P \\land (s,s') \\in r \\rightarrow s' \\in Q \\forall s,s' \\in S. s \\in P \\land (s,s') \\in r \\rightarrow s' \\in Q -$+\\end{equation}\nWe call $P$ precondition and $Q$ postcondition.\u00a0We call $P$ precondition and $Q$ postcondition.\n\nNote: weakest conditions (predicates) correspond to largest sets; strongest conditions (predicates) correspond to smallest sets that satisfy a given property (Graphically,\u200b a stronger condition $x > 0 \\land y > 0$ denotes one quadrant in plane, whereas a weaker condition $x > 0$ denotes the entire half-plane.)\u00a0Note: weakest conditions (predicates) correspond to largest sets; strongest conditions (predicates) correspond to smallest sets that satisfy a given property (Graphically,\u200b a stronger condition $x > 0 \\land y > 0$ denotes one quadrant in plane, whereas a weaker condition $x > 0$ denotes the entire half-plane.)\n+\n\nLine 46: Line 47:\n\nDefinition: for $P \\subseteq S$, $r \\subseteq S\\times S$,\u00a0Definition: for $P \\subseteq S$, $r \\subseteq S\\times S$,\n-$+\\begin{equation} \u200bsp(P,\u200br) = \\{ s' \\mid \\exists s. s \\in P \\land (s,s') \\in r \\} \u200bsp(P,\u200br) = \\{ s' \\mid \\exists s. s \\in P \\land (s,s') \\in r \\} -$+\\end{equation}\n\n-This is simply\u00a0\u200brelation image of a set. (See\u00a0[[Sets and relations#\u200bRelation Image]].)+This is simply [[Sets and relations#\u200bRelation Image]]\u00a0\u200bof a set.\n\n{{sav08:\u200bsp.png?\u200b400x250\|}}\u00a0{{sav08:\u200bsp.png?\u200b400x250\|}}\nLine 65: Line 66:\n\nDefinition: for $Q \\subseteq S$, $r \\subseteq S \\times S$,\u00a0Definition: for $Q \\subseteq S$, $r \\subseteq S \\times S$,\n-$+\\begin{equation} \u200bwp(r,\u200bQ) = \\{ s \\mid \\forall s'. (s,s') \\in r \\rightarrow s' \\in Q \\} \u200bwp(r,\u200bQ) = \\{ s \\mid \\forall s'. (s,s') \\in r \\rightarrow s' \\in Q \\} -$+\\end{equation}\n\nNote that this is in general not the same as $sp(Q,\u200br^{-1})$ when relation is non-deterministic.\u00a0Note that this is in general not the same as $sp(Q,\u200br^{-1})$ when relation is non-deterministic.\nLine 86: Line 87:\n\nIf instead of good states we look at the completement set of \"error states\",\u200b then $wp$ corresponds to doing $sp$ backwards.\u00a0\u200b In other words, we have the following:\u00a0If instead of good states we look at the completement set of \"error states\",\u200b then $wp$ corresponds to doing $sp$ backwards.\u00a0\u200b In other words, we have the following:\n-$+\\begin{equation} S \\setminus wp(r,Q) = sp(S \\setminus Q,r^{-1}) S \\setminus wp(r,Q) = sp(S \\setminus Q,r^{-1}) -$+\\end{equation}\n\n==== Disjunctivity of sp ====\u00a0==== Disjunctivity of sp ====\n\n-$+\\begin{equation} \u200bsp(P_1 \\cup P_2,r) = sp(P_1,r) \\cup sp(P_2,r) \u200bsp(P_1 \\cup P_2,r) = sp(P_1,r) \\cup sp(P_2,r) -$\u00a0+\\end{equation}\n-$+\\begin{equation} \u200bsp(P,\u200br_1 \\cup r_2) = sp(P,r_1) \\cup sp(P,r_2) \u200bsp(P,\u200br_1 \\cup r_2) = sp(P,r_1) \\cup sp(P,r_2) -$+\\end{equation}\n\n==== Conjunctivity of wp ====\u00a0==== Conjunctivity of wp ====\n\n-$+\\begin{equation} wp(r,Q_1 \\cap Q_2) = wp(r,Q_1) \\cap wp(r,Q_2) wp(r,Q_1 \\cap Q_2) = wp(r,Q_1) \\cap wp(r,Q_2) -$+\\end{equation}\n\n-$+\\begin{equation} wp(r_1 \\cup r_2,Q) = wp(r_1,Q) \\cap wp(r_2,Q) wp(r_1 \\cup r_2,Q) = wp(r_1,Q) \\cap wp(r_2,Q) -$+\\end{equation}\n\n==== Pointwise wp =====\u00a0==== Pointwise wp =====\n\n-$+\\begin{equation} wp(r,Q) = \\{ s \\mid s \\in S \\land sp(\\{s\\},r) \\subseteq Q \\} wp(r,Q) = \\{ s \\mid s \\in S \\land sp(\\{s\\},r) \\subseteq Q \\} -$+\\end{equation}\n\n==== Pointwise sp =====\u00a0==== Pointwise sp =====\n\n-$+\\begin{equation} \u200bsp(P,\u200br) = \\bigcup_{s \\in P} sp(\\{s\\},\u200br) \u200b \u200bsp(P,\u200br) = \\bigcup_{s \\in P} sp(\\{s\\},\u200br) \u200b -$+\\end{equation}\n\n==== Three Forms of Hoare Triple ====\u00a0==== Three Forms of Hoare Triple ====\nLine 134: Line 135:\n\nLet $P$ and $Q$ be formulas in our language $F$ (see [[simple programming language]]). We define Hoare triples on these syntactic entities by taking their interpretation as sets and relations:\u00a0Let $P$ and $Q$ be formulas in our language $F$ (see [[simple programming language]]). We define Hoare triples on these syntactic entities by taking their interpretation as sets and relations:\n-$+\\begin{equation} \\{ P \\} c \\{ Q \\} \u200b \\{ P \\} c \\{ Q \\} \u200b -$+\\end{equation}\nmeans\u00a0means\n-$+\\begin{equation} \\forall s_1, s_2.\\ f_T(P)(s_1) \\land (s_1,s_2) \\in r_c(c) \\rightarrow f_T(Q)(s_1) \\forall s_1, s_2.\\ f_T(P)(s_1) \\land (s_1,s_2) \\in r_c(c) \\rightarrow f_T(Q)(s_1) -$+\\end{equation}\nIn words: if we start in a state satisfying $P$ and execute $c$, we obtain a state satisfying $Q$.\u00a0\u00a0\u200b\u00a0In words: if we start in a state satisfying $P$ and execute $c$, we obtain a state satisfying $Q$.\u00a0\u00a0\u200b\n\nLine 149: Line 150:\n===== Composing Hoare Triples =====\u00a0===== Composing Hoare Triples =====\n\n-$+\\begin{equation} \\frac{ \\{P\\} c_1 \\{Q\\}, \\ \\ \\{Q\\} c_2 \\{R\\} } \\frac{ \\{P\\} c_1 \\{Q\\}, \\ \\ \\{Q\\} c_2 \\{R\\} } { \\{P\\} c_1 ; c_2 \\{ R \\} } { \\{P\\} c_1 ; c_2 \\{ R \\} } -$+\\end{equation}\n\nWe can prove this from\u00a0\u00a0We can prove this from","date":"2019-06-17 05:56:04","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 2, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.9397291541099548, \"perplexity\": 3114.354649253709}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2019-26\/segments\/1560627998376.42\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20190617043021-20190617065021-00465.warc.gz\"}"}	null	null
BMW will make three additional car models in China Home » BMW will make three additional car models in China July 16, 2014 / 1 minutes read BMW says three additional car models will be built in China, including a new compact. BMW confirmed plans to expand the capacity of its two manufacturing plants in China. "We are strengthening our focus on meeting the needs and aspirations of our Chinese customers," said Friedrich Eichiner, BMW's chief finance officer, according to the text of a speech he delivered in Beijing. "We are going to double our range of locally produced models in the future—from three to six." The company's plants in Dadong and Tiexi can produce up to 300,000 vehicles combined a year. BMW plans to expand that capacity to a combined 400,000 cars over the next two years. The plants now produce the 5 Series sedans, the 3 Series sedan, and the X1. The new compact car to be built in China is rumored to be a new luxury compact to compete with rivals from Nissan and Mercedes-Benz. READ ALSO: BMW sees China as biggest electric vehicles market BMW also will roll out a variant of its X3 SUV, made especially for China, and an as yet unidentified model targeting Chinese families that Mr. Eichiner described as "a high functionality car that combines usability and typical BMW dynamics." [Source: NYTimes] BMW China BMW M3 CS Costs Nearly $200,000 USD in Some Countries	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl" }	7,981
