[Illustration:

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

Fifth Series

ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832

CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)

NO. 137.—VOL. III.      SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 1886.      PRICE 1½_d._]




THE DEATH-ROLL OF MONT BLANC.


In these days, when it is the fashion to decry Mont Blanc, in company
with a good many other old institutions, there is one thing about the
mountain which is apt to be lost sight of, and that is how very fatal
it has been to mountaineers. It is quite possible that the proportion
of killed to those who succeed in the ascent—and the same will hold
good in respect of any other Alpine peak—would not be found to be
great, for probably more people have gone up Mont Blanc than any other
high mountain; but no number of successful ascents will minimise the
fact that there can be very real danger on Mont Blanc. The causes of
danger are not far to seek. The mountain is regarded, and in fact is,
comparatively easy of ascent; and from the days when Albert Smith did
so much to dispel the awe with which it was once the fashion to regard
it, the popularity of the expedition has grown year by year, till quite
a considerable percentage of those who now go to Chamouni consider but
the half of their visit accomplished if they fail to ‘do’ Mont Blanc.
Thus it comes to pass that a great number of individuals are allowed
to ascend who ought not to go on the mountain at all, and who, under
certain conditions, may easily become a source of danger to themselves
and to those who accompany them.

But the danger from this cause is as nothing compared with that which
exists in the inferior quality of many of the guides. At Chamouni,
every one who styles himself a guide must belong to a kind of
trades-union society called the ‘Compagnie des Guides,’ and presided
over by a ‘Guide-chef.’ All who enter the ‘Compagnie des Guides,’
good, bad, and indifferent, enter it on the same footing, and are
compelled to take their turn for an engagement on a register kept at
the office of the ‘Guide-chef’ for the purpose. Thus, a traveller who
wishes to engage a guide, is not allowed—except under very special
circumstances—to choose his man, but must take him whose name stands
first on the list; and it may so happen that quite an incompetent
individual is given charge of a party wishing to ascend Mont Blanc,
while a really good guide is told off to carry a knapsack over the Col
de Balme.

It is easy to imagine what may result from a system such as this. For
one thing, it has had the effect of utterly demoralising Chamouni
guides as a body; and it has been the means, as we shall see presently,
of some of the worst accidents that have ever happened in the Alps.
It is usual nowadays for members of Alpine Clubs to bring to Chamouni
their own guides from other districts, rather than trust to the local
men; and so it has come about that Chamouni guides have been reduced
to taking casual parties up Mont Blanc, with the result, that very
few of them are of any use out of their own particular district, and
as regards the more difficult peaks of the range, very little even
in it. In fact, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the really
good Chamouni men may now be counted on the fingers. The grave scandal
occasioned by the desertion of the Russian, Professor Fedchenko, by his
guides—two inexperienced boys—and his subsequent death on the Mer de
Glace, called forth a severe protest against the Chamouni guide system
on the part of the Alpine Club; but beyond some slight modification of
the rules as regards the choosing of special men, very little has been
done; and to this day the Rules and Regulations of the ‘Compagnie des
Guides’ of Chamouni remain a byword with all mountaineers.

Finally, there is the danger—and this perhaps greatest of all—from
weather. Easy though Mont Blanc may be as long as the weather is good,
there is not a mountain in all the Alps which can become so dangerous
in a storm. Every one who has had experience of climbing, knows how
weather can affect a mountain, and how an ascent which is easy enough
one day, may become dangerous if not impossible the next. It is quite
a mistake to suppose that because a mountain offers no _physical_
difficulties, that there is no risk attending the ascent. We have Mont
Blanc as a case in point. Easiest of all the Great mountains, he has
proved himself the most fatal of any.

The first accident within our knowledge which occurred on Mont Blanc
was that to Dr Hamel’s party in 1820, and being the first accident to
Alpine climbers, it created at the time an immense sensation. From
accounts published by the survivors, it seems clear that the accident
was caused by ignorance of the state of the snow—ignorance excusable
enough in those days, when as a matter of fact the art of climbing was
very little understood. On August 18, 1820, a Russian professor, Dr
Hamel; two Oxonians, Messrs Durnford and Henderson; a Genevese named
Sellique; and twelve guides, left Chamouni, and in twelve hours—about
double the time now taken—reached the rocks of the Grands Mulets. Here
they pitched a tent which they had brought with them, and passed the
night. Bad weather came on after sunset; and as it did not clear next
morning in time for them to start, they had to pass another night in
the tent. It came on to rain again in the evening; but the following
morning, August 20, was fine, and it was determined to make a push for
the summit. At this juncture, M. Sellique was overcome with ‘scruples’
on the subject of making the ascent, and declined to accompany the
others, so he was left behind in charge of two of the guides. The
rest of the party set out at five A.M. The weather kept fine; but
the snow—to quote one of the survivors—was found to be ‘rather too
soft.’ They would appear to have followed the line of ascent usually
adopted in these days, until opposite the Dome du Goûté, and on a level
with it, when they branched off sharply to the left, and commenced
to traverse a steep snow-slope, directing their course straight for
the Mont Maudit. They were not roped, and were apparently proceeding
in Indian file, when suddenly the snow gave beneath their feet, and
carried them away bodily down the slope. They were all carried a great
distance—some accounts say twelve hundred feet—and then the whole
avalanche buried itself in a great crevasse. The three leading guides
were completely overwhelmed; but the rest of the party stopped short
of the crevasse, and were saved. The survivors made frantic efforts to
rescue their unfortunate companions; but the poor fellows must have
been buried under many tons of snow, and these efforts were unavailing.

It was scarcely thought probable that trace of them would ever
again be found; but after the lapse of nearly half a century, the
glacier yielded up its dead. In 1863, or forty-three years after the
catastrophe, portions of human bodies, the débris of a lantern and
Alpenstock, and the leaves of a Latin book, were found imbedded in the
ice on the surface of the Glacier des Bossons and near its foot. They
were recognised as belonging to the lost guides of Dr Hamel’s party.
Further discoveries were made in the two following years; and of the
relics thus brought to light, some are preserved to this day by the
Alpine Club in their rooms at St Martin’s Place.

This accident afforded strong evidence in favour of the fact of
glacier motion, for the remains were found to have been carried by the
ice a distance of nearly five miles from the spot where the catastrophe
occurred.

Almost simultaneously with the finding of the relics of Dr Hamel’s
ill-fated expedition, occurred another accident on Mont Blanc.
On August 9, 1864, a young porter named Ambroise Couttet, while
accompanying two Austrian gentlemen in the ascent of Mont Blanc, fell
into a crevasse on the Grand Plateau. This was an accident attributable
entirely to carelessness, for it appears that at the moment of the
catastrophe Couttet was walking apart from the others and quite
unattached. His companions did their best to effect a rescue; but the
crevasse was of such great depth that they could not come near him. A
party of guides subsequently went out with the object of recovering
the body; but although two of their number descended ninety feet into
the crevasse, they failed to reach it. It is almost certain, from the
terrible nature of the fall, that the unfortunate man’s death must have
been instantaneous.

There were two sad accidents on Mont Blanc in 1866. The precise cause
of the first is somewhat obscure, but the facts as far as they are
known are these. Sir George Young and his two brothers, unaccompanied
by guides, set out to ascend Mont Blanc on August 23, and succeeded
in reaching the summit in safety. They had not proceeded far in the
descent, when, for some reason unexplained, one of the party slipped
and dragged down the other two. They slid for a short distance, then
fell a height of twenty feet or so, and were finally stopped by soft
snow. Sir George and his second brother escaped serious injury; but the
youngest brother, Mr Bulkeley Young, was found to have broken his neck.

The accident to Captain Arkwright’s party was of a different
description, and in many respects bears a close resemblance to
that in which Dr Hamel’s guides lost their lives. On the 13th of
October—unusually late in the year for such an expedition—Captain
Arkwright with one guide, Michel Simond, and two porters, started from
the Grands Mulets to ascend Mont Blanc. At a little distance they were
followed by the landlord of the _Pierre Pointue_, Silvain Couttet, and
a porter—these two having apparently come for their own pleasure—on a
separate rope. The guides, probably by reason of its being a shorter
route, and, as such, likely to save time—an important matter at that
season of the year—chose the route adopted by Dr Hamel’s party, and
which had come to be known by the name of the Ancien Passage. They had
almost reached the spot where the disaster of 1820 occurred, when the
roar of an avalanche was heard. Couttet and his companion, realising
the danger, fled for their lives. They were a little way behind the
others, and were so fortunate as to escape; but Captain Arkwright and
his guides were caught by the avalanche and swept away. This accident
arose from precisely the same cause as that which happened to Dr
Hamel’s party—ignorance of the state of the snow; but it differed
in one respect: whereas Dr Hamel’s party started the avalanche, the
avalanche which proved fatal to Captain Arkwright and his guides fell
from above.

The fact of a second accident occurring at the same place and from a
similar cause, has given to the Ancien Passage the reputation of being
essentially unsafe. It is not necessarily more dangerous than other
routes, and indeed it may even be the safest route from Chamouni up
Mont Blanc. It is only really dangerous when the snow is in bad order;
and this is a point upon which a guide is—or should be—competent to
give an opinion. On the day of the accident, the snow was not in proper
condition, and it was because a right discretion was not used, that
Captain Arkwright and his companions lost their lives.

We now come to an accident which ranks as by far the most terrible
which has ever happened to Alpine climbers, for it resulted in the
loss of no fewer than eleven lives. On September 5, 1870, a party
consisting of two American gentlemen, Messrs Beane and Randall, and a
Mr MacCorkendale, with eight guides and porters—with one exception, all
Chamouni men—left Chamouni with the intention of ascending Mont Blanc.
They passed the night at the Grands Mulets, and next morning started
for the summit. Early in the afternoon, a violent storm burst over Mont
Blanc; and as the weather became very bad and they did not return, it
was resolved to send out a search-party from Chamouni. The weather,
however, continued for some days of such an unfavourable character
that it was not until the 17th, and when all hope had been abandoned
of finding any of the lost party alive, that a discovery was made.
The dead bodies of Mr MacCorkendale and two of the porters were first
found. They were lying on the snow quite uninjured, head uppermost, a
little way above the Mur de la Côte; and from the torn condition of
their clothes, it seemed probable that they had slid some distance
to the spot where they were discovered. Higher up, lay the bodies of
Mr Beane and another porter, with the greater portion of the baggage
beside them. Of the remaining six, no trace could be seen. A few small
articles which must have belonged to them were picked up subsequently
in the direction of the Brenva Glacier; but that was all. To this day
their fate remains a mystery.

