Memoirs of an editor : fifty years of American journalism / Edward P. Mitchell.

12

MEMOIRS OF AN EDITOR

left, accompanied by creaking machinery out of sight,
with staccato explanations from the gentleman with a
long stick, Expectancy settled back on his bench with a
sense of aesthetic contentment produced by no other spectacle, not even by the circus or the annual spring parade
of the town Fantastics.
Possibly the fascination of the show was due in part
to its continuously flowing presentation. I recall a feeling of disappointment when the otherwise engaging
Panorama of the Life of Christ proved to be merely a succession of panelled views, each independent of the others;
this was not the orthodox method of panorama painting.
Banvard's Mississippi came our way, of course, with
its half-mile of rather monotonous scenery. Doctor
Kane's expedition in search of Sir John Franklin made a
more lasting impression by its delightful sequence of
turbulent seas, icebergs, ice-imprisoned ships, Esquimau
men and dogs, close-ups of walruses and polar bears.
For many years a vague recollection that this panorama
ended with a vessel entering Havana harbor past the
Morro castle perplexed me. Cuba is on the way neither
to nor from Baffin Bay and Grinnell Land, but obviously
in quite an opposite direction. Afterward the mystery
was solved by the discovery that Elisha Kent Kane visited
Havana in 1857 and died there. So I concluded that my
recollection was right, after all; the Morro and the palmtrees must have been introduced by the artist to commemorate the explorer's death amid scenes in striking
contrast with his arctic experiences.
Soon after we went to live in New York Lady Franklin
was a visitor one afternoon at my father's house, on what
errand I know not. Her unwearying efforts to sustain

the search for news or relics of the Erebus and the Terror
had endured since 1848 on both sides of the Atlantic.
She was a stately, sweetly speaking lady in a jet-trimmed
black silk dress of mid-Victorian style. The autographed