2. Materials and Methods BRCA1 May Modulate Neuronal Cell Cycle Re-Entry in Alzheimer Disease Teresa A. Evans1, Arun K. Raina1, André Delacourte2, Olga Aprelikova3, Hyoung-gon Lee1, Xiongwei Zhu1, George Perry1,4, Mark A. Smith1 1. Department of Pathology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106, USA 2. Inserm U837, JPARC, Bat. G. Biserte, 1 place de Verdun, 59045 Lille cedex, France 3. Laboratory of Biosystems and Cancer, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA 4. College of Sciences, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78249, USA Evans TA, Raina AK, Delacourte A, Aprelikova O, Lee Hg, Zhu X, Perry G, Smith MA. BRCA1 May Modulate Neuronal Cell Cycle Re-Entry in Alzheimer Disease. Int J Med Sci 2007; 4(3):140-145. doi:10.7150/ijms.4.140. Available from https://www.medsci.org/v04p0140.htm In Alzheimer disease, neuronal degeneration and the presence of neurofibrillary tangles correlate with the severity of cognitive decline. Neurofibrillary tangles contain the antigenic profile of many cell cycle markers, reflecting a re-entry into the cell cycle by affected neurons. However, while such a cell cycle re-entry phenotype is an early and consistent feature of Alzheimer disease, the mechanisms responsible for neuronal cell cycle are unclear. In this regard, given that a dysregulated cell cycle is a characteristic of cancer, we speculated that alterations in oncogenic proteins may play a role in neurodegeneration. To this end, in this study, we examined brain tissue from cases of Alzheimer disease for the presence of BRCA1, a known regulator of cell cycle, and found intense and specific localization of BRCA1 to neurofibrillary tangles, a hallmark lesion of the disease. Analysis of clinically normal aged brain tissue revealed systematically less BRCA1, and surprisingly in many cases with apparent phosphorylated tau-positive neurofibrillary tangles, BRCA1 was absent, yet BRCA1 was present in all cases of Alzheimer disease. These findings not only further define the cell cycle reentry phenotype in Alzheimer disease but also indicate that the neurofibrillary tangles which define Alzheimer disease may have a different genesis from the neurofibrillary tangles of normal aging. Keywords: Alzheimer disease, BRCA1, cell cycle, oncogenesis Neurofibrillary tangles (NFT) are the cardinal intracellular lesion of Alzheimer disease (AD), and are also found in normal aging, albeit to a lesser extent. Highly phosphorylated tau protein is considered the predominant proteinaceous component of NFT [1], however, numerous other proteins have also been localized to these lesions including neurofilaments [2], ubiquitin [3, 4], amyloid-β [5], and cell cycle markers [6-11]. Notably, NFT associated with normal aging are viewed as being quantitatively different, but qualitatively identical [12]. Whether the mechanisms responsible for the genesis of NFT in AD are similar or different from the genesis of NFT in normal aging is unknown. BRCA1 is expressed in dividing neuronal cells during development, and is present in smaller amounts in fully differentiated cells [13]. BRCA1 is known to regulate transcription, regulate cell cycle progression, and may even have a role in maintaining telomere function and as such the presence of BRCA1 is indicative of cell cycle changes and DNA damage, both of which are pathogenic changes in AD. Nucleic acid damage is well-documented in AD, specifically within the pyramidal neurons, the population susceptible to neurodegeneration and death [14-18]. Consequently, tumor suppressor proteins such as p21, p27, p53 are activated by BRCA1, are indicative of DNA damage [19], and are activated in AD [6, 20]. Such tumor suppressors play a role in suppression of the cell cycle and cell survival instead of apoptosis and their presence may be a neuroprotective factor to prolong the life of the cell after re-entry into the cell cycle, protecting neurons from completion of apoptosis [21]. These proteins have come to the forefront as molecular candidates to be used in discrimination between normal aging and pathological diseases. Neuroprotective factors have also been suggested as a possible target for drug design efforts with the goal of halting the progression of the cell cycle and delaying apoptosis. [22-24]. BRCA1 is also associated with a spectrum of functions related to the preservation of genomic stability [25]. For example, BRCA1 is involved in transcriptional activation and growth inhibition [26-28], transcription coupled repair (TCR) of oxidative damage to DNA and other DNA repair [29, 30], and association with γ-tubulin, a central component of the microtubule organizing center and centrosomes, thus implying a regulatory role in G2/M progression [31]. There are also a host of putative functions assigned to BRCA1 based on its structure and associations. Among these include association with BARD1, cyclin A and cyclin D kinases which phosphorylate BRCA1 [32]. Many of these known functions of BRCA have also been associated with AD. Oxidative DNA damage, as well as RNA damage [15, 16], has been well documented in the aging brain, contributing to the development of AD [18]. Further, even cases of mild cognitive impairment display the same abnormalities, prompting the search for increased DNA repair mechanism in cases of neurodegeneration [33]. Evidence of cell cycle dysfunction and the oxidative DNA damage profile in AD caused speculation that BRCA1 may play a role in disease pathogenesis. There are clearly a number of striking parallels between AD and cancer, including age, and likely multiple etiologies and risk factors [34]. As for cancer, the notion of a "two-hit" hypothesis has also been proposed [35, 36]. The latter may separate AD from normal aging. Indeed, while cells, in this case neurons, have the capacity to maintain homeostatic balance and function under condition of stress, several "hits" may disrupt the cells' regeneration capacity leading to neurodegeneration and death. This stress may be oxidative insult or metabolic inefficiency. Possibilities for other "hits" include genetic mutations in apolipoprotein E, presenilins, or amyloid-β protein precursor, hormonal dysregulation, environmental or education status, inflammatory responses, or perhaps even the induction of oncogenic-like pathways [37]. To this end, we found that the BRCA1 protein is strongly associated with NFT in AD yet a feature of only about half of the cases of normal aging containing tau-positive NFT. Elevations in BRCA1 in neurons in AD may represent an attempt towards homeostasis by the cell, working with other factors to halt the cell cycle and mediate DNA repair. Interestingly, a much higher proportion of NFT were labeled in AD cases than in control cases. These findings hint at differential mechanisms of NFT genesis in AD and in normal aging and/or distinct cellular responses to these changes. Hippocampal and cortical specimens were obtained postmortem from patients with histopathologically confirmed AD (n = 33, age 65-93, mean 82.3) and control (n = 28, age = 47-89, mean 73.5). Tissue was fixed either in 10% buffered formalin or in methacarn (methanol:chloroform:acetic acid, 6:3:1), and embedded in paraffin. 