The only light thrown upon the catastrophe was that which could be
gathered from the pages of a diary found on Mr Beane, and written by
him. Some doubt at first was cast upon the authenticity of the entry,
but there seems no reason at all for disbelieving its genuineness.
What it told was as follows: ‘_Tuesday, September 6._—I have made the
ascent of Mont Blanc with ten persons—eight guides, Mr Corkendale,
and Mr Randall. We arrived at the summit at half-past two o’clock.
Immediately after leaving it, I was enveloped in clouds of snow. We
passed the night in a grotto excavated out of the snow, affording
very uncomfortable shelter, and I was ill all night. _September 7
(morning)._—Intense cold, much snow, which falls uninterruptedly,
guides restless. _September 7 (evening)._—We have been on Mont Blanc
for two days in a terrible snowstorm; we have lost our way, and are
in a hole scooped out of the snow, at a height of fifteen thousand
feet. I have no hope of descending. Perhaps this book may be found
and forwarded.... We have no food; my feet are already frozen, and I
am exhausted; I have only strength to write a few words. I die in the
faith of Jesus Christ, with affectionate thoughts of my family; my
remembrances to all. I trust we may meet in heaven.’

The diary ended with instructions to his family as to his private
affairs.

It is to be regretted that poor Mr Beane gives us so little information
of any practical value; but meagre as his diary is, it sheds light on
one or two points. First, we gather that the party actually reached the
summit; and next, that it was about half-past two in the afternoon, and
immediately after leaving it, that the storm caught them. Now, how was
it, we may fairly ask, that so little progress was made on the downward
path?—for the ice-grotto of which Mr Beane speaks was constructed at an
altitude of fifteen thousand feet, or only seven hundred and eighty-one
feet below the summit. How was it that the guides failed completely
to find a way back over ground which they had traversed so recently?
Mr Beane does not tell us if any attempts were made on the 6th and
7th to find the way down—what little evidence we have tends to prove
that there were none—he merely says, ‘We have lost our way.’ To sit
down and wait where they were, as they appear to have done, showed a
want of judgment which, without being better acquainted than we are
with the facts of the case, seems quite inexplicable. Nothing is more
common in the high Alps than to be overtaken by bad weather; but out
of the Chamouni district there has not been an instance of a whole
party perishing from this special cause. It is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that the guides were not equal to their task, that they lost
their heads at the very approach of danger, and gave themselves up
for lost at the moment when they should have made the most determined
effort to escape.

There was another circumstance, too, which was held at the time to
reflect somewhat upon the conduct of the guides—not one of their bodies
was found. The five bodies recovered were those of the _heaviest_
members of the party, and there can be little doubt that they must have
been left behind, while the rest made an effort to save themselves.
Mr Beane, however, makes no mention of any division of the party,
and it is charitable to suppose that no division actually took place
until after the weaker members had succumbed to the exposure. What led
to the division, will never be known; neither will it be known what
motive impelled the guides to act in such an utterly incomprehensible
manner. That the leaders of the party _ought_ to have been thoroughly
up to their work, is emphasised by the fact, that neither Mr Beane,
Mr Randall, nor Mr MacCorkendale had had previous experience of
mountaineering, and were quite incapable of giving advice of any
practical value when difficulties arose. As a matter of fact, it does
not appear that any one of the guides held a foremost place in his
profession. Judging by their actions, they certainly proved themselves
singularly wanting in many of the most important qualities of good
guides; and it is impossible to believe that they could have been other
than very second-rate. But should the blame of the disaster be laid to
their charge? Should it not rather attach to a system which rendered
such an accident only too probable?

In the same year (1870) there was yet another accident on Mont Blanc.
A gentleman and two ladies, accompanied by a guide and a porter, were
out on the mountain; and the gentleman wishing to go further than the
ladies cared to, took the guide, and left them in charge of the porter.
With what object, it is not known, the porter promptly proceeded to
conduct his charges across a snow-field which was well known to be
honeycombed with concealed crevasses. Under these circumstances,
it would have been only wonderful if an accident had not occurred,
and unfortunately that took place which might have been predicted.
The porter had given his arm to one of the ladies, and was leading
her across, when the snow gave way beneath them, and they both fell
headlong into a deep crevasse. Here was a case of two lives wantonly
sacrificed. That any one calling himself a guide should have shown such
gross ignorance of the very first principles of mountaineering as this
porter did, is almost inconceivable. It is perfectly clear that he did
not understand his business, and was certainly not a fit person to have
been sent on expeditions above the snow-line.

A still later accident on Mont Blanc took place on the south side. On
the 30th August 1874, Mr J. A. G. Marshall, with two Oberland guides,
Johann Fischer and Ulrich Almer, left Courmayeur with a view to
attempting the ascent of Mont Blanc by way of the Brouillard Glacier,
an ascent which had not at that time been effected. They camped out
upon the mountain at a height of about ten thousand feet, and the
following day worked their way a considerable distance upwards till
they found themselves finally stopped by an impassable wall of rock.
This occurred somewhat late in the afternoon, too late, indeed, to
attempt any other route, and accordingly they turned back. The descent
was difficult, and night overtook them before they reached the spot
where they had bivouacked the previous evening. They were crossing the
last bit of glacier, when Fischer inquired the time, and Mr Marshall
drew out his watch, while the others came up to him with a light. As
they stood thus close together, the snow gave way beneath them. Fischer
fell first into a crevasse which at this point was some thirty feet
deep and five feet in width; and Mr Marshall was dragged on to him;
while Almer alighted upon a hummock of snow but a few feet below the
mouth of the crevasse. Mr Marshall’s head came in contact with the side
of the crevasse, and in his case, death must have been instantaneous;
while Fischer’s injuries were of such a character that he, too, could
not have lived for any time after the fall. Almer escaped with a
severe shaking, but was rendered insensible by the shock of the fall.
Upon coming to himself, he found that both his companions were beyond
help; and as soon as there was sufficient light, he struggled down to
Courmayeur with the intelligence of the accident. The dead bodies were
recovered the same evening, and brought back the next day to Courmayeur.

Of all the accidents which have happened on Mont Blanc, this was
perhaps the one most deserving the term. Mr Marshall and his guides
were first-rate mountaineers, and it was scarcely from any fault
of their own that the catastrophe occurred. From a sketch of the
spot taken by M. Loppé the artist a few days after the occurrence,
the crevasse looks curiously narrow, and if the party had only been
standing but a few paces to right or left, they would have been in
perfect safety. Moreover, the scene of the catastrophe was not five
minutes’ walk from the moraine.

Thus Mont Blanc is responsible for the loss of no fewer than
twenty-four lives; but it is when we compare him with other mountains
that we realise how much more fatal he has been than any of his
fellows. The following table, compiled from the _Alpine Journal_, will
best bring home this fact:

                    Accidents.  Lives lost.
    Mont Blanc          7           24
    Matterhorn          3            6
    Lyskamm             2            6
    Monte Rosa          2            4
    Monte Cevedale      1            4
    Dent Blanche        1            3
    Haut de Cri         1            2
    Titlis              1            2
    Jungfrau            1            2
    Wetterhorn          1            2
    Aiguille Blanche    1            2

Single lives have been lost upon each of the following mountains:
Riffelhorn, Gross Venedeger, Schreckhorn, Piz Tschierva, Diablerets,
Blumlis Alp, Piz Bernina, Grandes Jorasses, Meije.

Of accidents which may fairly come under the head of Alpine accidents,
such as accidents upon glaciers and subsidiary peaks, there appear to
have been thirty-five—making a total loss since 1859, when climbing
became a recognised form of amusement, of ninety-eight lives, or,
inclusive of Dr Hamel’s accident, one hundred and one. When we come to
consider that Mont Blanc is responsible for nearly one-fourth of the
whole, we may well question whether the depreciation of the mountain is
quite justified. Is it not rather a case of underrating the enemy?

No reasonable person can deny that there is at times danger on Mont
Blanc, and when we consider from what a variety of causes it may
arise—from weather, from the state of the snow, from the unfitness of
many of those who attempt the ascent, and last, but not least, from the
guide system of Chamouni—we feel inclined to wonder not, indeed, that
the loss of life has been great, but rather that the death-roll is not
much greater.




IN ALL SHADES.


CHAPTER XL.

Even as Delgado stood there still on the steps of the piazza at Orange
Grove, waving his blood-stained cutlass fiercely about his head, and
setting his foot contemptuously on Mr Dupuy’s prostrate and bleeding
body, Harry Noel tore up the path that led from Dick Castello’s house
at Savannah Garden, and halted suddenly in blank amazement in front of
the doorway—Harry Noel, in evening dress, hatless and spurless; just as
he had risen in horror from his dinner, and riding his new mare without
even a saddle, in his hot haste to see the cause of the unexpected
tumult at the Dupuys’ estate. The fierce red glare of the burning
cane-houses had roused him unawares at Savannah Garden in the midst of
his coffee; and the cries of the negroes and the sound of pistol-shots
had cast him into a frantic fever of anxiety for Nora’s safety. ‘The
niggers have risen, by Jove!’ Dick Castello cried aloud, as the flames
rose higher and higher above the blazing cane-houses. ‘They must be
attacking old Dupuy; and if once their blood’s up, you may depend upon
it, Noel, they won’t leave him until they’ve fairly murdered him.’

Harry Noel didn’t wait a moment to hear any further conjectures of his
host’s on the subject, but darting round to the stables bareheaded,
clapped a bit forthwith into his mare’s mouth, jumped on her back just
as she stood, in a perfect frenzy of fear and excitement, and tore
along the narrow winding road that led by tortuous stretches to Orange
Grove as fast as his frightened horse’s legs could possibly carry him.

As he leaped eagerly from his mount to the ground in the midst of all
that hideous din and uproar and mingled confusion, Delgado was just
calling on his fellow-blacks to follow him boldly into the house and
to ‘kill de missy;’ and the Orange Grove negroes, cowed and terrified
now that their master had fallen bodily before them, were beginning
to drop back, trembling, into the rooms behind, and allow the frantic
and triumphant rioters to have their own way unmolested. In a moment,
Harry took in the full terror of the scene—saw Mr Dupuy’s body lying,
a mass of hacked and bleeding wounds, upon the wooden floor of the
front piazza; saw the infuriated negroes pressing on eagerly with
their cutlasses lifted aloft, now fairly drunk with the first taste
of buckra blood; and Delgado in front of them all, leaping wildly,
and gesticulating in frantic rage with arms and hands and fingers, as
he drove back the terrified servants through the heavy old mahogany
doorway of the great drawing-room into the room that opened out behind
toward Nora’s own little sacred boudoir.

Harry had no weapon of any sort with him except the frail riding-whip
he carried in his hand; but without waiting for a second, without
thinking for one instant of the surrounding danger, he rushed up the
piazza steps, pushed the astonished rioters to right and left with
his powerful arms, jumped over the senseless planter’s prostrate
body, swept past Delgado into the narrow doorway, and there stood
confronting the savage ringleader boldly, his little riding-whip
raised high above his proud head with a fierce and threatening angry
gesture. ‘Stop there!’ he cried, in a voice of stern command, that
even in that supreme moment of passion and triumph had its full effect
upon the enraged negroes. ‘Stop there, you mean-spirited villains and
murderers! Not a step further—not a step further, I tell you! Cowards,
cowards, every one of you, to kill a poor old man like that upon his
own staircase, and to threaten a helpless innocent lady.’

As he spoke, he laid his hand heavily upon Louis Delgado’s bony
shoulder, and pushed the old negro steadily backward, out of the
doorway and through the piazza, to the front steps, where Mr Dupuy’s
body was still lying untended and bleeding profusely. ‘Stand back,
Delgado!’ he cried out fiercely and authoritatively. ‘Stand back this
minute, and put down your cutlass! If you want to fight the whites, you
cowardly scoundrels you, why don’t you fight the men like yourselves,
openly and straightforward, instead of coming by night, without note or
warning, burning and hacking and killing and destroying, and waging war
against defenceless old men and women and children?’

The negroes fell back a little grudgingly, as he spoke, and answered
him only by the loud and deep guttural cry—an inarticulate, horribly
inhuman gurgle—which is their sole possible form of speech in the
very paroxysm of African passion. Louis Delgado held his cutlass half
doubtfully in his uplifted hand: he had tasted blood once now; he had
laid himself open to the fierce vengeance of the English law; he was
sorely tempted in the whirlwind of the moment to cut down Harry Noel
too, as he had cut down the white-headed old planter the minute before.
But the innate respect of the essentially fighting negro for a resolute
opponent held him back deliberating for a moment; and he drew down his
cutlass as quickly as he had raised it, divided in mind whether to
strike or to permit a parley.

Noel seized the occasion with intuitive strategy. ‘Here you, my
friends,’ he cried boldly, turning round towards the cowering Orange
Grove servants—‘is this the way you defend your master? Pick him up,
some of you—pick him up this minute, I tell you, and lay him out
decently on the sofa over yonder.—There, there; don’t be afraid. Not
one of these confounded rogues and cowards dares to touch you or come
one pace nearer you as long as you’re doing it. If he does! cutlass
or no cutlass, I’ll break this riding-whip to pieces, I tell you,
across his black head as soon as look at him.’ And he brandished
the whip angrily in front of him, towards the mad and howling group
of angry rioters, held at bay for the moment on the piazza steps by
that solitary, undismayed, young Englishman with his one frail and
ridiculous weapon.

The rioters howled all the louder at his words, and leaped and
grinned and chattered and gesticulated like wild beasts behind an
iron railing; but not one of them ventured to be the first in aiming
a blow with his deadly implement at Harry Noel. They only yelled once
more incomprehensibly in their deep gutturals, and made hideous wild
grimaces, and waved their cutlasses frantically around them with
horrible inarticulate negro imprecations.

But Harry stood there firm and unyielding, facing the maddened crowd
with his imperious manner, and overawing them in spite of themselves
with that strange power of a superior race over the inferior in such
critical moments of intense passion.

The Orange Grove servants, having fresh courage put into their
failing breasts once more by the inspiring presence of a white man
at their sides, and being true at heart to their poor master, as
negro house-servants always are and always have been in the worst
extremities, took advantage of the momentary lull in the storm to do as
Harry told them, and lift Mr Dupuy’s body up from the ground, laying
it carefully on the piazza sofa. ‘That’s better,’ Harry said, as they
finished their task.—‘Now, we must go on and drive away these murderous
rascals. If we don’t drive them away, my good friends, they’ll kill
Miss Nora—they’ll kill Miss Nora. Would you have it said of you that
you let a parcel of murderous plantation rioters kill your own dead
master’s daughter right before your very faces?’

As he spoke, he saw a pale face, pale, not with fear, but with terrible
anger, standing mutely and immovably beside him; and next moment he
heard Nora Dupuy’s voice crying out deeply, in the very echo of his own
angry words: ‘Cowards, cowards!’

At the sight of the hated Dupuy features, the frenzied plantation
hands seemed to work themselves up into a fresh access of ungovernable
fury. With indescribable writhings and mouthings and grimaces, their
hatred and vengeance found articulate voice for a moment at least, and
they cried aloud like one man: ‘Kill her—kill her! Kill de missy! Kill
her—kill her!’

‘Give me a pistol,’ Harry Noel exclaimed wildly to the friendly negroes
close behind his back: ‘a gun—a knife—a cutlass—anything!’

‘We got nuffin, sah,’ Uncle ’Zekiel answered, blankly and whiningly,
now helpless as a child before the sudden inundation of armed rioters,
for without his master he could do nothing.

Harry looked around him desperately for a moment, then, advancing
a step with hasty premeditation, he wrenched a cutlass suddenly by
an unexpected snatch from one of the foremost batch of rioters, and
stepped back with it once more unhurt, as if by miracle, into the
narrow pass of the mahogany doorway.

‘Stand away, Miss Dupuy!’ he cried to her earnestly. ‘If you value your
life, stand back, I beg of you. This is no place for you to-night. Run,
run! If you don’t escape, there’ll be more murder done presently.’

‘I shall not go,’ Nora answered, clenching her fist hard and knitting
her brow sternly, ‘as long as one of these abominable wretches dares to
stop without permission upon my father’s piazza.’

‘Then stand away, you there!’ Harry shouted aloud to the surging mob;
‘stand away this moment, every one of you! Whoever steps one single
step nearer this lady behind me, that step shall be his last.’

Delgado stood still and hesitated once more, with strange
irresolution—he didn’t like to hit the brown man—but Isaac Pourtalès,
lifting his cutlass wildly above his head, took a step in front and
brought it down with a fierce swish towards Harry’s skull, in spite
of kinship. Harry parried it dexterously with his own cutlass, like a
man who has learned what fencing means; and then, rushing, mad with
rage, at the astonished Isaac before he knew what to look for, brought
down a heavy blow upon his right shoulder, that disabled his opponent
forthwith, and made him drop at once his useless weapon idly by his
side. ‘Take that, you nigger dog!’ Harry hissed out fiercely through
his close-set teeth; ‘and if any other confounded nigger among you all
dares to take a single step nearer in the same direction, he’ll get
as much and more, too, than this insolent fellow here has got for his
trouble.’

The contemptuous phrase once more roused all the negroes’ anger. ‘Who
you call nigger, den?’ they cried out fiercely, leaping in a body like
wild beasts upon him. ‘Kill him—kill him! Him doan’t fit to lib. Kill
him—kill him, dis minute—kill him!’

But Delgado, some strange element of compassion for the remote blood
of his own race still rising up instinctively and mysteriously within
him, held back the two or three foremost among the pressing mass with
his sinewy arm. ‘No, no, me fren’s,’ he shouted angrily, ‘doan’t kill
him, doan’t kill him. Tiger no eat tiger, ole-time folk say; tiger
no eat tiger. Him is nigger himself. Him is Isaac Pourtalès’ own
cousin.—Doan’t kill him. His mudder doan’t nobody, I tell you, me
fren’s, but coloured gal, de same as yours is—coloured gal from ole
Barbadoes. I sayin’ to you, me fren’s, ole-time folk has true proverb,
tiger no eat tiger.’

The sea of angry black faces swelled up and down wildly and dubiously
for a moment, and then, with the sudden fitful changefulness of negro
emotion, two or three voices, the women’s especially, called aloud,
with sobs and shrieks: ‘Doan’t kill him!—doan’t kill him! Him me
brudder—him me brudder. Doan’t kill him! Hallelujah!’

Harry looked at them savagely, with knit brows and firm-set teeth, his
cutlass poised ready to strike in one hand, and his whole attitude that
of a forlorn-hope at bay against overwhelming and irresistible numbers.

‘You black devils!’ he cried out fiercely, flinging the words in their
faces, as it were, with a concentrated power of insult and hatred, ‘I
won’t owe my life to that shameful plea. Perhaps I may have a drop or
two of your black blood flowing somewhere in my veins, and perhaps I
mayn’t; but whether I have or whether I haven’t, I wouldn’t for dear
life itself acknowledge kindred with such a pack of cowardly vagabonds
and murderers as you, who would hack an old man brutally to death like
that, before his own daughter’s face, upon his own staircase.’

‘Mr Noel,’ Nora echoed, in a clear defiant tone, nothing trembling,
from close behind him, ‘that was well said—that was bravely spoken! Let
them come on and kill us if they will, the wretches. We’re not afraid
of them, we’re not afraid of them.’

‘Miss Dupuy,’ Harry cried earnestly, looking back towards her with
a face of eager entreaty, ‘save yourself! for God’s sake, save
yourself. There’s still time even now to escape—by the garden-gate—to
Hawthorn’s—while these wretches here are busy murdering me.’

At the word, Louis Delgado sprang forward once more, cutlass in hand,
no longer undecided, and with one blow on the top of the head felled
Harry Noel heavily to the ground.

Nora shrieked, and fell fainting to the ground.

‘Him doan’t dead yet,’ Delgado yelled aloud in devilish exultation,
lifting his cutlass again with savage persistence. ‘Hack him to pieces,
dar—hack him to pieces! Him doan’t dead yet, I tellin’ you, me fren’s.
Hack him to pieces! An’ when him dead, we gwine to carry him an’ de
missy an’ Massa Dupuy out behind dar, an’ burn dem all in a pile
togedder on de hot ashes ob de smokin’ cane-house!’




COUNTRY JOTTINGS.