6μm sections were deparaffinized in xylene and rehydrated in graded alcohol, the endogenous peroxidase activity eliminated by incubation in 3% hydrogen peroxide in methanol for 30 min, and finally to Tris buffered saline (TBS, 50 mM Tris, 150 mM NaCl, pH=7.6). Sections were blocked in 10% normal goat serum (NGS) for 30 min followed by overnight incubation with primary antibody in 1% NGS at 4°C in a humidified chamber. Staining was completed using the peroxidase-anti-peroxidase procedure with 3,3-diaminobenzidine (DAB) as chromagen, and sections were dehydrated and mounted with permount. Antibodies used included monoclonals recognizing BRCA1 amino acids 1-304 (Clone MS110, Oncogene Research Products), rabbit polyclonal against phosphorylated BRCA1 amino acids 1489-1500 (Upstate Cell Signaling Solutions), and phosphorylated tau (AT8, Endogen) to label NFT. Antibody specificity for BRCA11-304 was confirmed by performing an adsorption experiment with its corresponding antigen. Diluted antibody was incubated overnight with 20μg of BRCA1 peptide and applied to an adjacent section with antibody alone. Additionally, cross-adsorption with purified tau protein was performed as well as omission of primary antibody. To further analyze the presence of BRCA1 in cases of control, mild cognitive impairment, as well as AD, formalin fixed blinded sections were analyzed for BRCA1 and phosphorylated tau. Using images obtained with a Zeiss Axiocam and associated image analysis software, the number of NFT immunostained in 3 fields (1mm2) encompassing the CA1 and CA2 areas of the hippocampus were determined. BRCA1 is found to be specifically and intensely localized with intracellular NFT in hippocampal neurons in AD (Figure 1A). In young control cases and those without any tau pathology, no cellular staining was seen (Figure 1B). The specificity of our findings was demonstrated in adjacent sections where BRCA1 immunoreactivity in NFT (Figure 1C) was completely abolished following adsorption with the specific BRCA1 peptide (Figure 1D). On the other hand, cross-adsorption with tau protein did not diminish the immunoreaction (data not shown). BRCA1 localization to NFT was detected in all cases of AD, independent of fixation methods. Hippocampal sections from 17 clinically normal cases containing pathological accumulations consistent with normal aging were specifically chosen and immunostained for BRCA1 and AT8. It was noted that in many of the control cases containing phosphorylated tau-positive NFT, BRCA1 was absent. Analysis of this series of cases shows that while all cases with AD exhibited BRCA1-positive NFT, BRCA1 was present to a lesser extent and in smaller and more variable numbers in control cases with pathology across all age ranges (Figure 2). To further assess the relationship between BRCA1 and AD, blinded sections were stained for BRCA1 and AT8 in well characterized cases classified as control (no neurological diagnosis), mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD. The numbers of NFT stained for each marker in three fields were quantified using a computer assisted image analysis (Figure 3) and expressed as the percentage of BRCA1 positive compared to AT8 positive NFT. In control cases (n = 4, age range 83-93), an average of only 9% of NFT contained BRCA1. In cases with MCI (n = 3, age range 78-96), 18% of NFT were BRCA1 were positive, and in cases of AD (n = 3, age range 69-91), the number increased to 28%. The percentage of NFT stained in MCI cases is essentially midway between AD and control cases consistent with clinical findings that MCI is a transition. Nonetheless, as expected, by looking only at tau, there was a wide variety of pathology in each category. In the control cases, the number of tau-positive NFT ranged from 5 to 260, and in AD cases, from 39 to 321 NFT. Monoclonal antibody to BRCA1 recognizes intracellular NFT in all cases of AD (A), yet in many control cases, no structures are stained (B). On adjacent serial sections, the specific localization of BRCA1 to NFT (C) is completely abolished following adsorption with antigen (D). * marks landmark vessel. Scale bar= 50 μm. All AD cases and all clinically normal cases showing AT8-positive NFT consistent with normal aging were also analyzed for the presence of BRCA1-positive NFT. All AD cases (100%) at all age ranges exhibited BRCA1 positive NFT. Yet only about half of the control cases with NFT displayed BRCA1 positivity. The colocalization of AT8 and BRCA1 representative of the different disease states is shown in Figure 4. Adjacent serial sections of AD showed that large numbers of NFT are positive for BRCA1 (Figure 4A) with significant overlap with AT8 (Figure 4B). In a case of MCI, while fewer AT8-positive NFT are present (Figure 4D), again there is significant overlap with BRCA1 (Figure 4C). As was seen in about half of the clinically normal cases with tau pathology, while even moderate numbers of AT8-positive NFT are present (Figure 4F), BRCA1 (Figure 4E) is not present. Qualitative analysis for the presence of phosphorylated BRCA1 (pBRCA1) was also performed. In some cases of AD, pBRCA1 stained neuronal nuclei as well as a smaller population of NFT (Figure 5B) compared to non-phosphorylated BRCA1 (Figure 5A). The number of NFT stained for BRCA1 and AT8 were counted in the CA1/CA2 regions of hippocampus in well characterized cases of AD (n = 3), MCI (n = 3), and control (n = 4). In AD, an average 28% of AT8-positive NFT contained BRCA1. That number was only 18% for cases of MCI and 9% for the control cases. While all four control cases contained AT8-positive NFT, only two cases displayed BRCA1, a finding similar to that observed with the aged controls examined in Figure 2. The localization patterns of AT8 and BRCA1 in the different disease states varies greatly. AD cases show high numbers of AT8-positive NFT (B), with many overlapping with BRCA1 localization (A). In cases of MCI, while there are fewer AT8-positive NFT (D), many overlap with BRCA1 (C). Yet in about half of the aged control cases, while there are moderate numbers of AT8-positive NFT (F), BRCA1 is absent (E). * denotes landmark vessels on adjacent serial sections. Arrow mark NFT labeled for both BRCA1 and AT8. Phosphorylated BRCA1 is localized in some cases of AD to both nuclei as well as some NFT (B). In adjacent serial sections stained for BRCA1 (A), many of the cells containing NFT (arrows) also contain pBRCA1 (B). * denotes landmark vessel. In this study, we show that, controlled for age, there is a progression in the percentage of NFT containing BRCA1 from cases with no dementia to MCI to AD. MCI cases, by their definition, are in the early stages of AD. The differences in BRCA1 and tau co-localization in control versus MCI or AD cases may point to different etiologies and/or different cellular responses. Indeed, mechanisms involved in the formation of NFT in AD may be very different to the process during normal aging, i.e., that the development of AD requires two or more "hits". Neurons can maintain normal function and combat assault from oxidative damage throughout aging, unless there is another "hit", whether it be a genetic mutation or metabolic dysfunction, from which the cell cannot overcome and maintain balance, resulting in neuronal death. As AD is a disease that can last ten years or more, rather than succumbing to apoptosis immediately, neurons may attempt to survive by initiating cell cycle progression, and attempting to control the deregulated cell cycle and concurrent apoptotic signaling. BRCA1 is a tumor suppressor protein, involved in DNA repair, suspension of the cell cycle and probable temporary delay of apoptosis when problems are suspected. Since the prevalence of BRCA1 increases as the disease progresses, transcription of BRCA1 may be activated early in the progression of AD. This is consistent with the hypothesis that cell cycle changes take place very early in the progression of the disease, long before the presence of other pathology. Over time, DNA and cell cycle changes may compound, and BRCA1 and other protein expression increases, eventually resulting in cell death. These findings raise the possibility that BRCA1 accumulates in neurons early in the disease and only in those cases in the early stages of AD and may or may not be independent of tau formation and the expression of other cell cycle markers. The association of BRCA1 with neurodegenerative pathology in AD implicates genomic instability and possibly a neuroprotective element in neurons in AD. The emerging evidence of genomic instability as a proximal feature in the pathogenesis of neurodegeneration in AD may possibly be a feature of cell cycle instability in neurons [38]. Taken together with the association of BRCA1, this phenotype bears many resemblances to a mitotic lesion or, at minimum, the presence of oncogenic signaling in AD, providing another driving force, or "hit" specific for lesion development in AD [36]. The presence of BRCA1 and other tumor suppressor proteins is also indicative of protective mechanisms against the formation of a cancer or unnecessary apoptosis. The presence of phosphorylated BRCA1 has been characterized under conditions of DNA damage. Phosphorylation and changes in subcellular localization follow DNA damage in cell models. For instance, phosphorylation of specific residues dictate both localization and function [39], which could be related to the varying nuclear accumulations seen in the brain in the present study. pBRCA1 has also been implicated to play a role in maintaining genomic integrity in mitochondria and in the nucleus [40]. Recent work has related these functions specifically to telomere maintenance. In BRCA1 -/- cells, telomere dysfunction evidenced by a loss of telomere repeats was found [41], a distinctive feature of degenerating neurons in the AD brain [42]. While the mechanisms responsible for the localization of BRCA1 to NFT remain to be determined, one intriguing hypothesis is that the presence of BRCA1 signifies a neurogenic/oncogenic stimulus that is found in AD and other neuropathology. In this regard, there are several examples showing cognitive improvements in dementia patients undergoing chemotherapy [43]. It would be interesting to investigate the therapeutic efficacy of combination or simply agent antimitotic therapy with vincristine, carmustine, melphalan, cyclophosphamide, or prednisone for AD [44]. Work in the authors' laboratory is support by the National Institutes of Health, the Alzheimer's Association, and by Philip Morris USA Inc. and Philip Morris International. OA was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the NIH, National Cancer Institute, Center for Cancer Research. 1. Grundke-Iqbal I, Iqbal K, Tung YC. et al. Abnormal phosphorylation of the microtubule-associated protein tau (tau) in Alzheimer cytoskeletal pathology. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1986;83:4913-7 2. Perry G, Rizzuto N, Autilio-Gambetti L. et al. Paired helical filaments from Alzheimer disease patients contain cytoskeletal components. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1985;82:3916-20 3. 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Cell cycle markers in the hippocampus in Alzheimer's disease. Acta Neuropathol (Berl). 1997;94:6-15 10. Nagy Z, Esiri MM, Smith AD. Expression of cell division markers in the hippocampus in Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. Acta Neuropathol (Berl). 1997;93:294-300 11. Vincent I, Rosado M, Davies P. Mitotic mechanisms in Alzheimer's disease?. J Cell Biol. 1996;132:413-25 12. Castellani RJ, Lee HG, Zhu X. et al. Neuropathology of Alzheimer disease: pathognomonic but not pathogenic. Acta Neuropathol (Berl). 2006;111:503-9 13. Korhonen L, Brannvall K, Skoglosa Y. et al. Tumor suppressor gene BRCA-1 is expressed by embryonic and adult neural stem cells and involved in cell proliferation. J Neurosci Res. 2003;71:769-76 14. Gabbita SP, Lovell MA, Markesbery WR. Increased nuclear DNA oxidation in the brain in Alzheimer's disease. J Neurochem. 1998;71:2034-40 15. Nunomura A, Perry G, Pappolla MA. et al. RNA oxidation is a prominent feature of vulnerable neurons in Alzheimer's disease. J Neurosci. 1999;19:1959-64 16. Nunomura A, Perry G, Aliev G. et al. Oxidative damage is the earliest event in Alzheimer disease. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol. 2001;60:759-67 17. Su JH, Deng G, Cotman CW. Neuronal DNA damage precedes tangle formation and is associated with up-regulation of nitrotyrosine in Alzheimer's disease brain. Brain Res. 1997;774:193-9 18. Mecocci P, MacGarvey U, Beal MF. Oxidative damage to mitochondrial DNA is increased in Alzheimer's disease. Ann Neurol. 1994;36:747-51 19. Somasundaram K. Breast cancer gene 1 (BRCA1): role in cell cycle regulation and DNA repair--perhaps through transcription. J Cell Biochem. 2003;88:1084-91 20. Gartner U, Holzer M, Arendt T. Elevated expression of p21ras is an early event in Alzheimer's disease and precedes neurofibrillary degeneration. Neuroscience. 1999;91:1-5 21. Raina AK, Hochman A, Zhu X. et al. Abortive apoptosis in Alzheimer's disease. Acta Neuropathol (Berl). 2001;101:305-10 22. Suzuki A, Tsutomi Y, Akahane K. et al. Resistance to Fas-mediated apoptosis: activation of caspase 3 is regulated by cell cycle regulator p21WAF1 and IAP gene family ILP. Oncogene. 1998;17:931-9 23. Eymin B, Sordet O, Droin N. et al. Caspase-induced proteolysis of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p27Kip1 mediates its anti-apoptotic activity. Oncogene. 1999;18:4839-47 24. Blagosklonny MV. Are p27 and p21 cytoplasmic oncoproteins?. Cell Cycle. 2002;1:391-3 25. Rahman N, Stratton MR. The genetics of breast cancer susceptibility. Annu Rev Genet. 1998;32:95-121 26. Chapman MS, Verma IM. Transcriptional activation by BRCA1. Nature. 1996;382:678-9 27. Holt JT, Thompson ME, Szabo C. et al. Growth retardation and tumour inhibition by BRCA1. Nat Genet. 1996;12:298-302 28. Monteiro AN, August A, Hanafusa H. Evidence for a transcriptional activation function of BRCA1 C-terminal region. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1996;93:13595-9 29. Gowen LC, Avrutskaya AV, Latour AM. et al. BRCA1 required for transcription-coupled repair of oxidative DNA damage. Science. 1998;281:1009-12 30. Scully R, Chen J, Ochs RL. et al. Dynamic changes of BRCA1 subnuclear location and phosphorylation state are initiated by DNA damage. Cell. 1997;90:425-35 31. Hsu LC, White RL. BRCA1 is associated with the centrosome during mitosis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998;95:12983-8 32. Chen Y, Chen CF, Riley DJ. et al. Aberrant subcellular localization of BRCA1 in breast cancer. Science. 