The British Islands were formerly covered with vast forests.
Robber-bands at one time infested the woods, of whom Robin Hood of
Sherwood Forest is the most noted. A continually increasing population
and the advancement of science have changed the aspect; these places
have now become the abodes of peaceful, civilised, and friendly men;
the desert and impenetrable forest are changed into marts of industry,
cultivated fields, rich gardens, and magnificent cities. The towns and
cities of the Britons were generally built in valleys upon the margin
of a stream or river, for the convenience of water and security from
winds. Surrounded by impervious woods, and secured by a rampart and
fosse, they were sufficiently strong to resist the ordinary attacks of
their enemies. The Roman soldiers were as much accustomed to the use of
the plough as the shield, and were as industrious in peace as they were
brave in war. When they had fixed their camps, they availed themselves
of the advantages the surrounding country presented, in order to secure
to themselves the necessary supplies. Woods were cut down, the ground
cleared and ploughed up; and roads were constructed from station to
station, to facilitate the conveyance of goods, and collect their
forces together with more ease and expedition on any sudden emergency.
The Roman custom of grazing in Italy was adopted in the remotest parts
of their widely extended empire. The dry ground of the hills and the
moist meadows of the vale were successively the pasture of their flocks
and herds. During the summer, they confined them to the marshes and low
grounds; and on the approach of winter they drove them up to the hills.
Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers in the forests of oak and beech reared
large numbers of sheep and swine, and in the rich pastures and open
downs of the south and west.

Uncivilised man, impelled rather by his wants than allured by pleasure,
ardently pursues the beasts of the forest. Hunting may be considered
as his necessary employment, and the game caught by his dexterity and
cunning, as being the chief part of his subsistence. This employment,
toilsome as it is, yields, however, but a precarious and uncertain
support; and when man has been taught to supply his wants by the
cultivation of the ground, if it be not wholly relinquished, it will
only be pursued as an amusement or as a healthful exercise. The ancient
Britons lived on milk and the produce of the chase. In the present
day, the Hottentot and Bushman partly live on the larvæ of insects and
the refuse of animals killed by the colonists. In Australia proper,
some natives eat reptiles, and even insects and vermin. The Oceanic
negroes have no fixed habitation, but they live in the hollows of trees
and rocks. Many of the inhabitants of the Marquesas, Fiji, and other
islands, are cannibals. Among a tribe in Sumatra, criminals condemned
are eaten alive, each one, according to his rank, taking that portion
of flesh from the living victim he prefers, and devouring it on the
spot either raw or cooked. Agriculture amongst these tribes is in a
very backward state, and hunting is one of their principal means of
subsistence.

Ancient chronicles state that King Edgar attempted to extirpate the
wolves in England by commuting the punishments for certain offences
into the acceptance of a certain number of wolves’ tongues from each
criminal; and in Wales, by converting the tax of gold and silver into
an annual tribute of three hundred wolves’ heads. In subsequent times,
their destruction was promoted by certain rewards, and some lands were
held on condition of destroying the wolves which infested the parts of
the kingdom in which they were situated. In 1281 these animals troubled
several of the English counties, but after that period our records
make no mention of them. The last wolf known in Scotland was killed in
1680; and in Ireland, one was killed in 1701. Very fearful accounts
are on record of the ravages committed by wolves when in hard weather
they associate in immense flocks. So lately as 1760, such terror is
said to have been excited in France by ravages of wolves that public
prayers were offered for their destruction. Since India became so much
the country of Europeans, the race of tigers has been much thinned, and
ere long it is probable that they will be driven to the most remote and
impenetrable districts.

The wolf in these islands was hunted by an animal known under various
appellations, as the Irish wolf-dog, the Irish greyhound, the Highland
deerhound, and the Scotch greyhound. There appears to be no doubt that
all the dogs thus denominated were essentially of the same breed. Its
original home is supposed to have been Ireland, whence, during the
proud days of ancient Rome, it was frequently conveyed in iron cages to
assist in the sports of the city on the Tiber. Buffon observes: ‘The
Irish greyhounds are of a very ancient race, and still exist (though
their number is small) in their original climate; they were called by
the ancients, dogs of Epirus and Albanian dogs.’ Holinshed, in his
_Description of Ireland and the Irish_, written in 1586, says: ‘They
are not without wolves and greyhounds to hunt them, bigger of bone and
limb than a colt.’ In Anglo-Saxon times, a nobleman never went out
unaccompanied by some of these dogs and his hawk; and so highly were
they esteemed, that by the forest laws of Canute it was ordered that no
person under the rank of a gentleman should keep one.

Until after the Norman Conquest, the chase was always, even in England,
pursued on foot; the nobles of the Conqueror’s train introduced the
custom of hunting on horseback. As cultivation increased, and the
most formidable objects of chase, the wolves, decreased in England,
the breed degenerated in size and strength; whilst the quality
now more desiderated, speed, was, on the other hand, still more
strongly developed. The result is the present race of greyhounds. In
Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, the rugged character of the country
kept up for a much longer time the ancient deer-hunts in all their
essential features. Boar-hunting, ages ago, was practised in England.
Fitzstephen, in his description of England, written in the reign of
Henry II., in the latter part of the twelfth century, states that the
forest by which London was then surrounded was frequented by boars as
well as various other wild animals. In Scotland, a tract of country now
forming one of the extremities of the county of Fife, was anciently
called Muckross, which in Celtic signifies the Boar-promontory. The
tradition is that it was a famous haunt of boars. A district forming
a portion of the same country, designated by the name of the Boar
Hills, lies in the vicinity of St Andrews, in the cathedral church
of which city it is said that there were to be seen before the
Reformation, attached by a chain to the high-altar, two boars’ tusks of
the extraordinary length of sixteen inches each, the memorials of an
enormous specimen which had been slaughtered by the inhabitants after
having long infested the neighbourhood. The wild-boar was undoubtedly
an inhabitant of these islands, as mention is made of it in the
laws of Hoel-Dda, a celebrated Welsh legislator, who permitted his
grand-huntsman to chase that animal from the middle of November to the
beginning of December. William the Conqueror punished with loss of life
such as were guilty of killing the wild-boar.

Some remarkable occurrences have taken place with regard to the tame
kinds. A gamekeeper actually educated a black sow to find game. Slut,
the name he gave her, was rendered as staunch as any pointer. This
pig-pointer was sold by auction for a very large sum of money. A
gentleman had a sow which was taught to hunt, quarter the ground, and
to back the other pointers. As a reward for her labours, the keeper
carried bread in his pocket. In the island of Minorca, hogs are
converted into beasts of draught; a cow, a sow, and two young horses
have been seen yoked together, and of the four, the cow drew the least.

Nothing can more strongly establish the passionate devotion of the
Normans to the sports of the field than the conduct of the Conqueror
who laid waste the county of Hampshire and made it a forest for wild
beasts. The nobles, like their leader, within their domains inclosed
extensive districts to preserve the _feræ naturæ_, to afford them the
pleasures of the chase. Parks have been defined forests inclosed,
and were called _haiæ dominicales_. This word _haiæ_ appears in the
composition of a variety of English local names under the dialectical
difference of _hey_, _hay_, _how_, _haigh_. It is the Saxon _haeg_,
and means a hedge. To our royal and baronial castles usually belonged
two parks—one inclosed with a wall for fallow-deer, and the other for
red-deer, fenced around with a hedge. Free warren was a franchise
granted for preservation or custody of beasts and fowls of warren,
which, being _feræ naturæ_, every one had a right to kill as he could;
but upon the introduction of the Forest Laws at the Norman Conquest,
these animals being looked upon as royal game and the sole property
of our savage monarchs, this franchise of free warren was invented
to protect them, by giving the grantee a sole and exclusive power of
killing such game as far as his warren extended, on condition of his
preventing other persons. Nanwood informs us that the hare, the cony,
the pheasant, and the partridge were beasts and fowls of warren and no
other. Sir Edward Coke mentions as beasts and fowls of warren, roes,
rails, and quails, woodcocks, mallards, and herons. Free warren gave
to the lord of a manor an exclusive right to hunt and kill the game
therein.

An attempt was made some years ago to introduce the reindeer upon
an extensive scale into the colder parts of England and Scotland.
Those that were turned out upon the Pentland Hills, near Edinburgh—a
situation which was considered peculiarly favourable—all died. A few
appeared to do well in a park near Dublin, but then died. The Duke of
Athole had previously placed a herd of reindeer in the mountains of his
estate; but the experiment failed. Several fine species of the wapiti,
an American deer, were turned into Windsor park some years ago: none of
them lived more than a year. The migratory disposition of those animals
is perhaps the reason of their not thriving in any inclosed country.

The timber of our woods in the reign of Queen Elizabeth was plentiful,
nor did the navy, the pride of Britain, consume one-thousandth part
of the timber which was found requisite. Though the country is now
shorn of its stately oaks, other countries are ready to cut down their
forests and exchange them for British industry. Ireland was formerly
called the Island of Woods, and the trunks of large trees are still
found in the bogs. A vast quantity of timber is exported from Germany.
In some parts of Austria, peat is used as fuel, wood being scarce; yet
the mountains of Transylvania and the neighbouring south countries
abound in extensive forests. Such is the abundance of oak, that above
two hundred thousand bushels of oak-apples are exported annually. The
forests of Greece are considerable. The quantity of timber sent from
Norway and Sweden is very great. The resources of Russia lie in its
immense forests, its mines, and the fertility of its soil. Some of
the gum-trees of Tasmania are three hundred and fifty feet high. The
baobab of Africa is said to live five thousand years, and one trunk
has measured one hundred and four feet in circumference. So thick and
uninterrupted are the forests which cover the plains of South America
between the Orinoco and the Amazon, that were it not for intervening
rivers, the monkeys, almost the only inhabitants, might pass along
the tops of the trees for several hundred miles without touching the
earth. Sir Francis Head says that the backwoods of North America are
being cleared in the following way. The mosquitoes torment the bisons
and other wild animals to such an intolerable degree that they run with
eagerness into any smoke they can reach, as their little tormentors
will not follow them there. The Indians, then, instead of hunting for
game, set fire to the forests; this brings the animals about them, and
they are easily shot. This is favourable to the white agriculturist,
but destructive to the poor Indian, at least as long as he continues a
mere hunter.