1995;270:789-91 33. Mecocci P. Oxidative stress in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer disease: a continuum. J Alzheimers Dis. 2004;6:159-63 34. Raina AK, Garrett MR, Previll LA. et al. Oncogenic parallels in Alzheimer disease. Int J Neuroprotec Neuroregen. 2006;2:80-5 35. Zhu X, Castellani RJ, Takeda A. et al. Differential activation of neuronal ERK, JNK/SAPK and p38 in Alzheimer disease: the 'two hit' hypothesis. Mech Ageing Dev. 2001;123:39-46 36. Zhu X, Raina AK, Perry G. et al. Alzheimer's disease: the two-hit hypothesis. Lancet Neurol. 2004;3:219-26 37. Zhu X, Lee HG, Perry G. et al. Alzheimer disease, the two-hit hypothesis: An update. Biochim Biophys Acta. 2007;1772:494-502 38. Webber KM, Raina AK, Marlatt MW. et al. The cell cycle in Alzheimer disease: a unique target for neuropharmacology. Mech Ageing Dev. 2005;126:1019-25 39. Okada S, Ouchi T. Cell cycle differences in DNA damage-induced BRCA1 phosphorylation affect its subcellular localization. J Biol Chem. 2003;278:2015-20 40. Coene ED, Hollinshead MS, Waeytens AA. et al. Phosphorylated BRCA1 is predominantly located in the nucleus and mitochondria. Mol Biol Cell. 2005;16:997-1010 41. McPherson JP, Hande MP, Poonepalli A. et al. A role for Brca1 in chromosome end maintenance. Hum Mol Genet. 2006;15:831-8 42. Franco S, Blasco MA, Siedlak SL. et al. Telomeres and telomerase in Alzheimer's disease: epiphenomena or a new focus for therapeutic strategy?. Alzheimers Dementia. 2006;2:164-8 43. Keimowitz RM. Dementia improvement with cytotoxic chemotherapy. A case of Alzheimer disease and multiple myeloma. Arch Neurol. 1997;54:485-8 44. Woods J, Snape M, Smith MA. The cell cycle hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease: Suggestions for drug development. Biochim Biophys Acta. 2007;1772:503-8 Correspondence to: Mark A. Smith, Ph.D., Department of Pathology, Case Western Reserve University, 2103 Cornell Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44106 USA. Tel: 216-368-3670, Fax: 216-368-8964, mark.smithedu Accepted 2007-5-9 Published 2007-5-12	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl" }	4,271
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Euclid Stefanou Tsakalotos (, ; born 1960) is a Greek economist and politician who was Minister of Finance of Greece from 2015 to 2019. He is also a member of the Central Committee of Syriza and has represented Athens B in the Hellenic Parliament since May 2012. Tsakalotos was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, but moved to the United Kingdom at a young age. He went to St Paul's School in London before studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at The Queen's College, University of Oxford. He went on to complete a master's degree at the Institute of Development Studies, which is attached to the University of Sussex, and returned to Oxford to complete a doctorate in economics under the supervision of Włodzimierz Brus, which he did in 1989. From 1989 to 1993, Tsakalotos worked at the University of Kent, where he met his partner, Heather D. Gibson. He moved to Greece, and taught at the Athens University of Economics and Business from 1994 to 2010, becoming a professor of economics. Since 2010, he has been a professor of economics at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He has written a number of books in both Greek and English and has been published in a range of different academic journals. Due to his upbringing in the UK, he speaks English with a British accent. A student member of the Communist Party of Greece, Tsakalotos joined Synaspismos in the early 1990s and was elected to the Central Committee of Syriza in 2004 shortly after their formation. He was first elected as a Member of the Hellenic Parliament for Athens B in the May 2012 legislative election and has been re-elected in every election since. In opposition from 2012 to 2015, he was Syriza's shadow finance minister. When Syriza entered government in January 2015, Tsakalotos was appointed as an Alternate Minister within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In April, he took over as head of Greece's negotiating team on the third bailout package. On 6 July 2015, following Yanis Varoufakis's resignation, Tsakalotos was appointed as Minister of Finance. He was re-appointed in September 2015 following the snap legislative election. Early life and education Tsakalotos was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 1960. He is the son of Stefanos Tsakalotos, a civil engineer who worked in the shipping industry, and the family relocated to the United Kingdom in 1965 when the younger Tsakolotos was five years old. He attended St Paul's School, London from 1973 to 1978. In St Paul's School's alumni magazine, he praised his former schoolmaster Keith Perry, saying that the teacher did "much to bolster [his] self-confidence". During his time at the school, he co-founded its Economics and Politics Society (known as Polecon) with his close friend Owen Tudor, who now works for the Trades Union Congress. Tsakalotos went on to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at The Queen's College, Oxford. Whilst at the Queen's College, Tsakalotos was an admirer of both G. A. Cohen and Andrew Glyn, a Marxist political philosopher and Marxian economist respectively, who both taught at the university. He also took part in student protests against Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government. During his time at university, he became a supporter of Irish republicanism, a view he expressed in his visit to the Sinn Féin ardfheis in March 2015. One of his university friends at this time, Yannis Stournaras, later became a Greek finance minister and served as Governor of the Bank of Greece. Following graduation, he completed a master's degree (MPhil) at the Institute of Development Studies, attached to the University of Sussex. He then returned to Oxford to complete a doctorate (DPhil) in economics, studying at Mansfield College. He completed this doctorate in 1989 under the supervision of Włodzimierz Brus, with his thesis, Alternative Economic Strategies: The Case of Greece, later being published as a book. Academic career After the completion of his doctorate, Tsakalotos entered into an academic career. His first role was as a research associate at the University of Kent, from 1989 to 1990. From October 1990 to June 1993, he taught at the university as a lecturer. In 1993, Tsakalotos and his wife moved to Greece, and in October 1994 he began teaching at the Athens University of Economics and Business. In September 2010, he became a full professor of economics at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, more commonly referred to simply as the University of Athens. In his capacity as an academic, Tsakalotos served as a member of the executive committee of the Hellenic Federation of University Teachers' Associations (POSDEP). In the mid-2000s, Tsakalotos led his students in a several months-long protest against proposed reforms to the Greek education system. Thanos Tsouknidas, an accountant that knew Tsakalotos at the time, said: "He was there, involved in the struggle. We were fighting together." His active role in the teachers' union brought him popularity, and according to a former student, his