In British North America, the felling and removing of timber for
exportation is an important employment. This is known as the
lumber-trade, and those engaged in it are called lumberers. In Danish
America, the inhabitants are supplied with wood for fuel by the
drift-timber brought to the coasts by the currents. Brazil may be
regarded as a vast forest—the forests are so extensive that they can
hardly be penetrated even with the help of fire and the hatchet. In
these vast solitudes, sometimes a death-like silence reigns; at other
times are heard the howling of herds of monkeys, the screams of parrots
and toucans, with the buzzing of the bee-like humming-bird, which the
Brazilians prettily call the ‘Kiss the Flower.’ The New Holland lily
grows to the height of twenty-four feet; and in the Argentine Republic
there are immense numbers of thistles, ten or twelve feet high, which
form an impenetrable barrier, whilst they last, to the attacks of the
Indians.

The wild animals of England are now few in number. At Chillingworth
Park, in Northumberland, there are some wild oxen. Had the fox not been
preserved for the chase, it would long ago have been extinct. Dogs
have a strong repugnance to the wolf, but delight in the chase of the
fox. In cold countries, foxes are of various colours. Red foxes are
so abundant in the wooded districts of the fur countries, that many
thousand skins are annually exported from America to Britain. The fur
of the black fox is highly valued. While the writer was engaged upon
this article, the following circumstance came under his notice. On
the Alveston Hill estate, near Stratford-on-Avon, a litter of eleven
foxes, apparently about six weeks old, all tame and docile, have
taken possession of a rabbit-hole in a bank at the foot of a clump
of trees. The young cubs, notwithstanding the presence of numerous
people attracted to the spot by the novel sight, leave their hole and
drink occasionally out of a trough containing milk which had been
placed there for their use. The animals are as tame as puppies, and
the visitors easily induce them to come forth by whistling softly and
calling them. They are content to be picked up and caressed, and they
play about in the most amusing manner. An artist has been to the spot
and photographed the whole group. It is thought that the dog-fox has
been killed, and that the vixen has carried her cubs to the place
mentioned. In corroboration of this, it may be stated that when first
discovered, only four or five cubs were to be seen, and they have
gradually increased until the present number has been reached.

The wild-cat finds its retreat among the mountains of Scotland and of
the northern counties of England and of Wales and Ireland, the larger
woods being its place of concealment. It has been called the ‘British
Tiger.’ One was killed in Cumberland which measured five feet from
the nose to the end of the tail. When Christopher Columbus discovered
America, a hunter brought him one which he had found in the woods. The
hedgehog has been said to be proof against poison. A German physician
who wished to dissect one, gave it prussic acid; but it took no effect,
neither did arsenic, opium, nor corrosive sublimate. It has been found
to eat a hundred cantharides without injury. Plutarch mentions the case
of a man who discovered that a hedgehog generally has its burrow open
at various points, and warned by an instinct of atmospheric change,
stopped up the opening next the quarter whence the wind would blow,
and thus could predict to a certainty to which quarter the wind would
shift. Moles show changes of weather. The temperature or dryness of
the air governs that underground worker in its motions as to the depth
at which it lives or works; though this unquestionably is partly due,
no doubt, to its want of food or inability to bear cold or thirst. The
weasel has been known to become domesticated. The method adopted to
obtain this end is to stroke them gently over the back, and to threaten
or beat them when they attempt to bite. It has been found that when
their teeth have been rubbed with garlic, all inclination to bite has
been removed. Their bite is generally fatal: a hare or rabbit once
severely bitten never recovers. Buffon gives the case of a weasel being
found with three young ones in the carcase of a wolf that was grown
putrid, and that had been hung up by the hind-legs as a terror to
others. In this strange and horrid retreat, the weasel had retired to
bring forth her young; she had furnished the cavity with hay, grass,
and leaves; and the young ones were just brought forth when they were
discovered by a peasant passing that way.

The stoat of the continent is a very precious article of commerce.
In Britain, their skin is of little value. In July 1827, a gentleman
of Cathcart, near Glasgow, having shot and wounded a stoat, observed
that it escaped into the hole of an old stone wall. He was led to
make an examination of the place, when he found a couple of leverets
immolated. The place also contained two young partridges entire, and
a pheasant’s egg unbroken. Besides these were two other leverets in
a state of putrefaction; and at the extremity of the retreat lay the
dead stoat. Naturalists state that stoats seldom eat their plunder
until putrefaction sets in; and this fact would seem to bear out the
impression. The polecat is very destructive to game. During a severe
storm, one of these animals was traced in the snow from the side of a
rivulet to a hole at some distance from it. As it was observed to have
made frequent trips, and as other marks were to be seen in the snow
which could not easily be accounted for, it was thought a matter worthy
of greater attention. Its hole was accordingly examined, the polecat
taken; and eleven eels were discovered to be the fruit of its nocturnal
excursions. The marks in the snow were found to have been made by the
motion of the eels in the creature’s mouth.

It is a curious circumstance that many of those oaks which are called
spontaneous are planted by the squirrel. This little animal has
performed an essential service to the British navy. A gentleman walking
one day in the woods belonging to the Duke of Beaufort, in the county
of Monmouth, his attention was diverted by a squirrel, which sat very
composedly upon the ground. He stopped to perceive its motions. In a
few minutes the animal darted to the top of a tree beneath which he had
been sitting; in an instant it was down with an acorn in its mouth,
and after digging a small hole, it deposited the acorn; then covering
it, it darted up the tree again. In a moment it was down again with
another, which it buried in the same manner. This it continued to do
as long as the gentleman watched it. The industry of this animal is
directed to the purpose of securing itself against want in the winter;
and it is probable that its memory is not sufficiently retentive to
enable it to remember the spot in which it deposited every acorn; the
industrious little fellow no doubt loses a few every year. These few
spring up, and are destined to supply the place of the parent tree.

Asses, like horses, are found in a wild state, but in greater
abundance. This animal is found wild in many islands of the
Archipelago, and in the deserts of Libya and Numidia. They live in
herds, each having a chief, and are extremely timid. The ass, so common
now in England, was entirely lost in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Holinshed says that our land yielded no asses. In early times the ass
was held in high repute, for he was ridden both by the poor and the
rich, and is frequently mentioned in the Scriptures. In the principal
streets of Cairo, asses stand bridled and saddled for hire, and answer
the same purpose as cabs in London. In Egypt and Arabia, asses are
frequently seen of great size and elegance. Their step is light and
sure, and their pace brisk and easy. They are not only in common use
for riding in Egypt, but the Mohammedan merchants and ladies of the
highest rank use them. In England, the ass is regarded as a stupid and
contemptible animal. The Spaniards, on the contrary, bestow much pains
upon him in endeavouring to improve the breed.




A FRIEND OF THE FAMILY.


CHAPTER II.—WORSE AND WORSE.

The Major fervently wished that the ground would open and swallow him.
Here was a third lady to pacify and to convince that a mistake had been
made. He could see that she was in a more exasperated state even than
Mrs Joseph, and likely to be as blind as Mrs John. The complication
was becoming utterly bewildering, and he felt that his brain would
not endure much more of it. How could such simple letters as his—made
studiously cautious in their statements—evoke such wildly erroneous
interpretations? He would rather have faced a whole battalion of
mutinous Sikhs or infuriated Afghans than have had to go through the
inevitable interview with this beautiful girl.

As soon as she reached the Major’s side, she clutched his arm as if it
were that of her natural protector, and turned sharply upon Maynard:
‘Now, sir, will you leave me alone? Major Dawkins will conduct me to my
aunt, and will, if necessary, protect me from your importunities.’

‘But Nelly, I only want to know what is my fault? How have I given you
cause for treating me in this way?’ pleaded Maynard. ‘I am positive
that none can exist except in your own imagination. I am sure the Major
will tell you that it is not fair to condemn a man without hearing his
defence—without even telling him what he is accused of.’

‘If you are a gentleman, you will defer further discussion of the
subject until you see my aunt, Mrs Joseph Elliott.’

Had they been alone, the lover would doubtless have acted differently;
but to have such words addressed to him in the presence of another man
left no alternative. He bowed and retired, hurt and angered by this
injustice of his betrothed. Whatever her reason for this outburst might
be, he was resolved that it should be promptly explained. He was a
straightforward young fellow, and not one to rest for a moment in doubt
as to the meaning of her conduct.

The brief scene had closed before the Major could find his voice. ‘Call
him back,’ he said agitatedly—‘call him back before it is too late.’

‘I certainly will not,’ replied the lady with a movement of the head
as if about to look behind, suggesting that she half-hoped to see him
still following. But he was not.

‘Then I must. I cannot allow you to distress yourself and a fine fellow
like that in consequence of my blunder.’

She stopped and faced him with an expression of supercilious wonder.
By this little movement she could look without appearing to turn for
the purpose of looking whether or not Maynard had really obeyed her. ‘I
do not understand you, Major Dawkins,’ she said with a faint note of
chagrin in her musical voice—for Maynard really was not in sight.

‘Of course you cannot. How could you? The letter you have got was not
meant for you. I wrote it to another lady, and I beg you to give it
back to me, so that no further mischief may come of it.’

‘Another lady! Then I am _not_ the _only_ one he thinks of?’ (She was
quoting from the letter.)—‘Oh, Major Dawkins, this is too much. Please,
let me go to the house, and do not say another word about it until I
have had time to recover and to think.’

The Major stood aghast; he had put his foot in it again. ‘But you are
taking me up in quite a wrong way. Certainly you are the only one
Maynard thinks of; but he is not the man referred to in the letter.
Do give it back to me; and when you are calmer, everything will be
explained.’

He pleaded very earnestly; but his object was defeated by the ingenuity
on which he had congratulated himself. He had mentioned no names in any
of the epistles. The mind of each lady on reading the one she received
naturally fastened upon the man in whom she was most interested, and
the Major’s excited attempts at explanation failed to make the error
clear to them. Their unreasonableness was painful to him; and if he had
been less anxious about remedying his error, he would have laughed at
it.

‘For whom, then, was the letter written?’ asked Nellie, her indignation
now turning against the Major, as she reflected how cruel and how
foolish Stanley Maynard would think her if she had accused him of
falsehood on no other ground than that she had received a misdirected
letter from a friend. ‘I must insist upon an answer.’

‘You really must not insist upon my telling you. I accept all the
blame; and it would be another wicked blunder on my part to give you my
friend’s name.’

‘In that case, I must decline to return the letter until we are in
the presence of my aunt and Mr Maynard.—Meanwhile, I need not trouble
you to escort me to the house.’ Nellie walked proudly away; but the
poor girl was ready to cry with vexation and with regret for the
hastiness of temper which had characterised her conduct towards Stanley
Maynard. In the moment of repentance, however, came the remembrance
of the words which had distracted her. ‘I want to save you’ (wrote
the Major) ‘from a grave misunderstanding.’ (‘Very kind indeed,’ she
interjected.) ‘He who is, I know, dearest to you, thinks _only_ of you.
Consider his impulsive nature, and pardon his temporary aberration.’
(‘What could that mean, if not that he had been making love to somebody
else?’ she asked bitterly. Had she not herself seen how barefacedly he
flirted with Mrs John, until she had a tiff with him on the subject?
If he could dare so much before her eyes, what might he not do when
unchecked by her presence?) ‘Be merciful to him,’ the note proceeded,
‘as hitherto, and you will have your reward. I mean to take the first
available opportunity of talking to him after my arrival at Todhurst,
and am confident that he will be promptly brought to reason.’

Was not that enough to rouse the spirit of any girl who had proper
pride, which means self-respect? Nellie thought in her anger that
it was more than enough. No doubt the Major had talked to him, and
having brought him to reason, was now anxious to screen him by telling
her that it was all a mistake—that the letter had been intended for
somebody else! But she was frightened by this conclusion. Surely the
Major could not tell a deliberate falsehood! He might not have meant
to do so, and yet do it in the excitement of the moment, in order to
soothe her. That must be the way of it; and what an indignity that it
should be necessary for a friend to plead for her with the man to whom
she had promised her hand!

Her thoughts alternated between the hope that it was all a mistake
and the fear that it was not. So she went to her room, cried, had a
headache, and excused herself from joining the family at luncheon.

The Major was out of breath and out of patience as he gazed helplessly
after the retreating form of Nellie Carroll. Nobody would listen to
him; everybody seemed determined to believe that he had entered into
a diabolic conspiracy to wreck the happiness of the house of Elliott.
What on earth could there be in any of his letters to cause such a
commotion, even when they had got into the wrong hands? He had assured
every one that there was only a misunderstanding, and he had promised
all round to set it right. But they would not give him a chance. He had
a good mind to order Hollis to pack up for the next train to London.
That, however, would be cowardly, and he was not a coward. He would
see the thing out to the bitter end. He lifted his head with an air of
resolution, and the bitter end he saw at that moment was represented
by the wealthy spinster, Miss Euphemia Panton. She was standing at
a little distance, glaring at him severely through her gold-rimmed
_pince-nez_. The Major had reason to believe that he had found favour
in her eyes, and he thought with intense relief: ‘Well, here is
somebody at last who will give me a word of sympathy, and talk sensibly
with me.’

She, too, had reason to believe that she had found favour in the
Major’s eyes, and was pleased accordingly. But on the present
occasion, as he tripped hopefully towards her (he tripped somewhat
less gracefully than usual, on account of his recent excessive
exercise), she made no responsive movement; the _pince-nez_ was not
lowered, and the severe expression remained. She had been observing
him pleading with all the ardour of a lover to Miss Carroll; and she
had no doubt whatever of the meaning of his evidently eager speech:
he was in love with the minx, and he had been only pretending to care
for Miss Euphemia! No lady can submit to be trifled with in matters
of affection, and least of all ladies who have arrived at what may
be called the ‘undiscovered decade’ in feminine history. She had
passed into that realm of mystery, and was indeed one of its oldest
inhabitants; and when nature would have lifted her out of it into the
peaceful land of resigned old-maidenism, she sought the aid of art
in order to keep her place in the still hopeful region. She availed
herself of the modern elixirs of youth, and flattered herself that she
did so with complete success. She, at their first meeting, noted that
the Major trafficked with the same beneficent powers. He on his side
made a similar observation regarding her. Strange to say, this fact
constituted a bond of sympathy between them; but Miss Euphemia believed
that the Major was unaware of her secret, and he was satisfied that she
had no suspicion of his; whilst each pitied the other for not being
more expert in the use of dyes and cosmetics. Thus they became special
friends, and found so much pleasure in each other’s society, that a
matrimonial climax seemed not improbable, the lady having a sufficient
dowry to dispose satisfactorily of the important problem of ways and
means.

‘Thank goodness, you are here, Miss Panton,’ exclaimed the Major in
the full confidence of her sympathy in his miserable position. ‘I have
got myself into a most abominable mess by an act of stupidity which,
although reprehensible, is excusable.’

The lady answered not a word. She was nearly a head taller than he, and
she continued to survey him through her glasses as if he had been some
zoological specimen.

He had been hot enough before; he was chilled to the marrow now. He
could scarcely believe his senses. Would she, too, desert him in this
crisis?

‘Miss Panton,’ he stammered, ‘I hoped—that is, I believed that you
would show me some consideration. I suppose Mrs Joseph has been
speaking to you; but if you will only listen to a few words of
explanation, you will understand me.’

‘I think, Major Dawkins, I have to-day observed enough on the
tennis-lawn and here, to enable me to understand you perfectly without
Mrs Joseph Elliott’s assistance or yours.’ The words were icicles. She
dropped her _pince-nez_ and walked away.

The Major was speechless. He trembled or shivered with dismay. Lifting
a hand to his brow, he felt the heads of cold perspiration on it,
and at the same moment the gong sounded for luncheon. Good heavens!
Horrible idea!—the effect of all this excitement and perspiration must
be to change the colour of his hair! And true enough it was beginning
to show a marked shade of gray-green at the roots. He _must_ get to his
room to repair the damage before he appeared at the luncheon table.
‘Desperate ills need desperate remedies.’

Luncheon at Todhurst was, except in the hunting season, like the
family gathering of other days, when the mid-day meal was the chief
one. There were blithe interchanges of the morning’s experiences,
pleasant intercourse with some of the elder members of the nursery,
and a homely ease which was not always found at the late dinner, when
formal company-manners had to be assumed, so far as they could be in
the genial presence of Squire Elliott. All this was changed on the
fatal day on which the Major’s misdirected letters had been delivered.
The Squire sat at one end of the table, evidently in an ill-humour;
his spouse, Mrs Joseph, at the other end, doing her best not to
show the wrath which was in her bosom. Mrs John was suppressing her
natural gaiety and desire to make fun of the whole party, whilst she
was pathetically earnest in her endeavours to soothe the perturbed
spirit of her lord. The latter was irritable and gloomy, accepting her
attentions most ungraciously. Stanley Maynard ate and looked as if
he were savagely devouring an enemy. Miss Euphemia sat like a post,
playing with her knife and fork rather than eating. Nellie was not
present.

The Major was late in taking his place, and was flustered in
consequence, even more than he might have been under the circumstances.
He felt the gloom which pervaded the place, and he was made painfully
conscious of the fact that he was the cause of it. He was generally
regarded as an acquisition to any party, for he had a special knack
of setting conversations ‘going,’ a more useful quality than that
which constitutes a ‘good talker.’ The latter demands everybody’s
attention, and bores the greater part of his audience; the former
enables everybody to speak, and thus produces the agreeable feeling of
self-satisfaction in having personally contributed to the enjoyment of
the hour.

With desperate heroism, he endeavoured to break the spell which tied
the tongues of his companions. He told one of his best stories, the
point of which had never failed to set the table in a roar of laughter.
Lugubrious grimaces were the only response. He tried another anecdote,
with the same result. He descended to the lowest depths of convivial
intercourse; he propounded a conundrum, and the eldest of the girls
immediately answered it with the addition of the galling commentary: ‘I
knew that long ago.’ In his present condition of absolute helplessness,
he wished to goodness the child would remember another conundrum, and
give it for his benefit, if not for that of the company. Probably, she
would have done so, had not the mother’s eye been upon her, suggesting
the austere maxim, ‘Children should be seen, not heard.’

The Major took another tack. He put questions to his host about the
moors, about the horses, about the hounds, and about the cause of
_Tally-ho’s_ illness—any one of which topics would at another time
have started the Squire into a gallop of chat. He would have compared
the seasons as affecting the moors for twenty years past; he would
have detailed the pedigree and merits of every horse in his stables;
he would have repeated endless anecdotes about the hounds; and as to
the illness of _Tally-ho_, he would have gone into the most minute
particulars as to its cause, his treatment, and the probable result.

But on this day all was in vain. The Major’s suggestive queries were
responded to by: ‘Don’t know,’ ‘Much the same as usual,’ ‘Hope for the
best,’ and, ‘I daresay the brute will come round.’

When they rose from the table, the Major thanked heaven that this
trial was over. The Squire, with a curious mingling of awkwardness and
suppressed ill-temper, utterly opposed to his habitually jovial manner,
advanced to his unhappy guest: ‘I want to see you in the library in
about half an hour,’ he said, and walked out of the room.

‘That’s a comfort,’ thought the Major. ‘I shall have a man with some
common-sense to hear me.’

Meanwhile, he would have liked to speak a few words of consolation to
Maynard; but that gentleman met his advances with somewhat repellent
politeness.

‘If you want to speak to me about the trouble you have made between
Miss Carroll and me, you will have ample opportunity to do so when we
meet in the library,’ he said, and strolled out to the lawn to seek the
soothing influence of a cigar.

Then the Major wished to discharge the duty he had so rashly
undertaken, which was to bring the morbidly suspicious John Elliott to
reason. He was only now realising the difficulty of the task; and he
presently had a decisive indication that it was likely to be one he
could not accomplish. He had barely uttered half-a-dozen words of his
well-intentioned admonition which was to precede his explanation of
‘the incident,’ when John Elliott peevishly interrupted him: ‘I have
promised not to discuss this subject until we are in the library.’

So, he was to meet the three of them. So much the better; they were
men, and they would give him a patient hearing. Still, he would have
liked a little private talk with John Elliott before the meeting in the
library, which was assuming the character of a sort of court-martial.
There were things to say to him which could only be uttered when they
were conversing confidentially. For instance, he could not say to him
before others: ‘You have been accusing Mrs John of behaviour unbecoming
your wife; you have magnified the circumstance of her allowing young
Maynard to kiss her under the mistletoe last Christmas, until you
have come to believe that every time she says a friendly word to him
or smiles on him, she is false to you. You have even gone so far as
to think of employing a private detective to watch them. Now, my dear
friend, do get all that confounded nonsense out of your head. Remember
that she has known Maynard from his boyhood; and although she is not
old enough to be his mother, she still looks on him as a boy, and he
regards her as an elder sister. She is naturally frank, and naturally
treats him with more frankness than she does other men. You know that
she long ago set her heart upon making a match between him and Nellie
Carroll, both being suitable in every respect; and she has succeeded.
What do you think will happen if your absurd fancies get wind? Why,
there will be a general rupture—a split in the camp which may separate
the young folk, and, possibly, you and Mrs John, who has been and is
devoted to you.’