classes were often packed. Tsakalotos has written a number of books and articles on Greek and international economic policies, alone and in cooperation with other academics and writers. He has co-authored a number of works with his wife, who has also served as editor for some of the works that he has written alone. Early political career As a student at the University of Oxford, Tsakalotos joined the Communist Party of Greece (Interior), a eurocommunist party that had split from the main Communist Party of Greece, a Marxist–Leninist party, in 1968. In the early 1990s, shortly after moving to Greece, Tsakalotos became a member of Synaspismos, a radical left-wing political party, which was to become the largest constituent party of Syriza. Syriza itself was formed in 2004, ahead of that year's legislative election, as a coalition of 13 left-wing political parties in Greece. Tsakalotos was elected to their Central Committee in December 2004. However, he also remained a prominent member of Synaspismos and served on both their Central Political Committee and their Political Secretariat until a July 2013 party congress, during which Syriza voted to become an independent political party and for all component parties to disband, including Synaspismos. Shortly after Syriza was formed, Tsakalotos stood as their candidate for the prefecture of Preveza in the 2004 legislative election. The Greek government-debt crisis effectively began in 2009 and was a backdrop for Tsakalotos' involvement in the creation of Syriza's economic policy. Tsakalotos has been credited as the "brains behind" the policy, and as a member of Syriza's "economics quartet", alongside John Milios, Giorgos Stathakis and Yannis Dragasakis. He has also been credited as one author of Syriza's Thessaloniki Programme, a manifesto which proposed a set of policies oriented towards reversing austerity measures while maintaining a balanced budget. In opposition (2012–2015) In the May 2012 legislative election, Tsakalotos was elected as a Member of the Hellenic Parliament (MP) representing Athens B, the largest electoral district in Greece. The election saw Syriza win 16.8% of the vote, placing second behind New Democracy, who won 18.8% of the vote, and ahead of PASOK, with 13%. Alexis Tsipras, the party leader, was unable to form a coalition, but also refused to enter into one with PASOK, forcing the country to new elections in June 2012, where Tsakalotos won re-election as an MP. Tsakalotos said that Syriza had a focus on the European Union, and told The New York Times that a Europe imposing austerity on its citizens for the actions of banks "isn't the Europe that the original inspirators of Europe imagined". New Democracy won a plurality of seats in June 2012 and formed a coalition government with PASOK and Democratic Left, making Syriza the largest opposition party with 78 seats. Tsakalotos' role in opposition was as the spokesperson for economic affairs in Tsipras' shadow cabinet. In opposition from 2012 to 2015, Tsakalotos was a key proponent of Syriza's economic policy. He argued that Greece needed something similar to the Marshall Plan, with a payment scheme that took into account the strength of the economy. He told Bloomberg News that "People say that we are responsible for the situation we find ourselves in. OK, sure. But I think that Germany will find it hard to argue that in 1953 [at the time of the London Agreement on German External Debts] they were completely blameless." He appeared in various international media as a spokesperson for Syriza and making the case for their policies: among others, he was interviewed on Lateline, an Australian news programme on ABC, by SBS, another Australian news channel, was quoted by the BBC and Bloomberg, and also appeared in an Intelligence Squared debate arguing for the motion 'Angela Merkel is Destroying Europe'. September 2013 saw his book, co-authored with Christos Laskos, published by Pluto Press. Crucible of Resistance was described as offering "badly needed correctives" to the prevalent ideas on the Greek situation. The book addressed why the European debt crisis began, with a particular focus on Greece. It argued that the idea Greece was exceptional was a myth and that the crisis had revealed the inadequacies of neoliberalism and social democracy. Tsakalotos was criticised by elements of the Greek media in 2013 when he was accused of living a wealthy lifestyle while criticising austerity in public. He was dubbed the 'aristocrat of the left', and one newspaper published front-page criticism arguing that Tsakalotos' own family wealth came from investments made by companies such as JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock. In December 2014, the Hellenic Parliament did not approve the new President with the supermajority required, and so a snap election was called for the end of January 2015. A few days before the 2015 election took place, Tsakalotos was quizzed on Syriza's economic policies by a number of economists, debt campaigners and investment analysts at the London School of Economics. Tsakalotos said there was a need for fiscal space, meaning 6–7 billion Euros a year to spend on an expansionary fiscal policy. He also said that they would cancel the austerity budgets already agreed with the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), pay back the loans from the IMF and focus on rescheduling and writing off the loans from the EU. First term in government (2015) Alternate Minister and bailout negotiator In the legislative election on 25 January 2015, Syriza won a near-majority of seats, with 149 out of 300, and so formed a coalition with the right-wing anti-austerity party Independent Greeks. Tsipras became prime minister and formed his cabinet on 27 January, appointing Tsakalotos as Alternate Minister for International Economic Relations, subordinate to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Nikos Kotzias. Tsakalotos described his role as follows: "[It] means coordinating our approach to promoting exports and attracting investment. It also means upgrading our economic diplomacy which needs to go beyond traditional sectors, for instance exporting olive oil and importing capital goods." Tsakalotos represented Syriza at the Sinn Féin ardfheis on 7 March 2015 and gave a speech on the conference floor, during which he said that both Sinn Féin and Syriza are "part of a great realignment in European politics" towards left-wing anti-austerity parties. The leader of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, embraced Tsakalotos on the stage following the speech. Tsakalotos then spent several hours afterwards in talks with senior members of Sinn Féin. The Financial Times later commented on this, saying it was a "moment of bonding" between Syriza and Sinn Féin. Tsakalotos began to gain a more prominent role in the renegotiations with Greece's creditors over a new bailout plan, which at the time were being led by Yanis Varoufakis, the Minister of Finance. On 27 April, Tsakalotos was the made the coordinator of the Greek team negotiating with the creditor's representatives over this new bailout plan. This move was largely seen as sidelining Yanis Varoufakis, the Minister of Finance, but the markets reacted