There, that would have brought him to reason, if he had a scrap of
sense left. But it could not be spoken in the presence of others. Very
likely, suspicious John would ask him how he came to know all this, and
the question would be troublesome—a thousand times more troublesome
since all the letters had got into the wrong hands. The one for John
Elliott had reached Mrs Joseph, instead of the simple intimation of the
date of the Major’s arrival; that for Nellie had been delivered to Mrs
John, and Mrs John’s to Nellie. It was awkward.

‘As to the question,’ the Major reflected: ‘I got the information from
Matt Willis, the brother of Mrs John; and he made me promise not to
mix him up in the affair. He got the information from John Elliott
himself, who complained to his brother-in-law about the way his wife
was carrying on with Maynard. Matt had an unconquerable antipathy to
family squabbles, and would not interfere; but thinking that something
should be done to shut John up before serious harm came of his insane
suspicions, he asked me, as the friend of the family, to put things
right. Like a fool, I consented; and the blame of all the trouble falls
on me! Am I to blame?—Stop a minute. By Jove!—it is John Elliott who is
the author of the whole mischief, and I’ll tell him so.’

Greatly consoled by the discovery that he was not the original culprit
in causing what promised to be a serious breach in the relationships of
valued friends, the Major was prepared to face the court-martial before
which he was presently to stand. Ay, and he would have no nonsense
about the affair. He would tell Squire Joseph bluntly that Mrs Joseph
had taken possession of a letter which did not belong to her. He would
tell Maynard to go and speak to Nellie, and assure her, as he had done,
that she had misinterpreted the letter she had received, even if it
had been intended for her; and he would tell John Elliott that he must
either speak to him in private, or take the consequence of his speaking
in the presence of the Squire and Stanley Maynard.




AN OLD TULIP GARDEN.


A quiet, sunny nook in the hollow it is, this square old garden, with
its gravelled walks and high stone walls; a sheltered retreat left
peaceful here, under the overhanging woods, when the stream of the
world’s traffic turned off into another channel. The gray stone house,
separated from the garden by a thick privet hedge and moss-grown court,
is the last dwelling at this end of the quiet market-town, and, with
its slate roof and substantial double story, is of a class greatly
superior to its neighbours, whose warm red tiles are just visible over
the walls. It stands where the old road to Edinburgh dipped to cross
a little stream, and, in the bygone driving days, the stagecoach,
after rattling out of the town and down the steep road there, between
the white, tile-roofed houses, when it crossed the bridge opposite
the door, began to ascend through deep, embowering woods. But a more
direct highway to the Scottish metropolis was opened many a year ago:
just beyond the bridge, a wall was built across the road; and the gray
house with its garden was left secluded in the sunny hollow. The rapid
crescendo of the coach-guard’s horn no longer wakens the echoes of the
place, and the striking of the clock every hour in the town steeple is
the only sound that reaches the spot from the outside world.

The hot sun beats on the garden here all day, from the hour in the
morning when it gets above the grand old beeches of the wood, till it
sets, away beyond the steeple of the town. But in the hottest hours it
is always refreshing to look, over the weather-stained tiles of the
long low toolhouse, at the mossy green of the hill that rises there,
cool and shaded, under the trees. Now and then a bull, of the herd that
feeds in the glades of the wood, comes down that shaded bank, whisking
his tawny sides with an angry tail to keep off the pestering flies, and
his deep bellow reverberates in the hollow. In the early morning, too,
before the dewy freshness has left the air, the sweet mellow pipe of
the mavis and the fuller notes of the blackbird float across from these
green depths, and ever and again throughout the day the clear whistle
of some chaffinch comes from behind the leaves.

Standing here, among the deep box edgings and gravel paths, it is not
difficult to recall the place’s glory of twenty years ago—the glory
upon which these ancient plum-trees, blossoming yet against the sunny
walls, looked down. To the eye of Thought, time and space obstruct no
clouds, and in the atmosphere of Memory, the gardens of the Past bloom
for us always. Years and years agone! It is the day of the fashion for
Dutch bulbs, when fabulous prices were paid for an unusually ‘fancy’
bulb, and in this garden some of the finest of them are grown. The
tulips are in flower, and the long narrow beds which, with scant space
between, fill the entire middle of the garden, are ablaze with the
glory of their bloom. Queenly flowers they are, and tall, each one with
a gentle pedigree—for nothing common or unknown has entrance here—and
crimson, white, and yellow, the velvet petals of some almost black,
striped with rare and exquisite markings, they raise to the sun their
large chaste chalices. The perfection of shape is there, as they rise
from the midst of their green, lance-like leaves; no amorous breeze
ever invades the spot to dishevel their array or filch their treasures;
and the precious golden dust lies in the deep heart of each, untouched
as yet save by the sunshine and the bee. When the noonday heat becomes
too strong, awnings will be spread above the beds; for with the fierce
glare, the petals would open out and the pollen fall before the
delicate task of crossing had been done.

But see! Through the gate in the privet hedge there enters as fair
a sight. Ladies in creamy flowered muslins and soft Indian silks,
shading their eyes from the sun with tiny parasols, pink and white
and green—grand dames of the county, and grander from a distance;
gentlemen in blue swallow-tailed coats and white pantaloons—gallants
escorting their ladies, and connoisseurs to examine the flowers—all,
conducted by the owner, book in hand, advance into the garden and move
along the beds. For that owner, an old man with white hair, clear gray
eyes, and the memory of their youthful red remaining in his cheeks,
this is the gala time of the year. Next month, the beds of ranunculus
will bloom, and pinks and carnations will follow; but the tulips are
his most famous flowers, and, for the few days while they are in
perfection, he leads about, with his old-world courtesy, replying to a
question here, giving a name or a pedigree there, a constant succession
of visitors. These are his hours of triumph. For eleven months he
has gone about his beloved pursuit, mixing loams and leaf-moulds and
earths, sorting, drying, and planting the bulbs, and tending their
growth with his own hand—for to whose, else, could he trust the
work?—and now his toil has blossomed, and its worth is acknowledged.
Plants envied by peers, plants not to be bought, are there, and he
looks into the heart of each tenderly, for he knows it a child of his
own.

Presently he leads his visitors back into the house, across the mossy
stones of the court, where, under glass frames, thousands of auricula
have just passed their bloom, and up the outside stair to the sunny
door in the house-side. He leads them into the shady dining-room,
with its furniture of dark old bees-waxed mahogany, where there is a
slight refreshment of wine and cake, rare old Madeira, and cake, rich
with eggs and Indian spice, made by his daughter’s own hand. Jars and
glasses are filled with sweet-smelling flowers, and the breath of the
new-blown summer comes in through the open doors.

The warm sunlight through the brown linen blind finds its way across
the room, and falls with subdued radiance on the middle picture of the
opposite wall. The dark eyes, bright cheeks, and cherry mouth were
those of the old man’s wife—the wife of his youth. She died while
the smile was yet on her lip and the tear of sympathy in her eye;
for she was the friend of all, and remains yet a tender memory among
the neighbouring poor. The old man is never seen to look upon that
picture; but on Sundays for hours he sits in reverie by his open Bible
here in the room alone. In a velvet case in the corner press there,
lies a silver medal. It was pinned to his breast by the Third George
on a great day at Windsor long ago. For the old man peacefully ending
his years here among the flowers, in his youth served the king, and
fought, as a naval officer, through the French and Spanish wars. As he
goes quietly about, alone, among his garden beds, perchance he hears
again sometimes the hoarse word of command, the quick tread of the men,
and the deep roar of the heavy guns, as his ship goes into action.
The smoke of these battles rolled leeward long ago, and their glory
and their wounds are alike forgotten. In that press, too, lies the
wonderful ebony flute, with its marvellous confusion of silver keys,
upon which he used to take pleasure in recalling the stirring airs of
the fleet. It has played its last tune; the keys are untouched now, and
it is laid past, warped by age, to be fingered by its old master no
more.

But his guests rise to leave, and, receiving with antique grace their
courtly acknowledgments, he attends the ladies across the stone-paved
hall to their carriages.

Many years ago! The old man since then has himself been carried across
that hall to his long home, and no more do grand dames visit the
high-walled garden. But the trees whisper yet above it; the warmth of
summer beats on the gravelled walks; and the flowers, lovely as of old
in their immortal youth, still open their stainless petals to the sun.




ABOUT COBRAS.

BY AN OFFICER.


While at home on furlough from India a short time ago, I was much
amused at finding a very general impression among my friends that to
come across a cobra is an every-day kind of occurrence in India. How
erroneous this idea is may be gathered from the fact that not many
days ago a brother-officer told me that although he had been about ten
years in India, he had never yet seen a cobra in a wild state. His is,
it is true, probably an exceptional case; but still it shows that an
Englishman may pass a considerable time in India without coming across
one of these venomous reptiles. Cobras, however, are met with quite
often enough, and sometimes in very curious and uncomfortable places.
For instance, a young lady who had just returned from a ball in a
small station in Southern India, noticed, as she was on the point of
getting into bed, that the pillow looked disarranged; and on taking it
up to smooth it out, she discovered a cobra coiled up underneath it.
She called out for assistance; and her father coming to the rescue,
speedily despatched the obnoxious intruder with a stick. I happened to
mention this circumstance to an officer one day, and he informed me
that the very same thing had happened to himself soon after his first
arrival in the country, and that, in consequence, he never got into bed
until he had examined the pillows.

In the year 1873, while quartered at Bellary, on going into the
drawing-room of the bungalow, which at that time I shared with a
friend, I discovered a cobra curled up on the sofa cushion. I hastened
out of the room to fetch a stick; but in doing so, I must, I suppose,
have made some noise, as on returning the snake had disappeared. A few
evenings later, however, just as my ‘chum’ was leaving the house to go
out to dinner, he called out to me that there was a snake crawling up
the steps of the veranda in front of the drawing-room. I ran out with
a stick, and succeeded in killing the unwelcome visitor. It turned out
to be a fairly large cobra, and was in all probability the one which
I had seen a few days previously on the sofa. It is, however, in the
bathrooms of an Indian bungalow that cobras, when met with within
doors, are most frequently encountered, as they come there in pursuit
of the frogs which delight to take up their quarters there; for froggy
is an article of diet to which the cobra is very partial. An officer
of the Madras cavalry, since deceased, told me that when quartered
at Arcot, he one day observed in his bathroom, emerging from the
waste-water pipe, the head of a cobra, which was holding in his mouth a
frog. The pipe was too narrow to admit of the snake’s withdrawing his
head unless he released his victim; this, however, from unwillingness
to forego his meal, he would not do, and in consequence, paid the
penalty for his gluttony with his life.

One day, my wife’s ayah came running into our bedroom saying there was
a large snake in the bathroom. Arming myself as usual with a stick, I
went into the bathroom just in time to see the snake disappear into
the waste-water pipe, which ran under another small room to the back
of the house, where the water found its outlet. The servants stationed
themselves at the outlet, while I endeavoured to drive the reptile
out from the rear, first with my stick, and afterwards by pouring the
contents of a kettle of boiling water down the pipe. Both attempts
to dislodge the intruder from his position proving ineffectual, I
commenced a vigorous assault on him by thrusting a bamboo about five
feet long down the pipe, and this time success rewarded my efforts, and
the snake, driven from his refuge, was killed by the servants outside.
This cobra measured about five feet six inches in length, and was the
largest that I have ever seen killed. I may here mention that the
ordinary ideas about the size attained by this species of snake are
greatly exaggerated. Some years ago, a surgeon-major serving in the
Madras presidency, with whom I was acquainted, took a great interest
in this matter, and offered a considerable reward to any one who would
bring him a cobra six feet in length; but, if my memory serves me
right, the reward was never gained, although a very large number of
cobras were produced for his inspection.

Once I witnessed a wonderful escape from the almost invariably fatal
effects of a cobra bite. I was marching with some native troops in the
cold weather, and halted for the night at a place called Maikur, where,
instead of having our tents pitched, my wife and I preferred occupying
a small bungalow belonging to the department of Public Works, which was
situated opposite the encamping-ground. Sitting outside the bungalow
after dinner, I had occasion to call my head-servant to give him some
orders for the next morning. As he ran up, I saw him kick something
off his left foot, and at the same time he called out: ‘Sāmp, sahib,
sāmp!’ (‘A snake, sir, a snake.’) There was a bright wood-fire burning
close by, and I saw by its light the snake with its hood up. It was
immediately killed by some of the camp-followers, and was brought to
me, and proved to be a small cobra. On examining my servant’s foot, I
found one tiny puncture on the ankle, on which was a single drop of
blood. The man was at once taken to the hospital tent, and attended
to by the hospital assistant in medical charge of the troops, who
applied ammonia and did all that was in his power. I was very anxious
about the man; but he awoke me at the hour for marching next morning
as if nothing had happened, and for some time apparently experienced
no inconvenience. Some weeks later, however, after we had reached our
destination, his left leg swelled very much, and he suffered great
pain for a considerable time; but he eventually recovered. The snake
was seen by eight or ten persons besides myself, and was beyond doubt
a cobra; and the only possible explanation of the man’s escape seems
to be that the reptile must have bitten something else very shortly
before, and so to a great extent exhausted the deadly poison in its
fangs.

One of our children had a narrow escape, though of a different kind,
when quite a baby. My wife picked him up one day from the floor, where
he was lying enjoying himself in baby fashion. She had hardly done so,
when a cobra fell from the roof on the very spot on which the little
one had been disporting himself the moment before.

On one occasion, a curious native superstition with regard to the
subject of these notes came to my notice. A cobra which had been killed
in the hut of one of the men was brought up to be shown to me, when a
havildar (native sergeant) called my attention to the fact that the end
of his tail was blunt, saying in Hindustani: ‘Look, sahib; this is a
downright villain; he has bitten some man, and so lost the tip of his
tail.’ On my making further inquiries, I was confidently assured that
whenever a cobra bites a man, the tip of his tail invariably becomes
blunted!




MITIS METAL.


The introduction of wrought-iron castings by the ‘Mitis process,’ to
which attention has lately been directed, forms a new and an important
departure in the employment of this class of iron. Up to the present
time, wrought-iron has been worked into the requisite forms by means
of hammering; whilst a system of stamping in moulds was deemed a
considerable advance in economical working. It is now, however,
proposed to treat wrought-iron in the same manner as cast-iron—namely,
by melting and pouring it into moulds made in sand, and corresponding
in shape with the object desired. By such a process a considerable
saving in the cost of production is obtained. Annealing is found to be
unnecessary.

The difficulty which has hitherto barred the adoption of this method
has been the high temperature to which it has been necessary to
heat the iron before it became sufficiently fluid to flow into the
moulds. Wrought-iron fuses at about four thousand degrees Fahrenheit,
but a considerably higher temperature had to be obtained before the
metal passed out of the viscid state; and on reaching this increased
heat, it was found to absorb gases which caused cavities and flaws
in the castings, rendering them worthless, and what are technically
known in the foundry as ‘wasters.’ To obviate this difficulty, Peter
Ostberg, a Swedish engineer, has taken advantage of the fact that the
melting-point in alloys is considerably below that of their components;
and by combining with the iron a small percentage of aluminium, he has
succeeded in lowering the temperature of fusion of the mixture to such
an extent that excellent castings can be obtained, the temperature
reached not being high enough to cause the absorption of gases. The
castings are clean and sharp in form, and remarkably strong and fine in
texture, being in some cases, it is said, half as tough again as the
metal from which they were made. The great reduction in price cannot
fail to procure for the new process an opening commensurate with its
intrinsic merits.

In the United States and Sweden, Mitis Metal has already established
itself as an article of commerce at once reliable and economical; and
there can be little doubt that the engineers of this country will avail
themselves of this new form of iron, placed at their disposal by an
invention which promises to rival in importance any introduced into
this branch of industry for many years past.




MISSION TO DEEP-SEA FISHERMEN.


In the year 1844, the Thames Church Mission was instituted. A few
years ago, an accidental development of the organisation led to the
establishment of a missionary enterprise among the fishermen engaged
in the North Sea. But the possibilities of the new field of labour
soon justified the formation of a separate body to cope with them; and
on the 30th of November 1884, the Mission to Deep-sea Fishermen was
started. Its primary object is to give religious teaching to the twelve
thousand men and lads who labour on the twelve fishing-fleets cruising
in the North Sea. It has six smacks in its service, a seventh being,
at the time of writing, on the stocks. These smacks supplement their
philanthropic labours by fishing with the fleets with which they sail.
Each vessel carries a missionary skipper, who, as often as the weather
will permit, gathers together in his spacious hold a congregation of
fellow-fishermen for worship. The earnestness of a devout mariner has
often been noted; and from a short cruise the writer recently took on
one of the Mission vessels, he can testify not only to the exceptional
enthusiasm and fervour which characterised the services held on board,
but also to the sound moral tone which, as a result of such services,
prevails generally in the fleets—a condition of things in happy
contrast to the riots and crimes which were rife there in former years.

But not only are the Mission vessels centres of religious instruction;
each carries a quantity of healthy literature, which, circulating
through the fleets, beguiles many a fisherman’s leisure hour of its
tedium. Then, too, medicine-chests and surgical appliances are always
kept on board; and with these at hand, the skipper and mate, qualified
by their certificates from the St John’s Ambulance Association and the
National Health Society, treat the sick and injured fishermen of the
fleet, who would otherwise suffer until reaching land the pangs of
untreated disorders and undressed wounds. Besides this, each missionary
skipper labours to promulgate temperance principles among the fleets
both by personal example and gentle persuasion. Another feature of the
Mission’s work is the collecting and forwarding of knitted cuffs and
comforters—made by friends on shore—to the North Sea fishermen, as
preventives against the terrible ‘sea-blisters’ which oil-skins produce
on unprotected wrists and necks. Lastly, we should mention that the
fishermen of the fleets are encouraged to come frequently aboard the
Mission vessels to join in social gossip over a mug of cocoa. Thus
each of these vessels exists in the various capacities of church,
library, temperance hall, dispensary, and social lounge. The methods by
which the Mission has fought the ‘coper’ or ‘floating grog-shop’ are
tolerably well known, and so need not be dwelt upon here.

Glancing at statistics, we note that, during last year, there were 1856
visits paid to vessels; 10,375 attendants at the seven hundred services
held; 515 temperance pledges were taken; 74,127 tracts and 45,258
magazines distributed; 2725 cases medically and surgically treated;
6665 comforters, 16,210 pairs of cuffs, and 668 helmets, given away;
and 626 copies of the Scriptures sold. Thus the Mission shows a most
healthy growth. It has recently been established in new offices at 181
Queen Victoria Street, London, E.C.; and a new phase of its enterprise
is the circulation of a twopenny monthly journal entitled _Toilers of
the Deep_, being a ‘record of Mission-work among them.’ The magazine is
an excellent one, and we commend it to all who feel an interest in the
twelve thousand men and boys ‘who toil through furious blast and sleety
storm—who hazard their lives, and fall victims, hundreds of them, to
the pitiless waves, that markets at home may be well supplied.’




LOST AT SEA.


    Good-night, beloved; the light is slowly dying
      From wood and field; and far away the sea
    Moans deep within its bosom. Is it sighing
      For those whose rest can never broken be;
    For those who found their way to God; yet never
    Beneath green sod may rest, the sea holds them for ever?

    Yes, deep and still your grave; the ocean keeping
      Whate’er it gains for ever in its hold.
    I know that in its depths you now are sleeping,
      Quiet and dreamless as in churchyard mould;
    But I have no still mound, as others, only
    The memory of times past, ’mid days that now are lonely.

    Buried deep with you in the sea for ever
      Is all the brightness earth had once for me.
    The spring returns; flowers bloom again; but never
      I feel the joy in bird, and flower, and tree;
    I see, but feel not as in days of yore,
    Those days that can come back to me, ah, nevermore!

    But yet I know that I am not forsaken.
      ‘Lead Thou me on,’ I now can calmly say.
    None know the bitterness of sorrow taken
      From out my heart; when I that prayer could pray,
    In His own time God took you in His keeping,
    All earthly sorrows past; where there is no more weeping.

            FLORENCE PEACOCK.

       *       *       *       *       *

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.

       *       *       *       *       *

_All Rights Reserved._