positively. In June 2015, lenders warned that time was running out for a deal to be agreed on a new bailout plan. On 17 June, Tsakalotos warned that Greece would not be able to repay its €1.6bn loan from the IMF at the end of the month unless a new bailout plan was agreed. The deadline for the renewal of Greece's bailout package was also looming at the end of June. On 26 June, an emergency cabinet meeting led to the calling of a referendum on the bailout deal proposed by the creditors. Capital controls and a bank holiday were announced on 28 June, with the Eurozone refusing an extension of the bailout plan and Greece defaulting on its loan to the IMF on 30 June. Minister of Finance The bailout referendum on 5 July resulted in a 'No' vote to the adoption of the bailout package. The following day,when prime minister Alexis Tsipras rejected the package in deference to the vote, Varoufakis resigned as finance minister. As he left the finance ministry, he suggested that Tsakalotos was likely to succeed him, and Tsakalotos was subsequently sworn-in later that day. In the process of this, Tsakalotos relinquished his previous ministerial position of Alternate Minister for International Economic Relations. Tsakalotos was noted for his differences with Varoufakis, for example, the Financial Times noted that he "could hardly be more different from his flamboyant predecessor". At a press conference shortly following his appointment, Tsakalotos said: "I cannot hide from you that I am quite nervous. I am not taking on this job at the easiest point in Greek history." Tsakalotos' first official meeting as Minister of Finance was on 7 July and was an emergency meeting of the Eurogroup following the vote in the referendum. Tsakalotos brought a note with him that reminded him to display "no triumphalism" after the 'No' vote in the Greek bailout referendum. Following the talks, he was described as "Much better than Varoufakis" who was a much tougher and less compromising negotiator. Greece was given 48 hours to agree to a new bailout plan or it would face being forced to leave the eurozone on 8 July, leading to a plan being submitted by the Greek government on 10 July. In a nine-hour Eurogroup meetings on 11 July, Tsakalotos was noted for his calmness in the "tough, even violent" atmosphere of the talks by observers. The government backed the tenth austerity package which went before Parliament on 16 July. The package was the first in a series of prior actions necessary for negotiations to open up over bailout funding worth 86 billion euros. The package came in two parts, with the first being approved on 16 July, and the second on 23 July. The legislation included a rise in VAT across several goods and services, the abolition of the VAT discount for Greek islands, a corporation tax rise from 26% to 29%, a luxury tax on cars, boats and swimming pools, an end to early retirement by 2022, and an increase in the retirement age to 67. Tsakalotos said on 16 July debate, "I don't know if we did the right thing, however, I do know that we felt like we had no other choice but do what we did." The contentious vote was opposed by 109 out of 201 members of the Central Committee of Syriza, and 32 Syriza MPs voted against the proposals on 16 July. It also led to a cabinet reshuffle on 17 July, but Tsakalotos retained his role as Minister of Finance. The second set of measures were debated and voted on 23 July, with Tsakalotos beginning the debate, and urging a vote in favour of the measures. Tsakalotos was criticised for his speech, with Ovenden writing that "[his] argument made him sound little different from the kind of kindergarten exchanges which had characterised Pasok and New Democracy over the years." However, the proposals passed parliament, clearing the way for a new bailout deal to be negotiated with Greece's creditors. A new bailout deal, the Third Economic Adjustment Programme for Greece, was agreed in August 2015, and the first set of measures went to vote on 14 August, in the form of the eleventh austerity package. Tsakalotos opened the debate, calling the deal a "very tough agreement with many thorns." During the debate, he engaged heavily with the acting President of New Democracy, Vangelis Meimarakis, who criticised Tsakalotos for being "provocative". Towards the end of the debate, Zoi Konstantopoulou, the Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament, raised so many procedural questions and objections that Tsakalotos missed the 9:30 am vote to catch a flight to Brussels. More than 40 Syriza MPs voted against the plans, and it was suggested that Tsipras may resign, bringing the prospect of another snap election in September. In Brussels later that day, final negotiations were concluded for the Third Economic Adjustment Programme for Greece. On 20 August, Tsipras announced the resignation of the Syriza-ANEL government, and that a legislative election was scheduled for 20 September. Tsakalotos and the rest of the cabinet remained as lame duck ministers whilst opposition parties attempted to form their own government. However, the opposition parties failed to form a government and Vassiliki Thanou-Christophilou was appointed as an interim Prime Minister on 27 August. On 28 August, Thanou-Christophilou's caretaker cabinet was sworn in, with George Chouliarakis being sworn in as the interim Minister of Finance. Second term in government (2015–present) Reappointment as Minister of Finance Reuters reported that Tsakalotos was considering not running in the September 2015 legislative election, as he did not want to have to implement the bailout agreement. However, these fears were assuaged by Alexis Tsipras when he said there was no doubt that Tsakalotos would stand in the election. He also claimed that, during the election campaign, without Tsakalotos' involvement, there would have been no bailout package. In recognition of that, Tsakalotos was made to head the list for Syriza in Athens B. In an interview during the campaign, Tsakalotos admitted that the Greek government had suffered "defeat" during negotiations with creditors, implying that some responsibility for this lay with his predecessor, Varoufakis. Following the re-election of the Syriza-ANEL coalition, Tsakalotos was tipped to resume the role of Minister of Finance, however the state media reported that he was reluctant to do so. Nonetheless, he was reappointed as Minister of Finance on 23 September, as part of the Tsipras' second cabinet. Chouliarakis, the interim Minister of Finance, was retained in the finance ministry as an Alternate Minister of Finance. Later in September, in an interview with the Financial Times, Tsakalotos said that it was "absolutely critical that we get something on debt relief." He added: "By the second quarter of 2016, if we get a positive review, bank recapitalisation and debt relief, I don't see any reason why there shouldn't be a return to growth." He also said that the new government would make serious attempts to crack down on tax evasion: "It will be a central aspect of our policies, which will determine the success of the government, because it's the only way the Greek people will accept difficult measures that show we're all in the same boat." At the annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank between 9 and 11 October 2015, Tsakalotos had a number of meetings with high-level attendees. On 8 January 2016, Tsakalotos began a tour of European cities, including Rome, Lisbon, Paris, Helsinki and Berlin, meeting with finance ministers, prior to a Eurogroup meeting on 14 January. In February 2016, Spyros Economides, Director of the Hellenic Observatory,in order to divert blame and relieve the pressure on Tsakalotos and following a relentless smear campaign against Varoufakis, commented on Tsakalotos' performance as Minister of Finance: "In some ways, he has done an extremely good job because the mess left by his predecessor both in substantive and presentational terms was horrific." Tsakalotos visited the European Parliament in March 2016 and told MEPs of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs that he welcomed their role in monitoring the reforms. Bailout review and calls for IMF involvement The first review of the bailout programme carried out by Greece's lenders stalled in February 2016 over pension reforms. Speaking to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Tsakalotos urged the lenders to complete the review by 1 May as "This question of time is important if we want to move from a vicious to a virtuous circle." He wrote to other members of the Eurogroup on 6 May to appeal for their support against extra demands for austerity that, he argued, were beyond the mandate of the Greek government. Speaking in October 2016, Tsakalotos said that he wanted the IMF to join the bailout programme and that Wolfgang Schäuble's position on debt relief for Greece was untenable. Schäuble said that the bailout programme "will work, the IMF will be on board and there won't be much debt relief." However, Tsakalotos said that "Something has to give there, and I think deep down in his heart he understands that. He's a wily politician. He's been around for a long time. I can't believe he doesn't understand you can't have all those three things." Political views Ideology Tsakalotos has been described as a "Marxist", and Ovenden has written that "While Keynes is the main economic reference point for Varoufakis, who opposed the Brussels deal, for Tsakalotos, who signed it, Marx is more that guide to economic and political analysis." Paul Mason described Tsakalotos as a "classic Marxist of the New Left," continuing that "Tsakalotos comes from that school of Marxism which learned from the 1970s onwards to make compromises with capitalist reality." In an interview with the Financial Times in September 2015 following his re-appointment, he said: "I'm one of the government's most left-wing ministers, politically speaking. However, I want to do things like the recapitalisation of the banks. I can do things that aren't particularly left-wing." Tsakalotos is also a leading member of the Group of 53, a prominent faction within Syriza. One report names him as the leader of the Group. The Group was founded in mid-2014 and stands ideologically between the Left Platform and Alexis Tsipras's core backers. After the Left Platform split from Syriza to Popular Unity, the Group of 53 became the most left-wing faction within Syriza. Europe Tsakalotos has been described as a "Revolutionary Europeanist", as he supports European Union integration but not its capitalist principles. In one article, he wrote: "[the] European Monetary Union has created a split between [the] core and periphery, and relations between the two are hierarchical and discriminatory." Tsakalotos has also advocated for a "change in [the] architecture" of the Eurozone. He has also suggested that the EU should have a focus on the development of member countries, which is what requires this change in architecture. In a May 2012 interview on Lateline, Tsakalotos said: "At the moment the Eurozone is at risk, not because of the Greek radical left – it's at risk because it has an architecture, a financial and economic architecture that is evidently unable to deal with the crisis in the Eurozone, and we think part of the solution is a change in that architecture." In 2011, he cited a move towards fiscal federalism as a potential solution to the EU's economic architecture. Personal life Tsakalotos is married to Heather D. Gibson, a Scottish economist currently serving as Director-Advisor to the Bank of Greece and his ofttimes research and writing partner. They met when Tsakalotos was teaching at the University of Kent and they later married in Canterbury. The couple has three children and maintains two homes in Kifisia, along with an office in Athens and a holiday home in Preveza, all courtesy of a large estate belonging to Tsakalotos' father. Through his father, Euclid Tsakalotos is a distant relative of Thrasyvoulos Tsakalotos, who served as Chief of the Hellenic Army General Staff from 1951 to 1952. Tsakalotos has been quoted as saying that his great-granduncle fought on the "other side, the wrong side" in the Greek Civil War, and was worried that his great-grandnephew would become a "liberal, [but] certainly not anything further to the left." Tsakalotos is a fan of PAOK FC and was given a shirt with Dimitar Berbatov's name on the back by Alexis Tsipras. When he lived in the UK, he was a supporter of Leeds United. Works Books Crucible of Resistance: Greece, the Eurozone and the World Economic Crisis (with Christos Laskos, Pluto Press, London, Chicago: 2013), 22 Πράγματα που μας λένε για την ελληνική κρίση και δεν είναι έτσι (22 Things they tell you about the Greek Crisis which are not so; with Christos Laskos, KPSM Publications: 2012), Χωρίς επιστροφή (No Return; with Christos Laskos, KPSM Publications: 2011), Corporatism and Economic Performance: A Comparative Analysis of Market Economies (with Andrew Henley, Edward Elgar Publishing: 1993) Alternative Economic Strategies: The Case of Greece (Avebury Publishers, Aldershot: 1991), Articles and papers Tsakalotos has published a number of articles and papers, including several co-authored with his wife, Heather Gibson, and others. He has been published in a range of Academic journals, such as the Cambridge Journal of Economics, the Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics and the Oxford Review of Economic Policy. For a full list, see the link to his page on Academia.edu in the External links. See also First Cabinet of Alexis Tsipras Second Cabinet of Alexis Tsipras Greek government-debt crisis Notes References Citations Sources Ovenden, Kevin (2015). Syriza: Inside the Labyrinth. London: Pluto Press. . External links Euclid Tsakalotos' publications at Academia.edu \|- 1960 births Academics of the University of Kent Alumni of The Queen's College, Oxford Alumni of the University of Sussex Coalition of Left, of Movements and Ecology politicians Finance ministers of Greece 21st-century Greek economists Greek expatriates in the United Kingdom Greek government-debt crisis Greek MPs 2012 (May) Greek MPs 2012–2014 Greek MPs 2015 (February–August) Greek MPs 2015–2019 Living people People educated at St Paul's School, London Syriza politicians Greek MPs 2019–2023 Politicians from London 20th-century Greek economists	{ "redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia" }	7,719

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